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The flatteries of the great world are spoiling you!" "Bah!" said Pequita, with a contemptuous wave of her small brown hands. "The flatteries of the great world! To what do they lead? To that!" and she made another eloquent sign towards the Royal box; "I would rather dance for you and Lotys, and Sergius Thord, and Pasquin Leroy, than all the Kings of the world together!
Heavy scents of flowers were in the air heavy heat weighed down the atmosphere, and there was a languor in the slow footsteps of the men, who, singly, or in groups, arrived at the door of Sergius Thord's house to fulfil the dread compact binding upon them all in regard to the 'Day of Fate. Pasquin Leroy and his two companions were among the first to arrive, and to make their way up the dark steep stairs to the Committee room, where, when they entered, they found the usual aspect of things strangely altered.
He remembered every foolish, imprudent and disloyal remark he had made to the stranger named Pasquin Leroy who had called upon him bearing the Premier's signet, and reflecting that this very Pasquin Leroy was now, by some odd chance, a contributor of political leaders and other articles to the rival daily newspaper which had published the King's official refusal of a grant of land to the Jesuits, he writhed inwardly with impotent fury.
"Will you tell it?" suggested the stranger cheerfully "Mine is at your service Pasquin Leroy. I fear my fame as an author has not reached your ears!" Thord shook his head. "No. I have never heard of you. And probably you have never heard of me. My name is Sergius Thord." "Sergius Thord!" echoed the stranger; "Now that is truly remarkable! It is a happy coincidence that we should have met to-night.
Majesty did without his music that evening, owing to the insolence of his flunkey- man! Whether I ever play before him again or not, is absolutely immaterial to me!" "Tell me," said Pasquin Leroy, pushing the flask of wine over to him as he spoke; "What is it that makes kings so unloved? I hate them myself! but let us analyse the reasons why."
All the men sat silent, watching the gradual softening of Zouche's drunken delirium by the mere gentle caress of the child; and Pasquin Leroy was conscious of a curious tightening of the muscles of his throat, and a straining compassion at his heart, which was more like acute sympathy with the griefs and sins of humanity than any emotion he had ever known.
The vogue of the satire even demanded a key, as may be seen in an advertisement in the London Daily Post for May 17: This Day is published, Price Four-Pence. A Key to Pasquin, address'd to Henry Fielding Esqre. Mr Pasquin's own advertisements for his little theatre are not without the zest with which our beef-eating ancestors attacked politics, social abuses and one another.
Peter and Pasquin concurred in forbidding him to desert his post; and he derived but small comfort from the ingenuity of his flatterers, who compared him to St. Paul contending with beasts at Ephesus. It wanted three half-hours to midnight, as Alexander sat amid traps and ratsbane in his chamber in the Vatican, under the protection of two enormous cats and a British terrier.
Pasquin made so merry with his name that Adrian vowed he would throw the statue into the Tiber; whereupon the Duke of Sessa wittily replied: 'Throw him to the bottom, and, like a frog, he'll go on croaking. Berni, again, wrote one of his cleverest Capitoli upon the dunce who could not comprehend his age; and when he died, his doctor's door was ornamented with this inscription: Liberatori patriæ Senatus Populusque Romanus.
But the history of Pasquin is not a mere story of Roman jests, nor is its interest such alone as may arise from an amusing, though neglected series of literary anecdotes. In the dearth of material for the popular history of modern Rome, it is of value as affording indications of the turn of feeling and the opinions of the Romans, and of the regard in which they held their rulers.
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