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"There! Dame Bedard!" cried Master Pothier, sticking the pen behind his ear, after a magnificent flourish at the last word, "there is a marriage contract fit to espouse King Solomon to the Queen of Sheba! A dowry of a hundred livres tournoises, two cows, and a feather bed, bedstead, and chest of linen! A donation entre vifs!" "A what?
Some of the designs in the medieval series would certainly have appealed to the average bourgeois Roman of the Trimalchio type e.g., "Les Trois Vifs et les Trois Morts," the three men riding gaily out hunting and meeting their own skeletons. Such crude contrasts are just what one would expect to find at Pompeii.
Strange as this seems to us, it was but in keeping with the spirit of the time, which we call, perhaps with some presumption, the Dark Ages. The story which is probably the germ of this Dance was called Les Trois Morts et les Trois Vifs, "The Three Dead and the Three Living." It is of indefinable antiquity and uncertain origin.
Of the trivial things I have forgotten the greater number, but the following, rarae nantes, may serve as samples of their class. She said that we had lost recently a rug, and I a waistcoat. She told how my New York aunt had written a letter to my wife, warning her against all mediums, and then went off on a most amusing criticism, full of traits vifs, of the excellent woman's character.
I have made it a donation entre vifs, revocable pour cause d'ingratitude, if your future son-in-law, Antoine la Chance, should fail in his duty to you and to Zoe." "And he won't do his duty to Zoe, unless he does it to me, Master Pothier. But are you sure it is strong enough? Will it hold Dame La Chance by the foot, so that she cannot revoke her gifts although I may revoke mine?"
Agreez mes remerciments bien vifs et bien sinceres pour les Scripture Prints que Mr. Lewis Gruner a bien voulu me remettre de votre part. Si le nom du peintre n'y etait pas, je suis sur qu'en les voyant, je me serais ecrie: Ah! Raphael. C'est tout ce qu'un homme n'ayant, malheureusement, aucune connaissance de l'art, peut vous dire pour vous rendre compte de l'impression que lui a faite la copie.
"Tenez, mon ami!" he cried, squeezing my hand, as he looked round at the corvette, now less than a league distant. "You are vat you Anglais call 'good fellow. J'admire votre esprit! You have escape admirablement, and I shall have vifs regrets now to 'ave opportunité to cultiver votre connaissance. Mais, I most laafs, mille pardons, you
Didn't somebody once describe him as a sort of sensual Christ? He, too, was after the commercant's wife. And didn't he select her as the subject of his licentious verses reassure yourself, reader, licentious merely from the point of view of prosody. "Ta nuque est de santal sur les vifs frissons d'or. Mais c'est une autre, que j'adore."
This was the signal for the French to quit us; the three men I had shipped taking their departure without ceremony. Mons. Gallois was the last in the boat, of course; and he found time to squeeze my hand once more, and to renew his "vifs regrets" at not having more leisure to cultivate my acquaintance.
L'Amérique is not at war is neutral, as you shall say, and ze Américains cannot make ze prize. I considair your ship, monsieur, as in ze hand of ze English, and shall capture him. Mes regrets sont vifs, mais, que voulez vous? Ze corsair most do his devoir, ze same as ze sheep national.
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