Some of these habits, especially in the matter of language, seem eccentric. Persons but superficially acquainted with them would have taken for provincial that which was only antique.
A woman was called Madame la Generale.
Madame la Colonelle was not entirely disused. The charming Madame de Leon, in memory, no doubt, of the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred this appellation to her title of Princesse.
The Marquise de Crequy was also called Madame la Colonelle.
It was this little high society which invented at the Tuileries the refinement of speaking to the King in private as the King, in the third person, and never as Your Majesty, the designation of Your Majesty having been "soiled by the usurper."
Men and deeds were brought to judgment there.
They jeered at the age, which released them from the necessity of understanding it. They abetted each other in amazement.
They communicated to each other that modicum of light which they possessed. Methuselah bestowed information on Epimenides.
The deaf man made the blind man acquainted with the course of things.
They declared that the time which had elasped since Coblentz had not existed. In the same manner that Louis XVIII.