Such were the representatives of the great noblesse that
determined to perish rather than submit to any change. It was a
noblesse that deserved praise and blame in equal measure; a
noblesse that will never be judged impartially until some poet
shall arise to tell how joyfully the nobles obeyed the King
though their heads fell under a Richelieu's axe, and how deeply
they scorned the guillotine of '89 as a foul revenge.
Another noticeable trait in all the four was a thin voice that
agreed peculiarly well with their ideas and bearing. Among
themselves, at any rate, they were on terms of perfect equality.
None of them betrayed any sign of annoyance over the Duchess's
escapade, but all of them had learned at Court to hide their
feelings.
And here, lest critics should condemn the puerility of the
opening of the forthcoming scene, it is perhaps as well to remind
the reader that Locke, once happening to be in the company of
several great lords, renowned no less for their wit than for
their breeding and political consistency, wickedly amused himself
by taking down their conversation by some shorthand process of
his own; and afterwards, when he read it over to them to see what
they could make of it, they all burst out laughing. And, in
truth, the tinsel jargon which circulates among the upper ranks
in every country yields mighty little gold to the crucible when
washed in the ashes of literature or philosophy. In every rank
of society (some few Parisian salons excepted) the curious
observer finds folly a constant quantity beneath a more or less
transparent varnish.
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