I remember the epigrams uttered before the Revolution--I refer to the Revolution of July--against the ill-fated and virginal Vicomte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld, who lengthened the skirts of the dancers at the Opéra and applied with his own patrician hands a chaste plaster around the middle of all the statues.--Monsieur le Vicomte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld is far surpassed.--Modesty has been greatly perfected since his day, and we go into refinements that he would never have imagined. I, who am not accustomed to look at statues in certain places, considered, as others did, the vine-leaf cut by the scissors of Monsieur le Chargé des Beaux-Arts, the most absurd thing in the world. It seems that I was wrong, and that the vine-leaf is one of the most meritorious of institutions. I have been told, but I refused to believe it, it seemed to me so extraordinary, that there were people who, when looking at Michael Angelo's fresco of the _Last Judgment_, had seen nothing therein but the episode of the lewd priests, and had veiled their faces, crying out at the abomination of desolation! Such people know nothing of the romance of Rodrigue except the couplet of the snake.--If there is any nudity in a book or a picture, they go straight to it as the swine to the mire, and pay no attention to the blooming flowers or the golden fruit that hang within reach on all sides. I confess that I am not virtuous enough for that. Dorine, the brazen-faced soubrette, may display before me her swelling bosom, I certainly will not draw my handkerchief to cover it so that it cannot be seen.--I will look at her bosom as at her face, and if it is fair and well-shaped I will take pleasure in it.--But I will not touch Elmire's dress to see if it is soft, nor will I push her reverently upon the table as that poor devil of a Tartuffe did. This great affectation of morality that reigns to-day would be very laughable if it were not very tiresome.--Every _feuilleton_ becomes a pulpit; every journalist a preacher; only the tonsure and the little neckband are wanting. The weather is rainy and homiletic; one can defend one's self against both by going out only in a carriage and reading Pantagruel between one's bottle and one's pipe. Blessed Jesus! what an outcry! what a frenzy!--Who bit you? who pricked you? what the devil's the matter with you that you cry so loud, and what has poor vice done to you that you should bear him such a grudge, he is such a good fellow, so easy to live with, and asks nothing except to be allowed to amuse himself and not bore others, if such a thing can be? Act with vice like Serre with the gendarme: embrace and have done with it all.--Believe me, you will be the better for it.--Eh! _Mon Dieu_! my worthy preachers, what would you do without vice? You would be reduced to beggary to-morrow, if the world should become virtuous to-day.