Rois, vos ministres sont, pour vous, Ce qu'est, pour nous, le jonc dont l'appui nous assiste, Je le dis des vizirs ainsi que des bambous, On ne peut s'appuyer que sur ce qui résiste." If you read, one after the other, M. Arnault's one hundred and fifty fables, you will find throughout, the same ease, the same touch, the same carping spirit. When you have read them, you will certainly not say of the author, "He is a delightful person," but you will assuredly say, "He is an honest man." In 1815 M. Arnault was exiled. Why? For so slight a reason that no one bothered even to think of it; his name was on the list, and that was all! But who signed that list? Louis XVIII., formerly Monsieur--that is to say, the very same Comte de Provence under whose protection the poet had begun his career, and to whom he had dedicated his _Marius._ Now, although there was no reason for M. Arnault's exile, party spirit invented one and said that he was proscribed as a regicide. There were, however, two sufficient reasons why this could not be: first, because M. Arnault did not belong to the Convention; secondly, because in 1792 and 1793 he was abroad. Nevertheless, the rumour was tacitly accepted, and soon nobody doubted that M. Arnault was exiled on that ground. M. Arnault sent _Germanicus_ from Brussels: it was played on the 22nd of March 1817, and forbidden the following day. During the representation the tragedy shifted from the stage to the pit, where a terrible fight took place, in which several people were hurt and one even killed. The battle was waged between the Life Guards and the partisans of the late Government. The weapon that was generally made use of in this skirmish was that kind of bamboo upon which Roustan, the Grand Turk's first vizir, whose grievances we have just heard, was wont to lean. One can understand that the thicker and less pliable they were, the better they served for defence and for attack. From the date of that fray these canes were dubbed "_Germanicus"_ Angry feelings waxed strong at this period. The day but one after the representation, Martainville published a scurrilous article attacking M. Arnault's private honour. This article, which was the result of a blow given the critic by Telleville, led to a duel in which, as we said above, the journalist had his thigh bruised by a bullet.