According to his master's desire, Bartholo proceeded to detail all the gossips, the scandal, and the real news of the capital, commenting, as he went on, on every anecdote that he related with the keen shrewdness and sagacity which peculiarly distinguished him. His observations, indeed, might derive a peculiar turn from his own particular views and purposes; but, in this curious and complicated world in which we live, every part fits into the other with such exact nicety, that the great depend upon the little nearly as much as the little depend upon the great: the intrigues of the mighty and the powerful, the schemes of the noble and the high, are almost always to be affected in their course--to derive their success or receive their overthrow--from the most mean and despised things that crawl almost unseen around their presence. Thus, in the present instance, all the art, the tortuous policy, the consummate acting of Madame de Montpensier was rendered nearly unavailing by the keen and sarcastic observations, the knowledge of parties, and the insight into real motives and actions, of even so insignificant a person as the dwarf. In the course of the half hour that succeeded, he gave to St. Real a completely new view of the state of the League, and the motives and characters of its supporters; and, without one direct assertion, without one attempt to controvert his opinions, or one apparent effort to obtain a particular object, he showed his master, that frank simplicity might be assumed as the best cloak for art, just as much as religion and patriotism might be affected for the purpose of concealing selfishness and ambition.