were water," and after supper the confectionery is thrown out of the windows. Each parliamentarian around him has his "little Versailles, a grand hotel between court and garden," This town, now so silent, then rang with the clatter of fine equipages. The profusion of the table is astonishing, "not only on gala days, but at the suppers of each week, and I could almost say, of each day."--Amidst all these fête-givers, the most illustrious of all, the President des Brosses, so grave on the magisterial bench, so intrepid in his remonstrances, so laborious,[2262] so learned, is an extraordinary stimulator of fun (boute-entrain), a genuine Gaul, with a sparkling, inexhaustible fund of salacious humor: with his friends he throws off his perruque, his gown, and even something more. Nobody dreams of being offended by it; nobody conceives that dress is an extinguisher, which is true of every species of dress, and of the gown in particular. "When I entered society, in 1785," writes a parliamentarian, "I found myself introduced in a certain way, alike to the wives and the mistresses of the friends of my family, passing Monday evening with one, and Tuesday evening with the other. And I was only eighteen, and I belonged to a family of magistrates."[2263] At Basville, at the residence of M. de Lamoignon, during the autumnal vacation and the Whitsuntide holidays, there are thirty persons at the table daily; there are three or four hunts a week, and the most prominent magistrates, M. de Lamoignon, M. Pasquier, M. de Rosambo, M. and Mme. d'Aguesseau, perform the "Barber of Seville" in the chateau theater.