_Attendez-moi sous l’orme_ (wait for me under the elm) implies that “the rendezvous you ask is disagreeable to me, and I will not keep it.” The type of an unpleasant rendezvous is that which compels an appearance before the judge, and it is to this that the expression here quoted originally referred. Formerly the judges administered justice under a tree planted in the open space before the church or the entrance of a seignorial mansion; hence the phrase of _juges de dessous l’orme_, and also that of _danser sous l’orme_. _Attendez-moi sous l’orme_ means, Find me there if you can (ironically), and to name a rendezvous which one has no intention of keeping.[49] _Faire Charlemagne_ is to retire from the game after winning it, without giving the adversary a chance of revenge. This expression evidently alludes to the death of the great Charles, who, when he had become the monarch of the West, quitted this life without having lost any of his conquests. To make unlawful profits by deceiving as to the price of any articles a person has been charged to buy is called “shoeing the mule” (_Ferrer la mule_). The expression dates from the time when the counsellors of the Parliament repaired to the _Palais de Justice_ mounted on mules, and the lackeys who remained outside during the sittings of the Assembly spent their time in gambling, extorting from their masters the money they wanted for their amusement by pretending that they had had to pay for shoeing the mules. Others carry the origin of the saying back to the time of Vespasian; the muleteer of that emperor, when on a journey, having been bribed to do so, suddenly stopped the mules under pretext of having them shod, so as to give time to a person whom they had met on the way to speak to the emperor of his affairs. _Faire danser l’anse du panier_ is said of a cook who fraudulently obtains from her mistress more money for her purchases at market than they have really cost. The idea is that of shaking the basket so as to make its contents take up as much room as possible, and thus look worth their alleged price. _Connaître les êtres de la maison_ is to know the doors, staircases, passages, rooms, outlets, etc.—in a word, the internal arrangements—of the house. _Êtres_, which for a long time was written _aîtres_, has for its origin the Latin _atria_, in the sense of dwelling.