Upon this, the Duke, of course, favoured them with an oration also, and a curious piece of composition it was; consisting of a series of pleasantries upon the Parliament, upon Mazarin, upon himself, upon the Court, and upon everything, mingled with a few apophthegms upon policy, religion, and morals, which all tended to captivate the people, and make them think him wondrous wise, without tending in the least to calm them, or reduce them to order and decency. Now Monsieur de Villardin was not only a polished speaker, and, where his own passions were not concerned, a close reasoner, but he was also really a patriotic, generous, disinterested man; and the fact of his speaking for half an hour, as he did on the present occasion, a tissue of high-sounding, disjointed nonsense, which could only serve to inflame still farther the minds of a mad and excited populace, can only be accounted for upon the grounds of the general insanity which seemed at that time to have seized upon all ranks and classes. This oration being finished, we entered the Parliament House; and, by the special favour of one of the door-keepers, my new lord was permitted to take me with him into the interior of the building, perhaps anticipating one of those scenes in which the prompt hand and ready perception that had been my principal recommendation in his eyes, might be serviceable to him in more ways than one. We took our way by the great staircase in the right wing, and soon found ourselves in what is called the _Salle des pas perdus_, which was full of people of all sorts and descriptions; guards, doorkeepers, and officers of the _palais_; counsellors, statesmen, members of the different chambers, and the mixed crowd of attendants belonging to all those who were thronging to the Parliament on the present momentous occasion. Passing onward, through the small refreshment rooms called _Les Buvettes_, where no obstacle was presented to my following my master, we were soon in the midst of the hall in which the Parliament were assembled; and such a scene of disgraceful confusion has seldom, perhaps, been witnessed. Half-a-dozen people were upon their feet haranguing at once; and several minutes elapsed before anything could be heard except a confused gabble of tongues, which might have done honour to the top of the tower of Babel. At length, the Duke d'Elbeuf, whom I had seen before, and who seemed to have the longest breath, the loudest voice, and the most determined pertinacity of the party, obtained the ascendancy; and one by one sitting down, he was left speaking alone.