“It is the harmless foible of Colin and Jeannot to frame laws while they keep their sheep, and to say: ‘If I were king!’ When Jeannot is king he will promulgate more edicts in a year than the Emperor Justinian codified during all his reign. It is in that direction, it seems to me, that Jeannot’s reign will prove formidable. But that of kings and emperors was usually so bad one could not fear a worse, and Jeannot, no doubt, will not commit many more follies, nor wickednesses, than all those princes girt with the double or triple crown, who, since the deluge, have covered the world with blood and destruction. His very incapacity and turbulence will have this much good in them that they will render impossible those learned correspondences between country and country we call diplomacy, which end in nothing but in the artistic lighting-up of useless and disastrous wars. The ministers of good man Demos unceasingly kicked, hustled, humiliated, thrown down and assailed with more rotten apples and eggs than the worst harlequin in a booth at a fair, will have no leisure to prepare carnage politely, in the secrecy and peace of the cabinet, on the board of green cloth, by conferences in regard to what is called the balance of Europe, which is but the happy hunting-ground of the diplomat. There will be no more foreign policy, and that will be a great thing for unhappy humanity.” At these words my good master rose up, and continued as follows: “It is time to go in, my son, for I feel the dew penetrate by reason that my clothes are in holes in various places. Also, by remaining any longer under this porch, we risk frightening away the lovers of Catherine and Jeannette, who here await the hour of tryst.” FOOTNOTES: [6] Ces petits souverains qu’on fait pour une année, Voyant d’un temps si court leur puissance bornée, Des plus heureux desseins font avorter le fruit, De peur de le laisser à celui que les suit. Comme ils ont peu de part aux biens dont ils ordonnent, Dans le champ du public largement ils moissonnent, Assurés que chacun leur pardonne aisément, Espérant à son tour un pareil traitement. VIII THE CITY MAGISTRATES That evening we betook ourselves, my master and I, to the arbour of the _Petit Bacchus_, where we found Catherine the lace-maker, the lame cutler, and the father who begot me. They were all seated at the same table before a jug of wine, of which they had taken enough to be pleasant and sociable. Two magistrates had just been elected according to form, out of four, and my father was talking of it, according to the measure of his lights and his talents.