-
Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I.
So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the
bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back to Montreuil.-
-Peste! said La Fleur.
It is not mal-a-propos to take notice here, that though La Fleur
availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this
encounter, - namely, Diable! and Peste! that there are,
nevertheless, three in the French language: like the positive,
comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serves for
every unexpected throw of the dice in life.
Le Diable! which is the first, and positive degree, is generally
used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only
fall out contrary to your expectations; such as - the throwing once
doublets - La Fleur's being kick'd off his horse, and so forth. -
Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always - Le Diable!
But, in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in
that of the bidet's running away after, and leaving La Fleur
aground in jack-boots, - 'tis the second degree.
'Tis then Peste!
And for the third -
- But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow feeling, when I
reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so
refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the
use of it.
