Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/214

Rh Elizabeth (colouring). "It is a pity that foreigners sometimes are not so."

''Mdme. de Belcour (with a languid smile''). "That is meant for you, Dr. Morin. The doctor is my favourite orator. So sympathetic!"

Elton. "You speak in public? Where can I hear you?"

Dr. Morin (laughing). "Nowhere, monsieur. It is only to tease me your fair neighbour says that. I never speak."

''Mdme. Martineau.'' "He never speaks! Listen to him! He never speaks! Ho, ho!"

Morin. "I make myself understood, and you are good enough to listen; but as to oratory—bah!"

''Mdme. Clinchaut.'' "Ah! oratory is not what it was. I heard Lamartine in the Chamber. Ah! it was poetical. There is nothing like it now—nothing!"

Doucet. "Pardon, madame. If you talk of poetical eloquence, allow me to say I gained the first prize for poetical oratory at college—an improvisation; the subject was 'Suicide.' And now, if there were a revolution, should I not be a Mirabeau, a Camille Desmoulins? I believe you. Talk of our oratory being deteriorated; it is only now we are awaking to what true oratory is!"

''Mdme. Clinchaut (shaking her head sarcastically''). "Lamartine was good enough for me."

Baring (who has caught Elton's eye, slowly, in English). "Some of our men in Congress would make them sit up here."

Elton. "Your Webster—a great orator! But these French—wonderful, wonderful! Such fluency!"

Baring. "And self-confidence." (In French) "Le Père Didon is the most eloquent man I have heard here."