Page:Musset - Gamiani, or Two Passionate Nights.djvu/19

 with a dreamy air, seemed to rouse a little on hearing the last words, and said;

"Gentlemen, if you will kindly agree to meet together here again in three days' time, I hope to be able to convince you that it is not difficult to produce a work of the highest taste without employing any of the vulgar expressions which we are accustomed to term "naïvetés" in our good old ancestors, such as Rabelais, the Chevalier de Brantôme, Bèroalde de Verville, Bonaventure des Periers, and so many others, for I am sure their wit would shine just as brightly if it had been cleared of the crude old words which besmirch our ancient language."

This proposal was loudly applauded, and three days later our young writer brought the manuscript of the book that we now present to our book-loving friends.

Each member of the dinner-party wanted to have a copy of it, and one of them allowed a foreign publisher to print a limited edition in, in quarto size, the text lithographed in script in two columns to the page, with ten large illustrations very nicely done, attributed to Grévedon or Devéria.

This edition, now of extreme rarity, and of which many librarians have denied the