Frenchmen are permitted to say so much more than we are, and I'll be rebukeful on the score of his excesses.

The bitter way in which a Frenchman always visits his various incapacities--whether it be to know something, or to do something, or to be something--on the species he belongs to; the way in which he suggests that, had he been consulted on the matter, humanity had been a much more perfect organisation, and able to sustain a great deal more of wickedness without disturbance, is great fun.

I'll certainly invent a Frenchman, and make him an author, and then demolish him.

What if I make him die of hunger, having tasted nothing for eight days but the proof-sheets of his great work--the work I am then reviewing?
For four days--but stay--if I starve him to death, I cannot tear his work to pieces.

No; he shall be alive, living in splendour and honour, a frequenter of the Tuileries, a favoured guest at Compiegne.' Without perceiving it, he had now taken his pipe, lighted it, and was smoking away.