'A new scandal, eh ?' 'No, sire, a new tale-teller,' the duchess answered pertly.

'If your Majesty will sit, we shall hear him the sooner.' He pinched her ear and sat down in the chair which a page presented.
'What! is it Rambouillet's GRISON again ?' he said with some surprise.
'Well, fire away, man.

But who brought you forward as a Rabelais ?' There was a general cry of 'Madame de Bruhl!' whereat that lady shook her fair hair, about her face, and cried out for someone to bring her a mask.
'Ha, I see!' said the king drily, looking pointedly at M.de Bruhl, who was as black as thunder.

'But go on, man.' The king's advent, by affording me a brief respite, had enabled me to collect my thoughts, and, disregarding the ribald interruptions, which at first were frequent, I began as follows: 'I am no Rabelais, sire,' I said, 'but droll things happen to the most unlikely.

Once upon a time it was the fortune of a certain swain, whom I will call Dromio, to arrive in a town not a hundred miles from Blois, having in his company a nymph of great beauty, who had been entrusted to his care by her parents.