et les délices de la Nation."[O 1] There Jean Silvain Bailly, the accomplished scholar — the aspiring politician. It was one of those petits soupers for which the capital of all social pleasures was so renowned. The conversation, as might be expected, was literary and intellectual, enlivened by graceful pleasantry. Many of the ladies of that ancient and proud noblesse — for the noblesse yet existed, though its hours were already numbered — added to the charm of the society; and theirs were the boldest criticisms, and often the most liberal sentiments.
Vain labour for me — vain labour almost for the grave English language — to do justice to the sparkling paradoxes that flew from lip to lip. The favourite theme was the superiority of the Moderns to the Ancients. Condorcet on this head was eloquent, and to some, at least, of his audience, most convincing. That Voltaire was greater than Homer few there were disposed to deny. Keen was the ridicule lavished on the dull pedantry which finds everything ancient necessarily sublime.
"Yet," said the graceful Marquis de, as the champagne danced to his glass, "more ridiculous still is the superstition that finds everything incomprehensible holy! But intelligence circulates, Condorcet; like water, it finds its level. My hairdresser said to me this morning, 'Though I am but a poor fellow, I believe as little as the finest gentleman!'"
- ↑ The idol and delight of the nation (so called by his historian, Gaillard)
