"'_Dans son carrosse_,' you repeat with great point of admiration, who would not believe after that sad, 'yes I was on foot' and that great point of admiration which runs after my _carrosse_, that you were envy itself personified. But I, who know you to be a good man, I know that the phrase _dans son carrosse_, does not signify that you were sorry to see me in my _carrosse_, but only that you were sorry that I did not see you in yours.'
"'But console yourself, Monsieur, the _carrosse_ in which I rode was already no more mine when you saw me in it. The Comte de la Blache already had seized it with all my other goods. Men called _à hautes armes_, with uniforms, bandoliers and menacing guns guarded it, as well as all my furniture; and to cause you, in spite of myself, the sorrow of seeing me in my _carrosse_ it was necessary that same day that I had that of demanding, my hat in one hand and a _gros écu_ in the other, the permission to use it, of that company of officers, which I did, _ne vous déplaise_, every morning, and while I speak with such tranquillity the same distress reigns in my household.
"'How unjust we are! We are jealous of and we hate such and such a one whom we believe happy, who would often give something over, to be in the place of the pedestrian who detests him because of his _carrosse_. I, for example: could anything be worse than my actual situation? But I am something like the cousin of Héloise, I have done my best to cry; the laugh has to escape from some corner. This is what makes me gentle with you. My philosophy is, to be, if I can, contented with myself and to let the rest go as it pleases God.'
"And at the end, after the honey comes the sting. 'Pardon, Monsieur, if I have not replied by an express writing to you alone, to answer all the injuries of your memoir, pardon, if, seeing you measure in my heart the somber depths of hell, and, hearing you cry, "_Tu dors, Jupiter; à quoi te sert donc ta foudre?_" I have replied lightly to so much bombast. Pardon, you were a school boy, no doubt, and you remember that the best blown up balloon needs only the stick of a pin.'"
But it is impossible without becoming wearisome to draw forth all the characters and to allow them to pass in review. Let us turn our attention for a few moments to the sublime invocation of the fourth memoir, and with it a few observations of M. de Sainte-Beuve, taken from his admirable criticism of the memoirs of Beaumarchais in his famous "_Causeries de Lundi_."