They were
very friendly and happy together, Fareham telling his companion much of his
adventurous life in France, and how in the first Fronde war he had been on
the side of Queen and Minister, and afterwards, for love and admiration of
Conde, had joined the party of the Princes.
"Well, it was a time worth living in--a good education for the boy-king,
Louis, for it showed him that the hereditary ruler of a great nation has
something more to do than to be born, and to exist, and to spend money."
Lord Fareham described the shining lights of that brilliant court with a
caustic tongue; but he was more indulgent to the follies of the Palais
Royal and the Louvre than he had been to the debaucheries of Whitehall.
"There is a grace even in their vices," he said. "Their wit is lighter, and
there is more mind in their follies. Our mirth is vulgar even when it is
not bestial. I know of no Parisian adventure so degrading as certain pranks
of Buckhurst's, which I would not dare mention in your hearing. We imitate
them, and out-herod Herod, but we are never like them. We send to Paris for
our clothes, and borrow their newest words--for they are ever inventing
some cant phrase to startle dulness--and we make our language a foreign
farrago.
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