And he pointed to the statues of the Ladies of Ancient France which towered up, all white, in a half-circle under the trees of the terrace. This joke, though in itself trifling, enabled me to know that the young man called Gélis was a student at the École des Chartes. From the conversation which followed I was able to learn that his neighbor, blond and wan almost to diaphaneity, taciturn and sarcastic, was Boulmier, a fellow-student. Gélis and the future doctor (I hope he will become one some day) discoursed together with much fantasy and spirit. In the midst of the loftiest speculations they would play upon words, and make jokes after the peculiar fashion of really witty persons--that is to say, in a style of enormous absurdity. I need hardly say, I suppose, that they only deigned to maintain the most monstrous kind of paradoxes. They employed all their powers of imagination to make themselves as ludicrous as possible, and all their powers of reasoning to assert the contrary of common-sense. All the better for them! I do not like to see young folks too rational.
The student of medicine, after glancing at the title of the book that Boulmier held in his hand, exclaimed:--
"Yes," replied Boulmier very gravely. "I like novels."
Gélis, who dominated both by his fine stature, imperious gestures, and ready wit, took the book, turned over a few pages rapidly, and said:--
"Michelet always had a great propensity to emotional tenderness. He wept sweet tears over Maillard, that nice little man who introduced _la paperasserie_ into the September massacres. But as emotional tenderness leads to fury, he becomes all at once furious against the victims. There is no help for it. It is the sentimentality of the age. The assassin is pitied, but the victim is considered quite unpardonable. In his later manner Michelet is more Michelet than ever before. There is no common-sense in it; it is simply wonderful! Neither art nor science, neither criticism nor narrative; only furies and fainting spells and epileptic fits over matters which he never deigns to explain. Childish outcries--_envies de femme grosse!_--and a style, my friends!--not a single finished phrase! It is astounding!"
And he handed the book back to his comrade. "This is amusing madness," I thought to myself, "and not quite so devoid of common-sense as it appears. This young man, though only playing, has sharply touched the defect in the cuirass."