Louis XIV., during a critical aspect of his affairs, said in council, "_Nous maintiendrons la couronne de la France_." His dauphin merely remarked, "_Maintenons la_" (_Madame de Maintenon l'a_).
When complaint was made in Paris that the first Napoleon was too young to assume command of an Italian campaign against Austria, he said, "They may let me alone: in six months _j'aurai Milan_" (_j'aurai mille ans_).
But the late M. Jules Janin made the cleverest pun. It was at a time when the Parisian authorities were macadamizing some of the streets that he was unsuccessfully proposed for membership of the famous Académie. Some one condoling with him for his failure, he replied that he meant to throw himself into the streets. "But how so, Monsieur?" "_Parceque, dans ce cas, on tout de suite m'acadamiserait._"
Punning approaches the character of wit when the identity of sound not only covers two ideas, but also hides an allusion to still another. When Douglass Jerrold by a quick motion accidentally threw himself backward into the water, and was carried into a tavern, he said to the servant, "I suppose these accidents happen frequently off here." "Oh, yes, sir, frequently; but it's not the season yet." "Ah! I suppose it's all owing to a backward spring." "That's it, sir." The play recalls the manner of his ducking, and also involves the servant's idea, as if it depended upon the time of the year. This is witty, because it effects a temporary junction of very opposite ideas, apart from the pun which gives the opportunity.
Let a case in illustration be invented. Suppose a man hears that in the Quissama tribe of Angola any one who cannot pay his debts is at once killed and eaten. He improves this curious fact to say, "That would be a pretty effective way of collecting a debt, if debtors did not always disagree with creditors." This leads us to consider that wit takes place when two or more very distinct objects or perceptions are brought arbitrarily under the sway of one idea which for a moment appears to embrace them. Punning is a constraint of two different ideas to be expressed by one word. Wit is the constraint of different objects to be expressed by one idea. Wit depends for its effect upon ideas alone; and it is reached whenever the mind suddenly forces an idea that is suggested to it to appear, for a moment, like something that belongs to another idea. The latter really resembles the first idea in no point at all: they ought to be kept asunder for want of a natural and organic connection. Yet they are compelled to seem to have this; and, though the illusion can last but for a moment, that is time enough to surprise and delight us with the mental stratagem. Perhaps the second idea, so far from having any natural relation with the first, is violently opposed to it in every sensible way, so that nobody can pretend a possibility that they should communicate. The mind contrives this momentary rendezvous; and a lightning-flash betrays these two heterogeneous things apparently in close communion.