'Particularly,' said ----, 'when, as was the case the other day, it is notorious that neither of them has any real respect for the idol which he is forced to crown. Then the political innuendoes, the under-currents of censure of the present conveyed in praise of the past, become tiresome after we have listened to them for five years. We long to hear people talk frankly and directly, instead of saying one thing for the mere purpose of showing that they are thinking of another thing. The Emperor revenged himself on Falloux by his antithesis: "_que le désordre les avait uni, et que l'ordre les avait séparé_.'"
'Feebly,' said ----. 'He muttered something about _l'ordre_ having no firmer adherent than himself. In these formal audiences our great man has the advantage. He has his _mot_ ready prepared, and you cannot discuss with him.'
We talked of the French spoken by foreigners. 'The best,' said Circourt, 'is that of the Swedes and Russians, the worst that of the Germans.'
'Louis Philippe,' said Z., 'used to maintain that the best test of a man's general talents was his power of speaking foreign languages. It was an opinion that flattered his vanity, for he spoke like a native French, Italian, English, and German.'
'It is scarcely possible,' said Tocqueville, 'for a man to be original in any language but his own; in all others he is forced to say what he can, and that is generally something that he recollects.'
'I was much struck by that,' said Z., 'when conversing with Narvaez. He had been talking sensibly but rather dully in French, I begged him to talk Spanish, which I understand though I cannot speak. The whole man was changed. It was as if a curtain had been drawn up from between us. Instead of hammering at commonplaces, he became pointed, and spirited, and eloquent.'
'For a Spaniard,' answered Z., 'yes. He has the quickness, the finesse, and the elegance of mind and of manner which belong to the South. The want of book-learning contributes to his originality.'
'The most wonderful speaker in a foreign language,' said Sumner, 'was Kossuth. He must have been between forty and fifty before he heard an English word. Yet he spoke it fluently, eloquently, and even idiomatically. He would have made his fortune among us as a stump-orator.'