These fashions have passed away; but not so much, perhaps, as one might
imagine. Nowadays, courtiers slightly modify their intonation in
clucking to please their masters. More than one picks up from the
ground--we will not say from the mud--what he eats.

It is very fortunate that kings cannot err. Hence their contradictions
never perplex us. In approving always, one is sure to be always
right--which is pleasant. Louis XIV. would not have liked to see at
Versailles either an officer acting the cock, or a prince acting the
turkey. That which raised the royal and imperial dignity in England and
Russia would have seemed to Louis the Great incompatible with the crown
of St. Louis. We know what his displeasure was when Madame Henriette
forgot herself so far as to see a hen in a dream--which was, indeed, a
grave breach of good manners in a lady of the court. When one is of the
court, one should not dream of the courtyard. Bossuet, it may be
remembered, was nearly as scandalized as Louis XIV.




IV.


The commerce in children in the 17th century, as we have explained, was
connected with a trade. The Comprachicos engaged in the commerce, and
carried on the trade. They bought children, worked a little on the raw
material, and resold them afterwards.

The venders were of all kinds: from the wretched father, getting rid of