superseded. The day had gone by for blank cartridges and empty
protocols. Nevertheless Lord Henry's harmless thunder was answered, the
next day, by a "Quintuplication" in worse Latin than ever, presented to
Dr. Dale and his colleagues by Richardot and Champagny, on the subject of
the armistice. And then there was a return quintuplication, in choice
Latin, by the classic Dale, and then there was a colloquy on the
quintuplication, and everything that had been charged, and truly
charged, by the English; was now denied by the King's commissioners;
and Champagny--more gouty and more irascible than ever--"chopped in" at
every word spoken by King's envoys or Queen's, contradicted everybody,
repudiated everything said or done by Andrew de Loo, or any of the other
secret negotiators during the past year, declared that there never had
been a general cessation of arms promised, and that, at any rate, times
were now changed, and such an armistice was inadmissible! Then the
English answered with equal impatience, and reproached the King's
representatives with duplicity and want of faith, and censured them for
their unseemly language, and begged to inform Champagny and Richardot
that they had not then to deal with such persons as they might formerly
have been in the habit of treating withal, but with a "great prince who
did justify the honour of her actions," and they confuted the positions
now assumed by their opponents with official documents and former
statements from those very opponents' lips. And then, after all this
diplomatic and rhetorical splutter, the high commissioners recovered
their temper and grew more polite, and the King's "envoys excused
themselves in a mild, merry manner," for the rudeness of their speeches,
and the Queen's envoys accepted their apologies with majestic urbanity,
and so they separated for the day in a more friendly manner than they
had done the day before.'

"You see to what a scholar's shift we have been driven for want of