Russia?
Voltaire admired it. He also admired China. I admit that Russia has its
beauties, among others, a stout despotism; but I pity the despots.
Their health is delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter,
a strangled Paul, another Paul crushed flat with kicks, divers Ivans
strangled, with their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils
poisoned, all this indicates that the palace of the Emperors of Russia
is in a condition of flagrant insalubrity. All civilized peoples offer
this detail to the admiration of the thinker; war; now, war, civilized
war, exhausts and sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the
brigandage of the Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding
of the Comanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass. 'Bah!' you will say to
me, 'but Europe is certainly better than Asia?' I admit that Asia is a
farce; but I do not precisely see what you find to laugh at in the Grand
Lama, you peoples of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and
your elegances all the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty
chemise of Queen Isabella to the chamber-chair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen
of the human race, I tell you, not a bit of it! It is at Brussels that
the most beer is consumed, at Stockholm the most brandy, at Madrid the
most chocolate, at Amsterdam the most gin, at London the most wine, at
Constantinople the most coffee, at Paris the most absinthe; there are
all the useful notions. Paris carries the day, in short. In Paris,
even the rag-pickers are sybarites; Diogenes would have loved to be a
rag-picker of the Place Maubert better than to be a philosopher at the
Piraeus. Learn this in addition; the wineshops of the ragpickers
are called bibines; the most celebrated are the Saucepan and The
Slaughter-House. Hence, tea-gardens, goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis,
mastroquets, bastringues, manezingues, bibines of the rag-pickers,
caravanseries of the caliphs, I certify to you, I am a voluptuary, I eat
at Richard's at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets to roll
naked Cleopatra in! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! So it is you, Louison. Good
day."

Thus did Grantaire, more than intoxicated, launch into speech, catching
at the dish-washer in her passage, from his corner in the back room of
the Cafe Musain.

Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to impose silence on him,
and Grantaire began again worse than ever:--

"Aigle de Meaux, down with your paws. You produce on me no effect with
yo