I do not judge from
his somnolency, which, if he were President of the Parliament, could
not be graver, but from his natural sagacity. Cats weigh
practicabilities. What sort of tongue has he?

_La Fontaine._ He has the roughest tongue and the tenderest heart of
any cat in Paris. If you observe the colour of his coat, it is rather
blue than grey; a certain indication of goodness in these
contemplative creatures.

_Rochefoucault._ We were talking of his tongue alone; by which cats,
like men, are flatterers.

_La Fontaine._ Ah! you gentlemen of the court are much mistaken in
thinking that vices have so extensive a range. There are some of our
vices, like some of our diseases, from which the quadrupeds are
exempt; and those, both diseases and vices, are the most
discreditable.

_Rochefoucault._ I do not bear patiently any evil spoken of the court:
for it must be acknowledged, by the most malicious, that the court is
the purifier of the whole nation.

_La Fontaine._ I know little of the court, and less of the whole
nation; but how can this be?

_Rochefoucault._ It collects all ramblers and gamblers; all the
market-men and market-women who deal in articles which God has thrown
into their baskets, without any trouble on their part; all the
seducers and all who wish to be seduced; all the duellists who erase
their crimes with their swords, and sweat out their cowardice with
daily practice; all the nobles whose patents of nobility lie in gold
snuff-boxes, or have worn Mechlin ruffles, or are deposited within the
archives of knee-deep waistcoats; all stock-jobbers and
church-jobbers, the black-legged and the red-legged game, the flower
of the _justaucorps_, the _robe_, and the _soutane_. If these were
spread over the surface of France, instead of close compressure in the
court or cabinet, they would corrupt the whole country in two years.
As matters now stand, it will require a quarter of a century to effect
it.

_La Fontaine._ Am I not right then in preferring my beasts to yours?
But if yours were loose, mine (as you prove to me) would be the last
to suffer by it, poor dear creatures! Speaking of cats, I would have
avoided all personality that might be offensive to them: I would not
exactly have said, in so many words, that, by their tongues, they are
flatterers, like men. Language may take a turn advantageously in
favour of our friends. True, we resemble all animals in something. I
am quite ashamed and mortified tha