s and innumerable other women
of their retinue. By Venus! My Adonis, there are more petticoats to be
seen in the imperial palace than cuirasses or priests' gowns. The
Emperor loves as much to be surrounded by women as by soldiers and
abbots, without forgetting the learned men, the rhetoricians, the
dialecticians, the instructors, the peripatetic pedagogues and the
grammarians. The great Charles, as you must know, is as passionately
fond of grammar as of love, war, the chase, or choir chants. In his
grammarian's ardor, the Emperor invents words--"

"What!"

"Just as I am telling you. For instance: How do you call in the Gallic
tongue the month in which we now are?"

"The month of November."

"So do we Italians, barbarians that we are! But the Emperor has changed
all that by virtue of his own sovereign and grammatical will. His
peoples, provided they can obey him without the words strangling them,
are to say, instead of November, 'Herbismanoth'; instead of October,
Windumnermanoth.'"

"Octave, you are trying to make merry at my expense."

"Instead of March, 'Lenzhimanoth'; instead of May--"

"Enough! enough! for pity's sake!" cried Vortigern. "Those barbarous
names make me shiver. What! can there be throats in existence able to
articulate such sounds?"

"My young friend, Frankish throats are capable of everything. I warn
you, prepare your ears for the most uncouth concert of raucous,
guttural, savage words that you ever heard, unless you have ever heard
frogs croaking, tom-cats squalling, bulls bellowing, asses braying,
stags belling and wolves howling--all at once! Excepting the Emperor
himself and his family, who can somewhat handle the Roman and the Gallic
languages, the only two languages, in short, that are human, you will
hear nothing spoken but Frankish at that German court where everything
is German, that is to say, barbarous; the language, the customs, the
manners, the meals, the dress. In short, Aix-la-Chapelle is no longer
in Gaul. It now lies in Germany absolutely."

"And yet Charles reigns over Gaul!--is not that enough of a disgrace for
my country? The Emperor who governs us by no right other than conquest,
is surrounded with a Frankish court, and with officers and generals of
the same stock, who do not deign even to speak our tongue. Shame and
disgrace to us!"

"There you are at it again, plunging anew into sadness. Vortigern! By
Bacchus! Why do you not imitate my philosophy of indifference? Do