There are many other reasons which determine me not to write a treatise
on beauty.
_BISHOP_
Samuel Ornik, native of Basle, was, as you know, a very amiable young
man who, besides, knew his New Testament by heart in Greek and German.
When he was twenty his parents sent him on a journey. He was charged to
carry some books to the coadjutor of Paris, at the time of the Fronde.
He arrived at the door of the archbishop's residence; the Swiss told him
that Monseigneur saw nobody. "Comrade," said Ornik to him, "you are very
rude to your compatriots. The apostles let everyone approach, and Jesus
Christ desired that people should suffer all the little children to come
to him. I have nothing to ask of your master; on the contrary, I have
brought him something."
"Come inside, then," said the Swiss.
He waits an hour in a first antechamber. As he was very naive, he began
a conversation with a servant, who was very fond of telling all he knew
of his master. "He must be mightily rich," said Ornik, "to have this
crowd of pages and flunkeys whom I see running about the house."
"I don't know what his income is," answered the other, "but I heard it
said to Joly and the Abbe Charier that he already had two millions of
debts."
"But who is that lady coming out of the room?"
"That is Madame de Pomereu, one of his mistresses."
"She is really very pretty; but I have not read that the apostles had
such company in their bedrooms in the mornings.
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