“What does this mean?” said he, “am I a simple clerk?”

This was heard with terror, because usually the king made much of a good belch well off the stomach.  The other guests determined to get rid in another way of the vapours which were dodging about in their pancreatic retorts; and at first they endeavoured to hold them for a little while in the pleats of their mesenteries.  It was then that some of them puffed and swelled like tax-gatherers.  Beaupertuys took the good king aside and said to him—­

“Know now that I have had made by the Church jeweller Peccard, two large dolls, exactly resembling this lady and myself.  Now when hard-pressed by the drugs which I have put in their goblets, they desire to mount the throne to which we are now about to pretend to go, they will always find the place taken; by this means you will enjoy their writhings.”

Thus having said, La Beaupertuys disappeared with the lady to go and turn the wheel, after the custom of women, and of which I will tell you the origin in another place.  And after an honest lapse of water, Beaupertuys came back alone, leaving it to be believed that she had left the lady at the little laboratory of natural alchemy.  Thereupon the king, singling out the cardinal, made him get up, and talked with him seriously of his affairs, holding him by the tassel of his amice.  To all that the king said, La Balue replied, “Yes, sir,” to be delivered from this favour, and slip out of the room, since the water was in his cellars, and he was about to lose the key of his back-door.  All the guests were in a state of not knowing how to arrest the progress of the fecal matter to which nature has given, even more than to water, the property of finding a certain level.  Their substances modified themselves and glided working downward, like those insects who demand to be let out of their cocoons, raging, tormenting, and ungrateful to the higher powers; for nothing is so ignorant, so insolent as those cursed objects, and they are importunate like all things detained to whom one owes liberty.  So they slipped at every turn like eels out of a net, and each one had need of great efforts and science not to disgrace himself before the king.  Louis took great pleasure in interrogating his guests, and was much amused with the vicissitudes of their physiognomies, on which were reflected the dirty grimaces of their writhings.  The counsellor of justice said to Oliver, “I would give my office to be behind a hedge for half a dozen seconds.”

“Oh, there is no enjoyment to equal a good stool; and now I am no longer astonished at sempiternal droppings of a fly,” replied the surgeon.

The cardinal believing that the lady had obtained her receipt from the bank of deposit, left the tassels of his girdle in the king’s hand, making a start as if he had forgotten to say his prayers, and made his way towards the door.

“What is the matter with you, Monsieur le Cardinal?” said the king.