"
Though this was said with a laugh, the duke colored and did not
answer. Great people are to blame for joking with their social
inferiors. Jesting is a game, and games presuppose equality; it is to
obviate any inconvenient results of this temporary equality that
players have the right, after the game is over, not to recognize each
other.
The visit of the grand equerry had the ostensible excuse of an
important piece of business; namely, the retrieval of an immense tract
of waste land left by the sea between the mouths of the two rivers,
which tract had just been adjudged by the Council of State to the
house of Herouville. The matter was nothing less than putting
flood-gates with double bridges, draining three or four hundred acres,
cutting canals, and laying out roadways. When the duke had explained
the condition of the land, Charles Mignon remarked that time must be
allowed for the soil, which was still moving, to settle and grow solid
in a natural way.
"Time, which has providentially enriched your house, Monsieur le duc,
can alone complete the work," he said, in conclusion. "It would be
prudent to let fifty years elapse before you reclaim the land.
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