"I see with much pleasure, my dear baron," said the little duke,
slyly, "that you will make an admirable constitutional minister."
"Oh!" said Canalis, with the gesture of a great man, "what is the use
of all these discussions? What do they prove?--the eternal verity of
one axiom: All things are true, all things are false. Moral truths as
well as human beings change their aspect according to their
surroundings, to the point of being actually unrecognizable."
"Society exists through settled opinions," said the Duc d'Herouville.
"What laxity!" whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband.
"He is a poet," said Gobenheim, who overheard her.
Canalis, who was ten leagues above the heads of his audience, and who
may have been right in his last philosophical remark, took the sort of
coldness which now overspread the surrounding faces of a symptom of
provincial ignorance; but seeing that Modeste understood him, he was
content, being wholly unaware that monologue is particularly
disagreeable to country-folk, whose principal desire it is to exhibit
the manner of life and the wit and wisdom of the provinces to
Parisians.
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