These ladies must feel that the duke's
interests are in great peril, when they have recourse to such
warfare."
Making the most of the advantage Modeste had thus given him, Canalis
entered upon his defence with such warmth, such eagerness, and with a
passion so exquisitely expressed, as he thanked her for a confidence
in which he could venture to see the dawn of love, that she found
herself suddenly as much compromised with the poet as she feared to be
with the grand equerry. Canalis, feeling the necessity of prompt
action, declared himself plainly. He uttered vows and protestations in
which his poetry shone like a moon, invoked for the occasion, and
illuminating his allusions to the beauty of his mistress and the
charms of her evening dress. This counterfeit enthusiasm, in which the
night, the foliage, the heavens and the earth, and Nature herself
played a part, carried the eager lover beyond all bounds; for he dwelt
on his disinterestedness, and revamped in his own charming style,
Diderot's famous apostrophe to "Sophie and fifteen hundred francs!"
and the well-worn "love in a cottage" of every lover who knows
perfectly well the length of the father-in-law's purse.
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