Page 239 - les-miserables

Then, do not crunch sugar, and you will live. I turn to the
men: gentlemen, make conquest, rob each other of your
well-beloved without remorse. Chassez across. In love there
are no friends. Everywhere where there is a pretty wom-
an hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty
woman is a casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misde-
meanor. All the invasions of history have been determined
by petticoats. Woman is man’s right. Romulus carried off
the Sabines; William carried off the Saxon women; Caesar
carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved
soars like a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for
my own part, to all those unfortunate men who are widow-
ers, I throw the sublime proclamation of Bonaparte to the
army of Italy: ‘Soldiers, you are in need of everything; the
enemy has it.’
[2] Liege: a cork-tree. Pau: a jest on peau, skin.
Tholomyes paused.
‘Take breath, Tholomyes,’ said Blachevelle.
At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier
and Fameuil, struck up to a plaintive air, one of those stu-
dio songs composed of the first words which come to hand,
rhymed richly and not at all, as destitute of sense as the ges-
ture of the tree and the sound of the wind, which have their
birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and take their
flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group
replied to Tholomyes’ harangue:—

“The father turkey-cocks so grave
Some money to an agent gave,

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