Mans, M. de Breteuil, bishop of Montauban, M. de Cicé, archbishop of Bordeaux, the Cardinal de Montmorency, grand-almoner, M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, M. de Conzié, bishop of Arras,[66] and, in the first rank, the Abbé de Saint-Germain des Prés, Comte de Clermont, prince of the blood, who, with an income of 370,000 francs succeeds in ruining himself twice, who performs in comedies in his town and country residences, who writes to Collé in a pompous style and, who, in his abbatial mansion at Berny, installs Mademoiselle Leduc, a dancer, to do the honors of his table. — There is no hypocrisy.  In the house of M. Trudaine, four bishops attend the performance of a piece by Collé entitled “Les accidents ou les Abbés,” the substance of which, says Collé himself, is so free that he did not dare print it along with his other pieces.  A little later, Beaumarchais, on reading his “Marriage of Figaro” at the Maréchal de Richelieu’s domicile, not expurgated, much more crude and coarse than it is today, has bishops and archbishops for his auditors, and these, he says, “after being infinitely amused by it, did me the honor to assure me that they would state that there was not a single word in it offensive to good morals"[67] :  thus was the piece accepted against reasons of State, against the king’s will, and through the connivance of all those most interested in suppressing it.  “There is something more irrational than my piece, and that is its success,” said its author.  The attraction was too strong.  People devoted to pleasure could not dispense with the liveliest comedy of the age.  They came to applaud a satire on themselves; and better still, they themselves acted in it. — When a prevalent taste is in fashion, it leads, like a powerful passion, to extreme extravagance; the offered pleasure must, at any price, be had.  Faced with a momentary pleasure gratification, it is as a child tempted by fruit; nothing arrests it, neither the danger to which it is insensible, nor the social norms as these are established by itself.

VII.  Theater, parade and extravagance.

The principal diversion, elegant comedy. — Parades and
extravagance.

To divert oneself is to turn aside from oneself, to break loose and to forget oneself; and to forget oneself fully one must be transported into another, put himself in the place of another, take his mask and play his part.  Hence the liveliest of diversions is the comedy in which one is an actor.  It is that of children who, as authors, actors and audience, improvise and perform small scenes.  It is that of a people whose political régime excludes exacting manly tasks (soucis virile) and who sport with life just like children.  At Venice, in the eighteenth century, the carnival lasts six months; in France, under another form, it lasts the entire year.  Less familiar and less picturesque, more refined and more elegant, it abandons the public square where