Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-lytton

Precepteurs ignorans de ce faible univers. -- Voltaire. (Ignorant teachers of this weak world.) Nous etions a table chez un de nos confreres a l'Academie, Grand Seigneur et homme d'esprit. -- La Harpe. (We supped with one of our confreres of the Academy, -- a great nobleman and wit.)

One evening, at Paris, several months after the date of our last chapter, there was a reunion of some of the most eminent wits of the time, at the house of a personage distinguished alike by noble birth and liberal accomplishments. Nearly all present were of the views that were then the mode. For, as came afterwards a time when nothing was so unpopular as the people, so that was the time when nothing was so vulgar as aristocracy. The airiest fine gentleman and the haughtiest noble prated of equality, and lisped enlightenment.