A Naïve Romance

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Démontrer que la langue de Shakespeare a autant emprunté au français que celle de Molière à l’anglais, tel est le propos de ce petit livre performance!ExtraitCamouflaged behind mignonettes in the parqueted salon of the Grand Hotel, Mrs. Frog née LeFrog was contemplating a brochure : “After the debacle, an ultimate sortie : The besieged reserve corps galloped through the abatis and barricades. A gourmand état-major brigadier cordoned by aides-de-camp manoeuvered on the chaussée, anxious about the coupon guaranteeing fleurs-de-lis accoutrements. Futile couriers and valiant but invalid grenadiers were in ambuscade”, said the communiqué. Blasé with pillages, massacres and court-martialed assassins, she took possession of the Journal of a bourgeois, distilled in a flamboyant style whose mots d’auteur advocated an élite malaise under a nom de plume. The coquette extracted a lorgnette from a papier-mâché étui and examined her aigretted chignon and her rouge in the mirror. Am I still an encored femme fatale ?Tableau vivant for a vaudeville : Vis-à-vis her, the monocled chargé d’affaires, a par excellence fin-de-siècle beau, was somnolent in his chaise longue. He was just an au pair cabinet attaché, valeting for a regime which indulged in too many coups d’Etat… En route to the toilets, she had had an echo of the grotesque blond-toupeted petit maître rendezvous-ing a femme de chambre. A real tour de force !“Madame, seal vow play !” Faits accomplis and rodomontades : This maître d’hôtel (as well as his hostile confreres) was her bête noire. Hadn’t he, in the de rigueur provocateur attitude, announced her a menu proposing pâté as the only hors d’oeuvre, filet mignon, pot-pourri, chateaubriand, puréed cantaloup ? No champagne, no foie gras, no venison vol-au-vent at the buffet, what a terrible scandal ! And the irradiated bouquet of the château-le-pinard promised only a severe migraine. Nothing pour la bonne bouche.In the consommé, an isolated gruyère croûton made more vigorous the impression of a liquid solitude. And, when the garçon served the lapin chasseur, coup de théâtre : a roquefort coulis sabotaged it ! The chef, who was nothing of a cordon-bleu, deserved Madame Guillotine ! No pardon for lese-majeste ! But… cuisine was not her raison d’être. Bon appétit or… sauve qui peut ?