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Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little

evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of

setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their

distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the

reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were

remodelling the world with words, and making card-towers of Babel

to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had

an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful

gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the

finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time--and has been

since--to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural

subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of

exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur.