![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kittiwake‘But you do not tell us your age,’ said Madame du Pompadour to him on another occasion; ‘and yet you pretend you are very old. The Countess de Gergy, who was, I believe, ambassadress at Vienna some fifty years ago, says she saw you there, exactly the same as you now appear.’
‘It is true, madame,’ replied St. Germain; ‘I knew Madame de Gergy many years ago.’
‘But, according to her account, you must be more than a hundred years old?’
’That is not impossible,’ said he, laughing; ‘but it is much more possible that the good lady is in her dotage.’
‘You gave her an elixir, surprising for the effects it produced; for she says, that during a length of time she only appeared to be eighty-four, the age at which she took it. Why don’t you give it to the king?’
‘Oh, madame,’ he explained, ‘the physicians would have me broken on the wheel, were I to think of drugging his majesty.’
This book, which dates from the middle of the 19th century, is a history of various obsessions and forms of collective madness that have taken hold at various historical periods. Starting with the South Sea Bubble and a similar financial crisis in France a few years earlier, it moves on to sections about tulips, alchemy, the Crusades, witch mania, etc.
There were some fascinating facts in the section about alchemists; some men who claimed to have discovered the philosophers' stone were actually using it as a cover to explain away large amounts of money that they had acquired by illegal means, while there were some astrologers who did not believe in the powers of the stars at all and only cast nativities in order to subsidise their scientific studies in astronomy.
Towards the end of the book, however, a lighter note was sounded in a section about those phrases which came into vogue amongst Londoners for a period of time before being replaced by something new. This section included phrases that have lasted until today, such as 'flare up' and 'does your mother know you're out?' and others that are long forgotten like 'quoz!' and 'what a shocking bad hat!'.
‘It is true, madame,’ replied St. Germain; ‘I knew Madame de Gergy many years ago.’
‘But, according to her account, you must be more than a hundred years old?’
’That is not impossible,’ said he, laughing; ‘but it is much more possible that the good lady is in her dotage.’
‘You gave her an elixir, surprising for the effects it produced; for she says, that during a length of time she only appeared to be eighty-four, the age at which she took it. Why don’t you give it to the king?’
‘Oh, madame,’ he explained, ‘the physicians would have me broken on the wheel, were I to think of drugging his majesty.’
This book, which dates from the middle of the 19th century, is a history of various obsessions and forms of collective madness that have taken hold at various historical periods. Starting with the South Sea Bubble and a similar financial crisis in France a few years earlier, it moves on to sections about tulips, alchemy, the Crusades, witch mania, etc.
There were some fascinating facts in the section about alchemists; some men who claimed to have discovered the philosophers' stone were actually using it as a cover to explain away large amounts of money that they had acquired by illegal means, while there were some astrologers who did not believe in the powers of the stars at all and only cast nativities in order to subsidise their scientific studies in astronomy.
Towards the end of the book, however, a lighter note was sounded in a section about those phrases which came into vogue amongst Londoners for a period of time before being replaced by something new. This section included phrases that have lasted until today, such as 'flare up' and 'does your mother know you're out?' and others that are long forgotten like 'quoz!' and 'what a shocking bad hat!'.
