monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; nevertheless, monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. strange that creation, designed expressly for monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! there must be something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! thus it was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and unaccountable.