A Tale of Two Cities-CHAPTER 7 Monseigneur in Town

CHAPTER 7,Monseigneur in Town,MONSEIGNEUR, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary ¹ of sanctuaries ², the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite ³ of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen ⁴ minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning's chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook.,Yes. It took four men, all four a-blaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative ⁵ of the noble and chaste ⁶ fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two old watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible Monseigneur to dispense ⁷ with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot ⁸ upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly ⁹ waited on by only three men; he must have died of two.,Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome ¹⁰ articles of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!--always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it.,Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything go on in its own way; of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his way--tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) `ran: `The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.',A sumptuous ¹⁸ man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body-women waited on his wife. As one who pre-tended to do nothing but plunder ¹⁹ and forage ²⁰ where he could, the Farmer-General--howsoever his matrimonial relations conduced to social morality--was at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day.,For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned ²¹ with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame ²², almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business--if that could have been anybody's business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers destitute ²³ of military knowledge; naval ²⁴ officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ²⁵ ecclesiastics ²⁷, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted ²⁸ on all public employments from which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders ²⁹ that never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante- chambers ³⁰ of Monseigneur. Projectors ³¹ 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 ³² into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling ³³ 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 ³⁴ accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite ³⁵ gentlemen of the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable ³⁶ time-and has been since--to be known by its fruits of indifference ³⁷ to every natural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion ³⁸, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur--forming a goodly half of the polite company--would have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary ³⁹ wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere ⁴⁰ act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world--which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of mother--there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty.,The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost ⁴¹ room were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving ⁴² in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising ⁴³ way of setting them right, half of the half-dozen had become members of a fantastic sect ⁴⁴ of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves whether they should foam ⁴⁵, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the spot--thereby setting up a highly intelligible ⁴⁶ finger-post to the Future, for Monseigneur's guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon ⁴⁷ about `the Centre of Truth' holding that Man had got out of the Centre of Truth--which did not need much demonstration <sup>48</sup> but had not got out of the Circumference <sup>49</sup>, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing <sup>50</sup> with spirits went on--and it did a world of good which never became manifest.,But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly <sup>51</sup> dressed. If the Day of Judgment <sup>52</sup> had only been ascertained <sup>53</sup> to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions <sup>54</sup> artificially preserved and mended, such gallant <sup>55</sup> swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters <sup>56</sup> rang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle <sup>57</sup> of silk and brocade and fine linen <sup>58</sup>, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring <sup>59</sup> hunger far away.,Dress was the one unfailing talisman <sup>60</sup> and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended <sup>61</sup> to the common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate `frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings.' At the gallows ⁶² and the wheel--the axe ⁶³ was a rarity--Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out!,Most countries refuse to give sanctuary to people who hijack aeroplanes.大多数国家拒绝对劫机者提供庇护。,The designation of special marine reserves and marine sanctuaries shall be subject to the State Council for approval. 海洋特别保护区
、海上自然保护区的确定，须经国务院批准 。 来自《简明英汉词典》