Besides the soldiers who formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.
You know that I am not jesting; I mean what I say.
Marshal Marmont, who commanded the scattered troops in Paris, had received no orders, beyond a jesting command from the duke of Angouleme to place them under arms "as some windows might be broken."
It is on the site of the Roman Pistoriae, which is hardly mentioned in ancient times, except for the destruction of Catiline's forces and the slaughter of their leader near it in 62 B.C., and as a station on the road between Florentia and Luca; and earlier still by Plautus, but only with jesting allusion to the similarity of the name to the word pistor (baker).
One is lucky when the insolence of a wretch like this only shews itself in the guise of jesting.
