“Indeed,” said the Duke, “ ‘mentality,’ you say; I must make a note of that; I shall use it some day.” This was no figure of speech, the Duke having a little pocketbook filled with such “references” which he used to consult before dinner-parties. “I like ‘mentality.’ There are a lot of new words like that which people suddenly start using, but they never last. I read somewhere the other day that some writer was ‘talentuous.’ You may perhaps know what it means; I don’t. And since then, I’ve never come across the word again.”

“But ‘mentality’ is more widely used than ‘talentuous,’ ” the historian of the Fronde made his way into the conversation. “I am on a Committee at the Ministry of Education at which I have heard it used several times, as well as at my Club, the Volney, and indeed at dinner at M. Emile Ollivier’s.”