That Night in Varennes (1982)

Daniel Gélin: De Wendel

Photos 

Quotes 

• De Wendel : In Strasbourg, he was known as a gambler, as a man who ran lotteries, designed textiles, directed plays, dabbled in the occult.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : As a seer too!

  De Wendel : But mostly for his boudoir escapades.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : When I used to go to Paris, I even heard Madame de Pompadour was mad for him. It seems no woman could resist your compatriot.

  Virginia Capacelli : Thank you, Madame!

  [to Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne] 

  Virginia Capacelli : Did you really travel with him?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But, I assure you I resisted him.

• De Wendel : Your pasts are so eventful that you neglect the present. You haven't even noticed the three ladies here watching you. The looks they're giving you. Who knows, maybe I'll witness in this very coach, between two relays, the 1,000th conquest, Mr. de la Bretonne or Mr. Casanova.

  Casanova : What a pain in the ass.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Why not give Mr. Wendel that pleasure? True, the conditions aren't ideal, six people in a carriage, four more than necessary. But you've been in more desperate straits and come out ahead. I remember, Mr. Restif, reading some of your truly perilous adventures with a husband snoring in bed beside you.

  Virginia Capacelli : No.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Yes! Or in a confessional within convent walls, on a river barge, up a tree, in a stable, with a girl holding yarn for her blind mother making a skein. You can't be defeated by a stagecoach.

• De Wendel : The mistake of governments is to govern too much.