Jean-Louis Barrault credited as playing...
Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: A German traveler wrote of the politeness of the French. He must not have met you during his travels.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: You, the wealthy, don't be harsh and haughty. Beware, judges. A deadly revolution is in the making. The nobility hasn't understood the people. The clergy has lost contact with them. Soon the people will fight social injustice. Everyone will be a citizen. Hear the voice of a plebeian who lives with the people.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: I won't discuss Mr. Casanova's literary talents, but as for his exploits in love, I have some reservations. First, he's too big. I told him: the best lovers are always of small stature. That's been proven.
- Countess Sophie de la Borde: Proven by whom?
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: The influx of blood, which gives the virile member its power is all the greater and fiercer if the area to be irrigated is smaller.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: Feast for the eyes, ecstasy for the soul! Undeniable proof of God's existence! To have loved others is like having thrust one's sword into water a hundred times. Oh, to fondle those tiny sparrow feet! Those slim doe-like ankles.
- Madame Faustine: Come on up. I could introduce someone to you.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: No, it's too late. Tonight I've got printing to do.
- Madame Faustine: Must be urgent if you don't have time to sing a lullaby to a lovely young thing whose tiny feet are encased in green satin mules with pink heels.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: I often think the most unpardonable of all my mistakes was to not accept your marriage proposal.
- Madame Faustine: You still remember? We were both so young. My business was starting to boom. I could have provided you with money and you would have always had new girls.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: I have always preferred you to your girls. You know that.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: My poor girl. Fate dealt you such a lousy father.
- [kisses Agnès cheek, then leans down to suck on her breast]
- Madame Adélaïde Gagnon: You've spent time at the court in France?
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: Mr. Casanova has been the toast of every court in Europe.
- Casanova: It wasn't a great privilege. Courts aren't the gardens full of rare blossoms people imagine. I mostly met wrinkled old countesses and princesses.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: I haven't introduced myself: Nicolas-Edmé Restif de la Bretonne.
- Casanova: Who wrote "Fanchette's Foot", "The Bastard Daughter", "Parisian Couples", "New Abelard", "Contemporary Women"?
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: At your service. Thank you for not mentioning, "The Perverted Peasant".
- Casanova: I've read and enjoyed that too. But it's obviously not your favorite.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: Some fathers prefer their least gifted children.
- 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.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: Damned bladder! To get this old and have to pee constantly. And with such pain.
- Casanova: You always get punished in the places where you sinned.
- Casanova: Making love in a carriage, which we may have done anyway, or in the most secret alcove, is all the same. What matters is - that there should be - is that, in lovemaking, there should be - should be...
- Madame Adélaïde Gagnon: There should be - what?
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: Mystery.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: A while ago, in the street, I watched the faces of those peasants. They weren't moved. They weren't children happy to have found a "long lost father." Those faces betrayed centuries of famine, of destitution, and humiliation and the fear that today may not be the end of such injustices.
- Thomas Paine: For that they'll have to wait for a future occasion.
- Casanova: I'll head for Verdun. I don't enjoy attending a king's funeral.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: The French people don't want his death.
- Casanova: My dear Restif, when a king is captured, not by another king, but by a postmaster, he's as good as dead.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: Idiocy is the worst betrayal of all.
- Thomas Paine: And no revolution can succeed without it.
- Thomas Paine: It must be exhausting to play king.
- Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne: The greater the task, the greater the honors.