jeu de mots

It is simply a jeu de mots, and no more, though funny enough as it stands.

"And yet I have heard your Grace indulge in the jeu de mots," answered the attendant.

My 'jeu de mots' became celebrated, and the marshal honoured me with a very gracious welcome.

The audience thereupon exclaimed, "Languille crie avant qu'on l'corche;" and hence the "jeu de mots," and the proverb.

Here, as in so many other cases, difference of idiom destroys a jeu de mots.