IvIBRARY

OF THE

University of California.
GIFT OF

GEORGE MOREY RICHARDSON.

Received, August, i8g8.

.Accession No. !>lg.^/^ Class No..

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 ^-c

ENGLISH ESSATS FROM A FRENCH PEN

 — — — — —

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

ENGLISH WAYFARING LIFEl IN THE

MIDDLE AGES (XlVth Century). Translated by L.
T. Smith. Revised and Enlarged by the Author.
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'
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 fVT;^'

fanit Ccf^.jtc :^tmtr Sum kttciiCtc if

FRENCH SHIPS, OFTHE EARLY PART OF THE XV T 'l' CENTURY,
ILLUSTRATIVE OF REGNAULT G RAR DS J I U RN EY.
Walter 1., Cells, Ph.Sc-.
ENGLISH ESSAYS
FROM

A FRENCH PEN

J. J. JUSSERAND
fl

Ministre Plenipotentiaire

New York: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

London: T. FISHER UNWIN
1895
 <

72-^/2.

All rights reserved.

 / have to present my best thanks to Mr,
James Knowles and to Messrs. Lawrence and
Bullen^ who very kindly authorize me to

reprint the " Journeys " to Scotland and to

England^ first published in the " Nineteenth

Century^'' and the essay on Paul Scarron^
printed as an introduction to " The Comical

Romance and other tales^ illustrated from the

designs of Oudry'' (^Lawrence and Bullen,

1892).
T
June 9, 1895.
 . .

CONTENTS
I. The Forbidden Pastimes of a Recluse —
England, XIIth Century II

11. A Journey to Scotland in the Year 1435 24

1. Regnault Girard 24
2. The journey 30
3. The stay in Scotland ... 35
4. The end of the negotiation 43
5. The homeward journey . .
49
6. The end . .
59
III. Paul Scarron ... 62
I. The cripple 62
2. The husband 86
3- The poet 100
4- The dramatist 112
5- The novelist 125
6. Scarron's fame 148

IV. A Journey to England in the Year 1663 158

I. The traveller introduced 158
2. Sorbieres's journey 162
3- London Town ... 167
4- Out of town 179
5. Sorbieres's " impression d'ensemble " 182
6. Sorbicres publishes his book. The conse-
quences of the deed 184
 '

8 CONTENTS.

V. One more Document concerning Voltaire's page

Visit to P^ngland ... ... ... ... 193

Appendix —
1. Mediaeval Shipping (extract from a letter by M.
Ch. de la Ronciere, January, 1895) ... ... 206
2. A note by Esprit Cabart de Villermont, con-
cerning Scarron and his wife (copied from the
fly-leaf of the " Apologie pour M. Duncan
preserved in the Paris National Library ; Press
mark, Td. 86-14) ••• ••• ••• ••• ^^^

3. A description of Hatfield by Samuel de Sorbieres,

1663 212

4. French text of a Letter by Count de Broglie con-

cerning Voltaire's " Henriade," 1727 214
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
I. —French ships of the early part of the XVth
century ; illustrative of Regnault Girard's
journey to Scotland ; from MS. Fr. 2609,
in the National Library, Paris, fol. 268
Frontispiece

2. —The tower, with the chain, at the entrance of

La Rochelle harbour ; actual state. 'To face p, 53

3.
— '' Arrival of the Players at Le Mans," being
the first plate of a series of illustrations
drawn by Pater for Scarron's ''
Comical
" "
Romance ; "Surugue sculpsit, 1729
To face p, 155

4. — Portrait of Sorbieres, by N. Bonnart 1664

To face p. 158

5. — Clemency of Henry IV. at the battle of Ivry

—from London the edition of the " Henriade,"

published by subscription in 1728. *'

¥. Le
Moine inv. ; L. Desplaces sc.'* — thus de-
 ;

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

scribed by Voltaire, who, long before, sent to

Thieriot an account of all the plates he meant
to order from Coypel, Galloche, &c., for his

poem :
" VIP Chant. — Une melee au milieu
de laquelle un guerrier embrasse en pleurant
le corps d'un ennemi qu'il vient de tuer
plus loin Henri IV., entoure de guerriers
desarmes qui lui demandent grace a genoux."
—To Thieriot, Sept. ii, 1722 ... I'd face p. 193
lEriGlisb Essays ftoni a jfrencb
pen.

I.

THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A

RECLUSE.
(England —Twelfth Century.)

ETHELRED, Ailred, or Aeldred, sometime Abbot

of Rievaulx, then one of the most important
monasteries and now one of the finest ruins in
England, was born at Hexham about 1109. He was
brought up at the court of David, king of Scotland,
the founder of Melrose and Holyrood, and was the
companion of Henry, son of that king. He was
appointed Abbot of Rievaulx in 1146, and died twenty
years later, famous for his piety, his wisdom, and his
religious zeal, no less than for his learning and his
12 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
works. He left a great many writings on historical
or theological subjects, all of them in Latin. He was
canonised in 1191, and his feast is on the 12th of
January.
He had a sister, sister in the flesh and in the
spirit, " carne et spiritu," says he, whom he dearly
loved, and who, following examples not very rare

in those troubled times, had become an anchoress

or recluse. Recluses and hermits were numerous ;

they assigned to themselves strict duties, and pledged

themselves to the practising of very severe austerities,
the hardest of these being their total separation from
the outside world. Not a few discovered, when the
great resolve had been taken, that the Tempter was
not to be met only in public places and in merry
gatherings : he found his way into the best-immured

cells, and knocked at the gate of the heart. And the

gate of the heart sometimes opened, and the life of
austerities came to an end. It had begun as a canticle,

and ended as a fabliau.

This juxtaposition of contraries is of constant occur-

rence in the Middle Ages ; opposite extremes are drawn
to each other and meet. The wealthiest convents
belong to friars who have made a vow of poverty mad ;

songs and pious songs are sung at Christmas to the

same tunes : songs so holy that they seem to come
 THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A RECLUSE. 13

from heaven, and songs so revolting that a certain

notable man, according to Gascoigne, died of shame

at the mere remembrance of them. Anchoresses flee

from the v^orld, and settle, each one by herself, in a

cell, there to think only of God and of their salvation.
In those quiet retreats, far from the multitude, sheltered
from the noise of the great v^orld, dead as it seems to
the joys of life, recluses, instead of finding rest, found
trouble. Mundane thoughts could not be walled out ;

unedifying stories recurred to their mind, and filled it

v^ith indecent images ; in their peaceful fortresses they

had to undergo sieges ; the world might be ignorant

of the fact, but their confessor knew it. The unfortu-
nate recluses were besieged by Love.
To this testifies Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx. He
himself never led the life of a recluse ; he is sorry for
it, because he would otherwise be in a better position
to give useful counsel, and others would be able to

profit by his experience. ^ But he has at least observed

the people about him ; and so, while deriving from
St. Benedict most of the advice he gives con-
cerning food, raiment, fasting, &c., he adds, "some
things meant especially for this time and country '*
;

pro loco et tempore quadam. In these *' things " lies

^ "Utinam a sapicntiore id pctcrcs ct impctrarcs : qui non con-

jectura qualibct scd cxpcrientia didicisset quod alios doceret."
14 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN
the main interest of his ''
Rule for Recluses, written
for his sister" ;
^ a work not often read to-day, but
which deserves to be better known, as it affords a most
curious illustration of the manners of that remote
period.

It is, says he, a very good thing to shut one's self up,

like the hermits of old who lived in the desert, or like

those who, impelled by a pious zeal, cause themselves to

be immured in their cells. But to shut the body in is

nothing ; the danger will continue great, even for the

body, if the soul wanders, and if,
'*
owing to vain talk,

the mind journeys towards the towns, amongst the

streets, to fairs and places where people are gathered
together/'
A breach exists in the anchoresses' holy citadel ; the
door is closed, or even walled up ; but there remains
the window. This is the weak point ; and through it

the foe will get in. He will enter under various dis-
guises ; illegitimate thoughts will creep in, laughable
tales will be told ; at times also the enemy will take

less immaterial shapes. The window is the cause of

the main anxieties felt by the authors of rules for
^ " Regula sive Institutio Inclusarum, ad sororem." — " Lucas
Holstenii . . . Codex Regularum monasticarum." August! Vin-
delicorum, 1759, fol., vol. vi. p. 420. The oldest MS. of the
"Regula" preserved in the British Museum is the MS. Cotton
Nero, A. iii.
 ;

THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A RECIUSE. 15

recluses. An opening doubtless was needed to let day-

light in, and in the case of an immured cell food also.

But what a dangerous need ! Most of the evil that

happens is to be traced to the window. In the famous
Ancren Riwle^^ drawn up in the following (thirteenth)

century, the *'

caveats " are as numerous and pressing
as they are here. " My dear master," a recluse is

supposed to say to the author of the Riwle^ " is it now

"
so very evil a thing to look out ^

*'
Yea it is, dear sister, for the harm that comes of it

is evil above evil to every anchorite, and especially to

the young. ... If any one reprove them, then they

immediately say :
'
Sir, she does the same who is better

than I am, and knows better what she ought to do.'

O dear young recluse, often does a right skilful smith

forge a full weak knife ; the wise ought to imitate
wisdom, not folly."

The same anxieties are displayed by Abbot Aelred.

The recluse, as he describes her, sits at her window, and
through the window, busy and inventive as a prisoner,

she manages to arrange for herself a sort of active life

she follows worldly interests ; she wants to escape

the monotony of protracted meditations and long
prayers. There are recluses who by means of their
' " The Ancren Riwle," ed. J. Morton, London, Camden
Society, 1853. 4to» P- 53-
 ^

1 6 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN.

window addict themselves to the tilling of the land or
the keeping of a herd, and who give so much attention
to the cultivation of the fields around them that you
would take them for ladies, not for anchoresses.

Others call children together, and while away the

time by keeping a school ; the children sit under the
porch, and the recluse teaches them from her window :

" Ilia sedet ad fenestram, istae in porticu resident."

She encourages, rewards, punishes them, and on occa-
sion — poor secluded —
woman covers them with kisses,
calling a little one who weeps her daughter, her
''

friend." 2

Sometimes —Aelred even says " often "

— the occu-
pations are of a much lighter and more objectionable
kind. Before the window, always the window, an old
woman " vetula " is sitting, and she assigns to herself
the task of entertaining the recluse. She tells her the
last scandal of the town, the newest gossip ; she gives
an account of the mad pranks of young libertines ; she
tells her some of those merry tales which are the

^ " . . . Vel multiplicandis pecoribus inhiant : tantaque sollici-

tudine in his extenduntur ut eas matres vel dominas familiarum

aestimes, non anachoretas."
^ " Nunc ridet nunc minatur, nunc percutit, nunc blanditur,
nunc osculatur, nunc flentem vocat pro verbere propius, palpat
faciem, stringit collum, et in amplexum ruens, nunc liliam vocat,
nunc amicam."
 2

THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A RECLUSE, 17

groundwork of fabliaux. Were her stories in verse,

t'hey would in fact be real fabliaux. The case is not
an isolated one ; the same thing happens, the same
garrulous old woman is to be observed, *' with nearly
all the recluses of our time." Stories are thus circu-

lated of dissolute monks, wanton girls, and wronged

husbands. Most of the typical heroes of the Deca-
nter one are called up by Aelred long before their day,

and we gather from the account he supplies of those talks

under the window that the stories were as complete as

Boccaccio^s. The old woman would give descriptions

of the personages, details concerning their outward
appearance, their features, their manners and their

ways ; also full particulars about the tricks resorted to

by wives to deceive their friends or husbands.' There

can be no doubt as to the nature of those tales : except
for the verse they are fabliaux, that is laughable tales;
for Aelred adds : " The lips thereupon are shaken

' " Vix aliquam inclusarum hujus tcmporis solam invenics, ante
cujus fcncstram non anus garrula vcl nugigcrula mulicr sedcat,
quae cam fabulis occupct, rumoiibus aut dctractionibus pascat,
illius vel monaci vcl clerici vcl alterius cujuslibct ordinis
illius

viri formam, vultum moresque dcscribat. Illcccbrosa quoquc

interserat, puellarum lasciviam, viduarum, quibus licet quidquid
libet, conjugum in viris fallcndis cxplcndisque voluptatibus astutiam
dcpingat."
'-'
"Les Fabliaux sont dcs contcs a rire, en vers." Bcdicr, " Les
Fabliaux," 1893, p. 6.

3
 ^

1 8 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN,

with laughter, and the sweet poison, once drunk, per-
vades the heart and the whole body."
Those old story-telling women are very dangerous ;

recluses are never tired of listening to them ; and they

give them, as a reward, all they can, and share their
food with them. Left alone, at dusk, they suffer no
longer from their solitude ; the image of the heroes of
those amusing tales has remained in their minds, and
keeps them company ; the long hours have become
short ; they are ''
inebriated '*
by such sweet remem-
brances, and now " they go wrong while singing their

psalms and have falls while reading the day's lessons.*'

What, then, is the ultimate result of those talks, the

memory of which so completely fills the mind, and
which run on things so pleasant, it seems, to remember,
but so ugly in truth to look at .^ The result is that
the listener sometimes assumes a less passive role ; she
first liked to hear, and now she likes to imitate ; she
will soon become herself a fit subject for a tale or a

fabliau. She thinks, she contrives ; assignations are

made, and the pure cell meant for a holy life is trans-

formed into a place of debauchery.

^ "Nam manifestior sermo non jam de accendenda, sed potius
desatianda voluptate procedens, ubi et qiiando et per quern possit
explere quod cogitat, in commune exponunt. Cella utitur in
prostibulum, et delicato qualibet arte, foramine, aut ilia egreditur,
aut adulter ingreditur."
 THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A RECLUSE. 19

Thus the recluse in her turn supplies the authors of

fabliaux with plots for which they will not, this time,
have to look beyond the mountains and the seas. They
will only have to open their eyes and ears, and note what
takes place around them. If a small number among
the popular tales of the Middle Ages come from India, a

much larger proportion are made out of real life, true

events, traits of character, which it was possible for the

observer to note in many countries during that period.

The holy Abbot of Rievaulx relates himself, by way of
example and admonition, one or two knaves' tricks,

drawn from life, which have been the subject of many

licentious fabliaux ; standard tricks, if one may say so,
which are to be found in every collection of tales. The
very title of one of the chapters of his " Rule for
Recluses ''
might indeed be taken for the title of a
chapter in the Decamerone,^
What must be done therefore in a time when the
religious rules are so hard, and physical passions so
vehement ? Aelred does not hesitate : the rules must
be made harder ; all communication, all contact, every

worldly sight is to be avoided. Beware of every man,

even of your confessor ; do not take pleasure in seei
him too often ; do not fail to choose him as old

^
'i Contra illos qui dicunt se esse frigidos, vel impotentes, et
lecto se cum mulieribus ponunt, duplex malum cumulantes."
 20 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
possible ; be careful never to allow him to play with

your hand :
" Nee ipsi manuni suam tangendam praebeat
vel palpandam."

Younger men must of course be avoided with even

greater care ; for it much more difficult, the holy
is

Abbot says, to resist them. Mind you do not accept

from some young man, " under pretence of spiritual

amity, letters or little gifts." ^ Do not embroider for

him, " as is done so often,'' purses or girdles in threads
of various colours. All this serves no purpose, ^'
but
to foment unlawful love, and cause great sins." For
no doubt is possible, the fortress is besieged, ar.d Love
is the besieger.
One cannot bemuch on guard against Love.
too
On account of him many sorts of good works will have
to be discarded. Helping the poor, sheltering the
traveller, are works of mercy ;
yet the recluse will
abstain from them. A very difficult rule, the recluse

will perhaps say; what can I do to prevent "clamouring

poor, weeping orphans, crying widows from gathering
round my cell ?
" How can their coming be avoided ?

^ " Adolescentium et suspectarum personarum devita colloquium

. , . Nunquam inter te et quemlibet virum, quasi occasione exhi-
bendae charitatis vel nutriendi afFectus, vel expetendae familiaritatis
aut amicitiae spiritualis, discurrant nuntii ; nee eorum munuscula
literasque suscipias, nee illis tua dirigas, prout moris est, puta
zonas, marsupia, quae diverse stamine variata sunt."
 THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A RECLUSE. 21

For the poor flock there, and they give vent more
freely to their noisy supplications as they stand under
the v^indow of a woman who is godly, and who,
besides, cannot move away. Never mind, the abbot
answers, ^'
be seated, keep silent, let them alone ;

they will at length perceive that you have nothing,

and can give nothing ; they will get tired and desist." ^

To fortify herself against the temptation to be charit-

able, the recluse will live only upon the produce of her
own work ; or, if that is not possible, she must, before
she is shut in, make arrangements with trusty people,

*Mn order that there may be brought to her each day

exactly what she wants for a day.'' 2

Those herds of beggars are more dangerous than

they seem ; and here again Aelred sketches a little

scene worthy of a fabliau or of the Decamerone. In

the midst of those beggars, cripples and wretches, the
same enemy, the great and sweet enemy. Love, finds

^ " Non circa cellulam ejus paupcrcs clamcnt, non orphani

plorcnt, non vidua Icm^ntctur. Sod quis, inquies, hoc potcrit
prohibcre ? — Tu scde, tu tacc, tu sustine ; mox ut sclent tc nihil
habere, seque nihil rcccpturos, vel fatigati discedcnt.'*
2 " Ouod reclusa dc proprio labore vivat ... Si autem aut
infirmitas, aut tcncritudo non permittat, antcquam includatur,
ccrtas personas quasrat, a quibus singulis dicbus quod uni diei
sufficiat, humiliter recipiat ; nee causa pauperura vel hospitium
quidquam adjiciat. . . . Magna? infidelitatis signum est si inclusa
de crastino sit sollicita.'
22 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
his way. Unobserved in the group of the poor, some
perfidious woman, a tempter, " insidiatrix pudicitias,"

will come quite close and speak to you in favour of a

monk or a clerk, and drop melting words, " blanda

verba," into your ear. Your alms will be the pretext
and the means ; she will come quite close to kiss

your hand, under pretence of gratitude.

Hospitality is much less to be recommended to a
wise recluse, even that rough sort of hospitality which
a recluse could give, and which consisted in allowing

some women to sleep under the shelter or porch before

her window :
" ante inclusas fenestram discumbentes.'*

For in such cases, no one sleeps ; neither the recluse

nor her guests, among whom will often be found women
of the worst kind, " pessimae," who will not talk much

about religion, you may be sure, but " about love " ;

and almost the whole of the night will be thus spent

without sleep. I Under the window of the recluse, all

the night long, Love keeps watch.

^ "Cavendum praeterea est, ut nee ob susceptionem religiosarum
foeminarum quodlibet hospitalitatis onus inclusa suscipiat. Nam
inter bonas plerumque etiam pessimae veniunt, quas ante inclusa
fenestram discumbentes praemissis valde paucjs de religiosis ser-
monibus ad saecularia devolvuntur, inde subtexere amatoria, et
noctem fere totam insomnem ducere. Sane tu tales devita, ne
cogaris audire, quod videre horreas forte enim videbuntur amara
;

CLim audiuntur vel cernuntur, quae sequuntur dulcia cum cogi-

tantur."
 THE FORBIDDEN PASTIMES OF A RECLUSE. 23

The World must be shut out ; the cell must be

bare :
" the walls must not be hung, nor covered with

various paintings." ^ In the case of absolute necessity,

and this is in truth a very notable concession, the
recluse will be allowed the help of a matron to whom
her relations with the outside will be entrusted, and of
a serving maid, who will carry the wood and water,
and bake the peas and vegetables. But it must be
understood that each of the two shall be perfect of
her kind ; neither talkative, nor quarrelsome, nor
addicted to tale-telling. The maid especially must be
closely watched for fear, by means of her, the
lest

Fiend should get access to the house " Ne forte ejus

:

lascivia tuum sanctum habitaculum polluatur."

Thus did the holy Abbot of Rievaulx show the
way to heaven to his dearly beloved sister, allowing her
to profit by his own observations (as he is careful to

note here and there :

''
I knew a certain monk. . . ^
*'
I saw a man . . .*') ; and thus he taught her by
what hard means and cruel sacrifices a life of quiet,

pleasing to God, could be led, in the stormy days

when King Henry the Second reigned over England.
' "Est ctiam quasdam species vanitatis in afFectata aliqua pul-
chritudine etiam intra cellulam delcctari, parietes variis picturis
et cclaturis ornare, oratorium pannorum ct imaginum varietatc
decorare. Haec omnia, quasi professioni tuae contraria, cave."
 —

II.

A JOURNEY ro SCOTLAND IN THE

TEAR 1435.

I. Regnault Girard.

JOURNEY
A fifteenth

tourists
century,
have
to

since
Scotland
the
was
pleasure
accomplished.
not,

trip so
It
in

was a
the
many

serious and difficult undertaking, not to be attempted

lightly. The men from abroad who visited the
kingdom in those times usually came on important
business ; they came, in fact, because they could not do
otherwise ; salmon and grouse were not considered then
a sufficient attraction ; no hotels had been built in

picturesque spots, the beauties of Loch Lomond and

Loch Katrine were allowed to pass unobserved and un-

visited.

The country was so far distant, so secluded from

the rest of the world, that rather vague notions were
 a

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 25

entertained as to its very situation. We have an

account of the kingdom, written in the year 1498, in
which it is described as ''
bordering by sea on Brittany,
France, and Flanders. Towards the west there is no
land between Scotland and Spain. Scotland is nearer to
Spain tha'i London."^ Strange as it may seem, these
geographical particulars are not supplied by some
ignorant compiler writing from hearsay, but by no less
a person than Don Pedro de Ayala, Spanish ambassador
at the Scottish Court. He had drawn up his report at

the particular request and for the enlightenment of his

masters, Ferdinand and Isabella, "who desired a full
description of Scotland and its king."
Near to France and Spain as the country was
supposed to be, according to ambassadorial observation,
still experience proved that the journey was not a short
one. Tempests were frequent, much more indeed than
now, for the reason that what we call a rough sea was
a storm for the quaint unmanageable ships of the
period. The sea, besides, was held by the English —
fact which contributed in no slight degree to diminish
the enjoyment of journeys between Scotland and the
Continent. The actual ruler of the country, King
James the First, was a living example of what could be
* " Early Travellers in Scotland," cd. P. Hume Brown,
Edinb., 1891, 8vo, p. 48.
26 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
expected, as he had been taken by the English in his
youth, when on his way to France, and had remained
nineteen years a captive in the Tower of London, at

Newark, Evesham, and in other prisons.

When the sea was smooth, and the EngUsh were

busy elsewhere, then the traveller had to fight

another enemy, namely ennui : he had no comfortable

accommodation in which to sleep away the time, no
novels to read, no tobacco to smoke ; the numerous
days he was bound to spend in his ship appeared even
more numerous. Froissart has given us a description
of those long tiresome journeys, and the means resorted
to in order to fill the empty hours : passengers played
dice, or made bets ; a knight laid a wager that he
would climb in full armour to the top of the mast;
while performing the deed his foot slipped, he fell into
the sea, and the weight of his armour sank him in a

moment. " All the barons were much vexed at this

misfortune," observes Froissart by way of funeral

oration, " but they were forced to endure it, as they

could not in any way remedy it."

Tiresome or dangerous as they were, still journeys

had to be undertaken. Scotland played then a part of
its own in European politics ; she fought the English
not only on the Border, but also by the Loire, with her
auld ally, France. Intercourse had to be kept up.
 '

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 27

Ambassadors came from the French or Spanish king,

from the Pope, from the fathers of the Basle Council.
Several of them took care to leave an account of their

experience of far-off Scotland, and their journals have

been recently collected by Mr. P. Hume Brow^n under
the title " Early Travellers in Scotland.'' There will

be found descriptions of the kingdom by Jean Froissart,

iEneas Sylvius Piccolomini, who was to be Pope Pius
the Second, George Chastelain, Pedro de Ayala, and
others. This fine collection is not however quite
complete, and one at least very curious document has
escaped the notice of the learned editor.
This document consists in the report drawn by the
French ambassador sent to Scotland in the years 1434-6
by King Charles the Seventh, to fetch the Lady
Margaret, daughter of James the First, who had been
betrothed six years before to Louis, Dauphin de
Viennois, heir to the crown and the future Louis the
Eleventh. This " Relation ''
remains unprinted to
this day ; it is in French, and is preserved in the
National Library, Paris.
Everybody knows how King Charles of France, who
was not yet Charles le Victorieux, and had not been
rescued by Jeanne d'Arc, wanting to tighten the bonds

^MS. Fran^ais 17330. An edition is being prepared by Mr.

Andrew Lang for the Roxburghe Club.
28 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
between his and the Scottish kingdom, had despatched
in 1427 a mission to King James, asking for the hand
of his daughter Margaret. The mission was composed
of John Stuart of Darnley, '^constable of the Scotch
in Franc?,'' of Regnault de Chartres, archbishop-duke
of Reims, and of Alain Chartier the poet, to whom the
oratorical part of the business had been entrusted.
Alain delivered in the presence of the king, queen, and
assembled Court such a beautiful Latin speech that it

made matters quite easy for the other ambassadors.

The speech has come down to us, and a copy of it is

preserve J at Paris. But, as the betrothed was only three

years old, and the dauphin five, the two royal families
considered that the marriage could be conveniently
postponed, and it was only when the couple had
reached riper years, being then nine and eleven respec-
tively, that the French king decided to send for the
dauphiness that was to be.
His choice for this important mission fell upon
Maitre Regnault Girard, knight. Seigneur de Bazoges,
one of his councillors and masters of the hostel ; a very

worthy man indeed, prudent, trusty, and wise, but as

little warlike and as little inclined to seamanship as he

well could be. The news of the great honour bestowed
upon his person was to him most unwelcome ; the idea
of the turbulent sea and hostile English was too much
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 29

for his pacific mind ; he was, indeed, unable to bear it.

Honest Regnault Girard, knight, forgetting entirely his

knighthood, bethought himself of some means to

eschew the unattractive duty, and resorted to one which
would be considered very strange in our day. He
made it known that he would pay down the sum of
400 crowns to the plucky one who would consent to be
ambassador in his stead.

But even then the thing was considered inconsistent

with the discipline to be maintained in a kingdom.
Charles informed his councillor and master of the
hostel that he had to go in his own person to Scotland,
and in order to be fully assured that the Seigneur de

Bazoges would not escape, he sent the Comte de Ven-

dosme to La Rochelle to see the unwilling ambassador
off. Regnault Girard had therefore no choice ; he had
no shame nor remorse either, for if he was not plucky
he was honest, and we have the story of the 400 crowns
on his own testimony. He has noted it in his " Rela-
tion," as a proof doubtless, if not of his courage, at
least of his wisdom and foresight. " I did not like in
the least to go," says he, not only on account of the
season, '*
but also because the king was at war with the
King of England and the Duke of Burgundy, and
could not expect any help from the Bretons. P'or

which cause the said embassy was a full perilous and

 30 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
dangerous one, and to avoid the danger of the sea I

offered 400 crowns who would undertake

to the one
the journey, so that the king would hold me excused.
But the king would never consent, and ordered me ex-
pressly to go, . . . for I was meant to obey him, as he
was my master and sovereign lord."

</^o > lA. — iHE Journey.

With a sorrowful heart and painful misgivings, the

ambassador got ready and took his way towards the sea.
He was accompanied by his son Joachim ; this one, at

least, had no fear, either of the sea, the English, or

anything. Others came, too, who were also to be of

the journey, among them a famous lawyer, " famosus

clericus," says Bower, Aymeri Martineau byname, who

would be of use to draw up deeds and ducuments ; and

also a man who was to prove very useful in his way,

called Cande, or Crenede in Girard's ''Relation," Hugh

Kennedy of his true name, a sturdy Scotchman, who
had " fait ses preuves " at Beauge by the side of La
Hire, and who, unlike the ambassador, enjoyed the
idea of the expedition very much.
Monseigneur de Vendosme did not fail in his duty,

and met the travellers at La Rochelle, one of the few

ports belonging then to the French Crown. He had
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 3'

with him instructions made out at Orleans and signed

by the king, containing a lengthy account of what the
ambassador would have to say ; also the agreement
between Charles on the one hand and J. Puver on the
*'
other, the latter undertaking to provide the " navy
necessary for the bringing home of the dauphiness,
v^ith an escort of about two thousand Scotchmen.
Puver was to feed them on board and the king w^as to

pay him five reals a head — that is 6,000 reals at the

beginning of the journey, and the remainder on his

return. Then follow some provisoes which we may
suppose made poor Regnault Girard shudder : the king
"
stated what he would do in the case of Puver's " navy
being rifled by the English, and in the case of Puver
himself being taken. If the mishap occurred to the
''
navy " during the outward journey, Puver would
receive nothing beyond what would have been paid
to him at starting ; if it occurred during the home-
ward journey then a full payment would be due. In
case of his being taken, the king " will help him to the

value of 400 reals." The whole being promised by

the prince '^
in good faith, and upon his word as a

king."
These papers and some others having been given to

Regnault Girard, who copies them in full in his *'

Rela-
tion," Vendosme informed him that Charles had taken
32 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
care to fix the particular day on which they were to
sail, namely, the 14th of November, 1434. They
all, therefore, got ready, and at the appointed time the
embassy left the town to go to what was then the
usual starting-place, the little hamlet of Chef-de-Baye,
on the sea, one league from La Rochelle. They were
accompanied by Vendosme and by the good men of the
city on horseback, to the number of one hundred or
more. " We then took leave to go on board, which
was not without great sorrow and tears on both sides.

Then we went into a boat, which took us to a whaler

belonging to me Regnault Girard, of which whaler the
master was (after God) Tassin Petel. We numbered
altogether sixty-three persons, including seamen as

well as land men. Puver was of the journey, and

came in his own ship, which was well filled with
goods."
All went well at first. The travellers had put to
sea " with God's blessing " on the evening of the 14th,

and four days later, on the i8th of November, towards

two in the morning, they found themselves off the
Scilly Islands. But there their troubles began, and
their worst anticipations were fulfilled. " There, on
the we were caught by such a great and
sudden,
marvellous storm, that we missed the harbour in the
said islands. We missed the land of Ireland, and we
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435. Z2>

had, according to the advice of the sailors, to launch

into the great ocean sea. And the said tempest lasted
for five days and five nights ; we were driven more
than a hundred leagues beyond Ireland, according to
the chart. The storm was so great that we were
divided from Puver's ship, and lost sight of her."
The unwilling navigator and envoy was in fact, and
unknown to him, on his way to America. But this
unexpected glory was not reserved for him, and he was
not to discover the other shore of the ''
great ocean
sea." He made a vow to an Irish saint whom he calls

"St. Treigney'' (St. Trenan), who was supposed to

enjoy great influence in heaven, and who had then
a greater fame on earth than he has now ; for which
reason, it will not be perhaps useless to point out how
well chosen the saint was to whom Girard applied in
this pressing necessity. Trenan was a monk of the
sixth century, and a disciple of St. Columba ; he had
had once to undertake, by order of his chief, a journey
between Ireland and Scotland ; at the appointed time,
the pilot who was to guide his ship was not to be
found, and Trenan inclined, therefore, not to go ; but
Columba, addressing him, said :
'*
Go all the same ;

thou wilt find wind and weather as thou wishest."

Trenan put to sea, the winds filled his sails, and it

seemed as if they were guiding the ship themselves;

3
 —

34 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

and the monk reached happily and miraculously the
opposite shore.
Regnault Girard remembered this in good time, and
promised the blessed navigator a silver ship, to be hung
from the roof of his chapel in Wales, v^ith the arms of
France engraved on it. Not in vain. The tempest
abated, and the sailors were again able to steer their
boat. They made anew for Ireland, "and on the 24th
day of the same month of November, by the grace of
God, we reached the extreme end of Ireland, and there
found a very high and marvellous rock called Ribon,
which stands at the very end of all lands, towards the
west. It is an uninhabitable land ; and there we
anchored under the shelter of this rock. But then the
tempest began again, and for five days we had to fight
the storm ; and our anchors and ropes sustained great
damage.''
On the 29th they left their place of shelter, and,

while the sea continued very rough, they " risked the
adventure,'' and followed the Irish coast, though none
of their seamen had ever been there, and the land was
an unknown and a desert one. At length, on the
second day of December, they perceived that the land
was no longer so wild ; habitations were descried, and
they began again to they were. They sailed
know where
past " St. Patrick," then past " Le rax de Cantier "
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435. 35

that is, the Mull of Cantire, a " marvellous place/'

situated " between Ireland and the wild islands of

Scotland." They had then an additional satisfaction,
for they met the long-lost Puver, with his ship, quite

safe.

At last, on the 8 th of January, 1435, ^^^7 fo^^d

themselves once more on dry ground, and they landed
in Scotland, " having remained at sea from the 14th of
November, when we left La Rochelle, for fifty-six days
together, in the very heart of winter, and in stormy
weather. And we had a great deal to endure, we ran
great risks, and experienced adventures which it would
be too long to tell."

III. —The Stay in Scotland.

On Scotch ground Kennedy became a most useful

associate; a true Scotchman, he proved to be hospitable,
clever, and practical. The first thing he did was to
make his companions enjoy the benefit of clanship and
kinship. He took his worn-out fellow-travellers to
the house or " hostel " of a lady to whom he was
related, the house being called '^
Hostel Cambel."
The lady received them very well, and made them
good cheer, the more willingly as a son of hers, as
was the case then in many Scotch families, " had
served the King of France as body-guard."
2,6 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
Thoroughly refreshed and comforted, the travellers

remembered ''
St. Treigney/' and, before beginning
their land journey towards Edinburgh, they made
their pilgrimage and offered to their protector, as

agreed, a silver ship bearing the arms of France.

They had in the meanwhile despatched a messenger
towards King James, to inform him of their coming
and ask to be admitted to his presence. On the 14th
of January, their pilgrimage being ended, they were
again in the friendly house of Kennedy, " who feasted
us greatly. He had called to meet us a number of his
friends and relations. Then we went to Dompbertrain
(Dumbarton) ^ and there remained six days waiting for
the answer of the King of Scotland.'' While there,

they learnt, with no little anxiety, that a brother of

the Scotch queen (Jane Beaufort, granddaughter of
John of Gaunt), " brother also of the Earl of Somerset
in England, had come to Scotland in great state with
a mission to prevent the intended marriage of our lord

the dauphin."
In consideration of this news, Kennedy observed that,

after all the splendour displayed by the English envoy,

^ " C'est un fort des plus munis y ait dans toutc I'Escosse
qu'il
et a cause de sa situation et de sa nature. Car il est situc tout
proche les confluences des fieuves dans une plaine herbeuse et
comme un rocher aspre et roide." Jean de Blaev, " Le
attache a
Theatre du Monde," Amsterdam, 1654, fol. vol. vi. p. 87.
 .
A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 37

it would be unwise and contrary to the dignity of the

French king if his ambassadors made their entry into

Edinburgh, " which is the chief town of Scotland,"
without having a proper retinue and escort. He
therefore called together as many as he could of his

relations and friends ; they came on horseback, knights

all of them, or esquires, and the French embassy was
thus enabled to make some figure, as they were sixty
horse altogether when entering the town. To honour
them, the king had sent to meet them on their way
the Bishop of ''Brequin'* (Brechin), and others so far
as a town which Girard is pleased to call Liscou, but
better known as Linlithgow.

The entry took place on the 25th of January ; the

ambassadors were lodged at the house " of one Alexan-
der Neppar " ; and there, again, they received the
civilities of the same Bishop of " Brequin," of the Lord
Privy Seal, of the High Chamberlain, of Sir William
Crichton, and many other prelates, knights and esquires.
The following day they were received by James in
person ; he was staying then in the convent of the
Franciscans, according to the wont of the Scotch kings
(and other kings too), who lived then as much as they
could in convents and friaries, not only in consideration
of the holy character of the place, but also because
living there cost them nothing. ** The Scotch kings,"
38 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
writes Pedro de Ayala, " live little in cities and towns.
They pass their time generally in castles and abbeys,
where they find lodgings for all their officers."

James received the ambassadors most honourably ;

he had with him the Bishops of *'

Abredin " and
" Brequin ''
(Aberdeen and Brechin), the Earls of
*'
Glaz ''
and ''
Angluz " (Douglas and Angus), and
others whose names were as accurately noted by Reg-
nault Girard. He listened with great attention to the

message of the chief envoy, who, having had no lack

of time to learn by heart his instructions, explained, we
may believe, with the utmost fidelity, the views of his
master.
But Girard was fated not to find smooth waters
anywhere ; contrary winds arose, and difficulties began.
The questions to be settled were manifold ; first, there
was the marriage itself and the conveying of the young
princess to France, then the question of the French
alliance and the sending of Scotch auxiliaries, the ques-

tion of the expenses of the home journey of the embassy

and their escort, the question of the English war, and
many other questions. And there was one more ques-
tion, not mentioned in the instructions, but which stood
foremost in the mind of James —the question, namely,
of his consenting to part with a beloved and very
youthful daughter, the first-born of a happy marriage.
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 39

the favourite child of the queen, that same Jane Beaufort

whom James had loved while a prisoner at Windsor,
and for whom he had composed his delightful " King's
Quhair." The Scotch royal family was a united, loving
family, and from this came the main difficulty the
French ambassadors had to encounter. James was
bound by his word, but it was not forbidden him to
try to postpone at least the fulfilling of it.

First he appointed representatives to discuss matters

with Regnault Girard ; they discussed for six days

together with great zeal, after which they found them-
selves unable to agree on any point. The affair was
then referred to the king, who said that he could do
nothing without having consulted with the queen. He
thereupon left town and went to " St. Genston " — that
is, St. Johnstown, otherwise Perth —and asked the
ambassadors to meet him there, towards the end of
February.
To Perth the ambassadors repaired accordingly ;

they were presented to the queen, to the future

dauphiness, and to a number of " lady countesses and
baronesses " ; then they resumed their negotiation. A
roll was at last drawn up and signed, which gave them
great satisfaction, and scarcely less to the king, for
there were in it so many clauses and provisoes that it

was impossible not to submit them to the French king

40 ENGLISH ESSA YS EROM A ERENCH PEN,
himself, and this meant no little delay. The roll

ascribed to France the cost of the " navy " to be

purchased and sent to Dumbarton to fetch the princess,
the cost also of the ''
bread, biscuit, beverage, salt and
other victuals," to be consumed in the outward journey.
The King of Scotland would supply meat, fish, butter,
cheese and wood for the homeward journey he would ;

bring together two thousand carefully chosen soldiers,

the choosing requiring, of course, much time, to ac-
company the dauphiness and protect her while at sea.
Besides, the King of Scotland wanted to know where
his daughter would live ; she must have a place assigned
to her, where a Scotchman would be in command ; and
she must be allowed to have Scotch ladies with her.
James, however, understood that it was proper for her
to have also in her retinue French gentlemen and
ladies ''
to teach her the manners of the country, and to
inform her concerning her situation.'' A galley also,
of particular excellence, and carrying crossbowmen and
chosen troops, was to be provided, besides the fleet for

the two thousand men ; on which galley the princess

would take passage. The fleet was bound to reach
Dumbarton in May. And so on.
Nothing obviously could be done without the assent
of the French king. The envoys resolved that two of
them should undertake this additional journey, and go
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 41

back to La Rochelle. Kennedy and Aymeri Martineau

were appointed to do this. Regnault Girard considered
that he had better stay ; but his son Joachim went,
also Dragance, pursuivant of Scotland, and the four
thus departed on Shrove Monday, 1435.
Left alone in Scotland, " which was not without
great regret and sorrow " on his part, Regnault Girard
established his quarters at Stirling, where the Princess

Margaret mostly lived, and having there nothing to do

but to wait for the return of his companions, he found
the time very long and the winter very dull. James
perceived it, and advised the ambassador not to stay at

home so much, but to go about and see the country.

He provided Girard with people to accompany him,

and the French envoy began to visit **
several among
the good towns of the kingdom, to spend time, and
place himself out of the reach of ennui." Girard went
thus to Dundee, ''
where he was greatly feasted by the
burgesses," to St. Andrews, where he was handsomely
received by the bishop and the prior of the place, and
where he had also some intercourse with " those of the
university,'' and to " several other towns and abbeys.'*

He was everywhere welcomed. *'

To speak truth, in all

the places where I went, I was most honourably treated,

for the sake of the King of France, and the greatest
civilities were shown me as well by churchmen and
42 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
nobles as by the common people, and they all evinced
so much good will in all that concerned the King of
France, that I had an impression that nowhere could be
found more loyal Frenchmen.''
Time thus passed ; the appointed date for the
coming of the fleet was drawing near, and there was
no news of the travellers. Girard then asked King
James to take into account the unavoidable impedi-
ments which must have stopped them on their way,
such as the lack of wind, and to agree that the delay
for the coming of the ships might be increased. James
had only pleasure in agreeing ; and the date of the
20th of September, instead of the end of May, was
accepted by him.
In the course of the summer Aymeri Martineau,
accompanied by Dragance, the pursuivant of Scotland,
came back at last, bringing news of the assent of
Charles to several of the conditions proposed, and of
his dissent concerning the rest. Somewhat later the

other travellers, Kennedy and Joachim Girard, came

back also ; they had taken passage on the fleet gathered
together for the bringing home of the dauphiness, and
the said fleet arrived within the delay newly granted by

James, and anchored at Dumbarton on the I2th of

September ''
or thereabout."
 —

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435- 43

IV. The End of the Negotiation.

Aymeri and Kennedy brought letters for Girard

and for the King of Scotland. Charles expressed in
them his satisfaction at the happy turn taken by the
negotiation, congratulated his envoy upon his zeal and
cleverness, expressed the joy he had felt on " hearing
good news of the good health and prosperity of the
King of Scotland, the queen, and their daughter."
He agreed to send the navy for two thousand men ;

Puver would fulfil his contract, and leave La Rochelle

on the 15th of July with his ships ; France would
provide bread, biscuit, salt, and wine; Scotland, meat,
fish, butter, and cheese. Charles would do his best to
secure the wished-for galley meant for the dauphiness.

But no such galley could be found in France, and much

less in Scotland ; for the art of shipbuilding was not
yet a Scottish art, and the hammers were not at work, as

they have been since, along the Clyde. Spain was (with
Italy) the great shipbuilding country ; Charles had sent
there special delegates ; but their success was greatly to
be doubted, for war was raging " between the Kings of
Castile and Arragon. Peace seems to be remote, and
no ships, or almost none, are allowed to leave the
kingdom of Castile."^
^ For details concerning the Spanish galleys of that date, see
Appendix.
44 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
Concerning the attendance of the young princess the
views of Charles greatly differed from those of his
" good brother ''
James ; for the one wanted Margaret
to become as French as possible, and the other wished
her to remain as Scotch as could be. Girard was in-
structed to do all in his power to lessen the number of
people sent to stay with her, to reduce it to nothing if
he could, or, at least, to not more than one or two
women, and as many men :
— " For so long as she will
have with her people of her nation, she will not will-

ingly learn French, nor adopt the manners of the

French kingdom." As for a place of safety under the
command of a Scottish officer, there was no need for it,

for she would stay with the Queen of France, and be

treated as if she were a *'
carnal daughter " of the
French House.
Concerning the two thousand men of the escort, the

King of France would not deprive his brother of such

a valuable force, and they would be sent back to Scot-
land as soon as the journey was finished. Charles felt

the more at liberty to do so, as affairs had taken a

better turn with him ; he had the pleasure to inform
James that " his people had recovered the town and
abbey of St. Denis, which stands near Paris, also the
Pont Sainte-Maxence, upon the Oise river and the
town of Rue on the Somme, to the great confusion
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435- 45

and diminution of his enemies and adversaries/' The

Earl of Arundel had been routed, and it was to be
hoped that, " by the help of God, the French party
would perform great warlike exploits against their

foes." The better to show the excellent state of the

kingdom where the young princess would have soon to

come and live, Charles added, na'ively enough, that he
had sent a great many men-at-arms and crossbowmen
to Normandy, and beyond the Oise river, to continue
the war, " so that he had relieved his provinces of the
men-at-arms, and others who wanted to stay and
plunder there, by which the state of his people had
been greatly improved."
But a more satisfactory piece of information was
supplied in a paragraph where Charles stated that
" Messeigneurs the Duke de Bourbon, constable of
France, the Count de Vendosme, the Chancellor de
Harcourt, the Marshal de Lafayette," and others, to
the number of a thousand horse or more, had gone
" in very great state to the town of Arras," to treat
there of peace with the English, in the presence of
cardinals sent by the Pope. A sort of European con-
gress, in fact, was meeting at Arras, one of the first on
record ; and, whatever should be the outcome of the nego-
tiation, Charles pledged himself to keep his brother of
Scotland well informed of everything, and not to sign
46 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
any arrangement that could in any way slacken the
bonds and impair the old-established alliance between
France and Scotland. So wrote Charles le Victorieux
on the 13th day of July^ 1435? when he was staying in

his castle of Amboise, on the Loire.

All those papers were communicated to James, then

at Stirling. The ambassadors pointed out that the
fleet was now ready, and that the time had come to
fulfil the " appointments ''
agreed upon.
But neither James nor the queen could make up
their minds to part yet with their daughter. James
observed that the fleet had been very slow in coming,
that " winter was very near, and that no marriage was
allowed during that season between right-minded
people.'' He added that the queen would never be
persuaded to consent to it, that the danger from the
sea was very great at this time of the year ;
'*
and that
we knew full well in what peril we had been ourselves
when we came to the land of Scotland.'' A sly smile
accompanied doubtless the delivery of this last observa-
tion.

The ambassadors made counter observations, pro-

duced other papers ; all proved of no avail. It was at

length arranged that Margaret should spend one more

winter in her native country, and that towards the
March moon her father would trust her '*
a I'aventure

de Dieu."
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 47

The fleet, therefore, remained idle at Dumbarton.

The king, after some discussion, consented to pay the
expenses of this prolonged stay, " no small matter, as it

was to last about half a year." Months went on, very

slowly in the estimation of the French ambassadors,

only too quickly for the royal family of Scotland.
The only event which happened in the interval, an
^//
has been noted by Girard, was an epidemic among fc^!A^^ op.^^
seamen of the fleet, of whom a great many died. ^^ \^aS>
^"
In February, 1436, towards Candlemas, the envoys
"
betook themselves to the town of '^
Sainct John Stom
— that is, Perth — to remind the king that " the month
of March was now near,'' and that everything ought to
be made ready for the journey. This time James had
to consent and to prepare in earnest for the fulfilling of
the treaty. A farewell banquet was offered by him to
the ambassadors. They sat at the royal table ; the king
was there and the queen too, *'
sitting next him in a

chair." It was decided that Girard would go to Dum-

barton and see that the fleet were in order, while
Kennedy would stay and assist in the choosing of
the escort.
The following day another ceremony took place, and
a very touching one. The king and queen, the am-
bassadors being present, ordered the young princess to
be brought before them :
** They addressed to her
48 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
several fine words, and memorable ones, reminding
her of the honour done to them by the King of
France, and of the honour of the prince whom she was
to marry. They entreated her to behave well, and
God knows the tears which were shed on both sides,
while this was going on/' The audience having come
to an end, the ambassadors took their leave, and the

poor father, not knowing how to make Margaret

dearer to the French envoy, *'
for the sake of his
brother the King of France, ordered me, Regnault
Girard, to kiss the queen, and the queen kindly and
gracefully consented, and kissed me : which kiss I re-

pute the greatest honour ever bestowed upon me. We

left thereupon.''
The day after, fine gifts were sent by James to the
house where the ambassadors lodged, and " speaking of
this we must not forget that from the day we met him
in his town of Edinburgh in the realm of Scotland,
which was the 25 th of January, 1435, ^^ vvxre defrayed
by him of all our ordinary expenses, wheresoever we
went."
Girard and his son, as well as Aymeri Martineau, left

Perth on the 15th of February, 1436, and went to the

ships to consult with the seamen. They saw that all

would be got ready for the first tides of the March

moon, and in order the better to attend to the business,
 — —

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 49

honest Regnault Girard, bad sailor as he was, went on

board at once and there remained :
" and I kept the
sea for fifteen days before the king came, and I felt

great discomforts."
While he was thus tossing on the water a ship came
from France, with goods to enable him to offer in his

turn presents to the Scotch king. Whatever may have

been the gifts of James, the ambassadorial ones were of
primaeval simplicity. They consisted first of a gentle
mule '-'
ung mullet bien gent ''
—whom " I had
ordered by the advice of Monseigneur de Vendosme,
who had spoken to me about it when I took the sea,

for he had seen the mule himself at La Rochelle. This

mule I caused to be off^ered to the King of Scotland ;

and he received it with great joy, and it was considered

a very strange animal, for there are none in that

country. As for the queen, I caused her to be pre-

sented with three casks full of fruit, such as pears,
apples, chestnuts, and others, and with six casks of
wine ; and she was very happy to have them, for there
is very little fruit in Scotland."

V. The Homeward Journey.

At last, at the beginning of March, the army as well

as the fleet being ready, the king came with the dauphi-
ness to Dumbarton, and with the noblemen who were
4
 —

50 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN,

to accompany her, such as the Bishop of Brechin, the
Count *'
Derquenay ''
— that is, the Earl of Orkney
and other gentlemen whose names are equally trans-
formed by the pen of Girard. One last thing James
would do before trusting Margaret ''
a Taventure de
Dieu,'* and in this his fatherly anxieties appeared again.
'^One day the king came to see the ships, and he
wanted to have a trial of them, and he ordered them to
sail, so that he might ascertain which of them was
fastest and best appointed to carry our said lady. And
he found me there, on the ships, and he treated me
wonderfully well and honourably." A sort of race was

thus run in the presence of James, and it turned out

that the swiftest ship was the one belonging to Peter
Chepye (Percipey as he is called by Bower, whose
narrative closely agrees on many points with Girard's).
'*
It was a new one and an excellent sailer, and had
been built in the kingdom of Spain ; it was agreed that
our whaler would constantly keep by the said ship, to
help and protect our lady in case of need. Of which
whaler my son Joachim Girard had command.''
James having thus arranged matters and left the
ships, ''
the masters of the same were not at all pleased
with the arrangements taken by him, and they began to
discuss the question noisily among themselves. They
came to me, and said that in all the fleet there was but
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D. 1435. 51

one Spanish ship, and that all the rest hailed from
France and Brittany ; that it would put to shame all

the masters of those ships to suffer that our lady the

dauphiness took passage on the ship of Peter Chepye,
that they would not allow it for any consideration,

that they would fight Chepye as soon as they were

in the open sea, whatever be the decision of the King
of Scotland, and that the said Chepye would not
have the honour of carrying their mistress, Madame
la Dauphine."
An additional danger of an unexpected sort was thus
threatening the princess, and who knows what might
have happened if the impending fight had taken place ?

Regnault Girard displayed again in this occurrence the

resources of his diplomatic mind ; he tried his best to
pacify the seamen, he spoke soothing words, and as
these would not suffice
—" for sailors are very difficult

to manage, and they magnify things to a wonder " — he

promised them that as soon as they should be out of
view of the Scottish coast he would put the princess
into the whaler, " and thus the French fleet would

have the honour of carrying her, and by this means I

pacified them."
On the 27th of March the king came for the last

time. He had his daughter with him. He saw her

on board the ship of Peter Chepye, ordered Girard and
52 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
Aymeri Martineau to take passage with her ; the Earl

of Orkney, the Bishop of Brechin, and other noble-

men, and a number of chosen archers came into the
same boat. Hugh Kennedy was in command of one
of the warships called Saint-Gille, The officers,
soldiers, and archers of the escort went on board their
respective ships. Everything being thus arranged, and
no cause or pretext remaining for a more prolonged
stay, the poor father had to take his leave ;
" the king
did not stay long, but went away weeping many tears,

for the sorrow of his leaving our lady the dauphiness

his daughter."

The fleet weighed anchor ; the number of warships

was eleven, containing about one thousand or twelve
hundred men, all of them chosen Scottish soldiers,

without speaking of the sailors manning the fleet, who

were French. The weather was favourable for one
day and night, then contrary winds arose, and, in-

structed by experience, and not at all desirous to risk

the worst, the ambassadors ordered the fleet to go back,
and they stopped for a little while in a harbour of
Scotland. Then the wind turned, and they put to sea
again, and they had fine weather during all the rest of
the passage, ''
thanks be to God, and we came in view
of La Palice, not far from La Rochelle, on the 17th
of April ; and on the following day we reached Chef-
 —

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435. 53

de-Baye, at a distance of about one league from the

said town."

The intention had been to have the city of La

Rochelle prepared and adorned against the coming of
the princess. Margaret would remain in her ship

which ship it was, whether Peter Chepye's or the

whaler, we do not know — till the town was ready.
But a tempest interfered with the ceremonial ; it was
so sudden and terrific that the boat carrying Margaret
had to be conveyed without any delay to the inner
harbour of the town ; the other ships did for

the best, and drew near the great tower with the
chain (still in existence —we give a view of it) ;

but in so doing, one of the ships, built in Brittany,

" was greatly wounded." On that day " our lady
was not shown to the people, because it was late

and the town was not decorated." The day after, at

early dawn, before she could be seen by any one, she

was taken to a neighbouring abbey, and there waited
till the Rochelle people had had time so to adorn their
town that a princess might decently make an entry
into it.

She received in the meanwhile the visit of several

great men sent by the king to conpjratulate her upon
her coming ; among them was the chancellor of the
kingdom, this same Regnault de Chartres, archbishop-
54 ENGLISH ESSAYS EROM A ERENCH PEN.
duke of Reims, who had gone nine years before to

Scotland to ask for the hand of the same Margaret.

On the loth of May, 1436, all was at last ready,
and Margaret, retracing her steps, went back to La
Rochelle, accompanied by a splendid retinue of Scottish
men-at-arms, French noblemen of the region, special
envoys of the king, &c. She was welcomed by the
mayor and the guilds ; a little further on by the ladies

and burgesses, and then " she received a fine present

of silver plate, which she greatly liked, as it was the
first she received in this kingdom."
Then she went to Niort, where she was compli-
mented by the Lady Perrette de la Riviere, dame de la

Roche Guyon, first lady of honour to the queen, and

by Blanche de Gamaches, dame de Chastillon, another
lady of honour ; she passed other towns where she was
received in great state and presented with fine gifts.
At Poictiers brilliant festivities had been prepared for
her ; the mayor and notables came out of the town to
the distance of more than one league; after this she

was met by gentlemen belonging to the Court of

Parliament, then by the doctors and students of the
University, and by representatives of various dignified
bodies. " While she was entering the town a child,
disguised as an angel, was let down from the portal
of the city, and placed a chapel (crown) on her head,
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435- 55

a thing which was most genteelly and craftily per-

formed/' At the main crossings, according to the
custom of the time, Margaret, whose thoughts were,
perhaps, far away, lingering over the beloved remote
places where her childhood was spent, had to admire a
variety of allegorical personages, richly apparelled, and
to listen to numerous complimentary addresses.

While this was going on Girard went to Bourges,

where the king was, to render account of all that had
taken place, and receive instructions for the marriage.
He was graciously treated by the king, who con-
gratulated him upon the success of his embassy, and
appointed that the marriage should take place at

Tours, on the day after the feast of St. John the

Baptist.

All concerned met then at Tours. The king

arrived on the morning of the nuptials, and, as the
manners of the time allowed, went, in order to ascer-

tain how his daughter-in-law looked, ''

into her room
while she was being dressed. He was greatly pleased
with her person, and felt great joy at the sight." So
says Regnault Girard, and well he might, as Margaret
was, according to Mathieu d'Escouchy, *'
beautiful and
well shaped, and adorned with all the qualities befitting
a noble and high lady."
Soon after the princess, wearing the crown, was
 —

56 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN

taken to the door of the church, and there she met and
saw for the first time the prince who was to be her
husband, according to the arrangements signed when
she was three years old. Young Louis wore the royal
garb, and was followed by the princes of the blood.
The marriage was at once blessed and consecrated by
the Archbishop of Reims. " Great was the feast,'*

writes Regnault Girard, who abstains from giving any

details. Not so great, however, for the town accounts

have survived centuries and revolutions, and we still

know exactly what the good men of Tours spent to

welcome the Lady Dauphiness. They had had little
time to get ready, and all they could do is commemo-

rated in the following entries :

Firstly, to Robin Lebarbier, sent to Chinon

and to Loudun, to try and find dresses for a

play to be played on the joyful coming of my

Lady the Dauphiness, for his expenses and
the hiring of his horse ... ... ... 35 sols.

To Richard Gaugain, for four old bed

sheets, used to make three dresses for those

who shall dance the morris before my lady... 15 sols.

To Jean Avisart, tailor, who cut, sewed,

and made the said dresses ... ... ... 15 sols.

To Denis, the painter-glazier, for having

 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435. 57

hastily and richly painted those dresses, and

four beards for the same dancers ... ... 40 sols.

To Gervaise Lechanteur, for twenty-seven

dozens of bells, distributed among the said
dancers and the taborer ... ... ... 30 sols.

To the same, for the hiring of part of

those bells, which were afterwards returned... 5 sols.

To Andre Hacqueteau, saddler, who sewed

on leather the said bells, for them to be
placed on the hands and legs of the dancers 5s. 6d.

To two women who had gathered flowers

to make head-wreaths for the said men ... 2s. 6d.

To Pierre Rossignol (nightingale) and his

companions, minstrels, who sounded their
horns in the hat market on the coming of my
lady ... 10 sols.

To four fellows who built a scaffold on the

drawbridge of the bulwark of Our-Lady-the
Rich, where the organs were. . . . To four
fellows who brought there and back the said
organs ... ... ... .,. ... 3s. 4d.
To master Robert-the-Devil, one of the
dancers, for his trouble, and for having
ordained the said dance ; for having attended
to the making and painting of the dresses, and
for a pair of hose which he asserted to have
burst while dancing ... ... ... ... 30 sols.
58 ENGLISH ESSAYS LROM A FRENCH PEN
We shall stop here our quotations, not without some
suspicion that master Robert-the-Devil who put forth
such assertions, which the town accountant only half
endorses, well deserved, maybe, his nickname. As for

the others, the items concerning them give a clear idea

of what took place, and we see how the inhabitants did

their best, having so little time, to get up a play, tried

to find ready-made dresses, failed, and had to be con-

tent with a morris dance, the dancers being " richly
and hastily " apparelled in dresses cut out of old bed
sheets, and tinkling all over with their twenty-seven
dozens of little bells sewed on their arms and legs.

This sound was accompanied by the music of the

church organ, brought out into the open air for the
occasion. They carry flowers on their heads, they
dance and jump, they make merry, and Robert-the-
Devil distinguishes himself and bursts his hose, " as he
asserts."

The men from Scotland were handsomely treated ;

they received ''

fine gifts " which remain nondescript in

the " Relation " of Girard, now drawing to its close.

A few of her compatriots were allowed to stay with

Margaret. Regnault Girard was appropriately ap-
pointed her first master of the hostel, and Joachim the
esquire of her stables.
''
And thus came to an end the embassy sent to
 — —

A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435- 59

fetch from the kingdom of Scotland our most redoubted

and mighty lady, Margaret, eldest daughter of the king
of the kingdom of Scotland, Dauphiness of Viennois
Thus signed : Regnault —Hue Crenedi —Aymeri Mar-
tineau."

VI. The End.

Festive days passed. The daughter of the Stuarts
was not long in discovering the sort of man she had
been married to. Beautiful and kind, bred at the fire-
side of a loving father and mother, endowed herself
with a loving nature, fond of art and poetry, she found
herself tied for life to a man without a heart, who
never cared for father, mother, or wife, and whose
only interest in life was political ambition. The his-

torian Commines has thus summed up his opinion con-

cerning the tastes and inclinations of his hero :

'*
He
was very fond of falcons, but not quite so much as he

was of dogs. As for ladies, he never cared for them."

Poor Margaret, deserted by her husband, tried to

find some alleviation to her sorrows, and used the

means which had been the resource of her father many
years before, when he was a captive in England.
She read books and wrote poetry. But she could
not forget her grief ;
gnawing thoughts preyed upon
her ; vile calumnies brought her to the verge of
6o ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN
despair. She could no longer rest nor sleep, but sat on
her bed, musing, regretting the dear, far-off mother-
country. *'
Were it not for my pledged word,'' she
said once, ''
I would fain regret having ever left

Scotland."
The king and queen loved her dearly, and did all

they could to soothe her. They lived with her as

much as possible ; they tried to amuse her ; they said

that she should not ''
merencolier " herself so. The
king once inquired why she looked so pale ; a friend

of Louis hastened to answer that the cause was that she

overworked herself "She would,'* he said, "write
roundels, and busy herself so much with such work,
that she would write as many as twelve in a day ; a

thing which is most unwholesome for her."

"What!" said the king, "does such writing give

"
headaches }

" Yes," answered Jean Bureau, who happened to be

there, " to those who overdo it, though such things are
only trifles."

Years went on, Louis forsook her more and more,

she looked paler and paler ; she was fading away.
She died at Chalons on the i6th of August, 1445, a
heartbroken, childless wife, being then only twenty.^

^ The author of the " Liber Pluscardensis " (ed. Skene, Edin-
burgh, 1877-80, vol. i. p. 382; ii. p. 288), who was with her in
 A JOURNEY TO SCOTLAND A.D, 1435. 61

And this was the real end of " the embassy sent to
fetch from the kingdom of Scotland our most redoubted
and mighty lady, Margaret, daughter of the king of
the kingdom of Scotland, Dauphiness of Viennois/'

France, thus concludes his notice of her :

*'
Here follows her
epitaph which was placed upon her tomb after her death, in the
French tongue ; only it is here translated into the Scottish
tongue, bycommand of that Lady's brother, King James II., ot

famous memory :

" He michti makar of the major munde,

Quhilk reuly rollis thir hevinly regionis rownd

About this erd, be mocioune circuler,

Ger all the cloudis of the hevin habound,
And souk vp all thir watteris hal and sounde,
Baith of salt sey, of burne, well and revere ;

Syn to discende in tygglande teris tere.

To weip with me this wofull waymentyng,
This petwys playnt of a princes but peire,
Quhilk dulfull Deed has tane till his duelling." [etc.]

Another daughter of James, Isabel, spent her life in France,

having married the Duke of Brittany. Her Book of Hours was
recently purchased by the National Library, Paris (Nouvelles
acquisitions, 588). Her portrait is to be seen at fol. 33.
 —

III.

PAUL SCARRON,
I. The Cripple.

GREAT things were done in the days of the Grand

Roi. Mighty efForts were made to rule an un-
ruly kingdom, the France of the League and the
Fronde. Battles were won (some it is true were lost) ;

tragedies were written, porticoes were built ; Nature

herself had to submit to the sway of the monarch, and
trees rose '*
en charmilles," at Versailles and elsewhere.
Let us not believe, however, that only porticoes were
built in France at that time, that only tragedies were
written, obeying the stern rules of the three unities,

and that no novels were published but the huge com-

positions of Madeleine de Scudery, telling the wonder-
ful exploits of the Grand Cyrus. Not all trees, in fact,

were cut according to pattern ; all plays did not obey

the three rules ; men were found who did not wear a
62
 PAUL SCARRON. 63

wig : so difficult it is to establish order in a country.

Novels even were written, containing accurate pictures

of plain everyday life. Three at least can be named.
One is by Madame de La Fayette, who gave in her
'' Princesse de Cleves," 1678, an inimitable picture of
court society ; another is the work of Furetiere, whose
'*
Roman Bourgeois'' is an excellent description of
middle-class life in 1666 ; the third and earliest in date,
the most curious of the three, is the ''
Roman Comique,"
165 1, of Scarron, who chose the difficult task of depict-
ing provincial France.
Paul Scarron was the son of a " conseiller au
ment," and was born in Paris in 16 10. Paul Sca^
the father, was a man of importance and belonged to a

good family with aristocratic alliances. When contem-

poraries (Mathieu Mole, for one) allude to the presence
or sayings of councillors, they usually name him among
those to be noticed. He was even exiled by order of
Louis XIII.,' so much attention was paid to his doings.
He was a whimsical man, nicknamed '^
the Apostle ''
by

* "Le Lundi 30 Janvricr [1640] j'ai prcscntc a la cour dcs

lettrcs dc jussion du roi sur Ic rcfus dc verification par Ic Parlc-
mcnt dc I'cdit dc creation dc seize Maitros dcs requetcs. . . .

L'cdit a encore etc refuse. . . . M. Scarron [cut commandment]

de s*en aller en sa maison vers Blois.'' " Memoires de Mathieu
Mole" (Socictc dc I'Histoire de France), ii. p. 475. Cf. Bassom-
pierre's "Memoires" (p. by the same Society), iv. p. 328
64 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
Prince de Conde on account of his constant reading of
the Epistles of St. Paul his patron. He was a passionate

admirer of Ronsard and could never forgive his son who

preferred Malherbe. The poet's mother died when he
was still young, and, his father having re-married, family
life, instead of being thus renewed, turned out to be
definitively broken for the future poet. When he
reached the age of man he began on his own account,
and for the sake of his sisters, a long war with his step-

mother, a rapacious and tyrannical woman. The war,

initiated at home in his father's time, was continued
long after, and had for its seat sometimes the courts
of law and sometimes the booksellers' shops in the
" Galeries du Palais.'* No good came out of it for any
one, both parties finding themselves when it was finished

sore and bruised and the poorer for it.

Scarron was first destined to the Church and was,

from 1633, ^"^^ many years, known as Tabbe Scarron.
At this time he resided at Le Mans, in the house of the
bishop, Monseigneur Charles de Beaumanoir, leading,
however, no exemplary life, mixing with the gayest com-
pany, associating with players — in fact, preparing him-
self much more to write of TEtoile and Destin than to

become a Church dignitary. He was then gaiety itself,

lithe and active. He wrote agreeable verses, was a good

dancer, played on the lute, and was an amateur painter
 PAUL SCARRON. 65

of skill. At all the neighbouring chateaux, especially

among the Lavardin and Tesse families, he was a wel-
come guest.

In 1635 Monseigneur de Beaumanoir had to go to

Rome and did not fail to take there with him the lively
abbe, who was sure to prove a very acceptable travelling
companion. In Rome Scarron improved his acquaint-
ance with painting and painters. Players and painters
were ever among his best friends. He met there his

famous compatriots, Nicolas Poussin and Pierre Mign-

ard, and he began with them an intercourse which
lasted through life. It was one of the peculiarities of
his mind : with all his love of the grotesque and the
burlesque, he had in his heart a veneration for higher
things ; he felt and understood them. His admiration
for the austere genius of Poussin was boundless. In the
same way as the Grand Roi, though being the Grand
Roi, would enjoy " Pourceaugnac," the first representa-
tion of which was reserved for his applause, so Scarron,

though being Scarron, had a passion for the author of

*'
Les Bergers d'Arcadie," now in the Louvre, as well
as for the classical poetry of Malherbe. Those con-
tradictory tastes were frequent at that time ;
people
were not so stiff and one-sided as they are sometimes
supposed to have been ; real birds are known to have
perched on the yew-trees at Versailles.
5
66 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN
In the case of Poussin, however, Scarron's passion
got only a poor return. Nothing is more curious and
characteristic of the man than the circumlocutions and
precautions to which kindly, modest Poussin resorted
in order to avoid expressing too sharply the feelings

that he entertained towards the author of the '^

Virgile

Travesti." He, for one, had no contradictory tastes,

and could not be induced to deride what he at the

same time adored. This Scarron could do ; for all

the travesty he put on the shoulders of Virgil, he none

the less at bottom adored him, as everybody did in
his day. His work was a joke, and he wanted his

readers to take it as nothing more than a gaminerie.

He knew full well, and was ready to agree, that if

it was to be considered in any other light, it could

not but appear sacrilegious. " Mon tres Reverend
Pere/' he wrote once to a reverend father in the Church,
'*
I have heard from you that Father Vavasseur has
written against burlesque style. . . . As I am in a way
the cause of the country having been flooded by works
in that style. Father Vavasseur might as well have called
me to account on that score. Those who believe I should
have been angry do not understand me." ^ Poussin

^ "Vous m'avez appris que le Pere Vavasseur avait ecrit contre

le style burlesque. II a bien fait. . . . Puisque je suis cause en
quelque fa9on du grand debordement qui s'en est fait, le Pere
 PAUL SCAR RON. 67

was among those who "did not understand'* Scarron ;

in the eyes of the painter the burlesque poet was

nothing else than a " new Erostrates/' Each mis-
took the other's temper. Scarron thought he would
be of service to Poussin in making him laugh, and
he never forgot to send him any new book of his

which he considered a laughable one. Poussin, in his

turn, being asked by Scarron for a picture would paint
a bacchanal, but Scarron preferred to obtain from the
high-minded artist something in his highest style and
he insisted upon Poussin painting for him a " Ravisse-
ment de Saint Paul." Poor Poussin was wont then to
open his heart to his friend, M. de Chantelou, to whom
he would write in this strain :
''
I have received from
the master of the French post a ridiculous book con-
taining the facetiae of M. Scarron. ... I perused
the book once and will not open it again ; you will

pardon me if I do not express to you in full the deep

disgust I feel for such works.*' ^

Vavasscur n'aurait pcut-ctre pas mal fait dc s'cn prendre a moi.

Ceux qui vous ont dit que j'cn ctais en colt^re contrc lui ne me
connaissent pas." '*
Les Dernii^res CEuvrcs de M. Scarron," Paris,
174.0 (first edition, 1663), 2 vols, izmo, i. p. 181.
*
"J'ai re9u du maitre de la postc de France un livre ridicule
dcs faccties dc M. Scarron. . . . J'ai parcouru ce livre une seule
fois ct c'est pour toujours : vous trouverez bon que je ne vous
exprime pas tout le dcgoQt que j'ai pour de parcils ouvrages."
Rome, February 4, 1647. "Collection dcs Lcttres de Nicolas
Poussin," Paris, 1824, 8vo, p. 256.
68 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
''
The next year Scarron sends to Poussin his " Typhon
and " threatens " him with his ''
Virgile Travesti'' ; upon
which the painter writes again sorrowfully to his friend :

" I had already written to M. Scarron, in answer to the

letter which I got from him with his '
Typhon '
in

burlesque style; but the one I have just received with

yours is for me a new cause of trouble. I wish he
would desist and end by liking my paintings as little as

I like his burlesque. I am sorry he took the trouble

to send me his work ; but the worst of all is that he

threatens me with a travestied Virgil of his own, and

with an epistle directed to me, which he means to print

in the next book he publishes. He aims, he says, at

making me laugh as heartily as he does himself, cripple

as he is ; but on the contrary I am near weeping when
I think a new Erostrates has been born in our country.
I tell you this in confidence ; do not let him know.
I shall write to him in a different strain, and try
to please him, at least in words.'' January 12, 1648.^
The next year we find Poussin at work on a ''sujet

bachique pour M. Scarron." But Scarron never received

it, as it seems ; he got another instead, painted to his
order : ''I shall be able to send at the same time to
M. I'abbe Scarron the picture I painted for him of the
'
Ravissement ' of St. Paul. You will see it, and will

^ P. 282.
 ;

. PAUL SCARRON. 69

be so good as to tell me your sentiment about it."

Everybody is now able to see it and to express his

" sentiment about it," for the picture is in the Louvre

"
and was long in no less a place than the *' Salon Carre
itself. I
It is the more interesting as it shows the great
influence Domenichino had on Poussin : the admira-
tion of the Frenchman for the Italian is well known
in this particular case Poussin seems to have taken his
inspiration direct from his master, whose picture repre-
senting the same subject of St. Paul carried to heaven
by angels is also in the Louvre.
Scarron had come back to France in 1636, and had
been put in possession of a canonry at Le Mans, where
he seems to have resumed his former gay life. But
the time had arrived when it was to be stopped. Not
long after his return began that strange disease which
baffled all attempts to cure or even explain it. It was a
progressive malady which got possession of him little

by little, attacking his feet, then his legs, then his arms
and afterwards his fingers ; he became a_ paralytic and a
cripple, as helpless as he had been agile before ; he lost
sleep and sufi^ered strange flashes of pain, the usual ac-

companiment of diseases of the spine. His sufl^erings

' Sec a reproduction of it in " The Comical Romance and other

Tales by Paul Scarron," London, Lawrence and Bullen, 1892,
vol i. p. viii.
 '

70 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN

increased as he grew older ; towards the end he could
scarcely write. *'
The extreme tip of my fingers/' he

said, " is the place of abode of a legion of black devils/'

" De mes cinq doigts Textreme region

De demons noirs loge une legion."

" Pour moi/' he wrote on another occasion to the

Comte de Vivonne, *^
I am constantly getting worse,
and I feel I am gliding towards my end at a quicker
pace than I should like ; I have a thousand pains, or
rather a thousand legions of devils in my arms and
legs/' 2 For a long time he could not patiently submit

to what was then an almost unexampled fate ; some-

times he tried remedies, and sometimes he thought of
suicide :
^'
When I think," he wrote to Marigny, ''
that

my mind is not weak, that I have neither ambition nor

avarice, and that, if the powers above had left me the
use of legs which used to dance pretty well and of
hands which knew how to paint and play the lute, the

use, in a word, of a very agile body, I might have led a

happy though rather obscure life, I assure you, my dear

friend, that were it allowed me to get rid of my own
existence I should have poisoned myself long ago." 3

He tried the waters, experimented with strange pills

^ "Dernieres CEuvres," p. 240. Epistre a M. Pellisson.

2 June 12, 1660 (shortly before his death), "Dernieres CEuvres,"
i. p. 55. 3 Ibid.^ p. 61.
 PAUL SCARRON. 71

and queer baths ; but with no effect. In 1641 and 1642

he underwent a cure at Bourbon, and there found him-
self the king of the sick :
— " Many people have I seen,

ugly and pretty, good and wicked, wealthy and poor,

tall and short, all of them more or less disabled, but I

can safely say, and without self-conceit, that there I

was in my own kingdom ; and that everybody paid

homage to me as being sick above them all. All their
diseases put together are trifling when compared to
mine. My body is no longer a human body my skin ;

is a sort of dry vellum, a sieve through which my bones

are cutting holes."

" Certcs, j'ai vu maintes personnes,

Laidcs, belles, mauvaises, bonnes,
Pauvres, riches, petits et grands
Et tous assez mal se portans :

Mais sans vanitc je puis dire

Que la j'etais dans mon empire,
Et que tous m'y portaicnt honncur
Comme a leur malade majcur.
Aussi tous leurs maux joints ensemble
Prcs dcs miens sont peu ce me semble.
Mon corps n*est plus un corps humain ;

Sa peau n'est qu'un sec parchemin

Dont mes os veulcnt fairc un crible." ^

This kingship he retained all his life, and so sure

was he after a while that he would not be dispossessed
^ " Secondc Lcgendc de Bourbon." **CEuvres," 1786, 7 vol. 8vo,
vii. p. 13.
72 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROAl A ERENCH PEN.
of it that he received only with laughter the news of
the coming of a certain Spanish paralytic to make
''assaut de reputation" against him.^
The mystery of this strange disease has been recently
explained. The eminent surgeon, Professor Lanne-
longue, whom I consulted about Scarron, kindly wrote
to me as follows :
— " Not another day must I put off
the poor fellow who has been unable for two hundred
years to find some proper information concerning his

disease. My diagnosis will be the more useful as it

will wash his memory from a charge brought against

him by his contemporaries.^ The least informed are
often the worst accusers. Scarron seems to me to have

suffered from a tuberculous affection of the vertebras,

what we now call Pott's disease. At the time of life

when he was seized with it — that is, when he had reached
maturity — this disease assumes usually an insidious cha-
racter ; it is slowly progressive, and leads to paralysis,
and to a contraction of the muscles, distorting the limbs
of the sufferer in the way you have described to me.
Shootings of pain are another important symptom of
the malady. Scarron must have died m^rasmatic,
though keeping his intelligence unimpaired'' (Valmont,
September 30, 189 1).
^ Letter to Marigny, "Dernieres CEuvres," ut supra p. 62. .^

2 See Tallemant's " Historiette " concerning "le petit Scarron."

 PAUL SCARRON. 73

Scarron was now settled in Paris, in the Quartier du

Marais, not far from the Place Royale where Ninon de
Lenclos lived, and Madame de Sevigne had been born,
and many people with a name in the annals of literature
and fashion had established themselves. It has greatly
altered since. Compared with the Luxembourg or the
Pare Monceau, with their wealth of flowers and the
rich foliage of their trees, the square in the Place
Royale, now called Place des Vosges, with its meagre
plants and thin trees, with its noisy children and dusty
benches, with its dogs and cats, seems to-day a bit

of " province " transplanted into the middle of the

capital.

After a while Scarron had to leave what was then a

very elegant quarter and go beyond the water to the
Faubourg St, Germain, there to try a new remedy. It

was one of those extraordinary panaceas meant to heal

any disease, and such as the fertile mind of the Purgons
and Diafoirus of the time, not yet broken by their
arch-enemy Moliere, was wont to invent. Of which
panacea and journey to the " rive gauche " thus writes
the poor poet :
''
Good-bye, fine Quartier du Marais.
With many regrets I have to leave you for a while
at the call of a pressing necessity. I am going to
the Faubourg St. Germain, to dip that dry vellum
my skin into a bath said to be the best thing to cure
74 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
the pains which make me howl. ... I must go, not
on my legs, for my feet are of no use to me, and bathe
myself in a gutter, for gutter may I well call the bath
prepared for me, as it is a bath of guts." ^

And then he says good-bye to all his friends one by

one: Adieu, "Lady who art everybody's talk, charm-
ing Ninon, beautiful Ninon. Adieu, ditto, beautiful de
Lorme " :

"Fiile dont park tout monde,

le

Charmant esprit, belle Ninon ...

Item adieu belle de Lorme " ;

Adieu to this one and adieu to that other.^ While

he is carried on his chair over the bridge he looks from
the windows :
" From the chair in which I am carried,

^ " Adieu, beau quartier du Marets !

C'est avecque mille regrets

Qu'une tres pressante besoigne
Pour quelque temps de vous m'eloigne.
Je vais au faubourg St. Germain
Tremper mon tres sec parchemin
Dans un bain qu'on tient salutaire
A la douleur qui me fait braire. . . .

Je veux aller, non de mon pas,

Car des pieds j'ai perdu I'usage,

Me baigner dans un tripotage :

Car tripotage appeler puis

Le bain auquel destine suis
Puis qu'il est compose de tripes."
2 *'
Adieux aux Marais," " CEuvres," vii. p. 29.
 PAUL SCARRON, 75

how many people I see walking ! What would I not

''
give to be able to walk too !

" Que de la chaise qui me porte

J'aper^ois de genscheminer !

Helas que me faut-il donner

!

Pour pouvoir marcher de la sorte ? " '

But, alas ! he was not destined to walk any more ;

the " bain de tripes " proved of no avail ; he had to

dream of other inventions and began studying Raymond
Lulle. Send me, he writes to a friend, "all you will

be able to find by Raymond Lulle ; I will return you

the money when you come to Paris. ... I have been
worse than ever during the last fortnight and I trust in

nothing but in potable gold.'' 2

Chemists and alchemists equally failed, and we find

one day poor Scarron confessing that the only thing
which did him any real good was — to swear ! In this
he had such faith (and experience) that he went the
length of recommending it to his friends in trouble as a

most efficacious and at all events accessible remedy. ''

I

swear, without pride, as well as any one in France, and

I believe that if his Highness would condescend to
^ "Le Chcmin du Marais au faubourg St. Germain," " CEuvrcs,'*
vii. p. 233.
* "Dernicrcs CEuvres," i. p. 50. Concerning this friend, sec

below, p. 96.
76 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
swear sometimes like a man it would do him no
harm. ... As for me, I am sometimes in such a
passion that if all the devils were willing to come and
fetch me, I think I would go half way to meet
them.^i
Scarron had now taken apartments in the " Hotel de
Troyes/' Rue d'Enfer, not far from the Luxembourg.^
He had furnished his rooms with taste and in a costly

fashion. Some parts of his person had not been dis-

abled by the malady, and he tried to avail himself of

those and to live an acceptable, though fragmentary,
sort of a life. His stomach remained good, and his

friends supplied him with wine from the country,

cheeses, tarts, and pasties. What, however, he did enjoy
most and above everything was the unimpeded agility

of his mind. His ideas remained clear, his wit kept

all its sharpness, his temper all its gaiety. Broken as

he was in his body, sleepless and a constant sufferer, he

was always ready for a joke, the equal of any one in

conversation, so gay, so pleasant, so good-humoured,

that all Paris flocked to his rooms to see the wonder,

"Derni^res CEuvres," i. p.. 63.

^

Concerning the various places of abode of Scarron, see

2

A. de Boislisle's "Paul Scarron et Fran9oise d'Aubigne," a reprint

from the "Revue des Questions Historiques," Paris, 1894, pp. 31
seq. Concerning especially the Hotel de Troyes, see pp. 34
and 179.
 PAUL SCARRON. 77

and to amuse the poor fellow and be amused by him.

There is scarcely any other example of so much acute
pain so lightly borne, with such an ease indeed that not
only did he make his company bearable —which is the
most disabled people usually can do —but sought for

and enjoyed. Men and women of fashion, marechaux

de France and precieuses, men of letters and men of
the sword, players and painters, were seen from day to
day in his apartment. They came, and what they saw
Scarron himself has described. It was then the fashion
to write portraits La ; Madame de Fayette drew some.
Mademoiselle de Scudery many ; there are constant
allusions to them in Madame de Sevigne's letters.

Here is the portrait of Scarron drawn by himself in

the year 1648 :

''
Reader, who have never seen me, and possibly do
not want to, for there can be no great pleasure in seeing
a creature made as I am, be sure that I would not
much like you to see me, had I not heard that certain
facetious wits are making jokes at my expense, and
give unfaithful descriptions of how I am built. Some
pretend that I am a cripple sitting in a wooden bowl,
others that I have no thighs, and that people put me
into a sheath, and on a table, where I chatter like a
magpie ; and others assert that my hat hangs to a rope
by which I raise or lower it to welcome visitors. I
78 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
think I am bound in conscience to prevent them lying
any longer : and with this object I had the plate made
which you see in front of my book.^ You will
grumble, doubtless ; I grumble too when I am a

reader ;
you will grumble, I say, and find fault, because

I show myself only from behind. It is not, I protest,

because I want to turn my back upon the company,

but merely because the roundness of my back is better

fitted to receive an inscription than the hollow of my

stomach ; the same being, besides, partly concealed by
my leaning head. . . . Without pretending that I

should by this means have bestowed any great gift upon

the public (for, by our ladies the Nine Sisters, I never
hoped that my head might be used as a model for a
medal), I should have willingly ordered my portrait to

be painted, but no painter could be expected to attempt

such a task. Failing a picture I shall tell you how I

am made.
" I am now over thirty, as you see on the back of
my chair. 2 If I reach forty, I shall add many sufferings
^ See a reproduction of it in " The Comical Romance, and
other Tales by Paul Scarron." London, Lawrence and Bullen,
1892, vol. ii.

2 He was much older, as he was writing in 1648, having been

born in 1610. Some biographers' supposition that Delia Bella's
engraving used as a frontispiece to Scarron's volume was made in
164 1 cannot be admitted, for the plate was meant to adorn a poem
on the death of Voiture, which took place in 1648. Besides what
 PAUL SCARRON, 79

to those I have borne for the last eight or nine years.

Though not tall, I had formerly a rather good figure ;

disease has made it now shorter by a foot. My head is a

little large for my height . . . my sight is pretty good

though my eyes be big ones ; they are blue . . . my
teeth, square pearls in former years, have now a wooden
colour, and will soon be slate-coloured . . . my legs

and thighs made at first an obtuse angle, then a right

angle now
; make an acute one my body and
they ;

thighs make another, and as my head leans over my

stomach I am very like a Z. My arms have been
shortened as well as my legs ; and my fingers as well as

my arms ; in a word I present an abstract of all human

miseries."

Of his temper he writes with the same minute

exactitude :
" I was ever a little choleric, a little

gourmandy and a little lazy. I often call my servant

an ass, and soon after address him as monsieur, I hate
nobody ; may I be similarly treated ! I am glad when
I have money, and would be more glad if I had health.
I am rather pleased when I have company ; I am not

Scarron says here of the date when his disease began squares with
the indication in *'
Typhon," when he refers to it as having begun
in 1638. If he had been only thirty-one when he wrote the lines
above and referred to the plate, the date of his illness would be
1632 or 1633, which we know to be wrong, as he was able after
that time to travel in Italy.
8o ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
displeased when I am alone ; I bear my sufferings rather
patiently." i

The plate he ordered as a frontispiece to a volume

of his works in 1648 is a very curious one, and was
drawn according to his own directions. Faithful to

his tastes in artistic matters, he applied to a classical

engraver to have it made, and it looks strange and

queer among the grand landscapes, conventional trees
and carefully drawn ruins which abound in the works
of Delia Bella.
People came in and talked. Scarron was one of the
great talkers of his day ; I am, he said himself, " un
des grands parleurs que je connaisse." 2 We need not
inquire whether the sort of talk was of the freest ; the
late abbe who still remembered his gay life of former
days was not the man to stop the mouth of any
visitor. All sorts of freedom and libertinage were
allowed in the yellow-damask rooms ; certain subjects

with which he could now busy himself only in thought

constantly recurred, without which he asserted, " all

conversation is sure to die before very long." 3 Poli-

tical questions, religious questions, literary questions,

"La Relation veritable de tout

^ ce qui s'est passe dans I'autre
Monde au Combat des Parques et des Poetes sur la mort de
Voiture." Paris, 1648, 4to.
2 " Dernieres CEuvres," i. p.
37.
3 To Vivonne, "Dernieres CEuvres," i. p. 198
 PAUL SCARRON. 8i

manners and fashions were discussed with an equally

free mind. Retz was among the more devoted fre-

quenters of Scarron's rooms and both spoke all that

came into their head, " when he leaned beside me
on my little yellow bed and discussed other topics
than the Fronde ... I can pride myself upon having
obliged him to set aside the gravity and haughtiness
usually associated with the red hat." ^ They did not,
however, forbear to speak also of the Fronde, and
bitter sarcasms, epigrams, pungent jokes, at the expense
of Mazarin, sprang by thousands during those stormy
times from the " Hotel de Troyes," and supplied the
Frondeurs with what proved not the least effectual of
their ammunitions. A number of anonymous pamph-
lets were for this cause attributed to Scarron ; one
of them, the most scurrilous of all, "La Mazarinade"
(March ii, 1651), was the cause of a persistent ill-

will of the all-powerflil Cardinal towards the poet.

Scarron protested and denied the pamphlet, but in

vain. 2 If he was not the author of it he was the

^ To
Fouquet, "Demi^rcs CEuvrcs," p. 104. i.

"Cent Quatrc Vers contre ceux qui font passer

2 leurs Libelles
difamatoires sous le nom d'autrui, par M. Scarron.'* Paris, Quinet,
165 1. Sec also his "Dernicrcs CEuvrcs," i. p. 202 :
" Pendant les
troubles dc la Rcgence, ma malhcureuse reputation a etc cause que
tout ce qu'on a imprimc k Paris de bon et de m^chant a etc publid
sous mon nom, et cct abus dure encore. . .
."

6
 —

82 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN,

inspirer of many such, as was only too apparent from
"
the number of mazarinades where ^'
Scarron's muse
was called to the rescue. ^

On important occasions he had himself carried to

other people's houses and paid a visit in person. He
did it once for the Queen 'Mother, another time for
Christina, the Queen of Sweden, several times for

Ninon de Lenclos. From his visit to Anne of Austria

he brought back the title of the Queens own "malade"
and a pension, ^ and he was wont in after time to sign
himself ''
le malade de la Reine." He went to the
Louvre again "pour contenter la curiosite'' of Christina,
to whom he addressed several eulogistic letters and
dedicated one of his comedies.3 As for Ninon he
had himself carried to her house for the pleasure of

^ For example, in " Plaintes du Carnaval," February, 1649 :

" Approche toy muse falote,

Chere maistresse de Scarron,
Qui n*aimes pas I'air fanfaron
Dont se chantent les funerailles
Des heros morts dans les batailles."
" Choix de Mazarinades," ed. C. Moreau. Paris, 1853, 2 vols. 8vo,

vol. i. p. 268. Cf. " Bibliographie des Mazarinades," by the same,

1850, p. 206.
2 " Reine, de qui j'ai tous les ans.
Cinq cents ecus beaux et pesans
En bonne et loyale monnoie," &c.
"CEuvres Burlesques de M. Scarron." Paris, 165 1, 4to, p. 75.
3 "Dernieres CEuvres," i. p. 23.
 —

PAUL SCARRON, 83

dining in company that recalled better days :

" Je vous
en dirai davantage demain," he writes to the Marquis
de Villarceaux, " chez Mademoiselle de Lenclos, ou je
me ferai porter a I'heure du diner/' ^ Ninon did not fail'

to return the visits. Women of another stamp came

also ; among them no less a person than Madame de
Sevigne, to whom Scarron had written once, in his

happiest vein :

''
Madam, I lived abstemiously to the best of my
ability, in order to obey your command not to die
before you had seen me. But, madam, with all my
abstemiousness I feel each day I am dying of sheer
desire to see you. Could you not at least alter the

cause and means of my death? I should feel not a

little beholden to you. All these deaths from love
and longing are not natural to me, and are even less

to my liking. If I have mourned on a hundred

occasions people who died such deaths, think what
I should do in my own case, especially when I hoped
that I should die a natural death. But every one
must submit to fate. . . .

" Et du moins souvicns toi, crucllc,

Si je meurs sans te voir,

Que ce n'est pas ma faute.

* "Derni^res CEuvrcs," i. pp. 22, 64.

84 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
*'
The rhyme is not very good, but at the hour of
death we must think of dying, not of rhyming,
I
well/'

Another very welcome guest of later years was

Mignard the painter. Scarron had first met him in

1636 ; Mignard had since become famous : every-

body at Court wanted to have his portrait painted
by him, and the king had given the example. He
had made at Avignon the acquaintance of Moliere,
then a strolling player of very inconsiderable fame,
and had struck a friendship with him. This friendship
resulted in Mignard painting his portrait, the best
portrait extant of the master-dramatist, and in Moliere
writing his fine poem on ''
la Gloire du Val de Grace,"
1669, Mignard's most important work. As for

Scarron he addressed copies of verses to *'

Monsieur
Mignard, le plus grand peintre de notre siecle,*' and
sometimes, using a more homely and not less pleasant

style, he asked him to dinner, giving him in advance

the following inviting menu :
— ''On Sunday, my friend,

if you like, we shall have a good soup, followed by

one or two ragouts, a joint, dessert and cheese. We
will drink some excellent wine ; a bright fire in my
rooms will take off the edge of the cold. We will

.
^ "Dernieres CEuvres," i. p. 14.
 PAUL SCARRON. 85

have sweet wines, and compotes too with ambergris in

them." I

We shall say nothing of the grandees and men of the

world who came to Scarron's house, in order just to

have been there, and because it was the fashion, and

who choked the street with their carriages. ''
They
flock/' says Scarron, " to my rooms as people used for-
merly to flock and see the Elephant ; they come here
and spend the afternoon when they have missed their
appointments and have nothing else to do/' - To one
of those grands seigneurs, this one a real friend, he
playfully describes the state of his street when all the
''
carriage people ''
are away :
" When you did me the
honour to come and see me I prided myself very much
upon it. Your carriage caused my little door to be
venerated by every inhabitant of the Rue St. Louis,
and more than one forte cochere envied its fate. The

^ " Dimanchc, Mignard, si tu vcux,

Nous mangcrous un bon potage
Suivi d*un ragodt ou dc deux,
Dc roti, dessert et fromagc ;

Nous boirons d'un vin excellent,

Et contre le froid violent
Nous aurons grand feu dans ma chambre ;

Nous aurons des vins de liqueur,

Dcs compotes avec de I'ambre."
" Derniilires CEuvres," i. p. 251.
» Ibid.^ p. 105.
 —

S6 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN

du Rincy carriage alone maintains in my neighbours a
feeling of awe, but they will lose it at last if some
gentlemen of the Court do not come back soon to
Paris and uphold till your return our somewhat shaky
repute/' ^

II. The Husband.

One day of the year 1650, when Scarron was in his

apartment of the ''

Hotel de Troyes," he received the
visit who could scarcely be described as a
of a person
young lady and who was something more than a little
girl. She wore a gown too short for her growth, and
what with her gown, what with the peculiarities of the

extraordinary being she was visiting, felt so much em-

barrassment that, not knowing what to say, she concealed
her face in her hands and wept. Six months later,
Scarron was writing to her :
''
Mademoiselle, I had
always suspected that that little girl whom I saw six

months ago, coming into my room, with too short a

gown, and who began to weep, I scarcely know why,
was as witty as she seemed to be. . . . But I should
' " Dernieres CEuvres," i. pp. 69, 70. To Marechal d'Albret,
Oct. 13, 1659. The Rue St. Louis, now Rue de Turenne (corner
of the Rue des Douze Portes, now Rue de Villehardouin), was
the last place of abode of Scarron. His house still exists, almost
untouched, and bears, according to M. de Boislisle's identification
(ut supra, p. 66), the number 56.
 PAUL SCARRON, 87

never have imagined that either in the islands of

America or at the convent of Niort the art of writing
fine letters could be learnt ; and I do not understand
for what reason you took as much trouble to conceal
your wit as others take pains to display theirs.'' ^

This young person of fourteen was the daughter

of Constant d'Aubigne, himself the rebellious son of
the famous Huguenot, Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne,
equally well known as a soldier and as a novelist, poet

and historian. Constant d'Aubigne had obtained in 1645

a small appointment at Marie Galante, in the West
Indies ; he went there with his wife and his children,
Fran^oise (born at Niort in November, 1635) ^^^
Charles. He came back to France with his family in

1647, ^^d died the same year. His wife found herself
in complete penury. The three lived for awhile upon
the alms of the Jesuits' college at La Rochelle :
*'
the
children came each in his turn every other day to re-

ceive at the door a dish of meat and potage." 2 Fran-

(joise, whose fate was to be more extraordinary than
any heroine's in Scudery's novels, was shortly after

entrusted to the care of her wealthy and avaricious

godmother, Madame de Neuillan, who tried to

^ "Dcrnicrcs Qtuvrcs," i. p. 12.

2 GcfFroy, " Madame dc Maintcnon d'apr<^s sa correspondance.**
Paris, 1887, 2 vols. 8vo, p. 3.
 —

88 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

persuade her out of her Protestant faith, and gave her
as an occupation the keeping of turkeys. *'
I well
remember/* Fran^oise used to say many years later,
" how my cousin and I, both of the same age, spent
part of the day keeping my aunt's turkeys. They
planted a mask on our noses to prevent the sun from
burning our skin ; they set a small basket on our arm
with our breakfast in it, and they gave us a little book
containing Pibrac's quatrains, of which we had a few

pages to learn every day. With this and a long pole in

our hand we had to overlook the turkeys and prevent

them going where they ought not." ^

Such were the beginnings in life of one who was

destined to marry the King of France, after she had
been for eight years the wife of crippled Scarron. She
was converted to the Catholic faith through the exer-
^ GefFroy, "
Madame de Maintenon d'apres sa correspondance,"
p. 3. Madame de Neuillan's ideas as to the education of girls was
destined to obtain the uncraved-for applause of worthy Gorgibus,
who thus advises his daughter :

" De quolibets d'amour votre tete est remplie,

Et vous parlez de Dieu bien moins que de Clelie.
Jetez moi dans le feu tous ces mechants ecrits
Qui gatent tous les jours tant de jeunes esprits ;

Lisez moi comme il faut, au lieu de ces sornettes,

Les quatrains de Pibrac. . . .

Touvrage est de valeur

Et plein de beaux dictons a reciter par coeur."
" Sganarelle," by Molier.e, sc. i, year 1660.
 PAUL SCARRON. 89

tions of the Ursulines at Niort, and then came with her

mother to Paris, where a common friend made her
acquainted with the poor poet.
Still hoping for his cure, Scarron had heard with
admiration of the wonders the climate of La
Martinique could work ; it was an averred fact that

M. de Poincy, who had arrived there disabled by

gout, now rode, fenced, and had recovered the com-
plete use of his limbs. From that day Scarron only

dreamed of the West Indies, and gathered information

about them. A company had been established to
work the country round the Orinoco river ; he asso-
ciated eagerly with it : "I have," he wrote to Sarrazin,
" taken a share of a thousand ecus in the new company
of the Indies which is going to establish a colony three
degrees north of the equinoctial line, by the banks of
the Orellana and Orinoco rivers. Adieu France, adieu
Paris, adieu tigresses in angel plumage, adieu Menages,
Sarrazins, and Marignys. I give up burlesque verses,
comical romances and comedies, to go to a country

where there will be neither false virtue, nor religious

cheats, inquisition, sharp winter, nor fluxions to smother

me, nor wars to famish me.'* ^

His intention was soon known and created quite a

stir ; many deprecated his plan, verses were written about
^ '* Dernitircs CEuvrcs," i. p. 12.
 — ;

90 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN

it. In his collection of epigrams ^ Fiiretiere has the

following :
" So, that famous paralytic, who crawled
along with many a moan, is starting on a journey to
America, like Vespucci or Magellan? He means to
make discoveries, to people new harbours with mer-
chants, scamps and navvies ? I wish I may die if he

is not setting about the most burlesque of all his

works." 2

^ The first of which, called " La Feintc Rupture," is very

pretty :

" Puisque tu veux que nous rompions

Et reprenant chacun le notre
Dc bonne foi nous nous rendions
Ce que nous eumcs Tun de I'autre,

Je veux avant tous mes bijoux

Reprendre ces baisers si doux
Queje te donnai a centaines
Puis il ne tiendra pas a moi
Que de ta part tu ne reprennes
Tous ceux que j'ai re9us de toi.

"Poesies Diverses," Paris, 1664, p. JJ.

2 « Done ce fameux paralytique
Qui ne marchait qu'avec ahan
Va voyager en I'Amerique
Comme Vespuce ou Magellan.
II veut faire des decouvertes
Et va peupler de nouveaux ports
Avec marchands, gueux et manoeuvres !

Je meure s'il ne fait alors

La plus burlesque de ses ceuvres."
Furetiere, ibid., p. 140.
 PAUL SCARRON. 91

This, "the most burlesque" of his undertakings, was

not after all to be performed ; the journey, society,
and project came to nothing mainly through the
unexpected end of one of the originators of it. Abbe
de Marivault, who, setting out from Paris to take ship
at Havre, was drowned opposite the Cours-la-Reine.
The plan, however, had for Scarron some lasting
consequence ; while busy with it he had become ac-
''
quainted with Fran^oise d'Aubigne, ''
Bignette as

she was then familiarly called, and had been charmed

with her wit, youth and beauty. Kindly as he was, he
tried to place her at least above want, and offered
either, if she were so inclined, to pay her dot to a
convent, or, if she preferred, to marry her. This last

alternative the young girl, who had kept no very

pleasant remembrance of the Ursulines at Niort,
decided to choose, and two years after the acquaint-
ance was made, in April, 1652, ^ Fran^oise d'Aubigne's
first marriage took place. She was then sixteen and
Scarron forty-two.
This marriage proved very happy. Fran^oise tended
the poor poet with great affection and care ; there is

nothing but words of praise towards her in all Scarron's

^ Sec various deeds concerning this marriage, discovered and

printed for the first time by M. de Boislisle, " Paul Scarron et

Fran^oise d'Aubignd,'* 1894, pp. 53 fF.

92 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
correspondence. She was full of tact as well as of
wit, and in the most difficult and bizarre situation
managed to keep her dignity, and even give some
shade of it to the household itself, i
She was not then
the rigid, untractable woman of later years ; the
rigours of the Convent des UrsuHnes still weighed
upon her mind ; she did not dream yet of a repeal of
the Edict of Nantes. With perfect feminine sense she

knew what she ought to exclude and what she could

endure, and was respected as well as admired. " She

impressed,'' her relative Madame de Caylus wrote in

her '*
Souvenirs,'' ''
everybody in such a way that no
one in her presence durst utter a word of indelicate
suggestion, and one of those young men said: 'If
I had to take liberties either with the Oueen or with

Madame Scarron, I would not hesitate, I would rather

take them with the Queen.' In Lent she would eat
a herring at the end of the table and soon retire to her
room." 2

^ Another lady, Celeste de Harville-Palaiseau, whom Scarron

had for a while housed, after she had been cast off by a lover, had
tried, not without some success, to reform the tone of the place.

In a letter to her Scarron expresses his thanks for having been

delivered through her exertions "des mauvaises compagnies," of
which he says "j'etais accable." But this reform was only tem-
porary. — " Dernieres CEuvres," i. p. 22.
2 Ed. de Lescure, Paris, Janet,'p. 44.
 PAUL SCARRON. 93

Whether or not there was some exaggeration

in this account, written long after, certain it is that

it was not Lent all the year round, and she did not
always retire so soon. The part she took in conver-

sation delighted her husband, who, great connoisseur as

he was in those matters, was not long to see that few

could compete with his wife. He read his works to
her, and she attempted, not without some degree of
success, to get rid of what was too gross and licentious
in them. " Madame de Maintenon," we read in
" Segraisiana,'' ^ " who had no less wit than virtue,
was of great use to Scarron, for he consulted her about

his works and was much the better for her emenda-
tions.'*

Visitors became now more numerous than ever, and

more than ever was the street (first the Rue d'Enfer,
and later the Rue St. Louis,now Rue de Turenne in
the Marais quarter 2) choked with carriages. The *'

new bride," writes St. Simon, who is on other scores

extremely hard and unjust to her, "delighted the
different sort of people who called at Scarron s. He
saw the best and most varied society. It was the
fashion to visit him ; there came wits, men of the
Court, and men of the town ; he saw in his house the
best and the most distinguished people, upon whom he
* " Scgraisiana," 1721, p. 114.
'^
Sec above, p. %().
94 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN,
was unable to call himself, and who were ever drawn
to him by the charms of his mind, his learning, his
imagination, his matchless gaiety, which his sufferings
could never dull, and that gift of invention and that
jocosity which we still admire in his works." ^

In all those gatherings Fran^oise d'Aubigne had her

word to say, be the subject of conversation literature

or philosophy, religion or travels. We find her once

enlightening a great friend of the house, Segrais, the

collaborator of Madame de La Fayette, on those
curious things, little known at that time, pine-apples.

She remembered to have seen them at La Martinique,

and could vouch that they grew on a plant shaped like

an artichoke, and that the fruit had a taste " between

an apricot and a melon," 2 not at all a bad defini-
tion.

We see her also, when talkers grow unendurable,

leaving the house under pretence of paying visits to

her friends. Scarron mentions good-humouredly her

goings out on these occasions as a sort of penance

inflicted upon him ; and he gives a pleasant insight

into his menage when he writes in a kindly vein to his

friend Pellisson :
''
I am often surrounded with dunces

who pour upon me their silly jokes, their fun as frigid

1 "Memoires," Cheruel's edition, Paris, 1873, vol. xii. p. 91.

2 " Segraisiana,'* p. 183.
 PAUL SCARRON. 95

as all the snows of the pole. My wife then leaves me

to confront alone a danger which she ought to share

with me ; she takes her muff and goes out to see some
friend. But when I have good company, when you
are here, or d'Elbene comes, or le Rinci, the lady
behaves in another fashion." ^

An amusing picture this of the young wife taking

her muff and walking out in a pet when uncontrollable
" mauvais plaisants ''
came, and of Scarron being left

to mope. Among those who were sure not to make

her look for her muff was Mignard, who, when he came
back from Rome, found Scarron married and was a
frequent guest during the last years of the poet's life.

Long after, when the career of the artist was drawing

to its close, Mignard painted for St. Cyr a portrait of
*'
la Marquise de Maintenon," now in the Louvre.
'*
He had known her in her youth," wrote Abbe de
Monville, his biographer, ''
and found means to recall

^
"Jc suis souvcnt dc sots cnvironnc,
Mauvais plaisants plus froids que dc la ncigc,

Enfin plus froids que toute la Norvcge.

Ma femme alors me laisse en un danger
^u'elle dcvrait avec moi partager,
Prend son manchon et va voir quclque amic ;

Mais quand je suis en bonne compagnie,

Toi par excmple, Elbene ou le Rincy,
La dame alors n'en use pas ainsi."

"Dcrnicres CEuvres," i. p. 244.

 :

96 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

her charms, without altering the expression age had
given to her face." ^

Another welcome visitor at the poet's home, and

even for some time an inmate of it, was a certain

mysterious friend who made Scarron and Fran^oise

d'Aubigne acquainted, and who, after having taxed
the ingenuity of all biographers, has just been identified
by M. de Boislisle. He has left on the fly-leaves of
a book now preserved in the National Library in Paris
a long manuscript note of the greatest interest and
importance for the history both of the poet and his
wife and for the history of the poet's works. As it is

not very accessible, and as there is not a word of it

which does not convey some curious information, we

here translate in full the part of it that concerns Scarron
" The manuscript notes on the margins of this book
were written by the Sieur de la Menardiere - who was

^ See a reproduction of this picture in "The Comical Romance

and other Tales by Paul Scarron," 1892, vol. i. p. xxii. A friendly-
portrait or description of Scarron and his wife is to be found in
the great romance of Mile, de Scudery, " Clelie," where the two
appear under the names of Scaurus and Lyriane.
2 The book is called " Apologie pour M. Duncan
: . . . contre
le traite de la Melancholic, tire des Reflexions du Sr. de la Mre."
4to ; no date nor place. Press mark, Td. 86-14. Hippolyte Jules
Pilet de la Menardiere, reader in ordinary to the king, member of the
French Academy, and a physician of note, has left various works in

verse and prose and some tragedies ; he died June 4, 1663.

 PAUL SCARRON. 97

private physician to the Marchioness de Sable, received

a salary from her, and lived at her house. Later on

he became reader to the king. It is he v^ho for some
slight disease administered certain pills to M. Scarron
(first husband of the Marchioness de Maintenon) which
caused such a contraction of his muscles that, though
he had been up to then a well-built, alert man, he
became a cripple ; and his inability to use his limbs

increased till his death.

" I knew Madame Scarron well, before she went to

the West Indies. I saw her since at La Martinique,

at her mother's, where I was lodging while our ship
was being loaded, and afterwards at St. Christopher, at
the house of the Commandeur de Poincy, where we
remained two months. The mother had come to fetch
her husband, the late M. d'Aubigne, son of the one
who wrote the '
Universal History,' the '
Baron de
Foeneste,' the '
Confession of Sancy,' and other works.
" I lived since for three years with M. and Madame
Scarron, at the Hostel de Troyes, Rue d'Enfer, where
they married in 1652. Madame d'Aubigne, the
mother, had sent me a power of attorney ^ to represent
her when the deeds for the marriage were drawn, and

' Printed for the first time by M. dc Boislislc, " Paul Scarron
cc Fran9oisc d'Aubigne," 1894, p. 53. It bears date February 19,
1652.

7
98 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
she wrote asking me to place her daughter in some
convent till the time of the projected marriage. The
young lady had been staying before that in Poitou with
the Marchioness de Neuillan, to whose care she had

been entrusted, and who came to stay at the Hostel de

Troyes with her brother, M. Tiraqueau. There it was
that the loves of the two began ; M. Scarron had
apartments there, some of which were let by him to
me. I boarded with him afterwards as well as Lafleur

my servant, whom he often asked to make frangipane

tarts in his presence.
'^
There again it was that he wrote, on my advice,
the first volume of his '
Comical Romance '
dedicated to
Cardinal de Retz, then coadjutor to the Archbishop of
Paris, who often came to spend some pleasant hours
with him, when he left the Luxembourg during the
Fronde. I supplied him with the four Spanish tales,

which he so cleverly translated, and inserted in his first

two volumes, as well as with four others which he also

translated and printed in a separate form. I suggested

that he ought to give us a new translation of '
Don
Quixote '
instead of the Ethics of Gassendi, which I

found him busy translating. But he would not try, on

account of a previous translation by Oudin and another,
though that was very bad. I told him, if that was so,

he had better begin some work of his own invention.

 PAUL SCARRON, 99

and conformable to his lively temper, rather than con-

tinue those Ethics of Gassendi, which were too serious

for him. I added that he should introduce some
novels, for which I would give him Spanish originals ;

I had many of them, and he knew the language. He

would thus imitate '
Don Quixote,' in the first part of
which four such pretty ones are to be found. So that
I may say that in a way the public owes me that
pleasant work (the '
Roman Comique '), though I am
not the author of it, and the four novels published
separately.
'*
I have some hundred charming letters which he
wrote me, and which I shall print some day if his

widow gives me leave. He wrote one among others

while I was at Sedan, beginning: 'What on earth are
you doing by the banks of the Meuse?' *
in which he
bestows great praise on Marshal de Fabert, who, ac-
cording to him, is not one of those marshals who are

led merely by instinct." ^

The rest concerns only La Menardiere and his

quarrels with Duncan. There are many points in

this long note. We see that before she died Madame

* The hundred letters were not published, but this particular
one was printed among the "Dernieres CEuvrcs" of Scarron.
The early editions (1663, 1668, 1696) do not contain it, but it is

to be found in the edition of 1709, p. 49.

2 See below Appendix II.
 —

loo ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN,

d'Aubigne had had time to arrange for the marriage of

her daughter with Scarron, and that she approyed of

it. We learn how Scarron, drawn once more by his

taste for higher things, meant for a while to dedicate

his leisure to the translation of Gassendi's works ; and
how at the request of his anonymous friend he con-

sented to think of a lesser subject, which lesser subject

turned out to be his ''
Roman Comique," the work by
which he is specially remembered and which has long
survived the faded fame of Gassendi's philosophy.
M. de Boislisle has placed beyond the possibility of
a doubt who the author of this note was. We owe it

to Esprit Cabart, Sieur de Villermont, a man of wit

and learning who had travelled in many countries, and
had been for a time Governor of Cayenne. Many
years after the events here related, Madame Scarron,
then the Marchioness de Maintenon, preserved a grate-
ful remembrance of his kindness ; and owing to her
interference he could avoid some serious trouble which
he had incurred by wearing unduly the titles of
''
Messire " and ''
Chevalier." ^

III. The Poet.

Among the various sources from which Scarron drew

^ "Paul Scarron et Fran9oise d'Aubigne," 1894, pp. 39 ff.

 ;

PAUL SCARRON, loi

his income were some pensions, one, not long continued,

from the Queen Mother, another from Surintendant
Fouquet, " the patron " as he constantly calls him, the
revenues (for a while) of his canonry at Le Mans, the
gifts following his dedications,^ and the produce of
what he called his ''
Marquisate of Quinet."
Quinet was his publisher.^ From his earliest days

Scarron had been known as a writer of easy, pleasant,

amusing verses. Such was their average character

they were apt, especially in after times, to sink into
scurrilousness, or (on rare occasions, it is true) to rise

almost to the level of Cornelian nobleness and grandeur.

^^
Little Scarron has always had an inclination towards
poetry,'* wrote Tallemant in his chapter on ^'
Little

Scarron.'' His name first appeared in print as the

author of a copy of verses written in praise of Scu-

dery's ''
Lygdamon," one of the many plays drawn at

that time from D'Uife's " Astree," and performed in

1629. He wrote epistles, madrigals, epigrams by the

hundred ; they were handed round and greatly admired ;

many seem to have been lost, a large number remain.

Several collected editions of those fugitive pieces were

' Fifty pistoles, for example, from "la Grande Mademoiselle"

for his "Ecolier de Salamanque " ; see "Segraisiana," 1721, p. 87.
^ (Quinet paid for Scarron's Virgil eleven thousand livres; sec
Boislislc, p. 108.
102 ENGLISH ESSA VS FROM A FRENCH FEN
given in Scarron's lifetime.^ That mass of now for-

gotten poetry deserves to be better known, and the few

stray readers it now gets do not complain of the hours
spent in perusing it. Its particular merit consists in

what the poor author so sorely wanted in his body,

namely, agility ; the freedom of his demeanour as a

poet, the nimbleness of his movements, the alertness of

his gait are unparalleled. It seemed as if his mind had

profited in this respect with all that his body had lost.

His pleasure in being at least intellectually agile was so

great that he could refuse himself nothing ; sometimes
he is admirable for his elegance, more often he is

ludicrous for his gambols, japes, and mad pranks. " Why
would not my verse please even the queen ^
" he wrote
in the dedication of his " Virgie," '^as the meanest
monkey may sometimes amuse the most refined mind."
He was unsparing of his monkey tricks, and wry faces
were very frequent. Much more interesting and
curious will be some specimen of what he could do
when he meant to be graceful. There is much real

grace, and an exquisite harmony of words, in his

description of that fairy land, America, where at one

^ For example : "Recueil de quelques vers burlesques," Paris,

1643, 4to ; "Recueil des CEuvres burlesques de M. Scarron . . .

dediees a sa chienne." Paris, 1648, 4to ; second and third part,

165 1 ; "La Relation veritable (ut supra) . . . et autres pieces

burlesques." Paris, 1648, 4to.
 PAUL SCARRON. 103

time he expected to travel, there to undergo a

new birth, as Faust was rejuvenated by his enchanted

beverage :

"II faut porter dans rAmerique

Un chagrin si melancolique,
Et voir un autre ciel
si sous
Son absinthe deviendra miel.
La nulle fluxion ni goute,
La nul froid que tant je redoute ;

La nuit sculement un vent frais

Y semblc ctre fait tout expres
Contrc le chaud dc la journce ;

La le printemps toute I'annce

Y conserve sa gayete,
L'automne sa maturite,

Et I'ete, sans bruler Ics herbes,

Chaque mois y donne des gerbes,
Et tous deux des fruits ravissants,

A la fois murs, ncs et naissants." ^

Another sort of merit to be noticed in Scarron's

poetry is his gift for close description from life. The
little he could now see he saw well ; he was an excel-
lent observer of what was going on around him. Some
of his character sketches are so accurate and so flill of
life that they would not be out of place in a comedy of
Moliere. No fdcheux in Moliere is better painted to

the life than a certain intruder who came one day to

I **
GEuvrcs," 1786, vol. vii. p. 187.
I04 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
bore poor Scarron, who could not escape. Every detail

of the dress and speech is noted with a care and skill so

perfect and accurate, the outline, colour, attitudes, and

gestures so curiously observed, that nothing would be
easier than for a painter to put the scene on canvas.
Here it is complete :

''
I was alone the other day in my little room,
stretched on my bed, with pains in every limb, sad as
mourning itself, sorrowful as one of the doomed race,

cursing the day that I was born, when my little page,

as silly as any in France, came in and said :
*
Mr. So-
and-so wants to speak to you.' Though Mr. So-and-so
was unknown to me, I could not help saying that he
was welcome. And then, behold, there entered a

eunuch face, with a gigantic periwig, which with both

hands he tried to arrange ; he was all bespotted with
red, yellow, and blue tassels ; his rhingrave was short,
his legs were crooked. He wore canons^ or rather
rotundas, as large as any round table. He was hum-
ming, when he walked in, some old tune or other ; he
leaned on his cane, giving himself great airs. After
having curtsied to me with immense amplitude, his
body swinging to and fro, he said with a smile and in a
shrill voice :
'
I am an admirer of your divine writings,
sir, and for my part, sometimes I pride myself upon
following you close in your comic vein. I come there-
 PAUL SCARE ON. 105

fore to visit you as a brother author, and as being also

your most humble servant/ " ^

The fdcheux goes on undismayed, gives his opinion

on Quinault, St. Amant, Furetiere, " le docte Menar-
diere " (him of the pills mentioned above), on Corneille
(" Corneille a fort baisse ") ; wants to know whether
Scarron prefers ''
Clelie ou Cassandre," and what he is

^
*'
J'ctais seul I'autre jour dans ma petite chambre,
Couchc sur mon grabat, soufFrant en chaque membre,
Triste comme un grand deuil, chagrin comme un damnc,
Pestant et maudissant le jour que je suis ne :

Quand un petit laquais, le plus grand sot en France,

Me dit : Monsieur un tel vous demande audience.
Bien que Monsieur un tel ne me fut pas connu,
Je repondis pourtant : qu'il soit le bienvenu.
Alors je vis entrer un visage d'eunuque,
Rajustant a deux mains sa trop longue perruque,
Hcrissc de galans rouges, jaunes et bleus ;

Sa rhingrave ctait courte et ses genoux cagneux,

II avait deux canons ou plutot deux rotondes
Dont le tour surpassait celui des tables rondes ;

II chantait en entrant je ne sais quel vieux air,

S'appuyant d'une canne et marchait du bel air.

Aprcs avoir fourni sa vaste reverence,

Se balan9ant le corps avecque violence,
11 mc dit en fausset et faisantun souris :

Je suis Tadmirateur de vos divins ccrits.

Monsieur, et de ma part quclquefois je me pique,
De vous suivre de prt^s dans le style comiquc.
Je vous rends done visite en qualitc d'auteur
Et de plus comme ctant votre humble scrvitcur."
" Epitre chagrine ou Satire HI., GEuvrcs," vi. p. 175.
 "

io6 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN,

working at just now. *' Will you not finish your pretty
romance?

*'
N'achcverez vous point votre joli roman ?"

and so on for pages.

The main basis of Scarron's repute as a writer of verse

was, however, in his time, his two burlesque poems,

" Le Typhon," published in 1644,^ and " Le Virgile

travesti," the first two books of which were printed by

Toussaint Quinet, in 1648.2 This last work appeared
under the patronage of the Queen Mother ; the first

had been dedicated to Mazarin, and had for its subject

the epic quarrel of the Giants and the Gods :

'*
I sing the horrid Typhon, him of the hooked nose,

like a griffin's, who had only two shoulders, but one

hundred arms as long as poles, . . . who was so bitter-

minded that I am at times ashamed of him. I sing also

those gentlemen his brothers, who were not far behind

him when the business was to uproot a mountain, to
cross a bridgeless river, to flatten the highest peak to
the level of the plain, pull up great pine-trees and use

^ " Typhon ou la Gigantomachie, pocme burlesque, dcdie a

I'eminentissime Cardinal Mazarin." 1644, 4to ; frontis-

Paris,

piece by H. David. Mazarin took no notice of the dedication,

and this incited Scarron not a little to side with the Frondeurs.
2 "Le Virgile travesty en vers burlesques." Paris, 1648, 4to.
Curious engravings.
 PAUL SCARRON. 107

them as sticks, and yet they found them rather short ;

and with the same gave a drubbing to many a god who

never mentioned it." ^

The title of the work is well justified. There is

something prodigious, gigantic, enormous in all the

doings of Scarron's heroes. They are grotesque, no
doubt, but still enormous ; they would have made
friends with young Gargantua and invited him to sit

and play on their knees. Being very hungry one day

they espy oxen at the plough ; they devour them with-
out taking the trouble to "pluck off the ploughs.*'
They play at skittles on a certain Sunday to while

away the time, their skittles are long pieces of rock,

' " Je chante I'horriblc Typhon

Au ncz crochu comme un griffon,
A qui cent bras longs come gaule
Sortaient de deux seulcs cpaulcs . . .

Au reste d'esprit si quinteux

^ue j'cn suis quelqucfois honteux.
Je chante aussi messieurs ses frc^res,

Qui certes ne le lui ccdaient gucres,

Tant a dcraciner les monts
Qu*k passer rivieres sans ponts,
Mettre les plus hautes montagnes
Au niveau des plates campagnes
Et des grands pins faire batons
Qui n'ctaient encore assez longs,
Desquels maints grands coups lis donn^rcnt
A maints dicux qui nc s*en vant^rcnt."
io8 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
they get warm in their play and throw their stone
playthings about ; one falls on the foot of Typhon,
who in his rage picks up the skittles and sends them
all — to the gods.

*^
n ramassa quilles ct boules
Et les jeta sans rcgarder
Tant que son bras les put darder.
Les quilles d'un tel bras ruces
Passcrent bientot les nuces,
Et per9ant la voute des cieux
Donncrent jusqu'oii tous les dieux
Humaient sans songer a malice
L'exhalaison d'un sacrifice,
Et de nectar se remplissaient
Que les deesses leur versaient,

Resolus de boire et reboire

Pour le moins jusqu'a la nuit noire."

One of the skittles falls on the cupboard and breaks

all the crockery. Jupiter, who slept, " having taken

one glass too much,'' jumps to his feet crying :

" I say,

what is the matter " ? ('' Dites done, qu'est-ce qu'il y a ?

")
No one dares answer except Cypris, who carelessly

says, " Oh ! nothing," and is rebuked with words we

shall not reproduce. Jupiter soon gets at the truth,
and understands it must be war. Mercury is ordered
away the better to ascertain facts, and his flight to

Helicon is described with that particular agility of

verse which was one of Scarron's gifts :

'' Having tied
 PAUL SCARRON. 109

wings to his heels, over fields, over towns, he flew

light as a falcon, straight towards Helicon, to see the
nine sisters, refresh himself and drink at the spring.
He found the nine learned ones, seated on benches,
busy dissecting roundels, sonnets, and stanzas, on
sorrows, on partings, on favours won. . .
.'' ^

They were in fact, it seems, anticipating our friend

Bourget's psychology and analysis. A terrible war
is waged, with uncertain success for a while ; at last

Typhon is vanquished and shut up under Mount Etna.

" Et moi je mets fin a mon conte

^
Tire du sieur Noel le Comte."

Such literature of course could not please Boileau ;

he could not allow without a protest *'

les filles de
^ " Puis ayant mis scs talonnicrcs . . .

Par dessus champs, par dessus villcs,

Vola Icger comme un faucon

Droit vers la montagne Helicon,

Pour voir Ics filles de mcmoire

Et la se rafraichir et boirc.
II trouva le docte troupeau,
Les neuf savantes demoiselles,
Assises dessus des bancelles,
Qui faisaient dissection
De rondeaux, de sonnets, de stances,
Sur des chagrins, sur dcs absences,
Et sur des plaisirs accordcs."
2 Otherwise Noel Conti or Natalis Conies, an Italian writer of
the sixteenth century.
no ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
memoire " to be thus derided ; he wanted them, we
may suppose, to keep their voices clear to sing with
him of " Namur." He is therefore loud in his con-
demnation of ''Typhon,'* which, with one contemptuous
''
Hne, he exiles from Paris to the provinces. ^ " Typhon
none the less enjoyed a considerable degree of popu-
larity, and its success encouraged Scarron to attempt

more in this line ; it caused in fact the poet to write

his huge ''
Virgile travesti/'

This, too, was a success, and even a more marked

one than his former work. For us this vast compila-
tion is past enduring : the joke is too protracted ;

witticisms, clever tricks, happy thoughts, curious japes,

gambols, and grimaces abound, but they last too long,

they are too numerous ; we soon get to know tie
utmost the ''monkey" can do, and want to push the
door open and get out into the fresh
air. " TyP^^^'"^ *'

has at least this merit, that it is comparatively short.

But seventeenth century people took in such works a

^
"Au mepris du bon sens, le Burlesque efFronte
Trompa les yeux d'abord, plut par sa nouveaute. . . .

Mais de ce style enfin la cour desabusee

Dedaigna de ses vers I'extravagance aisee,
Distingua le naif du plat et du boulFon
Et laissa la province admirer le Typhon.
Que ce style jamais ne souille votre ouvrage.'*
"Art Poetique," i.
 PAUL SCARRON.
particular pleasure for a cause which no longer
they had at times a surfeit of dignity, etiquette, and
periwigs, and this made them enjoy grins, tricks, and
bald pates. We know what was the tone of conversa-
tion in Scarron's rooms, and we know too that St.

Simon described it as ''

la plaisanterie du meilleur
gout " ; one must be very tired of Versailles to say so.

Racine read the " Virgile " with laughter and delight,
not unaware that he was sinning against the gods and
Boileau, but somehow feeling that his was a pardonable
sin. There is not a shade of vituperation or scorn
in the letter where Madame de Sevigne informs her
daughter of what books she has taken to while away
the time in her journey from Paris to Grignan,*books
not many copies of which are now sold to ladies at
railway stalls :
" We found no reading worthy of us,

but Virgil, not in travesty, I say, but in all the majesty

of the Latin and Italian.'' ^ On account of those contrary
tastes mentioned before, people were then able to admire
Virgil in his majesty and in his travesty too. Poussin
did not, but he was an exception.
The success of the ''
Virgile '*
was extraordinary ; it

pleased the queen ; it delighted Chancelier Seguier, so

much so that, hearing of his approval, Scarron dedicated
his second book to him ; it had a number of editions
^ Madame de Grignan, July i6, 1672.
 —

1 1 2 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN

and was found not unworthy of the Elzevir press ; it

caused at last such a flood of " burlesque " poems that

even Scarron felt sick of it, and expressed the hope that
the French Academy, then in its early youth, would
interfere :
''
Perhaps the wits who have been enlisted

to keep our tongue pure from all taint will see to it. . . .

As for me I am quite willing and ready to give up a

way of writing which has spoiled so many." ^ He wrote

two books more after this ofl^er, and then stopped of
his own accord, not waiting for an injunction from the
Academy.

IV. The Dramatist.

" I scarcely write anything now, but comedy verses,"
Scarron said once to a friend ;
'^
for I draw from them
most of what I get." He had always been fond, as we
know, of plays and* players, and when nothing was left

him but his clear mind, instead of following actors from

tennis-court to tennis-court, he wrote for them.
His first comedy, " Jodelet ou le Maitre valet,'* per-
formed in 1645 ^^ ^^ Marais theatre, enjoyed great
popularity. The famous actor Jodelet, who gave to the

' Dedicace of Book V. to Councillor Payen Deslandes, 1650.

The work was by Moreau, Seigneur de Brasei.
finished As for
Scarron's innumerable rivals and imitators in the burlesque style, see

Victor Fournel's edition of the " Virgile Travesti," introduction,

and p. 189.
 PAUL SCARRON, 113

play his own '^

nom de theatre,"^ was at his best when
he appeared in it ; his queer look and ugly face,

his large mouth, his speaking through the nose were

the more ludicrous, as he had to act under silk and
ribbons the part of his own master, Don Juan. He
was destined to be some years later one of the original
actors in Moliere's *'
Precieuses,'' where he appeared as

'Me Vicomte de Jodelet,'' while Moliere himself was

Mascarille.
At the date when Scarron's first play was performed
Moliere was twenty-three, and had as yet written
nothing ; Racine was a child of six, but Corneille, who
was Scarron's elder by four years, had already produced
his most famous dramas, and, without speaking of his

tragedies, had put on the stage his comedies of " Le

Menteur" (1642) and ''La Suite du Menteur'' (1643),
in which Jodelet had had a great success as Cliton.

Both plays were adapted from Spanish originals, for

Spain was in this respect what France has been of late :

the great storehouse where dramatists of many coun-

tries came for their plots, and sometimes for their wit.

Her authors were numerous and prolific, and their

* Instead of taking it from the play as M. Fournicr wrongly

Theatre complet de Scarron."^ Paris, 1879, 8vo, p. xiii.).
asserts ("
This actor was known as "Jodelet" when he performed Cor-
neille's *'Mcnteur" (1642): " Lc hcros de la farce, un certain
Jodelet ..." (" Suite de Menteur," i. 3).
114 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
repute as inventors of adventures, unexpected rencontres,
grand discussions on noble matters, farcical characters,

was so well established that most foreign dramatists

and novelists called at their stalls and supplied them-
selves freely. We owe to Spain ''
Le Cid " as well as

''
Le Menteur," and the bulk of Scarron's dramatic
works : most of the latter are drawn from Calderon and
Rojas. Scarron asked his friends to send him Spanish
comedies, as he would have asked them for any other
commodity ; he was very indignant at the thought that
people about town spoke Spanish less purely than in

former days, and heard once with pleasure that there

was a renewed demand for grammars :
— '' The sale

of Spanish grammars has not reached fifty thousand

livres, as you say, but we are not far from that number.
The Spanish tongue has never been so corrupt as it has

been of late in Paris. I am much beholden to you

for the trouble you take in seeking Spanish comedies
for me." ^

After " Jodelet ou le Maitre Valet " Scarron wrote a

number of comedies or tragi-comedies, the principal

of which are "Jodelet duelliste," performed in 1646

(under the name of " Les trois Dorotees ") ;
" THeri-

tier ridicule," 1649 5

" I^^^ Japhet d'Armenie," 1652 ;

" I'Ecolier de Salamanque,'' 1654; " Le Marquis

^ "Dcrnicrcs CEuvres," i. p. 62.
 — —

PAUL SCARRON. 115

ridicule," 1655, or beginning of 1656; —the plot of

them all being laid in Spain, in Madrid, Toledo, Orgas,

or Valencia.
In these plays Scarron appears with his usual quali-
ties of ease and alertness, his gift for observing attitudes
and noting curious details, his irrepressible gaiety, and
that strange combination of tastes that made him relish

tragic grandeur as well as farcical buffoonery. When-

ever there is an opportunity for using a higher style
Scarron never lets it pass. If he has not the genius he

has at least a taste for proud heroes and grand scenes.

The thought of Corneille is constantly upon hini ;

Corneille was, with Malherbe, the master he recognised,

the true god of his literary religion. In more than
one scene of " Jodelet on le Maitre Valet," Don Juan
speaks the language of the Cid ; he is, in fact, nothing
else than a Cid caught in a comedy, as may happen any
day to any Cid in real life. The thing is so visible
that Scarron has it noticed by the very persons in his
play. I
But Scarron sometimes overdid what he

' Jodelet to Don Fernand :

"Que vous eussiez aime pour votrc gendrc un Cid

Qui vous cilt assommc, puis dpousc Chim^nc (iv. 5). !
'*

Cf. in " L'Ecolier de Salamanquc" the part of the Count; sec

for example his speeches to old Don Felix :

"Tes injures, tes oris nc pcuvent m'irritcr ;

Je veux un ennemi qui puisse resistcr.

ii6 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
attempted, and his debates between passion and duty, in
" TEcolier de Salamanque,*' for example, inspired as
they are by the Cid/s, are too superhuman. The danger
of striving after Corneille is that one reaches Scudery.
Lesser people in Scarron's theatre are remarkable for
their clear outline and their life-like expression ; he
looked at men with the eye of a draughtsman. Few
series of plays better lend themselves to be illustrated,
few are less difficult to put on the stage ; though there
are almost no stage directions, words adapt themselves
to situations so well that there is an attitude under
each, and no actor with any gift could miss it.

The details of actual life are introduced with a care

and accuracy very rare on the French stage of the
time ;
people drop their spectacles, want to know the
hour, tell stories, feel cold, take notice of and suffer

Je ne veux point de femme et quand j'en voudrais une,

J'en choisirais une autre et d'une autre fortune.
Pour me la faire prendre il fallait me prier,
Non pas me quereller, non pas m'injurier.
Je ne fais rien par force et fais tout par priere ;

Aux humbles je suis doux ; aux iiers j'ai Tame fiere ! . . .

Don Felix. Ah ! si ton bras m*epargne, insolent ravisseur,

Je prefere tes coups a ta fausse douceur . . .

Viens, viens finir mes jours, ils n'ont que trop dure." [&c.]
ii. I.

It is obvious that Scarron remembered the scene in the " Cid,"

i. 3 and 4.
 PAUL SCARRON, 117

from a number of trifles which mere puppets would

not attend to :
*'
Do read, please, for I have lost my
spectacles and I do not know where to find others fitting

my sight."

" Lisez done, aussi bien j'ai perdu mes lunettes,

Et n'ai pas trop aise d*en retrouver de nettes,"

says old Don Fernand, *'

Hang the bolt which has
**
caught my fingers !

" Maudit soit le verrou qui m*a pince les doigts I

!
»'

exclaims Beatrix. At another place she thus describes

Jodelet, who, unknown to everybody and under a

disguise, has to pay court to Isabel le, while the real
Don Juan acts as his servant : Your son-in-law is
'*

there, beautiful to look at, new varnished, new shaven,

well- powdered, curled, and trimmed, laughing as a

madman, besprinkled with jewels like a Chinese

king."
"Votre gendre est la-bas, beau, poli, frais tondu,
Poudrc, frisc, pare, riant comme un perdu,
Et couvert de bijoux comme un roi de la Chine."

Both are betrayed by their attitude and language,

and Isabelle is sure to love for life the man she could
not help loving even while passing as a valet. The
same plot has been turned to account by Marivaux in

his delightful ''

Jeu de T Amour et du Hasard.**
ri8 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
In '4'Ecolier de Salamanque ''
Crispin pays his

court to a lady's maid in a most proper and approved

fashion :
*'
Beatrix, darling, let us have some scandal
now, and give freedom to our tongues ; tell me all

about thy mistress and I shall tell thee all about my

master. Let us talk about our gains, or tell stories ;

let us say all the good things we remember. I must

tell thee a tale. There was once a king. That king
lived in a wood. In the midst of that wood . .
.'* ^

All these plays are in verse — Scarron's easy-going

verse, verse with no pretension, adapting itself to

circumstances, a light verse and sometimes intentionally

faulty. He will on occasion, instead of looking for a
proper rhyme, coin a new word to suit a line and tease
his reader ; once he manages to have Beatrix rhyme
with larme^ straining the words thus :

" Or, si vous en tirez la moindre lacrimule,

Je vous donne gagnc, foi de Beatricule.

^ " Beatrix ma mignonne,

Medisons un moment sans respecter personne ;

Mcdis de ta maitresse et moi je te dirai

Du maitre que je sers tout ce que je saurai.
Parlons de nos profits, contons nous des histoires,
Exer9ons a I'envi nos heureuses memoires.
Je veux t'en conter une. II etait une fois

Un roi. Ce roi faisait sa demeure en un bois ;

Au milieu de ce bois. . . ." [&c. &c.] iii. 3.

 PAUL SCARRON. 119

Vous riez, Don Louis, de ce diminutif ?

Dame, nous en usons, et du superlatif.
Un certain jeune auteur, qui tache de me plaire,

Quand jc vais visiter mon cousin le libraire,

M'apprend tous ces grands mots !

" ^

And if we do not consider this enough, and still

object to " lacrimule," a quantity of explanations are

yet in store, and the poet will go on for ever till we
bow acceptance. This trick and many others Scarron
has in common with a very different sort of a poet,
whose name, unlikely as it may seem, often recurs to
the mind when reading the poor cripple's works : I

mean no less a person than Alfred de Musset. The

bent and aim of the woiks of both are as different as
can be ; but they sometimes resemble each other in
their peculiarities and details. Musset, too, is very
fond of volunteering explanations for avoidable mis-
takes, which he prefers not to avoid ; - he has the
s.mie eye for neat picturesque outlines, for amusing
sketches, the same taste for deriding silly pomposity.
Secondary resemblances these, but resemblance^ all the
same. Scarron besides was well known to Musset.
Irus' way of appreciating the merits of his servants
in " A quoi revent les Jeunes Filles ''
reminds us of
Don Japhet's own attendants.

*
"Jodclct ou Ic Maitrc Valet," iii, 2.
* There are a number of" such cases in " Namouna," where.
 — — "

I20 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN

"Spadille a I'air d'unc oie et Quinola d'un cuistre"

is becoming proverbial, as Don Japhet's lines have long

been :

" Don Zapata Pascal,

Ou Pascal Zapata, car il n'importe guere
Que Pascal soit devant ou Pascal soit derriere."

besides, a passage in Scarron is introduced in full. Scarron's

verses :

" Nous voila tous sur le pave ;

Sur mon dos mon pcre eleve

Nous cclairait de sa lanterne . . .

Ma Crcuse venait derriere . . .

Au vieil temple nous arrivames . . .

Quasi tous, car ma femme hclas . . .

Se trouva manquer a la bande . . .

Mon pere ne fit autre chose

Que me dire :
' Elle reviendra
Ou bien quelqu'un la retiendra ;

N'est elle point reste derriere

'
Pour raccommoder sa jartiere ?

(" Virgile Travesti," ii. Fourncl's edition; Paris, Garnier,

pp. 119, 120) become in Musset :

"Je suis comme Eneas portant son pere Anchise.

Eneas s'essoufflait et marchait a grands pas.
Sa femme a chaque instant demeurait en arricre.
'
Creuse, disait-il, pourquoi ne viens tu pas ?'

Creuse repondait :
'
Je mets ma jarretiere,'" &c.
" Namouna," i.
75, 76.

The scene is represented in a curious engraving in Scarron's

first edition.
 "

PAUL SCARRON, 121

There is in Musset a number of such comical en-

counters as the one between Don Japhet and the Bailli.

—" Bailli, votre fortune est grande,

Puisque vous m'avez plu.
—Le bon Dieu vous le rende !

*'
Don Japhet " is the most famous, as it was the
most successful, of Scarron's plays. There is more
drollery in it than in any other of his comedies. Don
Japhet, who is the fool of Emperor Charles Quint and
claims distant kinship with his master,

" L'empereur Charles Quint, ce hcros redoutable,

Mon cousin un deux mil huitanticme degrc,"

comes to Consuegra in search of a wife. He is wel-

comed by the Commander in the same fashion as Don
Quixote and Sancho are welcomed by the Duchess.
All sorts of practical jokes are played upon him, but his
cowardice and pomposity prevent him from retaliating.
He is beaten and derided ; a number of ridiculous

accidents mar an appointment he had or thought he

had with his betrothed. At last, in the same manner
as M. Jourdain was to become " mamamouchi,*' he

resolves to marry a Peruvian infanta answering to the

beautiful name of Ahihua, and concerning whom a

letter from the great Mango Capac to his cousin Japhet

122 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
is publicly read :
" Let her be the wife of Japhet my
cousin. I give to both the produce of a tax I have
lately laid upon flame-coloured parrots and upon the
lamentins of the great river Orellana." ^

No better sort of income had poor Scarron himself

derived from the great river Orellana, where he had
dreamed of going to make a plantation.

When *'
Don Japhet ''
was published it appeared
with a dedication to King Louis XIV., a free-spoken
one in which Scarron says :
" I shall only try to per-
suade your Majesty that it would not hurt you much
to do me a little good. If you did me a little good,

I should be merrier than I am, I should write funnier

comedies ;
your Majesty would be better amused ; and
if you were better amused your money would not prove
ill-spent/'

The pleasure young Louis had taken at the adven-

tures of Don Japhet had been very keen indeed ;

his taste for that play lasted all his life. Fifty

years later, when Scarron had long been dead and his

young wife had become old Madame de Maintenon,

the Great King had still " Don Japhet " performed

^ " De mon cousin Japhet qu'elle soit I'epousce;

Je leur donne un impot que j'ai mis depuis peu
Tant sur les perroquets qui sont couleur de feu
Que sur les lamentins du grand fleuve Orillane."
 —

PAVL SCARRON. 123

before him at Fontainebleau and Versailles (1703).

He has been often reproached with his dislike for the
" magots de Teniers " ; many excuses could be found
for his aversion to those gloomy, pale-faced drunkards.
Certain it is that, with all his dignity and wigs and
ribbons, he was a man and a Frenchman, and enjoyed
his laugh as much as any. Most of Moliere's farcical
comedies were first performed before him, "George
Dandin ''
in 1668, " Pourceaugnac" in 1669, "Bour-
geois Gentilhomme ''
in 1670, &c., and their success
had been great at court before the Paris public had
a chance to say its say about them.
Scarron's plays enjoyed for the same reason no small
degree of favour, both at court and in town. For a

long while they were constantly on the bill of Moliere's

troupe. They did not always bring much money, but
neither did always Corneille's tragedies. We find, for

example, in Lagrange's " Registre " of the troupe under

the year 1659 the following entries :

April 30. —" Jodelet Maitre Valet

''
... 155 livres.

May 3.— "Cinna " 175 „

—
May 7. Performed at Vincennes,"Don Japhet,'*
for the
king.
Aug. — " L'Heritier Ridicule
I.
"
.... 130 „^
' "Registre de Lagrange, 1 658-1 685, publie par la Comcdie
fran9aise," Paris, 1876, 410.
124 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
These three plays of Scarron recur from time to time
with various success, bringing sometimes 226 livres and
sometimes only 96. But it must be remembered that
Corneille's "Cid'* could be played (July nth) for 100
livres, and his ''
Rodogune** (July 3) for 42. All those
numbers show by comparison what was the run when
there was a new play by Moliere himself. The first
'*
performance of the *'
Precieuses brings to the troupe

523 livres, the second 1,400, the third 1,004, ^^d so

on, and the troupe is asked by great people to give
private performances in their houses. " Les Precieuses"

are thus performed at the houses of Michel le Tellier,

of Chevalier de Grammont, of La Marechale de THos-
pital, &c. The cardinal and the king want also to see

the new play, and Lagrange makes in his journal the

following entry: — ''Oct. 26, 1660. '
L'Etourdi ' and
'
Les Precieuses '
at the Louvre, in the apartments of his
Eminence Cardinal Mazarin, who was ill in his chair.

The king saw the comedy, standing incognito, and

leaning on the back of the chair of his Eminence."

In November the king asks for "Don Japhet/' and
again the following year. In June, 1663, " TEcole des
" and " "
Femmes La Critique de TEcole des Femmes
are performed together, bringing 1,357, i>i30, 1,355,
1,426, 1,000, 1,357, 1,731 livres, and so on. We
livres for " Rodogune ''
are very far from the 42 and
 —

PAUL SCARRON. 125

96 for ''
Don Japhet/' which none the less continued
to be performed from year to year by the troupe.
They have now long ceased (" Don Japhet " alone
excepted) to appear on theatrical bills and deserve
perhaps a better fate. Their construction, no doubt,
is loose, their conclusions are patched up and do not fit

very well ; the innermost coils of the human brain and

heart are left alone for future psychologists to unroll
them. There are only sketches in these plays ; but
they are pleasant sketches, drawn with a clever hand,
guided by an observing eye, such sketches as Scarron's
contemporary, Abraham Bosse, was wont to draw and
engrave. Collectors and curieux consider them well
worth the preserving.

V. The Novelist.

When Scarron became a novelist, he did not cease

to busy himself with players. They were his particular

delight ; he took them for the subject of his principal

tale. Nor did he cease to think of Spain and to look
to Spanish authors for his originals. We have seen
his friend, Cabart de Villermont, supplying him with
Spanish novels *'
of which he had a number." He
published separately a small collection of tales adapted
from Spanish authors in which there is plenty of love
and adventures, masks, swords, and tokens ; much
126 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
fancy and good grace, sweet discussions under balconies
and behind lattices, long veils concealing the prettiest

faces in the world, prancing horses, valorous cavaliers,

Andalusian eyes such as those which were to shine and

sparkle again in literature during that second advent
of Spanish heroes to France, when Hernani paced the
stage, and Don Paez fell in love with the Lady
Juana.
Scarron's novels enjoyed a great success, and were
often reprinted in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries ; they numbered among their readers Moliere,

who took several hints from them. One or two

passages in " TartufFe " have a striking resemblance
with some lines in Scarron's tale, ''
Les Hypocrites."
When there is a first attempt at unmasking the " faux-

devot " Montufar, the rabble, who have been entirely

taken by the hypocrite's sweet demeanour, rush at the

accuser, and want to kill him. But Montufar interferes

in his favour, and exclaims :

*'
I am the wicked one
... I am the sinner, I am the one who never did
anything acceptable to God. Do you think . . .

because you see me dressed as a pious man should

be, that I have not been, all my life long, a thief, a

cause of scandal to others, and my own perdition ^

You are mistaken, my brethren ; hurl at me your

insults and stones ; draw upon me your swords. —With
 ; —

PAUL SCARRON, 127

this he ran towards his foe and threw himself at his

I
feet/'

Finding himself in a similar situation, and accused

by Damis, the son of the house, TartufFe addresses
Orgon thus :
''
Yes, my brother, I am a wicked one, a
guilty one, a sinner,'' &c.

" Oui, mon frcre, je suis un mcchant, un coupable,

Un malheureux pccheur tout plein d'iniquite,
Le plus grand scclerat qui jamais ait cte.
Chaquc instant de ma vie est charge dc souillures
Elle n'est qu'un amas de crimes et d'ordures. , . .

[^Addressing Damis.']

Oui, mon cher iils, parlez, traitez moi de perfide,

D'infame, de perdu, de voleur, d'homicide,
Accablez moi de noms encor plus detestes,

Je n'y contredis point, je les ai mcritcs

Et j'en veux a genoux souffrir I'ignominie.''^

Though Montufar is not less severely punished at

the end than Tartuffe himself, it must be confessed that
the morality of Scarron's novels is very lax indeed.
Scenes of an unedifying character abound ; from the
^
"Je suis le mcchant . . . je suis Ic pechcur, je suis cclui qui
n*ai jamais ricn fait d'agreable aux yeuxdeDicu. Pensez vous . . .

parce que vous me voycz vctu en homme de bien, que je n'aic pas
etc toutc ma vie un larron, le scandalc des autres et la perdition dc
moi mcmc ? Vous vous ctes trompcs, mcs fr<ircs ; faites dc moi Ic

but de vos injures et dc vos pierrcs et tirez sur moi vos dpdcs.
Aprtis avoir dit ces paroles . . . il s*alla jctcr . . . aux picds dc
^ iii. 6.
128 ENGLFSH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
moral point of view those tales are not commendable,
and we do not commend them.
Not contented with his collection of ''
nouvelles
tragi-comiques," Scarron, following upon the example
of Cervantes and encouraged by his friend Cabart,
interspersed his " Roman Comique " with short Spanish

tales, ^ very pleasant in their way, which have this

advantage among others, that they show the difference

between fancy pictures and real life : for if " Tamante
invisible " is well painted, Destin and I'Etoile are not
painted at all ; they are flesh and blood.
We have seen under what circumstances the idea
was suggested to Scarron of writing " quelque ouvrage
de son chef" Cabart had found him engaged on
a translation of Gassendi's ethics, a philosophical
taste Scarron had in common with Moliere, w^ho had

' The originals of each have been pointed out by M. Fournel ;

the three first are taken from Solorzano's collection of novels called
** Los Alivios de Cassandra " ; the fourth, from the ninth tale in

the " Novelas Exemplares" of Maria de Zayas. (''Roman

Comique," Paris, 1857, introduction, pp. Ixxv. et seq.) Scarron
has been supposed to have taken the idea of his " Roman
Comique" from Rojas' " Viage Entretenido " or the "Amusing
Journey " ; but the only resemblance is that both deal with
strolling players Scarron needed no Rojas to suggest strolling
;

players, and he owes more to Filandre's troupe than to Rojas'

inventions for the making of his novel. (As to Filandre, see
infra, p. 133.)
 PAUL SCARRON, 129

attended in his youth Gassendi's lectures in the

house of Chapelle, the father. Scarron dropped his

translation to follow the advice he had received ; and

very good advice it proved, for it made him write the
first tale of real life, studied from nature, which can
be inscribed on the list of modern French novels.
Many, of course, had been the attempts. It is almost
impossible to say, with literal truth, of any variety of
literary work that at this or that date it began ; critical

minds will always object and quote a number of names ;

in this case without going further back than the

early part of the century they will name d'Aubigne's
"Baron de Foeneste,'' 16 17, Theophile de Viau's
*' Fragments d'Histoire comique," written about 1620,
Charles Sorel's "Francion," 1662, and many others.

Long lists of them are to be found everywhere ; ' we

shall not add one to the number. " But," as Burke
once observed wisely enough, '^
though no man can draw
a stroke between the confines of day and night, yet
light and darkness are upon the whole clearly distin-
guishable." In the same manner when we follow the
history of the novel we come step by step to the place
where Scarron stands ; critics if so minded will be able

to show that there is no immense gap between each step,

^ For example, in Victor Fourncrs introduction to his edition

of the "Roman Comique," Paris, 1857.
9
 ;

I30 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN

that there are plenty of country scenes in " Francion/'

and plenty of real life in "Baron de Foeneste." The

impartial reader will for all that keep the impression
that all those works were merely attempts, and that with
Scarron he has something better.
He has something very much better indeed. You
may open the book almost at random and feel it at
once, so much real air, true sunshine and life there is in
it. Any few lines of the novel will transport the reader
to some pleasant part of old provincial France. He
will make a stay there, if he has any feeling for French
white roads and green rivers, with old castles and
young poplars, for the close-shorn meadows with their

herds of dreaming cows, and for the noisy little rivulets.

The Loire country, where we are transferred, especially

deserves a visit ; it is more characteristically French

than any other, and stands foremost in literature. It

saw in former years the romantic adventures of divine

Astree and matchless Celadon ; it saw again and again
Rabelais' heroes on their way to Paris, to Theleme or
to Chinon, '*
ville fameuse, voire premiere du monde ''

it is just now the place where Scarron's strolling players

love and quarrel, and play Corneille.
Do you like such places and such people ? Have
you any fondness for roadside adventures, for talkative
ostlers, for laughing maids, their laughter as an echo of the
 - PAUL SCARRON. '-
131

larks' song in the morning ; for paths lined with hedges

and leading to a green unknown somewhere ? And if

you like all this, will you not like it the more if, in the

middle of the scenery of to-day, for it has not altered,

you meet people of a former time, as truly alive and
young as the very sun above us ;
poets who knew M.
de Corneille, players on their way to Paris, a medley of
artists, mountebanks, and runaway scholars bewitched
out of Sorbonne by this or that stage deity ? Turn
the page, and here begins the " Comical Romance,"
which proved in its time the delectation of the Court
and town — the Court of the Grand Roi, the town of
Moliere.
In his account of comedians ' Tallemant des Reaux
has a word to say of provincial troupes, then very
numerous. But he names only two by name, for most
of the troupes that did the Seine, Loire, or Garonne
regions had rarely a continued personal life ; they
collected and dispersed, vanished and reappeared. The
two he names are, for different reasons, remarkable.

Concerning one of them, he says :

''
I must end with
the Bejart. I have never seen her on the stage, but I

am told she is the best actress of all.- She belongs to

* " Historicttcs," cd. Monmcrquc and P. Paris. Paris, 1857,
6 vols. 8vo, " Historicttc " cdxxxvi.
* She was something of a playwright and adapted plays. We
see in the " Registre de Lagrange," p. 300, that the troupe plays,
 132 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
a provincial company. ... A fellow called Moliere
left the benches of the Sorbonne to follow her ; he was
long in love with her ; he used to give hints to the
company ; then he became a member of it. . . . He
has written plays with wit in them. He is not a very
good actor except in comic parts. His plays are per-
formed only by his own company ; they are comedies."
The " fellow called Moliere/' who wrote plays
which were comedies, led for fifteen years or so
the life Destin and I'Etoile live in Scarron's novel.
The troupe to which he belonged associated in 1643,
and the contract is ^still in existence. While the
tennis-court *' des metayers" was being prepared in

Paris for their accommodation, "Tlllustre Theatre/'

as they called themselves, went first to Rouen, and
some time after made their debut in Paris, a very
unpromising one, which only brought debt, ruin, and
prison to Moliere. They resolved to leave town again,
and then began for the dramatist the thirteen long
years of his apprenticeship, during which he travelled
the provinces and was seen at Nantes, Toulouse, Nar-
bonne, Agen, Montpcllier, Lyons, Pezenas, Beziers,
Avignon (where he met Mignard), Dijon, Grenoble,

January 3c, 1660, "Don Quichot ou les Enchantements de Merlin,

piece raccommodee par Mile Bejart." The performance brings
300 livres.
 ;

PAUL SCARRON. 133

and a number of other places. They were known

after 1647 under the title of *' troupe des comediens
de M. le Due d'Epernon/' and their reputation was
great in the provinces. Scarron was well aware of it

he makes Destin say at the beginning of his novel,

*'
our troupe is as complete as that of the Prince of
Orange or of His Grace the Duke of Epernon ; ''
and
it has been often asserted that he had Moliere's troupe
in view in his " Comical Romance.'* But it is not
so. In his remarkable work, " La troupe du Roman
Comique devoilee," ^ Henri Chardon has demonstrated
that another company of players was in his mind.
We have said that Tallemant des Reaux mentions
two. Concerning the second he writes briefly :
" There

is in another company a man called Filandre, who has

also got a reputation, but I do not think him true to
nature.'* This Filandre, whose real name was Jean
Baptiste, Sieur de Monchaingre, was, according to
Chardon's very plausible argument, the prototype of
Scarron's Leandre, and his wife sat as Angclique,
whose name she bore. They retired later to Anjou,
where they had become landed proprietors of some
importance, and there died respectively in 1691 and
1695. ^^^ many and many years they had, before
that time, moved from town to town in the provinces,
' Lc Mans, 1876, 8vo.
134 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
leading exactly the same life as Moliere ; and several
members of their troupe were destined to be connected
in various ways with the great dramatist's. Thus
Filandre's company included a " petit Guerin," who
was to become in future years the second husband of
Moliere's wife. Thus again an adopted daughter of
Filandre, a cast-off child of Dutch origin, became
enamoured of Jean Pitel, the candle-snuffer of the
same troupe, married him about 1664, ?P^ ^ reputation
under the name of Mademoiselle Beauval,i and by
order of the king had to leave the province and join
Moliere's company at Paris. 2 She made her dSuf,
^ See her portrait and the portrait of her husband in Hillc-
macher, "Galerie historique des Portraits des Comcdiens de la

Troupe de Moliere." Lyon, 1869, 8vo, pp. 107 and 113.

2 This order, a very curious and characteristic one, reads like

an anticipation of the famous " Moscow decree." It runs thus :

" De par le Roi I Sa Majeste voulant toujours entretenir Ics troupes

de ses comcdiens completes, et pour cet efFet prendre les meilleurs
des provinces pour son divertissement, et ctant informee que la
nommee Beauval, Tune des actrices de la troupe des comcdiens
qui est prcsentement a Macon a toutes les qualites requises pour
meriter une place dans la troupe de ses comcdiens qui represente
dans la salle de son Palais Royal, mande et ordonne a ladite
Beauval et a son mari, de se rendre incessamment a la suite de sa

cour pour y recevoir ses ordres. ." Her associates are ordered. .

to let her go " nonobstant toutes conventions, contrats et traites

avec clauses de dedit . . . attendu qu'il s'agit de la satisfaction et

du service de Sa Majeste. ... Fait a.St, Germain en Laye, le

xxxi. Juillet, 1670." Signed, " Louis," and further below,

"Colbert." Chardon, p. 91.
 PAUL SCARRON, 135

two months later, before Louis, as Nicole of the

''
Bourgeois Gentilhomme." Her little daughter Louise
was the Louison of the ''Malade Imaginaire/' in which
piece her husband played the part of Diafoirus.
Such was the company which visited the Mans
country at the time when Scarron was there, and which
he had in his mind while writing. Of such sort were
his heroes, men and women of flesh and blood, with
feelings of their own, with wit and foibles. He is

fond of them, and describes their outward appearance,

their dress and attitudes, the tone of their voice, with
something of a Chaucerian care many of the inmates
;

of the inn atLe Mans would not have disfigured the

table of mine host of The Tabard.''
''
The eye Scarron
had for details and picturesqueness never exercised
itself with better eflFect. His old man totters on,
'^
carrying a bass viol on his shoulders ; and because he
stooped a little as he went, one might have taken him
at a distance for a great tortoise walking upon his hind
feet. Some critic or other will perhaps find fault with
the comparison, by reason of the disproportion between
that creature and a man ; but I speak of those great
tortoises that are to be found in the Indies ; and be-
sides, I make bold to use the simile upon my own
authority."^ Destin, "as poor in clothes as rich in

^ "Comical Romance," Lawrence and Bullen, 1892, i. p. 4.

 136 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
mien, walked by the side of the cart : he had a great
patch on his face (which covered one of his eyes and
half of one cheek), and carried a long birding-piece on
his shoulder, wherewith he had murdered several mag-
pies, jays, and crows, which being strung together made
him a sort of bandoleer ; at the bottom of which hung
a hen and goose, that looked as if they had been taken
from the enemy by way of plunder. Instead of a hat
he wore a night-cap tied about his head with garters of
several colours. . . . His doublet was a griset-coat . .
.'*

&c., &C.I
Scarron pays the attention good painters do to hands
and feet ; his heroes stand or lean, we always know
how ; their hands hang down or carry something, we
are informed of the what and the wherefore. Destin
bows '^
without offering to pull off his turban, because
with one hand he held his gun and with the other the
hilt of his sword, lest it should knock against his legs."
Little Ragotin, big Madame Bouvillon, lean la Rappi-
niere, the curate of Domfront, stand in full light with

every particular of their dress and figure so visible that

it seems as if we should recognise them in the street.

More art even is spent with the actresses ; they are

scarcely described at all, and we feel and know, without
the possibility of hesitation, how pretty and modest
^ '*
Comical Romance," Lawrence and Bullen, 1892, i. p. 4.
 PAUL SCARRON, i37

they are, how elegant in their dress and witty in their

speech. Even when there is scarcely a word about

them, we enjoy the charm of their presence.
In his novel (much better than in his plays) Scarron
busies himself with something more than the externals
of his heroes ; I mean with their thoughts and subtler
feelings. Of course he does not launch into long
disquisitions about their sentiments ;
psychological
literature was not to his taste, though largely practised

in his day, according to the fashion of the time, in

heroical romances. But he knows how to give in a

few brief words a just impression of the temper and

qualities of his not very complicated heroes. They are

plain, straightforward men who go their way, and laugh

at downhearted people ; they even laugh at the poet of
their own troupe, who is in love ''
with one of the two
she-players; but, however, he was so discreet, though
a little crack-brained, that it was not yet discovered
which of the two he designed to wheedle into

compliance with the fair hope of making her im-

mortal.'' There is much knowledge of the human
heart displayed in the one brief sentence, in which
Scarron describes the state of mind of Destin when he
has lost his love (for a while), and says :
**
Je pleural
comme un enfant et je mennuyai partout on je ne fas

fas seuiy In another single sentence Scarron sum-

138 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN.
manses much of the psychology of provincial life in

all times :
" La ville du Mans se trouva pleine de
chasseurs que le bruit de cette grande fete attira, la

plupart avec leurs femmes, qui furent ravies de voir

des dames de la cour pour en pouvoir parler le reste de

leurs jours aupres de leur feu!' Don Carlos falls in

love with a lady whom he has heard speak, but never

seen :
" tant Tesprit a de pouvoir sur ceux qui en
I
ont."
Many other such examples, showing insight into the
human heart and a knowledge of human nature, might
be adduced ; for many are the occasions on which our
heroes' tempers are put to the trial, and they have
to display whatever there is in them of courage or
cowardice, love or hate. Scarron's aim in his novel
was to oppose all sort of exaggerations, all invraisem-

blances^ all magnifying of people or sentiments ; he

meant in all seriousness to paint from life. He did
not pretend to lead his heroes, but he was, on the
contrary, led by them :
" One chapter brings on
another," he said, '*
and I do in my book as those
who let the reins loose, and allow their horses to do
as they please.'*

From the few extracts just given it will have been

already gathered that one of Scarron's main attractions
^ I. Chapters I and 9.
 PAUL SCARRON, 139

consists in his style. While in most of the writers of

fiction in his day style was either too high or too low,
constantly verging on pomposity or vulgarity, his own
has a sobriety and directness combined with such a

happiness of expression as to stand unsurpassed when

he is at his best. With all his jocosity and fun he
knows how to be tender and delicate ; his language
being quite natural, with no " parti-pris " of any sort,
fits with perfect flexibility events and circumstances.
He is not the man to blow with Scudery his own
trumpet ; he does not sing of ''
le vainqueur des
'*
vainqueurs de la terre ; sometimes, however, he
sings, and sometimes he murmurs, and sometimes he
laughs, he sneezes, and even barks. His style remains
in keeping with his theme ; it adapts itself equally to
Mile, de la Boissiere's adventures and to Ragotin's
misfortunes. He coins words, barbarisms we should
call them in other authors ; but he resumes so quickly
his well-behaved attitude, that we have no time to
grumble ; and truly they are not lapses, but skips of
his pen. Who would have the heart to blame Ragotin

and his *'

figure oursine *'
; who would refuse himself

the pleasure of seeing the crust of the pasty served to

the Bohemians being eaten by the black little hohdmillons
their children, or disagree with the statement that we
live in a time when everybody *^
se marquise de soi
''
meme }
 —

I40 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

Sharp, short sayings, witty or weighty, abound in his
novel. Ragotin was " assez mauvais poete pour etre
royaume " La
etoufFe s'il y avait de la police dans le ;

Rancune, *'qui s'etait altere a force de boire, ne faisait

que remplir les deux verres ; '' the Curate of Domfront,

" fit consulter sa gravelle par les medecins du Mans,
qui lui dirent en latin fort elegant qu'il avait la

gravelle (ce que le pauvre homme ne savait que trop)

et ayant aussi acheve d'autres affaires . . . il partit de
rhotellerie/' Destin, while in Italy, and very poor :

" etait assez bien vetu, comme il est necessaire de Tetre

a ceux de qui la condition ne peut faire excuser un
mechant habit."
In one single sentence little scenes are brought
before our eyes, the persons, their attitudes, their

feelings ; scenes that might tempt the pencil of a

draughtsman. While journeying on his donkey,

Ragotin is persuaded by La Rancune to spout verses

from Theophile's tragedy of " Pyrame et Thisbe " :

i

*'
Certain peasants who attended a loaded cart, and
were going the same way, hearing him speak with the
emphasis of an enthusiast, thought he must surely be

^ The famous tragedy from which Boileau picked out, to be

pilloried for ever, the two ridiculous lines :

"Voici done le poignard qui du sang de son maitre

"
S'est souille lachement. II en rougit le traitre !
 PAUL SCARRON, 141

preaching the word of the Lord ; and therefore, as long

as he rehearsed his heroics, they walked cap in hand
by his side and respected him as an itinerant preacher. "^
In the " Comical Romance " the adventures are

many. Life was then much more adventurous than it

is now, and Scarron could put many incidents in his
novel which look extraordinary to-day. Everything
that happens in his story did happen, or might have
happened to Filandre's or to Moliere's troupe. A
number of small details scattered here and there in his
work will help the reader to realise the difference of
the times ; and for this reason the novel has an
historical as well as a literary value. Take an example,
a trifling one : very often while travelling in the East
you are informed of your coming near an inhabited
place by the smell of decaying carcases of beasts (the
scavenger-dogs not having completed their task). Such
was the state of things in the France of the Grand
Roi, and we find in Chapter XIV. a horse that had been
killed allowed to remain on the spot and be eaten by
dogs and wolves.
There is a double current of adventures in Scarron's
' " Quclqucs paysans qui accompagnaicnt unc charrctic
chargce ct qui faisaicnt Ic mcmc chcmiii crurcnt qu'il prcchait
la parole dc Dicu, Ic voyant dcclamcr \k commc un forcenc ;

tandis qu'il recita, ils curent toujours la tete nue, et le respect^rent

comme un prcdicateur de grands chemins " (II. ch. 2).
142 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
novel, each serving as a set-ofF to the other. There
are the comparatively elegant adventures of Destin,
UEtoile, Leandre, and AngeUque, and the gross ad-
ventures of La Rancune, La Rappiniere, and Ragotin ;

these last very gross indeed, and if very comical

at times, at others very unsavoury. These are the

only parts of the novel which remind us unpleasantly

of the sick-room where it was composed. It seems
very curious now how greatly they were relished in

those times, and how such grossness could be reputed

" plaisanterie du meilleur gout," to use St. Simon's
word. Scarron's visitors, those even of the best sort,

greatly encouraged him in it ; he used to read to them

chapters of his novel, and when they laughed he would
say :
" 'Tis all right, the book will be a success."
" I remember," writes Segrais, " that I went once to see

him, with Abbe Franquetot. '

Take a seat,' said he,
^and stay here, that I may try my ''Comical Romance"
upon you.' And at the same time he took a few sheets

of his work and read some of it. When he saw that

we were laughing Good,' said he,
:
' '
the book will do,

it makes such clever people

as I see as you are laugh.'

He thereupon accepted our congratulations. He called

this trying his Romance, in the same way as a coat is

tried on. He was funny and amusing in everything." ^

^ " Segraisiana," 1721, p. 142.

 PAUL SCARRON. 143

But something more than incitements to a laughter

of no refined quality came from Scarron's sick-room.
Higher topics than night adventures in the obscure
corridors of country inns were discussed in that apart-
ment where the wits of the time used to meet. Many
of those discussions are reproduced by Scarron in his
book, who describes men of his day, and is careful

always to place them in their proper frame and milieu.

The literary problems which then troubled the minds
and had not been solved yet — for a time — by grave
Boileau, dramatic questions especially, constantly recur
in his pages. The merits and demerits of the famous
unities, the Spanish drama, the liberties of the old
French stage of which Ragotin appallingly avails him-
self in his " Faits et gestes de Charlemagne en vingt

journees,'' the antiquated examples left by Garnier and

Hardy, the rendering of plays by good and bad players
at the Hotel de Bourgogne, the Marais or in the

provinces, the talents of the dramatists Tristan,

Theophlle, and Mairet, the unparalleled genius of
Corneille — such and many others are the questions
over which they fight or agree when they are enjoying

their rest at the inn or at some country Ma^^cenas' house.

No other book gives a better idea of the fire and

sincerity with which literary theories were at that time
attacked or defended ; it must be remembered that we
 144 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
are still on the threshold of the reign, at a time when
nothing had yet been settled. It was not so long since
the Academy had passed its sentence on the " Cid/'and
such an effervescence continued as was only once
witnessed since — I mean in 1830, when the fight was
renewed over the Cid of new-born times, that other
Spaniard, Hernani.
Scarron himself was never tired of extolling Cor-
neille. Of all his plays "Nicomede'' is the one Scarron
prefers, because it is so dignified :
" On representa le
jour suivant le '
Nicomede ' de Tinimitable M. de
Corneille. Cette comedie est admirable a mon juge-
ment, et celle de cet excellent poete de theatre en
laquelle il a plus mis du sien et a plus fait paraitre la

fecondite et la grandeur de son genie, donnant a tous

les acteurs des caracteres fiers, tous differents les uns
des autres.'' Moliere, who created so many Sganarelles
and Scapins, and excelled in personating them on the
stage, far preferred to play emperors : Scarron, even
while writing of Typhon, and sitting squat in his wood
and iron arm-chair, dreamed of yet unbuilt Versailles.

While his pet adoration was Corneille, his pet

aversion was the long-drawn heroical novel as it was

then understood ; his raillery of any such is frequent
and amusing, and much more to the point than
Boileau's. The heroical novel was just then reaching
 PAUL SCAR RON. 145

the height of its prosperity ; the Hotel de Rambouillet

was in its glory, and Magdeleine de Scudery wa&
publishing amidst unparalleled applause her ''
Clelie,"

with the " carte du tendre " in it, the first volume
having been printed in 1649, ^^^ tenth and last to
be issued in 1654. "I cannot positively tell," says

Scarron, alluding to the heroes of such novels,

*'
whether he had supped at this time or whether he
went to bed without a supper. Neither do I care to

imitate the writers of romances, who mark with great

exactness all the hours of the day, and make their

heroes rise betimes, relate their adventures by dinner-

time, eat but little at dinner, then resume the story

after dinner, or retire into the thickest part of a wood,

in order to entertain themselves, unless they have
something to say to the rocks and trees. At supper-
time they make them repair at the usual hour to the
place where they eat ; there they sigh and look
pensive instead of eating ; and thence go to build
castles in the air on some terrace-walk that looks
towards the sea, whilst the trusty squire reveals that
his master is such a one, son to such a king ; that he
is the best prince alive, and though he be still the
handsomest of all mortals, that he \vas quite another
man before love had disfigured him.** ' The publish-
* The "Comical Romance," 1892, i. p. 36.
146 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
ing of Scarron's " Roman Comique " did, however,
more than his raillery or jokes towards destroying the
hold such novels had on the readers.
The first part of his novel appeared in 1651 ^ with
an engraved title-page, representing a stage with
Italian maskers on it ; it was dedicated to Retz :
" Au
coadjuteur, c'est tout dire" ; the second part was pub-
lished in 1657 ; the work was left unfinished. Several
sequences and conclusions have been added ; the best
known being the one edited by OfFray, a Lyons pub-
lisher and a contemporary of Scarron.
One of the main defects of Scarron's novel, as

such, is shown by the fact that it could as well have

been left as it was. His book presents to us a suc-

cession of scenes full of variety and life, but it has no

particular aim and leads to nowhere, or rather it so
obviously leads from the very first page to the nuptial
altar where Destin and I'Etoile, Leandre and Angelique

^ A copy of the very rare first edition is preserved at the

Arsenal Library in Paris, where is to be found also the best collec-
tion (though an incomplete one) of the original editions ot
Scarron's works :
" Le Romant Comique de M. Scarron," Paris,
Toussainct Quinet, 165 1, 8vo. The title-page bears the motto of
Quinet " Heureux Quinaist ainsi." The " Acheve d'imprimer "
:

runs thus " Acheve d'imprimer pour la premiere fois, le 15 jour

:

de Septembre, 165 i." The engraved frontispiece bears date 1652.

The last chapter in the volume is the twenty-third and last of

the first part.

 PAUL SCARRON. i47

will join hands, to live happy together for ever and

ever with plenty of children around them, that we
have very little curiosity further to hear of what we
already know. Scarron was well aware of this defect,
and with his usual want of literary hypocrisy he did
not make the faintest attempt at concealing it. He
wrote scenes as they occurred to him with no more of
a preconceived plan than can be put to the credit of

Sterne himself,^ leading his lovers and traitors and

chance comers here and there along the roads and
across country ; they follow " chemins creux," they
make their escape at night and travel on horseback,
telling their adventures till morning comes. Players
as they are they behave themselves very well ; if there

is much grossness there is no indecency. In this

Scarron greatly differs from such novelists as Smollett,

whose grossness thoroughly equals our author's, and is

not relieved by the very enjoyable charm and good

behaviour of the heroes in the *'
Comical Romance.**

^ Some of his scenes, depicted with a particular attention to

attitudes, gestures, and physiognomy, are well worth comparing
with Sterne, to whom Scarron was undoubtedly familiar. See, for
example, the scene between Ragotin, Father Gifflot, and the
nuns, part ii. chap. xvi.
 —

148 ENGLISH ESSAYS EROM A ERENCH PEN.

VI. Scarron's Fame.

Scarron survived the publication of his unfinished

novel three years. He often alludes to it in his letters

and his verses, and declares that he means to continue

it, I but time passed on and the year 1660 came, when he
sank and died. His main regret was for his wife, to

whom he was more attached than ever. *' The last

time that I saw Scarron,'' writes Segrais, " as I was

taking leave of him before my journey to Bordeaux,

he said, '
I shall die soon, I know it : my only regret
will be to leave my wife in want. 2 Her merits cannot
be too much extolled, and I cannot sufficiently express
my gratitude towards her.' " 3

^ " Ma sante [m'a] oblige a vcnir prendre I'air a une lieue de

Paris, ou j'espere achever une comedie et la conclusion de mon
Roman." To Fouquet. (" Dernieres CEuvres.")
2 He left her in absolute want ; see an account of his debts
(including the unpaid bills of the butcher, tailor, apothecary, &c.)
in Boislisle, p. 97. Their house had, however, always been well
and pleasantly furnished. See the " Inventaire fait a la mort de
Scarron," ibid.^ p. 183.
3 In the deed by which a royal pension was awarded to her in
1666, mention was made, as a motive, of her husband's "services."
See, in the MS. Clairembault, 1165, fol. 162 (National Library,
Paris) the note concerning the " Brevet d'une pension de 2,700
Roy le 23 fevrier 1666 a la dame Fran^oise
livres accorde par le
d'Aubigne, veuve du feu Sr. Scarron, tant en consideration des
services dudit Scarron qu'en consideration de ceux du feu Sr.

d'Aubigne ayeul de ladite dame."

 —

PAUL SCARRON. 149

When Segrais came back from his "voyage de Bor-

deaux " he hastened to the house of his friend ; but it

was too late. *'

When I came to his door I saw that
they were removing the chair upon which he was
always seated and which had just been sold at auction.
That was an arm-chair, with iron arms that could be
pulled forward, and which supported a table for him to

write upon or eat oiF." ^

He was buried in the church St. Gervais,^ where,

says Theophile Gautier, ''
his tomb, as I think, is still

to be seen/' I went some time ago to ascertain ; it is

not to be seen. The church is paved with large flag-

stones, nearly all of them covering a tomb. When the

calorifere was built a number of them were removed

and a skeleton was found in almost every instance.
Most of them bear now no inscription or have been so

' " Scgraisiana," 1 721, pp. 114 and 133.

^ He had written for himself the following epitaph, marked by
his usual resignation and good humour :

" Celui qui ci maintenant dort

Fit plus dc pitie que d'envie
Et soufFrit mille fois la mort
Avant que dc perdre la vie.

Passants, nc faitcs pas dc bruit

Et gardez vous qu'il nc s'cvcillc,

Car voici la premiere nuit

Que Ic pauvrc Scarron sommcillc."
150 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
defaced as to baffle all inquiry ; none remains with the
name of Scarron. A low wainscoted chapel with paint-
ings on wood is traditionally called Scarron's chapel,

and the beadle will tell you that Madame de Maintenon

used to come here and mourn for her first husband. But
this is merely a catchpenny saying, and there is not a
particle of truth in it. The only tomb of note to be
seen above ground is the large white and black marble
sarcophagus of Michel le Tellier, whose " oraison

funebre " Bossuet delivered in this same church twenty-

five years after Scarron's death.

Even in his lifetime Scarron's fame as an author had

been very great. Different as it was from everything
that had been seen before, and especially from the
heroical novels which were then the fashion, his
''
Roman Comique " enjoyed an immense popularity.
It pleased the Court as well as the town. Young Louis
XIV. is suspected to have read it, " en cachette."

Mazarin was very wroth at the discovery :

" The
Cardinal," writes Madame de Motteville, ''
coming one
day into the room where the king was in bed on account
of some slight illness, saw my brother, who was reading
something to amuse his Majesty, Scarron's Romance,
maybe. He was greatly shocked and blamed this as if

it had been a great crime.'' ^

^ Year 1657. " Memoires," Paris, 1878, vol. iv. pp. 89, 90.
 PAUL SCARRON. 151

Such men as Fouquet and Conde read it and were

delighted. " Have some care of me," Scarron wrote to
his patron the ''
surintendant/' ''
for, if I were to die,

you would have no more of those romances which

made you laugh so, no more Don Japhet, which amused
the king so much, no more verses, no more prose, no
more Scarron : in a word, of all those no mores the
last is the worst, for when you are dead, were it only
for a minute, then dead you are for ever and ever.'* ^

As for Conde, the news of his having such a reader

delights Scarron :
" Is it really possible that the Grand
Conde knows that I am alive ? My friend Guenault
tells me that he has seen the second part of my Roman *

Comique ' on his table. I am very proud of that." 2

In fact Scarron's heroes soon became as well known as

those in ''
Astree " ; they too were quoted as being
familiar to everybody. Madame de Sevigne, writing
from Grignan, thus describes the coming home of
her son-in-law with a bruised face :
'* II etait tombe

' "Alors, plus de romans qui vous fircnt tant rirc,

Et plus dc Dons Japhet qui plurcnt tant au roi,

Plus de vers, plus de prose, en un mot plus dc moi.
De tous ces plus, le dernier est le pire,
Car s'il faut qu'on soitmort un instant seulcmcnt,
On est mort eternellement."
"Dernicrcs CEuvres," i. p. 231.
» " Derni^res CEuvrcs," i. p. td.
152 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN
a Sorgues sur un degre et s'etait tellement casse le nez
et un peu la tete et avalt de si grands emplatres que
jamais la Rappiniere ni le Destin x\^\\ porterent de plus
remarquables/'i In another letter the charming I'Etoile
comes in for a comparison.

No one of course pleases everybody, and some ''esprits

chagrins " protested against Scarron*s fame. Michel

Begon for one, who was making a collection of por-

traits of the illustrious men of his century, wrote to

Cabart de Villermont in 1689 that he doubted whether
he would have the portrait of Scarron, adding, how-
ever, that he considered Moliere a better man, though
according to him the difference between the two was
not great. No higher praise than this would-be blame
has ever been bestOA^ed upon Scarron. ''
I have got
the works of Scarron," wrote Begon ;
" I have not his
portrait ; but I am not quite sure I shall give him
place in my collection : I do not much like his badinage.

Moliere is, I consider, a better man, though neither

-
must be ranked among the illustrious of our time."
The success of the novel induced no less a man than
La Fontaine to draw a comedy from it. Good La
Fontaine had a particular knack of constructing detest-

^ Oct. 14, 1694.

f "Michel Begon, Correspondance et Documents inedits,'' ed.

Duplessis, Paris, 1874, P- ^4*

 —

PAUL SCARRON, 153

able plays from excellent novels. His " Ragotin/*

which he wrote in collaboration with Champmesle, was
represented on the 21st of April, 1684. It was per-
formed only for ten nights ; the characters in it are

overdrawn ; caricature has invaded all the play, the

dramatist is even more unpardonably ferocious than
Scarron had been towards poor little Ragotin, nothing
is left of the charm of Angelique and TEtoile. Some
years later, not made wiser by this failure, La Fontaine
busied himself with ''
I'Astree," and had an operatic
play on this subject performed in November, 1691.
All he got for his pains was to be served with such
epigrams as the following :

"On ne peut trop plaindre la peine

Dc rinfortune Celadon,
Qui, sortant des eaux du Lignon,
Vint sc noyer dans la Fontaine."

Another attempt at paying Scarron literary honours

did not prove more successful. In 1733 his novel was
turned into French verse — not, however, into poetry

—by le Tellier d*Orvilliers, who followed as closely

as could be his original, so closely, indeed, that a
strong flavour of prose entirely pervades his poem.'
' " Le Roman Comique mis en vers." Begins thus :

" Monsieur Phebus allant bon train,

Etoit plus d'a moitie chcmin

Et son char penchant vers Ic monde,
Roulloit en s'approchant dc Tonde."
154 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
It was translated into several languages, and more
than once into English. One of the English transla-
tions was made by Tom Brown and various collabo-
rators (1700), and another by Goldsmith. In a third
and earlier one we find clumsy attempts at an adapta-
tion. The name of London is substituted for Paris ;

''
France " becomes " England ''
; when the poet of the
troupe prides himself upon a personal acquaintance
with Corneille and Rotrou, the English translator adds
Shakespeare to the list :
" And above all the rest, the
poet, with a ring of admirers about him of the chiefest

wits of the town, was tearing his throat with telling

them he had seen Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Fletcher,
Corneille ; had drunk many a quart with Saint Amant,
Davenant, Shirley, and Beys ; and lost good friends by
the death of Rotrou, Denham, and Cowly." ^

Better than anything else, the success the " Roman

Comique " enjoyed with draughtsmen and engravers
testified to its vitality. Without speaking of the col-
lection of pictures by Coulon now preserved in the
Museum at Le Mans,^ and of the cuts adorning various

^ " Scarron's comical romance : or a facetious history of a com-

pany of strowling stage players, interwoven with divers choice
novels, rare adventures,and amorous intrigues ... by the famous
and witty poet, Scarron." London, 1676.
2 They had been painted to order, to adorn a room in the castle

of La Vernie. Coulon, who belonged to the Mans country,

^^s^MiM^^Ukr
 PAUL SCARRON. 155

old editions, it was twice taken as the subject for a series

of large plates by famous artists in the eighteenth cen-

tury. The well-known " animalier ''
Oudry, who had
not yet won his repute in this capacity, nor painted the

numerous royal or ducal dogs now in the Louvre and

elsewhere, made about 1717-1719 a very fine series of

drawings, full of life and of a sort of Hogarthian

humour, which were separately engraved and pub-
lished. A number of them were engraved by himself
The famous Pater, in conjunction with Dumont, pub-
lished another series between the years 1729 and 1739.
There is more grace in them than in Oudry's work,
but less life. The series by Pater and Dumont has
been republished in our time by Anatole de Montaiglon,i
and we give a reduced facsimile of the first plate in

the original collection. Oudry's illustrations, or rather

Lawrence and
a choice of them, have been reproduced in

Bullen's English edition of the " Comical Romance,*'

1892.
Of late years, as the taste for novels has gone on
increasing, Scarron's fame has kept pace. Fine editions
and cheap editions of his '*
Roman " have greatly mul-

paintcd them in 17 12-16 in a very vulgar style, bordering on

caricature, but with great spirit.
' " Le Roman Comique dc Scarron, pcint par B. Pater et
J. J.
Dumont Ic Romain." Paris, 1883, fbl.
156 ENGLISH ESSA VS FROM A FRENCH FEN
tiplied. Paul Bourget published one, Anatole France
another ; Zier illustrated a third. Victor Fournel gave
an annotated text in Janet's " Collection Elzevirienne."
The best critics of our time have busied themselves
with him. He has been honoured with a biography
by Guizot,^ with a chapter by Theophile Gautier,^
with quotations by Alfred de Musset.
Gautier took from him the hint for his " Capitaine
Fracasse," mixing, however, in it many new elements,
some drawn from Sorel, some from Walter Scott (the
siege of the castle, for example, which had obviously the
same architect as Torquilstone), some from his own
fund. Among the latter we must mention the place
allotted to landscape descriptions, which are as numer-
ous and prolix in " Fracasse ''
as they are brief and

scant in Scarron. The mere description of Sigognac's

ruinous chateau occupies sixteen pages ; and when we
have finished reading it we may well wonder whether
we see it better before our eyes than the Mans country,
with its hedges and poplars and " chemins creux," ot
which so little is said but to such good purpose in
Scarron. And turning back to that curious mine
which we have so often used, the ''
Segraisiana," we
feel after this experience well prepared to subscribe to

Wn his " Corneille et son Temps."

2 In bis *'
Grotesques."
 PAUL SCARRON. i57

Madame de La Fayette's wise saying as to how ''

une
periode retranchee d'un ouvrage vaut un louis d'or et
un mot vingt sols/*

Of late years a very clever book was devoted to

Scarron and his works by M. Morillot, and important

articles of great biographical interest were published, as
"
we have seen, in the " Revue des Questions historiques

by M. de Boislisle.

Of all the honours conferred upon Scarron after his

death, the most unexpected was the striking of a medal

in his honour. " Par mesdames les neuf muses/' he
had written once, *' je n'ai jamais espere que ma tete

devint I'original d une mSdaille." But it did. It was

engraved by Cure, and represents, on one side, Scarron's

face, and on the other an emblematic scene with the

appropriate motto :

*•
J'ai vaincu la doulcur par Ics ris ct Ics jcux."
 —

IV.

A JOURl^ET ro ENGLAND IN THE

TEAR 1663.

I. The Traveller Introduced.

AMONG the familiars of the French Embassy, in

the year 1663, when Comte de Cominges
the
represented the Grand Monarch at the British
Court, was a strange person, who belonged partly to
the Church and partly to the world, a Protestant by
birth and a Catholic by trade, named Samuel Sorbieres,

or de Sorbieres, as he preferred to be called. He was

travelling in England to see the sights, to improve his

knowledge, and to become better acquainted with the

famous philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury.
Sorbieres was then between forty and forty-five years
of age ; he was born at St. Ambroise, in the diocese of
Uzez ; his father, his uncle (the then well-known
Petit), all his family were staunch Protestants ; and so
158
I I'Jrndiir in nuinii proinhu, canJorquc,rioeJii(ic.:^->.
^^ <7
///
P- r
cnplu
/I
rcluiuM pentpiccy nienlu 1^ opc.r.
I CV
.r-y

PORTKAIT OK SORBIEKES, BY N. BONNART, 1664.

 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 159

was Sorbieres himself, to all appearance, during many

years. He lived for a while at Paris, then in Holland,

then at Orange, where he was appointed principal of

the local college. His easy manners, easy speech, easy
style in writing made him an agreeable correspondent
and companion, and he became, early in life, acquainted

with several of the best men of the day ; he exchanged

letters with Gassendi, Father Marsenne, Hobbes,
Saumaize. A number of epistles addressed by him to
Saumaize are preserved in the National Library, Paris
(MS. Fr. 3930); they treat of learned questions; they
contain copies of recently discovered inscriptions ; they
are full of friendly assurances and respectful compli-
ments to both Mr. and Madame de Saumaize.
Sorbieres had while young studied theology ; then
medicine ; then he had devoted himself wholly to the
making of his fortune, for the improvement of which
he allowed himself to be converted in good time to the

Catholic faith. " I have heard," Guy Patin writes in

1653, "that our old friend, M. Sorbieres, master of the

college at Orange, has proved a turn-coat, and has

become a Roman Catholic. He was requested to do
so by the Bishop of Vaison, and by the Cardinals de
Bichi and Barberin ... Of such kind are the miracles
which can be witnessed to-day — miracles, I say, of the
political and economical, rather than the metaphysical
 ;

i6o ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

order. He Is a widower ^ and a clever fellow, but,
sharp as he is, I wonder whether with that new shirt

of his, he will succeed in making his fortune at Rome,

for the place swarms with hungry and thirsty people."

The thirst and hunger of Sorbieres were of the

keenest, and he took immense pains to assuage both

he journeyed to Rome, appealed to the king, wrote

against the Protestants ; but his want of character was
against him ; he only got temporary favours, small
allowances, and unimportant livings. He did his best
from year to year to ingratiate himself with cardinal,
king, and pope ; he never failed nor succeeded
entirely. From Mazarin he got little ; from Louis
XIV. he received the empty title of Historiographer
Royal (1660) and, what was more to the purpose, a
pension of a thousand livres ; from Clement IX. he
obtained a trifling gratuity, given once for all, and
many kind words. His dehoire on this last occasion
was great :
" They give lace cuffs,'' he said, ^'
to a man
without a shirt !
" As his disappointment lasted long
he had time to circulate this consolatory witticism, to
"
improve it and remodel it ; several of the '*
variantes
such as :
*^
I wish they would send me bread for the

^ Sorbieres had married, while in Holland, a Frenchwoman

called Judith Renaud ; they had a son, Henry, who, after the death
of his father, caused a part of his papers to be published.
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.JD. 1663. 161

butter they kindly provided me with/' have been

preserved by his friend Graver ol.^
Before his journey to England, Sorbieres was known
to literary men principally by his translations. He had
turned from Latin into French Sir Thomas More's
''Utopia/' Hobbes's " De Give/' Bates's " Elenchus

motuum nuperorum in Anglia." 2 He had also written

a few essays, letters and discourses, on philosophical,

medical, theological, and other subjects. Hobbes had
been greatly pleased with Sorbieres's translation : ''The
book " (/>., the '^
De Give "), he said, in his " Six

lessons to the professors of the mathematics," 1656,!

" translated into French hath not only a great testimony

from the translator Sorbieres, but also from Gassendus

and Mersennus." He began with Sorbieres a corre-
spondence in Latin, where he apostrophises him as
" clarissime charissimeque, amicissime, eruditissime,"

&c. And he went even further, as he dedicated " viro

clarissimo et amicissimo Samueli Sorberio/' his "Dialogus

' In the biography he published as a preface to the " Sorberiana/'

Toulouse, 1691.
2 " Lcs vrayes causes des derniers troubles d'Angleterre, abrcgc

d'histoirc, ou les droicts du Roy et ceux du Parlcment et du

pcuplc sont naifvement representee," Orange, 1653, 8vo. This is
often given as an original work of Sorbieres, though in his dedica-
tion he himself states that he translated it at the request of the
Count de Dhona.
II
1 62 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
physicus de Natura Aeris," addressing to him a very
characteristic and pungent letter, where, according to
his wontj he loudly complains of everything and every-
body, but concludes with the kindest appeal to his
correspondent, saying :
'*
Let us live as long and as
well as we can, and let us love each other — Vale/*
A desire of having some talk with Hobbes was
among the main motives Sorbieres had when he under-
took the journey which was to make him for a short
while famous all over Europe in the literary and
diplomatic world, and to give him his "minute
d'immortalite."

II. —SoRBiEREs's Journey.

Sorbieres spent the summer of 1663 in England ; he

had long conversations with Hobbes, he went to the
play, dined at the French Embassy, was presented at

Court, visited Oxford, drove to Hatfield, was admitted

to a sitting of the Royal Society, and, when he had
come back, wrote, at the request of the Marquis de
Vaubrun Nogent, an account of all he had seen. The
book appeared in 1664,^ and raised a storm. The
author was refuted, confuted, and exiled ; diplomatic
^ " Relation d'un Voyage en Angleterre, ou sont touchees plusieurs
choses qui regardent I'estat des sciences, et de la Religion etautres
matieres curieuses." Paris, 1664, 8vo.
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 163

dispatches were exchanged on his account, and apology

offered ; the English Court and the Danish Court and
the French Court were in a state of commotion ; the
literati on the three sides of the North Sea flew to

their pens and made a stand against the invader ; even

gentlemen belonging to the Church wrote in un-
christian language on the subject.
The book and man which created so much mproar
have fallen since into oblivion. Whenever by any
chance they are alluded to, it is always with a re-
membrance of the quarrel, and the " Relation d'un
Voyage en Angleterre " is usually mentioned as being
a book of slander on the English nation, and nothing

more. But it is something more.

Sorbieres's first impressions on landing had not been
very good ; his companions' luggage had been stormed,
it seems, by intrusive porters, and street arabs had
pestered them with uncomplimentary apostrophs. The
same thing, he philosophically observes, happens in all

countries ; in England it happens thus : As soon as

Frenchmen land, " boys run after them, shrieking,

A mounser, a mounser ! /.^., au monsieur ! by way of
insult. Little by little, as travellers warm the boys
through their very efforts to push them away or to stop
their noise, the said boys rise to : French dogs, French
dogs ! Such is the honourable name by which we are
 :

1 64 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN

known in England — in the same way as we go by the
name of moucherons [gnats] in Holland ; both being
less hard than the matto Francese [mad French] with
which the rabble favours us in Italy/'

For such inconveniences Sorbieres considers that the

travellers themselves are in a great measure responsible
" We make too much noise/' he says ;
" our agitation is

considered indiscreet ; they deem it ridiculous and they

show it as I have said. Our behaviour is the very

reverse of theirs ; they are phlegmatic and quietly
suffer everybody to do exactly as they like." This
being once understood, no unpleasantness need be
expected. Sorbieres himself met with a better treat-

ment at Dover than it had been his fortune to find

anywhere else ; but his companions were greatly

''
deconcertes." For " as soon as they appeared on
the wharf the noise they made with their servants drew
a mob which accompanied them to their lodgings with

strange howls. They took it unkindly ; dogs played

their part in the fray ; stones were thrown, and the

militia had to interfere."

From Dover to London, by way of Canterbury and

Rochester, Sorbieres is constantly on the look out, and

writes, in praise of the English landscape, and especially

on the beauty of the English grass, words which ought
to have mollified the heart of his censors :
''
The
 —

A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 165

country is undulated and shapes itself in hills and

little valleys covered with an evergreen mantle. It

even seemed to me that the grass had a more pleasant

hue than elsewhere, and. was finer. For this cause it is

well fitted for the making of those pastures and sheets

of grass so even that people play bowls on them as
comfortably as they would on the cloth of some great
billiard table. As this is the usual amusement of
gentlemen in the country, they have large stone
cylinders which they cause to be rolled on the grass
to keep it down. All the country is full of parks,
very pleasant to see, with large herds of deer pacing
them. . . . There are so many trees that even the
cultivated land has the appearance of a forest, when
seen from some height, on account of the orchards and
hedges with which the meadows and the fields are

surrounded."
This will surely be considered an appreciative
account ; though of course a British-born subject
such a subject, for example, as Thackeray — might have ''
spoken more warmly, as the author of " Vanity Fair
did in his famous description of Dobbin's return
from India, when the soldier passed " by pretty
roadside inns, where the signs hung on the elms, and
horses and waggoners were drinking under the
chequered shadow of the trees ; by old halls and
1 66 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
parks, rustic hamlets clustered round ancient grey-

churches, and through the charming friendly English

landscape. Is there any in the world like it ? To a
traveller returning home it looks so kind — it seems to
shake hands with you as you pass through it."

Sorbieres and his companions go through villages

and towns ; they notice that the windows are low and
without shutters, " which shows that the inhabitants
do not fear insults nor revenge." The build of the
windows is peculiar ; at Canterbury, and indeed " all

over England, they protrude and shape themselves into

a sort of balcony, either polygonal or semi-circular ;

they appear as so many little to\A^ers and they give

elegance to the outside of the houses when the eye has

once become accustomed to them. The rooms are the

more commodious for it and better lighted ; and you

can without being seen observe what goes on in the street.
With us, people see only what is just opposite them."

Analogous to the differences in the national

windows, Sorbieres might have observed, were the

difference between the literatures of the two coun-
tries : windows to see just opposite, with logical
straightness, in Racine ;
polygonal or circular bay
windows to see forward and backward, and all round,
and to let the mind wander along with comers and
goers ('' that living flood pouring . . . from eternity
 ;

A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A,D, 1663. 167

onwards to eternity," says Teufelsdrock) — in Shake-

speare. Not until the time of Victor Hugo and the
romantic school was the use of bay-windows fairly

re-established in French literature.

From Gravesend to London '^dockyards are

discovered on both sides of the road, and there is a

swarm of carpenters who build ships. Ships of all

sorts and of all ages are to be seen everywhere

their number is surprising."

III. —London Town.

Reaching town, Sorbieres took lodgings in the
Common Garden, and began his rambles in the capital,

visiting it carefully and so to say street by street.

Frenchmen, he considers, speak too disparagingly of

it, the cause being that they do not know it well.

The fact is (and he notes it with regret) that it is

a larger one than Paris, but Paris possesses some

other advantages, such as having a more numerous
population. London has more houses and Paris more
inhabitants, for in London there is only one family in
each house. Furnished lodgings are, however, to be
found, and they are not expensive, the cost being
one crown (ecu) per week. " I chose mine not far
from Salisbury House because I liked to be able to
visit at any time Mr. Hobbes, who was living there
i68 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
with his patron, the Earl of Devonshire, two very
rare persons, of whom more hereafter."

London town is adorned with a number of grand

buildings, such as the New Exchange in the "Strangh"
(Strand). This is the place for mercers, "and I need
not say whether fine wares are to be found there, as

well as pretty girls at the counters." Lincoln's Inn

Fields is pleasant to look at. Whitehall is a sorry

medley of constructions of all epochs, but with a

splendid banqueting-hall (Ingo Jones's banqueting-hall,

with pictures by Rubens, now the Chapel Royal) ;

the palace is beautifully situated near the river and

the park. Two churches are to be noticed, one is

Westminster Abbey with its chapel of Henry VII.,

handsomely carved (un ouvrage a roses) and its royal

tombs, " which equal if they do not overmatch ours
at St. Denis." The other church is " Pauls', for such

is the unceremonious fashion in which this saint's

church is called." The rest of the religious buildings

consist of Protestant temples, very plain and without

interest.

At Westminster, as well as on London Bridge, a

remarkable sight is afforded by the heads of the late
rebels stuck on the towers. " It is to be hoped that
this sight will do as much to overawe evil-minded
persons as the benedictions which have rained on the
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 169

head of General Monk will encourage peace-loving,

honourable and loyal citizens.'*

The parks are large and fine. In St. James's Park

the king has caused telescopes to be erected, and
Sorbieres is allowed to use them and to contemplate
Saturn with its ring and Jupiter with its moons.
As for " Eyparc " (Hyde Park), it has too many
"fiacres,'' and people who have their drive there
turn round and round in endless gyrations, "de sorte

que cela se passe avec peu de galanterie."

Little "galanterie'' is to be discovered either in

the cooking practices of the nation. " The English

are not appreciative of cooking, and the table of the
greatest lords is covered only with large pieces of meat.
Bisques and potages are as good as unknown. . . .

Pastry is heavy and ill-baked ; compotes and jams are

scarcely eatable ; forks and ewers are not in common
use ; the washing of the hands is performed by a
dipping of them in a basin full of water that is brought
round to all the guests. Towards the end of the meal
it is customary to smoke tobacco (prendre du tabac en
fumee), and while so doing people continue their talk
very long. Men of quahty do not practice smoking so
assiduously as men of the people ; for a workman scarcely
allows a day to pass without going to the tavern, there
to smoke with some friends of his. For which reason,
I70 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN
taverns abound and work progresses but slowly in the

shops ; a tailor, a shoemaker will leave his board, what-

ever be the pressure of work, and stroll to the public-
house, of evenings. And as he comes home late and
somewhat dizzy, he opens his shutters and begins work
again scarcely before seven the following morning.
Manufactured goods are the dearer for it ; and a
strange jealousy grows out of these towards French
workmen, who are usually more diligent."

In their dining-rooms, as well as in their taverns,

British citizens indulge in political talks of a very free

description. They are proud of their Parliament, which

is a " corps bigearre " ; and during the long hours they
spend in smoking, they discuss public affairs, thenew
taxes, ''
the chimney tax," the state of the trade. Then
they allow their fancy to carry them back to the time
" when Oliver was there, and their fleets were so
powerful, and they won glory on all the seas, and all the
earth wanted their alliance, and the Republic flourished
and received ambassadors from all countries.'' Then
they consider the present state of the country and they
make, between the past and the present, comparisons
which are nothing short of " odieuses." They do not
forbear saying what they think of the king himself;
they are not unwilling to have one, but his rule must
not press heavily upon them.
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 171

The theatres are well worth a visit ; they are

splendidly fitted up ; the actors are excellent ; the

pity is that English dramatists have only contempt
for the holy and mighty rule " of the twenty-four
hours/' Many characteristics of the play-house
are peculiar The best places are
to England. '*

in the pit, where men and women sit together,

each with his friends. The theatre is very fine, and
covered with green cloth ; the stage is all left

to the actors ;
^ there are many perspectives and
scene-shiftings. An orchestra plays and allows the
audience to await, without ennui^ the beginning of the
performance ;
people go there early in order to hear
the music. Actors and actresses are admirable, I am
told, and so far as I could guess from their attitudes
and pronunciation. But the plays would not meet
with the same applause in France as they obtain in
England. The poets despise uniformity of place
and the rule of the twenty-four hours. They write
comedies that are supposed to last twenty-five years ;

and when they have shown you the marriage of a

^ The French stage had not been reformed yet in this respect :

" II y a ^ cetteheure une incommodite epouvantahle a la comedie ;

c'est que les deux du theatre sont tout pleins dc jeunes

c6tcs
gens assis sur des chaises dc paille.'* Tallcmant, " Historiette,"
cdxxxvi. Cf. Moli<^rc "J'etais sur Ic theatre, en humeur
d'e'couter," &c. — "Les Facheux," i (1661).
172 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN
prince at the first act, they exhibit all at once the fine

deeds of his son, and they lead him far away to many
lands. They pride themselves above all upon their

good rendering of the various passions, vices and

virtues, and in this they succeed rather well. . . .

Their comedies are in prose mesuree [/.^., blank verse],

which is nearer the ordinary language than our verses.
They cannot conceive that it is not a teasing trouble to
have the same cadence constantly striking on one's ear.

They pretend that to bear for two or three hours

Alexandrine verses, with the regular cassura stop, can-
not be considered either very natural or pleasant. It

must be confessed that this way of speech is as far

from, real life and by consequence from what is to be

represented, as the Italian custom of acting comedies in

music [/.^., operas] outdoes the extravagance of our
own habits. But it is better not to discuss tastes, and
we must leave everybody to follow his own bend.''
So great, indeed, is the difference between English
and French plays, that Sorbieres would bring home some
samples of the former to show to his friends at Paris as

travelling curiosities. What he chose to take with

him was neither the first folio of Shakespeare nor old
Ben's works, nor Davenant's romantic plays, but of all

works and of all dramatists, a volume lately published

by *'dear Margaret Newcastle," as Charles Lamb was

 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 173

fond of calling her ;

'^
un volume que la Marquise de
Nieucastel a compose/' He took at the same time
with him three volumes of the poetical, political, and
philosophical works ''
de cette dame," and his friends
in France could not but admire the " bel esprit, good
sense, and eloquence," of which he says they are full.

Other sights attract crowds in London ; foremost

among them the fights, of what Sorbieres calls " gladia-
teurs " ; but we shall pass them over, for, as he says,
they have *^ quelque chose de bien farouche,'' ^ and we
must go back and mix with polite society and learned
men.
London town is not famous only for its buildings,

^ " Je nc dois pas oublicr, parmi Ics divertissement de la bonne

ville de Londres ceux que Ton va prendre de temps en temps k
voir Ics gladiateurs. Ce sont d'ordinairc des maistres d*escrime
ou des prcvosts de sale qui, pour se mettre en reputation et gaigner
autre chose que des coups font un dcfi ct proposent 20 ou 30
Jacobus a qui vondra se battre contre eux. L'argent est mis en
depot et remis a celuy qui accepte le combat. L'appellant tire
ce qui est rcceu a la porte du cirque, et quelque fois il monte ^
deux ou trois fois plus qu'il n'a donnc k son antagonistc, scion qu'il

y a plus ou moins de peuple qui accourt a ce spectacle. lis com-

battent avec la rondache et I'espce, ^ grand coups d'estrama9on :

mais je croy qu'il y a de la collusion entre cux pour faire durcr

le jcu que Ton quitte volontiers au premier sang rcpandu.
D'ailleurs le fer n*est pas csmoulu, et neantmoins ils ne laissent
pas de se donner quelque fois de terriblcs horions et de s'avaler
la moitic d'une joue ... En ce triste diverstissement, il
y [a]
quelque chose de bien farouche."
 ;

174 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

but also for its men ; it is pre-eminently ''
magna
virum.'' Towering above all the rest in the estimation
of Sorbieres, and of many, the great Mr. Hobbes, of
Malmesbury, was then to be The first thing I
seen. "

did when I reached London was to go and visit Mr.

Hobbes. ... I had not seen him for fourteen years
I found him little altered. He was sitting in his room
in the same posture as he was accustomed to, of after-
noons, when he lived in Paris ; for he spent that time
of the day in studying, after he had been walking all

the morning. He acted thus for the benefit of his

health, which he rightly deemed the first thing to be
considered. For the same cause, and though he is now
seventy-eight, he has modified his rules in only one item,
adding each week a game at tennis, which he continues
until he has to stop out of sheer exhaustion. He is

little changed in his face, and not at all in what concerns

the vigour of his mind, the strength of his memory,
and the mirthfulness of his temper, which he has
preserved in their entirety.'* ^

^
"Je trouvay le premier \i.e., Hobbes] peu change depuis
quatorze ans que je ne I'avois veu, et je le rencontray dans sa
chambre en la meme posture qu'il etait accoutume d'estre routes
les apres disnees ; car il les employoit a I'estude, apres s'estre
promene tout le matin. Ce qu'il practiquoit pour sa sante, laquelle
il faisoit avec raison marcher la premiere ; comme encore a
present dans sa soixantc et dix huictiesme annee il n'a adjouste
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 175

The king favours him greatly. " His Majesty

showed me his portrait by the hand of Cooper in his ^

cabinet of natural and mechanical curiosities. He

asked me whether I knew that person and what I

thought of him. I answered as I should, and we

agreed that if he had been a little less dogmatical he
would have been very useful as a member of the Royal
Society. . . . He has frightened, I do not know how,

the clergy of his country and the mathematicians of

Oxford and their followers. For which reason his

Majesty told me that he looked very much like a bear

baited by dogs."
Many other philosophers, thinkers, and inventors are
to be met in London ; and, indeed, ^'
in all times
England has produced excellent minds who have
addicted themselves to an earnest study of natural
sciences. Had the country produced in this line but
Gilbert, Harvey, and Bacon, it would be enough for
her to compete with France and Italy, who had Galileo,

Descartes and Gassendi. But to speak truth Bacon the

a cestc mcthodc que paulmc a laqucllc il jouc une

I'cxcrcicc dc la
fois toutcs Ics qu'il succombc a la lassitude.
scmaincs jusqucs a cc
II me parut fort peu change dc visage, ct point du tout quant ^ la

vigueur dc I'csprit, a la memoirc et a la gayetc qu'il retenoit toute

cnti^rc."
^ Samuel Cooper, the well-known miniaturist, 1609-72, who
painted portraits of Cromwell, Charles II., &c.
 ;

176 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN

Chancellor rose above all the others by the vastness of
his ideas/' No one did so much for physical science

and so powerfully incited people to make experiments.

Private persons, however, do nothing but ruin them-
selves in such attempts, and before success could be
reached it was necessary to wait until princes and lords
had acquired a taste for things of this sort. The
Commonwealth, Sorbieres observes, came in good time
to give leisure to princes ; they began studying sciences
'^
even the king did not neglect them, and he has
acquired a knowledge at which I was surprised when I

was received by his Majesty.'' The proof Sorbieres

gives of Charles' scientific tastes show, however, as

might have been surmised, that the monarch was fond
of curiosities and lusus natuvte^ but did not trouble
himself very much about the solution of higher
problems.
Of a more serious nature were Sorbieres's conversa-

tions with another friend of his, M. de Montconis, the

well-known traveller and savant, who made him au fait
with all the more recent discoveries. Sorbieres is

thus shown an instrument which marks " the changes

in the atmosphere " and registers them with a pencil ;

he receives an account of a deaf and dumb person

whom M. Wallis of Oxford had taught to read. He
is let into the secret of a new plan to ^'
petarder," /.d*.,
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 177

blow up, ships at sea. He sees a machine newly in-

invented by the Marquess of Worcester, " which being
set in motion by one single man, will raise at a height

of forty feet, in one minute, four great buckets full of

water." He becomes acquainted with members of the
Royal Society ; he is admitted to one of their sittings,

and he is filled with admiration by their learning as

well as by their modesty. " These excellent men are

full of high thoughts, and they put in practice with

great cleverness what they have conceived in their

mind."
The Royal Society, or, as Sorbieres calls it, the
''
Academic Royale,'' was then in its early youth,
having received its charter only the year before. It

held its sittings in Gresham College every Wednesday,

in a street which our traveller is pleased to call ''
la rue
Biscop getstriidt" (Bishopsgate Street). "The hall

of assembly is a large one, all wainscoted. There is a

long table before the chimney, with seven or eight

chairs covered with grey cloth, and two rows of wood
benches, all bare, with a dossier ; they are arranged so
as to rise amphitheatre-wise. . . . The president sits

in the middle of the table in an armchair, with his back

to the chimney ; the secretary sits at one end, on the
left ; they have an inkstand and some paper before
them. I saw nobody on the chairs. I suppose they
178 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN,
are reserved for men of high rank or for those who have
to come and speak to the president on certain occa-
sions. All the other academicians sit anywhere without
ceremony ; and when one of them comes in after the

sitting has begun, no one moves, the president nods to

him, and he sits down quietly on the first seat, in order
not to interrupt the speaker. The president has a little

wooden mace in his hand with which he knocks on the

table when he wants silence. . . . Speakers are never
interrupted, and those who disagree do not carry the
discussion to a point nor use a tone that might be
considered disobliging. Nothing more civil, more
decent, and better conducted than this assembly as I

saw it can well be conceived.''

Of all this Sorbieres judged as best he could, by the
tone of the speeches and the manner of the speakers,
and by hints which friends gave him as to the pur-

port of the discussion. For we need not say that he

did not understand a word of English ; nobody did in

his time; his main resource when his learned acquaint-

ances did not speak French was Latin, but even this
did not prove very satisfactory, for ''
the English
pronounce Latin with a peculiar accent which renders
it no less difficult to understand than their own
language.''
 —

A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 179

IV. Out of Town.

Before leaving England Sorbieres resolved to see two

very characteristic sights, namely, one of the universities
and one " chateau.*' He took accordingly a ''
carrosse"
and drove to Oxford. The drive was performed in
two days. " We were warned against highwaymen ; I

thought at first that they mentioned them out of sheer

pride, to show that London was nothing behind Paris
in this respect. But I heard that there was some truth
in the statement, and that highwaymen make their
appearance from time to time.'' They live, however,
under difficulties, and country people chase and destroy
them mercilessly.

At Oxford, Sorbieres is shown all over the place

by the obliging Mr. Lockey, a '*
sharp and learned
professor," who lives at Christ College, and is ''
Biblio-
thecaire d'Oxfordt." ^ He visits with the help of this
guide college after college, "the meanest of which
is scarcely inferior to the Sorbonne." He greatly
admires the Bodleian Library, St. John's College, and
Brasenose. " There is one college where I saw a big
bronze nose above the door, similar to a mask of

' Thomas Lockey, D.D., librarian of the Bodleian Library,

1660-65. He had, according to Sorbieres, "pris ^ la cour
de France un air obligeant et une fa9on accorte.*'
 i8o ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN
Polichinelle, I was told that the place was called on
this account the college of the nose, and that within its

wallsJohn Duns Scot had lectured in his time : to

commemorate which event a reproduction of his nose

had been stuck above the door/'
In his rambles about Oxford Sorbieres meets Dr.
Wallis, who, being the adversary of Hobbes, is very
severely handled by the traveller. Wallis is confessed

to be very learned indeed, but his manners are rough

and uncivil ; he has " bien moins que M. Hobbes du
galant homme." He wears on his head a not unknown
sort of coiffure, by which, however, M. Sorbieres seems
to have been deeply struck. ''You should see him," he

says, " with his flat cap on his head, as if he had

covered his portfolio with black cloth and sewed it to

*his calotte. Such a sight would have inclined you to

laughter, as much as the appearance and courtesy of
my friend Mr. Hobbes would have bred in you esteem
and affection for him.''

The " chateau " which Sorbieres visited is called by

him Achtfields (Hatfield). He is taken there by the
Earl of Devonshire, the pupil of Hobbes ; the distance
from London is eighteen miles ; they go and dine there
and come back in the same day, performing the journey
**
a toute bride/'

Hatfield is a delightful place. *' The eye meets on

 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 181

all sides woods, meadows, and hills and vales. ... I

rarely ever saw a more agreeable solitude. The castle

is built in bricks with several turrets covered with lead

and slates. There are three base courts, in the first

of which are the stables and the menagerie. When

you reach the place from the main avenue on the park
side, and when all the gates of the courts are open, you
discover beyond the architectural foreground endless
alleys cut straight to the other extremity of the park.
The castle looks prodigiously gay and the inside is

magnificent. I numbered fifteen rooms on the same

floor very well furnished, also a gallery and a chapel.
We dined in a hall which overlooks a grass parterre
with two fountains and espaliers on the sides, and a
balustrade opposite with flower pots and statues on it.

From this parterre you are led down to another by two

flights of twelve or fifteen steps each, and then to
a third."
There is a large " parterre d'eau," then a meadow
with troops of deer, and then hills covered with a
wood which closes the horizon. There are a variety

of kiosks and bowers, so pretty, so fine, overlooking

such a clear and pure course of water that, suddenly
growing lyrical, Sorbieres goes on to describe **
the

little fishes who come in their thousands to enjoy so

many delights ; they try to leave their own element,
 ;

1 82 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN

and they jump out of the water as if wanting to contem-
plate all I have just described." ^

Hatfield, in a word, is an '^

enchanted place/'

V. — SoRBifeREs's '^Impression d'ensemble."

Taken altogether, Sorbieres's conclusions are rather

fair and modest. If we except some unlucky houtades^

his general impression is greatly in favour of the nation
he had been visiting. He honestly acknowledges that
many things are against him for giving a reliable judg-
ment. He has seen, it is true, the king and the court ;

he has moved about as much as he could, paid visits in

the country, spoken with people of all sorts, and kept

his eyes well open. But his stay has been too short
his ignorance of the language has been very much
against him, so that some of his strictures are, he
confesses, only from hearsay. " Though I took all the
possible trouble, I do not persuade myself that I have

gone to the bottom of affairs, nor understood a nation

whose temper is very singular and uneven. I report
things as they appeared to me ; not, may be, as they

are in the verite des chosesT

In his summary of the defects and qualities of the

^ See French text in Appendix III.

 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 183

nation the part allotted to praise is no small one.

Among the former he notices a tendency to idleness,
presumption, and " quelque sorte d'extravagance de
pensee qui se remarque me me dans leurs plus excel-
lents ecrits." But he is careful to add that the nation
should not be blamed for those faults ; they all come,
''
he says, anticipating Taine's theories, " from the soil

[terroir)^ Do not forget besides that " il y a en eux

de tres rares qualites." '^
I find in them a something
that is great, and reminds one of ancient Rome. . . .

They have a deep love for their country ; they are

strongly united against foreigners ; they are intrepid in
danger." They are ruled by a king now, but " ils ont
beaucoup retenu, en se rangeant sous I'estat de Tem-
pire, de Thumeur qui domine naturellement dans les

esprits de tous les hommes en I'estat de liberte."

They have, indeed, a propensity to scorn all the rest
of the world ; this blameable tendency is mainly caused
by the extraordinary resources afforded by their own
country, which '^
lacks neither iron, nor stone, lead,
tin, coal, plaster, wood, corn, vegetables, meadows,
oxen, sheep, horses, game, pasture-land, springs and
rivers, nor plenty of fine sights, nor industry to turn
all these into use, . . . with the ocean round them to
* **Ccttc inclination dc laqucllc jc nc protends pas les blamcr
puisque cllc leur vient du terroir. ..."
1 84 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
prevent other nations from coming to trouble their

felicity/'

Thinking thus of the nation at large, and consider-

ing that some boutades here and there would be counted
as nothing, Sorbieres, when he had come back to his

country, did not hesitate to write and publish an account

of what he had seen, with results which were not long
in following and which surprised him not a little.

VI. SoRBlfeRES PUBLISHES HIS BoOK. ThE CON-

SEQUENCES OF THE Deed.

Sorbiefes*s book was printed at Paris in 1664 ; the

dedication to the king is dated December 12, 1663 :

the ^^
acheve d'imprimer'' is of May 16, 1664. A
storm, extraordinary in its violence, was at once raised
by the work.
The jealousy between France and England was then
keener than ever ; there was, as the phrase is, no love
lost between the two countries, which phrase plain Mr.
Pepys plainly wrote in different words, thus :
''
We do
naturally hate the French." Of that hate the Sun-King,
for reasons of his own, would have none. The thing
he wanted then above all others, the plan nearest and
dearest to his heart, was a close alliance and union with
the British Kingdom. A number of sacrifices which
under different circumstances he would have never
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.B. 1663. 185

dreamed of making counted for nothing, if only he

could reach his most cherished goal. In such a cause
to give up some Sorbieres or other was for him no
sacrifice, and his decision would depend not on what
was in the book, but on what would be thought of it

in England.
Unluckily for Sorbieres his performance was very
badly received in London. In the jealous mood
of the nation the merest pretext was seized upon for
recrimination. All Sorbieres had said of the Roman
temper of the English and of their manifold virtues and
glories was as nothing ; \{\shoutades and some slanderous
remarks, not even always his own, but mostly reported,
were alone regarded. The outcry was especially loud
because of his language concerning the Chancellor.
What he had said was nothing more nor less than
this :
'*
My Lord Hidde is a man of the law, an
advocate by profession ; he understands the legal

procedure well, but he knows little of other things ;

he is ignorant of the belles lettres. He is said to be

presbyterian in his character, and to want distinction

in his mind {il a Vesprit populaire). He is a good-
looking man, with an agreeable presence ; he is about
sixty ; he has the honour to be father-in-law to the
Duke of York, which is, maybe, one of his crimes in

the eyes of the Earl of Bristol and of the people."

1 86 ENGLISH ESSAYS FROM A FRENCH PEN
This picture of the Prime Minister was declared to
constitute in itself an unbearable and unpardonable
offence. King and Court and Chancellor rose against
Sorbieres. To add to the author's misfortunes he had
towards the end of his volume introduced a story of
the Danish king and the Count Ulefeld, which made
him obnoxious to the Danish as well as to the
English Court.
His fate was soon settled. On the 9th of July,

1664, the king being at Fontainebleau, an edict of

the Council of State was issued '^
against a book
entitled '
Relation [etc.],' written by the Sieur de
Sorbieres, to the disadvantage of the English nation
and of the King of Denmark."
The edict Itself condemns in no measured terms a
work " in which the author, under pretence of recount-
ing with complete simplicity what he has seen, takes
the liberty to put forth a variety of things which are
contrary to truth and detrimental to the English nation.
He is so bold" as to express himself calumniously con-
cerning the personal qualities and the behaviour of one
of the principal ministers of the King of Great Britain,
the said minister being deeply esteemed, considered, and
beloved by his Majesty. . .
.''
The author is also

guilty of some inconsiderate judgments bearing upon

the conduct of the King of Denmark ; and for all these
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.B. 1663. 187

reasons "his said Majesty in his council, with the intent

of showing publicly the displeasure he felt for this

audacious and imprudent satire — the author of which

has already been sentenced to relegation — has ordered
and orders the said book ... to be suppressed in all

his kingdom and lands belonging to him, forbids all

printers and booksellers to sell and publish the same

under a penalty of five hundred livres, wills that all

his subjects of whatsoever rank bring the copies they

may possess to the office of their respective baillages
and senechaussees, to be, as above said, suppressed. . . .

Signed : Louis, and lower, De Lionne, and sealed with

the great seal of yellow wax sur simple queued
Very mournfully did Sorbieres undertake his journey
to Brittany, vainly protesting of his innocence and good
intentions. He stopped at Nantes, and from thence
wrote the most pressing letters to his friends in Paris

to exculpate himself and to ask for their interference in

his favour. Some are still extant (and unpublished) ;

one directed to the famous Abbe de Pure, the bete noire

of Boileau, is preserved in the original at the National

Library, Paris. In it Sorbieres throws himself on his
knees, beseeching the abbe to protect him and to set
his numerous patrons in motion to procure the repeal
of the decree ; the said patrons being " les plus honnetes
gens de la cour, du palais et des academies.'* A special
 I

1 88 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN,

appeal to "les marquises" is not forgotten (Nantes,
August 9, 1
664).

While Sorbieres was thus eating the bread of adver-

sity, his book, though suppressed, continued to live,

and as it was prohibited in France, foreign booksellers

were not slow to seize their opportunity. A variety of

editions were published, in French, in Italian, in

English. Replies and imitations increased its repute,

and, in most cases, increased also the ill-humour on
both sides. Some of the replies were in French, such
as the " Observations d'un Gentilhomme Anglois sur le
voyage d'Angleterre du Sieur Sorbiere," 2 which has all

the appearance of a work de commande. The author is

^ MS. Fran^ais, 15209, fol. 13. Another among the famous

adversaries of Boileau busied himself with Sorbieres, but was less
favourably inclined. Chapelain writes to Heinsius, then at Stock-
holm " Le Sieur Sorbiere est toujours relegue a Nantes oil il
:

ronge son frein et paye la peine de son insolence. M. Huygens le

pere qui revient d'Angleterre m'a dit que le chancelier se relaschoit

et vouloit bien lui pardonner sa temeritc. Je ne croy pas que le

roy de Danemark soit si facile," October 20, 1664. " Lettres,"

ed. Tamizey de Larroque, Paris, 1883, ^ ^o\s. 4to, vol. ii. p. 371.
2 Paris, 1664, i2mo. See also "Reponse aux faussetes et :

invectives qui se lisent dans la Relation du voyage de Sorbieres en

Angleterre." Amsterdam, 1675, izmo. It is an adaptation of

Sprat's " Observations." Also " A Journey to London in the year

1698 written ... by Monsieur Sorbieres, and newly trans-
. . .

lated."London, 1698, 8vo. The real author of this last work

was William King Sorbieres at that date had been dead for
;

twenty-eight years.
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 189

loud in his praise of *'

the Solomon of our century, the
august King Louis XIV. /' and of Lionne, a minister
without peer. The drift of the answer is that if Sor-
bieres has discovered vices (as well as qualities) in the

English nation, his opinion is an isolated one, and a

number of authors are quoted to show that the French
have never discovered anything but virtue in their

neighbours.
There were English answers, too, and these were
couched in less measured language. For a while,
owing to the interference of the French Ambassador,
the Comte de Cominges, no replies were allowed to be
printed, and Charles ordered the materials collected

with this object to be brought to him and set aside.

But at length the monarch's will was altered or over-

ruled, and Thomas Sprat printed his " Observations on
Monsieur de Sorbieres's voyage into England — Sed po-
terat tutior esse domi '*
(1665, another edition 1668).
It is a wild, rambling pamphlet, written ab iratOy the

lapse of time having in no way cooled the anger of the

author. Sprat is blinded by his passion ; his answers
in several cases defeat his own intentions, so much
so that more actual praise of the English nation will

be found in Sorbieres's book than in Sprat's wild reply.

Sprat acknowledges the fairness of Louis XIV. ;

his treatment of Sorbieres " became the justice of so

I90 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN, .

great a monarch," and befitted the sins of the traveller.

These sins are manifold ; man of an
he is a obscure
birth, a turncoat (Sprat was forgetting his own ''
Poem
on the death of Oliver, late Lord Protector," 1659), a

pedant, and an ass ; his descriptions of the country are

grotesque ; the account (quoted above) he gives of
Kent is worthy of *^ the authors of Clelia or Astrea."
His pretence that the king and court have a propensity

to spend too much money, and that this causes discon-

tent in the country, is monstrous ; for everybody

knows that Charles has greatly reduced the expenses of

the Crown, and dismissed all useless persons that were

wont to hang about court :
''
those blood suckers have
parted with their very food.'* Sorbieres's attack on
Clarendon is a scandal ; he pretends that the chancellor
is merely a " man of the law '' ; this surely is bad
enough, " but the worst is still behind : my Lord Chan-
cellor is utterly ignorant of the Belles Lettres!'' Four
pages are dedicated to a vindication of Clarendon's
character in this respect. The description of Dr.
Wallis's cap is considered a gross insult to the Univer-
sity and the nation at large. So blinded, indeed, had
Sprat been by anger, that he makes the most curious
mistakes in reading the French text of his opponent.
When Sorbieres complains that the Dutch irreverently
call the French *'
moucherons,'' Sprat declares that the
French are nicknamed ''
mushrooms.''
 A JOURNEY TO ENGLAND A.D. 1663. 191

What Sorbiercs advanced concerning the English

stage touched Sprat to the quick ; the English not to
know and properly revere the unities This showed !

the man Sorbieres was And not caring in the least

!

what great men he was throwing overboard, and how

detrimental if true his own strictures would have been
to England, Sprat thus vindicates the drama of his

country. That Frenchman, he says, '^

has confounded
the reign of Charles II. with that of Queen Elizabeth.
'Tis true about an hundred years ago the English poets
were not very exact in such decencies ; but no more
than were the dramatists of any other countries. The
English themselves did laugh away such absurdities as
soon as any, and for these last fifty years our stage has
been as regular in those circumstances as the best of
Europe. Seeing he thinks fit to upbraid our present
poets with the errors of which their predecessors were
guilty so long since, I might as justly impute the vile

absurdities that are to be found in Amadis de Gaul, to

Monsieur de Corneille, de Scudery, de Chapelain, de
Voiture, and the rest of the famous moderne French
wits."

Having thus dealt equal if summary justice to

Amadis and to Shakespeare, Sprat goes on to remind
his friend, Dr. Wren, that, discussing together, some
day, long before, what time they would have preferred
 —;

192 ENGLISH ESSA YS EROM A ERENCH PEN.

to live in, they had agreed the time of Augustus would
have been the best. ''
This, sir, was then our opinion
but it was before the King's return. For since that

blessed time the condition of our own country appears

to me to be such that we need not search into ancient
history for a real idea of happinesse." Sprat was
appointed Canon of Windsor in 1680, Dean of West-
minster in 1683, and Bishop of Rochester in 1684 :

the least, in truth, which could be done.

Long before this, however, Charles, who had not the
defect of a sour temper, considered the poor Sorbieres
had paid enough for his insufficient appreciation of
Clarendon's Belles Lettres. He requested the French
Ambassador to interfere in favour of the culprit, who
was accordingly amnestied.
Sorbieres came back to Paris, went to Rome in 1667,
where a portrait of him was made by the famous
Audran, and continued as vainly as before his exer-
tions to establish his fortune. Having become drop-
sical with no hope of recovery (1670) he took laudanum
in order to " stun himself," and not to suffer the
pangs of agony ; and thus he died — " too much as a

philosopher," says Moreri.

 ':Lr^^e^piCtCi lJ'^1 WlJ)'" ?

CLEMENCY OF HENRY IV. AT THE BATTLE OF IVRY, FROM THE

LONDON EDITION OF THE " HENIADE."
 :

V.

ONE MORE DOCUMENT CONCERNING

VOLTAIRES VISIT TO ENGLAND.

WHEN in
Voltaire, after his

the Bastille, had to leave his

second imprisonment
country and
go to England I
(1726), he found there his
friend, Lord Bolingbroke. He had known the lat^

minister of Queen Anne in France, whe:i that states-

man and philosopher lived in exile, and he was heartily

welcomed by him. Bolingbroke, who was " amy zele,

dangereux ennemy," - lost no time in introducing

* On Voltaire's see J. Churton Collins,

visit to England,
*' Bolingbroke, a and Voltaire in England,"
historical study,
London, 1886; and A. Ballantync, "Voltaire's visit to England
1726-9," London, 1893.
2 Portrait of Bolingbroke in an unpublished note by the Duke
d'Auraont, French Ambassador to England, August 10, 17 12.
Archives of the French Foreign Office, *' Anglctcrre," vol. ccxcii.
** A parler juste, on pent dire que c'est mylord Bolingbroke qui, apr^s

le Grand Trcsoricr (/.^., Harlcy) a le plus de credit et qui gouvernc

tout. II est amy intime du Grand Trcsorier, il a des talents
supcrieurs. II est hommc polyc, eloquent et s'cstoit acquis par cc»
13 «93
194 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
Voltaire, an exile in his turn, into the most elegant
society. He introduced him also, and this was no
less useful to the new-comer, into the literary circles

of London. Voltaire thus became acquainted with

Swift, Pope, Gay, and many others.
One fact has never been noticed. Voltaire, who
rightly enough asserted, on leaving France, that he was
" very well recommended to people in England," ^ had
provided himself, before he crossed the Channel, with
letters of introduction for the French Ambassador. •

They had been given him by none other than the

Foreign Minister himself, Count de Morville, a member
of the French Academy, the same to whom he
announced a little later the impending, but never-to-
take-place, visit of Dean Swift to France. M. de'
Morville had even gone the length of asking the royal
ambassador to present Voltaire to the members of the
English cabinet, so that the exile was soon on the best
of terms with everybody : with the Tories, thanks to
Bolingbroke, and with the Whigs, owing to the good
offices of M. de Morville. Walpole, among others,
patroned him with p;reat zeal.

raisons un credit extraordinaire dans la chambre basse pendant

qu'il y tenoit sceance. D'ailleurs il aime les plaisirs, son com-
merce est agreable, il dit son sentiment avec beaucoup de hardiesse
et de liberte. II est amy zele, dangereux ennemy."
^ To Thieriot, August 12, 1726.
 VOLTAIRE'S VISIT TO ENGLAND. 195

Letters of this sort recommending a banished man

to the kindness and good offices of his ambassador
would shock our ideas ; but such an occurrence did not
seem so very strange then, and this example is not
unique. There was no more shame at that time in
being exiled than in being " embastille," and it was
not very rare to see friendly, not to say cordial,

relations established between proscribed Frenchmen

and the representatives of the most Christian monarch.
Expelled from France on account of some writing,
for which he had to undergo a life-long exile, Saint-

llvremond had been cordially received by the French

Ambassador, who never failed to send news of him, his
doings, his sayijigs, and his health, to Louis XIV.,
adding even the most favourable appreciation of the
author of the " Lettre au Marquis de Crequy." The
Chevalier de Grammont was equally well treated at the
French Embassy, and Count Cominges was good
enough to give him kindly advice, and strongly to
recommend him not to marry the peerless but portion-

less Mademoiselle de Hamilton.

Voltaire seems to have availed himself of Morvi lie's
letters in at least one memorable circumstance. The
ambassador was the Comte, afterwards Marshal and
Duke, de Broglie. The occasion was the issuing of
a definitive edition of the " Henriade/' This epic had
196 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A ERENCH FEN,
already been issued five times on the Continent ; but
these editions, three of which bore the imprint of
Geneva, and two of Amsterdam (1723-4), did not
contain a perfectly complete text. Voltaire had revised
his work, and had been preparing for several years to
give an enlarged version, which he intended to publish
*'
in quarto, on beautiful paper, with large margins,
and handsome type/' ^

The moment seemed auspicious ; the ground had

been prepared by Voltaire himself, who, in order to
be better known among English thinkers and wits, had
just printed two essays in English :
" An essay upon
the civil wars of France, extracted from curious manu-
scripts, and also upon the epick poetry of the European
nations from Homer down to Milton," by M. de
Voltaire, London, 1727. The new epic poet had a
pecuniary as well as a literary interest to make the best
of the occasion. A fashion, which had been introduced
also into France,^ had prevailed for some thirty years in

England. Literary works of importance were published

by subscription ; it was a more decent means of getting
money from admirers and friends than the dedications
of old. Famous authors were thus enabled to collect
^ To Thieriot, October 17, 1725.
2 "Tout le monde salt," Abbe Prevost writes, "que c'est a
Londres que la methode des souscriptions a pris naissance." "Le
Pour et Contre," No. vi.
 VOLTAIRE'S VISIT TO ENGLAND. 197

sums which, given the difference in the value of money,

can be compared with the profits of the most popular
novelists of our day. The time was long past when
that poor author, Milton, had published his " Paradise
Lost,'' with great and immediate success, and a total

profit of eighteen pounds for him and his widow.

Dryden, since then, had printed by subscription his

translation of Virgil in 1697, and had received twelve

hundred pounds ; Pope had got nearly nine thousand
for his Homer ; Prior four thousand for a volume of
poems ; Gay was going to secure one thousand for a
single comedy, '*
Polly," the performance of which, it

is true, had been forbidden by authority.

Voltaire was in a state of very pressing need. His
pensions had been stopped, and, on his coming to
London, the failure of the Jew, d'Acosta, had cost him
twenty thousand francs. He at once resolved to turn
to account this taste of a wealthy public for literary
things, and to realise an idea he already entertained
before his exile. He advertised a fine quarto edition
^

of the " Henriade,'' with engravings, and began to

enlist subscribers, at a guinea each. A curious letter,
addressed by him to Swift at that moment, which
figures in his ''
Correspondance Generale," shows that
he did not forget to knock at the door of his literary

* To Thicriot, 1722.
 —

198 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.

friends. He asks Swift " to make use of the influence
he enjoys in Ireland to secure some subscribers to the
^
Henriade,' now entirely finished, which, for the lack
of some slight assistance, has not yet been published."
December 14, 1727.
He sent also his appeal to his political friends.

Walpole took the interests of the poet greatly to heart ;

Bolingbroke did the same, and displayed the more zeal

because he had been *'
infiniment satisfait " with the
epic, when Voltaire had shown him a first sketch of it

at the castle of La Source in Touraine, 1722.

Voltaire, lastly, had called upon the representative of
his country and asked him to secure subscribers for the
work. The ambassador who, before he had come to
London in a diplomatic capacity, had busied himself
much more with war than with poetry, was greatly
puzzled, for he did not know whether the epic of that
" Sieur de Voltaire ''
was worthy of approval. He
therefore referred the matter to his chief, the French
Foreign Minister, and asked for instructions. His letter

to the Comte de Morville is preserved in the archives of

the Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Paris, and has
escaped the notice of all the biographers of Voltaire, It

is to the following effect :

 VOLTAIRE S VISIT TO ENGLAND. 199

'^From London, March 3, 1727.

"Sir, —The Sieur de Voltaire whom you did me
the honour to recommend to me, and in favour of
whom you sent me letters of recommendation intro-
ducing him to the ministers of this Court, is about to
print in London, by subscription, his poem on the
League. He asks me to secure subscribers for him,
and M. de Walpole does his very best on his part to
get him as many as possible. I should greatly like to
please him ; but I have not seen that work, and I do
not know whether the Court will approve of the addi-
tions and suppressions he has introduced into the text
given to the public at Paris, and of the plates he has

ordered to be sent from thence in order to adorn the

same. I told him therefore that I could not meddle
with his undertaking, till I knew whether you liked it

or not. I am always afraid that French authors should

be tempted tc make a wrongful use of the liberty they
enjoy in a country like this, to write all that comes
into their mind concerning religion, the Pope, the
Government or the members of it. Poets especi-
ally are wont to use such license without caring much
whether or no they cast obloquy upon what is most
sacred. And if there were anything of that sort in this
poem I should not like to incur the blame of having
subscribed to it and recommended others to do the
 —

200 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH PEN

same. I most humbly beseech you, sir, to be so good
as to send me instructions concerning the line I must
follow in this circumstance. I shall conform my con-
duct to what you will do me the honour to prescribe.
" I have, &c ,

''Broglie.''!

This great circumspection on the part of the soldier

and diplomatist was only too well justified. In no other
period had the produce of the printing press been watched
in France with a more searching eye. Voltaire knew
it well, as he had already tried in vain to obtain a royal

privilege for that same " Henriade," and had had to

cause the copies of it to be secretly carried from Rouen
to Paris, where they were to be sold. " The narrowness
of mind of our authorities," he wrote later, ''
has
reached such a pitch that only meaningless works can
be freely printed. The good authors of the time of
Louis the Fourteenth would be denied the '
privilege.'

Boileau and La Biuyere would receive nothing but

persecutions. We must live for ourselves and for our
friends, be careful not to think aloud, or, if we want
England or Holland "^
to do so, go and think in

the very thing Count de Broglie feared Voltaire was

^ See Appendix iv.

2 To M. de Formont, 1734
 VOLTAIRES VJSIT TO ENGLAND. 201

about to do. The epic on Henry the Fourth had

been, as M. Desnoiresterres has pointed out, con-
sidered as imbued with a '^
Jansenist," nay, a '*
semi-
Pelagian " spirit. The praise it contained of heretical
Elizabeth, and of the Huguenot chief, Coligny, had
also caused deep disgust to pious-minded persons.
As for the engravings, if there was nothing to say
concerning those which represented the clemency of the
king at Ivry (reproduced in my volume), or " King
Henry the Fourth, lifelike, on a throne of clouds, with
King Louis the Fifteenth in his arms," ^ several others

lent themselves to criticism. Th;^ author had ordered,

for example, the goddess Discord to be shown in one
of them as newly arrived from Rome, and inciting the
monks of Paris to armed rebellion.

I have vainly looked for the answer of M. de

Morville. Comte de Broglie in fact abstained from
subscribing to the book, and his name does not appear
in the list published with it. The poem was issued in

1728, under the title: ''La Henriade de M. de

Voltaire " —" a Londres.'* Some copies had been
subscribed for by French gentlemen ; they were sent
to them fiom London, but on reaching the opposite
shore they were seized and confiscated by the royal
authorities.
' Voltaire to Thicriot, September 11, 1722.
202 ENGLISH ESSA YS FROM A FRENCH FEN.
The success of the undertaking was, however, very
great in England. In the table of ^subscribers may-
be found, besides the names of many colleagues of
the Comte de Broglie — that is to say, members
of the Corps Diplomatique —innumerable names of
honourable and right honourable gentlemen, lords,

earls, dukes, and duchesses, obviously enlisted by

Bolingbroke, Walpole, and the other powerful friends of
Voltaire. Chesterfield subscribed for ten copies and
Bolingbroke for twenty.
Many men of letters find a place also in this brilliant

pageant of names, and among others. Swift, Tickell,

Cibber, Berkeley, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, John
Locke, Congreve, &c. Swift seems to have exerted
himself with great alacrity in favour of the writer, who
bestowed upon him the praise of being " Rabelais dans
son bon sens." The large number of people with a

situation in Ireland appearing in the list is a proof of

the Dean's friendly activity. " I do not send you yet
my great edition,'' we read, in one of Voltaire's English
letters, ''
because I am really afraid of having not copies

enough to answer the calls of the subscribers."

More than that King George the Second and
:

Queen Caroline, ''the virtuous consort," as Voltaire

wrote in his dedication of the " Henriade," ''
of one
who^ among so many crowned heads, enjoys, almost
 VOLTAIRE'S VISIT TO ENGLAND, 203

alone, the inestimable honour of ruling a free nation,"

bestowed their patronage on the work of the exile.

Besides the large paper issue, it went through three

editions in three weeks, and the sums Voltaire thus
received were the beginning of his fortune, that is to
say, of his independence.
APPENDIX.
 —

APPENDIX.

MEDIEVAL SHIPPING.

{See above^pp. 43^)

MCH. Library,
DE LA RONCIERE,
one of the best
of the
authorities
Paris
on
National
mediaeval
shipping, whom I had consulted about the "navy"
sent to Scotland to fetch the Dauphiness, kindly wrote in reply
the following letter, which will surely be read with interest :

'*
. . . II ctait naturel de se demandcr pourquoi le roi d'Ecosse
prisait tant les galcres et si les galores espagnolcs n'ctaient pas
supcrieures aux autres.
" Remarquons d'abord qu'en 1435 il n*y avait plus de gal<^res de
guerre ni en France ni en Angleterre. Depuis Richard II. , les

rois anglais n'en avaient plus. La liste des vaisseaux d'Henri IV.
et Henri V. ne comprer.d que des voilicrs (^carraques, nefs, balin-

gcres) vendus du rcste en 1423.

"En France, la marine royale avait toujours comptc de 6 a 15
galores pendant plus d'un si^cle. Mais les deux derniers specimens
de ce type avaient etc briiles en 141 8 avcc le Clos des Galces lui
mcme, lors de la prise de Rouen.
"Du rcste, cctte annce mcme ou le roi d'Ecosse songeait aux
galcres espagnolcs, un autre souvcrain y pcnsait aussi. Jc vcux
207
 ;

2o8 APPENDIX.
dire le due de Bourgogae Philippe le Bon qui, des 1436 aura cinq
ou six galeres achetees dans le Sudou construites par des mcridio-
naux.
"Les Etats du nord-ouest de I'Europc, en 1435, ne possedaient
done pas de galere?. lis n'avaient — et le roi d'Ecosse tout le
premier — ils n'avaient dis-je, comme batiments a rames, que des
row-barges, filles des longues nefs norroises. Mais les row-barges
avaient leurs bordages a elins et non pas a joints lisses, comme les

sveltes galeres du Sud ; elles etaient plus fortes, mais plus lourdes
elles avaient beaucoup moins de rameurs que les galeres, quatre
vingts au plus, tandis que les galeres en avaient jusqu'a deux
cents. Les row-barges enfin n'avaient pas re^u ces perfectionne-
ments et cet agrandissement qui, au XV^ siecle, leur vaudront,
d'etre placees au rang des plus rapides croiseurs. Ce que les his-

toriens disent de ces row-barges ou ramberges anglaises qui com-

battirent d'Annebault en 1515 n'est pas applicable aux petites
row-barges de 1435.
" Voila pourquoi le roi d'Ecosse preferait une galere meridionale
a ses row-barges. Avec une galere, sa fille serait plus sure
d'echapper aux corsaires, la galere ayant un equipage plus nom-
breux et etant plus legere. Si le reste de la flotte, les voiliers,

etaient surpris par un calme plat, la galere pourrait toujours aller

de I'avant et gagner un port ami.
"Pourquoi, maintenant, desirer une galere espagnole plutot
qu'une galere italienne ? D'abord evidemment, parce que I'Espagne
etait plus proche ; ensuite parce que les convois genois et venitiens
dits des 'galeres de Flandres ' ne detachaient jamais ancune de
leurs galeres au service de I'etranger ; enfin parce que I'equipage
combattant etait plus nombreux. Au lieu des 25 ou 30 hommes
de guerre que compcrtaient les galeres franco-italiennes, en plus
des 160 ou 180 rameurs, les Espagnols en embarquaient 60 et
plus. Vers 1400, I'equipage normal d'une galere espagnole etait
de 240 hommes environ, d'une galere fran^aise, 210. Dois-je
ajouter que les Espagnols etaient bien connus en Ecosse ou ils

allaient chercher les troupes auxiliaires envoyees a Charles VII. ?

 '

APPENDIX. 209

"II ne faut pas cependant attacher a cette epith^te * espagnole

une portee qu*elle n*a pas, et, pour vous en convaincre, je puis
vous dire, monsieur, que la galere propremcnt dite (je laisse de
c6te tous see derives infiniment variables : galiotte, gallon, galcasse,

&c.) est le navire qui a le moins change dcpuis les latins et mcme
les Egyptiens jusqu'au XVIIP siecle. Plut au ciel que les autres
voiliers ou batiments a rames n*aient pas eubi plus de modifications !

Ce serait un jeu de les reconstituer, au lieu que . . . Mais ceci

n'est plus dc notre sujet.
"Les prototypes des galcres portugaises et cspagnoles du XIIP
siecle avaient etc faits a Lisbonne et k Seville par des Gcnois,
pendant qu'en ce mcme siecle les ouvriers castillans allaient
s'instruire aux chantiers de Genes. J'ai retrouvc les noms d'un
grand nombre de Scvillans dans les archives de Genes, XIV*^ siecle.
A Lisbonne, durant deux siccles, XV® et XVP, douze marins et
constructeurs gcnois furent constamment a la solde des rois. De
mcme en France, du XIIP au XV.*^ siecle, au Clos des Galces, il y
avait deux scries d'ouvriers et maitres entretenus des Normands :

pour les voiliers (barges, nefs, coques), des Italiens, Espagnols ou

Proven9aux pour les batiments a rames (galores, galiottes, lins).

De la cette identitc de construction, de langue, de technique, pour

tout ce qui concerne la marine a rames. En Angleterre aussi, il
y
eut des constructeurs italiens au XIV*^ siecle.

"Quant a ce que les Norvcgiens du Moyen Age appelaient

galces ou galt^res, il faut entendre par la un derive de leurs longues
nefs.
" Vous pourriez ctre tcntc, monsieur, de prendre, commc
type de la galere, la gravure de Breughel donncc par Jal dans
son Glossaire Nautique, article Galore. Gardez vous en. Ce
petit bateau n'a que I'avant de la gal<^re. Et encore, au XV*
siecle, la galere ne portait guire que deux pieces de canon \ la
rambade. Mais il n*a pas les deux mats, 1' agilite et la iubtilitk^

comme on disait alors, d'une galcirc."

H
 II.

A NOTE BY ESPRIT CABART DE VILLERMONT

CONCERNING SCARRON AND HIS WIFE.

Copied from the fly-leaf of the " Apologie pour M. Duncan,"

preserved in the National Library, Paris. Press mark, Td. 86-14.

{See above^ /. 96.)

" Les notes marginales de ce livres sont du Sieur

et manuscrittes

de la Menardiere qui medecin de madame la marquise de

estoit

Sable, a ses gages et demeurant chez elle et, depuis^ lecteur du roy.
Ce fut luy qui donna, pour un Icger mal, des pillules a feu M.
Scarron (mary de madame la marquise de Maintenon) qui luy
caus^rent une contraction de nerfs qui, d'homme bien fait et tres

dispost, le rendirent impotent par une contraction de nerfs qui

augmenta jusques a sa mort.
" J'ay connu particulierement madame Scarron avant qu'elle allast
auxindes occidentales. Je I'ay veue depuis a la Martinique chez sa
mere chez qui je logeay pendant que notre navire estoit en charge,
et, depuis, a St. Christophle, chez le commandeur de Poincy, oil

nous demeurames ensemble pendant deux mois et ou elle estoit

venue chercher son mary, feu M. d'Aubigne, filz de celuy qui a fait

rhistoire d'Aubigne, et le Baron de Fenest et la Confession de

Sancy et autres ouvrages.
" J'ay demeure depuis avec M. et Madame Scarron pendant trois

ans ... a I'hostel de Troyes, rue d'Enfer, ou ils furent mariez en

1652 : Madame d'Aubignesa mere m'ayant envoye une procuration

pour la yalidite du mariage, m'ayant prie par ses lettres de U

 APPENDIX. 211

mettre en quelque religion en attendant leur manage projette,

auparavant que sa fille fut en Poitou avec madame la marquise
de Neuillan \ qui elle estoit etqui logeoit a I'hostel de Troyes avec
son frere M. Tiraqueau et ce fut la ou commencerent leurs
;

amours, M. Scarron y tenant une portion dont il me loua une

partic. Ensuitte de quoy il me prit en pantion avec Lafleur qui me
servoit et a qui il fesoit souvcnt faire des tourtes de frangipane
devant luy.
Ce fut la ou il fit, a ma persuasion, le premier volume de son
'*

Roman Comique qu'il dedia au Cardinal de Rets, pour lors coad-

juteur de Paris, qui venoit souvent passer d'agrcables heures avec
luy au sortir du Luxembourg, pendant la Fronde. Je luy fournis les
quatre nouvelles en espagnol qui sont si agreablement traduittes dans
ses deux volumes, aussy bien que les quatre autres qu'il a traduittes
et qu'il a donnces a part. Je luy proposay une nouvelle traduction
du Don Quixotte au lieu de la morale de Gassendy a la traduction
de laquelle je le trouvay attache, mais il n'en voulut point tater
accause de la prcccdente traduction par Oudin et un autre, quoyque
pitoyable. Je luy dis qu'il falloit done qu'il entreprist quelque
ouvrage de son chef et de son caractcre enjouc, plustost que cette
morale de Gassendy trop scrieuse pour luy, et qu'il y meslast des
nouvelles dont je luy fournirois les originaux en espagnol qu'il
entendoit et dont j'avois quantite. En quoy il imiteroit au moins
Don Quixote qui en a donnc quatre si jolies dans sa premii^re
partie : de sorte que je puis dire que le public m'a, en quelque
sorte, I'obligation de cet agrcable ouvrage, bien que je n'en soy pas
I'auteur, aussy bien que de ses quatre dernicres nouvelles imprimees
a part.
" J'ay cent jolies lettres qu'il m'a escrittes, que je feray pcut estre
imprimer quelque jour si sa veufve m'en donne la permission. II
m'en escri[vi]t une entre autres pendant que j'estois a Sedan, qui
commence par :
* Que diable faites vous sur les bords dc la

Meuse,' ou il fait I'cloge du mardchal de Fabert et oCi il dit quMI

nc ressemblc pas k ces marcchaux qui n'ont que de I'instinct tout
au plus."
 III.

A DESCRIPTION OF HATFIELD BY SAMUEL DE

SORBlfeRES, 1663.

{See above^ p. 180.)

"Je ne vous parleray que de [la maison de campagne] de M. le

Comtc de Salisbury, a laquelle M. Comte de Devonshire me

le

mena. Elle est a 18 milles de Londres. Nous y fusmes disner et

revinsmes a la ville le meme jour, mais ce fut a toute bride que
nous allasmes. Achtfields done est un tres beau chasteau que le
pere de ce seigneur fit bastir dans un grand pare et qu'il acheva
dans moins d'un an, lors de sa surintendance. Ce que M. le

Comte de Devonshire ?on gendre me fit remarquer pour m'ap-

pendre qu'ailleurs qu'en France les surintendans s9avoient clever
bien tost de beaux edifices. Celuy-cy est en une situation fort

avantageuse. La veue ne rencontre que des bois et des prairieres,

des collines et des valons, qui fournissent d'agreables objets a toute
sorte de distance. . . . Je n'ay guere vu de plus aimable solitude.
Le chasteau est de brique, a plusieurs petites tours couvertes de
plomb et d'ardoise. II a trois basse-cours ; en la premiere des-
quelles sont les escuyeries et la mesnagerie. Quand on y arrive
par la principalle avenue du coste du pare et lorsque les portes des

basse-cours sont ouvertes, on descouvre a travers cette architecture

des allees a perte de veue, qui percent jusques a I'autre bout du
pare.
" Le Chasteau est merveilleuscment gay et le dedans est tres

magnifique. J'y contay quinze pieces de plein pied fort bien

 APPENDIX. 213

parces, une assez grande galerie ct une chapellc. Nous disnasmes

dans une sale qui rcgarde un parterre de gazon accompagnc de
deux Fontaines, avec des espalliers a costc et une balustrade au
devant sur laquelle y a des pots de fleurs et des statues.
il

"De ce parterre on descend par deux degrez de douze ou

quinze marches a un autre au dessons ;du second a un
et
troisicme. De cette terrace, la veue descouvre le grand parterre
d'eau. . . . Au il y a une prairie ou des troupes
dela de ce parterre
de daims promcncnt jusques a ce que le sommet de la colline
se ;

se hcrisse en un bois qui forme I'horison.

**
Je ne dois pas oublier une vigne que je vis a la dcscente de la
terrace, ny divers petits bastimens qu'il y a a costc, et dont les uns
sont pratique? pour la retraite de plusieurs sortes d'oyseaux, qui
demeurent familicrement aupres du monde sans s'efFaroucher.
Sur quelques eminences, y a aussi des cabinets en forme de
il

chiosques a la Turque avec une galerie tout k I'entour et eslevez

aux plus beaux cndroits, pour y aller jouir des difFerentes vcues de
ce charmant paysage. II y a mesme aux lieux ou la riviere entre ct
sort du parterre des pavilions de bois tout ouverts, avec des sieges a
I'entour ; d'ou Ton voit entrer et sortir avec une eau fort claire,
une infinite de poissons, qui semblent venir en foule pour jouir de
toutes ces dclices ; et qui s'efForcent de quitter leur clement, lors
qu'ils s'clancent quelquesfois hors de I'eau, corame pour considcrer
tout ce que je viens de vous dccrirc."
 IV.

COUNT DE BROGLIE'S LETTER CONCERNING THE

"HENRIADE" OF VOLTAIRE, 1727.
From the Archives of the French Foreign Office. " Angleterre,"
vol. ccclviii.

(See above^ p. 199.)

"A Londres, le 3 Mars, 172'^.

" Monsieur, —Le S. de Voltaire, que vous m'avez fait I'honneur

de me recommandcr etpourlcquel vous m'avez addressc des lettres
de recommandation pour les ministres de cette cour, est prest a
faire imprimer a Londres, par souscription son poeme de la Ligue.
II me sollicite de lui procurer des souscrivants et M. de Walpole
s'employe de son cote tout de son mieux pour tacher de luy en faire
avoir le plus grand nombre qu'il sera possible ; je serois tres aise de
luy faire plaisir, mais comme je n'ay point veu cet ouvrage et que
je ne sais point si les additions et soustractions qu'il dit avoir fait a

celui qu'il a donne au puplic a Paris, ni les planches gravees qu'il en

a fait venir pour I'enrichir seront approuvees de la Cour, je luy ay
dit que je ne pouvois m'en mesler qu'autant que vous I'auriez pour
agreable. Je crains toujours que des auteurs fran^ois ne veuillent
faire un mauvais usage de la liberte qu'ils, ont dans un pays comme
celuy-cy d'ecrire tout ce qui leur vient dans imagination sur la

Religion, le Pape, le Gouvernement ou les personnes qui le com-

posent. Ce sont des licences que les poetes particulierement se
croyent toujours en droit de se donner sans s'embarrasser de pro-
phaner ce qu'il y a de plus sacre. Et s'il se trouvoit quelque chose
 APPENDIX. 215

de pareil dans ce poeme, je ne voudrois pas etre dans le cas d'essuyer

lereproche que jY aurois souscrit et engage des gens a y souscrire.
Je vous supplie trcs humblement, monsieur, de vouloir bien me
mander la conduite que je dois tenir a ce sujet ; je me conformeroy
a ce que vous me feres I'honneur de me prescrire.

"J'ay celuy d'etre, avec un trcs sincere et trcs parfait attache-

ment,
" Monsieur,
" Votre trcs humble et tres obeissant serviteur,
" Broglie."
 UNWIN BROTHERS,
CHILWORTII AND LONDON.

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