APPENDIX F. p. 392.
The centenarian Guillaume Boucher (1506–1606) gives in his ‘Sérées’ a French story (called ‘The Fish-bone’) of a quack doctor favoured by luck, to whom he gives the name of Messire Grillo. Charles Louandre (‘Chefs-d’œuvre des conteurs Français,’ p. 278) points out that doctors hardly ever figure in popular literature before the sixteenth century, though after the Renaissance they became the constant subject of satire; and that thus Molière did little more than collect the jokes at their expense which had been floating during the previous half-century.
[1] ‘Contes Populaires des anciens Bretons, précédés d’un Essai sur l’origine des Epopées chevaleresques de la Table Ronde.’ Par Th. de la Villemarqué. Paris et Leipzig, 1842. [↑]