"Rise up, my Colletet—"
Colletet. "Does your worship's grace
Permit the liberty, to your very face!"
Godeau. "Our intercourse is nothing changed, elsewhere
You see me bishop; Godeau, simply, here."
Monsieur l'Abbé Coignard, lived under the old régime. In those days it was said that the French Academy had the merit of establishing perfect equality between its members, an equality not recognised in law. Nevertheless, it was destroyed in 1793 as "the last refuge of aristocracy."
[10] He means the bishop whom the king had appointed distributor of ecclesiastical patronage.
[11] The king was protector of the Academy.
[12] It is true that the Academy condemned this expression:
"Custom, too strong, as oftentime before,