[847] In 1677, Madame de Sévigné writes from Paris respecting the king: ‘Vous savez bien qu'il a donné deux mille écus de pension à Racine et à Despréaux, en leur commandant de travailler à son histoire, dont il aura soin de donner des Mémoires.’ Lettres de Sévigné, vol. iii. p. 362. Compare Eloge de Valincourt, in Œuvres de Fontenelle, vol. vi. p. 383; and Hughes's Letters, edit. 1773, vol. ii. pp. 74, 75.
[848] Burnet relates this with delightful simplicity: ‘Others more probably thought that the king, hearing I was a writer of history, had a mind to engage me to write on his side. I was told a pension would be offered me. But I made no steps towards it; for though I was offered an audience of the king, I excused it, since I could not have the honour to be presented to that king by the minister of England.’ Burnet's Own Time, vol. ii. p. 385.
[849] During many years it enjoyed great reputation; and there is no history written in that period respecting which Le Long gives so many details. See his Bibliothèque Historique de la France, vol. ii. pp. 13, 14. Compare La Bibliothèque de Leber, vol. ii. p. 110, Paris, 1839.
[850] Audigier, L'Origine des François, Paris, 1676, vol. i. p. 5. See also p. 45, where he congratulates himself on being the first to clear up the history of Sigovese.
[851] Audigier, vol. i. p. 7. Other antiquaries have adopted the same preposterous etymology. See a note in Kemble's Saxons in England, vol. i. p. 41.
[852] ‘Or le plus ancien Jupiter, le plus ancien Neptune, et le plus ancien Pluton, sont ceux de Gaule; ils la divisèrent les premiers en Celtique, Aquitaine et Belgique, et obtinrent chacun une de ces parties en partage. Jupiter, qu'on fait régner au ciel, eut la Celtique…. Neptune, qu'on fait régner sur les eaux, et sur les mers, eut l'Aquitaine, qui n'est appelée de la sorte qu'à cause de l'abondance de ses eaux, et de la situation sur l'océan.’ Audigier, L'Origine des François, vol. i. pp. 223, 224.
[853] See his argument, vol. i. pp. 216, 217, beginning, ‘le nom de Noé, que portèrent les Galates, est Gallus;’ and compare vol. ii. p. 109, where he expresses surprise that so little should have been done by previous writers towards establishing this obvious origin of the French.
[854] Audigier, vol. i. pp. 196, 197, 255, 256.
[855] ‘Voilà donc les anciennes divinitez d'Europe, originaires de Gaule, aussi bien que les beaux arts et les hautes sciences.’ Audigier, vol. i. p. 234.
[856] Ibid. vol. i. pp. 73, 74. He sums up, ‘c'en est assez pour relever l'Anjou, à qui cette gloire appartient légitimement.’