[216] The original has congratuler, now only used with a ridiculous meaning attached to it.
[217] It is generally supposed Theodemus was a certain Abbé de Drubec, who stopped short in the middle of a sermon preached before the court of Louis XIV.; others imagine it was a hit at the Abbé Bertier, who became bishop of Blois in 1697.
[218] In this paragraph, as well as in the preceding one, some commentators imagine there is an allusion to the President Achille de Harlay, so bitterly attacked by St. Simon in his Mémoires. See also page [45], note 122.
[219] Our author says in a note, “Written in imitation of Montaigne.”
[220] The principal antiquated words in this imitation are estriver, to strive, to quarrel; se ramentevoir, to call to mind, used by Molière in the Dépit amoureux (iii. 4); and succéder, to be successful, which, of course, is at present in French réussir.
[221] According to all the “Keys,” this paragraph refers to a separation of two old friends, Courtois and Saint-Romain, both councillors of state; but they were still friends when the “Characters” were published.
[222] Some persons, now totally unknown, have been supposed to represent Cleantes: such as a certain M. Loyseau, receveur général des finances in Brittany; a M. de lʼEscalopier, conseiller au parlement, and others.
[223] Such a contract was called les nourritures in French legal phraseology.
[224] G ... is supposed to stand for François Vedeau de Grammont, conseiller au parlement, or for his father-in-law, Philippe Genoud de Guiberville, and H ... for Charles Hervé, doyen du parlement; and the quarrel arose about the right of fishing in a brook. Vedeau lost his case, and was convicted of having falsified certain legal documents. Only a few years before La Bruyèreʼs death he fired at different times on a legal officer and some soldiers who were attempting to arrest him in his house in Paris, killed one and wounded another, was finally imprisoned, dismissed from his office, and banished from the kingdom.
[225] Lʼoffrande, lʼencens et le pain benit, in the original. In small Roman Catholic towns there were formerly always quarrels about the sum to be given to the vicar when kissing the “patena,” about the carrying of the censer, and above all, whose turn it was to give a cake to be consecrated by the officiating clergyman.