[323] Le Cours la Reine, familiarly called Le Cours, was a part of the Champs-Elysées, planted with trees by order of Maria de Medici, the wife of Henri IV.; hence the name. The theatre finished then at seven oʼclock, when it was not too late to take a walk in summer-time. See also Molièreʼs Les Fâcheux, act i. scene 1.
[324] The favourite and fashionable walk, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, was from Paris to Vincennes.
[325] That bank is now the quays Saint-Bernard and Austerlitz.
[326] Bourdaloue (1632-1704), a celebrated preacher, censures a similar behaviour in his sermon on Les Divertissements du Monde.
[327] To the grande robe belonged all magistrates; to the petite robe all avoués and procureurs, somewhat like attorneys and solicitors; the avocats or barristers were between the two, and the court of justice or parlement above them all.
[328] The avocats were generally not considered to belong to the grande robe, and La Bruyère was one of them; the latter part of the paragraph is a direct attack on the sale of legal offices.
[329] This applies, according to the “Keys,” to a certain M. de la Briffe, a maître des requêtes, or to M. de Saint-Pouange. (See page [134], note 259.)
[330] Two celebrated barristers of La Bruyèreʼs time.
[331] J. H. de Mesmes, who became président à mortier in 1688, when he was only twenty-seven years old, is said to have been a constant companion of profligate young noblemen. A mortier was a round velvet cap, worn by the Chancellor and Presidents of parliaments.