[551] See the chapter “Of Society,” [§ 63].
[552] Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, where Æsculapius, the god of medicine and a son of Apollo, was worshipped.
[553] This paragraph appeared for the first time in the eighth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1694, three years after the former favourite of Louis XIV., Madame de Montespan, had left the court, and about ten years after he had married Madame de Maintenon. Madame de Montespan had then become an imaginary invalid, and made frequent journeys to take the waters at different places, and chiefly to Bourbon-lʼArchambaud, where, it is said, a doctor made her a similar answer as recorded above. It is doubtful whether La Bruyère would have spoken of her corpulency, failing sight, and her growing old if Madame de Montespan had still remained a favourite; his former pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, had married, in 1685, Mademoiselle de Nantes, one of her daughters by Louis XIV.
[554] See page [68], note 170.
[555] This refers to the Prince de Conti (1661-1685), a cousin of the Duke de Bourbon, the pupil of our author. When the Princeʼs wife, formerly Mademoiselle de Blois, a daughter of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière, was attacked by the small-pox, he nursed her so well that she recovered, but he died.
[556] According to the “Keys,” this paragraph alludes to Louvois. See page [132], note 255, and page [242], note 484.
[557] The original has “aux âmes bien nées,” a very favourite expression of the French authors of the seventeenth century; thus P. Corneille, amongst others, says in the Cid:
“Pour des âmes bien nées,
La valeur nʼattend point le nombre des années.”
[558] Gambling was highly valued at court (see page [154], § 71); the Marquis de Dangeau (see page [156], note 311) owed partly his position to his successes at the gambling-table; and the mathematician Sauveur, a member of the Academy of Sciences, used to give scientific demonstrations before the king and the court of the various combinations of the fashionable games.