Guy Patin entered, but all was of no avail now for “le pauvre Scarron,” as he called himself.
No ordinary character of a man was the first husband of Françoise d’Aubigné, the woman he so sincerely loved and admired, so disinterestedly loved, that he would, had she desired, have denied himself the happiness of living in her society—for he had offered her the choice of placing her en pension in a convent at the expense of his own scanty incomings. Driven from his rights as a child, gifted with great wit and talent, and a generous kindliness, he was beloved by a large circle of friends. First the victim of cruel, iniquitous neglect, oftentimes his own enemy, the crosses of life never blighted the gifts of his intellect, or, it may be added, of his industry. In straitened conditions touching on absolute poverty, the gaieté du cœur of Paul Scarron never forsook him, and if he could have lived a while longer, for his own sake, as he certainly would for hers for whose future he was ever anxious—he said with that labouring dying breath, that he could not have supposed it so easy to make a joke of death.
He had composed his own epitaph long before—
“He who lies sleeping here beneath,
Scant envy but great pity won,
A thousand times he suffered death,
Or ere his life was lost and done.
Oh, Stranger, as you pass, tread light,
Awaken not his slumbers deep,
For this, bethink you’s the first night