Still, for a paralytic, utterly unfit for marriage in any point of view, to offer to a beautiful young girl, would have seemed ridiculous, if not unpardonable. But let us take into account the difference in ideas of matrimony between ourselves and the French. We must remember that marriage has always been regarded among our neighbours as a contract for mutual benefit, into which the consideration of money of necessity entered largely. It is true that some qualities are taken as equivalents for actual cash: thus, if a young man has a straight and well-cut nose he may sell himself at a higher price than a young man there with the hideous pug; if a girl is beautiful, the marquis will be content with some thousands of francs less for her dower than if her hair were red or her complexion irreclaimably brown. If Julie has a pretty foot, a svelte waist, and can play the piano thunderingly, or sing in the charmingest soprano, her ten thousand francs are quite as acceptable as those of stout awkward, glum-faced Jeannette. The faultless boots and yellow kids of young Adolphe counterbalance the somewhat apocryphal vicomté of ill-kempt and ill-attired Henri.
But then there must be some fortune. A Frenchman is so much in the habit of expecting it, that he thinks it almost a crime to fall in love where there is none. Françoise, pretty, clever, agreeable as she was, was penniless, and even worse, she was the daughter of a man who had been imprisoned on suspicion of murder, and a woman who had gained her livelihood by needlework. All these considerations made the fancy of the merry abbé less ridiculous, and Françoise herself, being sufficiently versed in the ways of the world to understand the disadvantage under which she laboured, was less amazed and disgusted than another girl might have been, when, in due course, the cripple offered her himself and his dumb-waiter. He had little more to give—his pension, a tiny income from his prebend and his Marquisat de Quinet.
The offer of the little man was not so amusing as other episodes of his life. He went honestly to work; represented to her what a sad lot would hers be, if Madame de Neuillant died, and what were the temptations of beauty without a penny. His arguments were more to the point than delicate, and he talked to the young girl as if she was a woman of the world. Still, she accepted him, cripple as he was.
Madame de Neuillant made no objection, for she was only too glad to be rid of a beauty, who ate and drank, but did not marry.
On the making of the contract, Scarron's fun revived. When asked by the notary what was the young lady's fortune, he replied: 'Four louis, two large wicked eyes, one fine figure, one pair of good hands, and lots of mind.' 'And what do you give her?' asked the lawyer.—'Immortality,' replied he, with the air of a bombastic poet 'The names of the wives of kings die with them—that of Scarron's wife will live for ever!'
His marriage obliged him to give up his canonry, which he sold to Ménage's man-servant, a little bit of simony which was not even noticed in those days. It is amusing to find a man who laughed at all religion, insisting that his wife should make a formal avowal of the Romish faith. Of the character of this marriage we need say no more than that Scarron had at that time the use of no more than his eyes, tongue, and hands. Yet such was then, as now, the idea of matrimony in France, that the young lady's friends considered her fortunate.
Scarron in love was a picture which amazed and amused the whole society of Paris, but Scarron married was still more curious. The queen, when she heard of it, said that Françoise would be nothing but a useless bit of furniture in his house. She proved not only the most useful appendage he could have, but the salvation alike of his soul and his reputation. The woman who charmed Louis XIV. by her good sense, had enough of it to see Scarron's faults, and prided herself on reforming him as far as it was possible. Her husband had hitherto been the great Nestor of indelicacy, and when he was induced to give it up, the rest followed his example. Madame Scarron checked the licence of the abbé's conversation, and even worked a beneficial change in his mind.
The joviality of their parties still continued. Scarron had always been famous for his petits soupers, the fashion of which he introduced, but as his poverty would not allow him to give them in proper style, his friends made a pic-nic of it, and each one either brought or sent his own dish of ragout, or whatever it might be, and his own bottle of wine. This does not seem to have been the case after the marriage, however; for it is related as a proof of Madame Scarron's conversational powers, that, when one evening a poorer supper than usual was served, the waiter whispered in her ear, 'Tell them another story, Madame, if you please, for we have no joint to-night.' Still both guests and host could well afford to dispense with the coarseness of the cripple's talk, which might raise a laugh, but must sometimes have caused disgust, and the young wife of sixteen succeeded in making him purer both in his conversation and his writings.
The household she entered was indeed a villainous one. Scarron rather gloried in his early delinquencies, and, to add to this, his two sisters had characters far from estimable. One of them had been maid of honour to the Princesse de Conti, but had given up her appointment to become the mistress of the Duc de Trêmes. The laugher laughed even at his sister's dishonour, and allowed her to live in the same house on a higher étage. When, on one occasion, some one called on him to solicit the lady's interest with the duke, he coolly said, 'You are mistaken; it is not I who know the duke; go up to the next storey.' The offspring of this connection he styled 'his nephews after the fashion of the Marais.' Françoise did her best to reclaim this sister and to conceal her shame, but the laughing abbé made no secret of it.
But the laugher was approaching his end. His attacks became more and more violent: still he laughed at them. Once he was seized with a terrible choking hiccup, which threatened to suffocate him. The first moment he could speak he cried, 'If I get well, I'll write a satire on the hiccup.' The priests came about him, and his wife did what she could to bring him to a sense of his future danger. He laughed at the priests and at his wife's fears. She spoke of hell. 'If there is such a place,' he answered, 'it won't be for me, for without you I must have had my hell in this life.' The priests told him, by way of consolation, that 'God had visited him more than any man.'—He does me too much honour,' answered the mocker. 'You should give him thanks,' urged the ecclesiastic. 'I can't see for what,' was the shameless answer.