Furet. Thanks to our master Pluto, I have not yet felt any cold. I was so very tender and chill for six months in the year at Paris, that tho’ I was loaded with ermins, and always had a dram of the best Nantz in my pocket, I could scarce keep my blood from freezing in my veins.
Scar. That’s an affliction you will not meet with here, take my word for’t; for ’tis something hotter than under the torrid zone, and the nicest wits of your academy, need not fear spoiling their brains, by catching cold here. It is not long since I met with the illustrious Balzac, who does not complain now of the cold in his head, as he did when he liv’d on the pleasant banks of the Charante. But, what news have you?
Furet. I don’t doubt, by your inquisitiveness, but you are very desirous to hear some news of your wife.
Scar. May pox and itch devour the nasty jade! I know but too much of her by mareschal d’Albert formerly, and lately, by my likeness Monsieur Luxemburg; yes, I know she’s a duchess; that she’s one of the privy-council; and she serves Lewis the XIV. in the same capacity as Livia did Augustus. But why did not the prostitute make her poor deform’d husband a duke? I should not have been the first duke and peer of France, that had been a cuckold.
Furet. By your discourse, Mr. Scarron, one would think you had lost your senses and memory: But you cannot surely have forgot how, instead of laurel, she adorn’d your learned brow with horns, before she was taken notice of at court; Indeed how could a pretty, witty, buxom, young woman, forbear making such an infirm, deform’d Æsop as you a cuckold?
Scar. I should not have much valued that, because I had brethren enough to herd with, if the damn’d whore had but got my pension augmented; but the confounded jade, instead of that, gave me the cursed’st garrison to maintain, that ever poor husband was mortify’d with: To appease which, I was forc’d to have recourse to Unguentum contra pediculos inguinales, &c. But prithee let’s discourse of something else, for the thoughts of the duchess of Maintenon, will disturb my brain, and easily put me into a fever, which is dangerous in this warm climate.
Furet. I’ll tell you but three or four words more of this famous duchess, and conclude. First, That she has kick’d her patroness, Madam Montespan out of the royal bed: And Secondly, That she is very great with the pious jesuit, father la Chaise, the monarch’s confessor.
Scar. Oh! oh! by my troth, I don’t wonder at the lascivious harlot, for closing with him! as there is no feast like the misers, so there is no gallantry like those monks. When those hypocrites undertake that business, they do it all like heroes. But you have said all, by saying he is a jesuit, since those gallants have been in reputation, they have engrossed all good whoring to their society, especially in France, and more particularly at Paris, where they have so well behav’d themselves, that they have chang’d an antient authentick proverb, Jacobine en [50] chair, Cordelier en [51] chœur, Carme en [52] cusine, & Augustine en [53] bordel, for now they say, Jesuit en bordel, &c. But so much for those gentlemen, pray what are you a doing now in the French academy?
Furet. There are as many follies committed there, as in any society in the universe; judge of the whole by this one example. That company was never so highly honour’d as it is at present, by the particular care that great monarch takes of it; for which he is repaid in flattering panegyricks. Nevertheless, these insipid, florid, gentlemen, scold and scratch like so many fish-women in an alehouse. The other day the great Charpentier fell into such a passion about a trifle, that he reproach’d the learned Taleman, of being the son of a broken apothecary at Rochel; to which Taleman with as much heat reply’d, Charpentier was the son of poor hedge ale-draper at Paris. From this Billingsgate language they came to blows. Charpentier threw Nicot’s dictionary at his adversary’s head, and Taleman threw Morery’s at Charpentier’s. We all wish’d heartily we could have recall’d you from the dead, to write the various accidents of this battle, in your comical and satyric style.
Scar. Ha, ha, ha, had I been there, they should have beat the academy dictionary and Morery’s too in pieces about each other’s ears, before I would have parted them. But I hope these two sputtering coxcombs did each other justice; I declare, whoever hinder’d it, deserv’d to be severely fined. Pray how did you behave yourself during this combat?