Scar. Oh, dear! oh, dear! the right reverend Francis Harley, archbishop of Paris! my most renowned friend! a worthy chief!
Furet. The very same, and ’tis a precious jewel, both for body and soul. A hedgehog has not more bristles than this prelate has mistresses, and there’s not a stallion in France that leaps oftner.
Scar. You rejoice my heart Mons. Furetiere. He was, I remember, always at Paris, when archbishop of Rouen: no man fitter for that employment. To be free, if Paris be the hell of hackney horses, ’tis the paradice of whore-masters and hackney-whores. I can guess at what he does now, by what he did formerly. Several ladies also of our neighbouring countries are witnesses of his prowess; but more especially some of the fair English ladies; the luscious morsels of a lustful monarch. But on to the rest.
Furet. I am willing to satisfy your curiosity, Mr. Scarron, but to run thro’ the whole herd, would be too tedious at present, tho’ they all deserve to be chronicled: so I will only, en passant, give you the history of those you have heard preach, both at Paris and the court, with wonderful applause; and who, for their modesty and regular lives, had the reputation of saints, whilst they were only fathers of oratory.
Scar. Take your own method, Mons. l’Abbé; but let me tell you one thing, by the way, this place is call’d the wits corner, but by some late guests, because of the smoak and liquor, the wits Coffee-House. Now you know the wits of all countries laugh at the clergy in their poems and plays; and that the clergy, to be reveng’d of them, and keep up their own reputation with the ignorant, call them atheists; therefore you may freely give a true description of them. All here are their enemies; and a priest would as soon venture his carcass in Sweden as in this place; he dreads a poet, as much as dogs do a sow-gelder.
Furet. Still a merry man, Mr. Scarron. But to return to your mitred hogs; do you remember father le Bone, and father Mascron. The first is now bishop of Perigueux, and the other bishop of Agen.
Scar. How! are these two famous preachers, those scourgers of pride and immorality, got into the herd of the mitred hogs? by my troth, I always took them for credulous humble weathers, believers of what they preached; tho’ I know most priests seldom believe what they profess.
Furet. Well, Mr. Scarron, tho’ you can see as far thro’ a mill-stone as any man, yet I find you are not infallible.
Scar. Faith, a man sees as far thro’ a mill-stone, as a priest’s surplice, tho’ ’tis reckon’d the emblem of purity. But, Mons. l’Abbé, what Montaigne said formerly of the women, I now say of the priests: Ils envoyen leur conscience au bordel, & tiennent leur countenance en regle: they send their conscience to the stews, and keep their countenance within rule.
Furet. ’Tis even as true of one, as of the other, Mr. Scarron, and my following discourse will verify it. What virtue there is in a mitre, I know not, for I could never obtain one; I was thought too good a christian in the bottom; but before I had bad adieu to Paris, your innocent believing apostles were become too as rampant and fine coated hogs as any of the herd. The reverend father le Bone, bishop of Perigueux, has so bravely plaid the county boar, that there’s not a pretty nun in his diocese but has been with pig by him; as I have been credibly informed by persons of honour.