Scar. Oh! the excellent apostle: I remember a story of him when he was bishop of Agde, which will not be unpleasant to you, if you can bear with a pun, and a poet’s making merry with several languages, a thing he can no more avoid than flattery. This worthy prelate not meeting with that plenty at Agde his voluptuousness required, made his monarch this compliment: Sir, Je suis né gueux, j’ay vecu gueux, benais s’il plait a votre majeste, je voux Perigueux.
Furet. Faith, a very comfortable reward for a very filthy pun; I have said forty pleasanter things to the king, and never could get beyond Mons. l’Abbé, which makes me believe there is a critical minute for a wit, as well as love: an excellent Roman poet was sensible of it, when he said,
Hora libellorum decima est, Eupheme, meorum,
Temporat ambrosias cum tua cura dapes,
Est bonus æthereo laxatur nectare Cæsare.
There’s a Latin quotation for you, to shew you I understand it; and that I have been an author as well as you.
Scar. Believe me, Mons. l’Abbé, you’ll fare much the better for it here; and tho’ those gentlemen made us poor poets pass for scoundrels and impious ridiculers of piety in the other world, yet we have much the whip-hand of them in these quarters, therefore take comfort. Tell me pray how the pious Julius Mascaron behaves himself at Agen, where he meets with greater plenty than he did at Thute.
Furet. Oh! the acorns and chesnuts of Agen have made him so plump and wanton, ’twould rejoice your heart to see him. All the females of the town caress him, and strive which shall yield him most delight; and he out of zeal and gratitude, and to preserve peace and charity among them, like a holy prelate, has given to each her hour of rendezvous, which they keep as regularly as the clock strikes.
Scar. Very well! there’s nothing so commendable as good method in whoring.
Furet. But his favourite is a pretty gentle nun, with whom he often goes to Beauregard, there tete a tete, or rather ne a ne, under the shady limes, do they both act that which will one day procure a third. There are forty other better stories of these two prelates; for they value not what common report says. They are above it: But if you will listen to the exploits of the bishop of Laon, now cardinal d’Estrée, I will shew you what a mitred hog is capable of.
Scar. As I am acquainted with the strength of his genius, so I do not doubt of the greatness of his performances. You have now named a man that would make a parish bull jealous.
Furet. The history I shall give you, will justify your opinion of him. Know then that the cardinal d’Estrée being passionately in love with the marchioness de Cœuvres, who was supposed to have granted the duke de Seaux the liberty of rifling her placket, was resolv’d to put in for his snack. To compass this, he acquainted his nephew, the marquis de Cœuvres, with the scandalous familiarity that was between the duke and his wife. Upon which their parents met at the mareschal d’Estrée’s, where it was concluded to send the young adultress into a convent; but the old mareschal, made wiser by long experience, was against it. In good faith, said he, you are more nice than wise; had not our mothers plaid the same wanton trick, not one of us had been here. I know very well what I say; there’s not a handsome nose nor leg in the company, but has been stole; and not a farthing matter from whom, whether prince or coachman, it has mended our breed: therefore we have more reason to praise those, who discreetly follow the examples of their grandmothers and mothers, than banish ’em, and so render them fruitless. Do not suppose, when I married my grandson de Cœuvres, to young mademoiselle de Lionne, that I consider’d her riches, or that her father was a minister of state; such thoughts are beneath a man of my age and experience. My great hopes were, that she being young and handsome, will still support the grandeur of our family, which as you all very well know, has been made more considerable by the intrigues of the women, than by the valour of the men. I’m sure I never discourag’d what I now maintain; and why my grandson should be more squeamish than I, or his forefathers have been, I take it to be unreasonable: therefore, since the marchioness de Cœuvres is only blam’d for having tasted those pleasures which nature allows, and which are customary in our family, I declare my self her protector. Yet I would not have this be the talk of the court; I would not have it pass my threshold; because the world might say of one of us, as of a fine curious piece of clock-work, that a great many excellent workmen had a hand in it.