Scar. Oh brave hog! worthy prelate! pious cardinal. What a fine way of mortification is this! Well, for sincerity, humility, charity, sobriety, &c. commend me to a prelate.
Furet. The cardinal, tho’ he had obtained his desires, yet could not but be sensible that fear, not love, made her consent; therefore doubting she would return to her first amours, or that he should have but little share of her, so contriv’d it, that her husband sent her to a house he had in the cardinal’s diocese, and not far from his palace. This had a very good effect; because the cardinal, for the love of her, resided always in his diocese. Thus did the cardinal and his niece live very lovingly for two or three years; but the intrigues of the court calling the prelate out of the kingdom, ambition stepp’d into the place of love, and put an end to an incestuous commerce, to which the marchioness had first consented, purely in her own defence.
Scar. I find there are hogs with cardinal caps, as well as mitres. But I believe they are not so numerous; that dignity, perhaps, is a kind of curb to their licentiousness.
Furet. You mistake the matter, Mr. Scarron, inclination never changes; the only reason is, there are more bishops than cardinals, and most of them reside at Rome, at glorious Rome, which is but one entire stew; Sodom was not what Rome is now. Have you forgot the famous cardinal Bonzi? He is as absolute in Montpelier, as the grand signior in his seraglio; he needs but beckon to the dame he has a mind to enjoy. The brave cardinal de Bouillon, notwithstanding his court intrigues is as well known in all the bawdy-houses of Paris, as a young debauch’d musqetteer, or garde de corps. The cardinal de Furstenburg too was as wicked as his purse would allow him before I left the town.
Scar. I verily believe it, Monsieur l’Abbé: But pray give me leave to reckon your dignities upon my fingers, that I may not forget them. First, There is your porkers of Jesus Christ; then your mitred hogs; and lastly, your purple hogs. ’Tis wondrous pretty! pray how must we distinguish the Pope, who is chief of this herd? Must we call him the swine-herd? Some of them, ’tis true, were swine-herds before they took the order of priesthood, as Sixtus Quintus, who was swine-herd to the village of Montaste: But there is another thing that puzzles me worse than all this: you know Lewis XIV. calls himself the eldest son of St. Peter, Lewis the Great then, for all his ambition is the son of a swine-herd. Well, I know not how to settle this point; therefore pray continue your history.
Furet. I’ll make an end of my history, if you are not already glutted with the infamy of the afore-mentioned prelates; with that of the archbishop of Rheims.
Scar. How! Monsieur l’Abbé, how! Is he a hog too? I have heard him call’d by some of our new guests a horse.
Furet. You are in the right of that: the mareschal de la Feuillade was his god-father, and one day honour’d him with the title of coach-horse.
Scar. A horse is a degree of honour above a hog—— Has la Feuillade the privilege of distributing titles at the court of France? Has he more wit than in cardinal Mazarine’s days, who always greeted him in these words, Monsieur de la Feuillade, All your brains would lie in a nutshell.
Furet. ’Tis true, there is no more substance in his brains, than in whipt cream; and as that fills up the desart, and serves to cool and refresh the stomach after a plentiful dinner; so does he serve to unbend and divert the mind, after solid conversation and business. To prove this, I will tell you how he made the king to laugh very heartily, concerning the archbishop of Rheims.