Scar. Ah! Marchioness, have at you; I find the hog grows rampant—— Go on, good Sir, this is like a brave metropolitan.
Furet. The young marchioness did not listen to this proportion; but on the contrary, was surpris’d to find her uncle, an archbishop, make a motion, which had she been inclined to follow, he ought to have given her more virtuous advice. Perceiving her aversion to his proposition, he suspected she might suppose he only said it to try her inclinations, therefore he was resolved to declare his mind in more intelligible terms; which he did in so amorous a style, that the marchioness plainly perceiv’d the archbishop intended to have a share in the revenge. But the young lady, tho’ she would not have made any scruple of it, had it not been for his character, was infinitely concerned at it.
Scar. Notwithstanding all this, do I see the purple victorious, and the poor victim prostrate.
Furet. As the archbishop made her frequent presents, and she expected great advantages at his death, so she did not think it prudence to mortify him too much; this filled him with hopes, and made him more amorous: therefore, to blind the husband, and have a better opportunity of lying with his wife, he proposed taking them into his palace, and defraying all their charges.
Scar. Money is the sinew of love as well as war. The poor marquis, I don’t doubt, was blinded with this fine proposal. More men are made cuckolds by their own follies than by their wives.
Furet. So it proved by our cuckold, who was so transported at the bounteous offer of the archbishop, supposing it an uncle’s kindness, not a lover’s, that he every where boasted of it, that is to say, he thought himself oblig’d to his uncle for lying with his wife at that price. The mareschal de Crequi, his father, had quite another opinion of that matter, and was affronted at the excessive liberalities of the archbishop, knowing that the most devout and zealous of their tribe were adulterers, incestuous, and sodomites. He complain’d of it to the marquis Louvois, who told him, covetousness was the reason of his complaint. The mareschal not satisfied with this answer, went to the king, who immediately commanded the archbishop to retire into his diocese. The disconsolate archbishop, whilst all were preparing for his journey, went to visit his niece, and with tears desired her ever to remember, that it was for the love of her he was banish’d.
Scar. Could the afflictions of the living affect me, I shou’d be mightily concern’d for the grief this poor prelate, who was oblig’d to leave so dear, so pretty a niece; a niece that afforded him so much pleasure and delight. Have not you left behind you other mitred hogs, whose lives and conversations are worthy your remembrance? Those you have already been so kind to relate, have been a banquet to me; and I heartily wish I may always meet with such entertainment.
Furet. Your servant, Mr. Scarron, I am extremely pleased they have diverted you; and that you may promise yourself such another entertainment, nay, twenty such; be assur’d, that there is not a bishop, archbishop, or cardinal, that is not as very a hog, as either the archbishop of Rheims, or cardinal d’Estrée, except the bishop of Escar, who lives in a barren soil, and can scarce afford himself a bellyfull of chesnuts above once in fifteen days. Poverty is a kind of leprosy, not a fair sleek female will come near him. The reason why I entertain you with the histories of these two prelates, rather than of the archbishop of Paris, the bishop of Meaux, the bishop of Beauvais, the bishop of Valence, and all the other bishops, is, because having heard the famous actions of those worthy metropolitans, faithfully related some few days before my departure, those ideas are the most present and lively. But in time, and with a little rubbing up my memory, I may be able to give you the lives of all the mitred hogs. Besides, as we have now settled three couriers weekly from this place to Versailles, because of the importance of affairs now on foot, I expect now and then a pacquet; so I don’t doubt of keeping my word, and often diverting you with stories of the like nature, and of fresher date.
Scar. ’Tis very obliging, Monsieur l’Abbé: But your last paragraph has put an odd whim into my noddle. This place, as I told you before, is now call’d the wits coffee-house; none but authors are sent hither. What think you if we should join our heads together, and digest all your stories and intelligence into form; if we should compile a book of them, we could make it very diverting, having able men both for verse and prose, whose very names would give it the reputation of a faithful history, because the dead neither hoping nor fearing any thing from the living, cannot be suspected of flattery and partiality, as they justly were when in the world.
Furet. I protest, a noble thought! The lives of the Roman prelates will make a most curious history. We have a famous history of the Roman emperors; and why should we not then have another of the Roman prelates, since they as justly deserve to be transmitted to posterity?