THE SOCIETY AT SCARRON'S. 235 ety. In his apartment, in the Rue St. Louis, he received all the leaders of the Fronde, headed by De Retz, and bringing with them their pasquinades on Mazarin, which the easy Italian read and laughed at and pretended to heed not at all. Politics, however, was not the staple of the conversation at Scarron's. He was visited as a curiosity, as a clever buffoon, and those who came to see, remained to laugh. He kept them all alive by his coarse, easy, impudent wit; in which there was more vulgarity and dirtiness than ill-nature. He had a fund of bonhommie, which set his visitors at their ease, for no one was afraid of being bitten by the chained dog they came to pat. His salon became famous; and the admission to it was a diploma of wit. He kept out all the dull, and ignored all the simply great. Any man who could say a good thing, tell a good story, write a good lampoon, or mimic a fool, was a welcome guest. Wits mingled with pedants, courtiers with poets. Abbés and gay women were at home in the easy society of the cripple, and circulated freely round his dumb-waiter. The ladies of the party were not the most respectable in Paris, yet some who were models of virtue met there, without a shudder, many others who were patterns of vice. Ninon de l'Enclos-then young-though age made no alteration in her -and already slaying her scores, and ruining her hundreds of admirers, there met Madame de Sévigné, the most respectable, as well as the most agreeable, woman of that age. Mademoiselle de Scudéry, leaving, for the time, her twelve-volume romance, about Cyrus and Ibrahim, led on a troop of Molière's Précieuses Ridicules, and here recited her verses, and talked pedantically to Pellisson, the ugliest man in Paris, of whom Boileau wrote: "L'or même à Pellisson donne un teint de beauté." Then there was Madame de la Sablière, who was as masculine as her husband the marquis was effeminate; the Duchesse de Lesdiguières, who was so anxious to be thought a wit that she employed the Chevalier de Méré to make her one; and the Comtesse de la Suze, a clever but foolish woman. The men were poets, courtiers, and pedants. Ménage with his tiresome memory, Montreuil and Marigni the song-writers, the elegant De Grammont, Turenne, Coligni, the gallant Abbé Têtu, and many another celebrity; thronged the rooms where Scarron sat in his curious wheelbarrow. The conversation was decidedly light; often, indeed, obscene, in spite of the presence of ladies; but always witty. The hostility of Scarron to the reigning cardinal was a great recommendation, and when all else flagged, or the cripple had 236 FRANÇOISE D'AUBIGNÉ'S DÉBUT. an unusually sharp attack, he had but to start with a line of his "Mazarinade," and out came a fresh lampoon, a new caricature, or fresh rounds of wit fired off at the Italian, from the well-filled cartridge-boxes of the guests, many of whom kept their mots ready made up for discharge. But a change came over the spirit of the paralytic's dream. In the Rue St. Louis, close to Scarron's, lived a certain Madame Neuillant, who visited him as a neighbor, and one day excited his curiosity by the romantic history of a mother and daughter, who had long lived in Martinique, who had been ruined by the extravagance and follies of a reprobate husband and father; and were now living in great poverty—the daughter being supported by Madame de Neuillant herself. The good-natured cripple was touched by this story, and begged his neighbor to bring the unhappy ladies to one of his parties. The evening came; the abbé was, as usual, surrounded by a circle of lady-wits, dressed in the last fashions, flaunting their fans, and laughing merrily at his sallies. Madame de Neuillant was announced, and entered, followed by a simply-dressed lady, with the melancholy face of one broken down by misfortunes, and a pretty girl of fifteen. The contrast between the new-comers and the fashionable habituées around him at once struck the abbé. The girl was not only badly, but even shabbily dressed, and the shortness of her gown showed that she had grown out of it, and could not afford a new one. grandes dames turned upon her their eye-glasses, and whispered comments behind their fans. She was very pretty, they said, very interesting, elegant, lady-like, and so on; but, parbleu! how shamefully mal mise! The new-comers were led up to the cripple's dumb-waiter, and the grandes dames drew back their ample petticoats as they passed. The young girl was overcome with shame; their whispers reached her; she cast down her pretty eyes, and growing more and more confused, she could bear it no longer, and burst into tears. The abbé and his guests were touched by her shyness, and endeavored to restore her confidence. Scarron himself leaned over, and whispered a few kind words in her ear; then breaking out into some happy pleasantry, he gave her time to recover her composure. Such was the first début, in Parisian society, of Françoise d'Aubigné, who was destined, as Madame Scarron, to be afterward one of its leaders, and, as Madame de Maintenon, to be its ruler. The Some people are cursed with bad sons-some with erring daughters. Françoise d'Aubigné was long the victim of a wicked father. Constans d'Aubigné belonged to an old and honorable family, and was the son of that famous old Hugue THE SAD STORY OF LA BELLE INDIENNE. 239 not general, Théodore-Agrippa d'Aubigné, who fought for a long time under Henry of Navarre, and in his old age wrote the history of his times. To counterbalance this distinction, the son Constans brought all the discredit he could on the family. After a reckless life, in which he squandered his patrimony, he married a rich widow, and then, it is said, contrived to put her out of the way. He was imprisoned as a murderer, but acquitted for want of evidence. The story goes, that he was liberated by the daughter of the governor of the jail, whom he had seduced in the prison, and whom he married when free. He sought to retrieve his fortune in the island of Martinique, ill-treated his wife, and eventually ran away and left her and her children to their fate. They followed him to France, and found him again incarcerated. Madame d'Aubigné was foolishly fond of her good-for-nothing spouse, and lived with him in his cell, where the little Françoise, who had been born in prison, was now educated. Rescued from starvation by a worthy Huguenot aunt, Madame de Villette, the little girl was brought up as a Protestant, and a very stanch one she proved for a time. But Madame d'Aubigné, who was a Romanist, would not allow her to remain long under the Calvinistic lady's protection, and sent her to be converted by her godmother, the Madame de Neuillant above mentioned. This woman, who was as merciless as a woman can be, literally broke her into Romanism, treated her like a servant, made her groom the horses, and comb the maid's hair, and when all these efforts failed, sent her to a convent to be finished off. The nuns did by specious reasoning what had been begun by persecution, and young Françoise, at the time she was introduced to Scarron, was a highly respectable member of "the only true church." Madame d'Aubigné was at this time supporting herself by needle-work. Her sad story won the sympathy of Scarron's guests, who united to relieve her wants. La belle Indienne, as the cripple styled her, soon became a favorite at his parties, and lost her shyness by degrees. Ninon de l'Enclos, who did not want heart, took her by the hand, and a friendship thus commenced between that inveterate Laïs and the future wife of Louis XIV. which lasted till death. The beauty of Françoise soon brought her many admirers, among whom was even one of Ninon's slaves; but as marriage was not the object of these attentions, and the young girl would not relinquish her virtue, she remained for some time unmarried, but respectable. Scarron was particularly fond of her, and well knew that, portionless as she was, the poor girl would have but little chance of making a match. |