So, if the monarch for an harlot fain Guide me where I should seek the bird at rest, Thus having spoke, the Sire then held his tongue, When lo! the chamber with loud laughter rung; Young Richemont, framed for pleasantry and joke, Anon the learned preacher thus bespoke: "Ah! wherefore, good Sir Saint, take so much pains, For this dear treasure you so much admire? More bastards far than orphans have they made. To finish, Mister Denis, our dispute, Seek maids elsewhere; there's no one here will suit."28 The saint blushed to hear such loose discourse, So wondrous rare,- for which he seemed stark mad: Well, let him go, and while perched on a ray, Bespeaking the approach of jocund day, END OF CANTO I. NOTES TO CANTO I. 1 Holy oil, or la Sainte Ampoule, is said to have been a present despatched from heaven to King Clovis, upon his embracing Christianity at the solicitation of his wife, Saint Clotilda, and, we are told, was brought from heaven in the beak of a dove. One might be led to doubt the veracity of this assertion (says my authority gravely) were it not that all historians attach faith to the relation and that the continued miracle of this Ampoule, always furnishing a sufficient quantity of unction for the purposes of the coronation of each succeeding monarch, did not attest the singular interposition of heaven and the puissant effect of Divine Providence. As this prodigy was accorded to France in the time of Saint Remy, Archbishop of Rheims, the precious treasure was confided to him and his successors, who were always to perform the ceremony of the coronation. I shall terminate this note by stating that, after the inauguration of Louis XIV., at the beginning of the French Revolution, when citizen Rhul, a furious Jacobin and a member of the National Convention, was deputed to visit Rheims in order to seize the riches of the churches and monasteries for the benefit of the nation, he, in order to show his contempt for this celestial oil, in presence of a vast concourse of people, caused the blessed vessel to be brought, with the contents of which he most sacrilegiously thought fit to put a fresh polish upon his dirty boots, and then dashed the phial into pieces in the presence of the multitude. 2 James Chapelain, a poet and member of the French Academy, was born at Paris in 1595, and is frequently mentioned in the works of Balzac. He was the author of several learned works, and particularly distinguished himself by the production of the heroic poem sarcastically alluded Vol. 40-4 49 to by Voltaire in the above line, entitled "La Pucelle, ou la France Délivrée," which work occupied several years of his life; so that the public expectation was raised to the highest pitch, and upon its appearance it was as much contemned by some as it was ridiculously extolled by others. Chapelain, who enjoyed the post of king's Counsel, died in 1674. It is rather a remarkable circumstance, in opposition to the general rule among the votaries of the Muse, that this writer was a miser as well as a poet. Voltaire's note upon Chapelain's poem of "La Pucelle," etc., concludes as follows: "In the time of Cardinal Richelieu lived one Chapelain, author of a famous poem, entitled 'La Pucelle,' etc., which consisted, according to the opinion of the celebrated Boileau, of twelve times twelve hundred miserable verses. In stating thus much, Boileau, however, was not aware that this renowned poet composed twelve times twenty-four hundred verses; but that he had sufficient discretion to expunge the half." As a further proof of the estimation in which Chapelain's poem was regarded by the satiric Boileau and his witty associates, it is a known fact, that when the author of the Lutrin inhabited Auteuil in the vicinity of Paris, which house still exists near the church in the wood of Saint Cloud, he took delight in assembling under his roof the eminent geniuses of his age, especially Chapelle, Racine, Molière, and LaFontaine. When he had these celebrated writers to dine with him, literature was, as might naturally be supposed, the general topic of conversation, and as the "Pucelle" usually lay upon the table, whoever happened to be guilty of a grammatical error in speaking was compelled by way of punishment to read a passage from the work in question. Charles the Seventh, surnamed The Victorious, succeeded his father, Charles the Sixth, at the age of twenty, in the year 1422, and was crowned at Poictiers, whither he had removed his parliament on the 6th of November in the same year. The commencement of this king's reign was characterized by troubles and disorders fomented by Henry |