limbs.
He had been subjected to a severe disciplinary course of medicine, at
length he sent away all his doctors, declaring that he preferred the
disease to the treatment, and came to Paris, where the fame of his wit
had preceded him. There he had a chair made on his own plan, and one
day, visiting Anne of Austria in this chair, she asked him, charmed as
she was with his wit, if he did not wish for a title.

"Yes, your majesty, there is a title which I covet much," replied
Scarron.

"And what is that?"

"That of being your invalid," answered Scarron.

So he was called the queen's invalid, with a pension of fifteen hundred
francs.

From that lucky moment Scarron led a happy life, spending both income
and principal. One day, however, an emissary of the cardinal's gave him
to understand that he was wrong in receiving the coadjutor so often.

"And why?" asked Scarron; "is he not a man of good birth?"

"Certainly."

"Agreeable?"

"Undeniably."

"Witty?"

"He has, unfortunately, too much wit."

"Well, then, why do you wish me to give up seeing such a man?"

"Because he is an enemy."

"Of whom?"

"Of the cardinal."

"What?" answered Scarron, "I continue to receive Monsieur Gilles
Despreaux, who thinks ill of me, and you wish me to give up seeing the
coadjutor, because he thinks ill of another man. Impossible!"

The conversation had rested there and Scarron, through sheer obstinacy,
had seen Monsieur de Gondy only the more frequently.

Now, the very morning of which we speak was that of his quarter-day
payment, and Scarron, as usual, had sent his servant to get his money
at the pension-office, but the man had returned and said that the
government had no more money to give Monsieur Scarron.

It was on Thursday, the abbe's reception day; people went there in
crowds. The cardinal's refusal to pay the pension was known about the
town in half an hour and he was abused with wit and vehemence.

In the Rue Saint Honore Athos fell in with two gentlemen whom he did not
know, on horseback like himself, followed by a lackey like himself, and
going in the same direction that he was. One of them, hat in hand, said
to him:

"Would you believe it, monsieur? that contemptible Mazarin has stopped
poor Scarron's pension."

"That is unreasonable," said Athos, saluting in his turn the two
cavaliers. And they separated with courteous gestures.

"It happens well that we are going there this evening," said Athos to
th