cognized. The women pluck
him behind and before; he dances round and tries to evade their fingers.
This is impossible; he breaks away, runs down the market pursued by a
shouting crowd, is again surrounded, and again subjected to a plucking
process. The bird must be stripped; he must be discovered. Little by
little his back is bared, and little by little is seen a black jerkin,
black stockings, and, wonder upon wonder! the bands of a canon. Now they
have cleared his face of its plumage, and a cry of disgust and shame
hails the disclosure. Yes, this curious masker is no other than a
reverend abbe, a young canon of the cathedral of Mans! 'This is too
much--it is scandalous--it is disgraceful. The church must be respected,
the sacred order must not descend to such frivolities.' The people,
lately laughing, are now furious at the shameless abbe and not his
liveliest wit can save him; they threaten and cry shame on him, and in
terror of his life, he beats his way through the crowd, and takes to his
heels. The mob follows, hooting and savage. The little man is nimble;
those well-shaped legs--_qui ont si bien danse_--stand him in good
stead. Down the streets, and out of the town go hare and hounds. The
pursuers gain on him--a bridge, a stream filled with tall reeds, and
delightfully miry, are all the hope of refuge he sees before him. He
leaps gallantly from the bridge in among the oziers, and has the joy of
listening to the disappointed curses of the mob, when reaching the
stream, their quarry is nowhere to be seen. The reeds conceal him, and
there he lingers till nightfall, when he can issue from his
lurking-place, and escape from the town.

Such was the mad freak which deprived the Abbe Scarron of the use of his
limbs for life. His health was already ruined when he indulged this
caprice; the damp of the river brought on a violent attack, which closed
with palsy, and the gay young abbe had to pay dearly for the pleasure of
astonishing the citizens of Mans. The disguise was easily accounted
for--he had smeared himself with honey, ripped open a feather-bed, and
rolled himself in it.

This little incident gives a good idea of what Scarron was in his
younger days--ready at any time for any wild caprice.

Paul Scarron was the son of a Conseiller du Parlement of good family,
resident in Paris. He was born in 1610, and his early days would have
been wretched enough, if his elastic spirits had allowed him to give way
to misery. Hi