fair to say that he was never avaricious, but only
cared for ease and a little luxury.

When Richelieu died, and the gentler, but more subtle Mazarin mounted
his throne, Madame de Hautefort made another attempt to present her
_protege_ to the queen, and this time succeeded. Anne of Austria had
heard of the quaint little man who could laugh over a lawsuit in which
his whole fortune was staked, and received him graciously. He begged for
some place to support him. What could he do? What was he fit for?
'Nothing, your majesty, but the important office of The Queen's Patient;
for that I am fully qualified.' Anne smiled, and Scarron from that time
styled himself 'par la grace de Dieu, le malade de la Reine.' But there
was no stipend attached to this novel office. Mazarin procured him a
pension of 500 crowns. He was then publishing his 'Typhon, or the
Gigantomachy,' and dedicated it to the cardinal, with an adulatory
sonnet. He forwarded the great man a splendidly bound copy, which was
accepted with nothing more than thanks. In a rage the author suppressed
the sonnet and substituted a satire. This piece was bitterly cutting,
and terribly true. It galled Mazarin to the heart, and he was
undignified enough to revenge himself by cancelling the poor little
pension of L60 per annum which had previously been granted to the
writer. Scarron having lost his pension, soon afterwards asked for an
abbey, but was refused. 'Then give me,' said he, 'a simple benefice, so
simple, indeed, that all its duties will be comprised in believing in
God.' But Scarron had the satisfaction of gaining a great name among the
cardinal's many enemies, and with none more so than De Retz, then
_coadjuteur_[27] to the Archbishop of Paris, and already deeply
implicated in the Fronde movement. To insure the favour of this rising
man, Scarron determined to dedicate to him a work he was just about to
publish, and on which he justly prided himself as by far his best. This
was the 'Roman Comique,' the only one of his productions which is still
read. That it should be read, I can quite understand, on account not
only of the ease of its style, but of the ingenuity of its improbable
plots, the truth of the characters, and the charming bits of satire
which are found here and there, like gems amid a mass of mere fun. The
scene is laid at Mans, the town in which the author had himself
perpetrated his chief follies; and many of the characters were probably
drawn from life