My Arms
are shortened, as well as my Legs; and my Fingers as well as my Arms. In
short, I am a living Epitome of human Misery. This, as near as I can
give it, is my Shape. Since I am got so far, I will e'en tell thee
something of my Humour. Under the Rose, be it spoken, Courteous Reader,
I do this only to swell the Bulk of my Book, at the Request of the
Bookseller--the poor Dog, it seems, being afraid he should be a Loser by
this Impression, if he did not give Buyer enough for his Money.'

This allusion to the publisher reminds us that, on the suppression of
his pension--on hearing of which Scarron only said, 'I should like,
then, to suppress myself'--he had to live on the profits of his works.
In later days it was Madame Scarron herself who often carried them to
the bookseller's, when there was not a penny in the house. The publisher
was Quinet, and the merry wit, when asked whence he drew his income,
used to reply with mock haughtiness, 'De mon Marquisat de Quinet.' His
comedies, which have been described as mere burlesques--I confess I have
never read them, and hope to be absolved--were successful enough, and if
Scarron had known how to keep what he made, he might sooner or later
have been in easy circumstances. He knew neither that nor any other art
of self-restraint, and, therefore, was in perpetual vicissitudes of
riches and penury. At one time he could afford to dedicate a piece to
his sister's greyhound, at another he was servile in his address to some
prince or duke.

In the latter spirit, he humbled himself before Mazarin, in spite of the
publication of his 'Mazarinade,' and was, as he might have expected,
repulsed. He then turned to Fouquet, the new Surintendant de Finances,
who was liberal enough with the public money, which he so freely
embezzled, and extracted from him a pension of 1,600 francs (about L64).
In one way or another, he got back a part of the property his stepmother
had alienated from him, and obtained a prebend in the diocese of Mans,
which made up his income to something more respectable.

He was now able to indulge to the utmost his love of society. 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 clev