s not a few of their objects, may have been
imaginary "dream-mistresses," created by Morpheus in an impurer mood
than when he created Lamb's "dream-children." But some, I believe, have
been identified; and others of the singular "Calendar" affixed to
_Monsieur Nicolas_ have probably escaped identification.

[Sidenote: His life and the reasons for giving it.]

[424]
It has not been necessary (and this is fortunate, for even if it had
been necessary, it would have been scarcely possible) to give
biographies of the various authors mentioned in this book, except in
special cases. Something was generally known of most of them in the days
before education received a large E, with laws and rates to suit: and
something is still in a way, supposed to be known since. But of the life
of Pigault, who called himself Lebrun, it may be desirable to say
something, for more reasons than one. In the first place, this life had
rather more to do with his work than is always the case; in the second,
very little will be found about him in most histories of French
literature; in the third, there will be found assigned to him, in the
text--not out of crotchet, or contumacy, or desire to innovate, but as a
result of rather painful reading--a considerably higher place in the
history of the novel than he has usually occupied. His correct
name--till, by one of the extremest eccentricities of the French
_Chats-Fourres_, he was formally unbegot by his Roman father, and the
unbegetting (plus declaration of death) confirmed by the Parlement of
Paris--was the imposing one of Charles Antoine Guillaume Pigault de
L'Epinoy. The paternal Pigault, as may be guessed from his proceedings,
was himself a lawyer, but of an old Calais family tracing itself to
Queen Philippa's _protege_, Eustache de Saint-Pierre; and, besides the
mysterious life-in-death or death-in-life, Charles Antoine Guillaume had
to suffer from him, while such things existed, several _lettres de
cachet_. The son certainly did his best to deserve them. Having been
settled, on leaving school as a clerk in an English commercial house, he
seduced his master's daughter, ran away with her, and would no doubt
have married her--for Pigault was never a really bad fellow--if she had
not been drowned in the vessel which carried the pair back to France. He
escaped--one hopes not without trying to save her. After another
scandal--not the second only--of the same kind, he did marry the victim,
and the ma