es_; je doute si c'est potage ou
fricassee."

Here we have (1) Evidence that Sorel was a man of observation, and took
an interest in really interesting things.

(2) A date for the appearance, or the coming into fashion, of an
important dish.

(3) An instance of the furnishing of fiction with something more than
conventional adventure on the one hand, and conventional harangues or
descriptions on the other.

(4) An interesting literary parallel; for here is the libelled
"Charroselles" (_v. inf._ p. 288) two centuries beforehand, feeling a
doubt, exactly similar to Thackeray's, as to whether a _bouillabaisse_
should be called soup or broth, brew or stew. Those who understand the
art and pastime of "book-fishing" will not go away with empty baskets
from either of these neglected ponds.

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Scarron and the _Roman Comique_.]

Almost as different a person as can possibly be conceived from Sorel was
Paul Scarron, Abbe, "Invalid to the Queen," husband of the future Mme.
de Maintenon, author of burlesques which did him no particular honour,
of plays which, if not bad, were never first rate, of witticisms
innumerable, most of which have perished, and of other things, besides
being a hero of some facts and more legends; but author also of one book
in our own subject of much intrinsic and more historical interest, and
original also of passages in later books more interesting still to all
good wits. Not a lucky man in life (except for the possession of a
lively wit and an imperturbable temper), he was never rich, and he
suffered long and terribly from disease--one of the main subjects of his
legend, but, after all discussions and carpings, looking most like
rheumatoid arthritis, one of the most painful and incurable of ailments.
But Scarron was, and has been since, by no means unlucky in literature.
He had, though of course not an unvaried, a great popularity in a
troubled and unscrupulous time: and long after his death two of the
foremost novelists of his country selected him for honourable treatment
of curiously different kinds. Somehow or other the introduction of men
of letters of old time into modern books has not been usually very
fortunate, except in the hands of Thackeray and a very few more. Among
these latter instances may certainly be ranked the pleasant picture of
Scarron's house, and of the attention paid to him by the as yet
unmarried Francoise d'Aubigne, in Du