Jean Camus [de Pontcarre?],[208] Bishop of Belley and of Arras--friend of St. Francis of Sales and of Honore d'Urfe; author of many "Christian" romances to counteract the bad effects of the others, of a famous _Esprit de Saint Francois de S._, and of a very great number of miscellaneous works,--seems to have been a rather remarkable person, and, with less power and more eccentricity, a sort of Fenelon of the first half of the century. His best known novel, _Palombe_, stands practically alone in its group as having had the honour of a modern reprint in the middle of the nineteenth century.[209] The title-giver is a female, not a male, human dove, and of course a married one. Camus was a divine of views which one does not call "liberal," because the word has been almost more sullied by ignoble use in this connection than in any other--but unconventional and independent; and he provoked great wrath among his brethren by reflecting on the abuses of the conventual system. _Palombe_ appears to be not uninteresting, but after all it is but one of those parasitic exercises which have rarely been great except in the hands of very great genius. Historically, perhaps, the much less famous _Evenemens Singuliers_ (2 vols., 1628) are more important, though they cannot be said to be very amusing. For (to the surprise, perhaps, of a reader who comes to the book without knowing anything about it) it is composed of pure Marmontel-and-Miss-Edgeworth Moral Tales about _L'Ami Desloyal_, _La Prudente Mere_, _L'Amour et la Mort_, _L'Imprecation Maternelle_, and the like. Of course, as one would expect from the time, and the profession of the author, the meal of the morality is a little above the malt of the tale; but the very titles are "germinal." * * * * * [Sidenote: Hedelin d'Aubignac--_Macarise._]