Had he valued their good opinion, or expected the _Mémoires_ to be submitted to them, he would hardly have ventured to note thus plainly--not to say brutally--his depreciation of their personal attractions. Ugly, child-bearing housewives! Such crude uncivil phrase would have been more appropriate in the day of the eccentric monarch who used firetongs to remove a love-letter from a lady's bosom,[29] than in that of the graceful lover of La Vallière, who cloaked the extremity of egotism under the most exquisite external courtesy. Not often do we catch Fléchier thus transgressing the limits of polite comment. His keen perception of the ridiculous more frequently finds vent in sly and guarded satire. But the rusticity and want of court-usage of the Auvergne dames meet in him a cruel censor. "All the ladies of the town come to pay their respects to our ladies, not successively, but in troops. Each visit fills the room; there is no finding chairs enough; it takes a long time to place all these little people; (_ce petit monde;_) you would think it a conference or an assembly, the circle is so large. I have heard say that it is a great fatigue to salute so many persons at one time, and that one is much embarrassed before and after so many kisses. As the greater number (of the visitors) are not accustomed to court ceremony, and know nothing but their provincial customs, they come in a crowd, to avoid special notice, and to gain courage from each other. It is a pleasant sight to see them enter, one with her arms crossed, another with her hands hanging down like those of a doll; all their conversation is trivial (_bagatelle_;) and it is a happiness for them when they can turn the discourse to their dress, and talk of the _points d'Aurillac_."[30] Even the homage paid to his own talents and growing reputation is insufficient to mollify the Abbé and blunt the point of his sarcastic pen. A capuchin monk of worldly tastes, who passed his time at watering places, coquetting with sick belles and belles lettres, had read some of Fléchier's poetry, and spread his fame amongst the Clermont blue-stockings. Forthwith the Abbé received the visits of two or three of these _précieuses languissantes_, who thought, he informs us with less than his usual modesty,--"that to be seen with me would make them pass for learned persons, and that wit is to be acquired by contagion. One was of a height approaching that of the giants of antiquity, with a face of Amazonian ugliness; the other, on the contrary, was very short, and her countenance was so covered with patches, that I could form no opinion of it, except that she had a nose and eyes. It did not escape me that she was a little lame, and I remarked that both thought themselves beautiful. The pair alarmed me, and I took them for evil spirits trying to disguise themselves as angels of light." Then comes a dialogue, _à la_ Molière--clumsy compliments on the one hand, modestly declined on the other, and at