_gaillardises_ are set down all "in the ease of his heart," without the least design of conveying impure thoughts or immodest images to the imaginations of his contemporaries or of future generations. "If any wonder," says M. Gonod, "at Fléchier's language, as being sometimes rather free, I tell them he derived his freedom from his virtue; unreproached by his conscience, he thought he might speak plainly: _omnia munda mundis_. As an historian, he understood the historian's duty differently from the Abbé Ducreux, differently from this or that obscure critic who may dare attack him; he took as a guide this maxim: 'Ne quid falsi dicere audeat, ne quid veri non audeat.'--(_Cic. de Orat._ ii. 15.) We must also revert to the times in which he wrote; do we not see, if only by Molière's comedies, how much more prudish and reserved our language has become?" Amongst the long list of crimes of which the Grands-Jours took cognisance, that of sorcery was not forgotten. "Conversation is an agreeable thing," says Fléchier, after three or four pages of gossip, including an anecdote of Mademoiselle de Scudéry and her brother, who had been arrested at Lyons on suspicion of high treason, for having discussed rather too loudly the manner of slaying the king in a projected tragedy--"but exercise is also necessary, and I know nothing pleasanter than to take the country air after having passed several hours discoursing in one's apartment. So we got into our coaches with some ladies, and went to visit the source of the Clermont fountains, one of the curiosities of the country." His elegant account of these springs and the surrounding scenery is alone sufficient to establish his reputation as a proficient in the descriptive art, and loses little by comparison with Charles Nodier's brilliant description of the same spot, the Tivoli of Auvergne. "On our return home we found M. l'Intendant there before us. He had come from Aurillac, and had had great difficulty in getting through the snow which had already fallen in the mountains. He had caused a president of the election of Brioude to be arrested, accused of several crimes, and especially of magic. One of his servants deposed that he had given him certain characters which made him sometimes rise from the ground, when at church, in sight of all the congregation. The Intendant having questioned the accused on this subject, he was so disconcerted that he nearly lost his senses; he fell into a furious passion, and then entreated they would not press him further, that he was not disposed to acknowledge any thing that day, but that on the morrow he would confess all the irregularities of his life. His prayer was granted, and M. de Fortia gave him in charge to four of his people. I do not know if the devil had promised to rescue him from the hands of a Master of Requests, or if, by his art, he bewitched his keepers; but it is certain he made his escape to the woods and mountains, where they have now for three days pursued him.