Rambouillet, from which he retired after reading aloud a satiric poem not favorably received. Neither was he happy at court, in spite of the favor of Louis XIV., who, entertained by his rough honesty, gave him a pension of two thousand francs. Later, when appointed with Racine to write a history of the reign,--that unfortunate history which was accidentally burned,--we find him an unwilling follower on royal expeditions, his ungainly horsemanship the mock of high-bred courtiers. In fact, he was bourgeois through and through, and not at ease with the aristocrats. He was thrifty bourgeois too; so often called miserly as well as malicious that it is pleasant to remember certain illustrations of his nobler side. The man who offered to resign his own pension if that of old disfavored Corneille might be continued, and when the latter was forced to sell his library, paid him its full value and then left him in lifelong possession,--was generous if he did love to save sous. His was a fine independence, which felt his art too lofty for purchase, and would accept nothing from the booksellers. He had always wished to be a poet. Feeble of body, asthmatic, and in later life deaf and almost deprived of voice, he found in writing all the charm of a brilliant and ingenious game. Then too he had something definite to say, as all his work consistently testifies. Neither rich nor poor, without family cares, he could give himself unreservedly to authorship. In 1660 he published a satire upon the vices of Paris, which inaugurated his great success. Seven satires appeared in 1666, and he afterward added five others. Their malicious wit, their novel form, the harmonious swing of the couplet rhyme, forced immediate attention. They held up contemporary literary weaknesses to scorn, and indulged in the most merciless personalities, sparing not even his own brother, the poet Gilles Boileau. All retorts upon himself the author bore with complacent superiority which forced his adversaries to feel worsted.