Later French history supplies another and more agreeable illustration. At the siege of Douay, Louis the Fourteenth found himself with his suite unexpectedly under a heavy cannonade from the besieged city. I do not believe that Louis was deficient in personal courage, yet, in compliance with the entreaties of most of those around him, who urged that he should not expose so important a life, he was about, in somewhat unsoldierly and unkingly fashion, immediately to retire; when M. de Charost, drawing close to him, whispered the well-known French proverb in his ear: _The wine is drawn; it must be drunk_.[36] The king remained exposed to the fire of the enemy a suitable period, and it is said ever after held in higher honour than before the counsellor who had with this word saved him from an unseemly retreat. Let this on the generation of proverbs, with the actual employment which has been made of them, for the present suffice. Footnotes [22] Thus is it, I believe, with, Bos lassus fortius figit pedem; a proverb with which he warns the younger Augustine not to provoke a contest with him, the weary, but therefore the more formidable, antagonist. [23] Oblitus _veteris_ proverbii: mendaces memores esse oportere. Let me quote here Fuller’s excellent unfolding of this proverb: “Memory in a liar is no more than needs. For first lies are hard to be remembered, because many, whereas truth is but one: secondly, because a lie cursorily told takes little footing and settled fastness in the teller’s memory, but prints itself deeper in the hearers, who take the greater notice because of the improbability and deformity thereof; and one will remember the sight of a monster longer than the sight of an handsome body. Hence comes it to pass that when the liar hath forgotten himself, his auditors put him in mind of the lie and take him therein.” [24] Quintilian, _Inst._ l. 4. [25] Comes facundus in viâ pro vehiculo est. [26] Kemble, _Salomon and Saturn_, p. 56. [27] Kelly, in the preface to his very useful collection of Scotch proverbs, describes his own disappointment at making exactly such a discovery as this.