Cervantes was a slave in Algiers a hundred years before Regnard, and no doubt used his experience in the story of the Captive in "Don Quixote." Regnard also worked his African materials up into a tale,--"La Provencale,"--and varnished them with the sentimentality fashionable in his day. Zelmis (himself) is a conquering hero; women adore him. He is full of courage, resources, and devotion to one only,--Elvire,--who is beautiful as a dream, and dignified as the wife of a Roman Senator. The King of Algiers is on the quay when the captives are brought ashore. He falls in love with Elvire on the spot, and adds her to his collection. But his passion is respectful and pure. Aided by Zelmis, she escapes from the harem. They are retaken and brought back; but instead of the whipping usually bestowed upon returned runaways, the generous king, despairing of winning Elvire's affections, gives her her liberty. In the mean time Zelmis has had his troubles. His master has four wives, beautiful as houris. All four cast eyes of flame upon the well-favored infidel. Faithful to Elvire, Zelmis of course defends himself as heroically as Joseph. The ladies revenge the slight in the same way as the wife of Potiphar. The attractive Frenchman is condemned to impalement, when his consul interferes with a ransom, and he is released just in time to embark for France with Elvire. Although Regnard often alludes with pride to his travels, the sketch he has left of them is meagre and uninteresting, and written in a harsh and awkward style. Lapland was a _terra incognita_,--Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia not much better known; yet this clever young Parisian has little to relate beyond a few names, which he generally misspells or misplaces. No descriptions of town or country or scenery; no traits of manners, character, or customs, except a dull page on the sorcery and the funeral ceremonies of the Lapps. The only eminent man he notices is Evelius, the astronomer of Dantzic,--one of the foreign _savans_ of distinction on whom Louis XIV. bestowed pensions in his grand manner, omitting to pay them after the second year. Regnard seems to have written to let his countrymen know where he had been,--not to tell them what he had seen. Had he made ever so good a book out of his really remarkable journey, little notice would have been taken of it. Voyages and travels were looked upon as a dull branch of fiction,--not nearly so amusing or improving as cockney excursions from one town of France to another in the neighborhood, described after the manner of Bachaumont and Chapelle: not sentimental journeys, by any means; eating, drinking, and sleeping are the points of interest:-- "Bon vin, bon gite, bon lit, Belle hotesse, bon appetit." Even Regnard, who had seen so much of the world, tried his hand at this kind of travel-writing and failed lamentably.