L’Angeli was of a good family, but the branch of it to which he belonged was so decayed, that the bearer of the name was glad to follow the Prince of Condé to Flanders in the humble capacity of a stable-boy. The lad excited notice by his satire and wit, and Condé, on his return from Flanders, could think of no more acceptable gift to present to the King, Louis XIII., than his vivacious stable-boy. The latter rose to fortune, especially in the succeeding reign, when he became the salaried and official jester, and amassed a fortune. If the courtiers wanted a joke from him, he first made them pay for it. If they wanted to escape his sarcasm, Angeli would not pronounce them exempt, without a fee. What he thus pocketed he carefully put by. Altogether, he was a well-regulated fellow, save in the matter of attendance at church; for absenting himself from which, he assigned two fool’s reasons, namely, that he could not endure brawling, and did not understand argument. When he had acquired some five-and-twenty thousand crowns by the exercise of his office at court, his proud relatives began to acknowledge their long-neglected kinsman: Angeli only laughed, and went on increasing his fortune. “Of all us fools,” once exclaimed Marigny, as he saw Louis XIV. laughing at the jester’s light words,--“of all us fools who were attached to the Prince of Condé, Angeli is the only one who has made his fortune.” This “fou” had a quiet as well as a lively wit. On one occasion, finding himself standing by the side of a nobleman, one of whose ancestors was supposed to have been a buffoon: “Cousin,” said Angeli, “let us both sit down, nobody will pay any particular attention to _us_; and you and I are not likely to take offence from each other.” L’Angeli died in 1640, just three years after Archie Armstrong had been ejected from the English court. With L’Angeli ordinarily closes the list of officially titled fools in France; but I learn from the learned author of the work on the medals and tokens of societies connected with fools and follies, that the Count of Toulouse, the illegitimate son of Louis, had a fool officially appointed to exercise his calling in the Count’s household. The author in question most provokingly adds, that “there was one anecdote he could tell of this fool, which would suffice to avenge the whole class of fools of the contempt with which we cover them. The history is unpublished and piquant, but,” again adds this writer, “it does not belong to me; and that is all I can say about it, _for the moment_;”--and he never alludes to it again throughout his book!