I must not dismiss the reign of Louis XIV. without a word in reference to the Duke de Roquelaure, who figures in so many jest-books as a buffoon at the court of Louis XIV. The Duke is indebted for much of his reputation, as to this matter, to Saint-Simon, who hated him heartily, and misrepresented him accordingly. Roquelaure was a plain, brave, facetious man; but the jokes attributed to him in the ‘Momus Français’ are entirely apocryphal. These represent him as disgustingly insulting to ladies, audacious to the highest clergy, regardless of his own honour or of that of his wife, and so forgetful of reverence due to holy places, as, on one occasion, to have jumped out of bed, run into a church, and there beat the Spanish Ambassador about the head with his slippers. According to the ‘Momus,’ no courtier escaped the rough licking of his tongue; though the Duke, who had little or no nose, sometimes had to undergo more painful allusions than he himself made, from courtiers or prelates whose huge noses were points on which he is said to have sharpened his wit. The last court-foolery told of him is, of his having asserted that he would not only kick a certain courtier, Bechamel, but that the latter would thank him for it. He committed the assault, saluting the victim at the same time, as if he had been the handsome De Grammont. Bechamel was so delighted at being mistaken, as he thought, for so brilliant a cavalier, that he turned round with radiant smiles, and thanked Roquelaure for the error into which he had fallen. As I have said, I could not entirely pass over Roquelaure; and it is on the authority of his biographer in the ‘Biographie Universelle,’ I have stated that his court jests are apocryphal. Worse jokes, however, than these were perpetrated at the court of Louis XIV.; witness that occasion when the French court was at Fère, very dull, and sadly in want of sport. Cardinal Mazarin then undertook to play the fool for it; and he did so after a fashion that was highly enjoyed by the “people of quality.” There was then residing with the Cardinal the youngest of his nieces, a little girl seven or eight years of age, Marianne Mancini, afterwards Duchess de Bouillon. As an illustration of court-foolery, the incident requires to be told, and I prefer giving the opening portion of it in the words of M. Amédée Renée, from whose book on ‘Les Nièces de Mazarin,’ I make the extract:--