Boursault, a clever writer of the time of Louis XIV., whose indignant letter about the Royal Arms we have noticed in a former chapter, addressed a letter to Bizoton, one of the police magistrates, in which he vents his anger at some of the religious signs, and complains of the profanity of a lodging-house with the sign of the ANNUNCIATION in the Rue de la Huchette, in which there were as many rogues and reprobates as there were honest lodgers. Amongst the signs that shocked him most he names _le Saint Esprit_, (the Holy Ghost,) _la Trinité_, (the Trinity,) _l’Image Notre Dame_, &c.; but particularly one, representing Christ taken prisoner, with the profane motto, “_Au juste prix_.” This contains a blasphemous pun,--_juste prix_ at once signifying a _fixed price_, and “just caught.” The sign was set up at a little ordinary in a lane between the Rue St Honoré and the Rue Richelieu. And, though Boursault says in his letter that he had so fumed and thundered against the landlord that he had taken it down, yet it made its appearance again afterwards, and was handed down to our time, since not many years ago it might have been observed in the Cour du Dragon, above the shop of an ironmonger. Saints are still in full feather on the signboards in Roman Catholic countries. Amongst hundreds of others the following may be seen in Paris on cafés and hotels in the present day:--St Barbe, St Christophe, St Eustache, St Joseph, St Laurent, St Marie, St Louis, St Merri, St Michel, St Paul, St Phar, St Pierre, St Quentin, St Roc, St Thomas d’Aquin, St Vincent de Paul, &c., &c. A curious French sign is mentioned by Coryatt, which he saw at Amiens. “I lay at the signe of the AVE MARIA, where I read these two verses, written in golden letters upon the linterne of the doore, at the entry into the Inne. This in Greeke, Της φιλοξενιας μη ἐπιλανϐανεσθε, that is, Forget not your good entertainment; and this in Latine, HOSPITIBUS HIC TUTA FIDES.”[402] Saints were formerly very common on signboards, and this abuse also was wittily ridiculed by the pungent satire of Artus Desiré, a French poet of the fifteenth century:-- “En leur logis plein de vers et de teignes, Où est logé le grand diable d’enfer, Mettent de Dieu et de saints les enseignes, Leurs ditz logis où n’y a que desroys. Pendre font tous sur le pavé du roy De grands tableaux et enseignes dorées, Pour des montres qu’ils ont fort bien de quoy, Et qu’il y a de tres grasses porées. L’un pour enseigne aura _la Trinité_, L’autre _Saint Jehan_, et l’autre _Saint Savin_, L’autre _Saint Maure_, l’autre _l’Humanité_ De _Jesus Christ_ notre Sauveur divin, De Dieu, des saintz, sont leurs crieurs de vin,[403] Tant aux citez que villes et villages, Des susditz sainctz les devotes images, En prophanant leur préciosité.”[404]