One poet received very short shrift from respectable, sensible old M. Arouet _père_, when he came home in the small hours of the morning from these orgies. The determined old man locked the house and went to bed, and behold! François Marie must pay for his amusements by walking the streets till morning. That did not daunt him. Nothing daunted him. He was young and enjoying himself, with the keenest sense of the ludicrous, and perfectly willing to take his pleasures--at a cost. One day, finding himself shut out as usual, he went to sleep in the porter’s chair in the Palais de Justice, and was carried, still asleep, the next morning, into a café hard by, by two legal wags, his friends. The recollection of Brother Armand’s long, disapproving face at home only lent additional piquancy to Arouet’s revels abroad. Another day, a noble lady with literary aspirations gives him a hundred louis for tactfully correcting her bad rhymes. Young Arouet, idly watching an auction, bids for a carriage and pair and has them knocked down to him. He drives about Paris all day with his friends, and at three o’clock in the morning takes the carriage home and tries to get the horses into his father’s stables. The noise wakes up Maître Arouet, who turns his scapegrace out of doors there and then, and sells the horses and carriage the very next day. One likes the peppery old father with his dogged determination. He would have won the battle over any other son but this one, and deserved to win. He sent the prodigal to Caen in disgrace, and Caen fell in love at once with a youth so clever and amusing, and turned the exile to a delight. There was a charming literary lady here also, who abandoned her _protégé_, however, when she found he could write indecorous verses too, and there was a Jesuit Father who prophesied a great future for this brilliant madcap. Then the old notary at home sent a message to his François Marie--if he would come back and settle to work he would buy him a good post; in time, get him made Counsel to the Parliament of Paris. “Tell my father,” was the answer, “I do not want any place that can be bought. I will make one for myself that will cost nothing.”