COLLETET (_throwing himself on his knees_). Say, my lord of Grasse, What I must do when I before you pass. Should I not kiss, perhaps, your hallowed shoon? GODEAU. We are all equal, all Apollo’s own. “Rise up, my Colletet—” COLLETET. “Does your worship’s grace Permit the liberty, to your very face!” GODEAU. “Our intercourse is nothing changed, elsewhere You see me bishop; _Godeau_, simply, here.” Monsieur l’Abbé Coignard, lived under the old régime. In those days it was said that the French Academy had the merit of establishing perfect equality between its members, an equality not recognised in law. Nevertheless, it was destroyed in 1793 as “the last refuge of aristocracy.” [10] He means the bishop whom the king had appointed distributor of ecclesiastical patronage. [11] The king was protector of the Academy. [12] It is true that the Academy condemned this expression: “Custom, too strong, as oftentime before, Makes us, improperly, say _Shut the Door_, Usage will, daily, authorise a word, Natheless employed in manner quite absurd. Would you escape December’s cold and gloom, You must _Push to the Door_ and _Shut the Room_.” SAINT-EVREMONT (_Les Académiciens_). [13] In those days the Academy awarded no prizes. XIV SEDITION-MONGERS My good master and I having paid our accustomed visit at the sign of the _Image de Sainte Catherine_, we found in the shop the famous Mr. Rockstrong, mounted on the highest rung of the ladder ferreting out the old books, of which he is a connoisseur. For it pleases him, as is well known, in his troubled existence to collect precious books and fine prints. Condemned by the English Parliament to imprisonment for life for taking part in Monmouth’s Rebellion, he lives in France, whence he is continually sending articles to the gazettes of his country.[14] My good master, as his habit was, let himself down on to a stool, then raised his eyes to the ladder where Mr. Rockstrong was turning about with the squirrel-like agility he has preserved in his declining years. “God be thanked!” said he, “I see, _Monsieur le Rebelle_, you are as well and as young as ever.” Mr. Rockstrong turned on my good master the glowing eyes that light up his sallow countenance. “Why do you call me a rebel?” he asked, “you fat Abbé!” “I call you a rebel, Mr. Rockstrong, because you have failed. One is a rebel when one is vanquished. Victors are never rebels.” “Abbé, you speak with a disgusting cynicism.” “Beware, Mr. Rockstrong; that maxim does not come from me. It comes from a very great man. I found it among the papers of Julius Cæsar Scaliger.” “Well, Abbé, those are villainous papers. And it is an infamous saying. Our loss, due to the irresolution of our chief, and to an indolence which he paid for with his life, does not alter the goodness of our cause. And honest people conquered by rogues, remain honest people.”