They taught him at any rate a certain philosophy of a not very exalted sort, which he expounds to us in one of his satires. It is a kind of epicurean pococurantism, summed up in the words of Swinburne, ‘Hope thou not much and fear thou not at all,’ and expressed by the poet himself:-- ‘N’avoir crainte de rien et ne rien espérer Ami, c’est ce qui peut les hommes bien-heurer.’ The best comment on it, perhaps, is that implied in the epitaph on himself which heads this chapter. Régnier returned from Italy, then, with an ample provision of memories, and perhaps with those poems which are based on the works of the Italian satirists. He took up his abode in his uncle’s house at Paris, and there, as in Rome, he noted in the intervals of dissipations the manners and the characters of men. He saw and knew the high personages who frequented the house of Desportes, and whose names occur in his poems. And not being a time-server himself, ‘Instruit par le temps à la fin j’ai connu Que la fidélité n’est pas grand revenu,’ he was content to draw with biting irony the portrait of a courtier bard, who, ‘Ambitieux, pour les vers qu’il compose, Quelque bon benefice en l’esprit se propose, Et dessus un cheval comme un singe attaché Meditant un sonnet, medite un evesché.’ _Sat. II._ Or of the vain beggar poets who ‘L’œil farouche et troublé, l’esprit à l’abandon Vous viennent accoster comme personnes yvres, [Illustration: Renaissance Oriel Rue de la Corroierie] Et disent pour bon-jour “Monsieur, je fais des livres, On les vend au Palais, et les doctes du temps, A les lire amusez, n’ont autre passe-temps.”’ _Sat. II._ Or, again, he marks down a courtier with a vigour and point which Molière could not surpass:-- ‘Laissons-le discourir, Dire cent et cent fois: Il en faudrait mourir; Sa barbe pinçoter, cageoller la science, Relever ses cheveux, dire; En ma conscience; Faire la belle main, mordre un bout de ses gants, Rire hors de propos, monstrer ses belles dents, Se carrer sur un pied, faire arser son épée, Et s’adoucir les yeux ainsi qu’une poupée.’ _Sat. VIII._ A dozen other examples might be quoted to show with what satiric acid he can etch a portrait. Régnier can paint a scene, too, with same unerring detail and bitter accuracy, as, for instance, ‘Le Souper Ridicule’ and the less savoury ‘Mauvais Gîte.’ The latter poem is indeed the only one which deserves the imputation conveyed by Boileau’s phrase about the author’s _rimes cyniques_. Régnier is essentially a moral writer, for he makes vice, even when he describes it openly, the reverse of attractive. The worst that can and may be said of him is that, like Juvenal, he attacks vice with arms that make virtue blush. He says himself:-- ‘Je croirai qu’il n’est rien au monde qui guarisse Un homme vicieux comme son propre vice,’