_Scar._ I should not have much valued that, because I had brethren enough to herd with, if the damn’d whore had but got my pension augmented; but the confounded jade, instead of that, gave me the cursed’st garrison to maintain, that ever poor husband was mortify’d with: To appease which, I was forc’d to have recourse to _Unguentum contra pediculos inguinales_, &c. But prithee let’s discourse of something else, for the thoughts of the duchess of _Maintenon_, will disturb my brain, and easily put me into a fever, which is dangerous in this warm climate. _Furet._ I’ll tell you but three or four words more of this famous duchess, and conclude. _First_, That she has kick’d her patroness, Madam _Montespan_ out of the royal bed: And _Secondly_, That she is very great with the pious jesuit, father _la Chaise_, the monarch’s confessor. _Scar._ Oh! oh! by my troth, I don’t wonder at the lascivious harlot, for closing with him! as there is no feast like the misers, so there is no gallantry like those monks. When those hypocrites undertake that business, they do it all like heroes. But you have said all, by saying he is a jesuit, since those gallants have been in reputation, they have engrossed all good whoring to their society, especially in _France_, and more particularly at _Paris_, where they have so well behav’d themselves, that they have chang’d an antient authentick proverb, _Jacobine en [50] chair, Cordelier en [51] chœur, Carme en [52] cusine, & Augustine en [53] bordel_, for now they say, _Jesuit en bordel, &c._ But so much for those gentlemen, pray what are you a doing now in the _French_ academy? _Furet._ There are as many follies committed there, as in any society in the universe; judge of the whole by this one example. That company was never so highly honour’d as it is at present, by the particular care that great monarch takes of it; for which he is repaid in flattering panegyricks. Nevertheless, these insipid, florid, gentlemen, scold and scratch like so many fish-women in an alehouse. The other day the great _Charpentier_ fell into such a passion about a trifle, that he reproach’d the learned _Taleman_, of being the son of a broken apothecary at _Rochel_; to which _Taleman_ with as much heat reply’d, _Charpentier_ was the son of poor hedge ale-draper at _Paris_. From this _Billingsgate_ language they came to blows. _Charpentier_ threw _Nicot_’s dictionary at his adversary’s head, and _Taleman_ threw _Morery_’s at _Charpentier_’s. We all wish’d heartily we could have recall’d you from the dead, to write the various accidents of this battle, in your comical and satyric style. _Scar._ Ha, ha, ha, had I been there, they should have beat the academy dictionary and _Morery_’s too in pieces about each other’s ears, before I would have parted them. But I hope these two sputtering coxcombs did each other justice; I declare, whoever hinder’d it, deserv’d to be severely fined. Pray how did you behave yourself during this combat?