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Updated: June 18, 2025


CONTENTS. Dufresny, Fontenelle, Marivaux, Piron, The Abbé Prevost, Gentil-Bernard, Florian, Boufflers, Diderot, Grétry, Riverol, Louis XV., Greuze, Boucher, The Vanloos, Lantara, Watteau, La Motte, Dehle, Abbé Trublet, Buffon, Dorat, Cardinal de Bernis, Crébillon the Gay, Marie Antoinette, Made. de Pompadour, Vadé, Mlle. Camargo, Mlle.

So I passed for the last time over the threshold of the Cafe Procope, where Voltaire had matured his plays and Piron sharpened his epigrams; where Jouffroy had battled with his doubts and fears; where, since their time, since my days of Parisian life, the terrible storming youth, afterwards renowned as Leon Michel Gambetta, had startled the quiet guests with his noisy eloquence, till the old habitues spilled their coffee, and the red-capped students said to each other, "Il ira loin, ce gaillard-la!"

Had these cavalry companies of Bruges and Piron been even tolerably self-possessed, had they concentrated themselves in the fort instead of yielding to the delirium which prompted them to participate in their comrades' flight, they would have had it entirely in their power, by making an attack, or even the semblance of an attack, by means of a sudden sally from the fort, to have saved, not the battle indeed, but a large number of lives.

Great was the dismay in Ostend when Colonel Piron and a few stragglers brought the heavy news of discomfiture and massacre to the high and mighty States-General in solemn meeting assembled. Meanwhile, the States' army before Nieuport, not dreaming of any pending interruption to their labours, proceeded in a steady but leisurely manner to invest the city.

Had these cavalry companies of Bruges and Piron been even tolerably self-possessed, had they concentrated themselves in the fort instead of yielding to the delirium which prompted them to participate in their comrades' flight, they would have had it entirely in their power, by making an attack, or even the semblance of an attack, by means of a sudden sally from the fort, to have saved, not the battle indeed, but a large number of lives.

One is always inclined to suspect sour grapes of giving the flavor to French sarcasm concerning the Academy, and is reminded of Piron's epigram in the shape of his own epitaph: Ci git Piron qui ne fut rien, Pas même académicien. He wrote it, however, after his failure to obtain one of the much-coveted arm-chairs.

We once translated this Piron epitaph into a kind of rambling Drayton couplet; and the only point needing explanation is, that, from the accident of scientific men, Fellows of the Royal Society being usually very solemn men, with an extra chance, therefore, for being dull men in conversation, naturally it arose that some wit amongst our great-grandfathers translated F. R. S. into a short-hand expression for a Fellow Remarkably Stupid; to which version of the three letters our English epitaph alludes.

This pinched little man was thought to be one of the greatest poets in Burgundy, a Piron, it was the fashion to say. The dual merits of the two brothers gave rise to the remark: "We have the brothers Gourdon at Soulanges two very distinguished men; men who could hold their own in Paris."

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