to smile, inquired of him the reason as soon as the prelate had withdrawn. The latter informed his master that he need be under no apprehensions for the health of the good bishop, as he himself had assisted at his dinner on that day, and then recounted to him the various dishes which had been served up, The king, who listened with becoming gravity to the narration, uttered an exclamation of "Poor man!" at the specification of each new item, varying the tone of his exclamation in such a manner as to give it a highly comic effect. The humour was not lost upon our poet, who has transported the same ejaculations, with much greater effect, into the above-mentioned scene of his play. The "king, who did not at first recognise the source whence he had derived it, on being informed of it, was much pleased, if we may believe M. Tascherean, in finding himself even thus accidentally associated with the work of a man of genius.
In 1668 Molière brought forward his Avare, and in the following year his amusing comedy of the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, in which the folly of unequal alliances is successfully ridiculed and exposed. This play was first represented in the presence of the court at Chambord. The king maintained during its performance an inscrutable physiognomy, which made it doubtful what might be his real sentiments respecting it. The same deportment was maintained by him during the evening towards the author, who was in attendance in his capacity of valet de chambre. 'The quick-eyed courtiers, the
