Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/69

 SAINT-AMANT 53 loves of their majesties Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, "in a very indiscreet style," and that he was faithful to his own love, the bottle. In 1633 he went to Rome with the fleet of the Marquis de Crequi. On the foundation of the French Academy he was made one of its first members. Pellissoh, in his " History of the Academy," records that at the meeting on January 2, 1635, three of the members excused themselves from making the pre- scribed discourse, though very capable, viz., Serizay, Balzac, and Saint-Amant. Our hero, in lieu of a discourse, which would have been much too dry for his taste, promised to gather for the famous Diction- ary all the burlesque or grotesque locutions in the language ; and surely no one living was master of a richer store of them than he. But it does not appear whether he fulfilled his promise. It is not likely that he cared much for the Academy, that arena of the gladiateurs du bien dire, to whose society he in- finitely preferred that of — Aux coeurs sans fard, aux nobles trognes, Tours les goziers voluptueux, Tous les debauchez vertueux, Qui parmi leurs propos de table, Joignent I'utile au delectable.", In 1637 he accompanied Henri de Lorraine, Comte d'Harcourt, who was appointed to command the fleet against Spain. This nobleman, surnamed Cadet la perle, because he was of the younger branch of the great house of Lorraine-Elbeuf, and wore a pearl in his ear, was born in 1601, and died in 1666. He distinguished himself very early as a valiant and
 * ' les honnetes yvrognes