"We intend to visit the Abbe Scarron, for whom I have a letter of
introduction and at whose house I expect to meet some of my friends."

"'Tis well; I will go there also, for a few minutes," said the duchess;
"do not quit his salon until you have seen me."

Athos bowed and prepared to leave.

"Well, monsieur le comte," said the duchess, smiling, "does one leave so
solemnly his old friends?"

"Ah," murmured Athos, kissing her hand, "had I only sooner known that
Marie Michon was so charming a creature!" And he withdrew, sighing.

21. The Abbe Scarron.

There was once in the Rue des Tournelles a house known by all the sedan
chairmen and footmen of Paris, and yet, nevertheless, this house was
neither that of a great lord nor of a rich man. There was neither
dining, nor playing at cards, nor dancing in that house. Nevertheless,
it was the rendezvous of the great world and all Paris went there. It
was the abode of the little Abbe Scarron.

In the home of the witty abbe dwelt incessant laughter; there all the
items of the day had their source and were so quickly transformed,
misrepresented, metamorphosed, some into epigrams, some into falsehoods,
that every one was anxious to pass an hour with little Scarron,
listening to what he said, reporting it to others.

The diminutive Abbe Scarron, who, however, was an abbe only because he
owned an abbey, and not because he was in orders, had formerly been one
of the gayest prebendaries in the town of Mans, which he inhabited. On
a day of the carnival he had taken a notion to provide an unusual
entertainment for that good town, of which he was the life and soul. He
had made his valet cover him with honey; then, opening a feather bed,
he had rolled in it and had thus become the most grotesque fowl it is
possible to imagine. He then began to visit his friends of both
sexes, in that strange costume. At first he had been followed through
astonishment, then with derisive shouts, then the porters had insulted
him, then children had thrown stones at him, and finally he was obliged
to run, to escape the missiles. As soon as he took to flight every
one pursued him, until, pressed on all sides, Scarron found no way of
escaping his escort, except by throwing himself into the river; but the
water was icy cold. Scarron was heated, the cold seized on him, and when
he reached the farther bank he found himself crippled.

Every means had been employed in vain to restore the use of his