ERAS. You have failed again?

GR.-RE. Never was an ambassador less listened to. No sooner had I told her that you desired to have a moment's conversation with her, than, drawing herself up, she answered haughtily, "Go, go, I value your master just as much as I do you; tell him he may go about his business;" and after this fine speech she turned her head away from me and walked off. Marinette, too, imitating her mistress, said, with a disdainful sneer, "Begone, you low fellow," and then left me; so that your fortune and mine are very much alike.

[Footnote: In the original it is beau valet de carreau. LittrÉ, in his "Dictionaire de la langue francaise," says that this word which means literally "knave of diamonds," was considered an insult, because in the old packs of cards of the beginning of the seventeenth century, that knave was called valet de chasse, hunting servant, a rather menial situation; while the knave of spades, valet de pique, was called, nobleman's servant; the knave of hearts, valet de coeur, valet de cour, court servant; and the knave of clubs, valet de trefle, valet de pied, foot servant.]

ERAS. What an ungrateful creature, to receive with so much haughtiness the quick return of a heart justly incensed. Is the first outburst of a passion, which with so much reason thought itself deceived, unworthy of excuse? Could I, when burning with love, remain insensible, in that fatal moment, to the happiness of a rival? Would any other not have acted in the same way as I did, or been less amazed at so much boldness? Was I not quick in abandoning my well-founded suspicions? I did not wait till she swore they were false. When no one can tell as yet what to think of it, my heart, full of impatience, restores Lucile to her former place, and seeks to find excuses for her. Will not all these proofs satisfy her of the ardour of my respectful passion? Instead of calming my mind, and providing me with arms against a rival who wishes to alarm me, this ungrateful woman abandons me to all the tortures of jealousy, and refuses to receive my messages and notes, or to grant me an interview. Alas! that love is certainly very lukewarm which can be extinguished by so trifling an offence; that scornful rigour, which is displayed so readily, sufficiently shows to me the depth of her affection. What value ought I to set now upon all the caprices with which she fanned my love? No! I do not pretend to be any longer the slave of one who has so little love for me; since she does not mind whether she keeps me or not, I will do the same.

GR.-RE. And so will I. Let us both be angry, and put our love on the list of our old sins; we must teach a lesson to that wayward sex, and make them feel that we possess some courage. He that will bear their contempt shall have enough of it. If we had sense enough not to make ourselves too cheap, women would not talk so big. Oh! how insolent they are through our weakness! May I be hanged if we should not see them fall upon our neck more often than we wished, if it was not for those servilities with which most men, now-a-days, continually spoil them.

ERAS. As for me, nothing vexes me so much as contempt; and to punish her's by one as great, I am resolved to cherish a new passion.

GR.-RE. So will I, and never trouble my head about women again. I renounce them all, and believe honestly you could not do better than to act like me. For, master, people say that woman is an animal hard to be known, and naturally very prone to evil; and as an animal is always an animal, and will never be anything but an animal, though it lived for a hundred thousand years, so, without contradiction, a woman is always a woman, and will never be anything but a woman as long as the world endures.

[Footnote: This passage is paraphrased from Erasmus, Colloquia familiaria et Encomium Moriae, in which, after having called a woman animal stultum atque ineptum verum ridiculum, et suave, Folly adds, Quemadmodum, juxta Graecorum proverbium, simia semper est simia, etiamsi purpura vestiatur, ita mulier semper mulier est, hoc est stulta, quamcunque personam induxerit.]

Wherefore, as a certain Greek author says: a woman's head is like a quicksand; for pray, mark well this argument, which is most weighty: As the head is the chief of the body, and as the body without a chief is worse than a beast, unless the chief has a good understanding with the body, and unless everything be as well regulated as if it were measured with a pair of compasses, we see certain confusions arrive; the animal part then endeavours to get the better of the rational, and, we see one pull to the right, another to the left; one wants something soft, another something hard; in short, everything goes topsy turvy. This is to show that here below, as it has been explained to me, a woman's head is like a weather-cock on the top of a house, which veers about at the slightest breeze; that is why cousin Aristotle often compares her to the sea; hence people say that nothing in the world is so stable as the waves.

[Footnote: Though "stable" is here used, it is only employed to show the confusion of Gros-RenÉ's ideas, who, of course, wishes to say "unstable."]

Now, by comparison—for comparison makes us comprehend an argument distinctly,—and we learned men love a comparison better than a similitude,—by comparison, then, if you please, master, as we see that the sea, when a storm rises, begins to rage, the wind roars and destroys, billows dash against billows with a great hullabaloo, and the ship, in spite of the mariner, goes sometimes down to the cellar and sometimes up into the garret; so, when a woman gets whims and crotchets into her head, we see a tempest in the form of a violent storm, which will break out by certain … words, and then a … certain wind, which by … certain waves in … a certain manner, like a sand-bank … when … In short, woman is worse than the devil.

[Footnote: This long speech of Gros-RenÉ ridicules the pedantic arguments of some of the philosophers of the time of MoliÈre. It also attributes to the ancients some sayings of authors of the day; for example, the comparison, from a Greek author, "that a woman's head is like a quicksand," is from a contemporary; the saying from Aristotle, comparing woman to the sea, is from Malherbe. Words very familiar look more homely when employed with high-flown language, and Gros-RenÉ's speech is no bad example of this, whilst at the same time it becomes more muddled the longer it goes on. There exists also a tradition that the actor who performs the part of Gros-RenÉ should in order to show his confusion, when he says "goes sometimes down the cellar," point to his head, and when he mentions "up into the garret," point to his feet.]

ERAS. You have argued that very well.

GR.-RE. Pretty well, thanks to Heaven; but I see them coming this way, sir,—stand firm.

ERAS. Never fear.

GR.-RE. I am very much afraid that her eyes will ensnare you again.