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surname furnished my name. I am called Lesgueules, by
contraction Lesgle, and by corruption l’Aigle.’ This caused
the King to smile broadly. Later on he gave the man the post-
ing office of Meaux, either intentionally or accidentally.
The bald member of the group was the son of this Lesgle,
or Legle, and he signed himself, Legle [de Meaux]. As an ab-
breviation, his companions called him Bossuet.
Bossuet was a gay but unlucky fellow. His specialty was
not to succeed in anything. As an offset, he laughed at ev-
erything. At five and twenty he was bald. His father had
ended by owning a house and a field; but he, the son, had
made haste to lose that house and field in a bad specula-
tion. He had nothing left. He possessed knowledge and wit,
but all he did miscarried. Everything failed him and every-
body deceived him; what he was building tumbled down on
top of him. If he were splitting wood, he cut off a finger.
If he had a mistress, he speedily discovered that he had a
friend also. Some misfortune happened to him every mo-
ment, hence his joviality. He said: ‘I live under falling tiles.’
He was not easily astonished, because, for him, an accident
was what he had foreseen, he took his bad luck serenely, and
smiled at the teasing of fate, like a person who is listening
to pleasantries. He was poor, but his fund of good humor
was inexhaustible. He soon reached his last sou, never his
last burst of laughter. When adversity entered his doors, he
saluted this old acquaintance cordially, he tapped all catas-
trophes on the stomach; he was familiar with fatality to the
point of calling it by its nickname: ‘Good day, Guignon,’ he
said to it.