Here he read his skits and parodies, here travestied Virgil,
made epigrams on Richelieu, and poured out his indelicate but always
laughable witticisms. But his indulgences were not confined to
intrigues; he also drank deep, and there was not a pleasure within his
reach which he ever thought of denying himself. He laughed at religion,
thought morality a nuisance, and resolved to be merry at all costs.
The little account was brought in at last. At the age of five-and-twenty
his constitution was broken up. Gout and rheumatism assailed him
alternately or in leash. He began to feel the annoyance of the
constraint they occasioned; he regretted those legs which had figured
so well in a ronde or a minuet, and those hands which had played the
lute to dames more fair than modest; and to add to this, the pain he
suffered was not slight. He sought relief in gay society, and was
cheerful in spite of his sufferings. At length came the Shrove Tuesday
and the feathers; and the consequences were terrible. He was soon a prey
to doctors, whom he believed in no more than in the church of which he
was so great a light. His legs were no longer his own, so he was obliged
to borrow those of a chair.
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