The Queen Pedauque | Page 4

having perished at the beginning of my initiation. But, little as I
have learned of his craft, it makes me vehemently suspect that all of it
is illusion, deception and vanity.
I think it quite sufficient to repudiate magic with all my strength,
because it is contrary to religion. But still I believe myself to be obliged
to explain concerning one point of this false science, so that none may
judge me to be more ignorant than I really am. I know that cabalists
generally think that Sylphs, Salamanders, Elves, Gnomes and
Gnomides are born with a soul perishable like their bodies and that they
acquire immortality by intercourse with the magicians. [Footnote: This
opinion is especially supported in a little book of the Abbé Montfaucon
de Villars, "Le Comte de Gabalis au Entretiens sur les sciences secrètes
et mystérieuses suivant les principes des anciens mages ou sages
cabbalistes," of which several editions are extant. I only mention the
one published at Amsterdam (Jacques Le Jeune, 1700, 18mo, with
engravings), which contains a second part not included in the original
edition [_The Editor_]] On the contrary my cabalist taught me that
eternal life does not fall to the lot of any creature, earthly or aerial. I
follow his sentiment without presuming myself to judge it.

He was in the habit of saying that the Elves kill those who reveal their
mysteries, and he attributes the death of M. l'Abbé Coignard, who was
murdered on the Lyons road, to the vengeance of those spirits. But I
know very well that this much lamented death had a more natural cause.
I shall speak freely of the air and fire spirits. One has to run some risk
in life and that with Elves is an extremely small one.
I have zealously gathered the words of my good teacher M. l'Abbé
Jérôme Coignard, who perished as I have said. He was a man full of
knowledge and godliness. Could his soul have been less troubled he
would have been the equal in virtue of M. l'Abbé Rollin, whom he far
surpassed in extent of knowledge and penetration of intellect.
He had at least the advantage over M. Rollin that he had not fallen into
Jansenism during the agitation of a troubled life, because the soundness
of his mind was not to be shaken by the violence of reckless doctrines,
and before Him I can attest to the purity of his faith. He had a wide
knowledge of the world, obtained by the frequentation of all sorts of
companies. This experience would have served him well with the
Roman histories he, like M. Rollin, would doubtless have composed
should he have had time and leisure, and if his life could have been
better matched to his genius. What I shall relate of this excellent man
will be the ornament of these memoirs. And like Aulus Gellius, who
culled the most beautiful sayings of the philosophers into his "Attic
Nights," and him who put the best fables of the Greeks into the
"Metamorphoses," I will do a bee's work and gather exquisite honey.
But I do not flatter myself to be the rival of those two great authors,
because I draw all my wealth from my own life's recollections and not
from an abundance of reading. What I furnish out of my own stock is
good faith. Whenever some curious person shall read my memoirs he
will easily recognise that a candid soul alone could express itself in
language so plain and unaffected. Where and with whomsoever I have
lived I have always been considered to be entirely artless. These
writings cannot but confirm it after my death.

CHAPTER II

My Home at the Queen Pédauque Cookshop--I turn the Spit and learn
to read--Entry of Abbe Jerome Coignard.
My name is Elme Laurent Jacques Ménétrier. My father, Léonard
Ménétrier, kept a cookshop at the sign of _Queen Pédauque,_ who, as
everyone knows, wag web-footed like the geese and ducks.
His penthouse was opposite Saint Benoit le Bétourné between Mistress
Gilles the haberdasher at the Three Virgins and M. Blaizot, the
bookseller at the sign of _Saint Catherine,_ not far from the _Little
Bacchus,_ the gate of which, decorated with vine branches, was at the
corner of the Rue des Cordiers. He loved me very much, and when,
after supper, I lay in my little bed, he took my hand in his, lifted one
after the other of my fingers, beginning with the thumb, and said:
"This one has killed him, this one has plucked him, this one has
fricasseed him and that one has eaten him, and the little Riquiqui had
nothing at all. Sauce, sauce, sauce," he used to add, tickling the hollow
of my hand with my own little finger.
And mightily he laughed, and