When that happens, I shall descend from him in the direct line."
One would think that a child could perceive this to be a satire at the
profiteers of the age, who invented ancestors, and so a child would
to-day, but in the seventeenth and even the eighteenth century it was
not safe to be funny. In particular, nonsense--the divine charm of
which we now admit--had not been acclimatized, and was looked upon
with grave displeasure. It wrings the heart that when Goldsmith, in a
purple coat, pretended to think himself more attractive than the
Jessamy Bride, his contemporaries severely censured this as an
instance of his "vanity."
So the fools and fops of La Bruyere's time thought or pretended to
think that he was seriously claiming to be of noble birth. Nothing was
further from his intention; no La Bruyere had taken part in the
Crusades, any more than any member of Charles Lamb's family had been
Pope of Rome. The moralist's father, Louis de La Bruyere, was
Comptroller-General of Rents of the Hotel de Ville of Paris; his
mother was an attorney's daughter. The eldest of five, he was born on
August 17, 1645, in the centre of old Paris, close to the church of St.
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