" When he was in his thirtieth year, a crisis
came. By some means or other, he secured a lucrative sinecure, that of
treasurer of finances at Caen in Normandy. He hated the country and
went down to Caen on the rarest occasions possible. La Bruyere, a
Parisian to the marrow of his bones, says, "Provincials and fools are
always ready to lose their temper and believe that one is laughing at
them or despising them. You must never venture on a joke, even the
mildest, except with well-bred, witty people." Perhaps he had been
trying Godefroi de La Bruyere off on the stolid inhabitants of Caen.
He received a salary, however, which was far from being all paid away
to a substitute, and he rose, in the curious social scale of those
days, from Mister (_roturier_) into Esquire (_ecuyer_). The court in
Normandy was extremely angry with him at periodical intervals, but
apparently could do nothing to assert itself. When it raged, La
Bruyere was like the East in Matthew Arnold's poem, he "bow'd low
before the blast in patient, deep disdain."
He lived through these quiet years in one apartment after another in
the heart of Paris.
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