1 34 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



quaucl j'estois a la Eochelle, et je remarquay que cela fist peine a Mademoiselle 

 Boireau, qui centre le genie du temps, feroit scrupule de prendre des plaisirs 

 qu'elle ne pent partager avec son maiy." 



In 1674 Bouhereau had been married five or six years, was a leading 

 citizen of his native town, and a church-elder. But when Turon first knew 

 him, he was eshtdiant or irroposant en theologie, a divinity student, composing 

 des vers gcdants, ordering VHistoire Amoureuse from Paris, and ' sending copies 

 of the Basia of Johannes Secundus to his friends, his serious thoughts spent 

 on emendations in Catullus, Virgil, etc., and minute and profitless points of 

 New Testament criticism and exegesis ; like Pope's Narcissa : 



" A very heathen in the carnal part, 

 Yet still a sad, good Christian at his heart." 



By far the largest number of letters extant from any one correspondent 

 are those of Paul Bauldry, who left Saumur Academy about a month after 

 Bouhereau. The first letter is dated 22nd and 23rd July, 1662 ; and on the 

 top of it Bouhereau has written Je siiis party de Saumur le 16" de Juillet, 

 Dimanche. With scarcely an exception, these letters, and those of other 

 very intimate friends, are unsigned, and have no formula of address at the 

 beginning. It has been a task of some difficulty to discover the names of 

 the writers in many cases. In this instance it was not until I had read the 

 fifteenth that I found a hint of the writer's name in some Latin hendeca- 

 sy liable verses beginning : — 



" Male est, o Boherelle, Baldrio : mi 

 Male est mehercule et laboriose." 



The verses are followed by this comment : — " Vous voyes Men par ceste 

 epigr. plus Catullienne que bauldrienne, que vous me faites tres grand plaisir 

 de m'ecrire de longues lettres." 



The writer's name then, Latinised, would be Bcmldrius. No. 32 is signed 

 P. B. ; no. 37, Baul ; and finally, no. 43 concludes thus -.—aimes toujours Men 

 le petit Paid Bauldry. He is spoken of as Baudry by other correspondents. 



Bouhereau himself was not a tall man. In Bauldry's letter of November 15, 

 1662, the writer's feelings, as was often the case, find expression in verse : — 



" Quelle ait pour vous de la douceur 

 Et toujours quelque faveur 

 A I'egal de vostre merite. 

 C'est a dire non petite, 

 Quoyque vous soyes petit." 



Pe Cerisy, too, makes jesting reference to his friend's appearance. He 



