Page:The Writings of Prosper Merimee-Volume 1.djvu/296

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214
THE ABBÉ AUBAIN

the toils of a lioness of the capital. A lioness, my dear Professor, is the Parisian expression for a woman of fashion.

Ω Zεῦ, γυναικῶν οἴον ὦπάσἁς γένος.[1]

Ought I to have rejected this good fortune in order to defy the temptation? What nonsense! Did not St. Thomas of Canterbury accept castles from Henry II.? Good-bye, my dear Professor, I look forward to discussing philosophy with you in a few months' time, each of us in a comfortable armchair, before a plump chicken and a bottle of bordeaux, more philosophorum. Vae let me ama.

  1. A line taken, I believe, from the Seven Against Thebes, of Æschylus, "O Jupiter! women! … what a race thou hast given us!" The Abbé Aubain and his Professor, the Abbé Bruneau, are good classical scholars.