Scarron
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
PAUL (Skär-rông'), a French author; born in Paris July, 1610. At the age of 30, in consequence of a rheumatic attack, in which he was treated PAUL SCARRON by a quack doctor, he became an invalid for life, deformed and contorted, and suffering continual pain. His best work is the "Comic Romance" (2 vols. 1651- 1657, but never completed), the story of a band of strolling actors. In this novel Scarron draws on Spanish sources, as he does also in the comedies "The Ridiculous Heir"; "Jodelet"; "Don Japhet of Armenia "; " The Scholar of Salamanca. " His travesty of the Æneid ( 1648-1653) was in its day regarded as a masterpiece of genuine burlesque humor. He married in 1652, Françoise d'Aubigné, who afterward, as Mme. de Maintenon, became the wife of Louis XIV. He died in Paris, Oct. 6, 1660. SCENIC AND HISTORIC PRESER- VATION SOCIETY, American, a national organization having for its purpose the protection of American scenery. The society was incorporated by the legislature of New York in 1895 and since that date has succeeded in safeguarding many valuable landmarks in the United States. Among other things it brought about the purchase of the New York State park at Stony Point as well as of Washington's Headquarters in New York City. It was through the activity of the society that a state reservation was brought into existence at Watkins Glen, and that laws were passed to protect Niagara. It has charge also of landmarks and historic places such as Philipse Manor Hall.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The facts Collier's gave in 1921 still stand: Scarron was born in Paris in 1610, was crippled by a disease that struck around 1638, married the sixteen-year-old Françoise d'Aubigné in 1652, and died in 1660 — after which his widow became Madame de Maintenon and, in the 1680s, the secret wife of Louis XIV. What has moved is the ranking of his books. The "Virgile travesti," which Collier's says "was in its day regarded as a masterpiece of genuine burlesque humor," is now read almost only by specialists in seventeenth-century burlesque, while the unfinished "Roman comique" (1651–57) is treated as a landmark of comic realism and a forerunner of the picaresque novel in France. Modern biographers also handle the colourful tale of the quack doctor with more caution than Collier's did, treating the details of his sudden paralysis as uncertain.
Written for this edition, 2026.