The noble Vulcan here present had framed a dog of Monesian brass, and with long puffing and blowing put the spirit of life into him; he gave it to you, you gave it your Miss Europa, Miss Europa gave it Minos, Minos gave it Procris, Procris gave it Cephalus.  He was also of the fairy kind; so that, like the lawyers of our age, he was too hard for all other sorts of creatures; nothing could scape the dog.  Now who should happen to meet but these two?  What do you think they did?  Dog by his destiny was to take fox, and fox by his fate was not to be taken.

The case was brought before your council:  you protested that you would not act against the fates; and the fates were contradictory.  In short, the end and result of the matter was, that to reconcile two contradictions was an impossibility in nature.  The very pang put you into a sweat; some drops of which happening to light on the earth, produced what the mortals call cauliflowers.  All our noble consistory, for want of a categorical resolution, were seized with such a horrid thirst, that above seventy-eight hogsheads of nectar were swilled down at that sitting.  At last you took my advice, and transmogrified them into stones; and immediately got rid of your perplexity, and a truce with thirst was proclaimed through this vast Olympus.  This was the year of flabby cods, near Teumessus, between Thebes and Chalcis.

After this manner, it is my opinion that you should petrify this dog and this fox.  The metamorphosis will not be incongruous; for they both bear the name of Peter.  And because, according to the Limosin proverb, to make an oven’s mouth there must be three stones, you may associate them with Master Peter du Coignet, whom you formerly petrified for the same cause.  Then those three dead pieces shall be put in an equilateral trigone somewhere in the great temple at Paris—­in the middle of the porch, if you will—­there to perform the office of extinguishers, and with their noses put out the lighted candles, torches, tapers, and flambeaux; since, while they lived, they still lighted, ballock-like, the fire of faction, division, ballock sects, and wrangling among those idle bearded boys, the students.  And this will be an everlasting monument to show that those puny self-conceited pedants, ballock-framers, were rather contemned than condemned by you.  Dixi, I have said my say.

You deal too kindly by them, said Jupiter, for aught I see, Monsieur Priapus.  You do not use to be so kind to everybody, let me tell you; for as they seek to eternize their names, it would be much better for them to be thus changed into hard stones than to return to earth and putrefaction.  But now to other matters.  Yonder behind us, towards the Tuscan sea and the neighbourhood of Mount Apennine, do you see what tragedies are stirred up by certain topping ecclesiastical bullies?  This hot fit will last its time, like the Limosins’ ovens, and then will be cooled, but not so fast.