and a pair of long stockings (_bas a botter_) of yellow cloth." The
original inventory, given by M. Soulie, has _toile Colbertine_, for
"Colbertine cloth." I found this word in Webster's Dictionary described
from _The Fop's Dictionary of 1690_ as "A lace resembling net-work,
the fabric of Mons. Colbert, superintendent of the French king's
manufactures." In Congreve's _The Way of the World_, Lady Wishfort,
quarrelling with her woman Foible (Act v., Scene i), says to her, among
other insults: "Go, hang out an old Frisoneer gorget, with a yard of
yellow colberteen again!"]




THE BORES (_LES FACHEUX._)




ACT I.

SCENE I.--ERASTE, LA MONTAGNE.


ER. Good Heavens! under what star am I born, to be perpetually worried
by bores? It seems that fate throws them in my way everywhere; each day
I discover some new specimen. But there is nothing to equal my bore of
to-day. I thought I should never get rid of him; a hundred times I
cursed the harmless desire, which seized me at dinner time, to see the
play, where, thinking to amuse myself, I unhappily was sorely punished
for my sins. I must tell you how it happened, for I cannot yet think