Mini-Update (Week of August 24)

August 26 - As summer vacation ends, so does a life on this day. A pen in one hand and a sword in the other, Saint-Foix dueled mightily until 1776. His full name was Germain Francois Poullain de Saint-Foix, and was complicated as his name was long.

"In all seasons he slept upon a sofa, with no covering but a dressing-gown." Perhaps this explains his temperament: cranky one moment, good-humored the next. Early in life, he was a musketeer in the army. Even then, he wrote, and in time he completed twenty theatrical dramas, along with numerous essays - one of them, ruminations on the identify of the Man in the Iron Mask.


In society, Saint-Foix could be a nuisance. According to an anecdote published in 1843, while at a coffee shop, he noticed someone eating a custard with a piece of bread. "He exclaimed, 'What a wretched dinner!' and repeated the words till they drew the person's notice. A duel, as might have been expected, was the consequence, and Saint-Foix was wounded. Still he could not refrain from impudence. 'I own (he said) that you are brave ; but acknowledge, on your part, that it was a wretched dinner!' [YB]

Image from the Mystery Files