Note 453 — IX. OF THE GREAT.

Theophilus is generally believed to have been the Abbé Roquette (1623-1707), Bishop of Autun, the supposed prototype of Molièreʼs Tartuffe, and, according to Saint-Simon, “a man all sugar and honey, and mixed up in every intrigue.” The “great man ... scarcely set foot on shore” was James II. of England, who came to France in 1689, two years before the above paragraph was published. The Abbé Roquetteʼs character seems not so black as it has been painted, at least according to M. J. Henri Pignotʼs Life of him, published in 1876.