“Oh, no! I have an excellent idea in my head.”
“What is it?”
“Have you noticed that there is a good deal of sportive, jesting poetry written in France?”
“Yes, of course,” replied everyone.
“And,” pursued La Fontaine, “only a very small portion of it is printed.”
“The laws are strict, you know.”
“That may be; but a rare article is a dear article, and that is the reason why I have written a small poem, excessively free in its style, very broad, and extremely cynical in its tone.”
“The deuce you have!”
“Yes,” continued the poet, with assumed indifference, “and I have introduced the greatest freedom of language I could possibly employ.”
Peals of laughter again broke forth, while the poet was thus announcing the quality of his wares. “And,” he continued, “I have tried to excel everything that Boccaccio, Arétin, and other masters of their craft have written in the same style.”
“Its fate is clear,” said Pélisson; “it will be suppressed and forbidden.”
“Do you think so?” said La Fontaine, simply. “I assure you I did not do it on my own account so much as M. Fouquet’s.”
This wonderful conclusion again raised the mirth of all present.
“And I have sold the first edition of this little book for eight hundred livres,” exclaimed La Fontaine, rubbing his hands together. “Serious and religions books sell at about half that rate.”
“It would have been better,” said Gourville, “to have written two religious books instead.”
“It would have been too long, and not amusing enough,” replied La Fontaine tranquilly; “my eight hundred livres are in this little bag, and I beg to offer them as my contribution.”
As he said this, he placed his offering in the hands of their treasurer; it was then Loret’s turn, who gave a hundred and fifty livres; the others stripped themselves in the same way; and the total sum in the purse amounted to forty thousand livres. The money was still being counted over when the superintendent noiselessly entered the room; he had heard everything; and then this man, who had possessed so many millions, who had exhausted all the pleasures and honors the world had to bestow, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain, which had, like two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the first kingdom in Europe, was seen to cross the threshold with tears in his eyes, and pass his fingers through the gold and silver which the bag contained.
“Poor offering,” he said, in a softened and affected tone of voice, “you will disappear into the smallest corner of my empty purse, but you have filled to overflowing that which no one can ever exhaust, my heart. Thank you, my friends—thank you.” And as he could not embrace everyone present, who were all tearful, too, philosophers as they were, he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, “Poor fellow! so you have, on my account, been beaten by your wife and censured by your confessor.”
“Oh! it is a mere nothing,” replied the poet; “if your creditors will only wait a couple of years, I shall have written a hundred other tales, which, at two editions each, will pay off the debt.”
186
La Fontaine in the Character of a Negotiator
Fouquet pressed La Fontaine’s hand most warmly, saying to him, “My dear poet, write a hundred other tales, not only for the eighty pistoles which each of them will produce you, but, still more, to enrich our language with a hundred new masterpieces of composition.”
“Oh!” said La Fontaine, with a little air of pride, “you must not suppose that I have only brought this idea and the eighty pistoles to the superintendent.”
“Oh! indeed,” was the general acclamation from all parts of the room, “M. de La Fontaine is in funds today.”
“Exactly,” replied La Fontaine.
“Quick, quick!” cried the assembly.
“Take care,” said Pélisson in La Fontaine’s ear; “you have had a most brilliant success up to the present moment; do not go beyond your depth.”
“Not at all, Monsieur Pélisson; and you, who are a man of decided taste, will be the first to approve of what I have done.”
“We are talking of millions, remember,” said Gourville.
“I have fifteen hundred thousand francs here, Monsieur Gourville,” he replied, striking himself on the chest.
“The deuce take this Gascon from Château-Thierry!” cried Loret.
“It is not the pocket you must tap—but the brain,” said Fouquet.
“Stay a moment, Monsieur le Surintendant,” added La Fontaine; “you are not procureur-général—you are a poet.”
“True, true!” cried Loret, Conrart, and every person present connected with literature.
“You are, I repeat, a poet and a painter, a sculptor, a friend of the arts and sciences; but, acknowledge that you are no lawyer.”
“Oh! I do acknowledge it,” replied M. Fouquet, smiling.
“If you were to be nominated at the Academy, you would refuse, I think.”
“I think I should, with all due deference to the academicians.”
“Very good; if, therefore, you do not wish to belong to the Academy, why do you allow yourself to form one of the parliament?”
“Oh!” said Pélisson, “we are talking politics.”
“I wish to know whether the barrister’s gown does or does not become M. Fouquet.”
“There is no question of the gown at all,” retorted Pélisson, annoyed at the laughter of those who were present.
“On the contrary, it is the gown,” said Loret.
“Take the gown away from the procureur-général,” said Conrart, “and we have M. Fouquet left us still, of whom we have no reason to complain; but, as he is no procureur-général without his gown, we agree with M. de La Fontaine and pronounce the gown to be nothing but a bugbear.”
“Fugiunt risus leporesque,” said Loret.
“The smiles and the graces,” said someone present.
“That is not the way,” said Pélisson, gravely, “that I translate lepores.”
“How do you translate it?” said La Fontaine.
“Thus: The hares run away as soon as they see M. Fouquet.” A burst of laughter, in which the superintendent joined, followed this sally.
“But why hares?” objected Conrart, vexed.
“Because the hare
