“Oh! oh!” murmured the poets.
“Quo non ascendam,”17 said Conrart, “seems impossible to me, when one is fortunate enough to wear the gown of the procureur-général.”
“On the contrary, it seems so to me without that gown,” said the obstinate Pélisson; “what is your opinion, Gourville?”
“I think the gown in question is a very good thing,” replied the latter; “but I equally think that a million and a half is far better than the gown.”
“And I am of Gourville’s opinion,” exclaimed Fouquet, stopping the discussion by the expression of his own opinion, which would necessarily bear down all the others.
“A million and a half,” Pélisson grumbled out; “now I happen to know an Indian fable—”
“Tell it me,” said La Fontaine; “I ought to know it too.”
“Tell it, tell it,” said the others.
“There was a tortoise, which was, as usual, well protected by its shell,” said Pélisson; “whenever its enemies threatened it, it took refuge within its covering. One day someone said to it, ‘You must feel very hot in such a house as that in the summer, and you are altogether prevented showing off Your Graces; there is a snake here, who will give you a million and a half for your shell.’ ”
“Good!” said the superintendent, laughing.
“Well, what next?” said La Fontaine, more interested in the apologue than in the moral.
“The tortoise sold his shell and remained naked and defenseless. A vulture happened to see him, and being hungry, broke the tortoise’s back with a blow of his beak and devoured it. The moral is, that M. Fouquet should take very good care to keep his gown.”
La Fontaine understood the moral seriously. “You forget Aeschylus,” he said, to his adversary.
“What do you mean?”
“Aeschylus was bald-headed, and a vulture—your vulture, probably—who was a great amateur in tortoises, mistook at a distance his head for a block of stone, and let a tortoise, which was shrunk up in his shell, fall upon it.”
“Yes, yes, La Fontaine is right,” resumed Fouquet, who had become very thoughtful; “whenever a vulture wishes to devour a tortoise, he well knows how to break his shell; but happy is that tortoise a snake pays a million and a half for his envelope. If anyone were to bring me a generous-hearted snake like the one in your fable, Pélisson, I would give him my shell.”
“Rara avis in terres!”18 cried Conrart.
“And like a black swan, is he not?” added La Fontaine; “well, then, the bird in question, black and rare, is already found.”
“Do you mean to say that you have found a purchaser for my post of procureur-général?” exclaimed Fouquet.
“I have, Monsieur.”
“But the superintendent never said that he wished to sell,” resumed Pélisson.
“I beg your pardon,” said Conrart, “you yourself spoke about it, even—”
“Yes, I am a witness to that,” said Gourville.
“He seems very tenacious about his brilliant idea,” said Fouquet, laughing. “Well, La Fontaine, who is the purchaser?”
“A perfect blackbird, for he is a counselor belonging to the parliament, an excellent fellow.”
“What is his name?”
“Vanel.”
“Vanel!” exclaimed Fouquet. “Vanel the husband of—”
“Precisely, her husband; yes, Monsieur.”
“Poor fellow!” said Fouquet, with an expression of great interest.
“He wishes to be everything that you have been, Monsieur,” said Gourville, “and to do everything that you have done.”
“It is very agreeable; tell us all about it, La Fontaine.”
“It is very simple. I see him occasionally, and a short time ago I met him, walking about on the Place de la Bastille, at the very moment when I was about to take the small carriage to come down here to Saint-Mandé.”
“He must have been watching his wife,” interrupted Loret.
“Oh, no!” said La Fontaine, “he is far from being jealous. He accosted me, embraced me, and took me to the inn called L’Image Saint-Fiacre, and told me all about his troubles.”
“He has his troubles, then?”
“Yes; his wife wants to make him ambitious.”
“Well, and he told you—”
“That someone had spoken to him about a post in parliament; that M. Fouquet’s name had been mentioned; that ever since, Madame Vanel dreams of nothing else than being called Madame la Procureur-Générale, and that it makes her ill and kills her every night she does not dream about it.”
“The deuce!”
“Poor woman!” said Fouquet.
“Wait a moment. Conrart is always telling me that I do not know how to conduct matters of business; you will see how I managed this one.”
“Well, go on.”
“ ‘I suppose you know,’ said I to Vanel, ‘that the value of a post such as that which M. Fouquet holds is by no means trifling.’
“ ‘How much do you imagine it to be?’ he said.
“ ‘M. Fouquet, I know, has refused seventeen hundred thousand francs.’
“ ‘My wife,’ replied Vanel, ‘had estimated it at about fourteen hundred thousand.’
“ ‘Ready money?’ I said.
“ ‘Yes; she has sold some property of hers in Guienne, and has received the purchase money.’ ”
“That’s a pretty sum to touch all at once,” said the Abbé Fouquet, who had not hitherto said a word.
“Poor Madame Vanel!” murmured Fouquet.
Pélisson shrugged his shoulders, as he whispered in Fouquet’s ear, “That woman is a perfect fiend.”
“That may be; and it will be delightful to make use of this fiend’s money to repair the injury which an angel has done herself for me.”
Pélisson looked with a surprised air at Fouquet, whose thoughts were from that moment fixed upon a fresh object in view.
“Well!” inquired La Fontaine, “what about my negotiation?”
“Admirable, my dear poet.”
“Yes,” said Gourville; “but there are some people who are anxious to have the steed who have not even money enough to pay for the bridle.”
“And Vanel would draw back from his offer if he were to be taken at his word,” continued the Abbé Fouquet.
“I do not believe it,” said La Fontaine.
“What do you know about it?”
“Why, you have not yet heard the denouement of my story.”
“If there is a denouement, why do you beat about the bush so much?”
“
