against the royal feelings in a still more un- | pardonable way. The King was in love with La Vallière. He had surrounded his attachment with the mystery the young and sentimental delight in. Fouquet, quite unconscious of the royal fancy, had cast eyes of favour upon the same lady. Proceeding according to the custom of men of middle age and abundant means, he had wasted no time in petits soins and sighs, but, Jupiter-like, had offered to shower two hundred thousand livres upon the fair one. This proposition was reported to the King, and was the cause of the acharnement, the relentless fury, he showed in persecuting Fouquet. He would have dealt with him as Queen Christina had dealt with Monaldeschi, if he had dared. The hatred survived long after he had dismissed the fair cause of it from his affections and from his palace.

Such was the Surintendant's position when he issued his invitation to the King, Court, and bel-air for the seventeenth of August, 1661the fête de Vaux, which fills a paragraph in every history of France. In June he had entertained the Queen of England in a style which made Mazarin's pageants for the Infanta Queen seem tasteless and old-fashioned. The present festival cast the preceding one into the shade. It began in the early afternoon, like a déjeuner of our day. The King was there, the QueenMother, Monsieur-brother to the King, and Madame, daughter of Charles I. of England, attended by princes, dukes, marquises, and counts, with their quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and independent spouses. The highest and noblest of France came to stare at Fouquet's magnificence, to wonder at the strange birds and beasts, and to admire the fountains and cascades. After a walk about the grounds, the august company were served with supper in the château. Vâtel was the maitre d'hotel. The King could not conceal his astonishment at the taste and luxury of the Surintendant, nor his annoyance when he recognised the portrait of La Vallière in a mythological panel. Över doors and windows were carved and painted Fouquet's arms-a squirrel, with the motto, "Que non ascendam? The King asked a chamberlain for the translation. When the device was interpreted, the measure of his wrath was full. He was on the point of ordering Fouquet's instant arrest; but the Queen - Mother persuaded him to wait until every precaution had

been taken.

After supper, the guests were conducted to the play. The theatre was at the end of an alley of pines, almost al fresco. The stage represented a garden decorated with fountains, and with statues of Terminus. Scenery by Le Brun; ; machinery and transmutations by Torelli; stage-manager, Molière; the comedy, "Les Fâcheux," ("The Bores,") composed, written, and rehearsed expressly for this occasion in the short space of fifteen days. This piece was put upon the stage in a new way. The ballet, introduced by Mazarin a few years before, was the fashion, and indispensable. As

Molière had only a few good dancers, he placed the scenes of the ballet between the acts of the comedy, in order to give his artists time to change their dresses and to take three or four different parts. To avoid awkwardness in these transitions, the plot of the comedy was carried over into the pantomime. This arrangement proved so successful, that Molière made use of it in many of his later plays,

The curtain rises upon a man in citizen's dress (Molière). He expresses amazement and dismay at seeing so large and so distinguished an audience, and implores his Majesty to pardon him for being there without actors enough and without time enough to prepare a suitable entertainment. While he is yet speaking, twenty jets of water spring into the air-a huge rock in the foreground changes into a shell-the shell opens-forth steps a Naiad (pretty Mademoiselle Béjart, a well-known actress-too well-known for Molière's domestic comfort) and declaims verses written by Pellisson for the occasion. Here is a part of this prologue in commonplace prose; Pellison's verses are of a kind which loses little by translation. The flattery is heavy, but Louis XIV. was not dainty; he liked it strong, and probably swallowed more of it with pleasure and comfort during fifty years than any other man.

"Mortals," said la Béjart, "I come from my grotto to look upon the greatest king in the world. Shall the land or the water furnish a new spectacle for his amusement? He bas only to speak-to wish; nothing is impossible to him. Is he not himself a miracle? And has he not the right to demand miracles of Nature? He is young, victorious, wise, valiant, and dignified as benevolent and just as he is powerful. He governs his desires as well as his subjects; he unites labour and pleasure; always busy, never at fault, seeing all, hearing all. To such a prince heaven can refuse nothing. If Louis commands, these Termini shall walk from their places, these trees shall speak better than the oaks of Dodona. Come forth, then, all of you! Louis commands it. Come forth to amuse him, and transform yourselves upon this novel stage!" Trees and Termini fly open. Dryads, Fauns, and Satyrs skip out. Then the Naiad invokes Care, the goddess whose hand rests heavily upon monarchs, and implores her to grant the great King an hour's respite from the business of State and from his anxiety for his people. "Let him give his great heart up to pleasure. To-morrow, with strength renewed, he will take up his burden, sacrifice his own rest to give repose to mankind, and maintain peace throughout the universe. But to-night let all fácheux stand back, except those who can make themselves agreeable to him." The Naiad vanishes. The Fauns dance to the violins and hautboys, until the play begins.

After the comedy, the spectators walked slowly to the chateau. A feu d'artifice, ending in a bouquet of a thousand rockets from the dome, lighted them on their way back. Another

terins?

"Mais si tu crois qu'il est coupable

Il ne veut point être innocent."

Two years of prison had not broken him down to this point of self-abasement. Could any Sultan, or even the "Oriental Despot" of a radical penny-a-liner, be implored in more abject Madame de Sévigné, Madame de Scudéry, Le Fèvre, talked, wrote, and spared no expense for their dear friend. Brébeuf, the poet, who had neither influence nor money, took to his bed and died of grief. Hesnault, author of the "Avorton," a sonnet much admired in those days, and translated with approval into English verse, as,

"Frail spawn of nought and of existence mixed,"

But meantime the Parisians had changed their minds about the Surintendant. Now they were all for him. His friends had done much to bring this about; time, and the usual reaction of feeling, had done more. His haughtiness and his pomp were gone and forgotten: there remained only an unfortunate gentleman, crushed, imprisoned, threatened with death, attacked by his enemies with a bitterness which showed they were seeking to destroy the man rather than to punish the criminal-yet bearing up against his unexampled afflictions with unshaken courage. The great Public has strong levelling propensities, both upward and downward. If it delights to see the prosperous humbled, it is always ready to pity the unfortunate; and even in 1664 the popular feeling in Paris was powerful enough to check the ministers of an absolute king, and to save Fouquet's life. His persecutors were so eager to run down their prey that they overran it. "In their anxiety to hang him," someone said, "they have made their rope so thick that they cannot tighten it about his neck!"

In November, 1664, Fouquet was brought before a commission of twenty-two judges, se

"Minitre avare et lâche, esclave malheureux."

The poet escaped unpunished. His affront gave Colbert the chance for a mot-an opportunity which Frenchmen seldom throw away. When the injurious verses were reported to the Minister, he asked," Is there anything in them offensive to the King?" "No." "Then there can be nothing in them offensive to me." Loret, of the Gazette, was not so lucky. A gentle appeal in his journal for less severity was punished by striking the editor from the pension-list-a fine of fifteen hundred livres a-year. Fouquet heard of it, and found means to send, by the hands of Madame Scudéry, a year's allowance to the faithful newsman.

The Government was not ready to proceed to trial until 1664. For three years the sharpest lawyers in France had been working on the Act of Accusation. It was very large even for its age. The accompanying "Pièces " were unusually voluminous. The accused had not been idle. His "Défenses" may be seen in fourteen closely-printed Elzevir 18mos.

The unabated rigour of Fouquet's prison had convinced his friends that it was useless to hope for clemency, and that it might be difficult to save his life. The King was as malignant as at first; Colbert and Le Tellier as venomous, as if it had been a question of Fouquet's head or their own. They talked about justice, affected moderation, and deceived nobody. Marshal Turenne, speaking of their respective feelings in the matter, said a thing which was considered good by the bel-esprits-"I think that Colbert is the more anxious to have him hanged, and Le Tellier the more afraid he will not be !"

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kingdom. After protesting against the jurisdiction of the court, he took his seat upon the sellette, although a chair had been prepared for him beside it. The interrogatories commenced. There were two principal charges against him. First, diversion of the public funds to his own use embezzlement or defalcation we should call it. Proof: bis great expenditure-too large for any private fortune. Answer: that his expenses were within the income he derived from his salaries, pensions, and the property of himself and wife. He was questioned closely upon his administration of the finances. He was invariably self-possessed and ready with an answer, and he eluded satisfactorily every attempt of the judges to entrap him, although, as one of his best friends confessed, some places were against the state-was based upon a paper advery slippery." The second charge-treason dressed to his wife, and found in his desk. Fifteen years before, after a quarrel with Mazarin, he had drawn up a plan of the measures to be taken by his family and adherents in case of an attack upon his life or liberty. It was a mere rough draught, incomplete, which had remained unburned because forgotten. The fortifications of Belleile, and the number of his retainers, were brought up as evidence of his intention to carry out the "projet," as it was called, if it became necessary. Fouquet's explanations, and the date of the paper, were satisfactory to the majority of the commission. At last even the Chancellor admitted that the proof was insufficient to sustain this part of the accusation. Fouquet's answer to Séguier, during the examination on the "projet," was much admired, and repeated out-of-doors. Se guier asserted more than once, "This is clearly treason." "No," retorted Fouquet, "it is not treason; but I will tell you what is treason

the Surintendant beyond the reach of his torturer. So lost had he been in his living tomb, that it is a debated point whether he died in Pignerol or not. He has even been one of the candidates for the mysterious dignity of the Iron Mask. In his dungeon he could learn nothing of what was passing in the world. Lauzun, whose every-day life seemed more unreal and romantic than the dreams of ordinary men, was confined in Pignerol. Active and daring as Jack Shepherd, he dug through the wall of his cell, and discovered that his next neighbour was Fouquet. When he told his fellow-prisoner of his adventures and of his honours, how he had lost the place of Grand Master of the Artillery through Louvois, and had only missed being the acknowledged husband of the grand-daughter of Henry IV. because Madame de Montespan persuaded the King to withdraw his consent, Fouquet, who recollected him as a poor cadet de famille, thought him crazy, and begged the jailer to have him watched and properly cared for.

The Surintendant had twice wounded the vanity of his King. He had presumed to have a more beautiful château than his master, and had unluckily fancied the same woman. Louis revenged himself by burying his rival alive for twenty years. That Fouquet had plotted rebellion nobody believed. He was too wise a politician not to know that the French were weary of civil war, and could not be tempted to exchange one master for half-a-dozen military tyrants. That he had taken the public money for his own use was not denied, even by his friends; and banishment would have been a

just punishment, although, perhaps, a harsh one-for it is hardly fair to judge Fouquet by our modern standard of financial honesty, low as that may be. We at least, try to cover up jobs, contracts, and defalcations by professions or appearances. The difficulty of raising money for the expenses of internal commotion, had accustomed public men Government in a state impoverished by years of

to strange and irregular expedients, and unscrupulous financiers catch fine fish in troubled waters. Mazarin openly put thousands of livres into his pocket; the Surintendant imitated him on a smaller scale. But, if he paid himself liberally for his services, he also showed energy and skill in his attempts to restore order and economy in the administration of the revenue. After his disgrace money was not much more plentiful. France, it is true, tranquil and secure within her borders, again showed signs of wealth, and was able to pay heavier taxes: but the King wasted them on his wars, his chateaux, and his mistresses as recklessly as the Surintendant. He had no misgivings as to his right

to spend the people's money. From his principles, "L'Etat, c'est moi," followed the carollary, "The income of the State is mine." From 1664 to 1690 one hundred and sixteen millions of livres were laid out in unnecessary hotels, châteaux, and gardens. His ministers imitated him at a humble distance. Louvois boasted that he had reached his fourteenth million at Meudon. "I like," said Louis," to have those who manage my affairs skilfully do a good business for themselves."

that Colbert, with all his energy and his sysBefore many years had passed, it was evident tems, did not make both the financial ends meet any better than the Surintendant. A merchant of Paris, with whom he consulted, told him— "You found the cart upset on one side, and you have upset it on the other." Colbert had tried to lighten it by striking eight millions of rentes from the funded debt: but it was too deeply imbedded in the mire; the shoulder of Hercules

at the wheel could not have extricated it. After Colbert was removed times grew harder. Long before the King's death the financial distress was greater than in the wars and days of the Fronde. Every possible contrivance by Lotteries were drawn, tontines established, letwhich money could be raised was resorted to. ters of nobility offered for sale at two thousand crowns each. Those who preferred official rank could buy the title of Councillor of State or of Commissioner of Police. New and profitable offices were created and disposed of to the highest bidder -inspectorships of wood, of hay, of wine, of butter. Arbitrary power, no matter whether we call it sovereign prince or sovereign all times and countries. The Demos of a neighpeople, falls instinctively into the same ways in bouring state, absolute and greedy as any monarch, have furnished us with plenty of exZealous servants are rewarded and electionamples of this last imposition upon industry. jurious, to everyone except those who hold expenses paid by similar inspectorships and commissionerships, not only useless, but in

them.

When these resources became exhausted, a capitation-tax was laid, followed by an assess ment of one-tenth, and the adulteration of the currency. The King cut off the pension-list, sold his plate, and dismissed his servants. Misery and starvation laid waste the realm. At last, the pompous, "stagy" old monarch died, full of infirmities and of humiliations; and the road from the Boulevard to St. Denis was lined with booths as for a fete, and the people feasted, sang, and danced for joy that the tyrant was in his coffin. Time, the galantuomo, amply avenged Fouquet.