Chapter 45

Chapter XLV:
How Jean de La Fontaine Came to Write His First Tale.

All these intrigues are exhausted; the human mind, so variously
complicated, has been enabled to develop itself at its ease in the three
outlines with which our recital has supplied it. It is not unlikely
that, in the future we are now preparing, a question of politics and
intrigues may still arise, but the springs by which they work will be so
carefully concealed that no one will be able to see aught but flowers and
paintings, just as at a theater, where a colossus appears upon the scene,
walking along moved by the small legs and slender arms of a child
concealed within the framework.

We now return to Saint-Mande, where the superintendent was in the habit
of receiving his select confederacy of epicureans. For some time past
the host had met with nothing but trouble. Every one in the house was
aware of and felt for the minister's distress. No more magnificent or
recklessly improvident _reunions_. Money had been the pretext assigned
by Fouquet, and never _was_ any pretext, as Gourville said, more
fallacious, for there was not even a shadow of money to be seen.

M. Vatel was resolutely painstaking in keeping up the reputation of the
house, and yet the gardeners who supplied the kitchens complained of
ruinous delays. The agents for the supply of Spanish wines sent drafts
which no one honored; fishermen, whom the superintendent engaged on the
coast of Normandy, calculated that if they were paid all that was due to
them, the amount would enable them to retire comfortably for life; fish,
which, at a later period, was the cause of Vatel's death, did not arrive
at all. However, on the ordinary reception days, Fouquet's friends
flocked in more numerously than ever. Gourville and the Abbe Fouquet
talked over money matters - that is to say, the abbe borrowed a few
pistoles from Gourville; Pelisson, seated with his legs crossed, was
engaged in finishing the peroration of a speech with which Fouquet was to
open the parliament; and this speech was a masterpiece, because Pelisson
wrote it for his friend - that is to say, he inserted all kinds of clever
things the latter would most certainly never have taken the trouble to
say of his own accord. Presently Loret and La Fontaine would enter from
the garden, engaged in a dispute about the art of making verses. The
painters and musicians, in their turn, were hovering near the dining-
room. As soon as eight o'clock struck the supper would be announced, for
the superintendent never kept any one waiting. It was already half-past
seven, and the appetites of the guests were beginning to declare
themselves in an emphatic manner. As soon as all the guests were
assembled, Gourville went straight up to