“Very good; and you fought?”
“It seems not.”
“You know nothing about it, I suppose?”
“No; my wife and her relations interfered in the matter. I was kept a quarter of an hour with my sword in my hand; but I was not wounded.”
“And the adversary?”
“Neither was the adversary, for he never came on to the field.”
“Capital!” cried his friends, from all sides; “you must have been terribly angry.”
“Exceedingly so; I had caught cold. I returned home, and then my wife began to quarrel with me.”
“In real earnest?”
“Yes, in real earnest; she threw a loaf of bread at my head, a large loaf.”
“And what did you do?”
“Oh! I upset the table over her and her guests; and then I got upon my horse again, and here I am.”
Every one had great difficulty in keeping his countenance at the relation of this tragic comedy; and when the laughter had somewhat ceased, one of the guests present said to him, “Is that all you have brought us back?”
“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 every one.
“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 extremely licentious.”
“Oh, oh, dear poet!”
“Extremely obscene.”
“Oh! oh!”
“Extremely cynical.”
“Oh, the devil!”
“Yes,” continued the poet, with cold indifference; “I have introduced in it 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 exceed everything that Boccaccio, Aretino and other masters of their craft have written in the same style.”
“Good God!” cried Pellisson, “it will be condemned!”
“Do you think so?” said La Fontaine, simply. “I assure you, I did not do it on my own account so much as on M. Fouquet’s.”
This wonderful conclusion raised the mirth of all present to a climax.
“And I have sold the first edition of this little book for eight hundred livres,” exclaimed La Fontaine, rubbing his hands together. “Serious and religious books sell at about half that rate.”
“It would have been better,” said Gourville, laughing, “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; I 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. Never did more generous coins rattle in the divine balances in which charity weighs good hearts and good intentions against the counterfeit coin of devout hypocrites.
The money was still being counted over when the superintendent noiselessly entered the room. He had heard everything. This man, who had possessed so many millions, who had exhausted all pleasures and all honors, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain,- Fouquet, who had, like two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the first kingdom in the world, crossed the threshold with his eyes filled with tears, and passed his white and slender fingers through the gold and silver. “Poor offering,” he said, in a tone tender and filled with emotion, “you will disappear in the smallest corner of my empty purse; but you have filled to overflowing that which nothing can ever exhaust,- my heart. Thank you, my friends,- thank you!” And as he could not embrace everyone present,- all were weeping a little, philosophers though they were,- he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, “Poor fellow! so you have on my account been beaten by your wife and damned 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.”