Pellisson, a brilliant wit and a capable man, became, after 1656, one of Foucquet's principal clerks. He had for Mademoiselle de Scudéry a beautiful affection which he loaded with so many adornments that it seems to-day to have been a miraculous work of artifice. It was marvellously decked out and embellished; an exquisite work of art. Had they both been handsome, they would not have introduced into their liaison so many complications; they would have loved each other naturally. But he was ugly, so was she, and as one must love in this world--everybody says so--they loved each other with what they had, with their pretty wit and their subtlety. Being able to do no better, they created a masterpiece. Pellisson was an assiduous guest at the Saturdays of this learned and "precious" spinster. There he met Madame du Plessis-Bellière, whose friendship for Foucquet is well known to us. Witty herself, she was naturally inclined to favour wit in the new Sappho, who was then publishing _Clélie_ in ten volumes, and in Pellisson, her relations with whom were as pleasant as they were discreet. She introduced them both to the Superintendent, who lost no time in attaching them both to himself in order not to separate these two incomparable lovers. Pellisson paid Mademoiselle de Scudéry's debt by writing a _Remerciement du siècle à M. le surintendant Foucquet,_ and presently on his own account he fabricated a second _Remerciement,_ full of those elaborate allegories which people revelled in at that period, but which to-day would send us to sleep, standing. Pellisson, having become the Superintendent's steward, bargained with his tax-farmers and corrected his master's love-letters, for he was a resourceful person; and, as he piqued himself especially on his wit, he obligingly served as Foucquet's intermediary with men of letters. On his recommendation the Superintendent gave a receipt for the taxes of Forez to the poet Jean Hesnault, who thus found at Saint-Mandé an end of the poverty which he had so long paraded up and down the world, in the Low Countries, in England and in Sicily. Jean Hesnault was an intelligent person, but untrustworthy: "Loving pleasure with refinement," says Bayle, "delicately and artistically debauched."