Par devant moi sur Parnasse notaire, Se présenta la reine des beautés, Et des vertus le parfait exemplaire, Qui lut ces vers, puis les ayant comptés, Pesés, revus, approuvés et vantés, Pour le passé voulut s'en satisfaire, Se réservant le tribut ordinaire, Pour l'avenir aux termes arrêtés. Muses de Vaux et vous, leur secrétaire, Voilà l'acquit tel que vous souhaitez. En puissiez-vous dans cent ans autant faire. Here is the second, under private seal, in the name of the Surintendante: De mes deux yeux, ou de mes deux soleils J'ai lu vos vers qu'on trouve sans pareils, Et qui n'ont rien qui ne me doive plaire. Je vous tiens quitte et promets vous fournir De quoi par tout vous le faire tenir, Pour le passé, mais non pour l'avenir. En puissiez-vous dans cent ans autant faire.[48] But Jean could not lay restraint upon himself. As he himself ingenuously admits, he divided his life into two parts: one he passed in sleeping, the other in doing nothing. For writing verse was doing nothing for him, it came to him so naturally. But he could not do it if he were obliged. In October, the second quarter, when his second receipt fell due, we find the poet very much embarrassed. He sends a poem, the refrain of which betrays this embarrassment: To promise is one thing, to keep one's promise is another.[49] In the first quarter of 1660, all he produced was a dizaine for Madame Foucquet. Foucquet, not unnaturally, mildly objected; and the poet replied: Bien vous dirai qu'au nombre s'arrêter N'est pas le mieux, seigneur.... Foucquet was content and did not trouble his poetic debtor any further. The latter thought that he would pay his debt by a descriptive poem of some length, but this poem, _Le Songe de Vaux,_ was never finished. The terrible awakening was near at hand. We have already seen La Fontaine in the gallery at Saint-Mandé. Whilst he was waiting Foucquet was busy, whether with an affair of State or of the heart is doubtful, for he burnt the candle at both ends. "He took everything upon himself," says the Abbé de Choisy, "he aspired to be the first Minister, without losing a single moment of his pleasures. He would pretend to be working alone in his study at Saint-Mandé; and the whole Court, anticipating his future greatness, would wait in his antechamber, loudly praising the indefatigable industry of this great man, while he himself would go down the private staircase into a garden, where his nymphs, whose names I might mention if I chose, and they were not among the least distinguished, awaited him, and for no small reward."[50] He would send sometimes three, sometimes four thousand pistoles to the ladies of his heart,[51] and some of the most charming sought to please him.[52] Would it be true, however, to say with Nicolas: Never did a Superintendent meet with a cruel lady.[53]