Notre Roi, qui par politique Se transportait vers l'Amorique, Pour raisons qu'on ne savait pas, S'en revient, dit-on, à grands pas. Je n'ai su par aucun message Les circonstances du voyage: Mais j'ai du bruit commun appris, C'est-à-dire de tout Paris, Que par une expresse ordonnance, Le sieur surintendant de France Je ne sais pourquoi ni comment, Est arrêté présentement (Nouvelles des plus surprenantes) Dans la ville et château de Nantes, Certes, j'ai toujours respecté Les ordres de Sa Majesté Et crû que ce monarque auguste Ne commandait rien que de juste; Mais étant rémemoratif Que cet infortuné captif M'a toujours semblé bon et sage Et que d'un obligeant langage Il m'a quelquefois honoré, J'avoue en avoir soupiré, Ne pouvant, sans trop me contraindre, Empêcher mon cœur de le plaindre. Si, sans préjudice du Roi (Et je le dis de bonne foi) Je pouvais lui rendre service Et rendre son sort plus propice En adoucissant sa rigueur, Je le ferais de tout mon cœur; Mais ce seul désir est frivole, Et prions Dieu qu'il le console. En l'état qu'il est aujourd'hui, C'est tout ce que je puis pour lui.[76] In time poor Loret did more; he tried to deny his benefactor's crimes. "I doubt half of them," he said in the execrable style of the rhyming Gazetteer:[77] Et par raison et par pitié, Et même pour la conséquence Je passe le tout sous silence. Pellisson was admirable. He wrote from the Bastille, where he was imprisoned, eloquent defences in which, neglecting his own cause, he sought only to justify Foucquet. His defence followed the same lines as that of Foucquet himself. He pleaded the necessities of France, the need of provisioning and equipping her armies and of fortifying her strongholds. He imagined a case in which Mazarin himself might have been criticized for the means by which he had procured money for the war and ensured victory. "In all conscience," he said, "what man of good sense could have advised him to reply in other than Scipio's words: 'Here are my accounts: I present them but only to tear them up. On this day a year ago I signed a general peace, and the contract of the King's marriage, which gave peace to Europe. Let us go and celebrate this anniversary at the foot of the altar.'"[78] Mademoiselle de Scudéry distinguished herself by her zeal on behalf of her friend, formerly so powerful, and now so unfortunate. Pecquet, whom the Superintendent had chosen as his doctor, in order that he might discourse with him on physics and philosophy, the learned Jean Pecquet, was inconsolable at having lost so good a master. He used to say that Pecquet had always rhymed, and always would rhyme with Foucquet.[79]