Charles Louis Auguste Fouquet, Comte de Belleisle, is Grandson of that Intendant Fouquet, sumptuous Financier, whom Louis XIV. at last threw out, and locked into the Fortress of Pignerol, amid the Savoy Alps, there to meditate for life, which lasted thirty years longer. It was never understood that the sumptuous Fouquet had altogether stolen public moneys, nor indeed rightly what he had done to merit Pignerol; and always, though fallen somehow into such dire disfavor, he was pitied and respected by a good portion of the public. "Has angered Colbert," said the public; "dangerous rivalry to Colbert; that is what has brought Pignerol upon him." Out of Pignerol that Fouquet never came; but his Family bloomed up into light again; had its adventures, sometimes its troubles, in the Regency time, but was always in a rising way:--and here, in this tall lean man getting papers put into his hand, it has risen very high indeed. Going as Ambassador Extraordinary to the Germanic Diet, "to assist good neighbors, as a neighbor and Most Christian Majesty should, in choosing their new Kaiser to the best advantage:" that is the official color his mission is to have. Surely a proud mission;--and Belleisle intends to execute it in a way that will surprise the Germanic Diet and mankind. Privately, Belleisle intends that he, by his own industries, shall himself choose the right Kaiser, such Kaiser as will suit the Most Christian Majesty and him; he intends to make a new French thing of Germany in general; and carries in his head plans of an amazing nature! He and a Brother he has, called the Chevalier de Belleisle, who is also a distinguished man, and seconds M. le Comte with eloquent fire and zeal in all things, are grandsons of that old Fouquet, and the most shining men in France at present. France little dreams how much better it perhaps were, had they also been kept safe in Pignerol!-- The Count, lean and growing old, is not healthy; is ever and anon tormented, and laid up for weeks, with rheumatisms, gouts and ailments: but otherwise he is still a swift ardent elastic spirit; with grand schemes, with fiery notions and convictions, which captivate and hurry off men's minds more than eloquence could, so intensely true are they to the Count himself;--and then his Brother the Chevalier is always there to put them into the due language and logic, where needed. [Voltaire, xxviii. 74; xxix. 392; &c.] A magnanimous high-flown spirit; thought to be of supreme skill both in War and in Diplomacy; fit for many things; and is still full of ambition to distinguish himself, and tell the world at all moments, "ME VOILA; World, I too am here!"--His plans, just now, which are dim even to himself, except on the hither skirt of them, stretch out immeasurable, and lie piled up high as the skies. The hither skirt of them, which will suffice the reader at present, is:--