'M. Colbert asked me for news of the Academy, supposing that I was a member. I told him that I could not satisfy him, as I had not the honour of belonging to that company. He seemed surprised, and said I ought to be admitted. "'Tis a set of men for whom the king has a great regard, and as business prevents me from often attending their councils, I should be glad to hear from you what passes. You should stand at the next vacancy."' So writes Perrault, and he did become a candidate for Immortality. But a lady had begged the next place for an Abbe, and next time, a doctor had secured it for a _cure_. Finally, the Academy elected Perrault, he says, without any canvass on his part. Perrault introduced election for the Academy by ballot, and he himself invented and provided a little balloting machine, which he does not describe. One day when the King was being publicly rubbed down after a game at tennis, an Academician prayed that the Academy might be allowed to read addresses to his Majesty. The King, who had probably given some courtier the side walls and a beating, graciously permitted the Academy to add its voice to the chorus of flattery. Perrault now disported himself among harangues, the new Versailles fountains, grottoes, arches of triumph, and royal devices, his brother executing his designs. They were sunny years, and Le Roi Soleil beamed upon the house of Perrault. But a dispute between his brother, the receiver of taxes, and Colbert caused a coolness between Charles Perrault and the Minister. M. Perrault also married a young lady to please himself, not to please Colbert. But, before leaving the service of the Minister, the good Perrault had succeeded in saving the Tuileries gardens for the people of Paris, and for the children, when it was proposed to reserve them to the Royal use. 'I am persuaded,' he said, 'that the gardens of Kings are made so great and spacious that all their children may walk in them.' We owe Perrault less gratitude for aiding Lulli, who obtained the monopoly of Opera, a privilege adverse to the interests of Moliere. If Perrault thought at all of the interests of Moliere, he probably remembered that his own brother was a physician, and that physicians were Moliere's favourite butts. 'Il ne devait pas tourner en ridicule les bons Medecins, que l'Ecriture nous enjoint d'honorer,' says Perrault in his _Eloges des Hommes Illustres_ (1696-1700). Moliere's own influence with the king corrected the influence of Lulli, and he obtained the right to give musical pieces, in spite of Lulli's privilege, but he did not live long to enjoy it[1].