La Reynie thought that it was advisable, apart from these preventive measures, to put the public on their guard against the dangerous infatuation which had thrown so many pretty and passionate women body and soul into the hands of the fortune-tellers. Let us recall the declarations of one of the latter: 'Persons who look into the hand are the ruin of all women, women of quality as well as others, because their weakness is soon found out, and when discovered is taken advantage of, and they are driven to whatever length the witches please.' As lieutenant of police La Reynie had a general control of the theatres; he revised and censored the manuscripts of the playwrights; he was in constant touch with them. He was the friend of more than one writer of talent, for the magistrate was doubled in him with the refined and delightful man of letters, who had both delicate taste and an excellent library. In this year 1679 he had particularly close relations with Donneau de Visé, founder and editor of the _Mercure galant_, and assuredly one of the most curious figures in our literary history. Boursault had just written his witty comedy, also entitled the _Mercure galant_, in which he directed lively and incisive satire upon the journalism then at its dawn, which had already taken, under the influence of Donneau de Visé, many of the characteristics of modern journalism. The _Mercure_, said Boursault, is a delightful thing:-- 'On y trouve de tout, fable, histoire, vers, prose, Sièges, combats, procès, mort, mariage, amour, Nouvelles de Province et nouvelles de Cour.' Visé begged La Reynie not to authorise the representation of the piece under the same title as the journal; La Reynie acquiesced, and Boursault, putting a good face on the matter, called his piece _La Comédie sans titre_. Moreover, Visé was in high favour at Court. When Louis XIV saw the success of the _Mercure_, he hastened to award the editor-in-chief a pension of 500 crowns, gave him apartments in the Louvre, and appointed him his historiographer. Visé's pen became an accommodating tool.