Pensions, and the promise of comfortable places, had collected about the Surintendant talent, fashion, and beauty. Some of the ablest men in the kingdom were in his employ. Pellisson, famous for ugliness and for wit, the _Acanthe_ of the Hotel de Rambouillet, the beloved of Sappho Scudery, was his chief clerk. Pellisson was then a Protestant; but Fouquet's disgrace, and four years in the Bastille, led him to reexamine the grounds of his religious faith. He became, luckily, enlightened on the subject of his heresies at a time when the renunciation of Protestantism led to honors and wealth. Change of condition followed change of doctrine. The King attached him to his person as Secretary and Historiographer, and gave him the management of the fund for the conversion of Huguenots. Gourville, whom Charles II., an excellent judge, called the wisest of Frenchmen, belonged to Fouquet, as a receiver-general of taxes. Moliere wrote two of his earlier plays for the Surintendant. La Fontaine was an especial favorite. He bound himself to pay for his quarterly allowance in quarterly madrigals, ballads, or sonnets. If he failed, a bailiff was to be sent to levy on his stanzas. He paid pretty regularly, but in a depreciated currency. The verses have not the golden ring of the "Contes" and the "Fables." "Le Roi, l'Etat, la Patrie, Partagent toute votre vie." That is a sample of their value. Quack-medicine poets often do as well. He wrote "Adonis" for Fouquet, and had worked three years at the "Songe de Vaux," when the ruin of his patron caused him to lay it aside. It is a dull piece. Four fairies, _Palatiane, Hortesie, Apellanire, and Calliopee_, make long speeches about their specialty in Art, as seen at Vaux. Their names sufficiently denote it. A fish comes as ambassador from Neptune to Vaux, the glory of the universe, where Oronte (Fouquet's _alias_, in the affected jargon of the period) "fait batir un palais magnifique, Ou regne l'ordre Ionique Avec beaucoup d'agrement." Apollo comes and promises to take charge of the live-stock, and of the picture-gallery. The Muses, too, are busy. "Pour lui Melpomene medite, Thalie en est jalouse,"-- and soon--