A stronger and a meaner motive he kept to himself. He was small-minded enough to think that a subject overshadowed him, _nec pluribus impar_. He hated Fouquet because he was so much admired,--because he was called the Magnificent,--because his _chateaux_ and gardens were incomparably finer than St. Germain or Fontainebleau,--because he was surrounded by the first wits and artists,--no trifling matter in that bright morning of French literature, when every gentleman of station in Paris aspired to be a _bel-esprit_, or, if that was impossible, to keep one in his employ. "_Le Roi s'abaissa jusqu'a se croire humilie par un sujet_." His "_gloire_" as he called it, was his passion, not only in war and in government, where it meant something, but in buildings and furniture, dress and dinners, madrigals and _bon-mots_. The monopoly of _gloire_ he must and would have,--nobly, if possible, but at any rate, and in every kind, _gloire_. And the unlucky Surintendant had sinned against the royal feelings in a still more unpardonable way. The King was in love with La Valliere. He had surrounded his attachment with the mystery the young and sentimental delight in. Fouquet, quite unconscious of the royal fancy, had cast eyes of favor upon the same lady. Proceeding according to the custom of men of middle age and of abundant means, he had wasted no time in _petits soins_ and sighs, but, Jupiter-like, had offered to shower two hundred thousand livres upon the fair one. This proposition was reported to the King, and was the cause of the _acharnement_, the relentless fury, he showed in persecuting Fouquet. He would have dealt with him as Queen Christina had dealt with Monaldeschi, if he had dared. The hatred survived long after he had dismissed the fair cause of it from his affections, and from his palace.