every class of life,--a very large number from women, for the prisoner had charms which the fair sex have always found it difficult to resist. Madame Scarron had written to thank him for his bounty to the poor cripple whose name and roof protected her. The King had probably never before heard of this lady, who was to be the wife and ruler of his old age. The portfolio contained specimens of the gayest and brightest of letter-writers. In the course of his career, the gallant Surintendant had attempted to add the charming widow Sevigne to his conquests. She refused the temptation, but always remained grateful for the compliment. Le Tellier told her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, that the King liked her letters,--"very different," he said, "from the _douceurs fades_"--the insipid sweet things--"of the other feminine scribes." Nevertheless, she thought it prudent to reside for a time upon her estate in Brittany. A copy of a letter by St. Evremond was found, written three years before from the Spanish frontier. It was a sarcastic pleasantry at the expense of Mazarin and the _Paix des Pyrenees_, St. Evremond was a soldier, a wit, and the leader of fashion; Colbert hated him, and magnified a _jeu d'esprit_ into a State-crime. He was exiled, and spent the rest of his long life in England. Of the baser sort, hundreds were turned out of their places and thrown penniless upon the world. It was a _coup d'etat_, a revolution, and most people were against Fouquet. It is such a consolation for the little to see the mighty fall!