It was under the care of this man that Fouquet was to pass the last sixteen years of his life. It was with him that the imprisonment of the Surintendant was in reality about to commence. From the day of his arrest, indeed, until his arrival at Pignerol, a thousand intrigues had been brewing around him. The threats of his enemies, the pressing exertions of his friends, by turns the danger of capital punishment and the hope of being saved, with constant changes of prison[351] and the preoccupations of the trial, had absorbed his existence and abridged the length of the four years which had elapsed. But when he found himself at Pignerol in a chamber into which the light penetrated only through osier-screens fixed on enormous bars of iron, waited upon by unknown individuals who were removed so soon as he endeavoured to interest them in his misfortunes, and who were continued in his service if they consented to act as spies over him; when the only visits he received were those of his gaoler coming every day to carefully examine his furniture, rummage over his effects, consult his countenance, and surprise his thoughts; when all correspondence was forbidden him, and when he might believe himself for ever separated from those who were dearest to him; then, and then alone, there appeared to him in all its reality the horror of his lot, rendered still more bitter by the recollection of past splendours. How often in his isolation did he invoke the dazzling picture of his unprecedented fortune! How many times did he recount to himself the great part he had played during the Fronde, the legitimate influence acquired over Anne of Austria and Mazarin, whose devoted auxiliary he had been, so many and such high functions united in his own person, a great part of the court at his feet, friends like Corneille and Molière, Madame de Sévigné, Pellisson, and La Fontaine, dwellings much more splendid than the King’s,[352] a formidable fortified place for refuge,[353] an island in America for an asylum,[354] the right of sovereignty over many towns,[355] joined to immense riches, the most ardent passions satiated, and the most unbridled ambition satisfied: then a thunderbolt overwhelming in an instant all this greatness and precipitating the daring man into the abyss! “There is no greater sorrow,” says Dante, “than to recall when in misery our time of happiness.”[356] But how much greater still, when the eyes, at length seeing distinctly, can perceive the imprudences and the faults committed! Rendered more clear-sighted by adversity, Fouquet might remember with bitterness Louis XIV.’s generous conduct towards him on his taking possession of power after the death of Mazarin. “I knew,” says the King in his _Mémoires_,[357] “that he possessed intelligence, and had a great knowledge of the home affairs of the State, which made me imagine that, provided he would avow his past faults and promise amendment, he might render me good service.” Louis XIV.