“It would have been too long, and not amusing enough,” replied La Fontaine tranquilly; “my eight hundred livres are in this little bag, and I beg to offer them as my contribution.”
As he said this, he placed his offering in the hands of their treasurer; it was then Loret’s turn, who gave a hundred and fifty livres; the others stripped themselves in the same way; and the total sum in the purse amounted to forty thousand livres. The money was still being counted over when the superintendent noiselessly entered the room; he had heard everything; and then this man, who had possessed so many millions, who had exhausted all the pleasures and honors the world had to bestow, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain, which had, like two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the first kingdom in Europe, was seen to cross the threshold with tears in his eyes, and pass his fingers through the gold and silver which the bag contained.
“Poor offering,” he said, in a softened and affected tone of voice, “you will disappear into the smallest corner of my empty purse, but you have filled to overflowing that which no one can ever exhaust, my heart. Thank you, my friends—thank you.” And as he could not embrace every one present, who were all tearful, too, philosophers as they were, he embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, “Poor fellow! so you have, on my account, been beaten by your wife and censured by your confessor.”
“Oh! it is a mere nothing,” replied the poet; “if your creditors will only wait a couple of years, I shall have written a hundred other tales, which, at two editions each, will pay off the debt.”
Chapter XLVI. La Fontaine in the Character of a Negotiator.
Fouquet pressed La Fontaine’s hand most warmly, saying to him, “My dear poet, write a hundred other tales, not only for the eighty pistoles which each of them will produce you, but, still more, to enrich our language with a hundred new masterpieces of composition.”
“Oh!” said La Fontaine, with a little air of pride, “you must not suppose that I have only brought this idea and the eighty pistoles to the superintendent.”
“Oh! indeed,” was the general acclamation from all parts of the room, “M. de la Fontaine is in funds to-day.”
“Exactly,” replied La Fontaine.
“Quick, quick!” cried the assembly.