This, after all, is little more than a receipt expressed in Spanish style. None the less, the poet promises the financier that he will treat the subject which the latter indicates. Foucquet gave him three subjects to choose from. Œdipe was one of the three; it was the one which Corneille chose. He treated it, and we may say that he treated it gallantly. He endowed his heroes with wonderfully polite manners. It is charming to hear Theseus, Prince of Athens, saying to the beautiful Dirce:
Quelque ravage affreux qu'étale ici la peste,
L'absence aux vrais amants est encor plus funeste.
Old Corneille, delighted with himself for having conceived such beautiful things, flattered himself that Œdipe was his masterpiece, although it had taken him only two months to write it; he had made haste in order to please the Superintendent. This work, which was in the fashion and was, after all, from the pen of the great Corneille, was received with favour. The gazeteer, Loret, bears witness to this in the execrable verses of a poet who has to write so much a week:
Monsieur de Corneille l'aîné,
Depuis peu de temps a donné
A ceux de l'hôtel de Bourgogne[42]
Son dernier ouvrage ou besogne,
Ouvrage grand et signalé,
Qui l'Œdipe est intitulé,
Ouvrage, dis-je, dramatique,
Mais si tendre et si pathétique,
Que, sans se sentir émouvoir,
On ne peut l'entendre ou le voir.
Jamais pièce de cette sorte
N'eut l'élocution si forte;
Jamais, dit-on, dans l'univers,
On n'entendit de si beaux vers.
We mentioned that Foucquet, when proposing to Corneille the subject of Œdipe, suggested two other subjects, one of which was Camma. The third we do not know.[43] Camma, who slays her husband's murderer upon the altar to which he has led her, is no commonplace heroine. Corneille was a good kinsman; he passed on Camma to his brother Thomas, who made a pretty dull tragedy out of it; such was the custom of this excellent person. Thomas also participated in the Superintendent's generosity. He dedicated to Foucquet his tragedy La Mort de Commode, in return for the "generous marks of esteem" and benefits which he had received. He said, with charming politeness, "I wished to offer myself, and you have singled me out."
Pellisson, a brilliant wit and a capable man, became, after 1656, one of Foucquet's principal clerks. He had for Mademoiselle de Scudéry a beautiful affection which he loaded with so many adornments that it seems to-day to have been a miraculous work of artifice. It was marvellously decked out and embellished; an exquisite work of art. Had they both been handsome, they would not have introduced into their liaison so many complications; they would have loved each other naturally. But he was ugly, so was she, and as one must love in this world—everybody says so—they loved each other with what they had, with their pretty wit and their subtlety. Being able to do no better, they created a masterpiece.
Pellisson was an assiduous guest at the Saturdays of this learned and "precious" spinster. There he met Madame du Plessis-Bellière, whose friendship for Foucquet is well known to us. Witty herself, she was naturally inclined to favour wit in the new Sappho, who was then publishing Clélie in ten volumes, and in Pellisson, her relations with whom were as pleasant as they were discreet. She introduced them both to the Superintendent, who lost no time in attaching them both to himself in order not to separate these two incomparable lovers. Pellisson paid Mademoiselle de Scudéry's debt by writing a Remerciement du siècle à M. le surintendant Foucquet, and presently on his own account he fabricated a second Remerciement, full of those elaborate allegories which people revelled in at that period, but which to-day would send us to sleep, standing.
Pellisson, having become the Superintendent's steward, bargained with his tax-farmers and corrected his master's love-letters, for he was a resourceful person; and, as he piqued himself especially on his wit, he obligingly served as Foucquet's intermediary with men of letters. On his recommendation the Superintendent gave a receipt for the taxes of Forez to the poet Jean Hesnault, who thus found at Saint-Mandé an end of the poverty which he had so long paraded up and down the world, in the Low Countries, in England and in Sicily. Jean Hesnault was an intelligent person, but untrustworthy: "Loving pleasure with refinement," says Bayle, "delicately and artistically debauched."
A pupil of Gassendi, like Molière, Bernir and Cyrano, he was an atheist, and did not conceal the fact. For the rest, he was a good poet, and he had a great spirit. Was it his audacious, profound and melancholy philosophy which recommended him to the Superintendent's favour? Hardly. Foucquet in his times of good fortune was far too much occupied with the affairs of this world to be greatly interested in those of another. And when misfortune brought him leisure, he is said to have sought consolation in piety. However that may be, the kindness which he showed to Jean Hesnault was not bestowed upon an ungrateful recipient. Hesnault, as we shall see, appeared among the most ardent defenders of the Superintendent in the days of his misfortune. Foucquet also counted among his pensioners a man as pious as Hesnault was the reverse. I refer to Guillaume de Brébeuf, a Norman nobleman, who translated the Pharsale, who was extremely zealous in converting the Calvinists of his province. He was always shivering with fever; but his greatest misfortune was his poverty. Cardinal Mazarin had made him many promises; it was Foucquet who kept them.
He also helped Boisrobert, who was growing old. Now, old age, which is never welcome to anybody, is most unwelcome to buffoons. This poetical Abbé, whom Richelieu described as "the ardent solicitor of the unwilling Muses," had long been accustomed to ask, to receive and to thank. Compliments cost him nothing, and he stuffed his collected Épîtres en vers, published in 1658, with eulogies, in which Foucquet is compared to the heroes, the gods and the stars. Gombault, who wrote in a more concise style, and was a shepherd on Parnassus, dedicated his Danaides to him, by way of expressing his thanks. Before 1658 this poet of the Hôtel de Rambouillet had experienced the financier's generosity. As for poor Scarron, he was in an unfortunate position. He, unhappy man, had taken part in the Fronde. He had decried Jules, and Jules, not generally vindictive, was not forgiving in this case, where to forgive was to pay. Foucquet treated the Frondeur as a beggar, and then, repenting, gave him a pension of 1600 livres. Nevertheless, he remained indigent and needy. His creditors often hammered violently at the knocker of his iron-clamped door, making a terrible noise in the street. Once the poet was blockaded by certain nasty-looking fellows. Three thousand francs, which Foucquet sent through the excellent Pellisson, came just in the nick of time to deliver him from prison. Madame Scarron was in the good books of Madame la Surintendante. From Foucquet she obtained for her husband the right to organize a company of unloaders at the city gates. The waggoners, doubtless, would have been just as well pleased to do without these unloaders, who made them pay through the nose, but the crippled poet who directed them received by this means a revenue of between two and three thousand livres.