[286] Although this remark seems to refer to the Baron de Beauvais, capitaine des chasses, to whom the king had given the right of selling the briars and brambles growing on the road to Versailles, the portrait of Ergastus alludes to those men who were for ever advising to tax articles not already imposed, and by whom France became finally ruined.
[287] Berrier, one of the secretaries of Colbert, is said to have been the original of Crito.
[288] This is generally believed to refer to de Pontchartrain, mentioned before, who, for some time, was very pious.
[289] See page [136], note 266.
[290] The old English translations of the “Characters” say this is an allusion to M. Fouquet (1615-1680), surintendant des finances, who, kept in prison by Louis XIV. for more than twenty years, had a great many friends and partisans when in prosperity, but they nearly all turned against him in his adversity.
[291] The desire to make oneʼs fortune was so great, that at that time, even at court, it was customary to take money from forgers and scoundrels; thus the Count de Grammont drew about fifty thousand livres from a peculator, and the wife of the son of the king of France received as a present from Louis XIV. the estate of a prisoner who had committed suicide in the Bastile, which was thought to be worth a great deal of money. A similar custom existed also at the courts of Charles II. and James II.; and William Penn was even accused of having become an agent for the maids-of-honour of the court, and of obtaining pardons for a pecuniary consideration, but it is now generally admitted it was another Penn who acted thus.
[292] The “Keys” think that either Nicholas dʼOrville, the confidant of Louis XIV. and Mdlle. de la Vallière, and royal treasurer at Orléans, or Boucherat, chancelier de France, and a perfect noodle, according to St. Simonʼs Mémoires, were alluded to as the “weak-minded men.”
[293] See page [43], note 121.
[294] A few of the “Keys” give Racine the poet as the original of such a man, but this is very unlikely, for Racine was a friend of our author, and, moreover, had acquired more glory than riches.
[295] Some commentators think that the Marquis de Seignelay, the eldest son of Colbert, is meant here; for after his death, which took place when he was only thirty-nine years old, he is said to have left five millions livres debts; others pretend he left a capital large enough to yield a yearly income of four hundred thousand francs.