(y) To be civil to the German Ambassadress.
(z) To change my clothes three times a day.
That is my alphabet of negation. It is incomplete. Yet to write it and read it over and over again fills me with ecstasy.
March, 1670.—A most annoying incident happened to-day. The upper tower, at the western angle of the Castle, is occupied by Fouquet and Lauzun. The King promised me solemnly that neither of them should be allowed to hold any communication with me. To-day one of Fouquet's servants entered my room and spoke to me, asking me whether I had anything of importance to communicate. I told him very sharply to go to the devil. If this happens again I shall ask to be moved to a quieter prison.
It is extraordinary that even in a place like this one cannot be free from the importunity and the impertinence of human curiosity.
April 3, 1670.—As the days go on, I enjoy myself more and more. A cargo of books arrived yesterday from Paris, sent by the King, but Saint Mars had the good sense not to bring them to me. He merely notified the fact on a slip of paper, which he left on my plate. I scribbled a note to the effect that he could throw them to the bottom of the sea, or read them himself, or give them to Fouquet's servant. Books indeed! It is no longer, thank God, necessary for me to read books, or to have an opinion on them!
November 1, 1671.—Lauzun has been sent here. The prison is getting far too crowded. It will soon be as bad as Versailles.
November 10.—Lauzun is being very tiresome. He taps on my ceiling. I wrote a short note to Saint Mars that if this annoyance continued I should be constrained to leave his prison.
March 3, 1680.—The situation was intolerable. Lauzun and Fouquet found some means of communication and they carried on interminable conversations. What they can have to talk about passes my understanding. I bore it patiently for some days. At last I complained to Saint Mars in writing, he took some steps and it appears that Fouquet has had an attack of apoplexy and died. I cannot endure the neighbourhood of Lauzun, and I have written to the King saying that unless I am transferred to a quieter dungeon I shall leave the prison.
April 8, 1680.—Matters have been arranged satisfactorily, and I have been moved into the lower chamber of the Tour d'en bas. But the whole fortress is far too crowded. There are at least five prisoners in it. Also I found a tame mouse here, left I suppose by a former occupant. Had the nuisance removed at once. It is delicious to be safely in prison just now that the spring is beginning and to think that I shall not have to spend chilly evenings in wet gardens and to speak foolishly of the damp April weather.