rquis de Belleile,--but better known as the _Surintendant_. In the
pleasant social annals of France, Fouquet is the type of splendor, and
of sudden, hopeless ruin. "There was never a man so magnificent, there
was never a man so unfortunate," say the lively gentlemen and ladies in
their _Memoires_. His story is told to point the old and dreary moral of
the instability of human prosperity. It is, indeed, like a tale of the
"Arabian Nights." The Dervish is made Grand Vizier. He marries the
Sultan's daughter. His palace owes its magical beauty to the Genies. The
pillars are of jasper, the bases and capitals of massive gold. The
Sultan frowns, waves his hand, and the crowd, who kissed the favorite's
slipper yesterday, hoot and jeer as they see him pass by to his dungeon,
disgraced, stripped, and beaten, Fouquet was of good family, the son of
a Councillor of State in Louis XIII.'s time. Educated for the
magistracy, he became a _Maitre des Requetes_ (say Master in Chancery)
at twenty, and at thirty-five _Procureur-General_ (or Attorney-General)
of the Parliament of Paris, which was only a court of justice, although
it frequently attempted to usurp legislative, and even executive
functions. During the rebellious troubles of the Fronde, the Procureur
and his brother, the Abbe Fouquet, remained faithful to Mazarin and to
the throne. The Abbe, in the ardor of his zeal, once offered the Queen
his services to kill De Retz and salt him, if she would give her
consent. It was at the request of the Queen that the Cardinal made the
trusty Procureur _Surintendant des Finances_, the first position in
France after the throne and the prime-ministership.

Pensions, and the promise of comfortable places, had collected about the
Surintendant talent, fashion, and beauty. Some of the ablest men in the
kingdom were in his employ. Pellisson, famous for ugliness and for wit,
the _Acanthe_ of the Hotel de Rambouillet, the beloved of Sappho
Scudery, was his chief clerk. Pellisson was then a Protestant; but
Fouquet's disgrace, and four years in the Bastille, led him to reexamine
the grounds of his religious faith. He became, luckily, enlightened on
the subject of his heresies at a time when the renunciation of
Protestantism led to honors and wealth. Change of condition followed
change of doctrine. The King attached him to his person as Secretary and
Historiographer, and gave him the management of the fund for the
conversion of Huguenots. Gourville, whom