agnan at M.
Percerin's, returned to Saint-Mande in no very good humor. Moliere,
on the other hand, quite delighted at having made such a capital rough
sketch, and at knowing where to find his original again, whenever he
should desire to convert his sketch into a picture, Moliere arrived in
the merriest of moods. All the first story of the left wing was occupied
by the most celebrated Epicureans in Paris, and those on the freest
footing in the house--every one in his compartment, like the bees in
their cells, employed in producing the honey intended for that royal
cake which M. Fouquet proposed to offer his majesty Louis XIV. during
the _fete_ at Vaux. Pelisson, his head leaning on his hand, was engaged
in drawing out the plan of the prologue to the "Facheux," a comedy in
three acts, which was to be put on the stage by Poquelin de Moliere, as
D'Artagnan called him, or Coquelin de Voliere, as Porthos styled him.
Loret, with all the charming innocence of a gazetteer,--the gazetteers
of all ages have always been so artless!--Loret was composing an
account of the _fetes_ at Vaux, before those _fetes_ had taken place.
La Fontaine sauntered about from one to the other, a peripatetic,
absent-minded, boring, unbearable dreamer, who kept buzzing and humming
at everybody's elbow a thousand poetic abstractions. He so often
disturbed Pelisson, that the latter, raising his head, crossly said, "At
least, La Fontaine, supply me with a rhyme, since you have the run of
the gardens at Parnassus."

"What rhyme do you want?" asked the _Fabler_ as Madame de Sevigne used
to call him.

"I want a rhyme to _lumiere_."

"_Orniere_," answered La Fontaine.

"Ah, but, my good friend, one cannot talk of _wheel-ruts_ when
celebrating the delights of Vaux," said Loret.

"Besides, it doesn't rhyme," answered Pelisson.

"What! doesn't rhyme!" cried La Fontaine, in surprise.

"Yes; you have an abominable habit, my friend,--a habit which will ever
prevent your becoming a poet of the first order. You rhyme in a slovenly
manner."

"Oh, oh, you think so, do you, Pelisson?"

"Yes, I do, indeed. Remember that a rhyme is never good so long as one
can find a better."

"Then I will never write anything again save in prose," said La
Fontaine, who had taken up Pelisson's reproach in earnest. "Ah! I often
suspected I was nothing but a rascally poet! Yes, 'tis the very truth."

"Do not say so; your remark is too sweeping, and there is much that is
good