nderful conclusion again raised the mirth of all present.

"And I have sold the first edition of this little book for eight hundred
livres," exclaimed La Fontaine, rubbing his hands together. "Serious and
religious books sell at about half that rate."

"It would have been better," said Gourville, "to have written two
religious books instead."

"It would have been too long and not amusing enough," replied La
Fontaine, tranquilly; "my eight hundred livres are in this little bag,
and I beg to offer them as my contribution."

As he said this, he placed his offering in the hands of their treasurer;
it was then Loret's turn, who gave a hundred and fifty livres; the
others stripped themselves in the same way; and the total sum in the
purse amounted to forty thousand livres. The money was still being
counted over when the surintendant noiselessly entered the room; he had
heard everything; and then this man, who had possessed so many millions,
who had exhausted all the pleasures and honors that this world had to
bestow, this generous heart, this inexhaustible brain, which had, like
two burning crucibles, devoured the material and moral substance of the
first kingdom in the world, was seen to cross the threshold with his
eyes filled with tears, and pass his fingers through the gold and
silver which the bag contained.

"Poor offering," he said, in a softened and affected tone of voice; "you
will disappear in the smallest corner of my empty purse, but you have
filled to overflowing that which no one can ever exhaust, my heart.
Thank you, my friends--thank you." And as he could not embrace every one
present, who were all weeping a little, philosophers as they were, he
embraced La Fontaine, saying to him, "Poor fellow! so you have, on my
account, been beaten by your wife and censured by your confessor."

"Oh! it is a mere nothing," replied the poet; "if your creditors will
only wait a couple of years, I shall have written a hundred other tales,
which, at two editions each, will pay off the debt."

CHAPTER LIII.

LA FONTAINE IN THE CHARACTER OF A NEGOTIATOR.

Fouquet pressed La Fontaine's hand most warmly, saying to him, "My dear
poet, write a hundred other tales, not only for the eighty pistoles
which each of them will produce you, but, still more, to enrich our
language with a hundred other master-pieces of composition."

"Oh! oh!" said La Fontaine, with a little air of pride, "you must not
suppose that I have onl