In the first quarter of 1660, all he produced was a dizaine for Madame
Foucquet. Foucquet, not unnaturally, mildly objected; and the poet
replied:
Bien vous dirai qu'au nombre s'arrêter
N'est pas le mieux, seigneur....
Foucquet was content and did not trouble his poetic debtor any further.
The latter thought that he would pay his debt by a descriptive poem of
some length, but this poem, _Le Songe de Vaux,_ was never finished. The
terrible awakening was near at hand.
We have already seen La Fontaine in the gallery at Saint-Mandé. Whilst
he was waiting Foucquet was busy, whether with an affair of State or of
the heart is doubtful, for he burnt the candle at both ends. "He took
everything upon himself," says the Abbé de Choisy, "he aspired to be
the first Minister, without losing a single moment of his pleasures.
He would pretend to be working alone in his study at Saint-Mandé; and
the whole Court, anticipating his future greatness, would wait in
his antechamber, loudly praising the indefatigable industry of this
great man, while he himself would go down the private staircase into
a garden, where his nymphs, whose names I might mention if I chose,
and they were not among the least distinguished, awaited him, and for
no small reward."[50] He would send sometimes three, sometimes four
thousand pistoles to the ladies of his heart,[51] and some of the most
charming sought to please him.[52]
Would it be true, however, to say with Nicolas: