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Updated: May 13, 2025
He turned towards Pellisson, who was meditating in the corner of the carriage some good arguments against the violent proceedings of Colbert. "My dear Pellisson," said Fouquet, "it is a great pity you are not a woman." "I think, on the contrary, it is very fortunate," replied Pellisson, "for, monseigneur, I am excessively ugly." "Pellisson!
"I have not observed their absence," said Pellisson, who, at this moment, was turning his back to Fouquet and walking the other way. "I do not see M. Lyodot," said Sorel, "who pays me my pension." "And I," said the abbe, at the window, "do not see M. d'Eymeris, who owes me eleven hundred livres from our last game at Brelan."
"Mordieu!" exclaimed the abbe, the first one to speak, "run M. Colbert through the body." "Monseigneur," said Pellisson, "you must speak to his majesty." "The king, my dear Pellisson, himself signed the order for the execution." "Well!" said the Comte de Chanost, "the execution must not take place, then; that is all." "Impossible," said Gourville, "unless we could corrupt the jailers."
The generality of women had their lovers; even the famous Mlle. de Scudéry, in spite of her homeliness—she was a dark, large-boned, and lean sort of old maid—had admirers galore; among the latter was Pellisson who was said to be so ugly "that he really abused the privilege—which man enjoys—of being homely."
Pellisson, famous for ugliness and for wit, the Acanthe of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, the beloved of Sappho Scudéry, was his chief clerk. Pellisson was then a Protestant; but Fouquet's disgrace, and four years in the Bastille, led him to reëxamine the grounds of his religious faith.
"Recover yourselves, messieurs," said Fouquet, "for perhaps we are watched I said: to die!" "To die!" repeated Pellisson; "what, the men I saw six days ago, full of health, gayety, and the spirit of the future! What then is man, good God! that disease should thus bring him down, all at once!" "It is not a disease," said Fouquet. "Then there is a remedy," said Sorel. "No remedy.
"We will send the idle and useless to look at the fireworks," said Pellisson to Gourville, "whilst we converse here." "So be it," said Gourville, addressing four words to Vatel.
"Who took them from here?" "An order from the king." "Oh! woe! woe!" exclaimed Fouquet, striking his forehead. "Woe!" and without saying a single word more to the governor, he threw himself back in his carriage, despair in his heart, and death on his countenance. "Well!" said Pellisson, with great anxiety. "Our friends are lost. Colbert is conveying them to the donjon.
They converse upon all the topics of the day, from fashion to politics, from literature and the arts to the last item of gossip. They read their works, talk about them, criticize them, and vie with one another in improvising verses. Pellisson takes notes and leaves us a multitude of madrigals, sonnets, chansons and letters of varied merit. He says there reigned a sort of epidemic of little poems.
One of its original functions was the preparation of a great Dictionary of the French language, under the special care of the eminent grammarian, Vaugelas, who had through his lifetime made collections "various beautiful and curious observations," as Pellisson calls them towards a reasoned philological study of French.
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