id not appear
dissatisfied with the welcome given to the ordering of the evening's
entertainment. The fireworks over, the company dispersed about the
gardens and beneath the marble porticoes with the delightful liberty
which reveals in the master of the house so much forgetfulness
of greatness, so much courteous hospitality, so much magnificent
carelessness. The poets wandered about, arm in arm, through the groves;
some reclined upon beds of moss, to the great damage of velvet clothes
and curled heads, into which little dried leaves and blades of grass
insinuated themselves. The ladies, in small numbers, listened to the
songs of the singers and the verses of the poets; others listened to the
prose, spoken with much art, by men who were neither actors nor poets,
but to whom youth and solitude gave an unaccustomed eloquence, which
appeared to them better than everything else in the world. "Why," said
La Fontaine, "does not our master Epicurus descend into the garden?
Epicurus never abandoned his pupils, the master is wrong."

"Monsieur," said Conrart, "you yourself are in the wrong persisting in
decorating yourself with the name of an Epicurean; indeed, nothing here
reminds me of the doctrine of the philosopher of Gargetta."

"Bah!" said La Fontaine, "is it not written that Epicurus purchased a
large garden and lived in it tranquilly with his friends?"

"That is true."

"Well, has not M. Fouquet purchased a large garden at Saint-Mande, and
do we not live here very tranquilly with him and his friends?"

"Yes, without doubt; unfortunately it is neither the garden nor the
friends which constitute the resemblance. Now, what likeness is there
between the doctrine of Epicurus and that of M. Fouquet?"

"This--pleasure gives happiness."

"Next?"

"Well, I do not think we ought to consider ourselves unfortunate, for
my part, at least. A good repast--vin de Foigny, which they have the
delicacy to go and fetch for me from my favorite cabaret--not one
impertinence heard during a supper an hour long, in spite of the
presence of ten millionaires and twenty poets."

"I stop you there. You mentioned vin de Foigny, and a good repast, do
you persist in that?"

"I persist,--anteco, as they say at Port Royal."

"Then please to recollect that the great Epicurus lived, and made his
pupils live, upon bread, vegetables, and water."

"That is not certain," said La Fontaine; "and you appear to me to be
confounding Epicurus with Pyth