e parliament; and this speech was a masterpiece, because
Pelisson wrote it for his friend--that is to say, he inserted all kinds
of clever things the latter would most certainly never have taken the
trouble to say of his own accord. Presently Loret and La Fontaine would
enter from the garden, engaged in a dispute about the art of making
verses. The painters and musicians, in their turn, were hovering near
the dining-room. As soon as eight o'clock struck the supper would be
announced, for the superintendent never kept any one waiting. It was
already half-past seven, and the appetites of the guests were beginning
to declare themselves in an emphatic manner. As soon as all the guests
were assembled, Gourville went straight up to Pelisson, awoke him out
of his reverie, and led him into the middle of a room, and closed the
doors. "Well," he said, "anything new?"

Pelisson raised his intelligent and gentle face, and said: "I have
borrowed five and twenty thousand francs of my aunt, and I have them
here in good sterling money."

"Good," replied Gourville; "we only what one hundred and ninety-five
thousand livres for the first payment."

"The payment of what?" asked La Fontaine.

"What! absent-minded as usual! Why, it was you who told us the small
estate at Corbeli was going to be sold by one of M. Fouquet's creditors;
and you, also, who proposed that all his friends should subscribe--more
than that, it was you who said that you would sell a corner of your
house at Chateau-Thierry, in order to furnish your own proportion, and
you come and ask--'_The payment of what?_'"

This remark was received with a general laugh, which made La Fontaine
blush. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I had not forgotten it; oh, no!
only--"

"Only you remembered nothing about it," replied Loret.

"That is the truth, and the fact is, he is quite right, there is a great
difference between forgetting and not remembering."

"Well, then," added Pelisson, "you bring your mite in the shape of the
price of the piece of land you have sold?"

"Sold? no!"

"Have you not sold the field, then?" inquired Gourville, in
astonishment, for he knew the poet's disinterestedness.

"My wife would not let me," replied the latter, at which there were
fresh bursts of laughter.

"And yet you went to Chateau-Thierry for that purpose," said some one.

"Certainly I did, and on horseback."

"Poor fellow!"

"I had eight different horses, and I was almost bumped to