The praises of Boileau, although well versified, had not, however, the fortune to please him.  He found those verses too methodical for poetry; and the poet, moreover, seemed to him somewhat a huckster, and in bad taste.  The satirists might do what they liked, they never had his friendship.  Perhaps he feared them.

When Le Brun started preparing the magnificent cradle of the great gallery, he composed for the ceiling rich designs or cartoons, which in their entirety should represent the victories and great military or legislative achievements of the prince.  His work being finished, he came to present it to his Majesty, who on that day was dining with me.  In one of the compartments the painter had depicted his hero in the guise of Bacchus; the King immediately took up a bottle of clear water and drank a big glass.  I gave a great peal of laughter, and said to M. le Brun, “You see, monsieur, his Majesty’s decision in that libation of pure water.”

M. le Brun changed his design, seeing the King had no love for Bacchus, but he left the Thundering Jove, and all the other mythological flatteries, in regard to which no opinion had been given.

The Jesuits for a long time past had groaned at seeing, exactly opposite the Palace,—­[In the midst of the semicircle in front of the Palais de Justice. ]—­in the centre of Paris, that humiliating pyramid which accused them of complicity with, or inciting, the famous regicide of the student, Jean Chatel, assassin of Henri IV.  Pere de la Chaise, many times and always in vain, had prayed his Majesty to render justice to the virtues of his order, and to command the destruction of this slanderous monument.  The King had constantly refused, alleging to-day one motive, to-morrow another.  One day, when the professed House of Paris came to hand him a respectful petition on the subject, his Majesty begged Madame de Maintenon to read it to him, and engaged us to listen to it with intelligence, in order to be able to give an opinion.

The Jesuits said in this document that the Parliament, with an excessive zeal, had formerly pushed things much too far in this matter.  “For that Jean Chatel, student with the Jesuit Fathers, having been heard to say to his professor that the King of Navarre, a true Huguenot, ought not to reign over France, which was truly Catholic, the magistrates were not, therefore, justified in concluding that that Jesuit, and all the Jesuits, had directed the dagger of Jean Chatel, a madman.”

The petition further pointed out that “the good King Henri IV., who was better informed, had decided to recall the Society of Jesus, had reestablished it in all his colleges, and had even chosen a confessor from their ranks.

“This fearful pyramid,

[This monument represented a sort of small square temple, built of Arcueil stone and marble.  Corinthian fluted pillars formed its general decoration, and enshrined the four fulminatory inscriptions.  Independently of the obelisk, the cupola of this temple bore eight allegorical statues, of which the one was France in mourning; the second, Justice raising her sword, and the others the principal virtues of the King.  On the principal side these words occurred:  “Passer-by, whosoever thou be, abhor Jean Chatel, and the Jesuits who beguiled his youth and destroyed his reason.”—­Editor’s note.]