Léon Foucault

“ But devil take me if I recollect this accident!"
"I'll make you a little dressing, and in a couple of days there will be no trace of it left."
"Don't give yourself the trouble, my dear Hippocrates: a pinch of powder is a sovereign cure!"
M. Nibor set to work to dress the ear in a little less military fashion. During his operations Léon re-entered.
"Ah! ah!" said he to the doctor: "you are repairing the harm I did."
"Thunderation!" cried Fougas, escaping from the hands of M. Nibor so as to seize Léon by the collar, "was it you, you rascal, that hurt my ear?" ”

“ In a report read to the Academy of Moral Sciences on the results of the law of March 22, 1841, M. Leon Faucher expressed himself thus:
Young workmen are pale, weak, short in stature, and slow to think as well as to move. At fourteen or fifteen years they seem no more developed than children of nine or ten years in the normal state. As for their intellectual and moral development, there are some to be found who, at the age of thirteen, have no notion of God, who have never heard of their duties, and whose first school of morality was a prison. ”

“ Latterly, indeed, they have been less read, for thought is turning to fresh fields, and society seems to be entering upon a new era.
No man more fully recognized the great change that was going on, or did more to help it forward, than Nicolas Fouquet, Vicomte de Vaux, and Marquis de Belleîle,—but better known as the Surintendant. In the pleasant social annals of France, Fouquet is the type of splendor, and of sudden, hopeless ruin. "There was never a man so magnificent, there was never a man so unfortunate," say the lively gentlemen and ladies in their Mémoires. ”

“ Small things often help great ones; and a clever mechanical invention by a Frenchman named Foucault, for enabling blind people to write, was not an unimportant link in the chain that drew Miss Gilbert out of her despondency. By means of this writing frame, she entered into correspondence with a young blind man, named William Hanks Levy, who had lately married the matron of the St. John’s Wood School for the Blind. Levy entered with great zeal, enthusiasm, and originality into all the schemes Miss Gilbert began to form for the welfare of the blind. ”

“ Twenty years had passed away since the fall of the Surintendant. But in how much shorter space of time are services forgotten! In the especially fruitful period from 1660 to 1680, other and more illustrious names had filled the world’s stage and usurped fame. In that court which he had dazzled with his splendour, Fouquet had long since been forgotten, and only a few friends sympathized with his misfortunes. If he who has lent such touching language to the nymphs of Vaux was silent, if the death of his benefactor inspired him with no theme, it was not because he declined to believe in it. ”

“ THE CHÂTEAU DE VAUX-LE-VICOMTE PREFACE
In 1656, Foucquet was forty-one years of age. For five years he had been Attorney-General in the Paris Parliament, and for three Comptroller of Finance, having been the control of the Treasury at the troubles which had afflicted France during the minority of Louis XIV. He had successfully weathered a difficult period, and had acquired no little confidence in his genius and his guiding star. Now, in the prime of life, feeling securely established in office, he proceeded to order his life in accordance with the magnificence of his tastes. ”

“ Do as I do, Monsieur Fouquet, you will not find yourself the worse for it; a fall happens only once in a lifetime to men like yourself, and the chief thing is, to take it gracefully when the chance presents itself. There is a Latin proverb—the words have escaped me, but I remember the sense of it very well, for I have thought over it more than once—which says, ‘The end crowns the work!’”
Fouquet rose from his seat, passed his arm round D’Artagnan’s neck, and clasped him in a close embrace, whilst with the other hand he pressed his hand. ”

“ Oh! no, sire. I do not undertake that. I hope to be able to procure your majesty a little pleasure, perhaps even a little forgetfulness of the cares of state.”
“Nay, nay, M. Fouquet,” returned the king; “I insist upon the word ‘wonders.’ You are a magician, I believe; we all know the power you wield; we also know that you can find gold even when there is none to be found elsewhere; so much so, indeed, that people say you coin it.”
Fouquet felt that the shot was discharged from a double quiver, and that the king had launched an arrow from his own bow as well as one from Colbert’s. ”

“ They really brought me from Vaux to the Louvre in an hour and a half, so your majesty sees I have not been cheated.” The queen-mother smiled with something like secret envy. But Fouquet caught her thought. “Thus, madame,” he promptly said, “such horses are made for kings, not for subjects; for kings ought never to yield to any one in anything.”
The king looked up.
“And yet,” interrupted Anne of Austria, “you are not a king, that I know of, M. Fouquet.” ”

“ But Jean Marot was intensely egoist and was prone to regard that which he wanted as already his.
Mlle. Fouchette was facing the same question on her own account,—a fact which she concealed from both as far as possible by making herself believe it was his affair exclusively. As it is always easier to grapple with the difficulties of others than with our own, she soon found means to encourage her illusion. ”

“ Please to observe, Monsieur Fouquet, that if, instead of speaking to man like you, who are one of the first in the kingdom, I were speaking to a troubled, uneasy conscience—I should compromise myself forever. What a fine opportunity for any one who wished to be free! No police, no guards, no orders; the water free, the roads free, Monsieur d’Artagnan obliged to lend his horses, if required. All this ought to reassure you, Monsieur Fouquet, for the king would not have left me thus independent, if he had any sinister designs. ”

“ Why are not the great masters of psychological maxims more read? For, without any exaggeration, the educated man in Europe who has read La Rochefoucauld and his kindred in mind and art, is rarely found, and still more rare is he who knows them and does not blame them. It is probable, however, that even this exceptional reader will find much less pleasure in them than the form of this artist should afford him; for even the clearest head is not capable of rightly estimating the art of shaping and polishing maxims unless he has really been brought up to it and has competed in it. ”

“ Fouquet started, for these words recalled all the anxieties connected with his office of superintendent—he who, for the last few minutes, had indulged in all the wild aspirations of the lover. “I unhappy?” he said, endeavoring to smile: “indeed, marquise, you will almost make me believe I am so, judging from your own sadness. Are your beautiful eyes raised upon me merely in pity? I was looking for another expression from them.”
“It is not I who am sad, monsieur; look in the mirror, there—it is yourself.” ”

“ In the department of the Nièvre he ransacked the churches, sent their spoils to the treasury and established the cult of the goddess of Reason. Over the cemeteries, he ordered these words to be inscribed: “Death is an eternal sleep.” He also waged war against luxury and wealth, and desired to abolish the use of money. The new cult was inaugurated at Paris at Notre Dame by the strange orgy known as “The Festival of Reason” (November 10, 1793) .
Fouché then proceeded to Lyons to execute the vengeance of the Convention on that city, which had revolted against the new Jacobin tyranny. ”

“ Men of the highest mental powers are capable of abusing them to the worst purposes, and thus of sinking fearfully low in the moral scale. The case of a man like Fouché will illustrate my argument, a man gifted with high intellectual powers, but who sunk into the lowest condition of moral turpitude. Such a man is incomparably worse than the first original savage. I submit, therefore, that whatever view we may take of the condition in which man was originally created, even if he were created a savage, yet he was made a moral being capable of elevation or degradation ”

“ In the first place, M. Fouquet presents himself. What is M. Fouquet? M. Fouquet,” replied D’Artagnan to himself, “is a handsome man, very much beloved by the women, a generous man very much beloved by the poets; a man of wit, much execrated by pretenders. Well, now I am neither woman, poet, nor pretender: I neither love nor hate monsieur le surintendant. I find myself, therefore, in the same position in which M. de Turenne found himself when opposed to the Prince de Conde at Jargeau, Gien and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. ”

“ Furthermore, his majesty has asked my opinion, I have given it; if his majesty ask my concurrence, it will be the same.”
“Nonsense! accept, my son, accept,” said Anne of Austria. “You are above reports and interpretations.”
“Refuse, sire,” said Fouquet. “As long as a king lives, he has no other measure but his conscience,—no other judge than his own desires; but when dead, he has posterity, which applauds or accuses.”
“Thank you, mother,” replied Louis, bowing respectfully to the queen. “Thank you Monsieur, Fouquet,” said he, dismissing the superintendent civilly. ”

“ Such were the secret causes of the sway exercised by Fouché during the Convention, the Directory, the Empire, the Usurpation, and after the second return of the Bourbons. He helped to found and to destroy every one of those successive Governments. Fouché's character is perfectly unique. I know no other man who, loaded with honours, and almost escaping disgrace, has passed through so many eventful periods, and taken part in so many convulsions and revolutions. ”

“ It would not be easy to define the sentiments or state the expectations of Mlle. Fouchette. Whatever they were, she would have been unable to formulate them herself.
Mlle. Fouchette was simply and insensibly conforming to her manner of life. She was drifting. She did not know where. She never thought of towards what end or to what purpose.
Those who know woman best never assume to reduce her to the logical rules which govern the mathematical mind, but are always prepared for the little eccentricities which render her at once so charming and uncertain. ”

“ The godlike face of the painter glowed with the enthusiasm that consumed his soul. He now turned his grand eyes upon the girl with inexpressible sadness.
"That is a question that does not concern us," said he, "except as another means to an end. Innocent or guilty, shall the pleasure or pain of one man stand between the millions of our countrymen and the welfare and perpetuity of France?"
"Never!" cried Mlle. Fouchette, in her excitement bringing down the salad-bowl with a crash that sent the pieces flying about the room.
"Parbleu!" exclaimed Jean, laughing heartily; "there goes my salad!" ”

“ As Fouchette began rapidly to recover her strength she also recovered her self-possession, also the results of her training. Foremost among these were her suspicions of the police, whom she had come to believe were organized by society to restrain and harass the poor; that the informer was the lowest grade of humanity.
In addition to these precepts of the barriers, Fouchette was afraid. She knew the character of those whom she had left behind. She felt certain that if she betrayed them to the police she would be put out of the way. ”

“ Deprived long since of all physical exercise, and having suddenly exchanged an existence, excited by travel, and adorned by everything that could make life attractive and sweet, for the solitude and inactivity of a prison, Fouquet had seen his health rapidly decay, and innumerable disorders seize on him. ”

“ Aramis smiled.
“But,” inquired Fouquet, with some remaining uneasiness, “how is it that while you are now squandering millions in this manner, a few days ago you did not pay the fifty thousand francs to Baisemeaux out of your own pocket?”
“Because a few days ago I was as poor as Job.”
“And to-day?”
“To-day I am wealthier than the king himself.”
“Very well,” said Fouquet; “I understand men pretty well; I know you are incapable of forfeiting your word; I do not wish to wrest your secret from you, and so let us talk no more about it.” ”

“ It is more difficult for a man to bring himself to the acknowledgment of political errors than to confess to infractions of the moral law.
In the mean time Mlle. Fouchette had cleared away and washed the breakfast things and stood ready to deliver the missive of peace.
[344] "It is very singular," he repeated to himself after she had departed upon this errand, "very singular, indeed, that this girl—really, I don't know just what to think of her." ”

“ Pardon me for thinking it, Fouchette, but I was half crazy,—I thought but just now that it was—was you!"
"Idiot!"
"Yes, I know; but one does not stop to reason where one loves."
"As if I would throw myself into the arms of any man! You sicken me, Madeleine. But I thought this Lerouge, whoever he is,—I never even saw him,—had disappeared——"
"From his place in the Rue Monge, yes. Fouchette, why should he run away?"
"With a girl he likes better than you? What a question! All men do that, you silly goose!" ”

“ The king, who was accustomed to hear M. Colbert speak in not over-scrupulous terms of M. Fouquet, allowed this remark to pass unanswered, and merely listened. Colbert noticed the effect it had produced, and hastened to back out, saying that M. Fouquet was not on all occasions as blamable as at the first glance might seem to be the case, inasmuch as at that moment he was greatly occupied. The king looked up. “What do you allude to?” he said.
“Sire, men are but men, and M. Fouquet has his defects as well as his great qualities.” ”