Page:Biographical and critical miscellanies (IA biographicalcrit00presrich).pdf/403

 awnined Louis to take the first oceasion of dismissing his powerful minister; but his ruin was precipitated and completed by the discovery of an indiscreet passion for Madame de la Valliére, whose fascinating graces were then beginning to acquire for her that asecndency over the youthful monarch which has since condemned her name to such unfortunate celebrity. 'The portrait of this lady, seen in the apartments of the favourite on the occasion to which we have adverted, so incensed Louis, that he would have had him arrested on the spot but for the seasonable intervention of the queen-motler, who reminded him that Fouquet was his host. It wasifor this fête at Vaux, whose palace and ample domains, covering the extent of three villages, had cost their proprietor the sum, almost incredible for that period, of eighteen million livres, that Fouquet put in requisition all the various talents of the capital, the dexterity of its artists, and the invention of its finest poets, He was particularly lavish in his preparations for the dramatic portion of the entertainment. Le Brun passed for a while from his victories of Alexander to paint the theatrical decorations; Torelli was cmployed to contrive the machinery; Pelisson furnished the prologue, much admired in its day, and Molière his comedy of the Facheux,

This piece, the hint for which may have been suggested by Horace's ninth satire, Ibam forte vid Suerd, is au amusing caricature of the various bores that infest society, rendered the more vexatious by their intervention at the very moment when a young