interrupted Loret.

“Oh, no!” said La Fontaine, “he is far from being jealous. He accosted me, embraced me, and took me to the inn called L’Image Saint-Fiacre, and told me all about his troubles.”

“He has his troubles, then?”

“Yes; his wife wants to make him ambitious.”

“Well, and he told you — ”

“That some one had spoken to him about a post in parliament; that M. Fouquet’s name had been mentioned; that ever since, Madame Vanel dreams of nothing else than being called madame la procureur-generale, and that it makes her ill and kills her every night she does not dream about it.”