Pellisson, having become the Superintendent's steward, bargained with his tax-farmers and corrected his master's love-letters, for he was a resourceful person; and, as he piqued himself especially on his wit, he obligingly served as Foucquet's intermediary with men of letters. On his recommendation the Superintendent gave a receipt for the taxes of Forez to the poet Jean Hesnault, who thus found at Saint-Mandé an end of the poverty which he had so long paraded up and down the world, in the Low Countries, in England and in Sicily. Jean Hesnault was an intelligent person, but untrustworthy: "Loving pleasure with refinement," says Bayle, "delicately and artistically debauched."
A pupil of Gassendi, like Molière, Bernir and Cyrano, he was an atheist, and did not conceal the fact. For the rest, he was a good poet, and he had a great spirit. Was it his audacious, profound and melancholy philosophy which recommended him to the Superintendent's favour? Hardly. Foucquet in his times of good fortune was far too much occupied with the affairs of this world to be greatly interested in those of another. And when misfortune brought him leisure, he is said to have sought consolation in piety. However that may be, the kindness which he showed to Jean Hesnault was not bestowed upon an ungrateful recipient. Hesnault, as we shall see, appeared among the most ardent defenders of the Superintendent in the days of his misfortune. Foucquet also counted among his pensioners a man as pious as Hesnault was the reverse. I refer to Guillaume de Brébeuf, a Norman nobleman, who translated the _Pharsale,_ who was extremely zealous in converting the Calvinists of his province. He was always shivering with fever; but his greatest misfortune was his poverty. Cardinal Mazarin had made him many promises; it was Foucquet who kept them.
He also helped Boisrobert, who was growing old. Now, old age, which is never welcome to anybody, is most unwelcome to buffoons. This poetical Abbé, whom Richelieu described as "the ardent solicitor of the unwilling Muses," had long been accustomed to ask, to receive and to thank. Compliments cost him nothing, and he stuffed his collected _Épîtres en vers,_ published in 1658, with eulogies, in which Foucquet is compared to the heroes, the gods and the stars. Gombault, who wrote in a more concise style, and was a shepherd on Parnassus, dedicated his _Danaides_ to him, by way of expressing his thanks. Before 1658 this poet of the Hôtel de Rambouillet had experienced the financier's generosity. As for poor Scarron, he was in an unfortunate position. He, unhappy man, had taken part in the Fronde. He had decried Jules, and Jules, not generally vindictive, was not forgiving in this case, where to forgive was to pay. Foucquet treated the Frondeur as a beggar, and then, repenting, gave him a pension of 1600 livres. Nevertheless, he remained indigent and needy. His creditors often hammered violently at the knocker of his iron-clamped door, making a terrible noise in the street. Once the poet was blockaded by certain nasty-looking fellows. Three thousand francs, which Foucquet sent through the excellent Pellisson, came just in the nick of time to deliver him from prison. Madame Scarron was in the good books of Madame la Surintendante. From Foucquet she obtained for her husband the right to organize a company of unloaders at the city gates. The waggoners, doubtless, would have been just as well pleased to do without these unloaders, who made them pay through the nose, but the crippled poet who directed them received by this means a revenue of between two and three thousand livres.