Note 64 — CABINET CYCLOPÆDIA. (continued 5)

On the 3d April, 1680, Madame de Sévigné writes to her daughter, "My dear child, M. Fouquet is dead. I am grieved. Mademoiselle de Scuderi is deeply afflicted. Thus ends a life which it cost so much to preserve." Gourville, in his memoirs, speaks of his being liberated from prison as a certain thing: "M. Fouquet, being some time after set at liberty, heard how I had acted towards his wife, to whom I had lent more than a hundred thousand livres, for her subsistence, for the suit, and even to gain over some of the judges. After having written to thank me," &c. This seems to set the matter at rest. Voltaire says, in the "Siècle de Louis XIV.," that the countess de Vaux (Fouquet's daughter-in-law) confirmed the fact of his liberation: a portion of his family, however, believed differently in after times. His return, if set free, was secret, and did not take place long before his death.