sometimes sent him to Château Thierry, for the purpose of selling part
of his estate, to provide for his expenses at Paris. His improvident
practice, of consuming the principal after the interest was gone,
"_mangant son fonds aprez son revenu_," as he himself expressed it,
together with his wife's want of economy--for in this at least they
perfectly agreed,--would have soon left him destitute, if he had not
become known to the celebrated and unfortunate Foucquet. That prodigal
financier and magnificent patron, upon being made acquainted with the
genius, character, and wants of La Fontaine, settled on him a liberal
pension, to be paid quarterly, on the condition of a quarterly quittance
in verse; and this condition he religiously fulfilled. His pension, or
rather his gratitude, dictated to him some of the most beautiful of his
smaller pieces. He celebrated and ministered to the fêtes and
gallantries, and sang the groves, gardens, and fountains, of
_Vaux_,--that princely residence, which Foucquet adorned with all that
wealth, prodigality, and the arts could produce; and which, it has been
supposed, contributed not a little to his ruin, by provoking the jealous
or envious pride of Louis XIV.
Though La Fontaine's acknowledgments are grateful, they are not servile.
Whatever appears exaggerated at the present day fell far short of the
tone of his contemporaries, and is moreover nobly borne out by his
fidelity in his patron's memorable disgrace.
Foucquet provoked, not only the displeasure, but the personal jealousy
and vengeance of Louis XIV., by rivalling him in princely magnificence
at Vaux; and in gallantry, it has been said, by making pretensions to
the royal mistress La Vallière[48]; yet had La Fontaine not only the
generosity to adhere to him, but the courage, for such it was, to
solicit his pardon of Louis XIV., in an elegy full of touching pathos
and philosophy. Alluding to the fickleness of fortune and court favour,
he says:--
"On n'y connait que trop les jeux de la fortune,
Ses trompeuses faveurs, ses appas inconstans,
Mais on ne les connait que quand il n'est plus temps."
To move Louis he brings before him the example of Henry IV.--
"Du magnanime Henri qu'il contemple la vie,
Des qu'il put se venger, il en perdit l'envie."
Louis, however, alike insensible to justice, mercy, and poetry, changed,
by a mockery of commutation, the minister's sentence of banishment into
solitary confinement for life. Colbert, the enemy and successor of
Foucquet, could not forgive the crime of fidelity to a fallen patron in
a poet, and took away La Fontaine's pension.
La Fontaine, it has been observed, was in his twenty-third year before
he gave the least indication of the poetic faculty. He had passed his
fortieth before his genius and reputation attained their full height and
splendour. A small volume, entitled "Contes et Merveilles en vers,"
published with his name, in 1664, determined his place as a poet,
established his supremacy over all fabulists, modern and ancient, and
formed an epoch in French literature. His fortune did not improve with
his fame. It is true that his celebrity made him known to the prince of
Condé and the duke and abbé de Villars, by whom, as well as by the
duchesses of Bouillon and Mazarin, he was occasionally and liberally
supplied; but his want of all order and economy rendered their
liberality unavailing, because it was irregular and occasional.
He joined in the universal pæan of the day to Louis XIV. His tale of
"Psyche and Cupid" is disfigured by episodic descriptions of the
magnificence of Versailles, with a due seasoning of compliment to the
great king; but he continued unpatronised, even after the death of
Colbert, whose injustice to La Fontaine is a stain upon his otherwise
illustrious memory. The neglect, or, it may be termed, the exception of
him by Louis, who was so munificent to other men of genius, has been
accounted for.[49] That monarch admired and rewarded only those talents
which ministered to his pride or his pleasures--to the splendours of his
court or government. He had a taste only for the grand, the gorgeous,
and the adulatory. Boileau owed the royal favour to two indifferent odes
much more than to his satires, epistles, art of poetry, and Lutrin; and
Molière, to those court ballets in which Louis danced, rather than to
his dramatic _chefs d'œuvre_. Louis XIV. had the same distaste for La
Fontaine as a poet and Teniers as a painter; and, from the same
principle,--he could not admire humble subjects, treated in a true and
simple, however charming, style. He would not condescend to understand
the language of "Jean Lapin" and "Maître Corbeau." La Fontaine offered
him incense in his way; but it was not of the kind acceptable to the
idol; and he continued neglected, even when, in an evil hour, he sang
the revocation of the edict of Nantes. La Fontaine was also in bad odour
with the intriguing devotees of the court; and Louis, a weak bigot, with
all his arrogance and pride, may have been indisposed towards him on
this account, from their suggestions or his own.
The loss of his pension thus remained unsupplied; and he continued once
more carelessly spending "_son fonds aprez son revenu_," when he came
under the notice of the most accomplished, enlightened, and amiable
princess of her time--Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I., most
unworthily married to the duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIV. She
attached him to her suite, as one of the gentlemen of her household,
with a salary to receive, and no service, beyond some volunteer verses,
to perform. But La Fontaine had not long enjoyed her patronage when the
princess died, under suspicion of poison, regretted by all France, her
husband excepted; and La Fontaine was once more in distress--if that to
which he was wholly insensible can be so termed. He seems to have
derived from nature the happy or unhappy insensibility to the accidents
of life, which some ancient philosophers attained only through the
severest exercise of reason and discipline.
It appears to have been his fortune to be indebted to the discernment
and kindness of women. Among the persons uniting high rank to a taste
for literature, with whom he became acquainted at Paris, was madame de
la Sablière. This accomplished and kind-hearted woman, perceiving La
Fontaine's utter inability to regulate the economy of the simplest
household, relieved him of all care at once by giving him an apartment
in her house. Here he passed twenty (the happiest) years of his life,
relieved from all anxiety,--his wants supplied, and his humour indulged,
with the utmost attention and kindness. Some of his pieces are dedicated
to his benefactress, and he has celebrated her name in verse, but with
reserve and delicacy. Madame de la Sablière had the good taste to
control the poet's expression of his feelings in their particular
relation to each other.
He composed during this period the most popular of his tales, "Joconde,"
and dedicated it to madame de la Sablière. It is the most justly
admired of all his tales; and, being imitated from Ariosto, placed him
in a state of rivalry with the great Italian poet. An officer in the
household of the duke of Orleans, named Bouillon, gave at the same time
a rival version, and persons were found courtly or tasteless enough to
prefer it to La Fontaine's. The question was even made the subject of a
wager; and the arbiter appealed to declined giving an opinion. Boileau
did indignant justice to genius and his friend, and Bouillon's "Joconde"
was no more heard of. "La Fontaine," says Boileau, "imitated Ariosto as
Virgil imitated Homer, and Tasso Virgil; Bouillon like a trembling
valet, who dared not put one foot before the other without his master's
leave." He even insinuates that La Fontaine had treated the subject in a
manner superior to Ariosto himself. There is, it is true, in La
Fontaine's manner, a simplicity, and ease, and graceful levity, somewhat
more suitable to the matter and to a mere fabulist. But those who are
acquainted with the Italian poet will consider any deficiency of these
minor graces in him much more than redeemed by his superior richness,
and variety of invention, and vigour of imagination.
The society of madame de la Sablière comprised princes, nobles, poets,
and philosophers. She cultivated science as well as literature,--but in
secret. Bernier, who also had an apartment in her house, gave La
Fontaine some notions in natural philosophy. It was under this
influence, whilst his head was filled with physical science, that he
wrote his poem on Jesuits' bark (Le Quinquina)--a dull production, on a
barren subject; which, however, was not then quite so uninviting as it
may appear now. Bark had just performed what were deemed marvellous
cures on Louis XIV. and Colbert, and it was sold by the Jesuits at its
weight in gold. Colbert had the littleness to be unjust to La Fontaine;
but the poet had the magnanimity to be just to the minister. He alludes
to him in this poem in a tone of manly, independent, and merited praise.
La Fontaine added considerably to the number of his fables and tales,
and wrote several dramatic pieces, whilst he lived under the roof of
madame de la Sablière. His dramas, chiefly operas and light comedies,
with an attempt or two at tragedy, are below mediocrity. He wanted the
dramatic instinct. There are scenes of easy graceful dialogue, but
strung together without art or interest. Some were written by him in
partnership with the comedian Champmélé, husband of the celebrated
actress of that name, who played in the tragedies and figures in the
life of Racine, and in the letters of madame de Sévigné. It is told of
him that, whilst sitting in the pit, during the first performance of one
of his own operas, he fell asleep! But this is too much, even for La
Fontaine; and it should not be forgotten, that an opera was the cause of
the only satire he ever wrote, and of one of the only two quarrels he
ever had. The celebrated Lulli obtained his easy promise to write him an
opera on the story of Daphne, teased him until it was completed, and
then capriciously adopted the "Proserpine" of Quinault. La Fontaine, now
an old man, or, as he called himself, "_un enfant à barbe grise_," a
child with a grey beard, knew, for the first time, what it was to feel
personal resentment, and wrote the satire entitled "Le Florentin." It is
merely a narrative of the affair between him and Lulli, in the manner of
his tales. But he was soon and easily reconciled; and he complained
afterwards that the little gall in him was stirred by others on the
occasion.
The only symptom of literary ambition ever shown by La Fontaine was his
desire to become a member of the French academy. A vacancy having
occurred in 1683, he became a candidate. The devotees at court opposed
and denounced him as a mere writer of frivolous and licentious tales,
fit only to rank with Clement Marot and Rabelais, and unworthy of a
place in that grave and learned body. Yet was he elected the successor
of the great Colbert, whose death had caused the vacancy, and in
opposition to Boileau, by a majority of sixteen to seven. Louis XIV.
never interfered in the elections; but his sanction was necessary before
the elected candidate could be received. He withheld his approbation for
several months, from his dislike of La Fontaine, and his pique at the
rejection of Boileau, then his chief eulogist and historiographer. So
anxious was La Fontaine during the interval, that he solicited the
interest of the royal mistress, madame de Montespan, through her sister,
madame de Thiars, and addressed a supplicatory ballad to Louis XIV.
Another vacancy soon occurred; Boileau was elected; and a deputation of
the academy waited on Louis to acquaint him. His reply was, "Your
choice of M. Boileau will be universally approved, and you may now
receive La Fontaine. He has promised to be good--(_il a promise d'être
sage_").
He certainly wrote fewer tales henceforth; but it is doubtful whether
this did not proceed more from indolence than the promise of
reformation. The private sittings of the academy, also, "diverted" him,
as he expressed it, during those hours which he before consumed in
diverting himself with writing verse. His becoming a member of the
academy led to his second and last quarrel, and in a manner truly worthy
of La Fontaine. This authentic fact goes a great way in establishing the
credit of other anecdotes deemed untrue or exaggerated from their
improbability. The French academy was at this time engaged in its great
undertaking of a dictionary which should fix the French language. The
abbé Furetière, then a popular writer, and one of "the forty,"
announced a dictionary of the French language in his own name. He was
immediately charged with pirating the common stock. A ferment was
excited in the academy, and throughout the republic of letters in
France. Furetière, publicly arraigned, defended himself with keen and
virulent personalities, and, after several discussions, was expelled. La
Fontaine was one of the minority in his favour, and meant to give him
his vote; but unluckily, in one of his usual distractions, dropped his
ball, by mistake, in the rejecting compartment of the balloting-box.
Furetière would not pardon the blunder, and attacked him bitterly.
After an exchange of epigrams, which did credit to neither. La Fontaine
thought of the affair no more; but was never reconciled.
Furetière, in his vengeance, revealed the secrets of the learned
assembly. If his account maybe relied on, the process by which the
academy proposed its famous dictionary was truly laughable. "He only is
right," says Furetière, "who talks loudest: one makes a long speech
upon some trifle; another echoes the nonsense of his predecessor;
sometimes three or four talk at the same time. When five or six are in
close committee, one reads, another delivers his opinion, two are
chatting together, a fifth looks over some dictionary which may happen
to be on the table, and the sixth is sleeping." The treachery of the
disclosure was condemned, but its truth generally admitted; and the
private sittings of the academy were the theme of public ridicule and
amusement, like the consultations of physicians, so pleasantly treated
by Molière.
Whatever excuse there may have been for Furetière's bitterness against
his adversaries and the academy, there was none for his attack on La
Fontaine. The blunder was provoking, but committed most innocently. La
Fontaine's character placed his good faith beyond all doubt. His
singularities were so well known that his mistakes and eccentricities
were chartered in society, and excused even by Louis XIV. Having been
introduced to the royal presence to present one of his works, he
searched, and searched in vain, for the votive volume, and then frankly
told the king that he had forgotten it! "Let it be another time, M. de
la Fontaine," said the monarch, with a graciousness and good humour
which did him honour, and dismissing the poet with a purse of gold. This
misadventure did not quicken his attention even for the moment: he left
his purse of gold behind him in the carriage.
The stories of his careless apathy, and absences of mind, are
numberless. Meeting, at a large dinner party, a young man with whose
conversation he seemed pleased, somebody asked his opinion of him. "He
is a young man of sense and promise," said La Fontaine. "Why, it is your
own son," said the questioner. "Ah! I am very glad of it," rejoined the
father, with the utmost indifference. He had forgotten that he even had
a son; who fortunately had been taken charge of and educated by others.
La Fontaine treated religion with the same indifference as all other
subjects, however serious. Racine took him one day to an extraordinary
service, on one of the festivals of the Roman catholic church. Knowing
that the service would be long, and apprehending the effect upon La
Fontaine, he gave him a small bible to read, as a preventative against
sleeping, or some other indecorum. The book happening to open before him
at the lesser prophets, his attention soon became wholly absorbed by the
prayer of the Jews in Baruch. It took the same possession of his
imagination in his advanced age as the ode of Malherbe in his youth. His
first question to everybody was, "Have you read Baruch? Do you know he
was a man of genius?" This was his common expression for some time to
all whom he met, without distinction of persons, from a buffoon to a
bishop.
It was one of his singularities, that, when anything took his fancy, he
could think of nothing else for the time; and he introduced his
favourite topic, or favourite author, in a manner at once unseasonable
and comic. One day, whilst in company with the abbé Boileau, his head
full of Rabelais, whom he had just been reading, he abruptly asked the
grave ecclesiastic which he thought had more wit, Rabelais or St.
Austin. Some were shocked, others laughed; and the abbé, when recovered
from his surprise, replied, "M. de la Fontaine, you have put on your
stocking the wrong side out," which was really the fact. Wishing to
testify his respect for the celebrated Arnaud, he proposed dedicating to
him one of the least scrupulous of his tales, in which a monk is made to
cite scripture in a manner far from edifying. Boileau and Racine had the
utmost difficulty in making him comprehend that such an offering would
be an outrage to the respected and rigid Jansenist. He was nearly as
absent as the man who forgot in the evening that he had been married in
the morning. It occurred to him one day to go and dine with a friend. On
his knocking at the door, a servant in mourning informed him that his
friend had been buried ten days before, and reminded him that he had
himself assisted at the funeral.
The humour and fancy which abound in his tales, and his reputation among
the men of genius of his time, made him an object of curiosity. He was
sought and shown in company as "a lion," if one may use that ephemeral
term. A farmer-general invited a large party "to meet the celebrated La
Fontaine." They came prepared to hear him talk like "Joconde," or tell
such stories as "The Matron of Ephesus." Poor La Fontaine eat, drank,
never opened his mouth for any other purpose, and soon rose, to attend,
he said, a meeting of the academy. "The distance is short: you will be
too early," said the host. "I'll take the longest way," replied La
Fontaine. Madame de la Sablière at one time discharged her whole
establishment whilst La Fontaine was residing in her house. "What!" said
somebody, "have you kept none?" "None," replied the lady, "except _mes
trois bêtes_[50],--my cat, my dog, and La Fontaine." Such was her idea
of his thoughtless and more than childish simplicity. It will hardly
cause surprise that such a man never had a study or a library. He read
and wrote when and where he felt disposed; and never thought of being
provided with any other books than those he was immediately using.
After twenty years of unwearied kindness, he was deprived of the society
and care of his benefactress, and soon after of the home which he had
enjoyed in her house. The circumstances present one of the most curious
views of French manners and character at the time. Madame de la
Sablière, a married woman, with an independent fortune, lived on terms
of civility with her husband, who scarcely merited even this, and
maintained with the anacreontic poet. La Fare, that ambiguous but
recognised relation of tender friendship, into which no one looked
beyond its decorous exterior, and which created neither scandal nor
surprise. La Fare, after an attachment of some years, deserted his
"friend" for the gaming table and the actress Champmélé, who turned so
many heads in her day. This desertion so preyed upon the mind of madame
de la Sablière that she sought refuge in devotion and a convent. Her
husband, a rhyming marquis, who passed his life in writing madrigals
upon his frivolous amours, was deserted about the same time by a
mistress, and took it so to heart that he poisoned himself--at the
romantic age of sixty-five! This event had such an effect upon madame de
la Sablière, joined with her own private sorrows, that she did not long
survive him, and La Fontaine was once more thrown helpless and homeless
upon the world.
The duchess of Bouillon was at this time in England with her sister, the
duchess of Mazarin, who had taken up her residence there to avoid
breathing the same air with her husband, when tormenting him had ceased
to be an amusement to her. The poet St. Evremond, her friend, had, also,
been long established in England. Learning the melancholy state in which
La Fontaine was left by the death of madame de la Sablière, the three
invited him over to England, with an assurance of being well provided
for. Some English persons of distinction, who had known La Fontaine at
Paris, and admired his genius, among them lords Godolphin and Danby, and
lady Hervey, joined in the invitation. La Fontaine, now infirm and old,
and at all times the most indolent of men, could not bring himself to
make the effort. He, however, rather hesitated than declined. An
opportune present of fifty louis from the duke of Burgundy, or rather in
his name, for he was then but a child, decided his refusal.
Notwithstanding this temporary supply, he would soon have been
destitute, if he had not become indebted once more for a home and its
comforts to the friendship of a woman. Madame d'Hervart, the wife of a
rich financier, who had known him at the house of madame de la
Sablière, offered him a similar asylum, in her own. Whilst on her way
to make the proposal she met him in the street, and said, without
preface or form, "La Fontaine, come and live in my house." "I was just
going, madam," said the poet, with as much indifference as if his doing
so was the simplest thing in the world; and this relation of kindness
and confidence subsisted without change to his death. The protection and
proofs of friendship which La Fontaine received from the sex reflect
honour upon the memory of his benefactresses. But his is by no means a
single instance. An interesting volume might be written upon the
obligations which unprotected talents, literature, and the arts are
under to the discerning taste and generosity of Frenchwomen.
La Fontaine's health had been declining for some time; but whether from
his having no immediate apprehension of death, or from his habitual
indolence, he manifested no sense of the truths and duties of religion.
The idea of his dying impenitent agitated the court and the sorbonne. It
was arranged that father Poujet, a person of note as a controversialist
and director of consciences, should make him a visit, under pretence of
mere civility. The abbé Nicéron, in his memoirs of men of letters,
describes this interview. The wily confessor, after conversing some time
on ordinary topics, introduced that of religion with an adroitness
wholly superfluous with so simple a soul as La Fontaine. They spoke of
the Bible. "La Fontaine," says Nicéron, "who was never irreligious in
principle, said to him, with his usual naïveté, 'I have been lately
reading the New Testament: it is a good book--yes, upon my faith! a very
good book; but there is one article to which I cannot subscribe--the
eternity of punishment. I do not comprehend how this can be consistent
with the goodness of God.' Father Poujet," continues Nicéron,
"discussed the subject with him fully; and, after ten or twelve visits
and discussions, succeeded in convincing La Fontaine of all the truths
of religion."