Part 16

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."

His state soon became so alarming that he was called upon to make a general confession, preparatory to his receiving the sacrament. Certain reparations and expiations were to be previously made; and father Poujet, with all his logic and adroitness, had some difficulty in obtaining them. The first sacrifice required of him was, that he should abandon the proceeds of an edition of his tales, then publishing under his direction in Holland; the publication of them in France having been prohibited since 1677. He readily consented for himself; but wished to make over the profits to the poor, as more consonant with humanity, and more grateful in the eyes of God, than yielding them to a griping rogue of a Dutch publisher. The priest convinced him that "the wages of sin" could not with propriety be applied to the service of God and of charity. He gave up the point; and such was the satisfaction caused by his conversion at court, that a sum, equal to what he should have received for his tales, was sent to him in the name of the young duke of Burgundy, "who thought it unreasonable that La Fontaine should be the poorer for having done his duty." According to some accounts, this would appear to be the same donation of fifty louis already mentioned; and it is most probable. The devotees of the court were much more likely to reward the conversion than relieve the distress of La Fontaine, at a time when the tone was given by père la Chaise and madame de Maintenon.