ccustom himself to theology. He went and came between
town and town, amusing himself everywhere, and already writing a little.

"For me the whole round world was laden with delights;
My heart was touched by flower, sweet sound, and sunny day,
I was the sought of friends and eke of lady gay."

Fontaine was married, without caring much for his wife, whom he left to
live alone at Chateau-Thierry. He was in great favor with Fouquet. When
his patron was disgraced, in danger of his life, La Fontaine put into the
mouth of the nymphs of Vaux his touching appeal to the king's clemency:--

"May he, then, o'er the life of high-souled Henry pore,
Who, with the power to take, for vengeance yearned no more
O, into Louis' soul this gentle spirit breathe."

Later on, during Fouquet's imprisonment at Pignerol, La Fontaine wrote
further,--

"I sigh to think upon the object of my prayers;
You take my sense, Ariste; your generous nature shares
The plaints I make for him who so unkindly fares.
He did displease the king; and lo his friends were gone
Forthwith a thousand throats roared out at him like one.
I wept for him, despite the torrent of his foes,
I taught the world to have some pity for his woes."

La Fontaine has been described as a solitary being, without wit, and
without external charm of any kind. La Bruyere has said, "A certain man
appears loutish, heavy, stupid; he can neither talk nor relate what he
has just seen; he sets himself to writing, and it is a model of
story-telling; he makes speakers of animals, trees; stones, everything
that cannot speak. There is nothing but lightness and elegance, nothing
but natural beauty and delicacy in his works." "He says nothing or will
talk of nothing but Plato," Racine's daughters used to say. All his
contemporaries, however, of fashion and good breeding did not form the
same opinion of him. The Dowager-duchess of Orleans, Marguerite of
Lorraine, had taken him as one of her gentlemen-in-waiting; the Duchess
of Bouillon had him in her retinue in the country; Madame de Montespan
and her sister, Madame de Thianges, liked to have a visit from him. He
lived at the house of Madame de La Sabliere, a beauty and a wit, who
received a great deal of company. He said of her,

"Warm is her heart, and knit with tenderest ties
To those she loves, and, elsewise, otherwise;
For such a sprite, whose