and the Jesuits turned their eyes toward him.
He had thus far lived without a profession of religion, and a life of
loose morality. The Jesuits cared little for his want of good morals,
but in many of his books he had ridiculed the church and the clergy. It
was important, therefore, to make him confess his sins. Father Poujet, a
shrewd and subtle Jesuit, was sent to converse with him. In a very short
time he contrived to insinuate himself into the confidence of the simple
poet. He acknowledged, one after another, the truths of religion, and he
was called on to make expiations and a public confession. He was easily
persuaded to burn his operas, and to give up all the profits resulting
from the sale of a volume of his worst tales; but he rebelled against
public confession. Three doctors of the Sorbonne were sent to him, and
they argued long and well, but to no purpose. An old man who was angered
by their bull-dog pertinancy, said, "Don't torment him, my reverend
fathers; it is not ill will in him, but stupidity, poor soul; and God
Almighty will not have the heart to damn him for it."

That La Fontaine finally made some kind of a confession, there is little
doubt; but that he made the shameful confession which Catholic writers
declare he did, no one now believes. He was probably worn out with their
entreaties, and came to a compromise with them.

He added nothing to his reputation after this, but rather detracted from
it. He lived very quietly and devotedly, and died in 1695, in the
seventy-fourth year of his age. It was found after his death that he was
in the habit of mortifying himself with a shirt of sackcloth.

La Fontaine was unquestionably the greatest fabulist of his or any other
time, and he has been exceedingly popular throughout France. His tales
and fables and light poems are full of beauty and grace. But we cannot
speak highly of their morality. They are, like almost all French
literature, corrupt. They took their character from the times, and have
had a bad influence upon later generations of France.

THE INFIDEL.

Perhaps no man has existed in the past history of France, who has had
such a wonderful influence over succeeding generations, as Voltaire. I
name him the _infidel_, not because his infidelity was the most
prominent characteristic, but because he is known more widely in America
for his scoffing skepticism. The effect of Voltaire's skeptical writings
is more perceptible in Paris than in t