tive its romantic and
improbable character. The rank of the heroes alone raised the tale
out of the region of ordinary life; they are always the sons of kings,
Syrian princes, or Pharaohs; sometimes we come across a vague and
undefined Pharaoh, who figures under the title of Piruiaui or Pruiti,
but more often it is a well-known and illustrious Pharaoh who is
mentioned by name. It is related how, one day, Kheops, suffering from
_ennui_ within his palace, assembled his sons in the hope of learning
from them something which he did not already know. They described to him
one after another the prodigies performed by celebrated magicians under
Kanibri and Snofrui; and at length Mykerinos assured him that there
was a certain Didi, living then not far from Meidum, who was capable of
repeating all the marvels done by former wizards. Most of the Egyptian
sovereigns were, in the same way, subjects of more or less wonderful
legends--Sesostris, Amenothes III., Thufcmosis III., Amenemhait I.,
Khiti, Sahuri, Usirkaf, and Kakiu. These stories were put into literary
shape by the learned, recited by public story-tellers, and received by
the people as authentic history; they finally filtered into the writings
of the chroniclers, who, in introducing them into the annals, filled
up with their extraordinary details the lacunae of authentic tradition.
Sometimes the narrative assumed a briefer form, and became an apologue.
In one of them the members of the body were supposed to have combined
against the head, and disputed its supremacy before a jury; the parties
all pleaded their cause in turn, and judgment was given in due form.*

* This version of the _Fable of the Members and the Stomach_
was discovered upon a schoolboy's tablet at Turin.

Animals also had their place in this universal comedy. The passions or
the weaknesses of humanity were attributed to them, and the narrator
makes the lion, rat, or jackal to utter sentiments from which he draws
some short practical moral. La Fontaine had predecessors on the banks of
the Nile of whose existence he little dreamed.

[Illustration: 357.jpg THE CAT AND THE JACKAL GO OFF TO THE FIELDS WITH
THEIR FLOCKS]
Drawn by Faucher-Gudin, from Lepsius.

As La Fontaine found an illustrator in Granville, so, too, in Egypt
the draughtsman brought his reed to the aid of the fabulist, and by his
cleverly executed sketches gave greater point to the sarcasm of story
than mere words could have convey