I beg your pardon for surprising you as I I
did; I am sufficiently punished by what I learned.
did; I am sufficiently punished by what I learned.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v15 - Kab to Les
He is an insipid
chatterer; no sooner has he obtained a footing into any society
than he looks out for some ladies whom he can fascinate, before
whom he can set forth his wit or his philosophy, and produce
his rare conceptions: for whether he speaks or writes, he ought
never to be suspected of saying what is true or false, sensible or
ridiculous; his only care is not to express the same sentiments
as sonie one else, and to differ from everybody. Therefore in
conversation, he often waits till every one has given his opinion
on some casual subject, or one which not seldom he has intro-
duced himself, in order to utter dogmatically things which are
perfectly new, but which he thinks decisive and unanswerable.
He is, in a word, a compound of pedantry and formality, to be
admired by cits and rustics; in whom, nevertheless, there is
nothing great except the opinion he has of himself.
Translation of Henri Van Laun.
## p. 8767 (#383) ###########################################
8767
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
(1634-1693)
N THE history of French fiction the work of Madame de La
Fayette marks the beginning of a new era. Her work is
the first which relies for its interest upon the truth of the
emotions. For the impossible romances of heroic gallantry to which
Cervantes had already given the death-blow, and for the picaresque
tales of adventure which were to find their chief exponent in Defoe,
she substituted the novel in which the study of character and the
analysis of motive were to be the main sources of interest. Her
immediate successors in the next century
were the Abbé Prévost in France and Sam-
uel Richardson in England. She raised the
tone of fiction by simplifying motives, by
deepening the characterization, and by ad-
hering more closely to the facts of history
and to the truth of nature. To these im-
proved methods of treatment was added a
distinction of style, and a carefully chosen
but direct and unassuming language. The
work in which her finest qualities are ex-
hibited in combination is the Princess of
Clèves,' upon which two centuries have
placed the indelible mark of a great French MME. DE LA FAYETTE
classic. With this work the analytical novel
of modern times may be said to have had its origin; and if the text-
ure of motives in the Princess of Clèves) seems thin in comparison
with the complicated and closely woven web of Madame Bovary' or
(Middlemarch, it must be remembered that Madame de La Fayette's
book appeared thirty years before (Gil Blas,' and nearly half a cen-
tury before the time of the great English novelists.
Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne was born in Paris in March
1634. Her brilliant qualities of mind were early displayed in the
literary circle of the Hôtel Rambouillet; but after her marriage in
1655 to the Count de La Fayette, her own home became one of the
chief literary centres of Paris. Madame de Sévigné, La Fontaine,
and Segrais were her close friends; and after the early death of her
husband she established an intimate friendship with the Duke de La
>
## p. 8768 (#384) ###########################################
8768
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
(
Rochefoucauld. Her character was highly estimable, though long
misunderstood. She survived La Rochefoucauld by thirteen years,
which she was reported to have devoted to a life of penance. In
1880 hitherto unpublished letters were brought to light, which show
that during those years Madame de La Fayette continued to play an
important role at court, and was active for good in many a court
intrigue. She was sincerely attached to her friends, of a restless
activity, honestly frank, and possessed of a keen understanding.
At the time when Madame de La Fayette began to write, women
of talent and learning were in disrepute; ecclesiastics had denounced
them; Molière had ridiculed them. Her first story, (The Princess of
Montpensier,' appeared anonymously and made no stir. Her second,
"Zayde,' bore the name of her friend Segrais, and immediately at-
tracted attention. "The Princess of Clèves, published in the spring of
1678, made a sensation. There was in this case no such close con-
cealment of the authorship, but there was considerable mystification.
Many believed the book to be the work of La Rochefoucauld. In one
of her letters Madame de Scudéry wrote, “The book is an orphan
disowned both by father and mother. ” “The Princess of Clèves' was
the first novel in literature that could be called the romance of a
married woman. There can be no doubt that although the scene is
laid at the court of Henry II. , the heroine is Madame de La Fayette
herself; the Prince de Clèves, the Count de La Fayette; and the Duke
de Nemours, La Rochefoucauld. The inner workings of a woman's
life are here portrayed with purity of feeling and faithfulness of
observation. The Princess's confession to her husband of her love
for another man is related without dramatic fervor, but with a grace-
ful certainty of touch. Two other works require only passing men-
tion: ‘The History of Henrietta of England, published in 1720, and
the Mémoires of the Court of France,' published in 1731. It is the
(Princess of Clèves) alone that renders Madame de La Fayette pre-
eminent among the many brilliant women of France in the seven-
teenth century. “In order to produce it,” says her biographer, “there
were needed a court and a country like the court and France of
Louis XIV. Let us give greeting to these graces that we shall see
no more; but since this flower is not yet faded, let us breathe its per-
fume which awakens in us the dreams of that brilliant time, and let
us adınire its undying freshness. ”
Madame de La Fayette died in Paris on May 25th, 1693.
## p. 8769 (#385) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8769
HUSBAND AND WIFE
M
From "The Princess of Clèves. ) Copyright 1891, by Little, Brown & Co.
ONSIEUR felt very bad at not seeing Madame de Clèves again
after the pleasant afternoon he had spent with her, which
had so fired his hopes. His impatience to meet her once
more left him no peace; so that when the King returned to
Paris he determined to make a visit to his sister, the Duchess
of Mercour, who lived in the country not far from Coulommiers.
He proposed to the Vidame to go with him; the latter gladly
consented, to the delight of Monsieur de Nemours, who hoped
to make sure of seeing Madame de Clèves by calling in company
with the Vidame.
Madame de Mercaur was delighted to see them, and at once
began to devise plans for their amusement. While they were
deer-hunting, Monsieur de Nemours lost his way in the forest;
and when he asked what road he should take, he was told that
he was near Coulommiers. When he heard this word, “Coulom-
miers,” he at once, without thinking, without forming any plan,
dashed off in that direction. He got once more into the forest,
and followed such paths as seemed to him to lead to the castle.
These paths led to a summer-house, which consisted of a large
room with two closets: one opening on a flower-garden separated
from the forest by a fence, and the other opening on one of
the walks of the park. He entered the summer-house, and was
about to stop and admire it, when he saw Monsieur and Madame
de Clèves coming along the path, followed by a number of serv-
ants. Surprised at seeing Monsieur de Cièves, whom he had left
with the King, his first impulse was to hide. He entered the
closet near the flower-garden, with the intention of escaping by
a door opening into the forest; but when he saw Madame de
Clèves and her husband sitting in the summer-house, while their
servants stayed in the park, whence they could not reach him
without coming by Monsieur and Madame de Clèves, he could
not resist the temptation to watch her, or overcome his curiosity
to listen to her conversation with her husband, of whom he was
more jealous than of any of his rivals.
He heard Monsieur de Cièves say to his wife: "But why
don't you wish to return to Paris ? What can keep you in the
country? For some time you have had a taste for solitude which
XV-549
## p. 8770 (#386) ###########################################
8770
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
»
(
surprises me and pains me, because it keeps us apart. I find
you in even lower spirits than usual, and I am afraid something
distresses you. ”
"I have nothing on my mind,” she answered with some
embarrassment; “but the bustle of a court is so great, and our
house is always so thronged, that it is impossible for mind and
body not to be tired and to need rest. ”
“Rest,” he answered, “is not needed by persons of your age.
Neither at home nor at court do you get tired; and I should
be rather inclined to fear that you are glad to get away from
me. ”
"If you thought that, you would do me great injustice," she
replied with ever growing embarrassment; “but I beg of you to
leave me here. If you could stay too I should be very glad;
provided you would stay alone, and did not care for the throng
of people who almost never leave you. "
"Ah, madame,” exclaimed Monsieur de Clèves, your air and
your words show me that you have reasons for wishing to be
alone which I don't know, and which I beg of you to tell me. ”
For a long time the prince besought her to tell him the reason,
but in vain: and after she had refused in a way that only doubled
his curiosity, she stood for some time silent with eyes cast down;
then raising her eyes to his she said suddenly:-
“Don't compel me to confess something which I have often
meant to tell you, but had not the strength. Only remember
that prudence does not require that a woman of my age, who is
mistress of her actions, should remain exposed to the temptations
of the court. ”
"What is it you suggest, madame ? » exclaimed Monsieur de
Clèves. "I should not dare to say, for fear of offending you. ”
Madame de Clèves did not answer, and her silence confirming
her husband's suspicions, he went on:-
“You are silent, and your silence tells me I am not mistaken. ”
“Well, sir,” she answered, falling on her knees, “I am going
to make you a confession such as no woman has ever made to
her husband; the innocence of my actions and of my intentions
gives me strength to do so. It is true that I have reasons for
keeping aloof from the court, and I wish to avoid the perils that
sometimes beset women of my age. I have never given the
slightest sign of weakness; and I should never fear displaying any,
if you would leave me free to withdraw from court, or if Madame
## p. 8771 (#387) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8771
>
de Chartres still lived to guide my actions. Whatever the dangers
of the course I take, I pursue it with pleasure, in order to keep
myself worthy of you. I beg your pardon a thousand times if
my feelings offend you; at any rate I shall never offend you by
my actions. Remember that to do what I am now doing requires
more friendship and esteem for a husband than any one has ever
had. Guide me, take pity on me, love me if you can. ”
All the time she was speaking, Monsieur de Clèves sat with
his head in his hands; he was really beside himself, and did not
once think of lifting his wife up. But when she had finished,
and he looked down and saw her, her face wet with tears, and
yet so beautiful, he thought he should die of grief. He kissed
her, and helped her to her feet.
“Do you, madame, take pity on me,” he said, “for I deserve
it; and excuse me if in the first moments of a grief so poignant
as mine I do not respond as I should to your appeal. You seem
to me worthier of esteem and admiration than any woman that
ever lived; but I also regard myself as the unhappiest of men.
The first moment that I saw you, I was filled with love of you;
neither your indifference to me nor the fact that you are my
wife has cooled it: it still lives. I have never been able to make
you love me, and I see that you fear you love another. And
who, madame, is the happy man that inspires this fear? Since
when has he charmed you? What has he done to please you?
What was the road he took to your heart ? I found some conso-
lation for not having touched it, in the thought that it was
beyond any one's reach; but another has succeeded where I have
failed. I have all the jealousy of a husband and of a lover; but
it is impossible to suffer as a husband after what you have told
Your noble conduct makes me feel perfectly secure, and
even consoles me as a lover. Your confidence and your sincerity
are infinitely dear to me; you think well enough of me not to
suppose that I shall take any unfair advantage of this confession.
You are right, madame,- 1 shall not; and I shall not love you
less. You make me happy by the greatest proof of fidelity that
a woman ever gave her husband; but madame, go on and tell
me who it is you are trying to avoid. ”
“I entreat you, do not ask me,” she replied: "I have deter-
mined not to tell you, and I think that the more prudent course. ”
« Have no fear, madame,” said Monsieur de Cièves: “I know
the world too well to suppose that respect for a husband ever
me.
-
## p. 8772 (#388) ###########################################
8772
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
»
So.
even
prevents men falling in love with his wife. He ought to hate
those who do so, but without complaining; so once more, madame,
I beg of you to tell me what I want to know. ”
“You would urge me in vain,” she answered: "I have strength
enough to keep back what I think I ought not to say. My
avowal is not the result of weakness, and it requires more courage
to confess this truth than to undertake to hide it. "
Monsieur de Nemours lost not a single word of this conversa-
tion, and Madame de Clèves's last remark made him quite as jeal-
ous as it made her husband. He was himself so desperately in
love with her that he supposed every one else was just as much
It was true in fact that he had many rivals, but he imagined
more than there were; and he began to wonder whom
Madame de Clèves could mean. He had often believed that she
did not dislike him, and he had formed his opinion from things
which seemed so slight that he could not imagine he had kindled
a love so intense that it called for this desperate remedy. He
was almost beside himself with excitement, and could not forgive
Monsieur de Clèves for not insisting on knowing the name his
wife was hiding.
Monsieur de Clèves, however, was doing his best to find it
out; and after he had entreated her in vain, she said:-“It seems
to me that you ought to be satisfied with my sincerity; do not
ask me anything more, and do not give me reason to repent what
I have just done. Content yourself with the assurance I give
you that no one of my actions has betrayed my feelings, and
that not a word has ever been said to me at which I could take
offense. ”
"Ah, madame, Monsieur de Clèves suddenly exclaimed, « I
cannot believe you! I remember your embarrassment the day
your portrait was lost. You gave it away,- you gave away that
portrait which was so dear to me, and belonged to me so legiti-
mately. You could not hide your feelings: it is known that
you are in love; your virtue has so far preserved you from the
rest. ”
"Is it possible," the princess burst forth, “that you could
suspect any misrepresentation in a confession like mine, which
there was no ground for my making ? Believe what I say:
purchase at a high price the confidence that I ask of you. I
beg of you, believe that I did not give away the portrait; it is
true that I saw it taken, but I did not wish to show that I saw
## p. 8773 (#389) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8773
»
it, lest I should be exposed to hearing things which no one had
yet dared to say. ”
“How then did you see his love ? ” asked Monsieur de Clèves.
«What marks of love were given to you? ”
"Spare me the mortification," was her answer, "of repeating
all the details which I am ashamed to have noticed, and have
only convinced me of my weakness. ”
“You are right, madame,” he said: "I am unjust. Deny me
when I shall ask such things, but do not be angry if I ask
them. "
At this moment some of the servants who were without came
to tell Monsieur de Clèves that a gentleman had come with a
command from the King that he should be in Paris that evening.
Monsieur de Clèves was obliged to leave at once; and he could
say to his wife nothing except that he begged her to return the
next day, and besought her to believe that though he was sorely
distressed, he felt for her an affection and esteem which ought to
satisfy her.
When he had gone, and Madame de Clèves was alone and
began to think of what she had done, she was so amazed that
she could scarcely believe it true. She thought that she had
wholly alienated her husband's love and esteem, and had thrown
herself into an abyss from which escape was impossible. She
asked herself why she had done this perilous thing, and she saw
that she had stumbled into it without intention.
The strange-
ness of such a confession, for which she knew no precedent,
showed her all her danger.
But when she began to think that this remedy, violent as it
was, was the only one that could protect her from Monsieur de
Nemours, she felt that she could not regret it, and that she had
not gone too far. She spent the whole night in uncertainty, ,
anxiety, and fear; but at last she grew calm. She felt a vague
satisfaction in having given this proof of fidelity to a husband
who so well deserved it, who had such affection and esteem for
her, and who had just shown these by the way in which he had
received her avowal.
Meanwhile Monsieur de Nemours had left the place where he
had overheard a conversation which touched him keenly, and had
hastened into the forest. What Madame de Clèves had said about
the portrait gave him new life, by showing him that it was he
whom she did not hate. He first gave himself up to this joy;
## p. 8774 (#390) ###########################################
8774
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
but it was not of long duration, for he reflected that the same
thing which showed him that he had touched the heart of
Madame de Clèves ought to convince him that he would never
receive any token of it, and that it was impossible to gain any
influence over a woman who resorted to so strange a remedy.
He felt, nevertheless, great pleasure in having brought her to
this extremity. He felt a certain pride in making himself loved
by a woman so different from all others of her sex,- in a word,
he felt a hundred times happier and unhappier. Night came
upon him in the forest, and he had great difficulty in finding the
way back to Madame de Mercoeur's. He reached there at day-
break. He found it very hard to explain what had delayed him;
but he made the best excuses he could, and returned to Paris that
same day with the Vidame.
Monsieur de Nemours was so full of his passion, and so sur-
prised by what he had heard, that he committed a very common
imprudence,- that of speaking in general terms of his own
feelings, and of describing his own adventures under borrowed
names.
On his way back he turned the conversation to love: he
spoke of the pleasure of being in love with a worthy woman; he
mentioned the singular effects of this passion; and finally, not
being able to keep to himself his astonishment at what Madame
de Clèves had done, he told the whole story to the Vidame, with-
out naming her and without saying that he had any part in it.
But he manifested such warmth and admiration that the Vidame
at once suspected that the story concerned the prince himself.
He urged him strongly to acknowledge this; he said that he had
long known that he nourished a violent passion, and that it was
wrong not to trust in a man who had confided to him the secret
of his life. Monsieur de Nemours was too much in love to
acknowledge his love; he had always hidden it from the Vidame,
though he loved him better than any man at court. He answered
that one of his friends had told him this adventure, and had
made him promise not to speak of it, and he besought him to
keep his secret. The Vidame promised not to speak of it; never-
theless Monsieur de Nemours repented having told him.
Meanwhile, Monsieur de Clèves had gone to the King, his heart
sick with a mortal wound. Never had a husband felt warmer
love or higher respect for his wife. What he had heard had not
lessened his respect, but this had assumed a new form. His most
earnest desire was to know who had succeeded in pleasing her.
## p. 8775 (#391) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8775
(
Monsieur de Nemours was the first to occur to him, as the most
fascinating man at court, and the Chevalier de Guise and the
Marshal of Saint-André as two men who had tried to please her
and had paid her much attention; so that he decided it must be
one of these three. He reached the Louvre, and the King took
him into his study to tell him that he had chosen him to carry
Madame to Spain; that he had thought that the prince would
discharge this duty better than any one; and that no one would
do so much credit to France as Madame de Clèves. Monsieur
de Clèves accepted this appointment with due respect, and even
looked upon it as something that would remove his wife from
court without attracting any attention; but the date of their de-
parture was still too remote to relieve his present embarrassment.
He wrote at once to Madame de Clèves to tell her what the King
had said, and added that he was very anxious that she should
come to Paris. She returned in obedience to his request; and
when they met, each found the other in the deepest gloom.
Monsieur de Clèves addressed her in the most honorable
terms, and seemed well worthy of the confidence she had placed
in him.
“I have no uneasiness about your conduct,” he said: "you
have more strength and virtue than you think. It is not dread
of the future that distresses me; I am only distressed at seeing
that you have for another feelings that I have not been able to
inspire in you. ”
"I do not know how to answer you,” she said; “I am ready
to die with shame when I speak to you. Spare me, I beg of
you, these painful conversations. Regulate my conduct; let me
see no one,- that is all I ask: but permit me never to speak of
a thing which makes me seem so little worthy of you, and which
i regard as so unworthy of me. "
« You are right, madame," he answered: "I abuse your gen-
tleness and your confidence. But do you too take some pity
on the state into which you have cast me, and remember that
whatever you have told me, you conceal from me a name which
excites an unendurable curiosity. Still, I do not ask you to
gratify it; but I must say that I believe the man I must envy
to be the Marshal of Saint-André, the Duke of Nemours, or the
Chevalier de Guise. »
“I shall not answer,” she said blushing, "and I shall give
you no occasion for lessening or strengthening your suspicions;
(
## p. 8776 (#392) ###########################################
8776
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
me
no
but if you try to find out by watching me, you will surely make
so embarrassed that every one will notice it. In Heaven's
name,” she went on, "invent some illness, that I may see
one! ”
“No, madame,” he replied: "it would soon be found that it
was not real: and moreover, I want to place my confidence in
you alone; that is the course my heart recommends, and my rea-
son too. In your present mood, by leaving you free, I protect
you by a closer guard than I could persuade myself to set about
you. ”
Monsieur de Clèves was right: the confidence he showed in
his wife proved a stronger protection against Monsieur de Ne-
mours, and inspired her to make austerer resolutions, than any
form of constraint could have done. She went to the Louvre
and visited the dauphiness as usual; but she avoided Monsieur de
Nemours with so much care that she took away nearly all his
happiness at thinking that she loved him. He saw nothing in
her actions which did not prove the contrary. He was almost
ready to believe that what he had heard was a dream, so unlikely
did it appear.
The only thing that assured him that he was not
mistaken was the extreme sadness of Madame de Clèves, in spite
of all her efforts to conceal it. Possibly kind words and glances
would not have fanned Monsieur de Nemours's love as did this
austere conduct.
One evening when Monsieur and Madame de Clèves were with
the Queen, some one said that it was reported that the King
was going to name another nobleman of the court to accompany
Madame to Spain. Monsieur de Clèves fixed his eyes on his wife
when the speaker added that it would be either the Chevalier
de Guise or the Marshal of Saint-André. He noticed that she
showed no agitation at either of these names, or at the mention
of their joining the party.
This led him to think that it was
neither of these that she dreaded, to see; and wishing to deter-
mine the matter, he went to the room where the King was. ,
After a short absence, he returned to his wife and whispered
to her that he had just learned that it would be Monsieur de
Nemours who would go with them to Spain.
The name of Monsieur de Nemours, and the thought of seeing
him every day during a long journey in her husband's presence,
so agitated Madame de Clèves that she could not conceal it; and
wishing to assign other reasons, she answered: -
## p. 8777 (#393) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8777
1
.
1
“The choice of that gentleman will be very disagreeable for
you: he will divide all the honors, and I think you ought to try
to have some one else appointed. ”
« It is not love of glory, madame,” said Monsieur de Clèves,
« that makes you dread that Monsieur de Nemours should come
with me.
Your regret tells me what another woman would have
told by her delight. But do not be alarmed; what I have just
told you is not true: I made it up to make sure of a thing which
I had only too long inclined to believe. ” With these words he
went away, not wishing by his presence to add to his wife's evi-
dent embarrassment.
At that moment Monsieur de Nemours entered, and at once
noticed Madame de Clèves's condition. He went up to her, and
said in a low voice that he respected her too much to ask what
made her so thoughtful. His voice aroused her from her revery;
and looking at him, without hearing what he said, full of her
own thoughts and fearful that her husband would see him by
her side, she said, “In Heaven's name leave me alone! ”
"Alas! madame,” he replied, "I leave you only too much
alone. Of what can you complain? I do not dare to speak to
you, or even to look at you; I never come near you without
trembling How have I brought such remark on myself, and
why do you make me seem to have something to do with the
depression in which I find you? ”
Madame de Clèves deeply regretted that she had given Mon-
sieur de Nemours an opportunity to speak to her more frankly
than he had ever done. She left him without giving him any
answer, and went home in a state of agitation such as she
had never known. Her husband soon noticed this; he perceived
that she was afraid lest he should speak to her about what
had just happened. He followed her into her room and said
to her:-
“Do not try to avoid me, madame; I shall say nothing that
could displease you.
I beg your pardon for surprising you as I I
did; I am sufficiently punished by what I learned. Monsieur de
Nemours was the man whom I most feared. I see your danger:
control yourself for your own sake, and if possible for mine. I
do not ask this as your husband, but as a man all of whose hap-
piness you make, and who feels for you a tenderer and stronger
love than he whom your heart prefers. ”
## p. 8778 (#394) ###########################################
8778
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
Monsieur de Clèves nearly broke down at these last words,
which he could hardly utter. His wife was much moved; and
bursting into tears, she embraced him with a gentleness and a
sorrow that almost brought him to the same condition. They
remained for some time perfectly silent, and separated without
having strength to utter a word.
Translated by Thomas Sergeant Perry.
## p. 8778 (#395) ###########################################
## p. 8778 (#396) ###########################################
Way
JEAN DE LAFONTAINE.
## p. 8778 (#397) ###########################################
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JEAN DE LAFONTAINE
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8779
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
(1621-1695)
BY GEORGE MCLEAN HARPER
T The court of Louis XIV. there once appeared a figure which
clashed with the regularity and harmony of the scene. A
tall, spare man, with a long nose, thin satirical lips, and
kindly eyes, which could be sharp enough but were for the most part
veiled by revery, wandered through the palace of Versailles and lin-
gered half amused in the stately and unnatural gardens. Jean de La
Fontaine, then in discredit as the author of certain licentious tales
and the associate of malcontents, had come, rather sheepishly, at the
instance of his friends, to present a volume of his fables to the King,
of whose disfavor he was well aware. Though not quite clear as
to the nature of his offense nor over-anxious for royal patronage, he
was willing to purchase protection by an act of homage. He felt un-
comfortable in his rôle of suitor, but played it with what grace and
countenance he could. While conforming, with an odd mingling of
ease and childish awkwardness, to the requirements of the situation,
there was a fine, incredulous smile about the corners of his mouth as
he bent the knee to the monarch whom under his breath he called
Sire Lion, — feeling himself to be neither more nor less of a courtier
than that handsome rascal, the Fox. The glitter of ceremony failed
to dazzle him; and although he manifestly tried to be interested in
the regal pageant, he was not much impressed. When he had fin-
ished his harangue, he found he had forgotten to bring the book
which was to have been its excuse, and he absent-mindedly left in
the carriage that bore him away, the purse of gold with which his
solicitations had been rewarded.
To the King and his elegant retinue he must have seemed a
naughty, undisciplined child, -rustic, old-fashioned, irreverent, out of
keeping with the world and the times. Yet he was in some ways
the most real man there; certainly the most natural. He understood
his world and his time profoundly, after his fashion, and was des-
tined to interpret them to future generations. For if he never suc-
ceeded in pleasing the King or obtaining a royal pension, he was only
too popular with many great lords and ladies, and knew most of the
celebrities of Paris; and though his acquaintances would have been
3
## p. 8780 (#400) ###########################################
8780
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
amused to hear that he possessed any moral superiority over them,
he at least enjoyed a certain advantage of birth and breeding which
enabled him to see things with clearer eyes than they.
No one can see clearly and judge with broad fairness in a society
which represents to him the whole of life. One must come from
another world to do this. And a large part of La Fontaine's past
had been spent in a world as different as could be imagined from the
artificial circumstances of a court, and his experience was well calcu-
lated to reduce them to a natural perspective. Other men, of remark-
able penetration and unusual honesty, were aware of the evils of
that reign, — so difficult to judge then, because so grand in outward
seeming. La Rochefoucauld was letting fall, here and there, a maxim
of concentrated bitterness; and Saint-Simon was rushing home from
court every night to pour out, on endless paper, his righteous indig-
nation against the crawling hypocrisy of bishops, the slander and
place-hunting of lords, and the tainted ambition of ladies. But to
neither of these observers did it all seem abnormal and ridiculous, as
it did to La Fontaine. To him there was matter for eternal laugh-
ter in that perversion of nature which was called a court. Like
Jupiter's monkey in his own fable, who replied to the elephant,
astonished at the indifference of the gods to his size and importance,
the complacent dreamer said, “Both small and great in their eyes
are the same. » For him the gods were elsewhere, - divinities of
groves and rivers, shaking the leaves of woodland birch and roadside
poplar in the sunny Champagne country, and splashing, serenely
unconcerned with mortal business, through the meandering Marne.
And he laughed silently at the formal ugliness of Versailles horti-
culture, as the vision of trees,” “the mist and the river, the hill and
the shade,” roşe before his mind. No less ludicrous must the King
of France and his brilliant company of flatterers have sometimes
appeared to him, when he reflected how exactly they and all their
movements matched the life of village boors and gossips, or the
more antique and undeviating ways of forest creatures, in bush and
stream. For it was by intimacy with country scenes, peasant nature.
and the primitive and changeless character of animals, that La
Fontaine differed from the high society into which he had been
allured, and was enabled to judge it. Like Benjamin Franklin a cen-
tury later at the court of Louis XVI. , he brought into an artificial
circle the clear perceptions and the common-sense which are bred of
familiarity with simple forms of life.
He was born July 8th, 1621, in the small town of Château-Thierry,
which sits quietly beside the river Marne, in the heart of Champagne.
The soil of that famous wine-growing country is light, and the sun
shines fair, but without excessive heat. The beauty of the landscape
c
»
## p. 8781 (#401) ###########################################
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8781
»
of «
is in the ordered green of its little vineyards, the bright red and blue
of poppy and corn-flower in its winding meadows, which low chalk
hills warmly enfold, treeless but gently outlined, — all these features
perfect in detail, and the common charm their gracious harmony.
There is no grandeur to uplift, no mystery to deepen the human
spirit; neither is there fat abundance to make men dull. The native
race is shrewd, witty, parsimonious, sober. They see clearly in the
small concerns of their very limited lives, and are devoid of illusions
and exciting fancies. The moral current is shallow, but sparkling
and quick. The deep imaginings and awful pleasures of northern
peoples are to them unknown. Mystery does not charm, but only
irritates them. They have a weak sense for the supernatural or the
abstract. Ridicule, rather than priestor Bible, is the guardian of
their behavior; and the principles which regulate their conduct have
long ago been coined into maxims and anecdotes and significant
bywords, which pass down from generation to generation with accu-
mulating force.
In this region La Fontaine's father and grandfather held the office
master of streams and forests,” a government position in the
proper filling of which a man would naturally become familiar with
the country and its inhabitants. The family enjoyed consideration
and some wealth. Jean, who must have been but a willful and indif-
ferent scholar, received an education of which the principal traces in
his works are a loving familiarity with the Latin poets, and a wide
acquaintance with the racy and somewhat recondite narratives which
constituted the undercurrent of French literature,- irregular, licen-
tious, but undeniably congenial to the French spirit. He became
deeply read in the popular tales of the Middle Ages, - satires, animal
stories, and “moralities. ” From these sources, and from several
writers of the sixteenth century, particularly Rabelais and Marot, he
obtained a fund of witty and sensual incidents; while his poetical
imagery and much of his tenderer and purer sentiment were derived
from Virgil and Ovid.
The son of an old family comfortably settled in a small country
town is strongly tempted to idleness; because there come to him by
birth that consideration and respect, and that freedom from financial
concern, which are the usual objects of men's activity. La Fontaine
was never very successful in resisting temptation of any kind, and it
suited his nature to float indolently on the current of wealth and social
regard which his more strenuous ancestors had accumulated. Nor
was there lack of entertainment to enliven the smooth voyage; for
he had neighbors to his liking, - not averse to playing for high stakes
or drinking up to the limit of sobriety, and withal of a very ready
wit. Unambitious, fond of easy company, absent-minded, given to
## p. 8782 (#402) ###########################################
8782
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
receiving hospitality, which was offered freely in those days in French
provincial towns, he drifted into middle age; allowing himself to be
married by family arrangement and without love, and quietly accept-
ing his father's office, which was resigned in his favor.
His life of hunting, reading, and convivial pleasure at Château-
Thierry was diversified by frequent visits to Paris, where his com-
positions were a passport to the acquaintance not only of literary
people, but of many rich and frivolous nobles. In 1654 he published
.
an adaptation of the “Eunuchus) of Terence, and at about this time
his tales and epistles in verse began to circulate from hand to hand.
He lived to deplore the harm the tales may have done, though he
professed for his part to see no evil in them. They were based
largely on Boccaccio and Rabelais; and represented woman's charac-
ter especially in a way not creditable to their author, either as poet
or as mere observer. It is true, however, that so far as the material
of the tales is concerned, he accepted the disgusting inventions of
his coarse masters without much change. Between 1657 and 1663 he
was a frequent guest, and indeed a pensioner, of the rich and corrupt
Fouquet, superintendent of finance. Several other poets also enjoyed
the bounty of Fouquet at his magnificent country-seat, the palace of
Vaux; but none on such strict terms of service as La Fontaine. He
was at work for three years, with what frequent intervals of repose
we can imagine, on a long eulogistic composition, “The Dream of
Vaux'; and wrote besides many occasional pieces, in return for lav-
ish hospitality. On Fouquet's fall in 1663, he sang with sincere regret
the departed glories of the place, in his “Elegy of the Nymphs of
Vaux. '
He would seem to have been now, for a moment, in helpless
plight, - his private fortune well-nigh exhausted, and himself in dis-
grace with the government as a friend of the guilty superintendent.
But he found no lack of patronage.
One of Mazarin's nieces, the
Duchess of Bouillon, then living in forced retirement at Château-
Thierry, attracted him back to his birthplace; and through her con-
nections at Paris he subsequently received a fresh start in town
society. He had already become a friend of Molière, Racine, and
Boileau. Spurred into action by their raillery, — for he was the eld-
est of the group, and the others, who were winning fame, called him
a laggard, - he published in 1664 the first series of his versified tales.
Like many of his steps, this was an innocent blunder, and led him
to no honorable advantage. His reputation as the author of such
compositions brought him into close relations with several notorious
sets of libertines; and his life, which had never been consistent, now
became a very complex tangle of good and bad. He neglected his
wife, his son, his public duties. He lived in ease and self-indulgence.
(
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JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8783
He seemed occupied solely with the art of satisfying his own caprice
and the depraved taste of a corrupt society.
But somehow the precious jewel which was in his head remained
untarnished, and shone through at last; for after all he had not been
idle, and was never worse than a willful child.
He possessed the
poet's eye, and it had been busy when his hands were folded. No
such “master of streams and forests” ever lived. Not even Izaak
Walton so well deserves the name. The trees of Champagne had
small need to mourn the incompetence of their guardian, who has
given them “a green and golden immortality” in his appeal to the
«
”
woodman:-
«Leave axes, books, and picks,
Instruments of woe.
The scythe of Time, with deadlier tricks,
To line the borders of the Styx
Too soon will bring them low. )
In simplicity of heart, and profiting by his unbounded leisure, this
wayward but still unspoiled man had followed a native instinct of
observation, which had led him after many years into rare sympathy
with the non-human denizens of the earth. His peculiar appreciation
— half poetic feeling, half naturalist's instinct -- of this underlying
world, being put to the service of his very considerable philosophic
bent, gave him that air which people remarked, of having come from
another planet. As old age approached, there grew upon him the
habit of judging men according to the large standard of comparison
which his fellowship with animals and plants provided. And it came
to be recognized as his unique distinction that he would be at all
times collecting and applying these novel ideas. He was known to sit
for half a day, missing his dinner and breaking all appointments, to
watch a family of ants bury a dead Ay. The ways of the wolf, the
fears of the mouse, the ruminations of the ox, the ambitions of the
bear, were more open to his understanding than men's politics. He
loved the bright, smiling land of his birth; its limpid waters, its sunny
vineyards, its frugal farms, where every egg was counted— sometimes,
as he tells us, before it was laid. Waiting by green-mantled pools,
peering to the brook's gray bottom, and wandering with bowed head
on forest paths, where for a moment the fallow-deer stood in the
flickering light and were gone, — he mused for months and years in
happy indolence; and if by chance he undertook, of a winter's night,
to turn into French verse a fable of Æsop or Phædrus, and uncon-
sciously excelled his models, it was still all love-in-idleness to him,
and in no wise work.
But there had to be labor enough in the end, for the task was
complicated, — being the turning of old Greek and Latin fables, not
## p. 8784 (#404) ###########################################
8784
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
only into the French language, but into the French spirit. Moreover,
he exercised in this the most painstaking and thoughtful originality,
by setting forth in them the results of his own observation and
inaking a witty commentary on his own times. By his forty-eighth
year there were enough of these little poems for a volume of one
hundred and twenty-four fables, arranged in six books. Ten years
later he published another collection, of five books. The fables ex-
cited such interest, and went so far to make amends for past license,
that their author was elected a member of the Academy; but the
King for a time opposed his admission, finally permitting it in 1684,
with the remark, “You may receive La Fontaine at once: he has
promised to behave. ” There were more tales, however, and much
loose conduct to atone for, when, during a serious illness in 1693, the
old poet made a public and no doubt sincere confession of his sins.
It is worthy of remark, as illustrating the peculiarly expansive and
social character of the period, and perhaps also the racial conception
of religion as a public exercise rather than an inward state, that a
committee of literary men were deputed by the French Academy to
witness this tardy profession of faith. The twelfth and last book of
fables appeared shortly afterwards; and two years later he died, still
young in heart.
For nearly a generation he had been living on the
hospitality of his friends at Paris — not basely, but with noble frank-
ness, acknowledging his inability to provide for himself.
La Fontaine, it must be admitted, lacked some very essential qual-
ities, while possessing other and unusual ones in notable abundance.
Marriage was not sacred to him, though friendship was. He disliked
children, though he loved dumb beasts. Throughout the latter half of
his life he was dependent on others for a home; but in his soul he
was free, and seldom praised his patrons except where self-interest
fell in with affection. His tales are an unclean spot upon the century
when French literature as a whole was most pure and dignified;
but his fables, which far surpass them in artistic finish, in interest, in
variety, are sound and clear and sweet. The truth is, this great man
was always a child, with a child's fair purposes and untrained will.
Instinct ruled him. Until almost the end of his life he was an irre-
sponsible pagan.
But his failings were of the most amiable order; and they saved
him from too great conformity to the artificial society of his time,
which would have been the most deplorable failing of all. He never
grew old nor worldly-wise; he never lost his sweet simplicity, nor
succeeded, no matter how much he tried, in making those surrenders
of the ideal by which we purchase what is termed success. To blame
La Fontaine for being different from other men, even the best, would
be to overlook the quality wherewith his very true and enduring
## p. 8785 (#405) ###########################################
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8785
success was achieved. The ordered life of civilized cominunities had
come to be taken for granted as necessarily the best possible condi-
tion, and of vastly more scope and meaning than the life of nature.
Both in the conduct of his own affairs,— his childlike following of
pleasure, his unsophisticated relish for what was natural, -and also
by precept and illustration in his fables, La Fontaine suggested the
broader basis and more complicated frame of things. If we are care-
ful to exclude any idea of his entertaining a conscious intention to
influence politics, it may safely be said that La Fontaine, by criti-
cizing the monarch, the churchman, the noble, under the guise of
lion, wolf, fox, bear, or cat, opened a little crack, which La Bruyère
was to widen and Montesquieu to whistle through, until at last it
gaped broad and let in the howling blasts of revolutionary eloquence.
To the same fondness for being his genuine self is due the high
lyric quality of the fables,- an excellence which they alone, of all
French poetry from Ronsard to André Chénier, possess in anything
like abundance. We shall see the value of this distinction if we
reflect that in the same interval England was graced with the songs
and sonnets of Spenser, Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Campion,
Milton, Collins, Gray, and Burns,— to mention no more, and to draw
somewhere a line that must perforce be arbitrary. The main effort
of the seventeenth century in France being to enforce conformity to
certain standards,- in other words, to produce typical rather than
individual excellence, — there could be in her literature of that
period no such outburst of lyric poetry; for it is of the essence of
lyric poetry to express personal charm. When we have read the
fables of La Fontaine we have learned his heart and mind, and are no
better than prigs or pedants if we do not love him. Considering his
awkwardness of speech and his frequent fits of silence, men found
him in actual life singularly attractive. The secret may have nestled
in his smile or hid in the wrinkles about his eyes; we cannot tell.
But in the fables, objective though they are, we do not have to wait
long to catch the elf at play. It is his childlike self-surrender, which
comes at once with engaging frankness or after much coy hesitation
and a playful chase. All that he is and thinks, he sweetly confides to
us, at least more fully than was common among French poets in his
day. He does not skulk behind convention or pose upon a pedestal
of approved usage. Here — though he knew it not, and his friends
Boileau and Racine would have denied it — here is what makes him
a great lyric poet. No school could claim him, yet he was liberal of
himself to every reader. Like the attractive heroine of his first fable,
he might say:
«Day and night to every comer
I was singing, I'm afraid. »
XV-550
## p. 8786 (#406) ###########################################
8785
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
And strange to say, while being so truly himself that he became
the greatest lyric poet his country produced in a stretch of two hun-
dred years, La Fontaine is also the epitome and type of whatever is
mnost French. He is the national poet par excellence. He represents
not so much his age as his race. Indeed, he is not so fairly repre-
sentative of his age as are the dramatists, and particularly Racine.
But we recognize in La Fontaine the French intelligence, as it is
common to all centuries and specialized in every individual. It is not
enough to say that he abounds in wit: the striking thing is that
French wit and the wit of La Fontaine are one — aerified, dry, dif-
fused, of the manner rather than the substance, not intrusive, not
insistent, but circumambient and touch-and-go. There is no forced
emphasis, no zeal to convert; but only a genial willingness to sug-
gest amendment, provided always it can be done with a laughing
avoidance of proffering one's own example. . Moreover, La Fontaine,
like all his countrymen, clings to the concrete. The mystery of an
unrealized abstraction has for him and for them the horror of the
blackness of darkness to a child. A writer of fables is tempted to
be abstract and to moralize. Some of La Fontaine's fables have no
moral, either expressed or discoverable. In others the lesson is added
perfunctorily, as if in obedience to the tradition of the art, and for
the sake of good form. But whether or not they are all deserving
strictly of the name, they give perennial delight; for as Thoreau says,
“All fables indeed have their morals, but the innocent enjoy the
story. ”
Any man who has personal charm, and who will but express him-
self naturally in words, may hope to interest us; but unless he have
also style we shall not esteem him a great writer. Whether we call
it a miracle or only an acquisition, style is something divine; per-
haps never more divine than when acquired by patient toil. La Fon-
taine possessed the most exquisite literary gift; and what it behooves
us to perceive is that this too came as a reward for his supreme vir-
tue of naturalness. He wrote with easy indifference to the rigorous
precepts of rhetoricians, who were trying to unify and modernize
French literature. He deftly eluded the rules of seventeenth-century
diction, and would not belong exclusively to the grand age. ” He was
not above using the marrowy, forcible, homely language of an earlier
time, or its strong short forms of verse. The modest man did not
know it, but he had struck root in a richer soil than his contempo-
raries, and his branches will flourish in immortal green when most of
theirs have withered.
Llotilien
Harper
## p. 8787 (#407) ###########################################
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8787
[The three following fables are translated for (A Library of the World's Best
Literature,' by George McLean Harper. ]
DEATH AND THE WOODCUTTER
A
POOR woodcutter, covered with green boughs,
Under the fagot's weight and his own age
Groaning and bent, ending his weary stage,
Was struggling homeward to his smoky hut.
At last, worn out with labor and with pain,
Letting his fagot down, he thinks again
What little pleasure he has had in life.
Is there so cursed a wretch in all the strife ?
No bread sometimes, and never any rest;
With taxes, soldiers, children, and a wife,
Creditors, forced toil oppressed,
He is the picture of a man unblessed.
He cries for Death.
chatterer; no sooner has he obtained a footing into any society
than he looks out for some ladies whom he can fascinate, before
whom he can set forth his wit or his philosophy, and produce
his rare conceptions: for whether he speaks or writes, he ought
never to be suspected of saying what is true or false, sensible or
ridiculous; his only care is not to express the same sentiments
as sonie one else, and to differ from everybody. Therefore in
conversation, he often waits till every one has given his opinion
on some casual subject, or one which not seldom he has intro-
duced himself, in order to utter dogmatically things which are
perfectly new, but which he thinks decisive and unanswerable.
He is, in a word, a compound of pedantry and formality, to be
admired by cits and rustics; in whom, nevertheless, there is
nothing great except the opinion he has of himself.
Translation of Henri Van Laun.
## p. 8767 (#383) ###########################################
8767
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
(1634-1693)
N THE history of French fiction the work of Madame de La
Fayette marks the beginning of a new era. Her work is
the first which relies for its interest upon the truth of the
emotions. For the impossible romances of heroic gallantry to which
Cervantes had already given the death-blow, and for the picaresque
tales of adventure which were to find their chief exponent in Defoe,
she substituted the novel in which the study of character and the
analysis of motive were to be the main sources of interest. Her
immediate successors in the next century
were the Abbé Prévost in France and Sam-
uel Richardson in England. She raised the
tone of fiction by simplifying motives, by
deepening the characterization, and by ad-
hering more closely to the facts of history
and to the truth of nature. To these im-
proved methods of treatment was added a
distinction of style, and a carefully chosen
but direct and unassuming language. The
work in which her finest qualities are ex-
hibited in combination is the Princess of
Clèves,' upon which two centuries have
placed the indelible mark of a great French MME. DE LA FAYETTE
classic. With this work the analytical novel
of modern times may be said to have had its origin; and if the text-
ure of motives in the Princess of Clèves) seems thin in comparison
with the complicated and closely woven web of Madame Bovary' or
(Middlemarch, it must be remembered that Madame de La Fayette's
book appeared thirty years before (Gil Blas,' and nearly half a cen-
tury before the time of the great English novelists.
Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne was born in Paris in March
1634. Her brilliant qualities of mind were early displayed in the
literary circle of the Hôtel Rambouillet; but after her marriage in
1655 to the Count de La Fayette, her own home became one of the
chief literary centres of Paris. Madame de Sévigné, La Fontaine,
and Segrais were her close friends; and after the early death of her
husband she established an intimate friendship with the Duke de La
>
## p. 8768 (#384) ###########################################
8768
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
(
Rochefoucauld. Her character was highly estimable, though long
misunderstood. She survived La Rochefoucauld by thirteen years,
which she was reported to have devoted to a life of penance. In
1880 hitherto unpublished letters were brought to light, which show
that during those years Madame de La Fayette continued to play an
important role at court, and was active for good in many a court
intrigue. She was sincerely attached to her friends, of a restless
activity, honestly frank, and possessed of a keen understanding.
At the time when Madame de La Fayette began to write, women
of talent and learning were in disrepute; ecclesiastics had denounced
them; Molière had ridiculed them. Her first story, (The Princess of
Montpensier,' appeared anonymously and made no stir. Her second,
"Zayde,' bore the name of her friend Segrais, and immediately at-
tracted attention. "The Princess of Clèves, published in the spring of
1678, made a sensation. There was in this case no such close con-
cealment of the authorship, but there was considerable mystification.
Many believed the book to be the work of La Rochefoucauld. In one
of her letters Madame de Scudéry wrote, “The book is an orphan
disowned both by father and mother. ” “The Princess of Clèves' was
the first novel in literature that could be called the romance of a
married woman. There can be no doubt that although the scene is
laid at the court of Henry II. , the heroine is Madame de La Fayette
herself; the Prince de Clèves, the Count de La Fayette; and the Duke
de Nemours, La Rochefoucauld. The inner workings of a woman's
life are here portrayed with purity of feeling and faithfulness of
observation. The Princess's confession to her husband of her love
for another man is related without dramatic fervor, but with a grace-
ful certainty of touch. Two other works require only passing men-
tion: ‘The History of Henrietta of England, published in 1720, and
the Mémoires of the Court of France,' published in 1731. It is the
(Princess of Clèves) alone that renders Madame de La Fayette pre-
eminent among the many brilliant women of France in the seven-
teenth century. “In order to produce it,” says her biographer, “there
were needed a court and a country like the court and France of
Louis XIV. Let us give greeting to these graces that we shall see
no more; but since this flower is not yet faded, let us breathe its per-
fume which awakens in us the dreams of that brilliant time, and let
us adınire its undying freshness. ”
Madame de La Fayette died in Paris on May 25th, 1693.
## p. 8769 (#385) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8769
HUSBAND AND WIFE
M
From "The Princess of Clèves. ) Copyright 1891, by Little, Brown & Co.
ONSIEUR felt very bad at not seeing Madame de Clèves again
after the pleasant afternoon he had spent with her, which
had so fired his hopes. His impatience to meet her once
more left him no peace; so that when the King returned to
Paris he determined to make a visit to his sister, the Duchess
of Mercour, who lived in the country not far from Coulommiers.
He proposed to the Vidame to go with him; the latter gladly
consented, to the delight of Monsieur de Nemours, who hoped
to make sure of seeing Madame de Clèves by calling in company
with the Vidame.
Madame de Mercaur was delighted to see them, and at once
began to devise plans for their amusement. While they were
deer-hunting, Monsieur de Nemours lost his way in the forest;
and when he asked what road he should take, he was told that
he was near Coulommiers. When he heard this word, “Coulom-
miers,” he at once, without thinking, without forming any plan,
dashed off in that direction. He got once more into the forest,
and followed such paths as seemed to him to lead to the castle.
These paths led to a summer-house, which consisted of a large
room with two closets: one opening on a flower-garden separated
from the forest by a fence, and the other opening on one of
the walks of the park. He entered the summer-house, and was
about to stop and admire it, when he saw Monsieur and Madame
de Clèves coming along the path, followed by a number of serv-
ants. Surprised at seeing Monsieur de Cièves, whom he had left
with the King, his first impulse was to hide. He entered the
closet near the flower-garden, with the intention of escaping by
a door opening into the forest; but when he saw Madame de
Clèves and her husband sitting in the summer-house, while their
servants stayed in the park, whence they could not reach him
without coming by Monsieur and Madame de Clèves, he could
not resist the temptation to watch her, or overcome his curiosity
to listen to her conversation with her husband, of whom he was
more jealous than of any of his rivals.
He heard Monsieur de Cièves say to his wife: "But why
don't you wish to return to Paris ? What can keep you in the
country? For some time you have had a taste for solitude which
XV-549
## p. 8770 (#386) ###########################################
8770
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
»
(
surprises me and pains me, because it keeps us apart. I find
you in even lower spirits than usual, and I am afraid something
distresses you. ”
"I have nothing on my mind,” she answered with some
embarrassment; “but the bustle of a court is so great, and our
house is always so thronged, that it is impossible for mind and
body not to be tired and to need rest. ”
“Rest,” he answered, “is not needed by persons of your age.
Neither at home nor at court do you get tired; and I should
be rather inclined to fear that you are glad to get away from
me. ”
"If you thought that, you would do me great injustice," she
replied with ever growing embarrassment; “but I beg of you to
leave me here. If you could stay too I should be very glad;
provided you would stay alone, and did not care for the throng
of people who almost never leave you. "
"Ah, madame,” exclaimed Monsieur de Clèves, your air and
your words show me that you have reasons for wishing to be
alone which I don't know, and which I beg of you to tell me. ”
For a long time the prince besought her to tell him the reason,
but in vain: and after she had refused in a way that only doubled
his curiosity, she stood for some time silent with eyes cast down;
then raising her eyes to his she said suddenly:-
“Don't compel me to confess something which I have often
meant to tell you, but had not the strength. Only remember
that prudence does not require that a woman of my age, who is
mistress of her actions, should remain exposed to the temptations
of the court. ”
"What is it you suggest, madame ? » exclaimed Monsieur de
Clèves. "I should not dare to say, for fear of offending you. ”
Madame de Clèves did not answer, and her silence confirming
her husband's suspicions, he went on:-
“You are silent, and your silence tells me I am not mistaken. ”
“Well, sir,” she answered, falling on her knees, “I am going
to make you a confession such as no woman has ever made to
her husband; the innocence of my actions and of my intentions
gives me strength to do so. It is true that I have reasons for
keeping aloof from the court, and I wish to avoid the perils that
sometimes beset women of my age. I have never given the
slightest sign of weakness; and I should never fear displaying any,
if you would leave me free to withdraw from court, or if Madame
## p. 8771 (#387) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8771
>
de Chartres still lived to guide my actions. Whatever the dangers
of the course I take, I pursue it with pleasure, in order to keep
myself worthy of you. I beg your pardon a thousand times if
my feelings offend you; at any rate I shall never offend you by
my actions. Remember that to do what I am now doing requires
more friendship and esteem for a husband than any one has ever
had. Guide me, take pity on me, love me if you can. ”
All the time she was speaking, Monsieur de Clèves sat with
his head in his hands; he was really beside himself, and did not
once think of lifting his wife up. But when she had finished,
and he looked down and saw her, her face wet with tears, and
yet so beautiful, he thought he should die of grief. He kissed
her, and helped her to her feet.
“Do you, madame, take pity on me,” he said, “for I deserve
it; and excuse me if in the first moments of a grief so poignant
as mine I do not respond as I should to your appeal. You seem
to me worthier of esteem and admiration than any woman that
ever lived; but I also regard myself as the unhappiest of men.
The first moment that I saw you, I was filled with love of you;
neither your indifference to me nor the fact that you are my
wife has cooled it: it still lives. I have never been able to make
you love me, and I see that you fear you love another. And
who, madame, is the happy man that inspires this fear? Since
when has he charmed you? What has he done to please you?
What was the road he took to your heart ? I found some conso-
lation for not having touched it, in the thought that it was
beyond any one's reach; but another has succeeded where I have
failed. I have all the jealousy of a husband and of a lover; but
it is impossible to suffer as a husband after what you have told
Your noble conduct makes me feel perfectly secure, and
even consoles me as a lover. Your confidence and your sincerity
are infinitely dear to me; you think well enough of me not to
suppose that I shall take any unfair advantage of this confession.
You are right, madame,- 1 shall not; and I shall not love you
less. You make me happy by the greatest proof of fidelity that
a woman ever gave her husband; but madame, go on and tell
me who it is you are trying to avoid. ”
“I entreat you, do not ask me,” she replied: "I have deter-
mined not to tell you, and I think that the more prudent course. ”
« Have no fear, madame,” said Monsieur de Cièves: “I know
the world too well to suppose that respect for a husband ever
me.
-
## p. 8772 (#388) ###########################################
8772
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
»
So.
even
prevents men falling in love with his wife. He ought to hate
those who do so, but without complaining; so once more, madame,
I beg of you to tell me what I want to know. ”
“You would urge me in vain,” she answered: "I have strength
enough to keep back what I think I ought not to say. My
avowal is not the result of weakness, and it requires more courage
to confess this truth than to undertake to hide it. "
Monsieur de Nemours lost not a single word of this conversa-
tion, and Madame de Clèves's last remark made him quite as jeal-
ous as it made her husband. He was himself so desperately in
love with her that he supposed every one else was just as much
It was true in fact that he had many rivals, but he imagined
more than there were; and he began to wonder whom
Madame de Clèves could mean. He had often believed that she
did not dislike him, and he had formed his opinion from things
which seemed so slight that he could not imagine he had kindled
a love so intense that it called for this desperate remedy. He
was almost beside himself with excitement, and could not forgive
Monsieur de Clèves for not insisting on knowing the name his
wife was hiding.
Monsieur de Clèves, however, was doing his best to find it
out; and after he had entreated her in vain, she said:-“It seems
to me that you ought to be satisfied with my sincerity; do not
ask me anything more, and do not give me reason to repent what
I have just done. Content yourself with the assurance I give
you that no one of my actions has betrayed my feelings, and
that not a word has ever been said to me at which I could take
offense. ”
"Ah, madame, Monsieur de Clèves suddenly exclaimed, « I
cannot believe you! I remember your embarrassment the day
your portrait was lost. You gave it away,- you gave away that
portrait which was so dear to me, and belonged to me so legiti-
mately. You could not hide your feelings: it is known that
you are in love; your virtue has so far preserved you from the
rest. ”
"Is it possible," the princess burst forth, “that you could
suspect any misrepresentation in a confession like mine, which
there was no ground for my making ? Believe what I say:
purchase at a high price the confidence that I ask of you. I
beg of you, believe that I did not give away the portrait; it is
true that I saw it taken, but I did not wish to show that I saw
## p. 8773 (#389) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8773
»
it, lest I should be exposed to hearing things which no one had
yet dared to say. ”
“How then did you see his love ? ” asked Monsieur de Clèves.
«What marks of love were given to you? ”
"Spare me the mortification," was her answer, "of repeating
all the details which I am ashamed to have noticed, and have
only convinced me of my weakness. ”
“You are right, madame,” he said: "I am unjust. Deny me
when I shall ask such things, but do not be angry if I ask
them. "
At this moment some of the servants who were without came
to tell Monsieur de Clèves that a gentleman had come with a
command from the King that he should be in Paris that evening.
Monsieur de Clèves was obliged to leave at once; and he could
say to his wife nothing except that he begged her to return the
next day, and besought her to believe that though he was sorely
distressed, he felt for her an affection and esteem which ought to
satisfy her.
When he had gone, and Madame de Clèves was alone and
began to think of what she had done, she was so amazed that
she could scarcely believe it true. She thought that she had
wholly alienated her husband's love and esteem, and had thrown
herself into an abyss from which escape was impossible. She
asked herself why she had done this perilous thing, and she saw
that she had stumbled into it without intention.
The strange-
ness of such a confession, for which she knew no precedent,
showed her all her danger.
But when she began to think that this remedy, violent as it
was, was the only one that could protect her from Monsieur de
Nemours, she felt that she could not regret it, and that she had
not gone too far. She spent the whole night in uncertainty, ,
anxiety, and fear; but at last she grew calm. She felt a vague
satisfaction in having given this proof of fidelity to a husband
who so well deserved it, who had such affection and esteem for
her, and who had just shown these by the way in which he had
received her avowal.
Meanwhile Monsieur de Nemours had left the place where he
had overheard a conversation which touched him keenly, and had
hastened into the forest. What Madame de Clèves had said about
the portrait gave him new life, by showing him that it was he
whom she did not hate. He first gave himself up to this joy;
## p. 8774 (#390) ###########################################
8774
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
but it was not of long duration, for he reflected that the same
thing which showed him that he had touched the heart of
Madame de Clèves ought to convince him that he would never
receive any token of it, and that it was impossible to gain any
influence over a woman who resorted to so strange a remedy.
He felt, nevertheless, great pleasure in having brought her to
this extremity. He felt a certain pride in making himself loved
by a woman so different from all others of her sex,- in a word,
he felt a hundred times happier and unhappier. Night came
upon him in the forest, and he had great difficulty in finding the
way back to Madame de Mercoeur's. He reached there at day-
break. He found it very hard to explain what had delayed him;
but he made the best excuses he could, and returned to Paris that
same day with the Vidame.
Monsieur de Nemours was so full of his passion, and so sur-
prised by what he had heard, that he committed a very common
imprudence,- that of speaking in general terms of his own
feelings, and of describing his own adventures under borrowed
names.
On his way back he turned the conversation to love: he
spoke of the pleasure of being in love with a worthy woman; he
mentioned the singular effects of this passion; and finally, not
being able to keep to himself his astonishment at what Madame
de Clèves had done, he told the whole story to the Vidame, with-
out naming her and without saying that he had any part in it.
But he manifested such warmth and admiration that the Vidame
at once suspected that the story concerned the prince himself.
He urged him strongly to acknowledge this; he said that he had
long known that he nourished a violent passion, and that it was
wrong not to trust in a man who had confided to him the secret
of his life. Monsieur de Nemours was too much in love to
acknowledge his love; he had always hidden it from the Vidame,
though he loved him better than any man at court. He answered
that one of his friends had told him this adventure, and had
made him promise not to speak of it, and he besought him to
keep his secret. The Vidame promised not to speak of it; never-
theless Monsieur de Nemours repented having told him.
Meanwhile, Monsieur de Clèves had gone to the King, his heart
sick with a mortal wound. Never had a husband felt warmer
love or higher respect for his wife. What he had heard had not
lessened his respect, but this had assumed a new form. His most
earnest desire was to know who had succeeded in pleasing her.
## p. 8775 (#391) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8775
(
Monsieur de Nemours was the first to occur to him, as the most
fascinating man at court, and the Chevalier de Guise and the
Marshal of Saint-André as two men who had tried to please her
and had paid her much attention; so that he decided it must be
one of these three. He reached the Louvre, and the King took
him into his study to tell him that he had chosen him to carry
Madame to Spain; that he had thought that the prince would
discharge this duty better than any one; and that no one would
do so much credit to France as Madame de Clèves. Monsieur
de Clèves accepted this appointment with due respect, and even
looked upon it as something that would remove his wife from
court without attracting any attention; but the date of their de-
parture was still too remote to relieve his present embarrassment.
He wrote at once to Madame de Clèves to tell her what the King
had said, and added that he was very anxious that she should
come to Paris. She returned in obedience to his request; and
when they met, each found the other in the deepest gloom.
Monsieur de Clèves addressed her in the most honorable
terms, and seemed well worthy of the confidence she had placed
in him.
“I have no uneasiness about your conduct,” he said: "you
have more strength and virtue than you think. It is not dread
of the future that distresses me; I am only distressed at seeing
that you have for another feelings that I have not been able to
inspire in you. ”
"I do not know how to answer you,” she said; “I am ready
to die with shame when I speak to you. Spare me, I beg of
you, these painful conversations. Regulate my conduct; let me
see no one,- that is all I ask: but permit me never to speak of
a thing which makes me seem so little worthy of you, and which
i regard as so unworthy of me. "
« You are right, madame," he answered: "I abuse your gen-
tleness and your confidence. But do you too take some pity
on the state into which you have cast me, and remember that
whatever you have told me, you conceal from me a name which
excites an unendurable curiosity. Still, I do not ask you to
gratify it; but I must say that I believe the man I must envy
to be the Marshal of Saint-André, the Duke of Nemours, or the
Chevalier de Guise. »
“I shall not answer,” she said blushing, "and I shall give
you no occasion for lessening or strengthening your suspicions;
(
## p. 8776 (#392) ###########################################
8776
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
me
no
but if you try to find out by watching me, you will surely make
so embarrassed that every one will notice it. In Heaven's
name,” she went on, "invent some illness, that I may see
one! ”
“No, madame,” he replied: "it would soon be found that it
was not real: and moreover, I want to place my confidence in
you alone; that is the course my heart recommends, and my rea-
son too. In your present mood, by leaving you free, I protect
you by a closer guard than I could persuade myself to set about
you. ”
Monsieur de Clèves was right: the confidence he showed in
his wife proved a stronger protection against Monsieur de Ne-
mours, and inspired her to make austerer resolutions, than any
form of constraint could have done. She went to the Louvre
and visited the dauphiness as usual; but she avoided Monsieur de
Nemours with so much care that she took away nearly all his
happiness at thinking that she loved him. He saw nothing in
her actions which did not prove the contrary. He was almost
ready to believe that what he had heard was a dream, so unlikely
did it appear.
The only thing that assured him that he was not
mistaken was the extreme sadness of Madame de Clèves, in spite
of all her efforts to conceal it. Possibly kind words and glances
would not have fanned Monsieur de Nemours's love as did this
austere conduct.
One evening when Monsieur and Madame de Clèves were with
the Queen, some one said that it was reported that the King
was going to name another nobleman of the court to accompany
Madame to Spain. Monsieur de Clèves fixed his eyes on his wife
when the speaker added that it would be either the Chevalier
de Guise or the Marshal of Saint-André. He noticed that she
showed no agitation at either of these names, or at the mention
of their joining the party.
This led him to think that it was
neither of these that she dreaded, to see; and wishing to deter-
mine the matter, he went to the room where the King was. ,
After a short absence, he returned to his wife and whispered
to her that he had just learned that it would be Monsieur de
Nemours who would go with them to Spain.
The name of Monsieur de Nemours, and the thought of seeing
him every day during a long journey in her husband's presence,
so agitated Madame de Clèves that she could not conceal it; and
wishing to assign other reasons, she answered: -
## p. 8777 (#393) ###########################################
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
8777
1
.
1
“The choice of that gentleman will be very disagreeable for
you: he will divide all the honors, and I think you ought to try
to have some one else appointed. ”
« It is not love of glory, madame,” said Monsieur de Clèves,
« that makes you dread that Monsieur de Nemours should come
with me.
Your regret tells me what another woman would have
told by her delight. But do not be alarmed; what I have just
told you is not true: I made it up to make sure of a thing which
I had only too long inclined to believe. ” With these words he
went away, not wishing by his presence to add to his wife's evi-
dent embarrassment.
At that moment Monsieur de Nemours entered, and at once
noticed Madame de Clèves's condition. He went up to her, and
said in a low voice that he respected her too much to ask what
made her so thoughtful. His voice aroused her from her revery;
and looking at him, without hearing what he said, full of her
own thoughts and fearful that her husband would see him by
her side, she said, “In Heaven's name leave me alone! ”
"Alas! madame,” he replied, "I leave you only too much
alone. Of what can you complain? I do not dare to speak to
you, or even to look at you; I never come near you without
trembling How have I brought such remark on myself, and
why do you make me seem to have something to do with the
depression in which I find you? ”
Madame de Clèves deeply regretted that she had given Mon-
sieur de Nemours an opportunity to speak to her more frankly
than he had ever done. She left him without giving him any
answer, and went home in a state of agitation such as she
had never known. Her husband soon noticed this; he perceived
that she was afraid lest he should speak to her about what
had just happened. He followed her into her room and said
to her:-
“Do not try to avoid me, madame; I shall say nothing that
could displease you.
I beg your pardon for surprising you as I I
did; I am sufficiently punished by what I learned. Monsieur de
Nemours was the man whom I most feared. I see your danger:
control yourself for your own sake, and if possible for mine. I
do not ask this as your husband, but as a man all of whose hap-
piness you make, and who feels for you a tenderer and stronger
love than he whom your heart prefers. ”
## p. 8778 (#394) ###########################################
8778
MADAME DE LA FAYETTE
Monsieur de Clèves nearly broke down at these last words,
which he could hardly utter. His wife was much moved; and
bursting into tears, she embraced him with a gentleness and a
sorrow that almost brought him to the same condition. They
remained for some time perfectly silent, and separated without
having strength to utter a word.
Translated by Thomas Sergeant Perry.
## p. 8778 (#395) ###########################################
## p. 8778 (#396) ###########################################
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## p. 8778 (#397) ###########################################
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## p. 8778 (#398) ###########################################
JEAN DE LAFONTAINE
## p. 8779 (#399) ###########################################
8779
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
(1621-1695)
BY GEORGE MCLEAN HARPER
T The court of Louis XIV. there once appeared a figure which
clashed with the regularity and harmony of the scene. A
tall, spare man, with a long nose, thin satirical lips, and
kindly eyes, which could be sharp enough but were for the most part
veiled by revery, wandered through the palace of Versailles and lin-
gered half amused in the stately and unnatural gardens. Jean de La
Fontaine, then in discredit as the author of certain licentious tales
and the associate of malcontents, had come, rather sheepishly, at the
instance of his friends, to present a volume of his fables to the King,
of whose disfavor he was well aware. Though not quite clear as
to the nature of his offense nor over-anxious for royal patronage, he
was willing to purchase protection by an act of homage. He felt un-
comfortable in his rôle of suitor, but played it with what grace and
countenance he could. While conforming, with an odd mingling of
ease and childish awkwardness, to the requirements of the situation,
there was a fine, incredulous smile about the corners of his mouth as
he bent the knee to the monarch whom under his breath he called
Sire Lion, — feeling himself to be neither more nor less of a courtier
than that handsome rascal, the Fox. The glitter of ceremony failed
to dazzle him; and although he manifestly tried to be interested in
the regal pageant, he was not much impressed. When he had fin-
ished his harangue, he found he had forgotten to bring the book
which was to have been its excuse, and he absent-mindedly left in
the carriage that bore him away, the purse of gold with which his
solicitations had been rewarded.
To the King and his elegant retinue he must have seemed a
naughty, undisciplined child, -rustic, old-fashioned, irreverent, out of
keeping with the world and the times. Yet he was in some ways
the most real man there; certainly the most natural. He understood
his world and his time profoundly, after his fashion, and was des-
tined to interpret them to future generations. For if he never suc-
ceeded in pleasing the King or obtaining a royal pension, he was only
too popular with many great lords and ladies, and knew most of the
celebrities of Paris; and though his acquaintances would have been
3
## p. 8780 (#400) ###########################################
8780
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
amused to hear that he possessed any moral superiority over them,
he at least enjoyed a certain advantage of birth and breeding which
enabled him to see things with clearer eyes than they.
No one can see clearly and judge with broad fairness in a society
which represents to him the whole of life. One must come from
another world to do this. And a large part of La Fontaine's past
had been spent in a world as different as could be imagined from the
artificial circumstances of a court, and his experience was well calcu-
lated to reduce them to a natural perspective. Other men, of remark-
able penetration and unusual honesty, were aware of the evils of
that reign, — so difficult to judge then, because so grand in outward
seeming. La Rochefoucauld was letting fall, here and there, a maxim
of concentrated bitterness; and Saint-Simon was rushing home from
court every night to pour out, on endless paper, his righteous indig-
nation against the crawling hypocrisy of bishops, the slander and
place-hunting of lords, and the tainted ambition of ladies. But to
neither of these observers did it all seem abnormal and ridiculous, as
it did to La Fontaine. To him there was matter for eternal laugh-
ter in that perversion of nature which was called a court. Like
Jupiter's monkey in his own fable, who replied to the elephant,
astonished at the indifference of the gods to his size and importance,
the complacent dreamer said, “Both small and great in their eyes
are the same. » For him the gods were elsewhere, - divinities of
groves and rivers, shaking the leaves of woodland birch and roadside
poplar in the sunny Champagne country, and splashing, serenely
unconcerned with mortal business, through the meandering Marne.
And he laughed silently at the formal ugliness of Versailles horti-
culture, as the vision of trees,” “the mist and the river, the hill and
the shade,” roşe before his mind. No less ludicrous must the King
of France and his brilliant company of flatterers have sometimes
appeared to him, when he reflected how exactly they and all their
movements matched the life of village boors and gossips, or the
more antique and undeviating ways of forest creatures, in bush and
stream. For it was by intimacy with country scenes, peasant nature.
and the primitive and changeless character of animals, that La
Fontaine differed from the high society into which he had been
allured, and was enabled to judge it. Like Benjamin Franklin a cen-
tury later at the court of Louis XVI. , he brought into an artificial
circle the clear perceptions and the common-sense which are bred of
familiarity with simple forms of life.
He was born July 8th, 1621, in the small town of Château-Thierry,
which sits quietly beside the river Marne, in the heart of Champagne.
The soil of that famous wine-growing country is light, and the sun
shines fair, but without excessive heat. The beauty of the landscape
c
»
## p. 8781 (#401) ###########################################
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8781
»
of «
is in the ordered green of its little vineyards, the bright red and blue
of poppy and corn-flower in its winding meadows, which low chalk
hills warmly enfold, treeless but gently outlined, — all these features
perfect in detail, and the common charm their gracious harmony.
There is no grandeur to uplift, no mystery to deepen the human
spirit; neither is there fat abundance to make men dull. The native
race is shrewd, witty, parsimonious, sober. They see clearly in the
small concerns of their very limited lives, and are devoid of illusions
and exciting fancies. The moral current is shallow, but sparkling
and quick. The deep imaginings and awful pleasures of northern
peoples are to them unknown. Mystery does not charm, but only
irritates them. They have a weak sense for the supernatural or the
abstract. Ridicule, rather than priestor Bible, is the guardian of
their behavior; and the principles which regulate their conduct have
long ago been coined into maxims and anecdotes and significant
bywords, which pass down from generation to generation with accu-
mulating force.
In this region La Fontaine's father and grandfather held the office
master of streams and forests,” a government position in the
proper filling of which a man would naturally become familiar with
the country and its inhabitants. The family enjoyed consideration
and some wealth. Jean, who must have been but a willful and indif-
ferent scholar, received an education of which the principal traces in
his works are a loving familiarity with the Latin poets, and a wide
acquaintance with the racy and somewhat recondite narratives which
constituted the undercurrent of French literature,- irregular, licen-
tious, but undeniably congenial to the French spirit. He became
deeply read in the popular tales of the Middle Ages, - satires, animal
stories, and “moralities. ” From these sources, and from several
writers of the sixteenth century, particularly Rabelais and Marot, he
obtained a fund of witty and sensual incidents; while his poetical
imagery and much of his tenderer and purer sentiment were derived
from Virgil and Ovid.
The son of an old family comfortably settled in a small country
town is strongly tempted to idleness; because there come to him by
birth that consideration and respect, and that freedom from financial
concern, which are the usual objects of men's activity. La Fontaine
was never very successful in resisting temptation of any kind, and it
suited his nature to float indolently on the current of wealth and social
regard which his more strenuous ancestors had accumulated. Nor
was there lack of entertainment to enliven the smooth voyage; for
he had neighbors to his liking, - not averse to playing for high stakes
or drinking up to the limit of sobriety, and withal of a very ready
wit. Unambitious, fond of easy company, absent-minded, given to
## p. 8782 (#402) ###########################################
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JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
receiving hospitality, which was offered freely in those days in French
provincial towns, he drifted into middle age; allowing himself to be
married by family arrangement and without love, and quietly accept-
ing his father's office, which was resigned in his favor.
His life of hunting, reading, and convivial pleasure at Château-
Thierry was diversified by frequent visits to Paris, where his com-
positions were a passport to the acquaintance not only of literary
people, but of many rich and frivolous nobles. In 1654 he published
.
an adaptation of the “Eunuchus) of Terence, and at about this time
his tales and epistles in verse began to circulate from hand to hand.
He lived to deplore the harm the tales may have done, though he
professed for his part to see no evil in them. They were based
largely on Boccaccio and Rabelais; and represented woman's charac-
ter especially in a way not creditable to their author, either as poet
or as mere observer. It is true, however, that so far as the material
of the tales is concerned, he accepted the disgusting inventions of
his coarse masters without much change. Between 1657 and 1663 he
was a frequent guest, and indeed a pensioner, of the rich and corrupt
Fouquet, superintendent of finance. Several other poets also enjoyed
the bounty of Fouquet at his magnificent country-seat, the palace of
Vaux; but none on such strict terms of service as La Fontaine. He
was at work for three years, with what frequent intervals of repose
we can imagine, on a long eulogistic composition, “The Dream of
Vaux'; and wrote besides many occasional pieces, in return for lav-
ish hospitality. On Fouquet's fall in 1663, he sang with sincere regret
the departed glories of the place, in his “Elegy of the Nymphs of
Vaux. '
He would seem to have been now, for a moment, in helpless
plight, - his private fortune well-nigh exhausted, and himself in dis-
grace with the government as a friend of the guilty superintendent.
But he found no lack of patronage.
One of Mazarin's nieces, the
Duchess of Bouillon, then living in forced retirement at Château-
Thierry, attracted him back to his birthplace; and through her con-
nections at Paris he subsequently received a fresh start in town
society. He had already become a friend of Molière, Racine, and
Boileau. Spurred into action by their raillery, — for he was the eld-
est of the group, and the others, who were winning fame, called him
a laggard, - he published in 1664 the first series of his versified tales.
Like many of his steps, this was an innocent blunder, and led him
to no honorable advantage. His reputation as the author of such
compositions brought him into close relations with several notorious
sets of libertines; and his life, which had never been consistent, now
became a very complex tangle of good and bad. He neglected his
wife, his son, his public duties. He lived in ease and self-indulgence.
(
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JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8783
He seemed occupied solely with the art of satisfying his own caprice
and the depraved taste of a corrupt society.
But somehow the precious jewel which was in his head remained
untarnished, and shone through at last; for after all he had not been
idle, and was never worse than a willful child.
He possessed the
poet's eye, and it had been busy when his hands were folded. No
such “master of streams and forests” ever lived. Not even Izaak
Walton so well deserves the name. The trees of Champagne had
small need to mourn the incompetence of their guardian, who has
given them “a green and golden immortality” in his appeal to the
«
”
woodman:-
«Leave axes, books, and picks,
Instruments of woe.
The scythe of Time, with deadlier tricks,
To line the borders of the Styx
Too soon will bring them low. )
In simplicity of heart, and profiting by his unbounded leisure, this
wayward but still unspoiled man had followed a native instinct of
observation, which had led him after many years into rare sympathy
with the non-human denizens of the earth. His peculiar appreciation
— half poetic feeling, half naturalist's instinct -- of this underlying
world, being put to the service of his very considerable philosophic
bent, gave him that air which people remarked, of having come from
another planet. As old age approached, there grew upon him the
habit of judging men according to the large standard of comparison
which his fellowship with animals and plants provided. And it came
to be recognized as his unique distinction that he would be at all
times collecting and applying these novel ideas. He was known to sit
for half a day, missing his dinner and breaking all appointments, to
watch a family of ants bury a dead Ay. The ways of the wolf, the
fears of the mouse, the ruminations of the ox, the ambitions of the
bear, were more open to his understanding than men's politics. He
loved the bright, smiling land of his birth; its limpid waters, its sunny
vineyards, its frugal farms, where every egg was counted— sometimes,
as he tells us, before it was laid. Waiting by green-mantled pools,
peering to the brook's gray bottom, and wandering with bowed head
on forest paths, where for a moment the fallow-deer stood in the
flickering light and were gone, — he mused for months and years in
happy indolence; and if by chance he undertook, of a winter's night,
to turn into French verse a fable of Æsop or Phædrus, and uncon-
sciously excelled his models, it was still all love-in-idleness to him,
and in no wise work.
But there had to be labor enough in the end, for the task was
complicated, — being the turning of old Greek and Latin fables, not
## p. 8784 (#404) ###########################################
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JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
only into the French language, but into the French spirit. Moreover,
he exercised in this the most painstaking and thoughtful originality,
by setting forth in them the results of his own observation and
inaking a witty commentary on his own times. By his forty-eighth
year there were enough of these little poems for a volume of one
hundred and twenty-four fables, arranged in six books. Ten years
later he published another collection, of five books. The fables ex-
cited such interest, and went so far to make amends for past license,
that their author was elected a member of the Academy; but the
King for a time opposed his admission, finally permitting it in 1684,
with the remark, “You may receive La Fontaine at once: he has
promised to behave. ” There were more tales, however, and much
loose conduct to atone for, when, during a serious illness in 1693, the
old poet made a public and no doubt sincere confession of his sins.
It is worthy of remark, as illustrating the peculiarly expansive and
social character of the period, and perhaps also the racial conception
of religion as a public exercise rather than an inward state, that a
committee of literary men were deputed by the French Academy to
witness this tardy profession of faith. The twelfth and last book of
fables appeared shortly afterwards; and two years later he died, still
young in heart.
For nearly a generation he had been living on the
hospitality of his friends at Paris — not basely, but with noble frank-
ness, acknowledging his inability to provide for himself.
La Fontaine, it must be admitted, lacked some very essential qual-
ities, while possessing other and unusual ones in notable abundance.
Marriage was not sacred to him, though friendship was. He disliked
children, though he loved dumb beasts. Throughout the latter half of
his life he was dependent on others for a home; but in his soul he
was free, and seldom praised his patrons except where self-interest
fell in with affection. His tales are an unclean spot upon the century
when French literature as a whole was most pure and dignified;
but his fables, which far surpass them in artistic finish, in interest, in
variety, are sound and clear and sweet. The truth is, this great man
was always a child, with a child's fair purposes and untrained will.
Instinct ruled him. Until almost the end of his life he was an irre-
sponsible pagan.
But his failings were of the most amiable order; and they saved
him from too great conformity to the artificial society of his time,
which would have been the most deplorable failing of all. He never
grew old nor worldly-wise; he never lost his sweet simplicity, nor
succeeded, no matter how much he tried, in making those surrenders
of the ideal by which we purchase what is termed success. To blame
La Fontaine for being different from other men, even the best, would
be to overlook the quality wherewith his very true and enduring
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JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
8785
success was achieved. The ordered life of civilized cominunities had
come to be taken for granted as necessarily the best possible condi-
tion, and of vastly more scope and meaning than the life of nature.
Both in the conduct of his own affairs,— his childlike following of
pleasure, his unsophisticated relish for what was natural, -and also
by precept and illustration in his fables, La Fontaine suggested the
broader basis and more complicated frame of things. If we are care-
ful to exclude any idea of his entertaining a conscious intention to
influence politics, it may safely be said that La Fontaine, by criti-
cizing the monarch, the churchman, the noble, under the guise of
lion, wolf, fox, bear, or cat, opened a little crack, which La Bruyère
was to widen and Montesquieu to whistle through, until at last it
gaped broad and let in the howling blasts of revolutionary eloquence.
To the same fondness for being his genuine self is due the high
lyric quality of the fables,- an excellence which they alone, of all
French poetry from Ronsard to André Chénier, possess in anything
like abundance. We shall see the value of this distinction if we
reflect that in the same interval England was graced with the songs
and sonnets of Spenser, Raleigh, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Campion,
Milton, Collins, Gray, and Burns,— to mention no more, and to draw
somewhere a line that must perforce be arbitrary. The main effort
of the seventeenth century in France being to enforce conformity to
certain standards,- in other words, to produce typical rather than
individual excellence, — there could be in her literature of that
period no such outburst of lyric poetry; for it is of the essence of
lyric poetry to express personal charm. When we have read the
fables of La Fontaine we have learned his heart and mind, and are no
better than prigs or pedants if we do not love him. Considering his
awkwardness of speech and his frequent fits of silence, men found
him in actual life singularly attractive. The secret may have nestled
in his smile or hid in the wrinkles about his eyes; we cannot tell.
But in the fables, objective though they are, we do not have to wait
long to catch the elf at play. It is his childlike self-surrender, which
comes at once with engaging frankness or after much coy hesitation
and a playful chase. All that he is and thinks, he sweetly confides to
us, at least more fully than was common among French poets in his
day. He does not skulk behind convention or pose upon a pedestal
of approved usage. Here — though he knew it not, and his friends
Boileau and Racine would have denied it — here is what makes him
a great lyric poet. No school could claim him, yet he was liberal of
himself to every reader. Like the attractive heroine of his first fable,
he might say:
«Day and night to every comer
I was singing, I'm afraid. »
XV-550
## p. 8786 (#406) ###########################################
8785
JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
And strange to say, while being so truly himself that he became
the greatest lyric poet his country produced in a stretch of two hun-
dred years, La Fontaine is also the epitome and type of whatever is
mnost French. He is the national poet par excellence. He represents
not so much his age as his race. Indeed, he is not so fairly repre-
sentative of his age as are the dramatists, and particularly Racine.
But we recognize in La Fontaine the French intelligence, as it is
common to all centuries and specialized in every individual. It is not
enough to say that he abounds in wit: the striking thing is that
French wit and the wit of La Fontaine are one — aerified, dry, dif-
fused, of the manner rather than the substance, not intrusive, not
insistent, but circumambient and touch-and-go. There is no forced
emphasis, no zeal to convert; but only a genial willingness to sug-
gest amendment, provided always it can be done with a laughing
avoidance of proffering one's own example. . Moreover, La Fontaine,
like all his countrymen, clings to the concrete. The mystery of an
unrealized abstraction has for him and for them the horror of the
blackness of darkness to a child. A writer of fables is tempted to
be abstract and to moralize. Some of La Fontaine's fables have no
moral, either expressed or discoverable. In others the lesson is added
perfunctorily, as if in obedience to the tradition of the art, and for
the sake of good form. But whether or not they are all deserving
strictly of the name, they give perennial delight; for as Thoreau says,
“All fables indeed have their morals, but the innocent enjoy the
story. ”
Any man who has personal charm, and who will but express him-
self naturally in words, may hope to interest us; but unless he have
also style we shall not esteem him a great writer. Whether we call
it a miracle or only an acquisition, style is something divine; per-
haps never more divine than when acquired by patient toil. La Fon-
taine possessed the most exquisite literary gift; and what it behooves
us to perceive is that this too came as a reward for his supreme vir-
tue of naturalness. He wrote with easy indifference to the rigorous
precepts of rhetoricians, who were trying to unify and modernize
French literature. He deftly eluded the rules of seventeenth-century
diction, and would not belong exclusively to the grand age. ” He was
not above using the marrowy, forcible, homely language of an earlier
time, or its strong short forms of verse. The modest man did not
know it, but he had struck root in a richer soil than his contempo-
raries, and his branches will flourish in immortal green when most of
theirs have withered.
Llotilien
Harper
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JEAN DE LA FONTAINE
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[The three following fables are translated for (A Library of the World's Best
Literature,' by George McLean Harper. ]
DEATH AND THE WOODCUTTER
A
POOR woodcutter, covered with green boughs,
Under the fagot's weight and his own age
Groaning and bent, ending his weary stage,
Was struggling homeward to his smoky hut.
At last, worn out with labor and with pain,
Letting his fagot down, he thinks again
What little pleasure he has had in life.
Is there so cursed a wretch in all the strife ?
No bread sometimes, and never any rest;
With taxes, soldiers, children, and a wife,
Creditors, forced toil oppressed,
He is the picture of a man unblessed.
He cries for Death.
