Fables of La Fontaine — a New Edition, with Notes

by Jean de La Fontaine

To be "rebels against Love" was quite unpardonable with La Fontaine; and to bring about a "hymen forcé" was a crime, of which he probably spoke with some personal feeling. The great popularity of "Psyché" encouraged the author to publish two volumes of poems and tales in 1671, in which were contained several new fables. The celebrated Madame de Sévigné thus speaks of these fables, in one of her letters to her daughter:--"But have you not admired the beauty of the five or six fables of La Fontaine contained in one of the volumes which I sent you? We were charmed with them the other day at M. de la Rochefoucauld's: we got by art that of the Monkey and the Cat." Then, quoting some lines, she adds,--"This is painting! And the Pumpkin--and the Nightingale--they are worthy of the first volume!" It was in his stories that La Fontaine excelled; and Madame de Sévigné expresses a wish to invent a fable which would impress upon him the folly of leaving his peculiar province. He seemed himself not insensible where his strength lay, and seldom ventured upon any other ground, except at the instance of his friends. With all his lightness, he felt a deep veneration for religion--the most spiritual and rigid which came within the circle of his immediate acquaintance. He admired Jansenius and the Port Royalists, and heartily loved Racine, who was of their faith. Count Henri-Louis de Loménie, of Brienne,--who, after being secretary of state, had retired to the Oratoire,--was engaged in bringing out a better collection of Christian lyrics. To this work he pressed La Fontaine, whom he called his particular friend, to lend his name and contributions. Thus the author of "Psyché," "Adonis," and "Joconde," was led to the composition of pious hymns, and versifications of the Psalms of David. Gifted by nature with the utmost frankness of disposition, he sympathized fully with Arnauld and Pascal in the war against the Jesuits; and it would seem, from his Ballade sur Escobar, that he had read and relished the "Provincial Letters." This ballad, as it may be a curiosity to many, shall be given entire:--

BALLADE SUR ESCOBAR.

C'est à bon droit que l'on condamne à Rome
L'évêque d'Ypré [[5]], auteur de vains débats;
Ses sectateurs nous défendent en somme
Tous les plaisirs que l'on goûte ici-bas.
En paradis allant au petit pas,
On y parvient, quoi qu'ARNAULD [[6]] nous en die:
La volupté sans cause il a bannie.
Veut-on monter sur les célestes tours,
Chemin pierreux est grande rêverie,
ESCOBAR [[7]] sait un chemin de velours.
Il ne dit pas qu'on peut tuer un homme
Qui sans raison nous tient en altercas
Pour un fêtu ou bien pour une pomme;
Mais qu'on le peut pour quatre ou cinq ducats.
Même il soutient qu'on peut en certains cas
Faire un serment plein de supercherie,
S'abandonner aux douceurs de la vie,
S'il est besoin conserver ses amours.
Ne faut-il pas après cela qu'on crie:
ESCOBAR sait un chemin de velours?
Au nom de Dieu, lisez-moi quelque somme
De ces écrits don't chez lui l'on fait cas.
Qu'est-il besoin qu'à present je les nomme?
II en est tant qu'on ne les connoît pas.
De leurs avis servez-vous pour compas;
N'admettez qu'eux en votre librairie;
Brûlez ARNAULD avec sa côterie,
Près d'ESCOBAR ce ne sont qu'esprits lourds.
Je vous le dis: ce n'est point raillerie,
ESCOBAR sait un chemin de velours.
ENVOI.
Toi, que l'orgueil poussa dans la voirie,
Qui tiens là-bas noire concièrgerie,
Lucifer, chef des infernales cours,
Pour éviter les traits de ta furie,
ESCOBAR sait un chemin de velours.

[[5]] Corneille Jansenius,--the originator of the sect called Jansenists. Though he was bishop of Ypres, his chief work, "Augustinus," and his doctrines generally, were condemned by Popes Urban VIII. and Innocent X., as heretical (1641 and 1653).--Ed.
[[6]] Arnauld.--This was Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, and one of the Arnaulds famous among the Port Royalists, who were Jansenists in opposition to the Jesuits. He was born in 1612, and died a voluntary exile in Belgium, 1694. Boileau wrote his epitaph.--Ed.
[[7]] Escobar.--A Spanish Jesuit, who flourished mostly in France, and wrote against the Jansenists. Pascal, as well as La Fontaine, ridiculed his convenient principles of morality, he "chemin de velours," as La Fontaine puts it. His chief work in moral theology was published in seven vols., folio, at Lyons, 1652-1663. He died in 1669.--Ed.

Thus does the Bon-homme treat the subtle Escobar, the prince and prototype of the moralists of expediency. To translate his artless and delicate irony is hardly possible. The writer of this hasty Preface offers the following only as an attempted imitation:--

BALLAD UPON ESCOBAR.

Good cause has Rome to reprobate
The bishop who disputes her so;
His followers reject and hate
All pleasures that we taste below.
To heaven an easy pace may go,
Whatever crazy ARNAULD saith,
Who aims at pleasure causeless wrath.
Seek we the better world afar?
We're fools to choose the rugged path:
A velvet road hath ESCOBAR.
Although he does not say you can,
Should one with you for nothing strive,
Or for a trifle, kill the man--
You can for ducats four or five.
Indeed, if circumstances drive,
Defraud, or take false oaths you may,
Or to the charms of life give way,
When Love must needs the door unbar.
Henceforth must not the pilgrim say,
A velvet road hath ESCOBAR?
Now, would to God that one would state
The pith of all his works to me.
What boots it to enumerate?
As well attempt to drain the sea!--
Your chart and compass let them be;
All other books put under ban;
Burn ARNAULD and his rigid clan--
They're blockheads if we but compare;--
It is no joke,--I tell you, man,
A velvet road hath ESCOBAR.
ADDRESS.
Thou warden of the prison black,
Who didst on heaven turn thy back,
The chieftain of th' infernal war!
To shun thy arrows and thy rack,
A velvet road hath ESCOBAR.

The verses of La Fontaine did more for his reputation than for his purse. His paternal estate wasted away under his carelessness; for, when the ends of the year refused to meet, he sold a piece of land sufficient to make them do so. His wife, no better qualified to manage worldly gear than himself, probably lived on her family friends, who were able to support her, and who seem to have done so without blaming him. She had lived with him in Paris for some time after that city became his abode; but, tiring at length of the city life, she had returned at Château-Thierry, and occupied the family mansion. At the earnest expostulation of Boileau and Racine, who wished to make him a better husband, he returned to Château-Thierry himself, in 1666, for the purpose of becoming reconciled to his wife. But his purpose strangely vanished. He called at his own house, learned from the domestic, who did not know him, that Madame La Fontaine was in good health, and passed on to the house of a friend, where he tarried two days, and then returned to Paris without having seen his wife. When his friends inquired of him his success, with some confusion he replied, "I have been to see her, but I did not find her: she was well." Twenty years after that, Racine prevailed on him to visit his patrimonial estate, to take some care of what remained. Racine, not hearing from him, sent to know what he was about, when La Fontaine wrote as follows:--"Poignant, on his return from Paris, told me that you took my silence in very bad part; the worse, because you had been told that I have been incessantly at work since my arrival at Château-Thierry, and that, instead of applying myself to my affairs, I have had nothing in my head but verses. All this is no more than half true: my affairs occupy me as much as they deserve to--that is to say not at all; but the leisure which they leave me--it is not poetry, but idleness, which makes away with it." On a certain occasion, in the earlier part of his life, when pressed in regard to his improvidence, he gaily produced the following epigram, which has commonly been appended to his fables as "The Epitaph of La Fontaine, written by Himself":--

Jean s'en alla comme il était venu,
Mangea le fonds avec le revenu,
Tint les trésors chose peu nécessaire.
Quant à son temps, bien sut le dispenser:
Deux parts en fit, don't il soûloit passer
L'urie à dormir, et l'autre à ne rien faire.

This confession, the immortality of which was so little foreseen by its author, liberally rendered, amounts to the following:--