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

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

Later on, during Fouquet’s imprisonment at Pignerol, La Fontaine wrote further,—­

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

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

         “Warm is her heart, and knit with tenderest ties
          To those she loves, and, elsewise, otherwise;
          For such a sprite, whose birthplace is the skies,
          Of manly beauty blent with woman’s grace,
          No mortal pen, though fain, can fitly trace.”

“I have only kept by me,” she would say, “my three pets (animaux):  my dog, my cat, and La Fontaine.”  When she died, M. and Madame d’Hervart received into their house the now old and somewhat isolated poet.  As D’Hervart was on his way to go and make the proposal to La Fontaine, he met him in the street.  “I was coming to ask you to put up at our house,” said he.  “I was just going thither,” answered Fontaine with the most touching confidence.  There he remained to his death, contenting himself with going now and then to Chateau-Thierry, as long as his wife lived, to sell, with her consent, some strip of ground.  The property was going, old age was coming:—­