LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE, a French poet, distinguished above all his countrymen as a fabulist, was the son of a maitre des eaux et fortlts, and was b. July 8, 1621, at Olniteau Thicrry, in Champagne. In his early youth he learned almost nothing, and at the age of 20, he was sent by his father to the oratory at Rheims, in a state of extreme ignorance. Here, however, he began to exhibit a decided taste for the classics and for poetry. Though selfish and vicious to the last degree, he possessed withal a certain child-like bonhomie; it was not grace, or vivacity, or wit, but a certain soft and pleasant amia bility of manner, so that lie never wanted friends. He successively found protectors in the duchess de Bouillon, who drew him to Paris; in Mme. de Sabliere, and in 31, and Mme. Ilcrvart. He enjoyed the friendship of Moliere, Boileau, Racine, and other contemporary celebrities; and even the saintly •enelon lamdnted his death in extrava gant strains. In 1693, after a dangerous illness, lie carried into execution what a French
critic characteristically terms his projet de conversion, and spent the brief remainder of his life in a kind of artificial penitence, common enough among licentious men and women in those sensual days. He died at Paris, April 13, 1695. His which, how ever, are also his most immoral productions, are Conies et .2Vouvelles en Yers (Paris, 1665; 2d part, 1666; 3d part, 1671), and Fables Choisies lases en Vers (also in three parts, of which the first appeared in 1668, and the third in 1693). The editions of the Tables have been innumerable. The best edition of La Fontaine's collected works is that of Walck enaer (18 vols. Paris, 1819-20; improved, in 6 vols. 1822-23). See Taine's Essai sur les Fables de La Fontaine, 1860.