Ty92. anecdotes of Fontain:: ;j: 



Boileau, if he thought St Augustine had as mucli -»Tit as 

 Rabelais, so natural and so amusing ? The doctor, looking 

 at him from head to foot, told him, for answer, Take care 

 M. de la Tontaliie ; — you ho'iie put one of your stockings oui 

 side in, which was the case. 



Mr R.acine carried him on th« holy week to a Tene- 

 bres, and jierceiving that the office appeared long to him. 

 l;e gave him, to amuse him, a volume of the Bible, which 

 contained the prophets. He read the prayer of the Jew* 

 in Baruch ; aiu! not being able to satisfy himself admiring 

 it, he said to Racine, Baruch was a fne genuis ! IVho iL'an 

 he? Next day, and several days afterwards, when he met 

 a.ay body of his acquaintance in the street, after the ordi-i 

 nary compliments, he raised his voice to say, ' Have yoa 

 read Baruth ? He v;as a great genius*!' 



Th,e author o-f these memoirs, M. Racine the son, says 

 that Fontaine, id"ter having consumed his fortune, preser- 

 ved always his disinterestednefs. He entered the French- 

 academy one day, and the bar being drawn below the 

 iiam-ss, he could not, according to establilhed custom- have- 

 any fliare Iiv th^e medals of that sitting. The academici- 

 ans, who all loved, him, said unanimously, that they ought 

 to m.ike an exception of the rule in his favour : ' No, gentle- 

 men, said he, that would not be just \ I am come too late, 

 that is my fault.' Which was so much the more remarked^ 

 that a momen» before, an academician, extremely rich, and 

 wlio, living in the Louvre, had only, the trouble of coming, 

 down stairs to get to the academy, had half opened the 

 door, and having seen that he was too late, had fhut the 

 door, and gone up again. 



Fontaine preferred tlie fables of the ancients to his 

 own, which mrule M. de Fontenelle say, la Fontaine is fol- 

 ijl} enough to think that the ctncicnts had more ivit than htm- 



* iMcxnoirs of Jja.T R:.c:n:. 



