Boileau and Racine remonstrated with La Fontaine for having separated from his wife. Simple as he was, he believed what they told him--that it was his duty to return to her. He very soon came back, and when he was asked why he came back so soon, he replied, "I did not see her!" "How," they asked, "was she from home?" "Yes," he replied; "she was gone to prayers, and the servant not knowing me, would not let me stay in the house until she returned." The fabulist and his wife were so extravagant and careless in their habits, that in a very short time the property of La Fontaine was wasted away. Foquet, the minister, pensioned him, and he remembered him always after. When Foquet was banished, La Fontaine solicited his pardon, but the king was incapable of forgiving an enemy, and changed the sentence to solitary confinement for life. The succeeding minister took away La Fontaine's pension, as might have been expected. In 1664 La Fontaine published his first collection of fables, and it gave him immediately the very highest rank as a fabulist. Shortly after, he published a tale entitled "_Psyche and Cupid_." He was now without money and a home. The duchess of Orleans added him to her suite, and gave him a pension. She soon died, however, and he was again left homeless. A woman by the name of de la Sabliere now invited him to her house, and with her he lived the next twenty years. She was a woman of great refinement and taste, but was singularly situated. She lived apart from her husband, and had her lover. She gave parties which the most distinguished men in France attended, and La Fontaine was very happy while in her house. He was oppressed by no care or anxiety, and had nothing to do but to read and write when it suited him. He wrote several operas, and actually fell asleep during the first performance of one of them at the theater! In 1683 he was elected a member of the French Academy. He had forgotten his old friends at Thierry, and indeed did not know his own son. He attended the funeral of a friend, one day, and ten days after it had so completely escaped his memory, that he called to visit the man. He was lionized, greatly to his displeasure. Attending one day at a dinner given by somebody who cared nothing for his genius, but wished the _eclat_ that would result from entertaining a great man, La Fontaine talked little, eat very heartily, and when dinner was over, got his hat to go. The host remonstrated: "The distance is short--you will be too early," he said. "I'll take the longest road," replied La Fontaine. After twenty years of easy existence, La Fontaine was suddenly deprived of his home. Madame de la Sabliere had been living all this time with her lover. He now deserted her. At the same time her husband was deserted by his mistress, which so affected him that he took poison and died. These events had so great an effect upon Madame de la Sabliere that she also died.