The duchess of Bouillon was now in England, and she invited La Fontaine to join her there; but he was now too old, and could not undertake such a journey. Madame d'Hevvart, the wife of a rich man, gave him an apartment in her house, where he remained during the rest of his days. He was now getting infirm, and the Jesuits turned their eyes toward him. He had thus far lived without a profession of religion, and a life of loose morality. The Jesuits cared little for his want of good morals, but in many of his books he had ridiculed the church and the clergy. It was important, therefore, to make him confess his sins. Father Poujet, a shrewd and subtle Jesuit, was sent to converse with him. In a very short time he contrived to insinuate himself into the confidence of the simple poet. He acknowledged, one after another, the truths of religion, and he was called on to make expiations and a public confession. He was easily persuaded to burn his operas, and to give up all the profits resulting from the sale of a volume of his worst tales; but he rebelled against public confession. Three doctors of the Sorbonne were sent to him, and they argued long and well, but to no purpose. An old man who was angered by their bull-dog pertinancy, said, "Don't torment him, my reverend fathers; it is not ill will in him, but stupidity, poor soul; and God Almighty will not have the heart to damn him for it." That La Fontaine finally made some kind of a confession, there is little doubt; but that he made the shameful confession which Catholic writers declare he did, no one now believes. He was probably worn out with their entreaties, and came to a compromise with them. He added nothing to his reputation after this, but rather detracted from it. He lived very quietly and devotedly, and died in 1695, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. It was found after his death that he was in the habit of mortifying himself with a shirt of sackcloth. La Fontaine was unquestionably the greatest fabulist of his or any other time, and he has been exceedingly popular throughout France. His tales and fables and light poems are full of beauty and grace. But we cannot speak highly of their morality. They are, like almost all French literature, corrupt. They took their character from the times, and have had a bad influence upon later generations of France. THE INFIDEL.