While the illustrious and henceforth Christian guest of Madame de la Sablière was recovering his health, his patroness had died at the Incurables, to which she had retired. La Fontaine had scarcely regained his health, when he had to leave the mansion which had afforded him an asylum for more than twenty-two years; he was on the point of quitting it when he met M. d'Hervart, who had come to propose that he should go with him to his hotel in the Rue Plâtrière. La Fontaine's answer is well known. He accepted the offer. "Which of them loved the other the better?" It was in this magnificent abode, adorned by the pencil of Mignard, that La Fontaine passed in peace the two years which yet remained to him of life. He still visited the Academy, but he went more frequently to church; he put a few psalms into verse, paraphrased the <i>Dies Iræ</i>, and even yet occasionally found time for the composition of fresh fables. It was in this way that Fénélon was able to give him a share in the education of the young Duke of Burgundy, who furnished subjects which the good old poet put into verse with an infantine delight. The preceptor and his royal pupil rivalled each other in delicate attentions towards the amiable old man, who had not lost by his conversion either his good temper or his wit. Thanks to this high protection, to the vigilance of friendship and the consolation of religion, we shall be able to say, of him when he shall have closed his eyes, "His end was as calm as the close of a summer day."