To please his friends, LA FONTAINE married Mary Hericat, the daughter of a lieutenant-general. It was a marriage of convenience, and the two preferred living separate,--he at Paris, she in the country. Once a year La Fontaine paid her a visit, in the month of September. If he did not see her, he returned home as happy as he had gone. He went some other day. Once, when he visited her house, he was told she was quite well, and he returned to Paris, and told his friends he had not seen his wife, because he understood she was in very good health. It was a state of indifference on both sides. Yet the wife was a woman of virtue, beauty, and intelligence; and La Fontaine himself was a man of otherwise irreproachable character. There were many such marriages of indifference in France in those days. Boileau and Racine both tried to bring the married pair together, but without success; and, in course of time La Fontaine almost forgot that he was married. MOLIERE was extremely unhappy in his marriage. He espoused an actress, and she proved a coquette. He became extremely jealous, and, perhaps, he had reason. Yet he loved her passionately, and bore long with her frailties. He thus himself describes her: "She has small eyes, but they are full of fire, brilliant, and the most penetrating in the world. She has a large mouth, but one can discern beauties in it that one does not see in other mouths. Her figure is not large, but easy and well-proportioned. She affects a _nonchalance_ in her speech and carriage; but there is grace in her every act, and an indescribable charm about her, by which she never fails to work her way to the heart. Her mental gifts are exquisite; her conversation is charming, and, if she be capricious more than any other can be, all sits gracefully on the beautiful,--one bears any thing from the beautiful." She was an excellent actress, and was run after by the town. Moliere, her husband, was neglected by her, and suffered agonies of torture. He strove against his passion as long as he could. At last, his patience was exhausted, and a separation took place.