Excerpt from Jean De La Fontaine In a manner the poet may be said to stand midway between the old and the new, for he appreciated the humour of the Renaissance period and adapted it to the clear and sparkling style of the Grand Siecle. His life is made up of small incidents, many friend ships, and a true passion for poetry. He was closely in touch with Boileau, Racine, and Moliere, thus forming one of the most remarkable quartette of a brilliant period of French literary history. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art techlogy to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.