The New York herald., 1921-07-31

wv Htllt tOWU Dy the Marne DeSt
known to Americans double
fame. Three centuries ago La Fon-
taine was born at -Thierry,
and the house yet stands-among the
few. There came a company from
Paris and other cities to pay honor to
the author of the famous fables. The
French Government was represented
by M. Berard, Minister of Public In
struction, and NM. Capus and Flers
were delegates from the Academy. Ac-
tors of the Comedie Franchise gave an
outdoor performance of the poets lit
tie play La Coupe Enchantee."
Alfred Capus. who delivered the
Chief address at Chateau -Thierry. in
terpreted some of the present mean
ings of the poet who wrote three CEN
turies ago. He showed how those
tabled beasts had to work out among
themselves the balance between per-
sonal impulse and the well-being of
society.
Our generation" declared the
speaker, "loves him with a more in
telligent affection than our fathers.
precisely because we have had to go
through a chaos in which man and
beast have been thrown back to a
state of nature, at the level where La
Fontaine placed himself to study all
creation. La Fontaine teaches
us to prepare ourselves to receive the
shock of the forces of life and to
brave them, smiling"
Americans read and appreciate the
fables. of course. But they are woven
into the very fabric of a French child's
mind. Louis Gillet, who was brought
up in Chateau-Thierry, makes this fact
clear In the Literary Supplement of
lie GduIois. He tells how he first heard
the fables recited by an old aunt
so, long before I read him in the
books, / knew La Fontaine living upon
human lips. i took the poet
himself to be an ancient uncle. a
shadowy brother of the good lady, one
who was always more or less a part
OF the family like the hens. the cocks,
the geese and the rabbits of the
chicken coop, where we went every
day with due ceremony to carry crusts
of bread from the table. IT seemed to
me perfectly natural to see in our yard
and garden the very scene of the
fabulist."
The Countess de Noailles, whose
poems were reviewed in THE HERALD
some months ago, remarks acutely in
L'OeuUre.
Yin the seventeenth century, In the
epoch when inspiration was forced to
bow to the conventions La
Fontaine escaped from every artificial
rule and restored the natural to ma
ture.
1T Is then incorrect to say that Jean
jacques Rousseau was the first to give
us the sentiment OF nature, free and
expansive, for so she already appeared
in la Fontaine.'
Nine. de Noailles is very mudh the
woman of the hour. With the honors
of the Academy fresh upon herS she
turns her attention to the aid of\the
starving scholars and artists of Russia
Here is a sentence from the address
she delivered in their behalf at the
Sorbonne:
Victims of ill-fortune not yet over
come, they arc nevertheless our fellow
countrymen in science and in poetry:
discoverers of truth, creators of beauty
builders of the nation of humanity"
And at the end of the article report
Ing that meeting lie Progress CiUique
notes the presence of two American
Red Cross members, adding:
THAT example of solidarity given by
young America to old Europe calls
upon France to give in her turn to
Russia. so young and so old. And hard
as the task may be at a moment when
so many niseries call for pity, the
spirit that we find everywhere permits
us to hope that the task will be done"