follows:--"M. Boufflers has killed a man since his death: the
circumstance was this: they were carrying him about a league from
Boufflers to inter him; the corpse was on a bier in a coach; his own
curate attended it; the coach overset, and the bier falling upon the
curate's neck choaked him." M. de Boufflers had fallen down dead a
few days before. He was the eldest brother of the Duke de Boufflers.
In another _Letter_, March 3, 1672, Madame de Sevigne
says:--"Here is Fontaine's fable too, on the adventure of M. de
Boufflers' curate, who was killed in the coach by his dead patron.
There was something very extraordinary in the affair itself: the
fable is pretty; but not to be compared to the one that follows it:
I do not understand the Milk-pot."
[16] This allusion to the preceding fable must be the "milk-pot" which
Madame de Sevigne did "not understand" (_vide_ last note);
Madame can hardly have meant the "milk-pot" fable, which is easily
understood. She often saw La Fontaine's work before it was
published, and the date of her letter quoted at p. 161 shows that
she must so have seen the "Curate and the Corpse," and that,
perhaps, without so seeing the "Dairywoman and the Pot of Milk."




XII.--THE MAN WHO RAN AFTER FORTUNE, AND THE MAN WHO WAITED FOR HER IN
HIS BED.

Who joins not with his restless race
To give Dame Fortune eager chase?
O, had I but some lofty perch,
From which to view the panting crowd