Page:La Fontaine - The Original Fables Of, 1913.djvu/48

 XII

THE MAN WHO RAN AFTER FORTUNE AND THE MAN WHO WAITED FOR HER IN HIS BED

( VII.—No. 12)

does not run after Fortune?

I would I were in some spot whence I could watch the eager crowds rushing from kingdom to kingdom in their vain chase after the daughter of Chance!

They are indeed but faithful followers of a phantom; for when they think they have her, lo! she is gone! Poor wretches! One must pity rather than blame their foolishness, "That man" they say with sanguine voice, "raised cabbages; and now he is Pope! Are we not as good as he?" Ah! yes! a hundred times as good perhaps; but what of that? Fortune has no eyes for all your merit. Besides, is Papacy, after all, worth peace, which one must leave behind for it? Peace—a treasure that once was the possession of gods