One three-holed landscape album page

Abstract

The composite picture of the three men includes a crow with cheese, a tortoise, and perhaps both an oak and a reed near the portrait of La Fontaine. The common feature of the three men seems to be the year 21, since La Fontaine was born in 1621 and Baudelaire in 1821, while Saint-Saens died in 1921. Each of the three stamps includes the appropriate "21" date along with 1971. Did something perhaps go wrong with publication of the stamps, so that the first day turned out to happen in 1972? French-speaking stamp-collectors seem indefatigable!