Fables of La Fontaine — Dedication to Monseigneur the Dauphin

DE LA FONTAINE.

[1] Louis, Dauphin of France, son of Louis XIV.

, and of Marie Theresa of Austria, was born at Fontainebleau on the 1st of November, 1661, and died at Meudon on the 14th of April, 1671. [2] Socrates.

[3] The Dauphin was six years and five months old when La Fontaine published the collection of fables to which this Dedication is prefixed.

It was completed on the 3rd of March, 1668. [4] Monseigneur the Dauphin had two tutors: the first being M. the President de Perigni, and the second M. Bossuet, the Bishop of Meaux.

La Fontaine, in the above passage, alludes to M. de Perigni.

[5] This refers to the Triple Alliance formed between England, Spain, and Holland, for the purpose of checking the conquests of the French monarch.

[6] Flanders, in which the French king made a campaign in 1667, when he took Douai, Tournoi, Oudenarde, Ath, Alost, and Lille.