Rare (first and only?) Amsterdam edition in the original French, of 60 moral and political fables, intended for the education of young princes. They were written by Gabriel Audin, Prior of Termes or Thermes (in the French Basque, near Andorra) and published at Paris in 1648. Antoine Augustin Bruzen de La Martiniere (1662-1746) appears to have prepared a new edition in 1720, intended for the education of the thirteen-year-old Louis, Prince of Asturias (1707-1724), who was to be King of Spain for a few months in 1724, but that edition seems to have remained unpublished or barely published: one or two copies may survive and the Bibliotheque Nationale has a loose title-page that can be seen on Gallica, with the Amsterdam imprint of Jean [III] Pauli, 1620, who did publish a Dutch translation in 1722. The present edition may be a 1754 reissue of the 1720 edition. It retains the dedication to the Prince, even though he died thirty years before it was issued, as well as his 1720 portrait. In the preface Bruzen de La Martiniere notes that he thoroughly revised the text and warmly recommends the fables to parents and teachers, suggesting that children can profit greatly from studying them. The plates were all newly engraved ca. 1720. Since the French texts in the two frontispieces were replaced with Dutch ones for the 1722 edition (that for the first volume is dated 1721), they were removed for the present issue. The lively illustrations are beautifully drawn and engraved.
With some pencil marks probably made by a child. With a small corner torn off the dedication leaf, occasionally soiled, and with the frontispiece, title-page and portrait in volume 1 backed with plain paper. Rebacked with new endpapers and paper pasted over the calf binding. In spite of these signs of use, the condition remains reasonable. Landwehr, Emblem & fable books F053 (2 copies); STCN (4 copies incl. 2 incompl.); cf. Fabula Docet 91 (1664 Paris ed.).