# La Fontaine publishes the first collected Fables choisies in Paris

Date: 1668

## The fact

In 1668 La Fontaine issued Fables choisies, putting Aesopic plots into French verse under Louis XIV. Aesop did not write alexandrines.

## Context

Court fable can criticise power sideways and can flatter patrons. Polarising public uses of ‘the wolf and the lamb’ start from this printed French line as much as from Greek.

Aesop is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

## Evidence and sources

An official or archival page and an independent publisher independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: Gallica — La Fontaine, Fables (public-domain scan) (https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1048082s; Bibliothèque nationale de France).

## Significance

A 1668 privilege is not a sixth-century court.

A 1668 privilege is not a sixth-century court.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

## People

- Aesop: https://factrail.ai/people/aesop

## Drivers

- Political Polarization: https://factrail.ai/drivers/political-polarization

## Sources

- https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1048082s
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aesop

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-la-fontaine-1668