Jean Baptiste Perrin (1)

Jean Baptiste Perrin was an 18th-century French author and educator who worked as a French teacher in Ireland. This edition of Perrin's fables features an interlinear presentation of the French fables and an English translation by Antoine (Anthony) Bolmar, a 19th-century French educator and author. I have transcribed the English translation below, and you can read the French online at the Internet Archive: A Selection of One Hundred of Perrin's Fables.

Here are five of his fables:

The Cat, the Rat, and the Bat

A cat, having been taken in a net, promised a  Rat which delivered him from it that he would eat no more rats or mice.

It happened one day that he caught a Bat in a barn.

The Cat was embarrassed at first, but a moment after he said, "I dare not eat thee as a mouse, I will eat thee as a bird."

With this conscientious distinction, he made a good repast of the Bat.

Knaves are never at a loss for pretexts or reasons to justify their injustice.

The Two Frogs

Two Frogs, no longer being able to remain in their fen, which had been dried up by the heat of the summer, agreed to go together and look for some water elsewhere. After having traveled far, they came to a well.

"Come," said the one to the other, "let us go down without seeking farther."

"You speak very much at your ease," said her companion, "but if the water should fail us here, how could we get out?"

illustration by Rackham

The Monkey

"What a low and tiresome life is that which I lead in the forest with stupid animals, I who am the image of man!" exclaimed a Monkey, disgusted with living in the woods. "I must go and live in the cities with people who resemble me, and who are civilized." He thither went, but he repented soon: he was taken, chained, mocked, and insulted. 

The Ass and the Wild Boar

An Ass had the impertinence to follow a Wild Boar and to bray at him in order to insult him. That courageous animal was at first irritated, but turning his head and seeing whence came the insult, he continued tranquilly on his way, not honoring the Ass with a single word.

illustration from a 1701 edition of Phaedrus

The Eagle and his Eaglets

An Eagle rose with his Eaglets to the clouds. "How you stare at the sun!" said the little ones. "It does not dazzle you." 

"My sons," replied the king of the birds, "my father, my grandfather, great-grandfather, and my ancestors hvae looked at the sun in the same way; follow their example and mine, and the sun will never be able to make you close your eyes."