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were attacked; none were seen busy seeking wherewith to support a dying life. No food excited their appetite; neither did wolves or foxes watch their gentle and innocent prey; doves avoided each other; there was no longer any love, and consequently no joy. The lion held a council, and said: my dear friends, I think it is on account of our sins that Heaven has permitted this misfortune. Let the most guilty of us sacrifice himself to the shafts of the celestial anger; he may perhaps obtain our recovery. History informs us that similar sacrifices have been made under such circumstances; therefore let us not flatter ourselves; let us strictly examine the state of our conscience. As for me, satisfying my gluttonous appetite, I have devoured a great number of sheep. What had they done to me? They had given me no offence. I have even sometimes been so bold as to eat the shepherd. I will, therefore, sacrifice myself, if it be necessary: but I think it is proper, that every one should accuse himself as I have done, for, according to strict justice, it is desirable that the most guilty should perish. Sire, said the fox, you are too kind a monarch: your scruples betray too much delicacy. What is it after all? To devour sheep, a rascally stupid race, is that a sin? No, no; your majesty did them much honour in eating them! and as for the shepherd, it may be said that he deserved all kinds of pains, being one of those people who claim a chimerical empire over the animals. Thus spoke the fox; and the flatterers immediately applauded him. They durst not go too far into the investigation of the less pardonable offences of the tiger, of the bear, and of the other great powers. All the quarrelsome folks, down to the innocent mastiffs, were little saints by their own showing. The ass appeared in his turn, and said: I have some recollection, that passing through a meadow which belonged to some monks, and hunger, opportunity, the soft grass, and I think some evil spirit driving me on, I ate as much grass as the breadth of my tongue: to be honest, I had no right to it. At these words the hue and cry was raised against the donkey. A wolf, who was something of a lawyer, proved by his speech, that they ought to sacrifice that cursed beast, that baldpated, itchy fellow, who was the cause of all their misery. His peccadillo was deemed a hanging case. To eat the grass of others! what an abominable offence! Nothing but his death could atone for his crime. They soon convinced him of it.

La peste, f. pest, plague, and pestilence. Of the words in este, there are 9 m. and 5 f. the gender of each must therefore be carefully remembered. When peste is used as an adj. it means malicious, wicked, Il est un peu peste. When used as an interjection, it denotes anger, indignation. Peste soit

de l'ignorant! what a plaguy ignorant fellow ! and pester contre quelqu'un, a r. n. 1. is to inveigh against a person.

Ils ne mouroient pas tous, they did not all die. The word tout, as we have already observed, requires your particular study. Mr. Cobbett, in § 68 of his French Grammar, is mistaken, when in his third rule he assigns a plural to the noun substantive le tout, the whole. It is the adj. tout, all, which makes the pl. m. tous. The mistake is less excusable because in English "the whole" has no pl. neither, and the word is not susceptible of a pl. in any language. In § 323, Mr. Cobbelt pronounces tout an adj. but it has justly been ranked among indeterminate pronouns, on account of the singularity of its construction. Like the English “all,” tout is generally placed in both genders and numbers before the article of the word to which it is prefixed, tout le monde, toute la terre, tous les hommes, toutes les femmes. And in certain cases, as here, ils ne mouroient pas tous, it evidently is a pronoun, since it supplies the place of a noun, and avoids the repetition of that noun. When you say: voyez vous ces quatre Dames à cheval ? and the answer is, oui, je les vois toutes, Yes, I see them all; toutes certainly is a pronoun. Tout then is,

1.—A pronoun, as here, and page 73, V.

2.-A substantive, m. le tout, the whole, the totality.

3. A noun collective, denoting all, every thing. Tout est perdu, page 39, III. All is lost; and all, every body, every one, Page 199, XIII. Tout fuit, all fled.

4.-Coupled with a preposition, it becomes an adverb: sur tout, above all; page 73, V. par tout, every where, all over ; après tout, after all; en tout, all in all.

cœur.

5. An adverb of itself, meaning quite, wholly, entirely. It may then be joined to a substantive. Cet homme est tout Cette femme est tout esprit. Elle est tout œil et tout oreille; or to an adjective, Ce sont des soldats tout pleins de feu; page 83, VI. But there is this singularity, that whenever a female speaks, or is spoken of, this indeclinable word takes the e fem. before a consonant, and remains indeclinable tout before an adj. f. beginning with a vowel. Ma sœur est toute malade, my sister is quite ill.

Ma tante étoit tout étonnée de me voir, my aunt was quite surprised to see me. Elles sont tout antres, they are quite different, page 167, XI. Applied to the masc. tout adv. is always indeclinable in the singular and in the plural: mon pere est tout déterminé. Hier les Banquiers étoient tout inquiets de eet événement; ils sont aujourd'hui tout rassurés. And this same adv. tout has the strengthening or augmentative power in, tout haut, quite loud; tout bas, in a very low voice; tout au plus, at the utmost; tout de suite, immediately; toup à coup, suddenly; tout juste, quite right; tout autant, quite as much, &c.

6. A conjunction, although, however, whilst. In this signification Tout is indeclinable when coupled with an adj. m. sing. or pl. and declinable when coupled with an adj. f. Tout habiles qu'ils sont, clever as they are; toute affligée qu'elle est, though she be distressed; toute raisonnable qu'elle paroit, reasonable as she appears; toutes folles que vous les croyez, although you suppose them mad; tout savans qu'ils paroissent, though they appear learned. Tout, conj. has always the verb in the indicative: but quoique requires the subjunctive. Tout in this sense may also be construed with the Gerund: tout en marchant, whilst we were walking, though. we were walking, page 70, V.

7.—Whenever tout means any or every, it does not take`` the article, tout homme qui pense, any man who thinks; toute femme prudente, every prudent female. But these expressions are always used in the singular. is true, says:

La Fontaine, it

Tout Animal n'a pas toutes propriétés

Every animal has not every quality; but it is a poëtical license, in order to make propriétés a correct rhyme with qualités.

Pour moi, as for me, cannot be distinguished from pour moi, for me, for my use, but by the connexion.

Mes appétits gloutons is a poëtical license for the purpose of making gloutons in the pl. rhyme with moutons. The word appétit, m. an appetite, is hardly ever used in the pl.

because appétits in the plural, denotes a particular sort of red herrings, less salted and smoked than the common ones.

Même il m'est arrivé quelquefois de, it has even sometimes happened to me that I have, &c. But the French impersonal il arrive, it happens, construed with a pronoun personal conjunctive, sometimes insinuates an idea of impropriety or boldness. S'il vous arrive de mentir vous serez puni, if you should have the impudence to tell an untruth; il m'est arrivé de manger le berger, I have been so bold as to eat the shepherd.

Vos scrupules font voir trop de délicatesse, your scruples show, betray too much delicacy. Faire voir, to cause to be seen, to show; je lui ferai voir que je ne suis pas sa dupe, I'll let him see that I am not his dupe. But when strengthened by bien, as in the last line of this fable, on le lui fit bien voir, it denotes, to convince. They took good care to convince him of it.

La Canaille, f. the mob, the lowest of the vulgar, the rabble, the dregs of the people. The word is derived from the Latin Canis, a dog, and denotes, as it were, a race of dogs. The French words in aille are all f. without exception, and this termination frequently denotes contempt or vulgarity, as in antiquaille, old rubbish; bélitraille, a set of idle beggars; blanchaille, small fish that is good for nothing; coquinaille, a set of rogues; crevaille, a vulgar repast, where every thing was in abundance, but nothing good; ferraille, old iron; gogaille, a junketting, a low merry-making; gueusaille, a troop of beggars; mangeaille, vile food; marmaille, a set of little urchins; menuaille, a quantity of little things fit to be thrown away; mitraille, small bits of old iron, grape shot; moinaille, a brood of monks; moutonnaille, sheepish people led by others; pierraille, a heap of small stones; poissonnaille, a quantity of small fish; prétaille, a set of contemptible priests; racaille, the scum of the lower orders rimaille, paltry verses; tripaille, garbage; truandaille, a set of sturdy lazy beggars; valetaille, a set of rascally servants.

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En les croquant, in eating them, by eating them. Croquer,

r. a. 1. to make what you eat crack under your teeth; to eat greedily; to steal cunningly; to make a rough sketch both with regard to works of art and of literature. A kind of gingerbread which cracks under the tooth is called du Croquet.

Et quant au berger, and as for the shepherd; what regards the shepherd. Quant, is a preposition which governs the dative. Quant à moi, as for me; Il se met sur son quant à moi, he carries himself very high. We had pour moi fourteen lines higher in this fable, meaning also, " as for me." There is a very nice difference in the use of these two synonimous expressions, which is thus stated by the Abbé Girard: “Pour convient mieux lorsqu'il s'agit de la personne qui régit le verbe; et quant lorsqu'il s'agit de ce qui est régi par le verbe. Pour moi, je ne me mêle d'aucune affaire étrangère ; quant à moi tout m'est indifférent." The adverb quand, when, whenever, is always spelt with a d, from the Latin quando. The prep. quant is derived from quantum. They have nearly the same pronunciation before a vowel: but the d in quand is not heard before a consonant. Quanquan, s. m. pronounced kankan, and spelt by some writers cancan, is a noise for nothing, a fuss. Faire un grand quanquan de quelquechose, to make a great fuss about a thing. Le camp, m. the camp, and Caen, a town of Normandy, in the department of the Calvados, are likewise pronounced kan. Whilst the French general Decaen was aide-de-camp to his brother, he was once stopped in his travels by a police officer, who asked him: "Comment vous nommez vous ?-Decaen. D'où êtes vous?-de Caen. D'ou venez vous?-de Caen. Qu'êtes vous?-Aide-de-camp. De qui?-du Général Decaen. Où allez vous ?-Au camp. Whereupon the police officer said-Il y a trop de quanquan dans votre affaire; je vous arrête comme suspect."

Au dire de chacun, by every one's saying, by their own showing. We had the verb dire, page 6, I. and 41, III. Here it is the substantive le dire, m. the saying, which is rather a law term, denoting what has been stated by one of the parties. Mettre son dire par écrit, to put one's statement in writing.

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