Boisard was a French fabulist born in 1743 in Caen, a historical town located in Normandy, North-West France, about 150 kilometers from Paris.
Fables were very popular in the French literature of the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, under the shadow of Jean de La Fontaine.
Facing problems due to his antirevolutionary ideas against the Republic, Boisard left Paris and returned to Caen.
It must be noticed however that modern literary critics are now of the opinion that this epistle may have been addressed to his nephew (mentioned below) since it implicitly refers to a bad fortune.
Presently, he is broadly considered as the best fabulist after La Fontaine, although his literary style, pleasant and light but sometimes inelegant, is certainly not of the same standard.
As with hundreds of French fabulists of that time, except La Fontaine, the work of Boisard did not really survive as centuries passed.