Chapter I: Part 1

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POPULAR TALES

_This is a volume in the Arno Press collection_

INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE

_Advisory Editor_
Richard M. Dorson

_Editorial Board_
Issachar Ben Ami
Vilmos Voigt

_See last pages of this volume
for a complete list of titles_

POPULAR TALES

[Charles Perrault]

Edited by
Andrew Lang

ARNO PRESS

A New York Times Company

Editorial Supervision: LUCILLE MAIORCA

Reprint Edition 1977 by Arno Press Inc.

Reprinted from a copy in
The Princeton University Library

INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE
ISBN for complete set: 0-405-10077-9
See last pages of this volume for titles.

Manufactured in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Perrault, Charles, 1628-1703.
Popular tales.

(International folklore)
Translation of selected tales from Contes.
Reprint of the 1888 ed. published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford.

I. Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912. II. Title. III. Series.

PQ1877.A25 1977 398.2 77-70607
ISBN 0-405-10118-X

PERRAULT'S POPULAR TALES

_LANG_

London

HENRY FROWDE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE

AMEN CORNER, E.C.

PERRAULT'S

POPULAR TALES

EDITED

_FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITIONS, WITH
INTRODUCTION, &c._

BY

ANDREW LANG, M.A.
LATE FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE

Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
MDCCCLXXXVIII

[_All rights reserved_]

_PREFACE._

_This edition of the stories of_ Perrault _is intended partly as an introduction to the study of Popular Tales in general. The text of the prose has been collated by_ M. Alfred Bauer _with that of the first edition (Paris, 1697), a book which probably cannot be found in England. I have to thank_ M. Bauer _for the kind and minute care he has bestowed on his task. We have tried to restore the original text of 1697, with its spelling, punctuation, use of capital letters, and so forth. One might have compared the text of_ Perrault's _prose tales, as published in a book in 1697, with their original form in_ Moetjens's _Recueil or Magazine. Unluckily the British Museum only possesses the earlier volumes of the Recueil, in which the less important stories, those in verse, were first published. The Text of the tales in Verse has been collated, by myself and_ Mrs. Ogilby, _with that of the Recueil. The Paris editions of 1694 and 1695 I have never seen. In his 'Contes en Prose de Charles Perrault'_ (Jouaust, _Paris_, 1876), M. Paul Lacroix _published the more important readings in which the Recueil differed from the ultimate text. The changes shew good taste on the part of_ Perrault: _one or two tedious gallantries, out of keeping with the stories, were removed by him._

_Two of the most useful books that have been read by me in preparing this edition are_ M. Andre Lefevre's _edition of the Contes, with his bibliographical and other notes, and the 'Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye avant Charles Perrault,' by the late_ M. Charles Deulin. _I have also read, I think, most of the modern editions of the Contes which offer any fresh criticism or information, and acknowledgments will be found in the proper place._

_The Introduction contains a brief sketch of_ Perrault, _and of the circumstances in which his tales were composed and published. Each prose story has also been made the subject of a special comparative research; its wanderings and changes of form have been observed, and it is hoped that this part of the work may be serviceable to students of Folklore and Mythology._

_In this little book, as in all researches into tradition, I have received much aid from the writings and from the kind suggestions of_ M. Henri Gaidoz, _and from the knowledge and experience of_ Mr. Alfred Nutt. _It is almost superfluous to add that without the industry of such students as_ Herr Reinhold Koehler, M. Paul Sebillot, Mr. Ralston, M. Cosquin, _and very many others, these studies of story could never have been produced_.

A. L.

_INTRODUCTION._

CHARLES PERRAULT.

In Eisen's portrait of Charles Perrault, the medallion which holds the good-natured face under the large _perruque_ is being wreathed with flowers by children. Though they do not, for the most part, know the name of their benefactor, it is children who keep green the memory of Perrault, of the author of _Puss in Boots_ and _Bluebeard_. He flies for ever _vivu' per ora virum_, borne on the wings of the fabulous Goose, _notre Mere L'Oye_. He looked, no doubt, for no such immortality, and, if he ever thought of posthumous fame, relied on his elaborate _Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes_ (4 vols. Paris, 1688-96). But fate decided differently, and he who kept open the Tuileries gardens in the interests of children for ever, owes the best of his renown to a book in the composition of which he was aided by a child.

Though a man of unimpeached respectability of conduct, Charles Perrault was a born Irregular. He was a truant from school, a deserter of the Bar, an architect without professional training, a man of letters by inclination, a rebel against the tyranny of the classics, and immortal by a kind of accident.

He did many things well, above all the things that he had not been taught to do, and he did best of all the thing which nobody expected him to have done. A vivid, genial and indomitable character and humour made him one of the best-liked men of his age, and better remembered than people with far higher contemporary reputation than his own.

Charles Perrault, as he tells us in his _Memoires_ (1769, Patte, Paris; 1 vol. in 12), was born at Paris, on January 12, 1628. At the age of nine he was sent to the College de Beauvais, and was aided in his studies by his father, at home. He was always at the head of his form, after leaving the Sixth (the lowest) which he entered before he had quite learned to read. He was not a prodigy of precocious instruction, happily for himself. He preferred exercises in verse, and excelled in these, though the gods had not made him poetical. In the class of Philosophy he was deeply interested, wrangling with his teacher, and maintaining, characteristically, that his arguments were better than the stock themes, 'because they were new.' Thus the rebel against the Ancients raised his banner at school, where one recruit flocked to it, a boy called Beaurin. Young Perrault and his friend took a formal farewell of their master, and solemnly seceded to the garden of the Luxembourg, where they contrived a plan of study for themselves. For three or four years they read together as chance or taste directed: this course had not in it the making of a scholar.

Perrault's first literary effort was a burlesque of the Sixth book of the AEneid, a thing rather too sacred for parody in Scarron's manner. His brother the doctor took a hand in this labour, and Perrault says 'the MS. is on the shelf where there are no books but those written by members of the Family.' The funniest thing was held to be the couplet on the charioteer Tydacus, in the shades,

Qui, tenant l'ombre d'une brosse,
Nettoyait l'ombre d'un carrosse.

Perrault, as a young man, was moderately interested in the fashionable controversy about Grace, _pouvoir prochain et pouvoir eloigne_, and the jargon of the quarrel between Port Royal and the Jesuits. His brother, a doctor of the Sorbonne, explained the question, 'and we saw there was nothing in it to justify the noise it made.' He persuaded himself, however, that this little conference was the occasion of the _Lettres Provinciales_. The new Editor will doubtless deal with this pretension when he comes to publish Pascal's Life in the series of _Grands Ecrivains de la France_. Unlike Perrault, Pascal thought 'que le sujet des disputes de Sorbonne etoit bien important et d'une extreme consequence pour la religion.'

The first of the Provincial Letters is dated January 23, 1656. Charles Perrault was now twenty-eight. In 1651 he had taken his _licences_ at Orleans, where degrees were granted with scandalous readiness. Perrault and his friends wakened the learned doctors in the night, returned ridiculous answers to their questions, chinked their money in their bags,--and passed. The same month they were all admitted to the Bar. His legal reading was speculative, and he proposed the idea of codifying the various customs; but the task waited for Napoleon. Wearying of the Bar he accepted a place under his brother, Receiver-General of Paris. In this occupation he remained from 1654 to 1664. He had plenty of leisure for study, his brother had bought an excellent library, and Perrault speaks of 'le plaisir que j'eus de me voir au milieu de tant de bons livres.' He made verses, which were handed about and attributed to Quinault. That poet, getting a copy from Perrault, permitted a young lady whom he was courting to think they were his own. Perrault claimed them, and 'M. Quinault se trouvait un peu embarrasse.' However, when Quinault said that a lady was in the case, the plagiary was forgiven. Perrault afterwards wrote a defence of his _Alceste_. A trifling piece which Perrault composed on this little affair pleased Fouquet, who had it copied on vellum, with miniatures and gilt capitals.

In 1657 Perrault directed the construction of a house for his brother. The skill and taste he shewed induced Colbert to make him his subaltern in the superintendence of the Royal buildings, in 1663. A vision of a completed Louvre, and of 'obelisks, pyramids, triumphal arches, and mausoleums,' floated before the mind of Colbert. Then there would be _fetes_ and masquerades to describe, and as Chapelain recommended Perrault, who was already the author of some loyal odes, (such as the wise write about Jubilee times,) he finally received an elegant appointment, with 500, later 1000 _livres_ a year. This he enjoyed till 1683. A little Academy of Medals and Inscriptions grew into existence: Perrault edited panegyrics on the king, and made designs for Gobelin tapestries.

Perrault's next feat was the suggestion of the peristyle of the Louvre, introduced into the design of his brother Claude, the architect. After the Chevalier Bernini had been summoned from Rome to finish the Louvre, and had been treated with sumptuous hospitality, a variety of disputes and difficulties arose, and, by merit or favour, the plan of Perrault's brother, Claude, by profession a physician, was chosen and executed. People said 'que l'architecture devoit etre bien malade, puisqu'on la mettait entre les mains des medecins.'

'M. Colbert asked me for news of the Academy, supposing that I was a member. I told him that I could not satisfy him, as I had not the honour of belonging to that company. He seemed surprised, and said I ought to be admitted. "'Tis a set of men for whom the king has a great regard, and as business prevents me from often attending their councils, I should be glad to hear from you what passes. You should stand at the next vacancy."' So writes Perrault, and he did become a candidate for Immortality. But a lady had begged the next place for an Abbe, and next time, a doctor had secured it for a _cure_. Finally, the Academy elected Perrault, he says, without any canvass on his part. Perrault introduced election for the Academy by ballot, and he himself invented and provided a little balloting machine, which he does not describe. One day when the King was being publicly rubbed down after a game at tennis, an Academician prayed that the Academy might be allowed to read addresses to his Majesty. The King, who had probably given some courtier the side walls and a beating, graciously permitted the Academy to add its voice to the chorus of flattery. Perrault now disported himself among harangues, the new Versailles fountains, grottoes, arches of triumph, and royal devices, his brother executing his designs. They were sunny years, and Le Roi Soleil beamed upon the house of Perrault. But a dispute between his brother, the receiver of taxes, and Colbert caused a coolness between Charles Perrault and the Minister. M. Perrault also married a young lady to please himself, not to please Colbert. But, before leaving the service of the Minister, the good Perrault had succeeded in saving the Tuileries gardens for the people of Paris, and for the children, when it was proposed to reserve them to the Royal use. 'I am persuaded,' he said, 'that the gardens of Kings are made so great and spacious that all their children may walk in them.' We owe Perrault less gratitude for aiding Lulli, who obtained the monopoly of Opera, a privilege adverse to the interests of Moliere. If Perrault thought at all of the interests of Moliere, he probably remembered that his own brother was a physician, and that physicians were Moliere's favourite butts. 'Il ne devait pas tourner en ridicule les bons Medecins, que l'Ecriture nous enjoint d'honorer,' says Perrault in his _Eloges des Hommes Illustres_ (1696-1700). Moliere's own influence with the king corrected the influence of Lulli, and he obtained the right to give musical pieces, in spite of Lulli's privilege, but he did not live long to enjoy it[1].

Ten years afterwards Colbert became _si difficile et si chagrin_, that Perrault withdrew quietly from his service. He had been employed in public functions for twenty years (1663-1683), he was over fifty, and he needed rest. Louvois excluded him on the death of Colbert from the _petite Academie_. He devoted himself to the education of his children, who were 'day-boarders' at the colleges, and returned at night to the paternal house in the Faubourg St. Jacques. 'Les moeurs ne sont pas en si grande surete' at a public school, Perrault thought. In 1686 he published his 'Saint Paulin Evesque de Nole, avec une Epistre Chrestienne sur la Penitence, et une Ode aux Nouveaux Convertis.' (Paris, J. R. Coignard.) It is dedicated to Bossuet, in a letter, and Perrault trusts that great poets will follow his example, and write on sacred subjects. Happily his example was not followed, _la raillerie et l'amour_ possessing stronger attractions for minstrels, as Perrault complains. He throws his stone at Comedy, which Bossuet notably disliked and condemned. But this did not prevent Perrault, seven years later, from writing little comedies of his own. _Saint Paulin_ is prettily illustrated with vignettes on copper after Sebastien le Clerc, vignettes much better than those which hardly decorate _Histoires ou Contes du Tems passe_. An angel appearing to Saint Paulin in gardens exactly like the parterres of Versailles is particularly splendid and distinguished. As for the poem, 'qui eut assez de succes malgre les critiques de quelques personnes d'esprit,' the story is not badly told, for the legend of the Bishop has a good deal of the air of a _conte_, reclaimed for sacred purposes. The _Ode aux Nouveaux Convertis_ is not a success. Perrault comparing Reason to Faith, says that Reason makes the glories beheld by Faith disappear, as the Sun scatters the stars. This was an injudicious admission. The _Saint Paulin_ may be bought for two or three francs, while the _Histoires ou Contes_, when last sold by public auction in the original edition (Nodier's copy, at the Hamilton Sale, May 1884), fetched L85. It is a commercial but not inaccurate test of merit.

Perrault's _Memoires_ end just where they begin to be interesting. He tells us how he read his poem _Le Siecle de Louis XIV_, to the Academy, how angrily Boileau declared that the poem was an insult to the great men of times past, how Huet took Perrault's side, how Boileau wrote epigrams against him, how Racine pretended not to think him in earnest, and how he defended himself in _Le Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes_. Here close the Memoirs, and the hero of the great Battle of the Books leaves its tale untold.

The quarrel is too old and too futile to require a long history. Perrault's remarks on Homer, the cause of the war, merely show that Perrault was quite out of sympathy with the heroic age and with heroic song. He avers that, if a favourable Heaven had permitted Homer to be born under Louis XIV, Homer would have been a much better poet.

'Cent defauts qu'on impute au siecle ou tu naquis
Ne profaneroient pas tes ouvrages exquis[2].'

Men of letters who were men of sense would have smiled and let Perrault perorate. But men of letters are rarely men of sense, and dearly love a brawl. M. E. de Goncourt once complained that M. Paul de St. Victor looked at him 'like a stuffed bird,' because M. de Goncourt declared that Providence had created antiquity to prevent pedagogues from starving. Boileau was not less indignant with Perrault, who, by the way, in his poem had damned Moliere with faint praise, and had not praised La Fontaine, Racine, and Boileau at all. The quarrel 'thundered in and out the shadowy skirts' of Literature for ten years. Boileau turned and rent the architect-physician Claude Perrault in his _Art Poetique_. But Boileau, stimulated by Conti, who wrote on his _fauteuil_, '_tu dors, Brutus,_' chiefly thundered in his _Reflexions Critiques_ on Longinus (1694). 'He makes four errors, out of ignorance of Greek, and a fifth out of ignorance of Latin,' is an example of Boileau's amenities. Why Boileau should have written at such length and so angrily on _un livre que personne ne lit_, he does not explain. Perrault kept his temper, Boileau displayed his learning. Arnauld had the credit of making a personal peace between the foes. Boileau suppressed some of his satirical lines (Satire X. line 459), and we now read them only in the foot-notes. Boileau's letter to Arnauld, in which he expresses his willingness even to read _Saint Paulin_ for the sake of a peaceful life, is not unamusing. 'Faut-il lire tout _Saint Paulin_? Vous n'avez qu'a dire: rien ne me sera difficile' (June 1694). Meanwhile Perrault, in his comedy _L'Oublieux_, was mocking people who think it a fine thing 'to publish old books with a great many notes[3].' But Perrault himself was about to win his own fame by publishing versions of old traditional Fairy Tales.

The following essay traces the history and bibliography of these Tales. Perrault's last years were occupied with his large illustrated book, _Eloges des Hommes Illustres du Siecle de Louis XIV_ (2 vols. in folio. 102 portraits.) He died on May 16, 1703. His fair enemy in the bookish battle, Madame Dacier, says '_il etoit plein de piete, de probite, de vertu, poli, modeste, officieux, fidele a tous les devoirs qu'exigent les liaisons naturelles et acquises; et, dans un poste considerable aupres d'un des plus grands ministres que la France ait eus et qui l'honoroit de sa confiance, il ne s'est jamais servi de sa faveur pour sa fortune particuliere, et il l'a toujours employee pour ses amis_.'

Charles Perrault was a good man, a good father, a good Christian, and a good fellow. He was astonishingly clever and versatile in little things, honest, courteous, and witty, and an undaunted amateur. The little thing in which he excelled most was telling fairy tales. Every generation listens in its turn to this old family friend of all the world. No nation owes him so much as we of England, who, south of the Scottish, and east of the Welsh marches, have scarce any popular tales of our own save Jack the Giant Killer, and who have given the full fairy citizenship to Perrault's _Petit Poucet_ and _La Barbe Bleue_.

[Footnote 1: _Registre de La Grange_, p. 11.]

[Footnote 2: 'Exquis' is good.]

[Footnote 3: _L'Oublieux_ was written in 1691. It was printed from the MS. by M. Hippolyte Lucas. _Academie des Bibliophiles_, Paris, 1868.]

PERRAULT'S POPULAR TALES.

'Madame Coulanges, who is with me till to-morrow, was good enough to tell us some of the stories that they amuse the ladies with at Versailles. They call this _mitonner_, so she _mitonned_ us, and spoke to us about a Green Island, where a Princess was brought up, as bright as the day! The Fairies were her companions, and the Prince of Pleasure was her lover, and they both came to the King's court, one day, in a ball of glass. The story lasted a good hour, and I spare you much of it, the rather as this Green Isle is in the midst of Ocean, not in the Mediterranean, where M. de Grignan might be pleased to hear of its discovery.'

So Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter, on the 6th of August, 1676.

The letter proves that fairy tales or _contes_ had come to Court, and were in fashion, twenty years before Charles Perrault published his _Contes de Ma Mere l'Oye_, our 'Mother Goose's Tales.' The apparition of the simple traditional stories at Versailles must have resembled the arrival of the Goose Girl, in her shabby raiment, at the King's Palace[4]. The stories came in their rustic weeds, they wandered out of the cabins of the charcoal burners, out of the farmers' cottages, and, after many adventures, reached that enchanted castle of Versailles. There the courtiers welcomed them gladly, recognised the truant girls and boys of the Fairy world as princes and princesses, and arrayed them in the splendour of Cinderella's sisters, 'mon habit de velours rouge, et ma garniture d'Angleterre; mon manteau a fleurs d'or et ma barriere de diamans qui n'est pas des plus indifferentes.' The legends of the country folk, which had been as simple and rude as _Peau d'Ane_ in her scullion's disguise, shone forth like _Peau d'Ane_ herself, when she wore her fairy garments, embroidered with the sun and moon in thread of gold and silver. We can see, from Madame de Sevigne's letter, that the _Maerchen_ had been decked out in Court dress, in train and feathers, as early as 1676. When the Princess of the Green Isle, and the Prince of Pleasures alighted from their flying ball of crystal, in Madame Coulanges' tale, every one cried, 'Cybele is descending among us!' Cybele is remote enough from the world of fairy, and the whole story, like the stories afterwards published by Madame d'Aulnoy, must have been a highly decorated and scarcely recognisable variant of some old tradition.

How did the fairy tales get presented at Court, and thence win their way, thanks to Perrault, into the classical literature of France? Probably they were welcomed partly in that spirit of sham simplicity, which moved Louis XIV and his nobles and ladies to appear in Ballets as shepherds and shepherdesses[5]. In later days the witty maidens of Saint Cyr became aweary of sermons on _la simplicite_. They used to say, by way of raillery, 'par simplicite je prends la meilleure place,' 'par simplicite je vais me louer,' 'par simplicite je veux ce qu'il y a de plus loin de moi sur une table.' This, as Madame de Maintenon remarked, was 'laughing at serious things,' at sweet simplicity, which first brought Fairy Tales to the OEil de Boeuf[6]. Mlle. L'Heritier in _Bigarrures Ingenieuses_ (p. 237) expressly says, 'Les Romances modernes tachent d'imiter la simplicite des Romances antiques.' It is curious that Madame de Maintenon did not find this simplicity simple enough for her pupils at St. Cyr. On the 4th of March, 1700, when the fashion for fairy tales was at its height, she wrote to the Comte d'Ayen on the subject of harmless literature for _demoiselles_, and asked him to procure something, 'mais non des contes de fees ou de _Peau d'Ane_, car je n'en veux point[7].'

Indeed it is very probable that weariness of the long novels and pompous plays of the age of Louis XIV made people find a real charm in the stories of _Cendrillon_, and _La Belle au Bois Dormant_. For some reason, however, the stories (as current in France) existed only by word of mouth, and in oral narrative, till near the end of the century. In 1691 Charles Perrault, now withdrawn from public life, and busy fighting the Battle of the Books with Boileau, published anonymously his earliest attempt at story telling, unless we reckon _L'Esprit Fort_, a tale of light and frivolous character. The new story was _La Marquise de Salusses, ou la Patience de Griselidis, nouvelle_[8]. _Griselidis_ is not precisely a popular tale, as Perrault openly borrowed his matter from Boccaccio, and his manner (as far as in him lay) from La Fontaine. He has greatly softened the brutality of the narrative as Boccaccio tells it, and there is much beauty in his description of the young Prince lost in the forest, after one of those Royal hunts in Rambouillet or Marly whose echoes now scarce reach us, faint and fabulous as the horns of Roland or of Arthur[9]. Nay, there is a certain simple poetry and sentiment of Nature, in _Griselidis_, which comes strangely from a man of the Town and the Court. The place where the wandering Prince encounters first his shepherdess

'Clair de ruisseaux et sombre de verdure
Saisissait les esprits d'une secrete horreur;
La simple et naive nature
S'y faisoit voir si belle et si pure,
Que mille fois il benit son erreur.'

So the Prince rides on his way

'Rempli de douces reveries
Qu'inspirent les grands bois, les eaux et les prairies.'

The sentiment is like Madame de Sevigne's love of her woods at Les Rochers, the woods where she says goodbye to the Autumn colours, and longs for the fairy _feuille qui chante_, and praises 'the crystal October days.' Of all this there is nothing in Boccaccio. Perrault, of course, does not repeat the brutalities of the Italian tyrant, in which Boccaccio takes a kind of pleasure, while Chaucer veils them in his kindly courtesy.

To _Griselidis_ Perrault added an amusing little essay on the vanity of Criticism, and the varying verdicts of critics. In this Essay, Perrault apparently shews us the source from which he directly drew his matter, namely Boccaccio in the popular form of the chap-books called _La Bibliotheque Bleue_. 'If I had taken out everything that every critic found fault with,' he says, 'I had done better to leave the story in its blue paper cover, where it has been for so many years.' Thus Perrault borrowed from the Bibliotheque Bleue, not the Bibliotheque Bleue, as M. Maury fancied, from Perrault[10].

In 1694 Moetjens, the bookseller at The Hague, began to publish a little Miscellany, or Magazine, in the form of the small Elzevir collection, called _Recueil de pieces curieuses et nouvelles, tant en prose qu'en vers_. Perrault had already published _Les Souhaits Ridicules_, in a Society paper, Le Mercure Galant (Nov. 1693). He now reprinted this piece, with _Griselidis_ and _Peau d'Ane_, in Moetjens' _Recueil_[11]. These versified tales caused some discussion, and were rather severely handled by anonymous writers in the _Recueil_. In 1694, Perrault put forth the three, with the introductions and essay, in a small volume. Probably each tale had appeared separately, but these treasures of the book-hunter are lost. Another edition came out, with a new preface, in 1695[12].

This is the early bibliographical history, as far as it has been traced by M. Andre Lefevre, of the stories in verse. They received a good deal of unfriendly criticism, and Perrault was said, in _Peau d'Ane_, to have presented the public with his own natural covering. This witticism, rather lacking in finish, is attributed to Boileau in an epigram published in Moetjens' _Recueil_. Boileau was still irritated with Perrault for his conduct in the great Battle of the Books between the Ancients and Moderns. By a curious revenge Perrault, who had blamed Homer for telling, in the Odyssey, old wives' fables, has found, in old wives' fables, his own immortality. In the _Parallele_, iii. p. 117, the Abbe quotes Longinus, and his admiration of certain hyperboles in Homer. The Chevalier, another speaker in the dialogue, replies, 'this sort of Homeric hyperbole is only imitated by people who tell stories like _Peau d'Ane_, and introduce Ogres in seven-leagued boots (_bottes a sept lieues_).' The 'seven-leagued boots' are in the Chevalier's fancy an apt parallel to the prodigious bounds made by the horses of Discord, in the Iliad. Thus, even before Perrault began to write fairy tales, he and Boileau had a very pretty quarrel about _Peau d'Ane_. Boileau happened to remember that Zoilus of old had reviled Homer for his _contes de Vieilles_, and thus he could conscientiously treat Perrault as a new Zoilus. In the fifth volume of his works (Paris, 1772), in which these amenities are republished, there is a Vignette by Van der Meer representing Homer, very old and timid, cowering behind a shield which Boileau, like Ajax, holds up for his protection, while Perrault, in a sword and cocked hat, throws arrows at the blind bard of Chios. The strange thing is that they were all in the right. The Odyssey, as Fenelon's Achilles tells Homer in Hades, and as Perrault knew, is a mass of popular tales, but then these are moulded by the poet's art into an epic which Boileau could not over-praise[13].

In the edition of his stories in verse, published in 1695, Perrault replied to the criticisms that reached him, 'I have to do,' he said, 'with people who can only be moved by Authority, and the example of the Ancients;' meaning Boileau and the survivors of the great literary feud. Perrault therefore adduces old instances of classical _contes_, the _Milesian Tales_, and _Cupid and Psyche_ in Apuleius. 'The Moral of _Cupid and Psyche_,' he says, 'I shall compare to that of _Peau d'Ane_, when once I know what it is.' Then he declares that his Contes have abundance of moral, which is true, but there are morals even in _Cupid and Psyche_. He sketches, very pleasantly, the enjoyment of children in those old wives' fables; 'on les voit dans la tristesse et dans l'abattement tant que le heros ou l'heroine du conte sont dans le malheur, et s'ecrier de joie quand le temps de leur bonheur arrive.' Indeed this was and is the best apology for M. Perrault of the French Academy, when he stooped his great perruque to listen to his little boy's repetition of his nurse's stories, and recorded them in the chronicles of Mother Goose.

Had Perrault only written _contes_ in verse, it is probable that he would now be known chiefly as an imitator of La Fontaine. Happily he went further, and printed seven stories in prose. It is by these that he really lives, now that his architectural exploits, his sacred poems, his Defence of the Moderns, are all forgotten save by the learned. His Fairies have saved him from oblivion, and the countless editions and translations of his _Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye_, have won him immortality[14].

The tales in prose appeared in Moetjens' _Recueil_ in the following order: In 1696, in the second part of Volume V, came _La Belle au Bois Dormant_ (our 'Sleeping Beauty'); and in 1697 (Vol. V. part 4), came _Le Petit Chaperon Rouge_ ('Red Riding Hood'), _La Barbe Bleue_ ('Blue-beard'), _Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botte_ ('Puss in Boots,' or 'The Master Cat'), _Les Fees_ ('The Fairy'), _Cendrillon, ou la petite pantoufle de verre_ ('Cinderilla,' in the older English versions, now 'Cinderella'), _Riquet a la Houppe_ ('Riquet of the Tuft'), and _Le Petit Poucet_ ('Hop o' My Thumb, Little Thumb').

While Moetjens was producing these in his Miscellany, there was published in Paris, at Perrault's bookseller's (Guignard), a little volume called _Bigarrures Ingenieuses, ou Recueil de diverses Pieces galantes en prose et en vers_. The author was Mlle. L'Heritier de Villaudon, a relation of Perrault's. It is to his daughter, a Mademoiselle Perrault, that she addresses her first piece, _Marmoisan ou l'Innocente Tromperie_. The author says she was lately in a company where people began to praise M. Perrault's _Griselidis_, _Peau d'Ane_ and _Les Souhaits_. They spoke also of 'the excellent education which M. Perrault gives his children, of their ingenuity, and finally of the _Contes naifs_ which one of his young pupils has lately written with so much charm. A few of these stories were narrated and led on to others.' _Marmoisan_ is one of the others, and Mlle. L'Heritier says she told it, 'avec quelque broderie qui me vint sur le champ dans l'esprit.' The tale is, indeed, all embroidery, beneath which the original stuff is practically lost[15]. But the listener asked the narrator to offer it 'a ce jeune Conteur, qui occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son enfance.'

In a later page she wonders that the Contes should have been 'handed to us from age to age, without any one taking the trouble to write them out.' Then she herself takes the trouble to write the story of Diamonds and Toads, a story known in a rough way to the Kaffirs--and hopelessly spoils it by her _broderie_, and by the introduction of a lay figure called _Eloquentia Nativa_ (_Les Enchantemens de l'Eloquence_, ou _Les Effets de la Douceur_). One has only to compare Mlle. L'Heritier's literary and embroidered _Eloquentia_ with Perrault's _Les Fees_ (the original of our _Diamonds and Toads_), to see the vast difference between his manner, and that of contemporary _conteurs_. Perrault would never have brought in a Fairy named _Eloquentia Nativa_. Mlle. L'Heritier's _Eloquentia_ (1696) was in the field before Perrault's unembroidered version, _Les Fees_, which appeared in Moetjens' _Recueil_ in 1697. The Lady writes:

'Cent et Cent fois ma Gouvernante
Au lieu de Fables d'animaux[16]
M'a raconte les traits moraux
De cette Histoire surprenante.'

Here, then, is Mlle. L'Heritier speaking of one of Perrault's children who has written the fairy tales, 'with so much charm.' At this very time (1696-1697), fairy tales, 'written with much charm,' in prose, and without the author's name, were appearing in Moetjens' _Recueil_. In 1697 these prose _contes_ were collected, published, and declared to be by P. Darmancour, Perrault's little boy, to whom the _Privilege du Roy_ is granted[17].

Critics have often declared that Perrault merely used the boy's name as a cover for his own, because it did not become an Academician to publish fairy tales, above all in prose. It may be noted that Perrault did not employ his usual publisher, Coignard, but went to Barbin. There might also have been a hope that little Perrault Darmancour, while shielding his father, 'fit parfaitement bien sa Cour en meme tems,' like _Le Petit Poucet_. Considering how Perrault's other works are forgotten, and how his Tales survive, and regarding his boy as partly their author, we may even apply to him the Moral of _Le Petit Poucet_.

'Quelquefois, cependant, c'est ce petit Marmot
Qui fera le bonheur de toute la famille!'

The dedication, signed P. Darmancour, is addressed to Mademoiselle, and contains very agreeable flattery of the sister of the future Regent[18]. These motives would, indeed, account for Perrault's use of his boy's name. But it had occurred to me, before discovering the similar opinion of M. Paul Lacroix, that P. Darmancour really was the author of the _Contes_, or at least a _collaborateur_[19]. The naivete, and popular traditional manner of their telling, recognised by all critics, and the cause of their popularity, was probably given by the little lad who, as Mlle. L'Heritier said, a year before the tales were published, 'a mis depuis peu les Contes sur le papier avec tant d'agrement.' The child, according to this theory, wrote out, by way of exercise, the stories as he heard them, not from _brodeuses_ in Society, but from his Nurse, or from old women on his father's estates. The evidence of Madame de Sevigne and of Mlle. L'Heritier, as well as the testimony of the _contes_ which ladies of rank instantly took to printing, shews how the stories were told in Society. Allegorical and other names were given to the characters, usually nameless in _Maerchen_. Historical circumstances were introduced, and references to actual events in the past. _Esprit_ raged assiduously through the narratives. Moreover the traditional tales were so confounded that Madame d'Aulnoy, in _Finette Cendron_, actually mixes _Cinderella_ with _Hop o' My Thumb_[20].

Contrast with these refinements, these superfluities, and incoherences, the brevity, directness, and simplicity of _Histoires et Contes du Tems passe_. They have the touch of an intelligent child, writing down what he has heard told in plain language by plain people. They exactly correspond, in this respect, to the Hindoo folk tales collected from the lips of Ayahs by Miss Maive Stokes, who was a child when her collection was published.

But, if the little boy thus furnished the sketch, it is indubitable that the elderly Academician and _beau esprit_ touched it up, here toning down an incident too amazing for French sobriety and logic, there adding a detail of contemporary court manners, or a hit at some foible or vanity of men. 'Livre unique entre tous les livres,' cries M. Paul de St. Victor, 'mele de la sagesse du vieillard et de la candeur de l'enfant!' This delightful blending of age and youth (which here _can_ 'live together') is probably due to the collaboration we describe.

Were it a pious thing to dissect Perrault's _Contes_, as Professors of all nations mangle the sacred body of Homer, we might actually publish a text in which the work of the original Darmancour and of the paternal _Diaskeuast_ should be printed in different characters. Without carrying mere guess-work to this absurd extent, cannot one detect the older hand in places like this,--the Ogre's wife finds that her husband has killed his own children by misadventure: 'Elle commenca par s'evanouir (car c'est le premier expedient que trouvent presque toutes les femmes en pareilles rencontres)'? One can almost see the Academician writing in that sentence on the margin of the boy's copy. Again, at the end of _Le Petit Poucet_, we read that he made a fortune by carrying letters from ladies to their lovers, 'ce fut la son plus large gain. Il se trouvoit quelques femmes qui le chargeoient de lettres pour leurs maris, mais elles le payoient si mal, et cela alloit a si peu de chose, qu'il ne daignoit mettre en ligne de conte ce qu'il gagnoit de ce cote-la.' That is the Academician's jibe, and it is he who makes Petit Poucet buy Offices 'de la nouvelle creation pour sa famille.' 'You never did that of your own wit,' as the Giant says to the Laddie in the Scotch story, _Nicht_, _Nought_, _Nothing_. But 'Anne, ma soeur Anne, ne vois-tu rien venir?' 'Je ne vois rien que le Soleil qui poudroye et l'herbe qui verdoye!' or 'Tire la chevillette, le bobinette cherra,' or 'Elle alla donc bien loin, bien loin, encore plus loin'; _there_ the child is listening to the old and broken voice of tradition, mumbling her ancient burden while the cradle rocks, and the spinning-wheel turns and hums.

It is to this union of old age and childhood, then, of peasant memories, and memories of Versailles, to this kindly handling of venerable legends, that Perrault's _Contes_ owe their perennial charm. The nursery tale is apt to lose itself in its wanderings, like the children in the haunted forest; Perrault supplies it with the clue that guides it home. A little grain of French common sense ballasts these light minions of the Moon, the elves; with a little toss of Court powder on the locks, _pulveris exigui jactu_, he tames the wild _fee_ into the Fairy Godmother, a grande dame de par le monde, with an agate crutch-handle on her magic wand. 'His young Princesses, so gentle and so maidenly, have just left the convent of Saint Cyr. The King's sons have the proud courtesy of Dauphins of France: the Maids of Honour, the Gentlemen of the Bed-chamber, the red-nosed Swiss guards, sleep through the slumber of the _Belle au Bois Dormant_[21].'

They are all departed now, Dukes and Vicomtes and Princes, the Swiss Guards have gone, that made the best end of any, the hunting horn is still, and silent is the spinning wheel. The great golden coaches have turned into pumpkins again, the coachman has jumped down from his box, and hidden in his rat-hole, the Dragoon and the Hussar have clattered off for ever, the Duchesses dance no more in the minuet, nor the fairies on the haunted green. But in Perrault's enchanted book they are all with us, figures out of every age, the cannibal ogre that little Zulu and Ojibbeway children fear not unreasonably; the starving wood-cutter in the famines Racine deplored; the Princess, so like Mademoiselle; the Fairy Godmother you might mistake for Madame d'Epernon; the talking animals escaped from the fables of days when man and beast were all on one level with gods, and winds, and stars. In Perrault's fairy-land is room for all of them, and room for children too, who wander hither out of their own world of fancy, and half hope that the Sleeping Beauty dwells behind the hedge of yew, or think to find the dangerous distaff in some dismantled chamber.

The _Histoires et Contes du Tems Passe_ must clearly have been successful, though scant trace of their success remains in the criticism of the time[22]. We may measure it by the fleet of other books of fairy tales which 'pursue the triumph and partake the gale.' The _Contes de Fees_ of Mad. La Comtesse de M---- (Murat) were published by Barbin in 1698. How little the manner resembles Perrault's 'fairy-way of writing,' how much it deserves the censure of the Abbe de Villiers, may be learned from the opening sentence of _Le Parfait Amour_. 'Dans un de ces agreables pais qui sont dependans de l'Empire des Fees, regnoit la redoutable Danamo, elle estoit scavante dans son art, cruelle dans ses actions, et glorieuse de l'honneur d'estre descendue de la celebre Calipso, dont les charmes eurent la gloire et le pouvoir en arrestant le fameux Ulisse, de triompher de la prudence des vainqueurs de Troye.'

The second story, _Anguillette_, is so far natural, that it contains a friendly Eel (as in the Mangaian legend of the Eel-lover of Ina); but this Eel is a fairy, condemned to wear the form of a fish, for certain days in each month. These narratives are almost unreadable, and scarcely keep a trace of the popular tradition. The tales of Madame d'Aulnoy, on the other hand, introduced the _White Cat_, the _Yellow Dwarf_, _Finette Cendron_, and _Le Mouton_ to literature and the stage, where they survive in pantomime and _feerie_. _Beauty and the Beast_ first appears, at the immoderate length of three hundred and sixty-two pages, in _Les Contes Marins_ (La Haye, 1740) by Madame de Villeneuve.

Literary Fairy Tales flourished all through the eighteenth century in the endless _Cabinet de Fees_. As for Perrault's Tales, they were republished at the Hague, in 1742, with illustrations by Fokke. In 1745, they appeared, with Fokke's vignettes, and with an English translation. An English version, translated by Mr. Samber, printed for J. Pote, was advertised, Mr. Austin Dobson tells me, in the _Monthly Chronicle_, March 1729. There have been innumerable editions, often splendidly equipped and illustrated, down to the present date. This little book alone, of all Charles Perrault's labours, has won 'the land of matters unforgot.' Odysseus, Figaro, and Othello are not more certain to be immortal than Hop o' my Thumb, Puss in Boots, and Blue Beard, the heroes whom Charles Nodier so pleasantly called 'the Ulysses, the Figaro, and the Othello of children.'

[Footnote 4: Grimm, _Kinder- und Hausmaerchen_. No. 89.]

[Footnote 5: _Ballet des Arts, danse par sa Majeste; le 8 Janvier, 1663._ A Paris. Par Robert Ballard. M.DC.LXIII.]

[Footnote 6: _Madame de Maintenon d'apres sa Correspondance._ Geffroy, ii. 211. Paris, 1887.]

[Footnote 7: _Madame de Maintenon d'apres sa Correspondance._ Geffroy, i. 322.]

[Footnote 8: Paris: de l'imprimerie de Jean Baptiste Coignard, imprimeur du Roy et de l'Academie Francoise, rue Saint Jacques, la Bible d'or, 1691. The Bibliotheque Nationale and the Arsenal possess copies of this duodecimo of 58 pages. One of the copies is inscribed _Donne par Lautheur_ 1691. (Lefevre. _Contes de Charles Perrault_, p. 167. Paris, _s. a._)]

[Footnote 9: Paul de Saint Victor, _Les Contes des Fees_, in _Hommes et Dieux_, p. 475. Paris, 1883.]

[Footnote 10: _Les Fees du Moyen Age_, p. 101. Paris, 1843.]

[Footnote 11: Recueil, 1694. _Peau d'Ane_, p. 50. _Les Souhaits Ridicules_, p. 93. _Griselidis_, p. 233.]

[Footnote 12: Coignard Veuve. Paris.]

[Footnote 13: _Dialogues des Morts par feu Messire Francois de Salignac de la Motte Fenelon_, vol. i. p. 23. Paris, 1718. 'L'autre n'est qu'un amas de contes de vieilles.' Achilles thus anticipates Gerland's _Altgriechische Maerchen in der Odyssee_.]

[Footnote 14: Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye is the title on the frontispiece. The term occurs in Loret, _La Muse Historique_. (Lettre V. 11 Juin, 1650.)

'Mais le cher motif de leur joye,
Comme un conte de la Mere Oye,
Se trouvant fabuleux et faux,
Ils deviendront tous bien penauts.'
]

[Footnote 15: In her _Moralite_, Mlle. L'Heritier says,--

'Cent fois ma nourrice ou ma mie
M'ont fait ce beau recit le soir pres des tisons,
Je n'y fais qu'ajouter un peu de broderie.'
]

[Footnote 16: The _Fables d'animaux_ are probably even older than _contes_ _Diamonds and Toads_. A Mouse and a Frog, as well as the Old Woman who survives as _La Fee_, take part in the tale as the Kaffirs tell it in _The Story of Five Heads_, in Theal's _Kaffir Folk Lore_, pp. 48, 49. The Kaffir story slides into a form of _Beauty and the Beast_. By some unexplained accident a story of Mlle. L'Heritier's _L'Adroite Princesse_ slipped into editions of Perrault's _Contes_, in 1721, if not earlier, and holds its place even now.]

[Footnote 17: _Histoires ou Contes du Tems Passe, avec des Moralites._ A Paris. Chez Claude Barbin, sur le second peron de la Sainte-Chapelle; au Palais. Avec Privilege de sa Majeste, 1697. In 12o. 230 pp. Bibliotheque de M. Cousin, 9677. The frontispiece, by Clouzier, represents an old woman spinning, and telling tales to a man, a girl, a little boy, and a cat which, from its broad and intelligent grin, naturalists believe to be of the Cheshire breed. On a placard is written

CONTES
DEMA
MERE
LOYE.

A copy, modified, of the engraving is printed on the cover of M. Charles Deulin's _Les Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye avant Perrault_. (Paris, Dentu, 1879.) The design holds its own, with various slight alterations, in the English chap-books of _Mother Goose's Tales_, even in the present century. There is a vastly 'embroidered' reminiscence of Clouzier in the edition edited by M. Ch. Giraud, for Perrin of Lyon, 1865.]

[Footnote 18: Mademoiselle was Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, born 1676, sister of Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans, and Regent. See Paul Lacroix in _Contes de Perrault_, Paris, s. d. (1826.)]

[Footnote 19: In the introduction to the Jouaust edition of 1876 M. Paul Lacroix has probably gone too far in attributing to Perrault's son the complete authorship of the Tales. It is true that the title of the Dutch reprint of 1697 describes the book as 'par le fils de Monsieur Perrault.' The Abbe de Villiers, however, in his _Entretiens sur les Contes des Fees_ (a Paris chez Jacques Collombat, 1699), makes one of his persons praise the stories 'que l'on attribue au fils d'un celebre Academicien,' for their freshness and imitation of the style of nurses. Another speaker in the dialogue, The Parisian, replies, 'quelque estime que j'aie pour le fils de l'Academicien, j'ai peine a croire que le pere n'ait pas mis la main a son ouvrage,' p. 109. This opinion is probably correct. It seems that Perrault was not troubled by attacks on his _Contes_, and, in biographical works the tales were long attributed to his son. But M. Paul Lacroix declares that this son was nineteen years of age when the stories appeared. This looks incredible on the face of it. Mlle. L'Heritier could hardly have said about a young man of nineteen, that he 'occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son enfance' in writing out _Contes naifs_. Nor would a man of that age, in a century too, when the young took on them manly duties so early, describe himself in his dedicatory letter as 'un enfant.' M. Charles Giraud gives the boy's age as ten, without citing his authority. (Lyons Edition of 1865, p. lxxiv.) Moreover the idea of educating a young man of that age by making him write out fairy tales would have seemed, and would justly have seemed, ridiculous. We must believe that P. Darmancour was a child when the stories were published, and we may agree with the Abbe Villiers that the Academician 'put a hand to them.' M. Lacroix's authority is the discovery by M. Jal of the birth of Pierre Perrault, a son of Charles, who would have been nineteen in 1697. (Jal's _Dictionnaire Critique_, p. 1321.) But Jal did not find the register of baptism of Mademoiselle Perrault. It follows that he may have also failed to find that of other young Perraults, including 'P. Darmancour.' Each of Perrault's first sons (May 25, 1675; Oct. 20, 1676), was called Charles, the second had a Samuel added to the name. Perrault may also have had two or more Pierres; in any case, unless P. Darmancour were an idiot, his education could not have been conducted by making him write out nursery tales at nineteen.]

[Footnote 20: Even in the popular mouth almost any formula may glide into almost any other, and there is actually a female Hop o' My Thumb in Aberdeenshire folklore. But Madame d'Aulnoy's seems a wanton confusion. The Aberdeen female _Hop o' My Thumb_ is _Malty Whuppy_, Folk Lore Journal, p. 68, 1884. For _Finette Cendron_, see _Nouveaux Contes des Fees_, par Madame D----, Amsterdam, Roger, 1708.]

[Footnote 21: Paul de Saint Victor, _Hommes et Dieux_, p. 474.]

[Footnote 22: _L'Histoire de Melusine_ (Barbin, Paris, 1698) is dedicated like _Histoires et Contes du Tems Passe_ to _Mademoiselle_. The author says, 'Si tost que la plus celebre des Fees a sceu que votre Altesse Royale avoit eu la bonte de donner de favourables audiences aux Fees du bas ordre, et qu'elle avoit pris quelque plaisir au recit de leurs avanteures,' she came forward and asked Mademoiselle to patronise her own. A burlesque 'Privilege en faveur des Fees dans ce temps ou l'on a tant d'engouement pour les Contes des Fees' ends the volume.]

FAIRIES AND OGRES.

The stories of Perrault are usually called 'Fairy Tales,' and they deserve the name more than most _contes_, except the artificial contemporary tales, because in them Fairies or Fees do play a considerable part. Thus there were seven Fairies, and an old one 'supposed dead or enchanted,' in the _Sleeping Beauty_. There is a Fairy Godmother in _Cinderella_, and, as will be shown in the study on _Cinderella_, she takes the part usually given, in traditional versions, to a cow, a sheep, or a dead mother who has some mystic connection with the beast. The same remarks apply to the Fairy Godmother in _Peau d'Ane_. She, too, does for the heroine what beasts do in purely popular European variants, and in analogous tales from South Africa.

The fairies in _Riquet of the Tuft_ are of little importance, as the narrative is not really traditional, but of literary invention for the most part. The fairy in _The Two Wishes_ is not a fairy in the South African variants where divers magical or animal characters appear, nor can _Mother Holle_ in Grimm (24) be properly styled a fairy. Thus, of all Perrault's Fairies only the Fairies of the _Sleeping Beauty_ (repeated in _Riquet of the Tuft_) answer to Fairies as they appear in genuine popular traditions, under such names as Moirai, or Hathors, in ancient Greek, and Egyptian versions. These beings attend women in child-bed, as they attended Althea when she bore Meleager, and they predict the fortunes of the infant.

Perrault's fairy godmothers (unlike the fairies of real legend) are machinery of his own, and even he dispenses with Fairies altogether in _Blue Beard_, _Hop o' my Thumb_, and _Puss in Boots_; while in _Les Trois Souhaits_ the mythological machinery of the classics is employed, and Jupiter does what a fairy might have done. It is true that the key of the forbidden door, in _Blue Beard_, is said to be _Fee_; but this only means that, like the seven-leagued Boots in _Hop o' my Thumb_ ('elles estoient Fees'), the key has magical qualities. The part of Fairies, then, is very restricted, even in Perrault, while, in traditional _Maerchen_ all over the world, Fairies or beings analogous to the Fairies appear comparatively seldom.

In spite of this the Fairies have so successfully asserted their title over popular tales, that a few words on their character and origin seem not out of place. Fairies are doubtless much older than their name; as old as the belief in spirits of woods, hills, lonely places, and the nether world. The familiar names, _fees_, _fades_, are apparently connected with _Fatum_, the thing spoken, and with _Fata_, the Fates who speak it, and the God _Fatuus_, or Faunus, and his sister or wife _Fatua_[23]. Preller quotes the _Fatuae_ as spiritual maidens of the forests and elements, adding the other names of _Sagae_ and _Sciae_, to Fatuae, and Fata[24]. He compares the Slavonic Wilis: and, to be brief, the Apsaras of India, the Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, and the Good Ladies and Fairies of Scotland, with many of the Melanesian Vuis, forest-haunting spirits, are all of the same class, are fairy beings informing the streams and wilds. To these good folk were ascribed gifts of prophecy, commonly exercised beside the cradle of infancy, _deabus illis quae fata nascentibus canunt, et dicuntur Carmentes_[25]. As Maury shows[26], the local Fairies of Roman Gaul were propitiated with altars: