Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth–Century French Women Writers (Volume 9) (The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series) [1 ed.] 0772720770, 9780772720771

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Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers Edi te d and T r an sl ate d by

Lewis C. Seifert and Domna C. Stanton

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 9

ENCHANTED ELOQUENCE

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series, 9

The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe: The Toronto Series

Se rie S edi to r S Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. Se rie S edi to r , e ng l i S h te x tS Elizabeth H. Hageman

Recent Publications in the Series 1 Madre María Rosa Journey of Five Capuchin Nuns Edited and translated by Sarah E. Owens 2009 2 Giovan Battista Andreini Love in the Mirror: A Bilingual Edition Edited and translated by Jon R. Snyder 2009 3 Raymond de Sabanac and Simone Zanacchi Two Women of the Great Schism: The Revelations of Constance de Rabastens by Raymond de Sabanac and Life of the Blessed Ursulina of Parma by Simone Zanacchi Edited and translated by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Bruce L. Venarde 2010 4 Oliva Sabuco de Nantes Barrera The True Medicine Edited and translated by Gianna Pomata 2010

5 Louise-Geneviève Gillot de Sainctonge Dramatizing Dido, Circe, and Griselda Edited and translated by Janet Levarie Smarr 2010 6 Pernette du Guillet Complete Poems: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Karen Simroth James Translated by Marta Rijn Finch 2010 7 Antonia Pulci Saints’ Lives and Bible Stories for the Stage: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Elissa B. Weaver Translated by James Wyatt Cook 2010 8 Valeria Miani Celinda, A Tragedy: A Bilingual Edition Edited by Valeria Finucci Translated by Julia Kisacky Annotated by Valeria Finucci and Julia Kisacky 2010

Enchanted Eloquence: Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century French Women Writers •

Edited and translated by LEWIS C. SEIFERT and DOMNA C. STANTON

Iter Inc. Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Toronto 2010

Iter: Gateway to the Middle Ages and Renaissance Tel: 416/978–7074 Fax: 416/978–1668 Email: [email protected]

Web: www.itergateway.org

CRRS Publications, Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies Victoria University in the University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7 Canada Tel: 416/585–4465

Fax: 416/585–4430

Email: [email protected]

Web: www.crrs.ca

© 2010 Iter Inc. & the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies All Rights Reserved Printed in Canada We thank the Gladys Kriebel Delmas Foundation for a generous grant of start-up funds for The Other Voice, Toronto Series, a portion of which supports the publication of this volume. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Enchanted eloquence : fairy tales by seventeenth-century French women writers / edited and translated by Lewis C. Seifert and Domna C. Stanton. (The other voice in Early Modern Europe: Toronto series ; 9) Co-published by: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies. Includes bibliographical references and index. Also issued in electronic format. ISBN 978–0–7727–2077–1 1. French fiction—Women authors—Translations into English. 2. French fiction—17th century—Translations into English. 3. Fairy tales—France—Translations into English. 4. Fairy tales—France—History and criticism. I. Seifert, Lewis Carl II. Stanton, Domna C. III. Victoria University (Toronto, Ont.). Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies IV. Iter Inc. V. Series: Other voice in early modern Europe. Toronto series ; 9 PQ1278.E53 2010 843’.010804

C2010–907532–3

Cover illustration: Portait of Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy (Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Aulnoy). Cover design: Maureen Morin, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries Typesetting and production: Iter Inc.

Contents Acknowledgments

ix

List of Illustrations

x

I. Volume Editors’ Introduction

1

II. Fairy Tales by Seventeenth-Century Conteuses

Catherine Bernard: Introduction



Prince Rosebush

51

Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon: Introduction Marmoisan





The Doe in the Woods

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force: Introduction



97

Princess Little Carp 103





61 66

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy: Introduction



47

151 189

The Enchanter

194

Green and Blue

213

Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat: Introduction 231

Little Eel

236



Wasted Effort

270

III. Critical Texts on the Conte de fées Introduction

281



Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, Letter to Madame D.G.*** (1695)

286



Pierre de Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works, To Protect against Bad Taste (1699), from the Second Conversation

294

Appendix

311

Bibliography

315

Index

337

vii

Acknowledgments We begin by thanking Al Rabil for his eagerness to include the fairy tales of seventeenth-century women among the “other voices” of the early modern period, his patience, and unstinting assistance. Two current students at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York provided invaluable help: Desmond Hosford, who prepared the first draft of the translations, both the tales and the critical texts in this volume; and Paula Delbonis-Platt, who did an exemplary job—thoughtful, judicious, meticulous—copyediting the entire text. Our thanks as well to the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and the Pierpont Morgan Library for permission to reprint images from their archives. We are grateful to the editors of the most recent French edition of the contes de fées (Honoré Champion, Paris, 2004), specifically Nadine Jasmin (vol. 1), Raymonde Robert (vol. 2), and Geneviève Patard (vol. 3) for their knowledgeable, scholarly editions, which we relied on throughout the process of translating and drafting notes for the tales. The acknowledgments of our indebtedness would not be complete without an expression of thanks to the anonymous reader of our manuscript, who provided generous and constructive comments, and who turned out to be Jack Zipes, a leading authority on fairy tales in North America. Last, but far from least, great thanks to Margaret English-Haskin for her meticulous attention during the production process and to Stephanie Treloar, of the Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, for helping to turn the manuscript into a printed book. All those whom we have cited deserve more recognition than a mere acknowledgment on this page. Finally, support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and the Office of the Vice President for Research at Brown University provided assistance with the research and editing of this volume and thus the completion of our work.

ix

Illustrations Figure 1 (p. xi): Frontispiece, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, Nouveaux contes des fées (Amsterdam: Etienne Roger, 1725), vol. 1. Pierpont Morgan Library. New York. PML 84635. Figure 2 (p. 17): Frontispiece, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, Nouveaux contes des fées (Amsterdam: Etienne Roger, 1725) vol. 2. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. PML 84636. Figure 3 (p. 18): Frontispiece, Charles Perrault, Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Amsterdam: Jacques Desbordes, 1697). Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, PML 85589. Figure 4 (p. 65): Portrait of Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Lhéritier, vol. 1057. Figure 5 (p. 102): Portrait of Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Aulnoy. Figure 6 (p. 209): Illustration from Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, Les contes des contes (Paris: Simon Benard, 1697) 1:133. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Y2-8799 (1). Figure 7 (p. 235): Portrait of Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Murat, no. 55A7037.

x

Figure 1: Frontispiece, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, Nouveaux contes des fées (Amsterdam: Etienne Roger, 1725), vol. 1. Pierpont Morgan Library. New York. PML 84635.

xi

Editors’ Introduction The Other Voice Few forms of writing are as closely associated with women and femininity as the fairy tale. The best known fairy-tale characters are women, of course—Beauty, Cinderella, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White. But in a more important sense, a deeply rooted stereotype in Western and many other cultures holds that women and girls are the primary tellers and audience for these stories. Scenes of mothers, grandmothers, nursemaids, and governesses reading or telling tales to children, chiefly girls, are recurrent in the iconography depicting storytelling.1 Even if such images tell only part of the story—men and boys have read, told, and watched fairy tales as well, after all—the focus on women and girls has been central to conceptions about the genre. In the commercial arena, for instance, the Walt Disney Company’s (in)famous versions of fairy tales have promoted gender roles and notions of romantic love that have been widely denounced by feminist critics.2 In a well-known exchange about the value of fairy tales for girls and young women in the early 1970s, Marcia Lieberman’s and Alison Lurie’s divergent visions of the genre (Lieberman rejecting it, Lurie defending it) nonetheless converged around the deleterious effects of Disney fairy-tale films.3 In fact, more progressive uses of the 1. See Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995). 2. There is a vast literature on this topic. See especially Amy M. Davis, Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation (Eastleigh, UK: John Libbey Publishers, 2006); Deborah Ross, “Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination,” Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 18:1 (2004), 53–66; Susan Hines, introduction to The Emperor’s Old Groove: Decolonizing Disney’s Magic Kingdom by Brenda Ayres, ed. (New York: Peter Lang, 2003); Elizabeth Bell, Lynda Haas, and Laura Sells, eds., From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995). 3. See Alison Lurie, “Fairy Tale Liberation,” New York Review of Books (December 17, 1970): 42–44, and Marcia Lieberman, “ ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale,” College English 34 (1972): 383–95. For a review of feminist debates about the fairy tale and the rise of feminist critical discourse about the genre, see

1

2 Editors’ Introduction association of women and girls with the fairy tale were inspired by the women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Texts transformed stereotypically passive princesses into active heroines and cast doubt on the happiness assured by the seemingly obligatory final marriage.4 And in literature for English-speaking adults, works by Margaret Atwood, A. S. Byatt, Olga Broumas, Angela Carter, Emma Donoghue, Anne Sexton, and Jane Yolen (among others) attest to the continued resonance the genre holds for women writers.5 Associations of the fairy tale with women reach back at least to the prophetic storytelling powers of the sibyls in Greek and Roman legend and the old woman who tells the earliest known version of “Beauty and the Beast” (“Psyche and Cupid”) in Apuleius’s The Golden Ass (second century CE). Throughout medieval and early modern Europe, oral storytelling was linked to the preeminently female craft of spinning, and the two were regularly depicted together in iconography.6 In many European languages, the seemingly timeless identiDonald Haase, “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship,” in Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches, ed. Donald Haase (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004), 1–36. 4. See the selection of tales in Jack Zipes, ed., Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England (New York: Methuen, 1986), and, on recent feminist fairy tales, Jack Zipes, Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children’s Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling (New York: Routledge, 2008), 121–39. 5. See, among others, Margaret Atwood, Bluebeard’s Egg (1983); Francesca Lia Block, The Rose and the Beast (2000); Olga Broumas, Beginning with O (1977); A. J. Byatt, Possession (1990); Angela Carter, The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories (1979); Emma Donoghue, Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins (1997); Sara Maitland, Far North and Other Dark Tales (2008); Anne Sexton, Transformations (1971); Terri Windling, The Fairy Tale Series (Tor Books); and Jane Yolen, Once Upon a Time She Said (2005). On fairy tales by contemporary women writers, see especially, Cristina Bacchilega, Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997); Elizabeth Wanning Harries, Twice Upon a Tale: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Jessica Tiflin, Marvelous Geometries: Narrative and Metafiction in the Modern Fairy Tale (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009), and essays in Stephen Benson, ed., Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008). 6. Perhaps the most famous is the frontispiece of Charles Perrault’s Histoires ou contes du temps passé (Stories or Tales of Yesteryear, 1697). See figure 3. On spinning and tale-telling, see Ruth B. Bottigheimer, “Tale Spinners: Submerged Voices in Grimms’ Fairy Tale,” New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies  27 (Fall 1982):  141–50;

Editors’ Introduction 3 fication of women with folk- and fairy tales is inscribed in the terms commonly used for these stories: old wives’ tales and mother goose tales in English, contes de vieille and contes de ma mère l’oye in French, Ammenmärchen in German, cuentos de viejas in Spanish. Contrary to the vagueness of such expressions, a precise genealogy of this association can be uncovered in neglected recesses of literary history. If the names of Charles Perrault (1628–1703), the Brothers Grimm (Jacob [1785–1863] and Wilhelm [1786–1859]), and Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) are synonymous with the fairy tale, a comparatively less well known group of seventeenth-century French women writers, now called the conteuses (female storytellers), defined much of what we currently understand to be fairy tales: stories modeled on folktales, with one or two protagonists, magical elements, and a (usually) happy ending.7 In fact, the term “fairy tale” in English is derived from an early eighteenth-century translation of the title of MarieCatherine d’Aulnoy’s first collection, Les contes des fées (1697–98) and published as Tales of the Fairies in 1707.8 The turn of the eighteenth century in France witnessed the birth of the conte de fées, a genre that quickly became a literary phenomenon. Between 1690 and 1709, nearly two-thirds of the fairy tales published in France were authored by the conteuses:9 Marieand Karen E. Rowe, “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale,” in Fairy Tales and Society: Illusion, Allusion, and Paradigm, ed. Ruth B. Bottigheimer (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 53–74. 7. On the definition of the literary fairy tale, see Jack Zipes, ed., “Introduction: Towards a Definition of the Literary Fairy Tale,” in The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), xv–xxxii, and “Fairy Tale,” in The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales, ed. Donald Haase, 3 vols. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), 1:322–25. 8. See Gabrielle Verdier, “De Ma Mère l’Oye à Mother Goose: La fortune des contes de fées littéraires français en Angleterre,” in Contacts culturels et échanges linguistiques au XVIIe siècle en France (Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 1997), 185–202. See also Nancy B. Palmer and Melvin D. Palmer, “The French conte de fées in England,” Studies in Short Fiction 11, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 35–44; and Nancy B. Palmer and Melvin D. Palmer, “English Editions of French contes de fées in England,” Studies in Bibliography 27 (1974): 227–32. 9. See the Appendix at the end of this volume for a full list of the fairy tales by the conteuses, with the original French titles and English translations. We cite our own English translations throughout. The Appendix is based on the “Index des titres de contes (1690­­–1709)” for

4 Editors’ Introduction Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy (c. 1650–1705), Louise d’Auneuil (?–c. 1700), Catherine Bédacier, née Durand (c. 1650–c. 1715), Catherine Bernard (c. 1663–1712), Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (c. 1650–1724), Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon (1664–1734), and Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat (c. 1668–1716). Although less productive overall, men, too, published contes de fées, including Jean-Paul Bignon (1662–1743), François-Timoléon de Choisy (1644–1724), François de la MotheFénelon (1651–1715), Eustache Le Noble (1643–1711), Jean de Mailly (?–1724), Jean Nodot (?), and Jean de Préchac (1676–?). But the most celebrated male author, whose fairy tales gradually eclipsed those of all the other writers at this time, was Charles Perrault. By the nineteenth century, his “Mother Goose Tales,” as the eight prose tales of Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Stories or Tales of Yesteryear, with Moral Lessons, 1697) came to be known, were taken as the standard to which others—and particularly those by the conteuses— were compared, always unfavorably.10 Critics have often assumed that Perrault created the genre of the conte de fées in France, and that all authors attempted to imitate him.11 But, in fact, Perrault and the conthe recent critical edition of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French fairy tales (Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées [Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004–]); sixty-eight of these 112 contes de fées were written by women, forty-one by men, and three remain anonymous. See Nathalie Rizzoni and Julie Boch, eds., L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690–1709), Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 5 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007), 613–16. 10. A manuscript of the Histoires ou contes du temps passé, currently in the collection of the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, dates from 1695 (see Charles Perrault, Perrault’s Tales of Mother Goose: The Dedication Manuscript Reproduced in Collotype Facsimile with Introduction and Critical Text, ed. Jacques Barchilon [New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1956], 2 vols.). Before this date, Perrault had published separately, and then as a collection (1694), three verse tales: Griselidis, Peau d’âne, and Les souhaits ridicules (Griselda, Donkeyskin, and The Ridiculous Wishes). Although he acknowledged authorship of the verse tales, he never did so for the prose tales, and instead the dedicatory epistle is signed, “P[ierre] Darmancour,” the name of his son. Scholars continue to debate whether Perrault was indeed the author of this collection, whether he collaborated with his son, or whether the attribution to Darmancour was a subterfuge. For a succinct summary of these debates, see Marc Escola, Contes de Charles Perrault, Foliothèque (Paris: Gallimard, 2005), 62–69. 11. Typical is the statement by Jean-Pierre Collinet that “the women who continued and emulated Perrault’s example are not always able to protect themselves as well as he was

Editors’ Introduction 5 teuses developed two divergent models for the genre at more or less the same time. The conteuses never imitated the style, tone, or subject matter of the Stories or Tales of Yesteryear, and more important, it was the female authors who exemplified the conte de fées from the late seventeenth century until the Revolution. Their corpus was both imitated and parodied by the numerous writers who published fairy tales during the genre’s second vogue, in eighteenth-century France.12 Through translations and reprintings in chapbooks and children’s literature, the conteuses continued to exert an influence on the development of the fairy tale in Germany, England, and North America, even if literary history has only recently begun to acknowledge this debt.13 To reread the often neglected tales of the conteuses is both to restore them to their rightful place in literary history and to reassess their role in the cultural associations of women with the fairy tale.

Contexts: Cultural and Literary From all indications, the conte de fées emerged from parlor games both at court and in the salons of mid-seventeenth-century France. In her correspondence, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné (1626–1696), alludes to what are clearly fairy tales told at court when against the abuse of facile wonders” (Jean-Pierre Collinet, “Préface,” in Contes, by Charles Perrault, ed. Jean-Pierre Collinet, Folio, vol. 1281 [Paris: Gallimard, 1981], 34). All translations of primary and secondary references are our own, unless otherwise noted. 12. See especially Raymonde Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire en France de la fin du XVIIe siècle à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1982), and JeanPaul Sermain, Le conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières, L’Esprit des Lettres (Paris: Editions Desjonquères, 2005). The writers of the eighteenth-century vogue include: Paul Baret, Jean-François de Bastide, Louis de Boissy, Antoine Bret, Anne-Claude-Philippe de Caylus, Jacques Cazotte, François-Antoine Chevrier, Claude-Prosper de Crébillon, Denis Diderot, la présidente Dreuillet, Charles Duclot, Marie-Antoinette Fagnan, Marianne-Agnès Falques, Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron, Antoine Gautier de Montdorge, Madeleine-Angélique de Gomez, Thomas-Simon Gueullette, Antoine Hamilton, le Chevalier de La Morlière, la marquise de Lassay, Marie-Jeanne Le Prince de Beaumont, Louise Levesque, Catherine de Lintot, Mademoiselle de Lubert, Marguerite de Lussan, François-Augustin de Moncrif, Henri Pajon, Nicolas-Edme Rétif de la Bretonne, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hyacinthe de Saint-Hyacinthe, Henri-Charles de Senneterre, Carl-Gustav Tessin, Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve, and Claude-Henri de Voisenon. 13. See the section of this introduction titled “Reception: Disfavor and Favor.”

6 Editors’ Introduction she describes women there being entertained (mitonnées) with long and intricate narratives derived from simple folk-tale like plots.14 Although there is little direct evidence, oral storytelling doubtless occurred in Parisian salons as well, since the salons’ documented activities included games that bore striking resemblance to elements of fairy tales, such as the “game of metamorphoses” described by La Force.15 Under the auspices of prominent women, the salons had served as a springboard for many literary genres, most notably the novel, which was championed by women writers.16 Most of the conteuses likely were members of prominent salons and knew each other through these circles.17 If women were at the forefront of efforts to create what was a new genre in late seventeenth-century France, why and how did they do so? Although motivations and intentions are problematic as the basis for critical interpretations, these questions can still shed light on the significance of the conteuses’ fairy tales within the context of their time. Several of the conteuses were considered to be what Joan DeJean has called “scandalous women” of the period.18 D’Aulnoy was accused of plotting to have her husband charged with a capital crime; La Force 14. See her letters of October 30, 1656, and August 6, 1677 (Marie de Rabutin-Chantal de Sévigné, Correspondance, ed. Roger Duchêne, 3 vols. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade [Paris: Gallimard, 1972–78], 1:40–42; 2: 515–17). Lexicographer Antoine Furetière defines the verb “mitonner” as “complimenting, pampering someone, treating a person favorably in order to win or keep that person’s good graces” (Dictionnaire universel, reprint, 1690 [Marsanne: Redon, 1999], CD-ROM). 15. Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, Les jeux d’esprit ou la promenade de la princesse de Conti à Eu par Mademoiselle de la Force, ed. M. le marquis de la Grange (Paris: Auguste Aubry, 1862). 16. See especially Joan DeJean, Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Linda Timmermans, L’accès des femmes à la culture (1598–1715): Un débat d’idées de Saint François de Sales à la Marquise de Lambert (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1993); Myriam Maître, Les précieuses: Naissance des femmes de lettres en France au XVIIe siècle, Lumière Classique, vol. 25 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999), and Faith E. Beasley, Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenth-Century France: Mastering Memory (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006). 17. There is some evidence that d’Aulnoy, La Force, L’Héritier, and Murat attended the same salons. See Renate Baader, Dames de lettres: Autorinnen des preziösen, hocharistokratischen und “modernen” Salons (1649–1698): Mlle de Scudéry, Mlle de Montpensier, Mme d’Aulnoy, Romanistische Abhandlungen (Stuttgart: J. B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1986), 229. 18. See DeJean, Tender Geographies, 127–58.

Editors’ Introduction 7 was banished from court for “impious” poems; and Murat was imprisoned for political subversion and tribadism (the early-modern term for lesbianism).19 Not surprisingly, then, early literary historians saw in their fairy tales the escapist desire of scandalous women to retreat into the supposed comfort of innocent fantasy.20 And yet, apart from these three writers, the other conteuses and conteurs were not particularly controversial figures, and in any event, readers at the time do not seem to have been interested in viewing their fairy tales through the lens of biographical details or rumors. More compelling by far is a self-awareness as women writers that the conteuses display in their tales. Dedicating stories to each other and alluding to the other conteuses, they frame their contes de fées as a new genre created and dominated by women.21 Although this framing may be evidence of a group consciousness, it is not necessarily proof of collective solidarity. Murat, for instance, contends her tales are just as original as those of the “ladies who have written in this genre until now.”22 And L’Héritier, while celebrating her bond of friendship with Murat, nonetheless foregrounds her own particular storytelling. “You [Murat] write the prettiest verse novellas in the world, in verse as refined as it is natural,” L’Héritier states at the beginning of her tale, The Clever Princess. “But I would very much like to tell you one in turn, charming Countess… My little story provides a proper moral and can thus appeal to you.”23 For all the evidence of a group consciousness, 19. Mary Elizabeth Storer, Un épisode littéraire de la fin du XVIIe siècle: La mode des contes de fées (1685–1700) (1928; repr., Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1972) remains a useful starting point for biographical information about the conteuses. See also the biographies in The Teller’s Tale: Lives of the Classic Storytellers, ed. Sophie Raynard (Albany: SUNY Press, forthcoming). On Murat, see also David M. Robinson, Closeted Writing and Lesbian and Gay Literature: Classical, Early Modern, Eighteenth Century (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006), 26–34. 20. This is especially true of Storer’s study (see, for instance, Storer, Un épisode littéraire, 253). 21. For instance, L’Héritier dedicates her tale, The Clever Princess, to Murat. In addition to dedicating her volume, Histoires sublimes et allégoriques, to the “modern fairies” (by which she means the conteuses), Murat makes a complimentary reference to d’Aulnoy and her tale Princess Little Carp in Little Eel (see Little Eel, n442, in this volume). 22. Avertissement in Henriette-Julie de Castelnau de Murat, Contes, ed. Geneviève Patard, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 3 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006), 200. 23. Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, Catherine Bernard, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, Catherine Bédacier Durand, and Louise Bossigny d’Auneuil, Contes, ed.

8 Editors’ Introduction then, the conteuses also used their tales to promote themselves as individuals within a growing literary field.24 Women’s predilection for the fairy tale in this period should be understood in a broader social and cultural context. The final decade of the seventeenth century was marked by severe hardship, caused by repeated crop failures, widespread famine, epidemics, and disastrous military campaigns by Louis XIV (1638–1715, r. 1643–1715).25 Against this backdrop, the contes de fées as a whole—by both women and men—indeed do seem to represent something of an escapist fantasy. But the religiosity of the final years of Louis XIV’s reign provides a sharper lens for the sociocultural specificity of the conteuses’ fairy tales. Along with his morganatic wife, Françoise d’Aubigné, duchesse de Maintenon (1636–1719), the king enforced strict piety at court, emboldening ecclesiastical figures to attack what they saw as the worldliness of fashionable society. For these religious critics, literature was a prominent expression of the moral decadence of society, and virulent assaults were mounted against novels and plays in the years immediately preceding the appearance of the conte de fées.26 However, only a few of these critics bothered to condemn the new genre—and even then, usually just in passing. Nonetheless, in the context of a pietistic fin de siècle, the fairy tale constituted a defense of fashionable secular society. Its portrayal of earthly luxury and happiness and its reliance on the supernatural powers of fairies, sorcerers, and other “pagan” figures obviously run counter to a Christian world view. And yet, as a narrative form associated with children and the lower classes and championed largely Raymonde Robert, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 2 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005), 93. 24. See Patricia Hannon, Fabulous Identities: Women’s Fairy Tales in Seventeenth-Century France, Faux Titre, vol. 151 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1998). On the notion of the “literary field” and its relevance to seventeenth-century France, see Alain Viala, Naissance de l’écrivain: Sociologie de la littérature à l’âge classique, Le Sens Commun (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985). 25. See Joël Cornette, Chronique du règne de Louis XIV (Paris: SEDES, 1997), 379–442. On the representation of social and political realities in the contes de fées, see especially Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire, 225–82, 327–79. 26. See Lewis C. Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690–1715: Nostalgic Utopias, Cambridge Studies in French, vol. 55 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 69–71.

Editors’ Introduction 9 by women writers, this defense of secular culture appeared largely innocuous, at least if the lack of extended critiques is taken as any indication. Still, the unsettled political and social climate of the time partially explains the appeal of the genre. Fairy tales have often appeared in periods of social repression or crisis (for example, Victorian England, the “decadent” period of late nineteenth-century France, and Weimar Germany), and their particular brand of fantasy has been understood not only as escapism but also as critique.27 Both explanations have been applied to the work of the conteuses, who belonged to the fashionable secular society of their time.28 This secularism did not preclude the conteuses—or the conteurs—from attributing ethical value to their stories. What Perrault claimed for his verse tales—that they all contained “a praiseworthy and instructive moral”29—was, on the surface, applicable to the entire vogue. A character in d’Aulnoy’s frame narrative, Dom Gabriel Ponce de Leon (1698), calls for “a bit of a moral” when she prescribes rules for stories.30 Within the literary conventions of the period, this was in no way unusual, and many writers appended final morals, while most others dotted their texts with maxims.31 Yet, these explicitly stated “lessons” are often at odds with the logic of the narrative as a whole. At the end of La Force’s The Enchanter, the versed moral begins by claiming that both vice and honor lead to happiness; yet the 27. On Victorian English fairy tales, see U. C. Knoepflmacher, Ventures Into Childland: Victorians, Fairy Tales, and Femininity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998); on the “decadent” fairy tale in fin-de-siècle France, see Jean de Palacio, Les perversions du merveilleux: Ma Mère l’Oye au tournant du siècle (Paris: Séguier, 1993); and on German fairy tales during the Weimar Republic, see Jack Zipes, ed., Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989). 28. See Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender, 59–97. 29. Charles Perrault, François de la Mothe-Fénelon, Louis de Mailly, Jean de Préchac, and François-Timoléon de Choisy, Contes merveilleux, ed. Tony Gheeraert, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 4 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005), 105. 30. Contes des fées, suivis des contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode, ed. Nadine Jasmin, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 1 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004), 438. 31. Among the tales anthologized here, final morals are found in d’Aulnoy’s Princess Little Carp and The Doe in the Woods, La Force’s Green and Blue and The Enchanter, and L’Héritier’s Marmoisan. All the tales in this collection contain maxims. On maxims or the general propositions known as sentences, see Prince Rosebush, n25, in this volume.

10 Editors’ Introduction end of the poem calls out more conventionally to the deity “Fortune” to “crush the wicked with eternal travails” and to “give the virtuous sweetest happiness.”32 This conclusion also contradicts the plot, in which neither kidnapping nor attempted patricide is punished. To be sure, La Force’s tale is an extreme case. But fairy tales by both men and women (most prominently, Perrault’s prose tales) privilege “pleasure” and question the “useful instruction” such tales might provide, or in the classic formula, they favor dulce over utile.33 However, whenever seventeenth-century critics denounced the new genre as lacking in didactic value, they singled out the conteuses as the culprits. Thus, Abbé Pierre de Villiers (1648–1728), who expresses his admiration for Perrault’s tales, nonetheless opines: “if those [women] who undertook to compose them had remembered that fairy tales were created only to formulate an important moral and give it a concrete form we would not have considered them the lot of women and of ignorant men.”34 Ultimately, the misogynistic reasoning used by Villiers here exposes a refusal to allow women, as women, to formulate “an important moral.” That privilege, so Villiers seems to believe, can only be exercised by men such as Perrault, to whom he credits “the best tales we have.”35 Paradoxically, although women writers promoted morals and maxims, they also framed the fairy tale as trivial entertainment, worthy of ironic amusement. This is apparent in the word bagatelle (trifle), frequently used by the conteuses to characterize their fairy tales. Mélanie, one of the characters in d’Aulnoy’s frame story, Dom Gabriel Ponce de Leon (1698), draws out the substantive and tonal consequences of this notion for the contes de fées that would be recited among her friends: “They shouldn’t be either bombastic or crude; they should occupy a middle ground that is more lighthearted than serious; they need to have a bit of a moral; and above all, they should be offered as a trifle [bagatelle] whose worth the listener alone has the right to determine.”36 By this standard, fairy tales, situated between 32. La Force, The Enchanter, 212, in this volume. 33. See Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender, 51–58, and Sermain, Le conte de fées, 115– 60. 34. Villiers. Conversations on Fairy Tales, 297, in this volume. 35. Ibid., 309. 36. D’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 438.

Editors’ Introduction 11 lofty and lowly extremes, were to serve a pleasurable function above all else. But even as trivial entertainment, the fairy tale still allowed women writers to promote individual and collective interests.37 As was typical of the fashionable and nobiliary elites of the time, the conteuses were eager to portray their writing as the product of a leisurely, aristocratic pastime instead of the commercial efforts of bourgeois authors. Describing the sociable gifts of d’Aulnoy, for instance, Murat claims that her friend “did not approach writing with assiduous effort, she wrote as I do by whim, in the midst of the noise of the hordes of people who visited her, and she only applied herself to her works to the extent it entertained her.”38 Murat’s insistence on a leisurely practice of writing only reinforces the lowly status of the fairy tale as a genre. By no means did the conteuses aspire to the lofty heights of such prestigious genres as epic poetry or tragedy, which were dominated by male writers. But they still used the new genre and its great popularity in fashionable society to gain prominence for themselves as writers (at least in their own circles). Indeed, many of their volumes of fairy tales were best sellers in their day.39 Both deliberately marginalized by writers and critics and highly popular among readers, the conte de fées allowed a group of women writers, by definition on the margins of the literary field of seventeenth-century France, a means to what Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément call “coming to writing,” appropriating as women and for women the ideology that casts men as the only legitimate authors and authorities.40 The work of the conteuses also needs to be placed within the context of what has come to be known as the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns. A long-simmering debate about the relative merits of ancient Greek and Roman versus “modern” mod37. On the “aesthetic of frivolity” developed by the conteuses, see Christine Jones, “The Poetics of Enchantment,” Marvels & Tales 17, no. 1 (2003): 55–74. 38. Henriette-Julie de Castelnau de Murat, Ouvrages de Mme la comtesse de Murat, 173–74, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, B. L. ms. 4371. 39. See the section of this introduction titled “Reception: Disfavor and Favor” and the introduction for each of the conteuses, in this volume. 40. Hélène Cixous, Coming to Writing and Other Essays, ed. Deborah Jenson, trans. Sarah Cornell (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991).

12 Editors’ Introduction els in the artistic, literary, philosophical, and scientific realms, the Quarrel irrupted with particular virulence during the final decade of the seventeenth century.41 After public confrontations with Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux (1636–1711), the foremost champion of the Ancients (and author of the infamous Satire X [“Against Women”]), Charles Perrault became the leading advocate for the “modernist” cause, in particular through his Parallèle des anciens et des modernes (Comparison of the Ancients and the Moderns, 1688–94). His fairy tales were also strategic illustrations of his “modernist” agenda, as the preface to his verse tales (1694) makes clear. After comparing ancient Greek and Roman “fables” and French “old wives’ tales,” Perrault asserts: “Seen from the perspective of the moral … my fables deserve to be told more than most of the ancient tales.”42 Perrault was not alone in using fairy tales to attack Greece and Rome. At the end of her story, The Enchantments of Eloquence, his cousin, L’Héritier, favors an indigenous over a foreign past: “Tales for tales, it seems to me that those from ancient Gaul are just about as good as those from ancient Greece, and fairies are no less able to work wonders than the gods of mythology.”43 Even if the other conteuses do not explicitly align themselves with Perrault and L’Héritier, their tales bespeak an allegiance to the “modernist” or a nationalist cause. Like Perrault’s Stories or Tales of Yesteryear, their contes de fées are purportedly based on oral folk narratives of France—and not the literature of ancient Greece and Rome.44 Unlike Perrault, though, the 41. For two different accounts of this quarrel, see Joan DeJean, Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), and Marc Fumaroli, “Les abeilles et les araignées,” in La Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes: XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles, ed. Anne-Marie Lecoq (Paris: Gallimard, 2001), 7–220. 42. Perrault et al., Contes merveilleux, 104. 43. L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, 91. 44. However, this “modernist” outlook did not preclude frequent commonplace references to Greek and Roman mythological characters and topoi. See below, 19–21, in this introduction. By juxtaposing the ancient marvelous with its “modern” equivalent, the conteuses implicitly affirm the importance of the “modern.” See Bernard Magné, “Le chocolat et l’ambroisie: Le statut de la mythologie dans les contes de fées,” Cahiers de Littérature du XVIIe Siècle, 2 (1980), 95–146, and Nadine Jasmin, Naissance du conte féminin. Mots et merveilles: Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy (1690–1698), Lumière Classique, 44 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002), 32–60.

Editors’ Introduction 13 conteuses incorporate many features of seventeenth-century literature, including tropes on love elaborated in poetry and novels. By its very nature, then, this corpus illustrates a central tenet of the “modern” conception of literature: writing need not be bound by ancient models and rules, to which women, who had no formal education, did not have access; literary innovation is not only possible but a sure sign of “modern” progress, a notion broadly identified with the reign of Louis XIV. Indeed, not only was the conte de fees viewed as a predominately “feminine” genre within a “modern” literary aesthetics, but for much of the seventeenth century in elite secular circles— though certainly not in moralistic texts or the misogynistic tracts of the querelle des femmes—women were paradoxically also deemed to possess a “natural” or intuitive eloquence that was upheld as a model for men’s conversation and writing.45 This supposedly instinctive linguistic refinement represented a break from the humanist legacy of classical models.46 At once the product of women and, supposedly, of indigenous French culture, the contes de fées exemplified “modern” literary tastes as much as any other genre, old or new.

Intertexts: Sources and Rewritings Stories by the conteuses reveal a sophisticated use of oral and elite literary traditions. Although the fairy tale was (and continues to be) de45. La Bruyère provides perhaps the most famous statement of this notion in his (nonetheless ambivalent) caractère on women’s letters (37 [IV]): “If women were always correct, I would dare say that the letters by a few of them would perhaps be the best writing in our language” (Jean de La Bruyère, Les caractères de Théophraste traduits du grec avec les caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Julien Benda [Paris: Gallimard, 1962], 76). See The Doe in the Woods, n270, in this volume. The querelle des femmes, which arguably extends from the beginning of the fifteenth century to the French Revolution—though some would say it continues to this day—and which pitted advocates and proponents of women against their detractors and castigators as descendants of Eve, inevitably inscribes contradictory views that are also reflected in the wider cultural and social debates about women’s status, roles, and practices, here notably their writing practices. On the querelle des femmes, see the Series Editors’ Introduction, available on the Iter website of the University of Toronto. 46. See, among others, Marc Fumaroli, “L’empire des femmes, ou l’esprit de joie,” in La diplomatie de l’esprit: De Montaigne à La Fontaine, ed. Marc Fumaroli (Paris: Hermann, 1994) 321–39.

14 Editors’ Introduction fined as a literary appropriation of oral wonder tales,47 the conteuses as a group strove to distance themselves from the popular tradition. In her dedicatory epistle for Histoires sublimes et allégoriques (Sublime and Allegorical Stories, 1699), Murat draws a clear distinction between lower- and upper-class women storytellers. Deploying the rhetorical figure of syllepsis (the use of a word with both literal and metaphorical meanings), she contrasts the “lowly and childish” occupations of the “ancient fairies,” whose “sole concern is to keep the house well swept, put the pot on the fire, do laundry, rock children to sleep, milk cows, churn butter, and a thousand other lowly things of that sort,” with the “great feats” performed by the “modern fairies,” who are all “beautiful, young, attractive, elegantly and richly dressed and lodged,” and who live in “the courts of kings or enchanted palaces.”48 Still, try as she may, Murat cannot deny how much the “modern fairies” owe to the “ancient fairies.” Without their “forerunners” (as Murat calls the “ancient fairies”), the “modern fairies” would have had nothing to refine. Theirs was a debt to be disguised, but a debt nonetheless. Aside from the distance the conteuses put between themselves and the “ancient fairies,” the lack of documentation about popular storytelling at the time makes it difficult to know how much they actually relied on oral folklore.49 Some, but not all, of their fairy tales bear resemblance to folktales subsequently transcribed by ethnographers. Whether or not the conteuses deliberately rewrote what they knew to be oral wonder tales recounted by lower-class storytellers, several of them were familiar with French translations of the probably pseudonymous Giovan Francesco Straparola’s Le piacevoli notti (The Facetious Nights, 1550–53), a frame narrative with fifteen wonder 47. The “wonder tale” (or “tale of magic”) is one of the four categories folklorists recognize under the heading, “ordinary tales.” See Hans-Jörg Uther, The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson, 3 vols. (Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004). This catalog classifies folktales according to “tale-types,” indicated by the abbreviation “ATU” followed by a number (e.g. “Cinderella” = ATU 510A). 48. Murat, Épître aux fées modernes, in Contes, by Murat, 199. 49. See the important discussion of this question, which encompasses both the first and the second vogues, in Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire, 77–170. See especially the “Recensement des contes types folkloriques utilisés par les contes de fées littéraires entre 1690 et 1778,” 127–29.

Editors’ Introduction 15 tales, along with beast fables, novellas, moral exempla, and tragic stories.50 Some of them may even have been familiar with Giambattista Basile’s Lo cunto de li cunti overo lo trattenemiemto pe peccerille (The Tale of the Tales, or Entertainment of Little Ones, 1634–36), a collection of fifty fairy tales, written in Neapolitan dialect and not available in French.51 Whatever the extent of the debt to their Italian predecessors, there is little doubt that the conteuses “invented” a tradition with their own fairy tales:52 they posited a practice of popular oral storytelling the better to gentrify it, claiming their own contes de fées to be the refined avatars of a lowly French model. Thus, at the end of The Clever Princess, L’Héritier claims that the story comes from her childhood and urges Murat to follow suit: “Hundreds of times my governess, / Instead of animal fables, / Related to me the morals / Of an amazing story… / Yes, such tales are most striking / More than the monkey’s and wolf ’s deeds. / I took great pleasure in them; / All children do the same, but these fables / will even now captivate great minds, / If 50. On the possible influence of Italian tales on the later French fairy-tale tradition, see Michele Rak, Da Cenerentola a Cappucceto rosso: Breve storia illustrata della fiaba barocca (Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2007), and Jack Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, 2nd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2006), 13–28. On Straparola’s collection, see Ruth Bottigheimer, Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002). See also Ruth Bottigheimer, “France’s First Fairy Tales: The Restoration and Rise Narratives of Les Facetieuses Nuictz Du Seigneur François Straparole,” Marvels & Tales 19, no.1 (2005): 17–31. Bottigheimer argues that the French contes de fées were inspired by Straparola, not by an oral tradition. See her Fairy Tales: A New History (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009), 53–74. For a critique of Bottigheimer’s thesis, see Lewis C. Seifert and Catherine Velay-Vallantin, “Comments on Fairy Tales and Oral Tradition,” Marvels & Tales 20, no. 2 (2006): 276–80. See also Francisco Vaz da Silva, “The Invention of Fairy Tales,” Journal of American Folklore 123, no. 490 (Fall 2010): 398–425. Straparola’s collection will be published in its entirety in two volumes in The Other Voice series, edited by Suzanne Magnanini. 51. Until recently, scholars have assumed that the Neapolitan dialect of Lo cunto de li cunti would have been an insurmontable obstacle for the conteurs and conteuses, a consensus questioned by Suzanne Magnanini. See “Postulated Routes from Naples to Paris: The Printer Antonio Bulifon and Giambattista Basile’s Fairy Tales in Seventeenth-Century France,” Marvels & Tales 21, no. 1 (2007): 78–92. On Basile, see Nancy Canepa, From Court to Forest: Giambattista Basile’s “Lo cunto de li cunti” and the Birth of the Literary Fairy Tale (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999). 52. On the notion of the invented tradition, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983).

16 Editors’ Introduction you wish, beautiful countess, / To embellish stories with your own talents.”53 The embellishment L’Héritier extolls and the other conteuses practice involved adorning their stories with all the trappings of what Norbert Elias called the “civilizing process,” the internalization of constraints on behaviors and appearances.54 Seventeenth-century French literature generally—and the contes de fées specifically—attached great importance to their “civilizing” function by prescribing elegant comportment attributed to the upper classes.55 It goes without saying, then, that none of the late seventeenth-century writers of contes de fées—women or men—aimed to preserve, and even less to valorize, a popular art form devoid of the “civilized” models expected in literature of the time. Instead, the infrequent and usually oblique references to an oral tradition allowed them to foreground their distinctively elite literary and social focus. In the case of the conteuses, this contrast typically led them to accentuate their differences rather than their similarities with the storytellers whom Murat derisively terms the “ancient fairies.” Such differences are clearly on display in two of the frontispieces from early editions of the tales. The engraving that opens a 1725 edition of d’Aulnoy’s Contes nouveaux, ou les fées à la mode (New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion, originally published in 1698) shows an upper-class woman addressing a group of adults (fig. 2). Larger than the other figures (larger than life, one might say) and seated on a throne-like chair, she commands the attention of the assembled men and women, all sporting refined dress. Although she lifts her hand and points her finger with the pose of the traditional storyteller,56 this conteuse performs her art in a setting that bears little resemblance to the far more rustic locale of the famous frontispiece to Perrault’s Stories or 53. L’Héritier de Villandon, L’adroite princesse, in Contes,  by L’Héritier de Villandon et al.,113–14. The phrase, “the monkey’s and wolf ’s deeds,” refers to La Fontaine’s fables, which are thus unfavorably compared to folk- and fairy tales. We discuss this later in the Introduction. 54. See Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process: The History of Manners and State Formation, trans. Edmund Jephcott (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1994). 55. On the civilizing process and the seventeenth-century contes de fées, see especially Zipes, Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion, 29–57. 56. See the abundant illustrations in Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde.

Editors’ Introduction 17

Figure 2: Frontispiece, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, Nouveaux contes des fées (Amsterdam: Etienne Roger, 1725) vol. 2. Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. PML 84636.

18 Editors’ Introduction

Figure 3: Frontispiece, Charles Perrault, Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités (Amsterdam: Jacques Desbordes, 1697). Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, PML 85589.

Editors’ Introduction 19 Tales of Yesteryear (fig. 3). The scene here is humbler than the palatial room in d’Aulnoy’s engraving, and it establishes a distinct class difference between storyteller and listeners. A lower-class woman, who may be a governess or a nurse, is spinning wool as she tells stories to spellbound upper-class children, again with uplifted hand. Apart from this conventional hand gesture, the illustration for d’Aulnoy’s volume betrays not the slightest debt to traditional lower-class storytelling that Perrault’s collection purports to recycle and that his frontispiece puts front and center. And whereas the upper class woman storyteller in d’Aulnoy’s frontispiece can represent the author herself, the lowerclass conteuse in the engraving for Stories and Tales of Yesteryear is decidely unlike Perrault (or his son). Even so, the storytelling event in Perrault’s image does not highlight the irony directed toward the stories of the lower classes. So what at first glance looks to be an endorsement of tale spinning by lower-class women constitutes in fact an emblem of the gulf separating Perrault and his upper-class readers from tale-telling by governesses and nurses to children. By contrast, in making only the most oblique of allusions to such storytelling (through the hand gesture), the scene in the d’Aulnoy engraving foregrounds the self-affirmation of the conteuses as women writers and the valorization of intended readers as members of the upper classes.57 Intent on affirming their own social status, the conteuses disguised and transformed whatever they borrowed from lower-class tales with an abundance of literary and cultural references. Indeed, the wide variety of intertexts woven into their contes de fées shows a sophistication that defies the stereotypical simplicity of the fairy-tale genre. Notwithstanding their modernist affiliations, allusions to Greek and Roman mythology recur throughout the texts of the conteuses, sometimes alongside more traditional folkloric characters. In many of d’Aulnoy’s tales, for instance, Cupid makes an appearance as either an ally or an enemy of the fairies.58 More often, mythology is used 57. For illuminating readings of these and other frontispieces, see (on Perrault’s) Louis Marin, “Les enjeux d’un frontispice,” L’Esprit Créateur 29, no. 3 (Fall 1987): 49–57 and (on d’Aulnoy’s) Gabrielle Verdier, “Figure de la conteuse dans les contes de fées féminins,” XVIIe Siècle, no. 180 (1993): 481–99. 58. See, among others, d’Aulnoy’s The Pigeon and the Dove and The Green Serpent. See also the struggle between the Centaur and the Fairy Amazon in Princess Little Carp, in this volume.

20 Editors’ Introduction as a conventional rhetorical trope.59 The stories in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE), extremely popular throughout early modern Europe, were particularly useful to the conteuses, especially for the concept of metamorphosis and the plot situations it could generate.60 However, their tales also evoke motifs and characters reminiscent of medieval romance, with such figures as the fairy and such topoi as the maiden imprisoned in a tower (e.g., The Enchanter, in this volume). Although a few tales adapt specific texts,61 most evoke a vague medieval setting, inspired to a certain extent by the chivalry and magic of the serial Amadis of Gaul novels,62 Matteo Boiardo’s Orlando in Love (1486), Ludovico Ariosto’s The Frenzy of Orlando (1516), and Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered (1580), all of which were well known and influential in seventeenth-century France.63 With roots in both classical mythology and medieval romance, the contes de fées of women writers (unlike Perrault’s prose tales) bring into focus—and confront—two competing literary traditions, one “ancient” and foreign, the other “modern” and (purportedly) indigenous, inviting readers to see the

59. For example, Princess Little Carp is compared favorably to the goddesses of mythology: “The goddesses who descended from the height of Olympus, those who went to find the shepherd Paris and a hundred dozen others, would have seemed less beautiful than the princess in her rustic clothing” (123, in this volume). See also Prince Rosebush, n33, in this volume. 60. On d’Aulnoy’s use of Ovidian sources, see Jasmin, Naissance du conte féminin, 61–69. 61. A few of the conteuses’ texts rewrite (or claim to rewrite) specific medieval texts, including L’Héritier’s La tour ténébreuse et les jours lumineux (The Dark Tower and the Luminous Days, 1705), d’Aulnoy’s The Pigeon and the Dove, and La Force’s The Enchanter (included in this volume). More often, though, medieval settings are evoked in vague terms and, true to fairy-tale form, without allusions to specific events, persons, or places. On the use of the medieval settings in the contes de fées, see Jasmin, Naissance du conte féminin, 103–23, and Sermain, Le conte de fées, 70–75. 62. A landmark among knight-errantry tales, these novels were first published in Spain by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo (d. 1504), purportedly based on a fifteenth-century manuscript from Portugal. Numerous authors then translated these volumes into French and added to the series in the sixteenth century. Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687) composed his opera Amadis de Gaule (libretto by Philippe Quinault, 1684) based on these stories. 63. On the influence of Ariosto and Tasso on seventeenth-century French literature, see Noémie Courtès, L’écriture de l’enchantement: Magie et magiciens dans la littérature française du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004), 59–68.

Editors’ Introduction 21 fairies of folklore and medieval romance as no less prestigious than the gods of mythology. The most specific intertextual references in the contes de fées involve literary models of the seventeenth century. Chief among these are the fables of Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695), which were renowned by the end of the century and were openly endorsed by the conteurs and the conteuses for their bipartite structure (a narrative followed by a final moral) and their aesthetic principles—foremost among these, the Horatian notion of dulce et utile. At the same time, they claimed that the fairy tale, as a “modern” genre, was superior to the fable, an ancient form.64 The tales of the conteuses also reflect the popularity of opera and machine plays, which made wide use of special effects with elaborate mechanical stage devices.65 Through such topoi as the flying chariot of the fairies, for instance, their contes de fées evoke magical settings in preeminently theatrical terms.66 But by far the most important literary intertext is the novel, which became a leading genre during the seventeenth century.67 With the notable exception of Perrault’s prose tales, all seventeenthcentury contes de fées are closer to the novel than to the “simple form” of the tale studied by André Jolles.68 Indeed, for generations of 64. See the final moral in L’Héritier de Villandon, “Finette,” in Contes, by L’Héritier de Villandon et al., 13, and Perrault’s Préface to his tales in verse (Charles Perrault et al., Contes merveilleux, 103–8). Of all the conteurs and conteuses combined, d’Aulnoy is the most specific in her allusions to contemporaneous literature, including works by Pierre Corneille (1606–1684), Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622–1673), and La Fontaine. 65. See, for instance, the heroic apotheosis at the end of Princess Little Carp. On machine plays in this period, see Guy Spielmann, Le jeu de l’ordre et du chaos: Comédie et pouvoirs à la fin de règne, 1673–1715 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002). 66. On the influence of theatrical and operatic conventions on the contes de fées, see Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire, 366–79, and Anne E. Duggan, Salonnières, Furies, and Fairies: The Politics of Gender and Cultural Change in Absolutist France (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2005), 216–27. 67. On the history of the seventeenth-century French novel, see Henri Coulet, Le roman jusqu’à la Révolution (Paris: A. Colin, 1967); English Showalter, The Evolution of the French Novel, 1641–1782 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972); and Thomas DiPiero, Dangerous Truths and Criminal Passions: The Evolution of the French Novel, 1569–1791 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992). 68. André Jolles, Einfache Formen: Legende, Sage, Mythe, Rätsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Märchen, Wirtz (Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1974). For Jolles, a “simple form” is one of many

22 Editors’ Introduction folklorists and critics, the length, plot structure, and novelistic motifs of these texts were weaknesses that disqualified them as “authentic” fairy tales and left them in a generic limbo (neither fairy tales nor novels per se).69 But this conclusion is based on an anachronistic understanding of the fairy tale, which appeared at a time when folklore had yet to be recognized as a category. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the fairy tale was viewed as a variety of prose fiction akin to the novel;70 it was not a straightforward appropriation of novelistic forms and themes, but instead, the product of play with the forms developed over the course of a century. By the time the contes de fées appeared, the novel had changed dramatically from the multi-volume pastoral and heroic romances from the beginning of the century.71 Not only was it much shorter, closer in length to the novella, but it was also concerned with verisimilitude in history, geography, onomastics, and psychology.72 Most of the conteuses also published these short novels, called nouvelles.73 And yet, even if the contes de fées rejected the multi-volume length of the early seventeenth-century romances, in other ways they marked something of a return to this earlier tradition. For example, the descriptions of luxurious settings, the insistence on the perfection of heroes and heroines, their hyperbolic adventures, as well as extraordinary coincidences within plots, are all features that had been rejected by the nouvelle (more specifically, the nouvelle historique and the nouvelle oral genres from which more complex literary forms may develop. 69. See, for instance, the remarks by Paul Delarue, an early twentieth-century folklorist intent on separating “authentic” oral tales from those “contaminated” by literary sources (Paul Delarue, introduction to Le conte populaire français: Catalogue raisonné des versions de France et des pays de langue française et d’outre-mer, 4 vols., ed. Paul Delarue and MarieLouise Tenèze [Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2002], 1:7–47). 70. See Sermain, Le conte de fées, 63–86. 71. Among the most famous examples are Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (Astrea, 1607–28) and Georges and Madeleine de Scudéry’s Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus (Artamène or Cyrus the Great, 1648–53). 72. On verisimilitude, see E. B. O. Borgerhoff, The Freedom of French Classicism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950), and Gérard Genette, “Vraisemblance et motivation,” in Figures II (Paris: Seuil, 1969), 71–99. 73. See the bibliography in Storer, Un épisode littéraire, 261–83, and the introduction to each author in this volume.

Editors’ Introduction 23 galante), the predominant form of the novel after l660.74 By adopting and highlighting such features, the conteuses availed themselves of freedoms that were greatly constrained by the ideal of verisimilitude enshrined in the nouvelle and all seventeenth-century cultural forms. Ultimately, the conteuses distanced themselves from both the contemporaneous nouvelle and the earlier pastoral and heroic romances.75 Rather than conform to the dictates of verisimilitude, the fairy tale rejected what was considered to be rational or empirical plausibility and relied instead on the supernatural or the “marvelous” (le merveilleux). As the critic Julie Boch has put it, the conteuses adopted the marvelous with “unrestrained exuberance,” devoting long descriptions to implausible characters, objects, and situations.76 But the conteuses developed a conception of the marvelous that diverged from Perrault’s comparative restraint and that set the stage for parodic rewritings of fairy tales in the eighteenth century. With their extravagant inscription of marvelous characters and actions, they employed the fairy tale to interrogate the real and to question historical situations and institutions. In this sense, they created a genre that was a direct precursor to the “fantastic.”77 The enthusiasm with which the conteuses deployed the marvelous becomes evident in the overall length of their tales, yet another important difference from Perrault’s prose collection. Detailed descriptions of settings and extended dialogues foreground the implausibility of the plots, even as they distinguish these women’s contes de fées from the concise “classic” fairy tales of Perrault, the Brothers Grimm, or Hans Christian Andersen. During the nineteenth century, this concise form, which Elizabeth Harries has termed the “compact” 74. On the nouvelle in this period, see René Godenne, Histoire de la nouvelle française aux 17e et 18e siècles (Geneva: Droz, 1970). 75. See Seifert, Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender, 79–83. 76. Julie Boch, “Le conte en débats: Introduction,” in Rizzoni and Boch, L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690–1709), 340. 77. By contrast, Tzvetan Todorov, in his well-known study (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre [trans. Richard Howard. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975]), draws a clear distinction between the marvelous and the fantastic as literary modes. On the continuity between the fairy-tale marvelous and the fantastic, see Sermain, Le conte de fées, 230–32.

24 Editors’ Introduction fairy tale, became canonical. As a result, the “complex” fairy tale championed by the conteuses was marginalized by critics.78 But by judging these tales against a standard that was alien to the conteuses, the prejudice in favor of concision fails to grasp the tradition within which—and against which—they were writing. The length of many of the women’s tales stems particularly from their efforts to rework the conversations featured in novels of the period.79 In the frame narrative of Murat’s Le voyage de campagne (The Country Trip, 1699), for instance, an upper-class storyteller says about the tale she has finished: “I told it my own way, I got rid of the simplicity that made it so very short.”80 And addressing Murat at the end of The Clever Princess, L’Héritier highlights the conversational aesthetic at work in both the novel and the fairy tale: “I confess to you that I embroidered it [the tale] and that I told it somewhat on the long side. But when telling tales … [w]e try to amuse ourselves, and it seems to me that it’s not that much more trouble to lengthen them so as to make the conversation last longer.”81 As L’Héritier’s comment reveals, the conversational aesthetic adopted by the conteuses involves a self-conscious reflection on the fairy tale itself. This self-reflexivity is most obvious in the frame narratives used by almost all conteuses.82 Following the well-established tradition of 78. See Harries, Twice Upon a Tale, 16–17. 79. On the conversational aesthetic of the seventeenth-century novel, see DeJean, Tender Geographies, 46–47, 57. 80. Murat, Contes, 367. 81. L’Héritier de Villandon, L’adroite princesse, in Contes, by L’Héritier de Villandon et al., 113. The length can also be understood in relation to the textual motivations of the conteuses. Patricia Hannon, for example, has argued that the length of the women’s tales is the result of the effort to elaborate a social universe that contravenes prevailing social norms— and thus plausibility—in late seventeenth-century France. See Patricia Hannon, “Feminine Voice and the Motivated Text: Madame d’Aulnoy and the Chevalier de Mailly,” Merveilles et Contes 2, no. 1 (1988): 13–24. 82. D’Aulnoy inaugurates the vogue in 1690 with her tale, The Isle of Felicity, in her novel, Histoire d’Hypolite, comte de Duglas (The Story of Hypolitus, Count of Douglas), and subsequently embeds fifteen of her tales in three different frame narratives: Dom Gabriel Ponce de Leon, Don Fernand de Tolède, and Le nouveau gentilhomme bourgeois (The New Bourgeois Gentleman); Bernard inserts her two contes de fées in her novel, Inès de Cordoue (Inez of Cordoba, 1696); L’Héritier includes two fairy tales in La tour ténébreuse et les jours lumineux

Editors’ Introduction 25 stories embedded in a larger narrative, the contes de fées are told in the course of a conversation and then become objects of discussion in their own right. Usually, such tales are meant to illustrate the exclusive tenor of conversations in the assembled group. At the same time, as Harries has argued, this framing underscores the conversational orality of the women’s tales, in contrast to the writerly nature of the better-known tales by male authors.83 Incorporating as they do a wide variety of intertexts and cultural references, the fairy tales of the conteuses, like those of all the writers of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century contes de fées, develop a complex use of parody. As Jean-Paul Sermain in particular has shown, this corpus is based on a tension between complicity and distance.84 On the one hand, it purports to rediscover the utility, pleasures, and imaginative potential of stories associated with children and the lower classes. But on the other, it maintains an “amused distance”85 from these stories and the many justifications for recycling them. Further heightening this tension are the multiple and often contradictory perspectives that are brought together— the styles and cultural allusions representative, in sum, not only of children’s stories and lower-class oral traditions, but ultimately also of Greek and Roman mythology, medieval literature and chivalric epics, as well as seventeenth-century operas, machine plays, fables, and novels. Juxtaposing diverse intertexts and references, the conteuses and conteurs of both vogues create what Sermain aptly terms a “polyphonic enunciation,”86 a narrative point of view composed of many different, even incompatible voices, which works to instill a critical distance in readers. In the tales by the seventeenth-century conteuses, this distance is established in relation to both the varieties of intertexts that are rewritten, and to the social norms and institutions reflected in recurring characters and plot situations. (The Dark Tower and the Luminous Days); and Murat includes one tale in her novel, Voyage de champagne (The Country Trip). 83. See Harries, Twice Upon a Tale, 71. 84. Sermain, Le conte de fées, 89–113. 85. Ibid., 86. 86. Ibid., 93.

26 Editors’ Introduction

Inventing a Tradition: Characters and Plots At first blush, many features of the stories by the conteuses seem stereotypical. Their protagonists—unlike those in Perrault’s prose tales—are almost without exception royals—kings, queens, princes, and princesses.87 And, as is typical in folktales, proper names focus on a key trait, usually emphasizing the marvelous pretext of the tale and specifically the motif of metamorphosis (e.g., the eponymous hero in Bernard’s Prince Rosebush is indeed a rosebush).88 D’Aulnoy frequently treats her protagonists with humor by playing with onomastics (e.g., Princess Little Carp, whose name in French, Carpillon, is a diminutive form of carpe). Further, as in many folktales, characters are regularly defined by the binary oppositions of beauty versus ugliness and good versus evil (with a link between beauty and good on the one hand, ugliness and evil on the other).89 In the formalist parlance first developed by Vladimir Propp, numerous opponents and helpers hinder or assist, respectively, the protagonists in their quests.90 Most prominent among these are fairies (fées), who appear in almost every single tale by the conteuses, but who are not nearly as frequent in the popular oral tradition. Originating from late medieval and Renaissance epics and romances popularized in opera during the seventeenth century, but also in playful references to salon women, these fées become important figures of female power.91 Beyond the ability to endow characters with gifts or to cast spells, their most significant role is to predict the future, following in a long tradition that can be traced to the etymology of the word, derived from the Latin fata or fatae, the Fates who presided over human des87. Indeed, many tales feature a royal family’s return to power after a misfortune at the beginning of the story. See, for instance, d’Aulnoy’s Wily Cinder. Not surprisingly, none of the tales by the conteuses question outright the legitimacy of the monarchical system. 88. On metamorphosis, see Prince Rosebush, n33, in this volume. 89. For instance, in d’Aulnoy’s Princess Little Carp, which is also included in this volume, the principal antagonist is Prince Hunchback and the eponymous heroine is a beautiful princess. 90. See Vladimir Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, trans. Laurence Scott (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968). 91. On the use of fée as a conceit for salon women, see Victor Delaporte, Du merveilleux dans la littérature française sous le règne de Louis XIV (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968), 45–46.

Editors’ Introduction 27 tiny, the Moirae of Greek, and the Parcae of Roman mythology.92 But the tales of the conteuses do not only feature fairies (the supernatural women who either assist or hinder the other characters), they are also authored by fairies (the name denoting salon women in the period and used by the conteuses to refer to themselves, as in Murat’s letter to the “Modern Fairies”). And the literal expression used for the earliest English translation of d’Aulnoy’s first collection, The Tales of the Fairies, confirms that these tales are both about and by fairies. Typically, the male and female protagonists created by the conteuses are the superlative young couples familiar to readers of fairy tales in our own time. Princes seeking out princesses—and vice versa—are endowed from the start or in the course of the plot with incomparable charm and good looks. If the conteuses are responsible for popularizing, if not creating, this stereotypical feature, their heroines are usually blessed with intelligence and wit as well, traits that liken them to the heroines of twentieth- and twenty-first-century feminist tales.93 Thus, Murat’s heroine Hebe (in Little Eel) chooses “the greatest and most appealing mind”94 over beauty and riches when she is rewarded for saving the fairy’s life. In addition to heroic actions, the heroines of the conteuses sometimes enlist their linguistic skills to reverse their misfortune (e.g., d’Aulnoy’s Babiole or L’Héritier’s The Enchantments of Eloquence). In these ways and others, their heroines contradict the image of passive and mindless fairy-tale princesses propagated by mass media today. On the surface, the male protagonists of the conteuses often resemble the stereotypical fairy-tale heroes of our own time. They can overcome almost impossible odds to deliver their princesses from danger and, thus, fulfill the time-honored expectations of male heroism (e.g., Carados in La Force’s The Enchanter). But they can also be remarkably passive and helpless in the face of various threats, and dependent on others to save them and their princesses (e.g., the prince in d’Aulnoy’s Princess Little Carp). Besides the protagonists, 92. See Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde, 14–16. Villiers’ dialogue, included in this volume, gives precisely this etymology and reviews the use of the figure of the Fates in antiquity and the Middle Ages (Conversations on Fairy Tales, 298–99, in this volume). 93. See the many examples in Zipes, Don’t Bet on the Prince. 94. Murat, Little Eel, 238, in this volume.

28 Editors’ Introduction masculine authority figures are sometimes portrayed as weak, especially in d’Aulnoy’s and Murat’s stories. In d’Aulnoy’s The Doe in the Woods, for instance, the prince’s heartache at losing his beloved Desiree for three months is so great he becomes “dangerously ill.”95 In addition to the comically hyperbolic treatment of lovesickness, kings and fathers can prove to be ineffective, either ignoring or neglecting their duties. This is notably the case in d’Aulnoy’s Prince Wild Boar, where the father stays on the sidelines while his wife (mis)handles the affairs of their son, born as a wild pig. And in a subset of this corpus, the inconstancy of male desire becomes a central feature of the plot.96 In Murat’s Little Eel, as in several other tales, men’s infidelity is an obstacle to surmount—though in Murat’s stories it is frequently impossible to do so. Like the protagonists, plot situations at first glance conform to familiar fairy-tale topoi. The usual scenario involves a superlative couple (a prince and princess), in either a courtly or pastoral setting, who must overcome foreordained impediments in order to be (re) united. From tale to tale there is such predictability in the plot that the noted French folklorist Marie-Louise Tenèze described the underlying narrative logic as an answer preceding a question.97 Murat’s Wasted Effort illustrates this principle in the very name of the eponymous heroine, who is destined to be unhappy in love. More often, though, the protagonists possess from the outset the means to resolve the central conflict, and the outcome of the plot is never in doubt. But even when the conclusion appears to be conventional, the path leading to it can deviate from narrative expectations in important ways. Thus, while usually embracing the marriage closure, d’Aulnoy repeatedly allows her heroines to choose their partners freely, against the prevailing so-

95. D’Aulnoy, The Doe in the Woods, 164–65, in this volume. 96. These include d’Aulnoy’s The Isle of Felicity, The Ram, and The Yellow Dwarf; d’Auneuil’s Princess Patientine in the Forest of Erimente and Prince Curious; Bernard’s Prince Rosebush; La Force’s The Power of Love; Murat’s Little Eel and Happy Pain; and an anonymous tale, The Speaking Portrait. 97. Although concerned with the oral folktale, Tenèze’s analysis also applies to the literary fairy tale. See Marie-Louise Tenèze, “Du conte merveilleux comme genre,” Arts et Traditions Populaires 18 (1970): 11–65.

Editors’ Introduction 29 cial practice of seventeenth-century France.98 Arranged marriages are denounced, as when Princess Little Carp is told that “the daughters of the greatest kings are still victims, for their desires are never consulted … all the kings think of are the interests of the state.”99 In an important subgroup of tales by the conteuses, however, the happy ending is rejected outright and with it the prospect of marital bliss. Of all the conteuses, Bernard and Murat use this sort of ending most often, reflecting a decidedly dystopic outlook on marriage. In Murat’s Happy Pain, for instance, the narrator provides a negative conclusion: “The wedding took place with all the magnificence one would expect of fairies and kings. But no matter how happy that day must have been, I will not describe it. For in spite of what happy love promises, a wedding is almost always a sad celebration.”100 Even when the conteuses impose the final marriage as the happy ending, they often rework the plot to expose the illusions of such a closure. Many of the stereotypical conventions of the fairy tale can be traced to the conteuses, but their corpus reveals a far more nuanced conception of the genre than their subsequent reputation recognizes. Unlike wonder tales in the oral tradition, the contes de fées written by seventeenth-century French women—like their literary intertexts in the pastoral and heroic novels, nouvelles, plays, and operas of the period—place love front and center in almost every instance. By adopting the conventional portrayal of love found in these genres, however, the conteuses were also able to show diverse, even contradictory views of this emotion.101 The principal code used to depict love in the contes de fées is la galanterie, which privileged 98. See François Lebrun, La vie conjugale sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Armand Colin, 1975). 99. D’Aulnoy, Princess Little Carp, 120, in this volume. 100. Murat, Contes, 196. 101. Scholars have often associated the representation of love in this corpus with préciosité, thereby perpetuating an aesthetic category of dubious literary historical value. See, among others, Nadine Jasmin, “ ‘Amour, Amour, ne nous abandonne point’: La représentation de l’amour dans les contes de fées féminins du Grand Siècle,” in Tricentenaire Charles Perrault: Les grands contes du XVIIe siècle et leur fortune littéraire, ed. Jean Perrot (1997), 213–34, and Sophie Raynard, La seconde préciosité: Floraison des conteuses de 1690 à 1756, Biblio 17, 130 (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002). On préciosité as a fiction of literary history, see Domna C. Stanton, “The Fiction of Préciosité and the Fear of Women,” Yale French Studies 62 (1981): 107–34.

30 Editors’ Introduction male-female relations as an ideal of sociability.102 Based on the tenets of courtly love (men submitting themselves to women, whom they serve in hopes of receiving the gift of love), this notion was practiced in social settings such as the salon, albeit figuratively and playfully. By weaving la galanterie into their tales, the conteuses upheld and reaffirmed one of the dominant literary movements of the period, represented in a wide array of literary works, as Alain Viala has recognized.103 They also brought their stories in line with the dictates of the civilizing process of the time. Consequently, many aspects of the representation of love in this corpus are highly conventional: the topos of love at first sight, the notion of love’s “civilizing” power, the subservience of the male suitor to his female beloved, the expressions of pain caused by unrequited love, and the link between love and virtue. But the fairy-tale universe of the conteuses is ordered not by one, but by two “jurisdictions”—love and the marvelous, as Nadine Jasmin has noted.104 Fairies may command the destiny of heroes and heroines, but can neither instill nor eradicate love, which has a power all its own.105 Still, love is not impervious to the marvelous. For even if the fairies cannot directly control this passion, they grant the men and women of their choosing esprit (intelligence or wit) and refined manners, both of which can then give birth to love. Indeed, love and esprit are interdependent throughout much of this corpus, though their conjunction does not necessarily lead to happiness. In Perrault’s and Bernard’s two versions of Riquet with the Tuft, a dull-minded heroine is granted intelligence on condition she marry an ugly gnome, not 102. Claude Habib, Galanterie française (Paris: Gallimard, 2006); Alain Viala, La France galante: Essai historique sur une catégorie culturelle, de ses origines jusqu’à la Révolution, Les Littéraires (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2008). See also Lewis C. Seifert, Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in Seventeenth-Century France (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), Chapter 2, esp. 86–91. 103. Viala, La France galante, 294–97. 104. Jasmin, “ ‘Amour, Amour, ne nous abandonne point’,” 218–19. 105. In her oft-cited definition of the fairy tale (in Inès de Cardoue, 1696), Bernard even makes the distinction between the marvelous and the passions a fundamental law of the genre: “the action must always be implausible and the emotions always natural” (Catherine Bernard, Inès de Cordoue, in Nouvelles galantes du XVIIe siècle, ed. Marc Escola [Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 2004], 393).

Editors’ Introduction 31 the handsome suitor. More often, however, the conteuses prefer scenarios in which women benefit from esprit and the love it inspires. Following a topos from the period’s novels, a heroine’s intelligence and noble bearing attract the love of a royal suitor, even when her true aristocratic birth is disguised (e.g., d’Aulnoy’s Princess Beauteous-Star and Prince Beloved). In other tales, female intelligence overcomes supernatural obstacles to love. The eponymous hero and heroine in La Force’s Green and Blue can only be united by discovering what makes them opposites, and it is the fairy Sublime who at last happens upon the solution to this riddle—their names “Green” and “Blue” are opposite colors. The final moral casts the tale as an allegory of lovers’ quarrels: “A trifle separates lovers, / We lose each other for want of understanding; / In this state, many a tender heart still / Steals a few instants of happiness!”106 However, the intelligence and understanding that reconcile lovers and ensure happiness are personified as a supernatural woman, the fairy Sublime. In keeping with the seventeenth-century tenet of bienséance or decorum, love is usually represented as a passion devoid of any physical expression, and the conteuses’ narratives typically come to a discreet end with the heroic couple’s wedding. But there are a number of tales that defy this generalization. In some, metamorphosis allows for a thinly-veiled eroticism. Prince Wild Boar in d’Aulnoy’s tale of the same name can only recover his human form by finding a woman willing to sleep with him, and the narrative coyly describes how, on their wedding night, his wife “took great care to ask him if he wanted to have his head high or low, if he had enough space, what side he slept best on,” leaving the reader to imagine the sequel.107 The next morning, when she “softly touched Wild Boar, she found that his head was like a man’s, he had long hair, arms, and hands.”108 La Force displays a particular penchant for allusive erotic situations, including a princess who has a secret tryst with her lover (Persinette), a sorcerer who substitutes a slave woman for a bride so he can sleep with her (The Enchanter), and a suitor who spies his beloved bathing in a fountain 106. La Force, Green and Blue, 228, in this volume. 107. D’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 991. 108. Ibid.

32 Editors’ Introduction (Green and Blue).109 These plots involve forbidden love, which is often accompanied by hardship in La Force’s work, even if the outcome is usually happy. Physical or not, love is closely scrutinized by the conteuses, who sometimes show its dystopic consequences. In addition to tales with unhappy endings, there are occasional narrative asides suggesting that happy love is unattainable in the real, unfairy-tale-like world. The moral at the end of d’Aulnoy’s The Beneficent Frog strikes a discordant note: “Husbands so faithful … / Belonged to the days of our fathers, / They are no longer to be found in ours. / The days of fairy magic claim all the glory.”110 Jabs at the unfaithful husbands of the day and, more broadly, dystopic tales may suggest that the contes de fées relegate marital happiness to a mythic fairyland. If the fundamental tenor of the vogue of the fairy tale is indeed parodic, it becomes hard to know just how seriously to take the assurances of “happily ever after” in this corpus. Like the genre itself, such endings might be little more than an amusing bagatelle to be dismissed as fantasy. If so, then these marvelous dei ex machina closures could prompt readers to measure the distance between love in fairy tales and the real world. The conteuses’ representation of women’s social roles and language may seem conventional as well, but once again, upon closer scrutiny, they are far more ambiguous, though overall they empower women. For instance, the elitism of their contes, while producing negative representations of the lower classes (unlike the ambiguity in Perrault’s tales), is often used to question or reimagine the social and political roles of women. In the midst of long descriptions of hyperbolic wealth and leisure (magnificent palaces, clothing, and meals, for example), fairies, queens, and princesses regularly assume powers granted to very few, if any, women in France at this time. Besides the instances of queens or fairies ruling over their kingdoms alone (an impossibility in the early modern monarchy, which was governed by 109. See Marcelle Maistre Welch, “L’éros féminin dans les contes de fées de Mlle de la Force,” in Actes de Las Vegas: Théorie dramatique, Théophile de Viau, Les contes de fées, ed. Marie-France Hilgar (Paris: Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 1991), 217–23. 110. D’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 686.

Editors’ Introduction 33 Salic Law),111 there are many examples of resolutely active heroines. For instance, the eponymous heroine in d’Aulnoy’s Wily Cinder cares for her sisters when they are abandoned by their impoverished (but royal) parents, saves them from ogres, and finally, after winning back her parents’ kingdom, marries off her sisters to kings, and secures a royal marriage of her own. Marmoisan, in L’Héritier’s tale of the same name, defends her aristocratic father’s honor as a soldier by adopting her dead brother’s name and gender. After distinguishing her/ himself on the battlefield, s/he reassumes a more conventional role at the conclusion of the tale by donning female clothing and marrying a prince. The final marriages at the end of d’Aulnoy’s and L’Héritier’s stories signal a return to more traditional gender roles, even as they reaffirm monarchical authority. While these conventional endings may satisfy the imperatives of gender and state ideology, the existence of unconventional roles for upper class women is not erased or ultimately foreclosed. The elite social universe depicted by the conteuses also showcases the elegant language and conversation of their heroines and celebrate the refinement and power of their words in a period when the querelle des femmes continued to identify women’s speech as simultaneously cackle and danger.112 Hence, L’Héritier’s The Enchantments of Eloquence features a heroine whose language has such natural “sweetness” (douceur)113 she charms two fairies, Dulcicula and Eloquentia 111. The Salic Law originated in the sixth century and stipulated agnatic succession, first excluding females from the inheritance of property, only later expanded to include a fiefdom and finally, the throne of France. See Sarah Hanley, ed., Les droits des femmes et la loi salique (Paris: Indigo et Côté-femmes, 1994) and Sarah Hanley, “Configuring the Authority of Queens in the French Monarchy, 1600s–1840s,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 32, no. 2 (2006): 453–63. Several tales by the conteuses feature queens who rule alone, flouting the reality of Salic Law in medieval and early modern France. See d’Aulnoy’s The White Cat and Murat’s The Fairy Princess. The powers given to fairies in this corpus often recall those of queens, although they usually do not rule over a specific geographical realm. 112. See Domna C. Stanton, “Recuperating Women and the Man Behind the Screen,” in Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Texts, Images, ed. James Grantham Turner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 247–65. 113. On this tale, probably written in a friendly competition with Perrault (whose counterpart is Les fées [The Fairies] in Stories or Tales of Yesteryear), see Marc Fumaroli, “Les fées

34 Editors’ Introduction Nativa, who endow her with gifts, including the ability to produce diamonds and jewels with every word she utters. The magical effects of her speech catch the attention of a prince who, predictably, proposes marriage. But the importance of women’s eloquence as a theme is especially evident at the story’s end, when the speaker draws a parallel between the plot and the tale’s dedicatee, the duchesse d’Epernon.114 Tongue in cheek, she cautions readers not to conclude that fairy magic accounts for her elegant speech: “I hereby attest in good faith that you have not been endowed by fairies, but only by heaven’s favor, which has rendered you in your very person Eloquentia Nativa.”115 Comparing the duchess to a fairy while poking fun at that comparison, L’Héritier aims to celebrate her “innate eloquence” and, doing so, illustrates a central feature of this corpus—the significance of women’s language on the levels of narration and plot.

Reception: Disfavor and Favor In their own day, the conteuses were associated with what was taken to be a vogue of fairy tales. “These sorts of works have become very fashionable (fort à la mode),” proclaims Le Mercure Galant, a literary magazine, in February 1698, announcing the publication of the first two volumes of d’Aulnoy’s New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion. In July, just five months later, when it mentions the release of the next two volumes, the same magazine notes that “fairy tales continue to be in vogue,”116 suggesting that any fashion, no matter how popular, is expected to pass quickly. Indeed, at the height of the vogue’s first wave (1690–1709), the few critics who bothered to comment on the fashionable phenomenon were convinced it would rapidly disapde Charles Perrault ou de la littérature,” in Le statut de la littérature: Mélanges offerts à Paul Bénichou (Geneva: Droz, 1982), 153–86, and Lewis C. Seifert, “The Rhetoric of Invraisemblance: ‘Les enchantements de l’éloquence’,” Cahiers du Dix-Septième 3, no. 1 (1989): 121–39. 114. By all appearances the duchess was a friend of L’Héritier; she was also close to the Grande Mademoiselle (Anne-Marie Louise d’Orléans, duchesse de Montpensier, 1627– 1693). See L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, 69n1. 115. L’Héritier de Villandon, Les enchantements de l’éloquence, in Contes,  by L’Héritier et al., 91. 116. D’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 1165.

Editors’ Introduction 35 pear. In 1702, a critic proclaimed: “This madness has passed, and I believe that fairy tales have been banished for ever.”117 Predictably, the judgments that the conte de fées elicited from the likes of the Abbé Jean-Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde, the Abbé Pierre-Valentin Faydit, and the Abbé Pierre de Villiers were overwhelmingly negative.118 The fairy tales of the conteuses were actually singled out as examples of what was wrong with women, women’s writing, literature, and fashionable society in general. Fairy tales, like those who wrote and read them, were “childish”119 and obeyed “neither rhyme nor reason.”120 But the central target of these critiques was the excessive use of the marvelous, which was said to betray an incapacity or an unwillingness to tackle serious matters.121 Such complaints had also been directed at the novel, and Bellegarde, Faydit, and Villiers were three fierce critics of that genre. Villiers, who wrote the longest commentary on the conte de fées, lambasts the conteuses for stories that are “so long, and [written] in such a sophisticated style even children would be bored with them.”122 Reluctantly, he concedes that this new prose genre is not entirely without merit, and he concludes that “the best tales we have are those that imitate the style and simplicity of nurses,”123 by which he means none other than Perrault’s, not those of salon women. As it happens, though, the vogue for fairy tales did not fade away. New contes de fées would be produced for another half-century, 117. “Lettre de M. l’abbé de Bellegarde, à une dame de la cour, sur la différence des moeurs des anciens et des modernes,” in L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690– 1709), by Rizzoni and Boch, 447. 118. Jean-Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde (1648–1734) authored numerous volumes on social mores; Pierre-Valentin Faydit (1644–1709) was a Cartesian persecuted by his religious order who wrote a famous attack on François de la Mothe-Fénelon’s Télémaque (1699); Pierre de Villiers (1648–1728) was a Cartesian moralist who wrote several volumes on eloquence. 119. Abbé Jean-Baptiste Dubos (1670–1742), cleric and writer, as quoted in L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690–1709), by Rizzoni and Boch, 333. 120. Abbé de Bellegarde, quoted in L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690–1709), by Rizzoni and Boch, 348. 121. See Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales, in this volume. 122. Ibid., 296, in this volume. 123. Ibid., 309, in this volume.

36 Editors’ Introduction and this corpus would be reprinted multiple times until the Revolution.124 Although eighteenth-century French writers for the most part adopt the “complex” form championed by the conteuses (but often with ironic distance), one notable exception, Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont (1711–1780), fashioned her tales instead on Perrault’s. Best known for her now-classic version of “Beauty and the Beast,” Le Prince de Beaumont was the first French author to publish fairy tales intentionally for children.125 And in her Magasin des enfans, ou dialogues d’une sage gouvernante avec ses élèves (Little Misses’ Magazine, or Dialogues of a Wise Governess with her Students, 1756), she explains that her search for French texts appropriate for the young English girls in her charge led her to reject those of the conteuses: they “have stylistic difficulties, and are always pernicious for children, in whom they only inspire dangerous and false ideas.”126 By contrast, Le Prince de Beaumont asserts, “The Mother Goose Tales [by Perrault], as childish as they may be, [are] more useful for children than those written in a loftier style.”127 She promotes the ideals of stylistic simplicity and didactic clarity in response to the evolving conceptions of childhood, and especially, the invention of children’s literature in her time.128 Few critics today would concur that Perrault’s prose tales are either stylistically or didactically straightforward, but for Le Prince de Beaumont and later generations of authors writing fairy tales for children, Per-

124. Several of the conteuses’ volumes were republished in the eighteenth century. See the not-entirely-complete bibliography in Storer, Un épisode littéraire,  261–83. The most famous reprinting of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century contes de fées was Charles-Joseph de Mayer, Le cabinet des fées; ou collection choisie des contes des fées, et autres contes merveilleux, ornés de figures, 41 vols. (Amsterdam: Rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1785–89), available in facsimile as Charles-Joseph de Mayer, Le nouveau cabinet des fées, 20 vols. (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1978). 125. Fénelon wrote didactic fairy tales for the Dauphin (the heir to the throne), but they were never published during his lifetime. On Le Prince de Beaumont, see Lewis C. Seifert, “Madame Le Prince de Beaumont and the Infantilization of the Fairy Tale,” French Literature Series 31 (2004): 25–39. 126. Magasin des enfans, ou dialogues d’une sage gouvernante avec ses élèves, 4th ed., 2 vols. (Lyon: Jean-Baptiste Reguillat, 1773), 1: v. 127. Ibid., 1: vi. 128. See Seifert, “Madame Le Prince de Beaumont.”

Editors’ Introduction 37 rault’s collection was a cultural monument of mythic proportions.129 And so it remains to this day. As Perrault’s critical fortune rose, that of the conteuses fell quickly and dramatically.130 During the nineteenth century, the fairy tale was increasingly (re)defined as a children’s genre, which left little room for the “complex” tales of the conteuses. When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm adapted what they claimed were quintessentially German folktales for their Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales, 1812–57), their historical overview of the Märchen specifically rejected d’Aulnoy and Murat as “inferior imitators” of Perrault, to whom they attributed the “best known stories and also among the most beautiful” of the French popular tradition.131 In contrast to the treatment of d’Aulnoy and Murat, Perrault was extolled for respecting the “compact” model: “The merit of his work rests on his refusal to add things and on his decision to leave the stories unchanged, aside from minor details.”132 The Grimms’ preference for Perrault can be traced to the idealization of oral folklore in nineteenth-century Romanticism and its quest for expressions of a purportedly “authentic” national essence. If the deceptively naïve style of Perrault’s Stories or Tales of Yesteryear lent itself well to this mythic project, the more novelistic approach of the conteuses, along with their many allusions to contemporaneous elite French society, 129. On the monumentality of Perrault’s tales, see especially the work by Catherine VelayVallantin (“Le miroir des contes: Perrault dans les Bibliothèques Bleues,” in Les usages de l’imprimé, ed. Roger Chartier [Paris: Fayard, 1987],  130–85; “Charles Perrault n’a jamais existé,” La Grande Oreille  18 [Octobre 2003],  36–39; and “Le monument aux contes,” La Grande Oreille 38 [July 2009], 68–72). 130. In contrast to the fortune of the conteuses in literary criticism, many of their tales remained popular among readers throughout the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries in France and many other countries. On their reception in England, see Verdier, “De Ma Mère l’Oye à Mother Goose.” Even a cursory glance at the catalogues of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France or the Library of Congress shows that d’Aulnoy’s were reprinted repeatedly. However, a systematic publication history of the conteuses’ tales has yet to be undertaken. 131. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, “Prefaces to the First and Second Editions of the Nursery and Household Tales,” in The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, by Maria Tatar (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 209. 132. Ibid.

38 Editors’ Introduction were used to classify their tales as overtly literary and thus, “inauthentic.” This bias informed the perspective of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century folklorists, even when they included stories by the conteuses as versions of tale-types. Thus, Charles Deulin (1827–1877) casts the conteuses as “witty chatterboxes” who, unlike Perrault, “embroider the text and lengthen it as their whims dictate.”133 And introducing the monumental Conte populaire français: Catalogue raisonné des versions de France (1957), the preeminent folklorist, Paul Delarue (1889–1956), dismisses the vast majority of the conteuses’ tales as “unreadable for subsequent generations, discouraging the best intentions and deserving the neglect they have suffered.”134 Literary historians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries likewise disparaged the conteuses, when they bothered to mention them at all.135 Mary Elizabeth Storer, who wrote the firstmonograph on the seventeenth-century conte de fées (published in 1928), took a dim view of the literary quality of almost all the authors except Perrault, even as she carefully uncovered essential biographical, bibliographical, and cultural aspects of the vogue.136 For many 133. Charles Deulin, Les contes de Ma Mère l’Oye avant Perrault (Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1969), 35. 134. Delarue, introduction to Le conte populaire français,  1:20. Delarue is less dismissive of d’Aulnoy’s tales since most of them can be traced to what he claims are folkloric origins (1:20–21). On the notion of orality in the reception of the seventeenth-century contes de fées, see Lewis C. Seifert, “Entre l’écrit et l’oral: La réception des contes de fées ‘classiques’,” in Le conte en ses paroles: La figuration de l’oralité dans le conte merveilleux du classicisme aux Lumières, ed. Anne Defrance and Jean-François Perrin (Paris: Desjonquères, 2007), 21–33. 135. In his five-volume history of seventeenth-century French literature, Antoine Adam devotes barely two pages to the contes de fées (Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle, 5 vols. [Paris: Del Duca, 1949–56], 5:318–19). Tellingly, he offers praise only for Perrault: “The prose tales of Perrault, with such refined fantasy, full of exacting and gracious features, remain one of the most charming masterpieces of our literature” (5:319). 136. D’Aulnoy escapes Storer’s otherwise harsh assessments of the conteuses, but not completely: “The most astute critics today give Mme d’Aulnoy the place she deserves, considering her the most famous of all the writers of fairy tales after Perrault, with the qualities and faults of her sex—a rich and abundant imagination, a natural and fluid (sometimes careless) style, a luxury of picturesque details that drag on, a salon-like mind, delicate porcelain figures one must not move too much for fear of breaking them, an elegance that announces the eighteenth century, and with all this, a subtle irony, a somewhat somber philosophy, a streak of cruelty that worries you slightly when you think of the author’s life [d’Aulnoy was accused

Editors’ Introduction 39 decades, it appeared as if Storer’s judgment would be the last word on the conteuses. Their tales were almost completely bypassed while Perrault’s were scrutinized with new literary critical tools provided in particular by structuralism and psychoanalysis.137 Such critical perspectives, formed in opposition to traditional literary history, merely confirmed the long-standing prestige conferred on Perrault and denied the conteuses. Beginning in the 1970s, however, this situation started to change. Jacques Barchilon’s facsimile reprint of the eighteenth-century Cabinet des fées made most of their texts accessible once again.138 At roughly the same time, historians and literary critics began to devote articles and monographs to this corpus and to specific authors.139 Among these, Raymonde Robert’s magisterial Le conte de fées littéraire en France de la fin du XVIIe à la fin du XVIIIe siècle (1981) paved the way for a serious reconsideration of the conteuses, indeed of both the seventeenth- and the eighteenth-century vogues. Putting aside preconceived aesthetic judgments, Robert’s study in many ways picked up where Storer’s left off, providing a rigorous definition of the genre, examining the connections of the corpus to folkloric narratives, and resituating the two moments of the vogue within specific literary and cultural trends. of plotting against her husband], but which is compensated for by fairly well developed moral lessons” (Storer, Un épisode littéraire, 41). 137. The year 1968 marked the critical renewal of interest in Perrault with Marc Soriano’s magisterial Les contes de Perrault: Culture savante et traditions populaires, Tel, 22 (1968; repr., Paris: Gallimard, 1977), a study that synthesizes both social history and psychoanalysis. Thereafter appeared numerous structuralist analyses, most notably by Louis Marin (see, among others, “Essai d’analyse structurale d’un conte de Perrault: Les fées,” in Etudes sémiologiques [Paris: Klincksieck, 1971], 297–318; Le récit est un piège [Paris: Minuit, 1978]) and Philip Lewis (Seeing Through the Mother Goose Tales: Visual Turns in the Writings of Charles Perrault [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996]). Important psychoanalytic studies of Perrault include Jean Bellemin-Noël, Les contes et leurs fantasmes, Ecriture (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983), and François Flahault, L’interprétation des contes (Paris: Denoël, 1988). 138. See n124, in this introduction. 139. These include Amy Vanderlyn DeGraff, The Tower and the Well: A Psychological Interpretation of the Fairy Tales of Madame d’Aulnoy (Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1984), and Jane Tucker Mitchell, A Thematic Analysis of Mme d’Aulnoy’s “Contes de fées,” Romance Monographs 30 (University, MS: Romance Monographs, Inc., 1978).

40 Editors’ Introduction The next step in the critical reevaluation of the conteuses was made possible by the emergence of feminist studies and the recovery of women’s writing. In the 1980s and 1990s, North American scholars began to restore the conteuses to a place of prominence within the history of French women’s writing. The overriding focus of this work was the subversiveness of the conteuses, be it their characterizations of women,140 their depiction of feminine desire and sexuality,141 or motherhood and family relations.142 Other work concentrated on the literary and sociohistorical contexts in which the contes de fées were produced and received.143 Several book-length studies have expanded on these themes from different perspectives. Encompassing both female- and male-authored fairy tales, Lewis Seifert’s Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690–1715: Nostalgic Utopias (1996) examines the uses of the marvelous—its theoretical grounding, textual representation, social functions and its role in portraying sexuality, masculinity, and femininity—to demonstrate that the genre conveys ambivalent desires. Specifically, Seifert argues that while the majority of these tales reassert the well-known tenets of the Western myth of romantic love, numerous stories exceed these conventions and gesture toward new configurations of gender and sexuality. Patricia Hannon’s Fabulous Identities: Women’s Fairy Tales 140. See, for instance, Marcelle Maistre Welch, “Le devenir de la jeune fille dans les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy,” Cahiers du Dix-septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 53–62; Kathryn A. Hoffmann, “Of Innocents and Hags: The Status of the Female in the Seventeenth-Century Fairy Tale,” Cahiers du Dix-Septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal 6, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 203–11, and Catherine Marin, “Féerie ou sorcellerie? Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy,” Merveilles et Contes 6, no. 1 (May 1992): 45–58. 141. See Michèle L. Farrell, “Celebration and Repression of Feminine Desire in Mme d’Aulnoy’s Fairy Tale: La chatte blanche,” L’Esprit Créateur 29, no. 3 (Fall 1989): 52–64, and Welch, “L’éros féminin dans les contes de fées de Mlle de la Force.” 142. See Kathryn A. Hoffmann, “Matriarchal Desires and the Labyrinths of the Marvelous: Fairy Tales by Old Regime Women,” in Women Writers in Pre-Revolutionary France: Strategies of Emancipation, ed. Colette H. Winn and Donna Kuizenga (New York: Garland, 1997), 281–97. 143. See Harries, Twice Upon a Tale,  3–72; Lewis C. Seifert, “Les fées modernes: Women, Fairy Tales, and the Literary Field in Late Seventeenth-Century France,” in Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France, ed. and introd. Elizabeth C. Goldsmith and Dena Goodman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995), 129–45; Marina Warner, From the Beast to the Blonde; and Verdier, “Figure de la conteuse dans les contes de fées féminins.”

Editors’ Introduction 41 in Seventeenth-Century France (1998) focuses on selected texts of the first vogue and contends they construct “experimental identities” that reject social constraints, and in the case of the conteuses, the depictions of female “nature” in prescriptive literature of the time. In addition to highlighting ambiguities in Perrault’s collection (the destabilization of social hierarchies on the one hand, but his repressive treatment of women on the other), Hannon shows how the conteuses use metamorphosis to tailor unconventional identities and how their predilection for mise en abîme fashions authorial personae parallel to many of their heroines. Sophie Raynard’s La seconde préciosité: Floraison des conteuses, 1690–1756 (2002) studies women’s fairy tales from both the first and the second vogues and suggests that this corpus is a “second” préciosité (which she defines as an attitude of superiority and independence among women); and she insists that all the conteuses strive to redefine women’s intellectual, conjugal, and public lives. In an interdisciplinary vein, Holly Tucker’s Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France (2003) reads the tales of the conteuses along with early modern medical theory and shows how they reimagine pregnancy and childbirth in ways that contravene patriarchal expectations. At roughly the same time, several French scholars began to reexamine this corpus, albeit from different intellectual horizons and often without consideration of the work done by North American scholars. This interest started with a reevaluation of d’Aulnoy in four monographs, all of which aim to place her corpus within literary history, while exploring the narrative strategies she employs.144 Marie-Agnès Thirard’s Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy: Une écriture de subversion (1998) adopts a traditional thematic and stylistic approach, while Anne Defrance’s Les contes de fées et les nouvelles de Madame d’Aulnoy (1690–1698): L’imaginaire féminin à rebours de la tradition (1998) makes subtle use of psychoanalytic paradigms. Jean 144. Anne Defrance, Les contes de fées et les nouvelles de Madame d’Aulnoy (1690–1698): L’imaginaire féminin à rebours de la tradition (Geneva: Droz, 1998); Marie-Agnès ThirardLegris, Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy: Une écriture de subversion (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998); Jean Mainil, Madame d’Aulnoy et le rire des fées: Essai sur la subversion féerique et le merveilleux comique sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Editions Kimé, 2001); and Jasmin, Naissance du conte féminin.

42 Editors’ Introduction Mainil’s Madame d’Aulnoy et le rire des fées: Essai sur la subversion féerique et le merveilleux comique sous l’Ancien Régime (2001) concentrates on the layers of irony produced by the interplay between d’Aulnoy’s frame narratives and embedded tales. And Nadine Jasmin’s Naissance du conte féminin, mots et merveilles: Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy (1690–1698) (2002) carefully reconstructs the literary and social contexts in which d’Aulnoy’s tales were produced, the historical meanings they convey, as well as the narrative and stylistic strategies they deploy. All these studies reflect on d’Aulnoy’s status as a woman writer, but the examination of gender in her contes de fées is more limited than in the work of North American scholars. However, questions of female authorship and gender are indeed addressed in Jean-Paul Sermain’s important Le conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières (2005), which analyzes both vogues and fairy tales by men and women. This wide-ranging book puts less emphasis on literary history than on the meanings the fairy-tale marvelous accrues in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French literature and on the ways in which the conteurs and the conteuses broke new ground for prose fiction. French scholars have also been active in producing critical editions of the conteuses’ texts, especially in the series Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées (published by Honoré Champion, 2004– ).145 With the increased availability of these texts and the willingness of scholars to suspend old negative critical judgments, more of these contes de fées are being incorporated into university-level courses on both sides of the Atlantic. The critical fortunes of the conteuses are changing, slowly but surely.

145. The objective of the “Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées” is to publish critical editions of all the contes de fées of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France. The seventeenth-century conteuses’ tales appear in this series as: d’ Aulnoy (vol. 1); Bernard, L’Héritier, La Force, Durand, and d’Auneuil (vol. 2); Murat (vol. 3). Inexpensive paperback editions of many of these tales are also available in French: Elisabeth Lemirre, ed., Le cabinet des fées: Contes (Arles: P. Picquier, 2000) and d’Aulnoy, Contes de fées, ed. Constance Cagnat-Deboeuf, Folio Classique (Paris: Gallimard, 2008).

Editors’ Introduction 43

Note on the Texts and Translations Inclusion of all the fairy tales by the conteuses would have been impossible in view of the number and length of their texts. In choosing the tales to translate for this volume, we wished to feature one or two samples from each of the five leading conteuses: d’Aulnoy, Bernard, La Force, L’Héritier de Villandon, and Murat.146 We also decided to give priority to texts that were not currently available in English. Indeed, most of the tales and the two critical texts in this volume have never before been translated.147 Several of the conteuses’ other fairy tales are included in Jack Zipes’ anthologies, Beauties, Beasts and Enchantments (1989) and The Great Fairy Tale Tradition (2001) or in other collections.148 Beyond making more of the stories by the 146. We have used the following editions for our translations: Bernard, Le Prince Rosier, in L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, 279–85; L’Héritier de Villandon, Marmoisan ou l’innocente tromperie, in L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, 43–68; d’Aulnoy, La Princesse Carpillon, in d’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 617–62; d’Aulnoy, La biche au bois, in d’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 687–721; La Force, L’enchanteur, in L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, 339–55; La Force, Vert et Bleu, in L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, 373–87; Murat, Anguillette, in Murat, Contes, 85–117; Murat, Peine perdue, in Murat, Contes, 395–403. 147. Only d’Aulnoy’s Princess Little Carp and The Doe in the Woods have been previously translated, in a popular (but now out-of-print) nineteenth-century edition (d’Aulnoy, Fairy Tales by the Countess d’Aulnoy, trans. James Robinson Planché [London: G. Routledge, 1855], 332–74, 398–432). 148. Jack Zipes, ed. and trans., Beauties, Beasts and Enchantment: Classic French Fairy Tales (New York: NAL Books, 1989), which includes: L’Héritier de Villandon’s The Discreet Princess, or the Adventures of Finette (77–92); Bernard’s Riquet with the Tuft (95–100); La Force’s The Good Woman (103–18); Murat’s The Palace of Revenge (131–41); and d’Aulnoy’s The Island of Happiness (299–308), Beauty with the Golden Hair (309–20), The Blue Bird (321–49), The Good Little Mouse (350–61), The Golden Branch (362–86), The Ram (387–99), Finette Cendron (400–16), The Bee and the Orange Tree (417–37), Babiole (438–58), The Yellow Dwarf (459–76), The Green Serpent (477–500), Princess Rosette (501–14), The White Cat (515–44), The Beneficent Frog (545–63), Belle-Belle, or the Chevalier Fortuné (564–98). Zipes’ The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm: Texts, Criticism, ed. and trans. Jack Zipes (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001) includes fourteen tales by the conteuses: d’Aulnoy’s The Wild Boar (57–82), The Dolphin (113–36), Belle-Belle or the Chevalier Fortuné (174–205), Princess Belle-Etoile and Prince Cheri (229–64), FinetteCendron (454–68), The Orange Tree and the Bee (751–70), and The Ram (789–800); Bernard’s Riquet with the Tuft ( 717–22); La Force’s Persinette (479–84); L’Héritier de Villandon’s The Discreet Princess; or the Adventures of Finette (528–43), The Enchantment of Eloquence;

44 Editors’ Introduction conteuses accessible to English-speaking readers, we have sought to include a representative sample of the thematic and narrative features of this corpus with particular attention to characters and plot situations that complicate stereotypical assumptions about the fairytale genre. We also sought to convey the wide variety of approaches adopted by the conteuses, especially in terms of the length and tone of their works. Among various editions of the texts in French, we decided to follow the most recent, authoritative, and scholarly edition, published by Editions Honoré Champion (Paris, 2004– ). In cases where a different edition had a substantive variant or addition, we included it in an extended note (see for instance, Marmoisan, n63). We are grateful to the editors of the relevant volumes—Nadine Jasmin (vol. 1), Raymonde Robert (vol. 2), and Geneviève Patard (vol. 3)—for their meticulous work, especially their informed notes, which were consistently useful. In our translations, we have tried to make the contes de fées as readable as possible without compromising the nuances of the words or the tenor of the different, urbane, and at times ironic, styles of the conteuses. To be sure, there were some French terms for which we had difficulty settling on a single translation because of their special meanings in the seventeenth century. We have noted the most important in footnotes, which typically involve social, cultural, and literary norms and ideals, such as agréable, bienséance, galant, négligence, and tendresse. There is the special case of the polysemous and at times undefinable notion of honnêteté, an ideal in seventeenth-century France that encompasses the social and the ethical, in varying combinations according to the inclinations of the user.149 Typically, we featured the ideas of “decorous and ethical” for both the adjective (honnête) and the or, the Effects of Sweetness (550–64), and Ricdin-Ricdon (588–625); and Murat’s The Pig King (82–96) and The Savage (205–20). See also Marina Warner, ed., Wonder Tales, illus. Sophie Herxheimer (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996), which includes d’Aulnoy’s The White Cat (19–63) and The Great Green Worm (189–229) and L’Héritier de Villandon’s The Clever Princess (65–97). 149. In addition, there are significant differences between the male honorific honnête homme, which contains a full panoply of social, cultural, and moral virtues, and the more limited female honorific honnête femme, which more often than not connotes modesty and decency.

Editors’ Introduction 45 noun. We decided to translate names of characters if these had clearly semantic components (referring to physical traits [Prince Hunchback in Princess Little Carp] or to animals [the eponymous Little Eel]) for they convey important elements of humor in these texts; otherwise, we retain the original French. After some hesitation, we eliminated the capitalization of nouns, even though we recognize that such emphasis gives a word heightened meaning. For sentences that were particularly complex, with several relative or dependent clauses, we felt that readability justified our breaking down certain phrases into shorter, more comprehensible units. The same principle guided our decision on paragraphing; in some tales (for example, The Enchanter), what seemed to us an excessive use of very brief paragraphs led us to collapse several into one substantial paragraph, following practices in a different edition of that particular tale. These are but some of the problems we encountered in translating this group of tales by the conteuses into English, a translation that we hope stimulates readers to learn more about—and to read more of the work of—these eloquent and imaginative seventeenthcentury women writers.

Catherine Bernard (c. 1663–1712): Introduction During the last two decades of the seventeenth century, Catherine Bernard was highly regarded as a novelist, dramatist, and poet. The author of five novels,1 she also penned two tragedies2 and won numerous poetry competitions.3 Frequently mentioned in Le Mercure Galant, the foremost periodical of the day, she displayed a keen awareness of the period’s literary trends. Most of her novels partially follow the model of La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves (1678), with psychological analysis of characters in plausible historical settings from the recent past. But these novels are also cited as forerunners of later developments in prose fiction due to their fast-paced plots, attention to emotions, and ironic narrative voice.4 Bernard’s two plays, both tragedies, were among the longest-running plays of the last quarter of the seventeenth century, at a time when tragedy was a highly prestigious literary form dominated by male writers. As with her prose fiction, Bernard’s dramaturgy is not fixed in past models but instead anticipates eighteenth-century practice; indeed, Voltaire plagiarized portions of her Brutus.5 Her poetry—“gallant,”6 encomi1.  Fédéric de Sicile (Paris: J. Ribou, 1680); Éléonor d’Yvrée (Paris: M. Guéroult, 1687); Le comte d’Amboise (Paris: C. Barbin, 1689); Inès de Cordoue (Paris: M. et G. Jouvenel, 1696); and Histoire de la rupture d’Abenamar et de Fatime (Paris, 1696). 2. Laodamie, reine d’Epire (1689) and Brutus (1690). Bernard wrote another play, Scylla, now lost, which was read at the Comédie Française but not staged (Franco Piva, “A la recherche de Catherine Bernard,” in Oeuvres de Catherine Bernard, ed. Franco Piva, 2 vols. (Fasano; Paris: Schena; Nizet, 1993), 1:40, 2 vols.). 3.  Bernard won the poetry competitions sponsored by the Académie Française in 1690, 1693, and 1697, and those by the Académie de Jeux Floraux de Toulouse in 1696, 1697, and 1698. 4. See Marc Escola, “Catherine Bernard: Le comte d’Amboise et Inès de Cordoue, Notice,” in Nouvelles galantes du XVIIe siècle, ed. Marc Escola (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 2004), 296, 305. 5. See Bernard, Oeuvres, 2:172n40. 6. Although the French term used here is galant, the meaning is conveyed better by “elegant,” a neologism at the time for which the Chevalier de Méré, the foremost writer of essays on honnêteté, took credit. See Domna C. Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art: A Study of the Honnête Homme and the Dandy in l7th- and l9th-century French Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 130, 154. See also Alain Viala, La France galante.

47

48 Catherine Bernard astic, and devotional—was widely anthologized and acclaimed in her lifetime.7 Bernard was born in Rouen to a protestant family of merchants, likely in 1663.8 Contrary to what literary historians have claimed, she was probably not related to the Corneille brothers (Pierre [1606–1684] and Thomas [1625–1709]), also from Rouen, a city known for its lively intellectual atmosphere in that period. At some point, probably before 1680, she made her way to Paris and began to publish. In 1685, the year of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, she converted quite publicly—and against her family’s wishes—to Catholicism, a necessary step to be part of the literary and cultural elite.9 Bernard never married, but had friendships with several male writers, in particular with Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757), also from Rouen. Critics insinuated that Fontenelle “corrected” her works,10 but the evidence suggests that Bernard actively promoted her own career, entering poetry competitions and managing the staging of her plays at the Comédie Française. Her literary accomplishments were hailed and lead an observer, reporting on her play Brutus, to conclude that “ladies today are able to do anything.”11 In 1699, she earned honorary membership in the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua, Italy. In spite of the praise she garnered, Bernard experienced financial difficulties until she was allotted a meager pension by the devout Chancelière de Pontchartrain, who seems to have steered her away from the theater and, eventually, from publishing altogether. After 1696, she devoted herself almost exclusively to religious poetry. Some of her texts suggest she was acquainted with Madame de Maintenon, Louis XIV’s morganatic second wife, who encouraged piety at court during the final years of his reign. From all ap7. See Bernard, Oeuvres, 2:321–520. 8. To date, the most definitive biography of Bernard is Piva, “A la Recherche de Catherine Bernard.” See also Lewis Seifert, “Catherine Bernard (c.1663–1712),” in The Teller’s Tale: Lives of the Classic Fairy-Tale Writers, ed. Sophie Raynard (Albany: SUNY Press, forthcoming). 9. An announcement of her conversion was published in Le Mercure Galant (October 1685). See Bernard, Oeuvres, 2:525–26. 10. Beyond any collaboration with Bernard, Fontenelle seems to have actively promoted her work, with a long letter praising her novel, Eleanor of Yvrée in Le Mercure Galant (September 1687). See Bernard, Oeuvres, 2:529–31. 11. Bernard, Oeuvres, 2:531.

Catherine Bernard 49 pearances, Bernard adhered to this religious devotion until her death in 1712. Bernard published two fairy tales, both embedded in her novella Inès of Cordoba (1696).12 Although she produced the fewest fairy tales of any conteuse, they remain among the best known, quickly extracted from their frame-narrative and published repeatedly throughout the eighteenth century.13 Their narrative sheds valuable light on Bernard’s understanding of the genre and its ties to prose fiction. Prince Rosebush and Riquet with the Tuft are recited by the eponymous heroine and her rival, Léonor da Silva, both of whom Bernard casts as ladies of the French Queen Elizabeth in the court of Philip II of Spain (1527–98). When the “new entertainment” of “gallant tales” is proposed, the company specifies two rules: “That the adventures always be implausible, and the feelings always natural. It was agreed that the appeal of these tales consisted above all in showing what happens in the heart and, moreover, that imaginary marvels unrestrained by the appearances of truth had a certain merit.”14 These two rules apply only partially to the stories of the other conteuses, who do not consistently adopt Bernard’s imperative of psychological realism. While d’Aulnoy, for instance, frequently parodies the portrayal of love in heroic and pastoral novels from the first half of the century, Bernard, to the contrary, sets as the fundamental goal of her novels: “Only show unhappy lovers so as to combat as much as I can our penchant for love.”15 Both of her tales end unhappily, not in spite of, but because of the protagonists’ marriages. “Lovers become husbands in the long run,” says, sardonically, the narrator at the end of Riquet with the Tuft.16 Although this maxim points to men as the cause of unhappy 12. These are available in Inès de Cordoue; see Marc Escola, ed., Nouvelles galantes du XVIIe siècle (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 2004), 394–408; and Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon et al., Contes, ed. Raymonde Robert, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005), 2:279–92. 13.  Marc Escola, “Catherine Bernard: Le comte d’Amboise et Inès de Cordoue, Notice,”  in Nouvelles galantes du XVIIe siècle, ed. Marc Escola, 308. 14. Bernard, Inès de Cordoue, 393. 15. Escola, “Catherine Bernard: Le comte d’Amboise et Inès de Cordoue, Notice,” 312. 16. Riquet with the Tuft was published within months of the tale with the same name by Perrault. The similarity in the plots of these contes de fées sparked a debate about who may

50 Catherine Bernard love, women bear at least some, if not equal, responsibility in her tales and, indeed, throughout Bernard’s prose fiction. Love inevitably leads to unhappiness, she shows repeatedly, thus contradicting the central myth of many classic fairy tales. Prince Rosebush, like Riquet with the Tuft, does not rewrite a tale from the oral tradition, but instead incorporates a variety of folkloric and literary elements. The motif of a man turned into a bush by a magical woman is likely inspired by a scene from Canto VI of Ludovico Ariosto’s The Frenzy of Orlando (1516),17 but Bernard freely builds on this idea to create a story of her own making. As in so many folk- and fairy tales, metamorphosis is central to this tale (as it is to Riquet with the Tuft), but here it is used as a prelude, not to final happiness, but to the inevitable disappointment of lovers turned spouses. Rather than uphold an opposition between (unhappy) metamorphosis and (happy) fairy-tale reality, Prince Rosebush puts the two on an equally dystopic plane. If the swift pace of this conte de fées is consistent with the most familiar fairy tales of the Western tradition, both the irony and the dénouement render Bernard’s narrative unfamiliar, even novel.

have copied (or plagiarized) whom (see Jeanne Roche-Mazon, Autour des contes de fées: Recueil d’études de Jeanne Roche-Mazon, accompagnées de pièces complémentaires, Etudes de littérature étrangère et comparée [Paris: Didier, 1968]). Scholars today hypothesize that Bernard and Perrault engaged in a friendly competition, similar to that between L’Héritier and Perrault for their tales, The Enchantments of Eloquence (L’Héritier) and The Fairies (Perrault). See Piva, “A la recherche de Catherine Bernard,” 1:43, and Monique Vincent, “Les deux versions de Riquet à la houppe: Catherine Bernard (mai 1696), Charles Perrault (octobre 1696),” Littératures Classiques, 25 (1995) : 299–309. For contrastive readings of these two tales, see Felizitas Ringham, “Riquet à la houppe: Conteur, conteuse,” French Studies: A Quarterly Review 52:3 (1998): 291–304; Hannon, Fabulous Identities, 126–31; and Seifert, Fairy Tales, 208–11. 17. See Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales, n40, in this volume.

Prince Rosebush The queen of a kingdom that exists on no map was the widow of a king she had loved tenderly,18 and lived in a sorrow as great as the love she had felt for him. One daughter, the only fruit of their marriage, kept her busy enough to dissipate her woes, but Florinde (that was the name of the girl)19 would also cause her considerable grief. One day, when all the queen’s ladies were in her room with the princess, there appeared a small chariot made of ivory, drawn by six butterflies whose wings were painted a thousand colors. A person, whose size was suited to the chariot and who was suspected of being a fairy, made several turns and then tossed out this written note: Florinde was born with many a charm, But her unhappiness will be extreme, If one day she should love The lover whom she will not see.20 The fairy disappeared and left everyone in a state of great surprise. The queen was more affected than she should reasonably have been; the strangeness, and even the apparent impossibility of this unhappiness, did not provide reassurance against the dual whims of love and destiny. She thought of warding them off, and so she did not wait 18. “Tender,” a term that recurs in this tale in different forms, has particular resonance in seventeenth-century literature, where amatory maps draw out the paths and dangers of love, most famously, in Madeleine de Scudéry’s “Carte de Tendre,” depicted and discussed in the first volume of her novel, Clélie (1654-1660) (see Jeffrey Peters, Mapping Discord: Allegorical Cartography in Early Modern French Writing [Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004]). On the notion of “tenderness,” see Jean-Michel Pelous, Amour précieux, amour galant (16541675): Essai sur la représentation de l’amour dans la littérature et la société mondaines (Paris: Klincksieck, 1980), though his somewhat rigid demarcation between galant and tendre has been reworked in Alain Viala, La France galante, to highlight the overlap between the two concepts. 19. That the root of Florinde is flor, the Latin “flower,” highlights the vegetal sphere in the names of the eponymous hero and the heroine of the tale. 20. This sort of opening scene, in which a fairy makes a prediction, gift, or curse for a newborn child, is frequent in the contes de fées and underscores the predictability of the plot. On the importance of this topos, see especially Robert, Le conte de fées, 51–57. Intercalated verses, such as these, are typical of prose fiction in this period.

51

52 Prince Rosebush until Florinde reached an age to fall in love before she introduced her to all those who might aspire to marry her. Among the neighboring princes, there was one who was kept hidden from the world, but the fairies, for whom nothing was impossible, made sure that Florinde’s portrait reached him. His father, the king, and the widower of a woman who had made him suffer all the torments of jealousy, married a second one illfitted to inspire any jealousy, but born to feel it.21 She carried her obsession to such an extreme the prince knew all he had done was change one set of troubles for another, and was unsure which of the two evils was the greater. In this uncertain state of mind, he concluded that marriage was a horrid bond22 and he resolved to keep his only son far from any contact with women. He had him raised in a magnificent castle and let him enjoy every amusement for his age.23 The prince was instructed in all the fields of knowledge that would not inform him about what was to be hidden from him.24 In short, they offered him every single distraction, except the one for which he was born. But love lets nothing escape.25 This prince found Florinde’s portrait at his feet. At first, he looked at it with surprise. Admiration shortly followed, accompanied by a state of agitation26 unknown to a young man accustomed to exer21. In contrast to the dominant—and negative—representation of marriage in seventeenthcentury literature as primarily a matter of alliances between powerful families and, as a result, a state of emotional indifference between husband and wife, both the first and the second marriages here are victim to the wife’s jealousy. However, in the seventeenth-century novel and in comedy, it is usually the husband who is jealous, not the wife. 22. In late seventeenth-century literature, this view is most notoriously represented in Nicolas Boileau’s Satire X, on women. Untypically, however, in this tale, it is the son and not the daughter who is denied contact with the opposite sex. 23. This detail is a reversal of the frequent folkloric motif in which a young princess is kept in a castle or a tower to prevent her from falling victim to her fate. See Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty and La Force’s Persinette (a version of the tale better known as the Grimms’ Rapunzel). 24. The inadequacy of education to prepare the young for the pitfalls of love life is a recurring theme in the literature of the period. 25. This type of general statement, maxim, or sentence, which often dots narrative fictions of the seventeenth century and make them “exemplary” texts with psychological perceptions and ethical statements, is also a feature of the contes de fées by the conteuses. See the Editors’ Introduction, 9–10, in this volume. 26. In novels of the period, this agitation or sense of disarray is often the first sign of love. See, for instance, the first encounter of the heroine with M. de Nemours in La Fayette’s The

Prince Rosebush 53 cises that had nothing to do with such feelings. His first desire was to see the original sitter of the portrait.27 It was a face more delicate than any he had seen before. And either from a natural instinct for secrecy in love, or because he felt people were hiding something from him, he told no one of his plan to leave a place that had always seemed pleasant to him, but that he was beginning to think of as a prison now that he wanted to leave it. He was able to slip away from his attendants and set off without knowing where he was going. He had taken but a few steps when he met the fairy we have already mentioned. “Where are you going, unhappy prince?” she asked. “You are running towards all the misfortunes your father wanted to spare you from, but you can’t escape your destiny.” Meanwhile, Florinde’s mother arranged a magnificent tour28 nament that drew the princes from neighboring kingdoms to the court. Each tried to outshine the other by his fine appearance and skill. Although Florinde could not help but esteem them, love did not help her choose among them, and pity for all prevented her from deciding in anyone’s favor. They had for her the feelings that her beauty inspired. She would have made too many others miserable in making one of them happy..29 The queen dismissed the princes with sadness: her daughter did not love anyone she had seen. Half the prophecy had come true, and the rest was to be feared.

Princess of Clèves (1678). On the trope of the first glance, see Princess Little Carp, n189, in this volume. 27. The portrait is a motif that appears in several fairy tales. See Seifert, Fairy Tales, 166–74. Portraits enjoyed considerable popularity not only in novels of the period, but also in the world of the salons; see, for instance, the collection of portraits of members of the circle of Anne-Marie Louise d’Orléans, the duchesse de Montpensier, Galerie des portraits et éloges, ed. E. Barthélémy (Paris: Didier, 1860). 28. Although such tournaments are usually identified with the Middle Ages, they were occasionally (and nostalgically) staged by the royal court in the seventeenth century. See Marie-Christine Moine, Les fêtes à la cour du Roi Soleil, 1653–1715 (Paris: Editions Fernand Lanore, l984), 91–96. 29. A princess who refuses to choose a suitor is a fairly common folkloric motif. Here, however, this refusal is motivated by pity instead of the more usual haughtiness.

54 Prince Rosebush Sometime after this, Florinde tired of the court and, since nothing stopped her, she obtained permission from her mother to retire to a country house. It was a pleasant place and suitable for amusing a person free from the troubles and cares of love. One day, as she was walking around the flower beds, she saw a rosebush that was more verdant and had more flowers than the others; it bent its little branches as she approached, and in its own way seemed to give her its approval. This action, so novel for a rosebush, surprised the princess; such a marvel in her honor touched her as a kind of homage. She took several turns around the flower bed and each time she passed, the rosebush bent in her direction. She tried to pick a rose that was ruby red and pricked her finger badly. This painful prick did not let her sleep that night, and the next morning she arose earlier than usual and went to walk in the garden. The rosebush redoubled its bows with an eagerness that gave the princess joy and made her forget her wound and think of nothing but this marvel. Finally, as she was daydreaming, she went too close to the rosebush and found herself caught on it, unable to free herself. As she tried to pull away, she felt an extraordinary resistance. She was ultimately able to pull free30 but heard a sound coming from the leaves that sounded like sighs. “What?” she cried. “A rosebush sighing?” “It does even more than that, Madam,” it replied; “and you have the power to make it speak. Allow it to tell you its sad story.” “I am a prince,” it stated,31 “my family hid the most precious thing in the world from me. I lived without ever having seen you, and this is what it has cost me to come look for you. A fairy gave me this shape and predicted that I would remain this way until I was loved by the most beautiful person in the world. But what I see before me 30. It is hard not to read this episode, in which the bush is humanized and in the process becomes a man, as full of sexual implications; the piercing prick and the girl’s ambivalent resistance are both tropes in narratives of sexual seduction. The most famous instance of this trope in fairy tales occurs in Sleeping Beauty, when the princess pricks her finger on a spinning wheel and succumbs to the one-hundred-year sleep. 31. It is hard to know when “it” can be called a “he” here, since in French the gender of “ ‘rosebush’ ” is masculine. We decided to maintain the use of “it” initially to highlight the strangeness of the attraction between the human and the rosebush.

Prince Rosebush 55 must be reserved for the gods, and I run the risk of being a rosebush forever.”32 The princess did not answer it. An indefinable something that was serious had taken the place of the joy she had felt at the rosebush’s homage. She found its actions, its having dared to embrace her in its branches, too bold. She left it, but not without more than one backward glance toward the flower bed. Her mind was agitated by similar feelings, though she thought them different. The animated rosebush had astonished her; the prince that it hid made her feel pity. Yes, she was somewhat angry that he had had the audacity to speak to her of love. But finally she forgave the lover in favor of the bush; how could one be angry at a rosebush? The princess returned to the garden again the next day. In truth, she was careful to stay away from the rosebush, but she could be seen by it, and she could even hear its laments. After several turns she approached and tried to console it about its metamorphosis,33 without responding to the rest of what it had said and done. A few days later, she saw that the rosebush was exposed to the elements, so she had a small chamber of marble built for it, held up by pillars, where she often went to visit it.34 Imperceptibly, she came to give the rosebush a human form in her mind, and a pleasing form at that. Gradually she allowed him to speak of love. It seemed to her that the speeches of a bush could not be dangerous. The rosebush knew how to take advantage of this favorable attitude; it said much about it, but it also let it be understood that it was holding back even more. 32. The tale resembles an animal bridegroom tale such as “Beauty and the Beast,” only here a beautiful vegetable, the rosebush, serves as a symbol of love. 33. The term “metamorphosis” evokes the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet, Ovid (43 BCE–17 CE), a collection of stories from the classical and Near-Eastern legends that purports to tell of miraculous transformations into other forms undergone by characters drawn mostly from Greek and Roman myth and legend, chronologically starting with the transformation of Chaos into the ordered universe and ending with the death and deification of Julius Caesar. The most “pastoral” of these is the story of Philemon and Baucis, an old man and his wife who entertain Zeus and Hermes as hospitably as their poverty allows and are thus saved from a deluge that overwhelms the land where they live; their dwelling is transformed into a temple whose first priest and priestess they become. 34. The trope of the lover building a place that encases and symbolizes the couple’s love assumes an interesting reversal here, where the female builds for the male.

56 Prince Rosebush And by a verbal confusion that went beyond eloquence,35 it persuaded her that she was very tenderly loved. The princess dwelt so long on the oddity of the rosebush that in the end she thought of nothing else. The marble chamber was the place where her steps naturally led her. Words that were too tender even escaped her lips when she spoke to the prince, for he inspired great compassion in her. However, she could not get the fairy’s menacing prediction out of her mind: perhaps she already loved the person whom she had not seen, yet she doubted it, so long as she only saw a bush. She was afraid to give him back his true form, yet sometimes she wished for it in spite of herself. The rosebush, on the other hand, found grounds for complaint even in the most flattering remarks the princess uttered: “If I believe your words and your attentions,” it said to her, “I rouse your pity, but if you give me nothing more, you don’t feel enough, and this gentle emotion from the most beautiful person in the world won’t give me back my form.” Meanwhile, the queen could bear her daughter’s absence no longer and ordered her to return immediately. It hit the princess like a thunderbolt: she would have to part from the rosebush, for whom she now discovered she had a genuine passion. She shed a quantity of tears on its leaves, which felt the power of the tears while being watered. At once, the rosebush vanished and Florinde saw at her feet a charming prince. He embraced her knees with all the certainty of being loved. This pleasure is almost never certain for other lovers; ordinary signs are suspect in comparison to such a marvelous event. Indeed, the idea of his happiness so transported the prince he lost the use of his senses just as quickly as he regained them. Still, by his immobility he seemed to retain something of the bush that had concealed him. At the sight of such an attractive prince, Florinde felt her love grow, but her modesty grew proportionally.36 She regretted the veils that hid her own feelings from her. She returned to court and the 35. In the aesthetics of the seventeenth century, the verbal signs of emotional disorder are powerful because they ignore conventional rules of eloquence. 36. This modesty, the French pudeur, is the defining characteristic of femininity in moralistic texts of the period that describe l’honnête fille, an indefinable term comprising decorum and seemliness as well; see François de Grenailles’ treatise, L’honnête fille (1632).

Prince Rosebush 57 prince followed her. The queen, who knew nothing of the adventure of the rosebush and knew only of the prince’s high birth, gave him permission to court her daughter. He saw his beloved every day, but no longer without witnesses. He often regretted his tree bark: he had been less constrained by it than he was by all the proprieties now required of him.37 The prince pressed her to marry him, but Florinde, terrified by the oddity of her love, which made her fear the fairy’s prediction, convinced the queen to let her send her lover away to make sure of his faithfulness before she gave herself to him. She had him come to see her. “Prince,” she said, “you know that I love you; once I have said those words, I have the right to dispose of you as I like. The prediction of my unhappiness frightens me; everything that has happened should make me truly fear it. If you were not sure of being infinitely loved, my alarm should convince you. For if I loved you less, I would ward off my misfortune by breaking off my relations with you. But in spite of my terror, I cannot do it. It’s best for you to give me definite signs of your fidelity and prove the oracle wrong. You had seen no one but me when you fell in love with me. Perhaps you liked me only because of the novelty. You must be tested. Go live on the Island of Youth38 until the day I send for you. Go! I would like to think that the more delightful your stay is here, the more the journey will distress you.” What a proposition for a beloved suitor! Since he had come to know love, the prince had always seen the one he loved, and he had never thought of absence. To live far from Florinde seemed such a terrible thing to him he thought he would die. He did not have the strength to complain, but tears ran down his face without his sensing them, and his behavior showed such great love that the princess felt 37. Thus the narrator draws a sharp contrast between nature and culture, and highlights the paradox that a tree bark is less of an armor against feelings than social conventions are. Complaints about the constraints on freedom and naturalness at court are frequent in writing of the period. 38. In a “kingdom that is not on any map,” as the opening sentence of this tale puts it, it is not surprising to find an island that goes by the nature of its population; such toponyms are often used in fairy tales. The island as a refuge for women is a topos in the contes de fées (see Wasted Effort, in this volume). Here, however, the Island of Youth provides no such solace, either for Prince Rosebush or Florinde.

58 Prince Rosebush she would be unable to resist so much passion and fled to the queen’s apartment. From there she sent word to her lover that he obey without seeing her again, that he just leave, and that she would take care to ease his woes. The prince set out with a submissiveness we have never seen since.39 He arrived on the Island of Youth feeling unwell; he sought out doctors, but there had never been any on an island with such a name. Laughter, games, and cupids greeted him, throwing roses his way. He breathed in air that restored his health, and at the same time, all the physical attractions that his sadness had taken from him. He was accompanied to the palace of the queen of the island by a path covered with the flowers that bloom at the beginning of spring. He saw a person who had all the charms of beauty, with all the naiveté and joy of childhood: she was but fourteen years old. She was seated on a throne of jasmine; a thousand cupids frolicked about her. Some were tying her with a chain of orange blossoms, others scattering them on her head. Still others were removing her headdress, letting her hair fall on her budding bosom. She bantered with her women and tossed flowers at them with marvelous grace. This spectacle did much to distract the prince from his feelings for Florinde. The queen of youth was not married because she wanted a husband her own age who was gallant.40 She had not been able to find one. The prince was twenty-four, an old fogey! Some of the queen’s maidens-in-waiting asked him for news of ages past, but the queen nonetheless began to look on him with favor. The ten years that separated them vanished, given the prince’s appealing qualities. The queen forgot nothing in her efforts to bind him to her—glances, flattering words, little playful gestures whose meaning is in fact serious. She put it all to use and it was all understood, though the prince, more subtle than she, pretended not to take notice. She explained herself 39. Modeled on courtly love, the ideal of the submissive lover dominates the romance and the seventeenth-century novel, such as modeled on the idea of courtly love, such as d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (1607–28). However, as this sentence suggests, and as later novels, such as La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves confirm, this ideal is no longer regarded as attainable. 40. From Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) on throughout the century, le galant homme represents a social and cultural ideal. See Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art, 46, 51–52, 61; and Seifert, Manning the Margins, 40–41, 86–91.

Prince Rosebush 59 more bluntly, had a proposal of marriage made to him, with all the advantages that could touch an attractive man the most: such as being attractive forever, possessing always and without interruption all the qualities without which others are nothing, all the graces, all the pleasures. It was difficult for the prince to refuse such a dowry, which she offered to bring him. Little by little, he forgot Florinde. It was high time, then, for her to make him remember she still existed. She had not seen him for barely a day when she felt the horror of living without her beloved. Nevertheless, Florinde forced herself to overcome her feelings. She had already loved without seeing; did she want to marry without knowing whether she was loved faithfully? Fifteen days passed in this state of agitation to which she had succumbed. Fear and jealousy joined the sufferings of absence. But she had to sacrifice her concerns to love. She sent the prince this letter: “If you are suffering as much as I am, you are truly to be pitied! I cannot stand my sorrow or yours. I do not want to risk losing you by trying too hard to be sure of you. It is enough; you are worthy of being rewarded for having obeyed the cruelest of orders. Alas! I did not know how rigorous it would be, but I have felt it keenly, and I do not think you can endure it. Leave and come back; if only you were here!” This note arrived just in time. The prince, who had been given a strict education in his solitude, had not yet had time to become spoiled by the world. He believed that unfaithfulness was not permissible; and though he liked the queen of youth, he left the island. But as he was slowly going away from a place that had such appeal for him, he read his own banishment on placards along the way. The queen promised to give the same favors she had offered the prince to anyone who delivered the fugitive to her, dead or alive.41 Nothing more was needed to cure the prince. He hastened his flight and arrived at Florinde’s feet. When she saw he had returned, she did not have the strength to question whether he had been faithful. They married; and the prince, who had become king through the 41. By her vengeful attitude, the queen of youth resembles the fairy Alcina in Canto VI of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando furioso (1532), a possible source for this tale. However, the queen of youth does not possess the powers of Ariosto’s fairy. Moreover, Ariosto makes Alcina the aggressor, whereas Bernard makes the hero and the heroine victims, while privileging the woman’s perspective.

60 Prince Rosebush death of his father, took his wife to his state, where marriage, as is customary, ends the pleasures of a couple’s life. How happy they would have been had they remained in a state of honorable indifference! But people accustomed to loving are not always as reasonable as others and are rarely a good example of a happy household.42 The prince casually told Florinde he had had a passing fancy for the queen of youth. Florinde reproached him as much as if she had not been his wife. He was shocked and annoyed. He tried to complain and to be comforted by the ladies at court. Florinde spied on him, caught him by surprise, and heaped insults on him. Finally, persecuted by her fury, he asked the fairies to turn him back into a rosebush, which they did as a favor. For her part, jealous Florinde had such a sensitive head she could not bear the scent of a flower that reminded her of her love. Since that time, roses give people the vapors.43

42. This un-fairy-tale-like statement illustrates a topos of the late seventeenth-century novel and a select group of the contes de fées. See the Editors’ Introduction, 28–29, in this volume. 43. This explanation makes the story what folklorists call an “etiological tale,” which purports to explain the origin of a social custom or natural reality.

Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon (1664–1734): Introduction Among the strongest advocates of women’s writing in seventeenthcentury France, Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon defended the works of Antoinette Deshoulières (1637–1694) and Madeleine de Scudéry (1608–1701) against misogynist attacks by Nicolas Boileau.44 She actively participated in salons, and most of her writings represent genres popular in those circles, such as letters, poetry, and novellas. In addition to the memoirs of her patron, the duchesse de Nemours,45 and a translation of Ovid’s Heroids,46 L’Héritier’s works include historical fiction47 and fairy tales, for which she is best known today.48 She was one of the first authors to publish contes de fées and to address the genre’s history and aesthetic.49 Although her predilection for fairy tales seems motivated in part by an interest in the Middle Ages that was unusual for the period,50 she was squarely on the side of the “moderns”—and opposed to the “ancients”—in 44. L’Héritier composed poems for each upon their deaths (Le triomphe de Madame Deshoulières reçue dixième muse du Parnasse, 1694, and L’apothéose de Mademoiselle de Scudéry, 1702). Boileau’s Satire X specifically targeted Scudéry, Deshoulières, and perhaps even L’Héritier herself (see Boileau, Oeuvres complètes, 62–80). 45.  Marie d’Orléans-Longueville, duchesse de Nemours (1625–1707), Mémoires de M. L. D. D. N. contenant ce qui s’est passé de plus particulier en France pendant la guerre de Paris, jusqu’à la prison du cardinal de Retz, arrivée en 1652. Avec les différens caractères des personnes, qui ont eu part à cette guerre (Cologne, 1709). 46.  Ovid, Les épîtres d’Ovide, traduites en vers françois par Mlle L’Héritier (Paris: Prault, 1732). 47.  L’Héritier de Villandon, Oeuvres meslées de Mlle L’H*** (Paris: Jean Guignard, 1695); L’érudition enjouée, ou nouvelles savantes, satiriques et galantes, écrites à une dame française qui est à Madrid (Paris: P. Ribou, 1703); La tour ténébreuse et les jours lumineux (Paris: Barbin, 1705); Les caprices du destin ou recueil d’histoires singulières et amusantes, arrivées de nos jours (Paris: P. M. Huart, 1718). 48. The Clever Princess or the Adventures of Finette; The Enchantments of Eloquence; Marmoisan or the Innocent Deception, all three tales in Oeuvres meslées; The Dress of Sincerity and Ricdin-Ricdon, both in La tour ténébreuse. 49. See her Letter to Madame D.G*** (1695) in the section “Critical Texts” of this volume. 50. See Letter to Madame D.G***.

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62 Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon the quarrel that roiled French cultural life during the last decades of the century.51 Born in Paris in 1664, L’Héritier was the daughter of Nicolas L’Héritier de Nouvelon (1613–1680), historiographer for Louis XIV, and Françoise Le Clerc, either the sister or niece of Perrault’s mother. Her father exposed her to Greek and Roman history, mythology, poetry, and tragedy; her siblings were equally well educated: her brother was a talented mathematician and her sister, Mademoiselle de Nouvelon, published poetry. Defiantly single, she had very modest means in spite of the patronage provided by the duchesse de Nemours and the duchesse d’Épernon, and a meager pension from royal authorities. She nonetheless achieved undeniable renown as a writer and was well connected to the literary elite of her day: she won a prize from the Académie des Palinots of Caen and twice won competitions by the Académie des Lanternistes of Toulouse. Admitted to the Toulouse academy in 1696, she, like d’Aulnoy Bernard, La Force, and Murat, was granted honorary membership in the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua.52 Some sources indicate she held a salon that met twice weekly, and scholars have repeatedly suggested that her fellow conteuses d’Aulnoy, Bernard, and Murat attended it, although no concrete evidence supports this claim.53 Unlike d’Aulnoy, La Force, and Murat, L’Héritier’s personal life was untouched by accusations of scandal; indeed, the highly complimentary obituary in the Journal des Sçavans (December 1734) insists on her moral rectitude.54 51. See DeJean, Ancients Against Moderns; and Marc Fumaroli, “Les abeilles et les araignées.” See also the Editors’ Introduction, 11–13, in this volume. 52. It is unclear whether L’Héritier’s and the other conteuses’ membership in these academies was anything more than honorific. On the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua, see Siep Stuurman, “Literary Feminism in Seventeenth-Century France: The Case of Antoinette de Salvan de Saliez,” Journal of Modern History 71, no. 1 (March 1999): 1–27, and Rebecca Messbarger and Paula Findlen, eds. The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women’s Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy, Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 53. Eighteenth-century biographers assert that L’Héritier inherited Madeleine de Scudéry’s salon upon the novelist’s death. See “Eloge de Mademoiselle l’Héritier,” Journal des Sçavans (December 1734) : 832–36. 54. For detailed biographical information, see Storer, Un épisode littéraire, 42–60, and Lewis C. Seifert, “Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon (1664–1734),” in The Teller’s Tale.

Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon 63 This reputation is unsurprising given the insistently didactic tone of her works, especially her fairy tales. In them, L’Héritier makes a concerted effort to uphold “feminine” virtues such as discretion, fidelity, modesty, and politeness, which she conjoins with a resolute defense of female ingenuity and learning. Thus, Blanche, the heroine of The Enchantments of Eloquence, exemplifies the period’s ideal of women’s “gentleness” (douceur) of manner and speech, yet she also shows that women’s eloquence can be as forceful as men’s.55 And in The Clever Princess, where two sisters, Nonchalante and Prattler, lose their virginity to an evil king, the youngest, Finette, outwits him through a series of machinations that illustrate the stated lessons of the tale: “idleness is the mother of all vice” and “caution is the mother of security.”56 L’Héritier’s fairy tales also showcase the conversational aesthetic of the day: she either embeds her tales in a frame story or dedicates them to female acquaintances with parenthetical commentary.57 In both cases, L’Héritier situates storytelling within the sort of urbane conversation associated with salons. Emulating the “natural” flow of conversational narration, L’Héritier’s tales do not display the succinctness of Bernard’s, La Force’s or most famously Perrault’s. Instead, similar to d’Aulnoy’s and Murat’s tales, they revel in digressions and descriptions that contravene the characterization and settings of the best known fairy tales. With this aesthetic, L’Héritier creates a narrative voice that foregrounds her skills as a storyteller and a writer. Her digressions and descriptions also make possible numerous topical references and, frequently, social critique.58 The story we include here, Marmoisan, is not technically a fairy tale since the plot does not unfold in a magical setting. Still, it incorporates narrative elements common in folk- and fairy tales, and it is known to have existed in the oral tradition (ATU 884). L’Héritier claims she heard the tale as a child and simply added “a bit of embroidery”; but in spite of her assertions, there are at least two literary 55. See Les enchantements de l’éloquence, in Contes, by L’Héritier de Villandon, et al., 69–91. 56. See L’adroite princesse ou les aventures de Finette, in Contes, by L’Héritier de Villandon et al., 93–123. 57. See, for instance, the opening of Marmoisan in this volume. 58. See Marmoisan, 73, 82, 91, 103, 108.

64 Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon sources she may have used.59 Both Straparola’s Costanza / Costanzo (Night 4, Tale 1) and Basile’s The Garlic Patch (Day 3, Tale 6) present the story of a woman who cross-dresses as a man; but aside from a few details, their plots have little in common with Marmoisan.60 To be sure, narratives of women cross-dressing as men were hardly uncommon in the seventeenth century, especially in the theater,61 and there were several well known examples of women who cross-dressed as soldiers, one of whom L’Héritier cites in her 1717 version of the tale.62 Marmoisan respects many of the conventions of the period’s cross-dressing narratives: an initial pretext for the disguise, “tests” to determine the heroine’s true sex, a heterosexual love plot along with a homoerotic subtext, and the final revelation of the heroine’s crossdressing. But this tale nonetheless departs from convention in important ways, criticizing male behavior, advocating for choice of marriage partners, and especially asserting that women can assume that most virile of roles—the warrior. L’Héritier takes a story with the allure of fantasy to illuminate the gender politics of her day.

59. Marmoisan, 66–67n66, in this volume. It is also possible—but again impossible to verify—that these two sources are literary rewritings of a story from the European oral tradition. 60. These details include the “tests” to which the cross-dressed heroine is exposed and the role of the queen at the end of the story. 61.  See George Forestier, Esthétique de l’identité dans le théâtre français, 1550–1680: Le déguisement et ses avatars (Geneva: Droz, 1988), and Joseph Harris, Hidden Agendas: CrossDressing in Seventeenth-Century France, Biblio 17, 156 (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2005). 62. See Marmoisan, n64, in this volume. Scholars have speculated that L’Héritier collaborated with the Abbé François-Timoléon de Choisy (1644–1724) and Perrault on a novella featuring cross-dressed characters, The Story of the Marquise-Marquis de Banneville (see, for instance, Joan DeJean, introduction to Histoire de la Marquise-Marquis de Banneville, by François-Timoléon de Choisy, Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, and Charles Perrault, Texts and Translations [New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2004],  vii–xxvi). However, this attribution is problematic (see Seifert, Manning the Margins, 300n73). D’Aulnoy’s Belle-Belle, or Knight Fortunate also features cross-dressing.

Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon 65

Figure 4: Portrait of Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Lhéritier, vol. 1057. The legend reads: “Of the nine Muses she is the inheritor/ Through her prose and her verse she captivates every heart/ While Minerva with care engraved in her memory/ The traits of fables and fictions, story and history.”

Marmoisan63: Or the Innocent Deception: A Heroic and Satirical Tale64

63. L’Héritier does not account for this name, but as Catherine Velay-Vallantin suggests, it could come from marmouset, the figure of a man badly painted. The term is also used for a man who has a bad build (Catherine Velay-Vallantin, La fille en garçon [Carcassone: Garae/G. Hésiode, 1992], 56). In his dictionary, Furetière opines that the term could be related to momon, a masked young man who goes to homes to play or dance (s.v. marmoisan). 64. The 1717 edition of the tale is published with a new title, The French Amazon in L’Héritier’s The Whims of Fate or Collection of Singular and Amusing Tales. It contains a new two-paragraph preface, which we add here below. On the amazon, see Princess Little Carp, n169, in this volume. “The tale of the French amazon has reached me solely through oral tradition. This story (which apparently draws its origins from our old romance writers) is among those that have been preserved from century to century without being written down. The courageous girl who wears clothing that disguises her sex, and who performs so many deeds worthy of the bravest warriors, fills this story with an element of the marvelous that made it memorable. I have kept only the character of this brave girl, but for the rest, I have omitted many elements and I added an even larger number of others that seemed more amusing to me and more fitting for the subject. “You will not be cross, I think, that in order to tell this old story, I announced that I drew on some of the adventures of a girl of the nobility of the present century who, because of the turmoil that a violent reversal of fortune caused her, forsook the clothing of her sex, embraced the profession of arms, and distinguished herself by wonders of valor, without anyone ever discovering her disguise. The similarity of her destiny with that of Marmoisan-Leonore made me decide to put her impressive victories under the name of this ancient female warrior, although it is nonetheless true that their stories cease to resemble each other at the end: the ancient amazon found an exalted rank, and in the distance, a throne that awaited her, while the modern amazon left the profession of war to take up once again the clothing of her sex, shut herself up in a convent, and wanted nothing more than to think about heaven.” In her reference to old romance writers, L’Héritier perhaps has authors, such as Chrétien de Troyes, in mind (second half of the twelfth century, author of Erec, Cligès, Yvain or the Knight with the Cart and Percevaal or the Tale of the Grail). As for the “girl of the nobility,” L’Héritier is probably referring to Mme de Saint-Balmon, whose biography was memorialized by the Franciscan, Jean-Marie de Vernon, in l678 under the title, L’amazone chrétienne ou les aventures de Mme de Saint-Balmon, ed. Darne Leduc (Paris: La Pensée Universelle, 1973). A secondary model could have been Phyllis de la Tour du Pin de la Charce, daughter of the painter, Pierre de la Tour du Pin; in 1692, when the Dauphiné was invaded by Victor-Amédée II of Savoie, she assembled the vassals and the peasants on her father’s estate to prevent the enemy from moving beyond Gap, a feat for which Louis XIV summoned

66

Marmoisan 67 To Mlle Perrault65 A few days ago, Mademoiselle, I was in the company of some persons of great merit when the conversation turned to poems, tales, and short stories. We dwelt at length on this last sort of work; we examined their diverse characteristics in verse and in prose, and we gave a tremendous amount of praise to the captivating story of Griseldis,66 as well as the tale, which we extolled, where the advice of a wise fairy gives birth to a thousand incidents filled with elements of the marvelous; and, last, the simple playfulness of the tale of the ridiculous wishes also enjoyed an equal number of partisans. We then said that as beautiful as these works were of their kind, they were nonetheless the most minor works that could come from the hand of their illustrious author,67 who had given so many signs of his enormous talents for poetry and eloquence, and whose keen knowledge of the human sciences and the beaux-arts were known to all. We made a thousand more reflections, in which we hastened to do justice to the merits of this learned man. It is truly glorious for you to be his daughter! We spoke of the fine education he gave his children, and we agreed that they all show genuine intelligence. Finally, we happened to speak of the simple tales that one of his young students has since put to paper with true grace.68 A few of those tales were recited, and this imperceptibly led to our telling others. I had to tell one when my turn came. I recited the story of Marmoisan, with some embellishments that sprung to mind at that moment. It was a new tale for members of this company, who found it her to Versailles, where she apparently met Charles Perrault (see Velay-Vallantin, La fille en garçon, 253). 65. We have no information about this only daughter of Charles Perrault. Critics such as Catherine Velay-Vallantin claim she was ignored by her father, including in the matter of her education. See L’histoire des contes (Paris: Fayard, 1991), 248. 66. L’Héritier is referring to the l694 edition of verse tales by Perrault: The Marquess of Salusses or The Patience of Griseldis, Donkeyskin and The Ridiculous Wishes. 67. Here, the fairy tale is placed at the bottom of the ranking of genres. 68. L’Héritier is referring here to Perrault’s Stories or Tales of Yesteryear, which were widely attributed to Perrault’s son at the time. See the Editors’ Introduction, n10, at the beginning of this volume.

68 Marmoisan so much to their taste and judged it so little known they urged me to tell it to the young storyteller who recounts with such wit these childhood pastimes. It was a pleasure to follow this advice, Mademoiselle, and as I know the taste and the attention you have for everything that contains some moral compass, I will tell you this tale more or less as I told it then. I hope you will share it with your dear brother: you will decide together whether this fable is worthy of being placed in his collection of tales.69 During the period when France was divided among several kings (they don’t say under what reign or in what century, but no matter),70 there was a lord, the count of Solac, who was very brave, very rich, and very clever. He had married at an advanced age and his wife had died young, leaving him with six children, among whom were a twin boy and girl. The boy was his only son, but there were three girls older than the twins, and one their junior by three years. The lord did not wish to remarry, and he put great care into having his children raised properly. He succeeded, however, with only a small fraction of them. Just a few years after he became a widower, his eldest daughter became old enough to be married. Despite her father’s wishes, she refused to be engaged, and rightly so. Her character consisted of hypocritical devotion and exaggerated prudishness. She was very ugly and weak enough to mind this a great deal. It put her in so a foul mood that she blamed everyone around her for nature’s lack of generosity toward her. She displayed such an affected aversion to the opposite sex that whenever chance might lead a man into her chamber, she would open the windows to blow out the bad air, and then would burn aromatic pellets. She would not take any pains whatsoever with the simplest domestic matter. She never came home from church, where she went to criticize everyone, without scolding someone on her return. She didn’t even spare her father. The count of Solac left this overdone prude to her bizarre character and hoped to be consoled by the merit of the two daugh69. Thus, Marmoisan is cast as the written version of an oral tale told in a salon setting, though the end also reveals that L’Héritier wishes (is applying) to be included in the Stories or Tales of Yesteryear. 70. Despite the imprecise setting, typical of folk- and fairy tales, the period could be a feudal era, before the rise of the Valois monarchic dynasty.

Marmoisan 69 ters who followed the eldest. The next daughter was beautiful, but her beauty was not supported by either wit or liveliness. A dull indolence permeated all her actions, and as she was not able to act or to think, and lacked inner resources to enjoy herself, gambling was her principal passion. She was so passionately addicted to gambling71 that it became an obsession. She took advantage of her father’s goodness and always had at least four tables going in her chamber. Around these tables were people whose minds were as disordered as their morals and who, at the slightest gambling dispute, constantly uttered the most horrid truths to each other. Such people won immense sums from her, but beyond all the money she got from her accommodating father, she also pilfered every household account under her direction in a thousand shameful ways. She was sordidly stingy about everything that did not have to do with gaming, at which she spent the better part of her nights. The count’s third daughter was not beautiful. She did, however, have a lively and roguish manner, which did not fail to captivate others. You could see her mind’s liveliness and fire, but she had neither judgment nor good conduct, and was swept away by her love of all pleasures. She would be in despair if she had to spend a day without a ball, a performance, or a celebration. Her extravagant expenses for furnishings and finery knew no limits. Not only did she blindly take up all sorts of fashions, no matter how bizarre they were, but she also created some of her own. My historical source72 says that she 71. Gambling was an aristocratic pastime, much decried by moralistic writers, but much needed by nobles, who were financially strapped and still had to maintain a proper lifestyle and possess the proper attire when they went to court. In Marmoisan, however, financial gain is not a motive. On gambling in seventeenth-century France, see Olivier Grussi, La vie quotidienne des joueurs sous l’Ancien Régime à Paris et à la cour (Paris: Hachette, 1985), and Laurent Thirouin, Le hasard et les règles: Le modèle du jeu dans la pensée de Pascal (Paris: Vrin, 1991). On the human tendency toward the most absurd obsessions, including gambling, see for instance, La Bruyère’s Les caractères in Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), “Des femmes” (“Of Women”), #52; “Des biens de fortune” (“Of the Gifts of Fortune”), #71–74 ; “De l’homme” (“Of Mankind”), #7 ; “Des jugements” (“Of Judgments”), #56 ; and “De la mode” (“Of Fashion”), #7 (Ménalque). 72. The French term chronique designates official records of history; however, what follows suggests a different kind of history, private or domestic, which women writers in particular advocated, to counteract—and subvert—the heroic view of the “great men” that defined

70 Marmoisan was the judicious maiden who achieved the sterling glory of inventing the steinkerques, the firmaments, and the falbalas of her century.73 The most fragile jewel, the most childish trinket was the object of her desire, and to provide for these useless expenses she would have even pawned her father’s dressing gown. In addition to all these faults, she was unable to live without being surrounded by a dozen insipid fops who spouted sweet nothings they knew by heart, having repeated them to more than a hundred beauties. This gambler and the coquette74 gave their father no less distress than the exaggerated prude, especially when he saw that as they developed, time did not correct their dangerous tendencies.75 But how official or general history. See, for instance, Mme de Villedieu’s appropriation (and subversion) of official history in her preface to Annales galantes, 1671 (the title itself contains a contradiction, for “annals” was also a term for official history). See Domna C. Stanton, “The Demystification of History and Fiction in Villedieu’s Annales Galantes,” Papers in French Seventeenth-Century Literature, Biblio 17, no. 31 (1987): 1–32. See also Faith Beasley, Revising Memory: Women’s Fiction and Memoirs in Seventeenth-Century France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990). 73. Steinkerque is a large kerchief, made of cambric or silk, that women tied around their necks, with the two ends hanging down in front, in imitation of the untied cravats that the victors of the Battle of Steinkerque donned and that became fashionable at the beginning of the eighteenth century. See Raoul Mortier, ed., Dictionnaire encyclopédique Quillet (Paris: Librairie Aristide Quillet, 1950), s.v. steinkerque. The battle was led by Marshal Luxembourg against William III of Orange in l692. Firmaments does not appear in the dictionaries of the period. In the 1717 edition of Marmoisan, however, the term is replaced by prétintailles. According to the Dictionnaire universel françois et latin, vulgairement appelé Dictionnaire de Trévoux (Paris: F. Delaulne, 1721), this term designates “the falbalas, fringes, cutouts and other ornaments on women’s shawls and dresses,” and in the plural, means “an assembling of cloths of different colors” (s.v. prétintailles). Falbalas, in Trévoux’s dictionary, is a pleated band of cloth that women placed as an ornament at the hem of their skirts, and later, almost at the top. Trévoux adds: “Learned persons have tried very hard to find the etymology of this term, which has none; it is a term of pure whim” (s.v. falbala). This fashion for noble women emerges in the l690s. 74. The coquette is a female type that becomes especially prominent during the second half of the seventeenth century—Molière’s Célimène in The Misanthrope (1666) is an important incarnation. The term was used for both men and women, e.g., in Furetière’s dictionary: “[a man] who prides himself on being loved and captivating women; [a] lady who tries to win the love of men. Male coquets make no true commitment; they are rakes, inconstant men. Female coquettes try to catch men, but do not wish to be caught.” (s.v. coquet, coquette). 75. In her tales, L’Héritier frequently uses her heroines’ female siblings to excoriate “feminine” vices (e.g., The Enchantments of Eloquence and The Subtle Princess).

Marmoisan 71 happy his fourth daughter made him! She was a charming brunette whose every feature, as regular as it was striking, became even more beautiful with the bloom of an admirable complexion, and a tall and well-formed figure enhanced by a manner that was noble and at ease, and that succeeded in making her altogether captivating. The charms of her mind and her temper greatly surpassed those of her body. She had a lively, solid, and well-ordered reason, she was both generous and economical, and she happily participated in the little household chores suitable to the characteristics of her sex: she took pleasure and care to fulfill her duties. Her brother, who was her twin, resembled her totally in face and figure. And as his hair was dark, like hers, no one would have been able to tell them apart if the difference of their sex had not made a difference in their dress.76 Although this young lord, who was called the count of Marmoisan, was so like his pleasant sister, Leonore, in his physical qualities, his mind did not resemble hers in the least. Gathered in him were all the tiresome faults of all his other sisters, except for airs of false devotion and bizarre prudishness. Of these two traits no one could accuse him because he had a taste for entirely different excesses. To the negatives of his sisters’ natures he had added certain mindless and feather-brained manners, in which the freedom granted to his sex had allowed him to indulge. In spite of his scatterbrained ways and his love of gambling and reckless spending, Marmoisan loved Leonore, who was modesty and good sense itself, better than his other sisters, though their inclinations were so like his own. For virtue is made to be loved greatly, even by those who have no desire to follow its path.77 It is true, however, that the girl and her twin were in agreement in loving the pleasures of the hunt. Leonore was naturally lively and tirelessly active. She found time to fulfill her duties, to read, and do crewel work, and still have hours to practice her riding, fencing, and hunting.78 These occupations were an engaging diversion for her, and were well 76. This stress on sartorial difference prepares for the cross-dressing narrative that will dominate the text. 77. On this type of general statement or sentence, see Prince Rosebush, n25, in this volume. 78. The gender divide between “feminine” and “masculine” activities is clear here, but Marmoisan is meant to embody an androgynous ideal. This ideal may be empowering, but it also

72 Marmoisan suited to her courage, which was unusually firm for a person of her sex. When the count of Solac realized her full merit, his paternal tenderness79 was enhanced by genuine esteem, and this created an attachment to her so strong it would be difficult to express. He would have liked to see the same qualities in his son. But even though Marmoisan was far from possessing them, his good father never ceased to love him passionately80 because he was an only son and was appealing despite his faults. The count had put his youngest daughter in a convent at the age of three.81 Unaware of her temperament, he planned to take her out of there only to marry her, for he feared that, instead of following Leonore’s good example, she would follow the bad example of her other sisters. Now the good count of Solac was burdened by the infirmities he had contracted in old age, for he had borne arms with glory for a long time. Thus he saw the rebirth of war in the kingdom with sorrow. He was no longer fit to serve, and he was reluctant to put his reinforces clichés about the “feminine” and the “masculine.” On the history of this ideal, see Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Towards a Recognition of Androgyny (New York: Knopf, 1973). 79. Although “tenderness” appears to denote paternal love in this tale, it primarily came to designate romantic love from the l660s on. See Prince Rosebush, n18, in this volume. 80. This is a somewhat unusual term to describe father/son relations, most especially among aristocrats in the seventeenth century. However, in various works in the second half of the century, powerful emotional ties are depicted between mothers and sons (Racine’s Andromaque, l667), fathers and daughters (Racine’s Iphigénie en Aulide, 1674), and mothers and daughters (La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves and Sévigné’s correspondence with her daughter). On the mother-daughter bond, see Domna C. Stanton, “From the Maternal Metaphor to Metonymy and History: Seventeenth-Century Discourses of Maternalism and the Case of Sévigné,” in The Mother in/and French Literature, ed. Buford Norman (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000), 1–32. Although less prominent in literature, close father-son ties can be found in memoirs and private correspondence. See Jonathan Dewald, Aristocratic Experience and the Origins of Modern Culture: France, 1570–1715. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 81. This was not unusual in aristocratic families of the period. As Wendy Gibson says, the convent was one of the three options for the education of girls outside the home, and the boarding option was designed for families of means (Women in Seventeenth-Century France [New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989], 17–40). However, it is a decision that Sévigné will come to regret regarding her own daughter, which may in part explain her close relationship to her granddaughter (Sévigné, Correspondance, 2:283, May 6, 1676).

Marmoisan 73 only son in harm’s way at such a young age. Marmoisan, however, had a burning desire to go into combat. He wanted to distinguish himself, to be master of his actions. Moreover, his father had several fine states, along with many other benefits granted by the king, and the young lord wanted to make himself worthy of inheriting them. And what enticed him still further, he knew that his family name was much revered in the army. Solac perceived all these desires. He would have been aggrieved if his son had not also received from the king the benefits from the states where he had always lived as a little monarch. And to crown it all off, his lands in Languedoc82 were situated around the towns where he ruled. Added to which, Solac was very zealous in his service to the king. Despite these considerations, however, the father was torn between his desire for glory and his feelings of tenderness, when he received an order from the king to enlarge his regiment,83 which was still standing, and to send his son at its head, for it was known that he was well liked. The count of Solac had already taken Marmoisan to court some years earlier where people found him attractive. On several occasions, he had shown pluck and a sharp mind beyond his years. As for the rest, no one really cared if he had bad qualities. All he needed to do was to shine in the army, and he had what it took for that. Since the needs of the state were pressing, and the king wanted to engage the entire nobility to serve, it was decided that as a way of enticing Marmoisan and convincing his father to let his son leave, they would be promised that after the first campaign, a just suit that Solac had brought against an old enemy of his family and that a minister’s influence had refused to settle for a long time would be resolved in his favor. The count of Solac, who was one of the ancient breed of courageous men, was excessively sensitive on issues of honor and 82. Important province in southwest France from the thirteenth century. Such geographical precision is unusual in folk- and fairy tales. 83. In feudal military arrangements, great nobles had their own standing armies. However, bringing the army under the king’s command was one of the cornerstones of the centralizing goals of Louis XIV’s monarchy. See Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army Under Louis XIV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

74 Marmoisan vengeance,84 and prided himself on a victory over an enemy he hated, now that he had the king’s word, which he knew to be inviolable. He stopped wavering, consented to his son’s departure, and thought about preparing a magnificent equipage for him. Marmoisan was overcome with joy. However, this joy did not preoccupy him so completely that it left nothing else on his mind. For some time he had been in love with a pretty lady, the wife of a rather important gentleman. The woman was virtuous, and she loved her husband. She had told the young count several times, in strong terms, that he would please her greatly not to bother her any longer with his crazy intentions, which she advised him to forget. But far from benefitting from her advice, he got it into his head to carry out his plans before he left. To this end he tried all sorts of tricks, all of which were useless. Finally, when he found out that the lady’s husband was away for a few days, or so it was thought, he resolved to get into the young lady’s chamber at night, with the aid of a rope ladder,85 intending to become a happy man by these unworthy, wily means. Consumed by this pernicious plot, he paid no heed to certain thoughts that should have horrified him about what he was doing. With his usual rashness, he prepared to scale the walls to his mistress’s chamber, although it was not even ten o’clock in the evening. The gentleman had concluded his business earlier than he had planned, and by a strange stroke of chance, he was returning home at the very moment when foolish Marmoisan was climbing the rope ladder. The night was too dark to make out faces, so the husband, seeing a man in this position, didn’t know whether he should assume it was a thief or suspect his wife’s virtue. As he was wondering at that very instant how to punish the intruder without raising a row, the unfortunate Marmoisan, who was so troubled by this unforeseen arrival, no longer knew what he was doing, felt his foot slip, and fell to the bottom of the ladder. The jealous husband thrust his sword through the young count’s 84. This type appears often in the plays of Pierre Corneille (1606–1684), notably, Chimène’s father in Le Cid (1637). 85. This is a classical narrative structure in comedy; indeed, such a scene opens Charles Sorel’s (1597–1674) comic novel, Francion  (1622). L’Héritier assumes a moralistic stance about this plot of seduction.

Marmoisan 75 body, and the stroke was so deadly he died a moment later. I forgot to say86 that the whole scene took place in the country in a castle neighboring the count of Solac’s. The noise of the gentleman’s act brought people out of the castle, carrying lights, among them his wife, who thought she had heard her husband’s voice and was astonished at the sight before her. She found incontrovertible ways of proving her innocence in this affair. But once she and her husband cleared up the matter, they were still at a loss as to how to exonerate themselves before the count of Solac, whom they respected and whose influence they feared. The best plan they could come up with was to ask the count to come to their castle, to tell him exactly what had happened, and then prove it by showing him the rope ladder, which they had left in place, along with other tell-tale signs. This they did, and in spite of the mortal grief he felt at the loss of his son, the count saw that in all fairness he could not blame them for the fate of such an imprudent young man. What drove him even further to despair, however, was the shameful circumstances in which he had died. Inspired by some unknown impulse, he thus bade the couple to conceal the whole terrible affair and had the body secretly carried away. Then he went to pour his sorrow into his daughters’ hearts. They were no less pained than he, particularly Leonore.The sad old man kept dwelling on the cruel circumstances surrounding his son’s ignominious death. He was in despair especially at the thought of losing the advantageous judgment on the important matter against his enemy, which was to have been the fruit of Marmoisan’s first campaign. His daughters comforted him as best they could, but as each one was mostly preoccupied by her own primary passion, not one of them was as sensitive to the close ties of blood as was Leonore, and none consoled her father as well as she. In fact, her tenderness and her courage inspired her with a noble plan. Since she resembled Marmoisan perfectly, she proposed to her father that, if he agreed, she would give up the clothing of her sex and play her brother’s role at court and in the army. The good-hearted lord, captivated by her resolve, immediately approved: the only question that remained was how to take proper measures to execute the plan skillfully. They spread the word that Marmoisan was away, that Leonore wished to spend a fairly long while at a distant convent, and that her 86. One of the narrator’s many interventions into the narrative as a speaking subject, recalling the stance of an oral storyteller.

76 Marmoisan youngest sister, Ioland, would accompany her. They had a masked girl go away, whom they said was Leonore, while Leonore donned Marmoisan’s clothes. They did indeed have little Ioland leave her convent, but it was to disguise her as a page, so that she could follow Leonore as a retainer. There had to be someone in her retinue who knew the secret of her sex. And there was no one better in whom to confide the task than to this young sister, who had never appeared in society and was unknown. She was not yet fifteen years of age, and her sisters agreed that her page’s outfit suited her wonderfully. Although she was not as comely as Marmoisan, she had a lively and zesty air about her and a sharp mind; despite her liveliness, however, she still behaved prudently. She had been getting bored at the convent and was delighted by the scene she was going to play with Leonore, whom we will henceforth call Marmoisan. As soon as his87 equipage was ready, he left for court. He was well received by the king, who was a wise prince full of goodness. Marmoisan gained the special affection of the monarch’s only son, a brave and lively young prince, who was not in love, to the great astonishment of the court and to the great regret of all the coquettes who thought themselves beautiful. But [Cloderic, as this prince was called]88 loved warfare and the pleasures of clashing arms so much he didn’t seem to have time to think of tenderness. Balls, performances, hunting parties, masquerades, tournaments, carousels,89 superb festivals90 preoccupied him 87. The narrator, who takes us into his or her confidence, thus insists that cross-dressing warrants a change of gender pronoun. 88. The name of the prince is an addition to the 1717 edition; we do not include all such additions to this later edition, but those we did consider important are so indicated with brackets. 89. As Furetière records in his dictionary (s.v. carrousel), these were “magnificent festivals usually staged for some public rejoicing, such as royal entries, marriages etc.” They typically consisted of “a cavalcade of gentlemen superbly attired and outfitted in the style of ancient knights, usually divided into quadrilles.” In some public places, then, they would involve races, jousts, tournaments and the like, at times even chariots, dressage, and so forth. On carrousels, see Moine, Les fêtes à la cour du Roi Soleil, 21–32; on tournaments, see Prince Rosebush, n28, in this volume. 90. The French, fêtes galantes, usually subsumes the great court festivities during the reign of Louis XIV, held at Fontainebleau and especially Versailles, often lasting several days; see

Marmoisan 77 completely, as he waited for the season when he could shine in war. He attached himself so closely to the young lords who approached him, and in whom he found merit, that he treated them more as friends than as subjects. His father, the king, feared that he would get into the habit of being too influenced by his favorites. Indeed, Cloderic let Marmoisan be a part of his pleasurable activities, and this charming count attracted the approbation of all by his graciousness and his adroitness. There was often a troupe of young men around the prince. They were foolish, vulgar, brutish, full of ridiculous vanity, always ready to draw their swords at the wrong moment for no reason, and always ready to vilify the human race, especially women. In a word, they lacked nothing but the name of petit maître91 or fop, and their manners resembled those of that type. Now the world has always been much the same as it is now, and in those days, as in these, most courts were deluged with such people. Marmoisan found their conversation insufferable. He had taken on the airs of a cavalier marvelously, but not the absurd airs. Sometimes he became so tired of their impertinent tales of bravura and of successes with the ladies he would tease them in a subtle but sharp way. They soon came to hate him. And as they had noticed that certain kinds of vulgarity disconcerted him, they took pleasure in uttering them in his presence; at every turn, they would make a thousand cruel jests about his reserve.92 People made sure to tell the prince about this. The count of Genac, one of his most worthy favorites, said he was in fact surprised to find Marmoisan so well-behaved and so modest at court for he had seen him in the provinces a while back and he had not behaved Moine, Les fêtes à la cour du Roi Soleil, 43–61. 91. Term first used in the late 1640s for the rebellious members of the midcentury civil wars (the Fronde), the petit-maître became prominent in the late seventeenth and throughout the eighteenth century to designate men who, as Diderot described them, were “drunk with self love,” affected, and pretentiously dressed (Denis Diderot, Oeuvres complètes, ed. J. Assezat and Maurice Tourneaux [Paris: Garnier, 1875–77] XVI:271). On the petits-maîtres, see Frédéric Deloffre, introduction to Le petit-maître corrigé, ed. Frédéric Deloffre (Geneva: Droz, 1955), 11–143, and Pierre Saint-Amand, “Le triomphe des beaux: Petits-maîtres et jolis hommes au dix-huitième siècle,” L’Esprit Créateur XLIII, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 37–46. 92. Attempts to discover the “true” sex of a character suspected to be cross-dressing are conventional in cross-dressing fictions. See Harris, Hidden Agendas.

78 Marmoisan in this way, like some latter-day Cato.93 Since the prince was full of good sense, the tales he heard about Marmoisan on this point only increased the favor in which he held him. The count of Genac played a considerable part as well. He felt real esteem and intense friendship for Marmoison. He constantly praised the many qualities of this handsome gentleman to his young master, which pleased him very much for he was drawn by inclination94 to love Marmoisan. The prince was not the only one at court to have this inclination, however; many ladies felt the same way.95 I won’t waste time recounting all the simpering and failed maneuvers some of them tried in order to charm our supposed cavalier, nor shall I tell you about all the page’s tricks that Ioland played on them. She was delighted to put her liveliness to use in a thousand little pranks, which admirably suited the outfit she wore. She toyed with the fops even more than with the coquettes. In a short time, she had gained the reputation of being the pagiest page in the kingdom.96 And yet, she did it all with wit and charm and had a marvelous talent for imitating those she thought ridiculous. The marquis of Brivas, a young lord and friend of Marmoisan, found the madcap ways of the page so captivating he often said to her master, “My poor count, I would gladly give my best lands to have beside me a gentleman as witty and amusing as your little page.” At last, the time of war followed the season of pleasure. The prince left for the army and all the young nobles with him. However, because the queen, the king’s second wife, had an unreliable mind, had created more than one turbulent cabal in the state, and was just waiting to sow discord, the king remained in his kingdom, hoping to thwart her schemes by his presence. 93. The phrase means to affect an austere, modest, and wise air, according to Trévoux’s Dictionary, 1734, s.v. Caton, after the virtuous Roman statesman and moralist, Marcus Porcius Cato, “The Elder” or “The Censor” (234–149 BCE). 94. Unlike respect or esteem for a person’s virtues, inclination is instinctive and comes from the heart. According to Furetière’s dictionary, inclination means “a natural penchant or disposition to do something …also said of love.” 95. This inclination, then, is not bound by conventional gender/sexual boundaries. The implicit suggestion of homoeroticism is a topos of cross-dressing fictions. 96. Despite the fact that Iolande is cross-dressed, the text maintains the female pronoun for her. In early modern France, pages had the reputation of being pranksters.

Marmoisan 79 Meanwhile, the military campaign was murderous. There were three major battles in which Marmoisan distinguished himself most heroically. In one of them, he had the good fortune to save the prince’s life. Through his prudence he also discovered a terrible plot of treason, which would have delivered half the army to the enemy. These brilliant actions gained him such a wonderful reputation and resulted in such a pinnacle of favor with the prince that a thousand people were jealous and sought nothing else than to do him harm. Chief among these was the count of Richevol, who pursued him with the greatest malice. This lord was brave, but that was his only good quality. He was as strange as he was imprudent and wasteful, and although he had married one of the principal heiresses of the kingdom, and enjoyed enormous revenues from the king’s boons, no man ever had more creditors, greater debts, and the brazenness not to pay a single penny of the millions he owed. However, his spendthrift ways, his ill-advised, extravagant liberality, and the profusion of gifts he gave his mistresses put him in such a state of want at every moment that he endlessly exhausted the king with requests. There was no office, no privilege, no forfeiture he didn’t hasten to ask for. Everything was his due, and the king, who respected his bravery and loved his character by natural inclination, always had the goodness to grant him what he asked. Rumors about this spread throughout society. Thus, when Marmoisan first appeared at court, he had noticed that this featherbrained Richevol seemed wounded by the commendations Marmoisan received, and tried to thwart his growing favor. Marmoisan had little regard for him. One day when he discovered that Richevol had been making some cruel jokes at his expense, he paid him back immediately and played a clever trick on him. They were both in the king’s apartment, where there were many people, and Richevol, contrary to his custom, was dreamy and silent. He was in this lethargic state and had opened his mouth to yawn when Marmoisan said very loudly: “The king grants it to you.” “What do you mean by that?” Richevol asked. “That you only open your mouth here to ask something of the king,” Marmoison retorted. “He has the goodness never to refuse you. So I said, ‘the king grants it to you,’ to spare you a longer speech.”

80 Marmoisan This bon mot amused the court enormously, but Richevol, cut to the quick, let his resentment explode on the occasion that I shall now describe. The soldiers had taken a fortified city. Incensed by the strong resistance of the inhabitants, the soldiers capitulated to the furies of war against the town. The prince gave orders to restrain them, but they would have been poorly carried out if Marmoisan’s honorable compassion hadn’t found a thousand ways to guarantee the lives and honor of an infinite number of people. He even endeavored, as much as possible, to prevent pillage. But this gave yet another offense to Richevol. Although he was a great lord, he loved pillaging more than the lowliest soldier in the army. He complained bitterly to the prince about Marmoisan, saying that the soldiers were all grumbling, and with reason, since it was right that they should be compensated for all the hardships of the campaign by pillaging. He claimed Marmoisan had exceeded the prince’s orders that the soldiers show restraint. Then he added, “Personally, I think that this handsome, scrupulous count is a woman in disguise, for he is so tender and compassionate.97 We have already seen enough of his conduct to have reason to suspect as much.” Richevol would have liked to add that Marmoisan was not courageous, but there had been no occasion in which he had not given ample proof of his valor, so he didn’t dare tell such a gross falsehood. The prince put a stop to all these conflicts by his authority. However, what Richevol had said came back to him more than once. “Did you notice,” he said to the count of Genac, “what we’ve been told about Marmoisan’s ways, and haven’t you thought about what we have witnessed a hundred times? I wonder if Richevol didn’t hit the mark and if Marmoisan isn’t really a girl in disguise.” Genac, who had known the real Marmoisan in Languedoc, and who could have given a rather long list of his mad little love affairs, assured the prince with certainty that he was in fact a boy who had been very flighty when he came of age; but that the prince should not think of that anymore, since Marmoisan had reformed so well he could now pass for the best-behaved young man in the army. The prince was in despair over these assurances: he would have wished, 97. L’Héritier is criticizing the lack of compassion among soldiers, but Marmoisan’s “adversaries,” most especially, associate this trait negatively with femininity and use it to test him.

Marmoisan 81 by some indefinable impulse,98 for Marmoisan to be of a different sex than his own. Meanwhile, Richevol, still driven by hate, took pleasure in quietly spreading this rumor throughout the army to annoy Marmoisan, though in his heart of hearts he really believed him to be a man. The rumor spread everywhere among the soldiers, and Marmoisan saw that he was watched, observed, and followed constantly. And the more he was watched, the more disconcerted he felt. In a hundred places, men told his servants that their master was a girl. Ioland warned him and said that his gentleness, modesty, and compassion for suffering were the only reasons for the birth of these rumors. Marmoisan was thoroughly distressed that this disturbing gossip was apparently going to ruin all the measures he had so carefully taken. He thought of going back to his father as soon as the campaign was over, and once there, to feign illness. Then he would cautiously spread word that Marmoisan had died, and then once again, don the clothing of his sex. The King had already granted his father the promised favor, but our heroine99 had too much courage to disappear before the end of the campaign. Furthermore, given the state of things, her departure would not have failed to uncover the secret she wanted to hide. Filled with these various worries, she wandered away from camp alone, at least to have the pleasure of reflecting at will. Her intrepidity made her scorn the perils to which she could be exposed in wandering off alone. “How horrible is the fierceness of men,” she exclaimed, “and filled with certainty, since a little gentleness and restraint are enough to let them perceive that I am not of their sex! If they had seen me swear, assault my valets, speak of God only with blasphemy, and drink to shameful excess, they wouldn’t have doubted that I was a man [since such a large number of them have those ways. But are there no men who are well-behaved and polite? Why should 98. Here, a heterosexual imperative seems to assert itself. On the importance of this indefinable impulse, better known in the seventeenth century as le je ne sais quoi, see Dominique Bouhours’ essay on this concept, in Les entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène (Paris: S. MabreCramoisy, 1671), 237–57; see also Richard Scholar, The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 99. L’Héritier shifts back to a feminine pronoun in this paragraph and the next, only to return to the masculine.

82 Marmoisan I imitate the bad examples?] And yet, I am deeply distressed because I have lived too much by the rules; but even if I were to suffer more, I could not resolve to live in an extravagant manner, no matter what clothing I wore. In fact, aside from not assuming dissolute and shocking airs, haven’t I acted as men do? Have I spared my life? Have I …” In her foul mood, Marmoisan was about to make other bitter moral remarks against the masculine sex, when confused voices and cries interrupted her in the midst of forming her sentence. He had barely come out of his reverie when he saw a young girl being violently pulled this way and that by two soldiers. He ran toward them and commanded them to leave the unfortunate girl alone, but the brutes, who were overheated with wine, answered insolently, when they saw he was alone, that since she was their prisoner, only the two of them could fight over her. At the same time, one of them began to drag her towards a nearby wood. Marmoisan, heeding only his courage, took his sword in hand, and the brutes did the same just as quickly. Thanks to his valor, along with good fortune, he took the life of the first, and laid the other flat, dangerously wounded. Then he led the girl to his tent. She seemed very beautiful to him, and he wanted to shelter her from the dangers she could meet elsewhere.100 Despite her unusual state of fright, this young beauty expressed her gratitude to her liberator with all the sentiments of a noble heart. Her thanks were expressed in terms that left no doubt she was a person of quality. The soldier, who had been badly wounded, was one of the first to spread word of Marmoisan’s extreme valor, and talk of this adventure soon went round, entirely destroying the rumor that Richevol had started. The care that Marmoisan took with the health and honor of the beautiful prisoner101 left no doubt of his intention to make her his mistress, and so they held him to be very cavalier. 100. The trope of rescuing a woman ill-treated by men takes on new meaning here, in light of the gender of the rescuer; it serves as narrative “proof ” of the horrific ways of men, who are about to rape a female and assume that the newcomer wants her for himself. At the same time, Marmoisan finds the girl attractive and takes on a “masculine” protective attitude. 101. The beautiful prisoner is a trope in poetry of the early seventeenth century, but typically the imprisoner is male and the imprisoned is female. See Alain Génetiot, Poétique du loisir mondain, de Voiture à La Fontaine. Lumière Classique, vol. 14 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997).

Marmoisan 83 The prince was in despair about this, and the fops, who believed Marmoisan was finally going to follow their ways and resemble them, thought more highly of him. For his part, Marmoisan was very troubled by the harm that this insane belief was doing to the young lady’s reputation, though he imagined he would find the means to prove his innocence without committing himself to her. But in truth, he was happy to see no one doubting any longer that he was of the sex whose clothes he wore. Only the prince couldn’t bring himself to believe it, and he planned more than ever to take measures to get to the bottom of the truth. He gave Marmoisan a thousand presents of magnificent trinkets and rare flowers, trifles that ordinarily delight women. But the woman to whom these were sent thought she had guessed his plan in making presents of this sort, and thus showed the greatest indifference in the world for them. She let it be seen that she only accepted them because of the hand that bestowed them, and sometimes she even let slip that a good horse and a fine sword would please her much more than all these useless jewels. In his desire to discover the truth, the prince put her to still another test.102 He invited her to several banquets, which featured compotes, preserved fruits, juices, frangipane tarts, sugary pound cakes, biscuits, almond cakes, and sweet liqueurs, for although that century resembled ours in a thousand ways, it nevertheless differed in some others: no lady would have tolerated perfumed tongues, Boulogne sausages, and ratafia,103 as some do today. Again, Marmoisan played his role well, for even though the treats the prince put before him were truly to his taste, he pretended, as far as propriety allowed, to find them utterly tasteless. He took the liberty of asking the prince

102. The series of tests to which a hero is subjected to prove his worth is a traditional theme in tales, but here assumes special meaning because of the nature of the tests and the ultimate goal of discovering a secret. 103. A liqueur, made of brandy, sugar, and fruit juice, or the essence of some flower, according to Paul Robert (Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française [Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1979]), s.v. ratafia. It enters the language in 1675 from ratafiat, “to your health.” Such delicacies were associated with women in this period. See VelayVallantin, La fille en garçon, 103–7.

84 Marmoisan in jest whether he took the company at hand for a group of beautiful women to treat them to such a feast.104 The prince didn’t know what to think anymore. Marmoisan’s every word and action charmed him; in fact, he could no longer live without him, and he felt strongly that if the merit he saw in the young man were to be found in a woman, he would fall violently in love with her.105 However, he could no longer delude himself that Marmoisan was a girl; everything pointed to the contrary. “How unhappy I am!” he would cry. “My heart has always been impervious to love’s tenderness, and now I take it into my head to feel love for some imaginary idea. I tell myself over and over again, if only Marmoisan were a girl, what sweetness I would find in loving her! Ah, how ashamed I am of these fanciful thoughts.” The count of Genac had been as preoccupied with this question as the prince, ever since the day he had gotten Marmoisan to sing. He had not dared refuse for fear of raising suspicion. His voice was so sweet and beautiful that Gemac was enchanted and couldn’t believe such a pleasing soprano could be a man’s voice. All the proofs he had presented to everyone about Marmoisan’s sex vanished from his mind, and he became as captivated as the prince. His passion opened his eyes, and he understood that if Marmoisan really turned out to be a heroine, he would not fail to have a rival in his master; so he carefully kept his feelings to himself. Meanwhile, Marmoisan was delighted to see his reputation as a soldier well established, and perhaps became less cautious than usual. In fact, he was rash enough to show much distress, in front of the marquis de Brivas, over some poorly bleached linen and badly folded clothing. In spite of his natural gentleness, he scolded his people soundly, and his ill temper grew even more when he noticed that his tent had not been tidied properly. He drew great attention to these things and entered so completely into trifling details of cleanliness that he displayed perfectly on this occasion the typical character of women, most of whom make such a point of the cleanliness of their clothes and furnishings they carry it at times to the most ridiculous extremes: 104. Here, for the first time, Marmoisan does have tastes ascribed to women. 105. The narrative again suggests same-sex attraction, even though the end of the sentence differentiates it from male-female love.

Marmoisan 85 but women treat this as a virtue, much like a widely respected refinement. Those women who have a certain mental steadiness are usually exempt from these faults, but Marmoisan, despite his great spirit, did not have the power to rise above them, the inclination being so rooted in certain persons of the sex.106 Brivas, who was among Marmoisan’s close friends, couldn’t refrain from calling him on this. “Is it possible,” he said, “that with such a fine mind and heart, you can engage in such petty matters? It is undoubtedly as a punishment that heaven wanted you to be thought a woman for several days. I don’t know if this rumor reached you, but it was going around the whole army for a while, and in truth, you deserve it. Caring about such bagatelles is not a flaw that men typically have.” Marmoisan blushed acutely and tried to prove that extreme cleanliness should be to the liking of both sexes. But Brivas continued to claim with good reason that only a middle ground107 was laudable in this matter, and he regarded Marmoisan’s stubbornness as a weakness among his best qualities. Some days later, as people in the prince’s tent were discussing the rumor that had circulated in the army about Marmoisan’s sex, Brivas naively said he thought he knew what had caused the rumor— Marmoisan’s feminine habits of cleanliness—and he began to speak of, and excuse, them. Those days differed from the present in yet another way than the one I just mentioned. The ladies, it is true, did not drink any Champagne or ratafia; but neither did men see fit to spend three hours at their toilette, wear scents or pomades, nor did they outdo the most celebrated coquettes by the number and extravagance of their fashions.108 To the contrary, men were scorned as soon as they displayed manners that resembled in any way such trifling concerns. Brivas used all his eloquence to exonerate Marmoisan. But since the 106. So Marmoisan does have the typical inclinations of “persons of the sex,” a phrase widely used for women, despite the misogynism of reducing women to “the sex.” 107. Moderation was a conventional ideal of masculinity in the early modern period. See Todd W. Reeser, Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture, North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures, vol. 283 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Department of Romance Languages, 2006). 108. L’Héritier is criticizing the “feminization” of men in the seventeenth century. See Elias, The Civilizing Process; and Seifert, Manning the Margins, Chapter 2.

86 Marmoisan prince loved Marmoisan, and everyone of any consequence present was a friend of his, they excused this fault in favor of his merit. However, the prince and Genac were delighted with what they had just heard. No sooner was the prince alone with his favorite than he cried, “Genac, there is no longer any doubt, Marmoisan is a girl; she is one! I sense that I will love her my whole life. What beauty! What virtue! What gentleness and courage combined!” Then he made a plan to find ways of forcing her to acknowledge her sex, no matter what the cost; shortly afterwards, he thought he had found a most favorable occasion. The beginning of autumn that year was excessively hot, much more than the middle of summer had been. One day, the prince, in the company of Genac, Marmoisan, and several other young lords suggested they go bathe in a beautiful river nearby. He was convinced that Marmoisan was a girl, a modest girl who would not fail to be alarmed by such a proposition and excuse herself. He intended to pressure her so strongly that she would be forced to admit her sex to him. However, he was mistaken. Marmoisan agreed to his proposal, along with the others, though he was very distressed by it. He clearly saw he would give himself away if he refused, but his modesty made him tremble in horror at the thought of the shame to which they would expose him. He sadly followed this lively troupe and resolved to feign a violent illness when he got to the edge of the river, unless some fortunate incident along the way delivered him from this danger. They arrive, and they want Marmoisan to go into the water first. He jokes for a while about this preferred rank and then begins slowly to take off his sash, his cravat, and the most superficial adornments of his finery. Then he ties a ribbon into a thousand knots, pretending to try to untie it.109 As he was untying it yet again, he and all the company heard a loud voice that seemed to come from somewhere in the atmosphere and that cried three times in a lugubrious and touching tone: “Marmoisan! You are bathing, and your father is dying!” The troupe was extremely surprised. They couldn’t find anyone on the entire plain, and they had no doubt but that the voice had 109. For observers—and readers—this is essentially a titillating scene of striptease, in the present tense.

Marmoisan 87 been supernatural.110 Marmoisan hurriedly put his clothing back on and ran to his tent to see whether a messenger had not arrived. He was told that none had. Nevertheless the bathing party had been broken up. Everyone, including the prince, accompanied Marmoisan. The emotion he felt had made him slightly indisposed, but he pretended it was worse than it was, in order to get rid of all these annoying people. No sooner was he alone than Ioland told him that she had heard, out of sight, the proposal to go bathing, and so had racked her brain for a way to get him111 out of this dangerous situation; she had taken up a brass horn and followed him from afar. Then she had climbed to the top of the highest tree, from where she had shouted into the horn the words he had heard in a woeful voice. Marmoisan, delighted with his noble sister’s presence of mind, embraced her a thousand times, and the two enjoyed themselves recalling this wily trick. But the thought that the men would begin to torment Marmoisan soon again with some other test put an end to their joy. Since he had performed enough acts of valor to leave no doubt as to his courage, Marmoisan decided he would pretend to be ill for the rest of the campaign. In this way he would no longer be exposed to bathing expeditions or any other possibilities of disgrace. I forgot to say that Marmoisan had retained the beautiful prisoner for a time, observing all the decorum possible in a camp, and that he had finally taken her to a famous abbey in a nearby town, where he often went to see her. This girl, who was an heiress of great nobility, had lost her father in the war, and her relations, who would have liked to see her either die or become a nun, were in no hurry to come and fetch her. While Marmoisan pretended to be ill, he asked Genac, whom he knew to have fine behavior, to go sometimes and visit this beautiful person in his place, and to console her in her unhappiness. Genac acquitted himself of this task as a gallant man,112 and since he wanted to get rid of the inclination he felt for Marmoisan, whom he no longer doubted was a girl, he tried to acquire an inclination for this lovable stranger. 110. Playing on the conventions of magic tales, L’Héritier introduces what appears to be a supernatural event only to explain it away almost immediately. 111. The narrator has Ioland think of her sister as a man. 112. See Prince Rosebush, n40, in this volume.

88 Marmoisan Finally the campaign ended, and Marmoisan asked the prince for leave to go see his father, who was not dead, despite what the lugubrious voice had said. But the prince did not wish to grant him this permission and told him that the king, pleased with his valor and with the enormous services he had rendered, wanted to express his gratitude at court by showering him with favors. Meanwhile, Solac truly needed Marmoisan’s presence as a consolation for the terrible troubles that two of his daughters had given him. No sooner had Marmoisan left than the gambler had begun to torment her father more than ever to get immense sums from him. The good count, who liked peace, had given her all the wealth that was possibly owed her from her dead mother’s estate to do with as she liked, in order not be bothered any further by her eternal demands. When she had taken possession of this wealth, she gambled with such fury and misfortune she lost everything within a few months. When it was too late to make amends, she recognized her folly and felt so ashamed and sorrowful she threw herself into a convent, where she took the veil. The coquette soon followed her sister. Her ridiculous penchant for constant flirtation swept her up into intrigues. She had an affair that caused a sensation and made her a laughingstock. Perhaps she was innocent. Nevertheless, her reputation was lost; and even if she had behaved properly, she deserved this punishment for her imprudence and the little care she had taken with her reputation. When she saw that this affair had tarnished her forever, she was filled with despair and did as the gambler had done: she took the veil in the same convent, with great regret. The count of Solac was left, then, with only his ridiculously prudish, savage, and strange daughter, who could not live with anyone, with whom no one could live, and who was good only for upsetting her father every hour of the day. But Marmoisan’s virtues and heroic deeds consoled this father for all the setbacks of his other children. He was also very pleased with Ioland and wished nothing more than to see them both again. They wished it no less than he. However, they had to go to court, where everyone treated Marmoisan as a prodigy of merit and good conduct. The king showered him with attention, honors and

Marmoisan 89 favors. The queen, who hadn’t lost her desire to form factions within the state, was annoyed to see a young man of such merit so attached to her stepson, the prince, and she resolved to take measures to separate them and to involve Marmoisan in her own interests. And so, for different reasons, Marmoisan was courted on all sides. Although these honors flattered and pleased him, Marmoisan was still in a hurry to leave court, where he trembled with fear at being recognized. He thought he had plumbed what the prince’s feelings towards him would be if he confessed he was a girl. The good looks, the pleasing mind, and the other good qualities of this young prince made him appealing enough to inspire similar feelings in Marmoisan. Our heroine was not insensitive, but she knew how to rule over her passions. Still, when she reflected on the inequalities of their stations, she believed the prince would think of her only as an amusement. The very idea tortured her pride, so she fought more than ever the secret penchant she had always felt for him and thought only of going home to her province to forget him. She was waiting impatiently for time to present some occasion to leave court with propriety, when the prince decided to enter her into a tournament113 in which every important member of the court was participating. Each man enlisted all his magnificence and gallantry to create an appealing appearance. The day finally came to show it off. Following the custom of those times, the goal was to clash lances, one man against another. Marmoisan showed his skill several times, but though he had won many honors in this contest of lances, the least skillful of men at court managed to break his lance: it shattered into many pieces, one of which wounded him so deeply that he fainted and fell from his horse. This accident caused great commotion. Marmoisan was carried into the palace next to where the games were held. The prince left and ran to the bed where they had lain him down, in a faint. As they were trying to revive him, they noticed some blood, which showed he had been wounded in the chest.114 They needed to see the extent of 113. On tournaments, see Prince Rosebush, n28, in this volume. 114. The French term, estomac, means “chest” in the seventeenth century; the modern term for chest, poitrine, was considered vulgar in this period (see Paul Robert, Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique, s.v. estomac).

90 Marmoisan the wound, but what was their astonishment when they saw a bosom whose beauty enthralled all those present!115 The prince, seized with both joy and pain, let out a cry, unable to stop himself. Ioland came in at that moment. She had not witnessed her sister’s accident, for she had been busy preparing for a ballet that was to be performed that evening.116 When she saw that her sister had fainted, that she was bloodied, and that her sex was discovered, the spectacle sent her into despair, and she could no longer handle the situation calmly. “Ah, my dear sister!” she cried. “Must I see your secret and your life lost in a foolish amusement after preserving both amidst so many terrible perils?” These words enlightened the prince still further. Talk of this adventure had spread throughout the palace in an instant, and the king immediately hurried to the beautiful wounded warrior. The whole court followed him and beheld with eager looks an amazon [in Marmoisan], who still did not come out of her faint, despite the efforts to rouse her. The king, who showed infinite consideration for this lovely heroine, commended her highly to his wife, the queen, sent away the crowd, and retired. When she saw that the girl did not regain her senses for a long time, the queen left her in the care of her ladies and withdrew as well. The prince, in spite of his anxiousness, was obliged to tear himself away from the chamber out of decency, and to take his stepmother’s hand to her apartment. But before long, he returned to inquire about the health of the person who was so dear to him. He found Ioland beside her sister, Leonore, still inconsolable over the state in which she saw her. Ioland felt there was no longer any reason to conceal anything from the prince, and despite her sorrow, she recounted with true presence of mind the measures her sister had taken to maintain her disguise so that it might be buried in eternal secrecy and to give her brother glory for all the courageous deeds she had performed. Then this young person added that, above all else, the 115. The discovery of the cross-dresser’s biological sex and the onlookers’ astonishment are conventions of early modern cross-dressing fictions. See Harris, Hidden Agendas, 99, 103, 129–38. 116. On the ballets performed at court, see Marc Franko, Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baroque Body (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), and Philippe Hourcade, Mascarades et ballets au Grand Siècle (1643–1715) (Paris: Editions Desjonquères, 2002).

Marmoisan 91 hereditary zeal of her family for serving the king and the prince had been the reason that convinced Leonore to take this decision. Leonore finally regained consciousness. It would be impossible to express her confusion at seeing the prince by her side. He said to her, “What a fright you gave us, Madam! Only the joy we feel in seeing you regain your health can equal it.” She answered him in a manner as intelligent as it was modest, though it was easy to see that her mind was agitated. Then the prince went away to leave her in peace. Meanwhile, the court resounded with the merit of Marmoisan, who had become Leonore. Its members vied with each other to praise her worth, her virtue, the steadiness of her mind, the grace of her clever remarks; and no one could help but be astonished to see the best qualities of the two sexes united in one person.117 The commotion of praise for this heroine secretly delighted the prince, and it made him once again congratulate himself on his choice. But he was strangely uneasy about learning how he stood in Leonore’s heart. The next day he went to find out, as soon as possible, and saw Ioland in an attire appropriate to her sex. Leonore was in bed, in the state of negligence118 of a patient who takes little notice of her appearance. Despite this negligence and her exhaustion, she appeared admirably beautiful. The prince learned that the wound made by the spear was not a danger to her health and would not even take long to heal. Since everyone had respectfully drawn aside, he approached her and said tenderly, “Madam, how happy we would be if all wounds were as easy to heal as the one that made me shed tears for you! But some wounds are more dangerous, and I speak from experience, for as generous as you are, I fear you do not have the same feelings for me as I have for you, and that you see how my wounds make me suffer without being moved.” Leonore was disconcerted by these words and replied awkwardly: “My lord, the zeal and respect I have for you will always make 117. L’Héritier, once again, affirms an androgynous ideal. 118. Négligence is not only a positive behavioral attitude (see Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art, 19–20, 125–26), but also an aesthetic concept of the period, suggesting an aristocratic casualness that is antithetical to a rigid, linear structure. See Borgerhoff, The Freedom of French Classicism.

92 Marmoisan me take a lively interest in anything that concerns you. But there are certain wounds that exist more in the imagination than in reality, which, I confess, would not move me to pity.” The prince, who did not want to explain himself only partially, told her, in terms as passionate as they were honorable, of the suspicions he had had about her sex, and exaggerated119 the impressions they had made in his heart. He ended by saying he would be the unhappiest of men if she were indifferent to a tenderness that would last as long as he lived. Leonore answered that she ventured to remind him of the signs of firmness she had given so that he would remember she was not subject to many weaknesses that other women had. And to avoid the greatest of these weaknesses, she would never share the feelings he had just expressed, since the difference in their stations prevented her from responding to them without harming her reputation.120 “Your merit alone, Madame,” the prince answered impatiently, “renders you worthy of assuming the throne of the mightiest sovereigns of the universe. But aside from this merit, I am in your debt for a thousand reasons: the striking services you have rendered the state, my life, which I owe to you, and …” “You exaggerate greatly these small services,” said Leonore, interrupting him, “but even if they were as important as you say, your father, the king, would not …” “Answer for what is in your heart,” the prince said, “and I will answer for my father’s consent. I know his esteem for you and his generosity towards me.” The arrival of two princesses ended this conversation. The prince ran to tell his father about Leonore’s health. He gave an advantageous account of the way in which she upheld the character of her true sex. The king praised her without reserve, and, noticing the extreme joy this praise brought to the prince’s eyes, he remarked, smiling, that Leonore had disarmed many of his enemies 119. This exaggeration, as well as the prince’s impatience, witnessed later in the tale, and finally, his malleability create a more ambivalent impression of him in the readers’ eyes. 120. The notion of love as weakness permeates works in the second half of the seventeenth century, including those of Racine and La Fayette. Although a heroine’s resistance to the advances of her male suitor is a conventional stance, L’Héritier frames it as exceptional due to Leonore’s androgyny.

Marmoisan 93 in her man’s clothing, but that she had disarmed his son in her female apparel. The young prince blushed and remained silent. But he soon regained his confidence and told the king that it was true, that he had been unable to withhold his esteem from so many virtues. He added that if the king would deign to approve his inclination, he would be the happiest of princes to be united with such an accomplished heroine. The king said kindly that he did not oppose this inclination at all, and that he consented to their being married as soon as Leonore was well. Transported with joy, the prince threw himself at his feet to thank him, then flew to carry the news to Leonore. As soon as her true sex had been discovered, the whole court had been abuzz with the news that the prince was enchanted with Leonore. The king had been immediately notified, and at the same time, had taken the decision to let his son make his own choice.121 The late queen, the mother of this young prince, had been a foreigner and had always retained such a strange preference for her homeland and for the princes of her own house that she had never had a sincere attachment to the king, her husband, nor even to her own son. She had taken her strange attitude so far as to betray the state. The king’s second wife was a princess with an uneasy and troublesome nature; she wanted categorically to have a part in affairs of state, although her petty mind made her incapable of conducting any serious business. She constantly formed cabals that divided the entire court, and she allowed herself to be led by women of low intelligence and obscure origins, whose every whim she followed. The king was tired of the wrongheadedness of these two princesses. He was also convinced of the uselessness of foreign alliances122 and was persuaded that Leonore had an upstanding, calm, 121. Allowing the son to choose his own wife casts the king as an enlightened parent, and of course, monarch, at a time when royal marriages were exclusively matters of alliances with foreign states. On the representation of marriage in seventeenth-century literature, see Prince Rosebush, n21, in this volume. In the private sphere, the theme of choice in marriage is taken up in the plays of Molière, from L’école des femmes (1662) to Le malade imaginaire (1673). On the frequency of this topos in the fairy tales of the conteuses, see the Editors’ Introduction, 28–29, in this volume. 122. Royal marriages with foreign princesses, the practice in France as in other European countries, were designed both to enhance the nation’s link to other powerful states and to ensure that no other domestic family had royal aspirations or claims through heirs.

94 Marmoisan and reasonable temperament. He decided with no difficulty to allow her to become the wife of his son, even more so because he thought that the young prince tended to take on the convictions of those whom he regarded highly. The king preferred for him to heed the counsel of a cherished wife, whose every sentiment seemed to aspire solely to virtue, rather than the advice of some ambitious favorite.123 The people had been enchanted by the fine deeds of Marmoisan and were transported with joy when they found out they had been performed by a girl. They showered the king with blessings for consenting to the marriage. The court was delighted; and the marquis of Brivas, one of the great lords of the kingdom, was doubly so, for he took as his wife the lovable Ioland, whose liveliness had so charmed him since the time she had worn a page’s garb. The count of Genac married the beautiful prisoner, whose merit and wealth made her a fine match. Leonore and the prince enjoyed for many long years all the pleasures that come from good fortune accompanied by virtue. And this heroine became the glory and consolation of her father, with whom the false prude had finally and publicly quarreled, letting everyone see her bizarre whims in the open, and thus becoming in turn the subject of everyone’s gossip. In telling you, Mademoiselle, the memorable story of Marmoisan, I believe that I allowed myself more reflections on the circumstances than I had meant to. It seems to me that my narration did not last as long when I recited it before the company I spoke to you about. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. What I’ve just told you is, at bottom, quite simply the tale of Marmoisan as it was told to me when I was a child.124 L’Heritier’s suggestion in this fairy tale is quite radical. However, by the time she published this story, Louis XIV’s foreign wife was long dead, and his “morganatic” wife, Madame de Maintenon, was French. 123. The king’s favorite is represented negatively in early modern literature, always for his ambition and often blamed, instead of the king, who had a sacred status, for the monarch’s faults and policies. Perhaps the most vilified of favorites in the early modern period were the mignons of Henri III (1551–1589, r. 1574–1589) for their reputedly dissolute ways and influence over a king who was ultimately assassinated. 124. The speaking subject minimizes her own embellishments and artistry in favor of the oral tale tradition.

Marmoisan 95 MORAL Many a time, at night, my governess or nurse, Before a burning ember this fine tale would tell me:125 I added only a bit of embroidery. Now we see so well in such stories That the true wisdom of our fathers Did not hinder us with severe maxims, But gave us a set of beautiful lessons: That whoever confuses their brain With the fires of a criminal passion Does always die shamefully; And that whoever follows blindly Gambling, false prudishness, And strange coquettishness Always and without fail is paid Back for their foolish mania; But whosoever does all in their power To follow reason, duty, and honor, How to vanquish destiny knows And in the end, sees virtue rewarded.

125. This line may echo the famous “Sonnet to Helen” by Pierre de Ronsard (1524–1585): “When you are old, at night, by candlelight / Seated near the fire, spooling and spinning” (Oeuvres complètes, ed. Gustave Cohen [Paris: Gallimard, 1950]), I:260.

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy (c. 1650–1705): Introduction The best known of the conteuses, d’Aulnoy was celebrated in her own day as a writer of many talents. Besides fairy tales and devotional poetry, she was the author of eight novels, which included “gallant” novellas, historical fiction, pseudomemoirs, and pseudo–travel narratives.126 She began writing during the last decade of her life, but her literary talent was quickly recognized. “All of her works have had such great success we are convinced she can write nothing without giving readers extraordinary pleasure,” reported Le Mercure Galant.127 Indeed, so successful was she that other writers attempted to capitalize on her notoriety by using her name for their works. Her novels and fairy tales were just as popular outside France, and almost all of them were soon translated into English. Part of this success was due to both her keen sense of literary fashion and her commercial knowhow. D’Aulnoy was at the forefront of the taste for memoirs, historical novellas, and of course fairy tales, and she secured Claude Barbin, one of the period’s most prestigious publishers, for most of her works.128 Her œuvre remained popular well into the eighteenth century and was reprinted multiple times. 126. Histoire d’Hypolite, comte de Duglas (Paris: L. Sylvestre, 1690); Mémoires de la cour d’Espagne (Paris: C. Barbin, 1690); Relation du voyage d’Espagne (Paris: C. Barbin, 1691); Histoire de Jean de Bourbon, Prince de Carency (Paris: C. Barbin, 1692); Nouvelles espagnolles. Par Madame D*** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1692); Nouvelles ou mémoires historiques, contenant ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable dans l’Europe. Par Madame D*** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1693); Mémoires de la cour d’Angleterre. Par Madame D*** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1695); Sentiments d’une âme pénitente, sur le Pseaume, Miserere mei Deus, et Le retour d’une âme à Dieu, sur le Pseaume, Benedie anima mea, accompagnés de réflexions chrétiennes. Par Madame D*** (Paris: Veuve Th. Girard, 1698); Le comte de Warwick. Par Madame d’Aulnoy (Paris: Compagnie des Libraires Associez, 1703). D’Aulnoy’s two collections of fairy tales were originally published as: Les contes des fées. Par Madame D*** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1697–98), 4 vols., and Contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode (Paris: C. Barbin, 1698), 4 vols. These are available as d’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, suivis des contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode, ed. Nadine Jasmin, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 1 (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004). 127. Le Mercure Galant (February 1698), 238–39. 128. To dispel confusion about attribution of her works, she lists them twice, in Nouvelles ou mémoires historiques (1693) and in Le comte de Warwick (1703).

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98 Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy Born into an aristocratic family from Normandy in 1650 or 1651, d’Aulnoy had a tumultuous life. In 1666 she was married to François de la Motte, baron d’Aulnoy, thirty years her senior, who had financial and legal difficulties, which probably compounded the incompatibility between the spouses. She bore six children, four of whom survived to adulthood. In 1669, her mother (Judith-Angélique de Saint-Pater, marquise de Gudane) plotted to have the baron d’Aulnoy accused of lèse-majesté, a capital crime; and although suspected of involvement, d’Aulnoy was exonerated, even as her mother was forced to flee France. Especially because of her pseudomemoirs and travel narratives, there has been much speculation—but little hard evidence—that d’Aulnoy traveled to Flanders, England, and Spain in the 1670s and 1680s. Whatever the case, beginning in 1690, living in Paris and separated from her husband, she began to publish. Like most of the conteuses, she was active in salon life, holding her own circle in the rue Saint-Benoît and perhaps attending the famous salon of Anne-Thérèse de Lambert (1647–1733).129 She was probably acquainted with many of the other conteuses130 and, like Bernard, La Force, L’Héritier, and Murat, was granted membership in the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua. She died in Paris in 1705.131 Today d’Aulnoy is remembered, above all, as the author of twenty-five fairy tales, several of which have remained popular in children’s literature even after the rest of her corpus was largely forgotten.132 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, d’Aulnoy’s contes 129. See Baader, Dames de lettres, 229, and Roger Marchal, Madame de Lambert et son milieu, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1991), 227. 130. Murat alludes to d’Aulnoy in her Journal pour Mademoiselle de Menou (see the Editors’ Introduction, 11, in this volume) and includes a complimentary reference to Princess Little Carp in her own Little Eel (see Little Eel, n442, in this volume). 131. For detailed biographical information about d’Aulnoy, see Jacques Barchilon, “Biographie de Madame d’Aulnoy,” in Contes, ed. Jacques Barchilon and Philippe Hourcade, by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, 2 vols. (Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1997), 1: v–xxv, and Nadine Jasmin, “Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness of Aulnoy (c. 1650–1705),” in Raynard, ed., The Teller’s Tale. 132. See Nadine Jasmin, introduction to Contes des fées, by d’Aulnoy, 115–18. A number of d’Aulnoy’s tales were republished individually as chapbooks and, beginning in the eighteenth century, books marketed for children.

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy 99 de fées were just as well known as Perrault’s. Her highly successful first novel, Histoire d’Hypolite, comte de Duglas (Story of Hypolitus, Count of Douglas, 1690) included the very first fairy tale of the seventeenthcentury vogue,133 and by the time she began publishing her two multivolume collections of tales in 1697, she had already established a solid reputation as a writer. Both of these collections were received with enthusiasm, as the commentary in Le Mercure Galant indicates,134 a success due at least in part to d’Aulnoy’s ambivalent posture toward a genre she did much to create.135 She approached the fairy tale from a playfully ironic distance, with a lightheartedness prized in salons of the day. It is not surprising then that the nearly obligatory moral lessons, encapsulated in final verse poems, are often ambiguous. D’Aulnoy ostensibly conforms to the model of La Fontaine’s fables, which include explicit “lessons,” only to shun the serious tone of Bernard’s tales and the straightforward didacticism of L’Héritier’s.136 No less ambiguous is the relation to oral tradition in d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales, a high proportion of which parallel folkloric tale types.137 Whether or not this conteuse adapted folktales she may have known firsthand is a matter of some debate, but she gives the impression of reworking stories of the lower classes, recasting them in courtly settings with royal protagonists.138 Thus, as in the work of most of the conteuses and conteurs and consistent with the fairy-tale form, d’Aulnoy’s tales revel in hyperbole, especially when describing the luxury and magnificence of physical settings. But hyperbole is also exploited to humorous ends, notably in the depiction of characters’ physical or psychological traits. 133. Given the title, Ile de la félicité (Isle of Felicity), by subsequent critics. See d’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 129–45. 134. See “Madame d’Aulnoy et Le Mercure galant,” in d’Aulnoy, Contes des fées, 1165–66. 135. See the Editors’ Introduction, 24–25n82, 26, in this volume. 136. On the ambiguity of moral lessons in the tales of the conteuses, see the Editors’ Introduction, 9–10, in this volume. 137. Eighteen of d’Aulnoy’s twenty-five fairy tales are related to folkloric tale types. See Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire en France, 127–29. 138. Ruth Bottigheimer argues that none of the French—or other “classic” European fairy tales—are based on oral narratives. See Bottigheimer, Fairy Tales: A New History (Albany: SUNY Press, 2009). But Jasmin and other scholars of d’Aulnoy entertain the possibility that she may have adapted stories from the folkloric tradition. See also the Editors’ Introduction, 15n50, in this volume.

100 Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy Beyond this figure of speech, d’Aulnoy commands a mastery of the period’s stylistic registers, from the burlesque to the pastoral, with which she freely experiments, often to comic effect. Among the many motifs in d’Aulnoy’s contes de fées, metamorphosis and love are especially prominent. Transformations of humans into animals are common in both literary and folkloric traditions, and d’Aulnoy builds on these to question the boundaries separating the human and the nonhuman most especially.139 In The Doe in the Woods, for instance, the heroine’s animal form gives a literal and humorous cast to the commonplace comparison of courtship to hunting, suggesting that the hero—and not the heroine—is the “animal.” But, above all, metamorphosis puts the focus on love, the single most prominent theme in the works of d’Aulnoy and the other conteuses and conteurs.140 Her treatment of love ranges from the conventional to the unconventional, recycling plot situations and rhetoric from pastoral novels, such as d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (1607–1628), but often revising them. In Princess Little Carp, for instance, the eponymous heroine’s fairy godmother subtly pokes fun at her pastoral disguise,141 and the father of Prince Hunchback, the antagonist, defends the princess’s right to choose her marriage partner.142 In The Doe in the Woods, the exchange of portraits, conventional in novels at the time, is treated so hyperbolically it becomes humorous: the prince becomes so enamored of the heroine’s portrait he falls dangerously ill.143 In many of d’Aulnoy’s tales, the revised love plot strengthens women and weakens men, casting doubt on the powers of kings and heroes, even if patriarchal social structures are not ultimately overturned. Fairies have a prominent 139. D’Aulnoy displays a predilection for animal metamorphoses in her tales (The Blue Bird, The Sheep, The Green Serpent, The Wild Boar, and The Dolphin are animal-groom tales; The Doe in the Woods and The White Cat are animal-bride tales). These narratives deploy the metamorphosis motif with keen awareness, humorously juxtaposing human and animal traits. See, in particular, Defrance, Les contes de fées et les nouvelles de Madame d’Aulnoy, 115–54, and Jasmin, Naissance du conte féminin, 61–69, 329–43. 140. See the Editors’ Introduction, 29–31, in this volume. 141. See Princess Little Carp, n180, in this volume. 142. On marriage, see Prince Rosebush, n21, and Princess Little Carp, n177, both in this volume. 143. See Prince Rosebush, n27, in this volume.

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy 101 place throughout d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales (as they do in those of many other conteuses and conteurs); but, in addition, her heroines are far more active than the better known Cinderellas, Sleeping Beauties, and Rapunzels.144 And male characters are frequently unable to fulfill their expected roles: for instance, kings deposed from their thrones or without authority145 and princes incapable of serving their princesses.146 Both Princess Little Carp and The Doe in the Woods appeared in the first volume of d’Aulnoy’s second collection, New Tales or Fairies in Fashion (1698), and each represents a different approach to the fairy-tale form. Princess Little Carp, one of her longest contes de fées, relies heavily on literary and mythological topoi and, compared to her other tales, makes limited use of the marvelous. To a complex narrative structure she adds equally complex characterizations, particularly of the heroine, who goes from defiance to submission in the course of the tale. The Doe in the Woods, although similarly complex in narrative structure, conforms more closely to the familiar fairy-tale form, in part because it resembles a well known folkloric tale-type, ATU 403 (The Black and the White Bride), in which a fiancée is switched with another woman, usually her evil stepsister.147 Central to this story is the metamorphosis motif, which features an animal bride (not the more common animal groom) and gives rise to sensuality, if not eroticism.148 Whether or not d’Aulnoy adapted this story directly from the oral tradition, she clearly incorporates literary motifs, including the many aspects of “gallant” love. By their differences as much as their similarities, these two contes de fées attest to d’Aulnoy’s sophisticated approach to the genre.149 144. The heroines of d’Aulnoy’s Wily Cinder and The White Cat are particularly noteworthy in this regard. 145. This is the case in Princess Little Carp, Blue Bird, The Good Little Mouse, Wily Cinder, Belle-Belle or Knight Fortunate, and Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved. 146. See The Doe in the Woods, The Orange Tree and the Bee, The Ram, The Yellow Dwarf, and The Pigeon and the Dove. 147. Other literary versions of the tale type include Basile’s The Three Fairies (Day 3, Tale 10), and the Grimms’ The Three Dwarfs in the Forest (13) and The White and the Black Fiancée (135). 148. See the Editors’ Introduction, 20, 31–32, in this volume. 149. In contrast to Princess Little Carp, The Doe in the Woods was not forgotten and ranks among the most two or three most frequently reprinted of her stories. See d’Aulnoy, Contes, 1138.

102 Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy

Figure 5: Portrait of Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Aulnoy.

Princess Little Carp Once upon a time an old king, to find solace after a long widowhood, married a beautiful princess whom he loved very much. From his first wife, he had a son, hunchbacked and cross-eyed,150 who was greatly distressed by his father’s second marriage. “Being an only son,” he said, “has made me both feared and loved, but if his young wife has children, my father, who can dispose of his kingdom as he chooses, will not consider the fact that I am the eldest; he will disinherit me in their favor.” He was ambitious, full of malice and deceit. So without revealing his distress, he secretly went to consult a fairy regarded as the cleverest in the world. As soon as he appeared before her, she guessed his name, his rank, and what he wanted. “Hunchback Prince,” she said to him (for that’s what they called him), “you’ve come too late. The queen is expecting a son; I don’t want to do him any harm, but if he were to die or if something were to happen to him, I promise you that I will prevent her having any other children.” This promise consoled Hunchback a little. He beseeched the fairy to remember her pledge, and then he decided he would play a heinous trick on his little brother as soon as he was born. At the end of nine months, the queen had the most beautiful son in the world. But people noticed something most unusual: he had the form of an arrow imprinted on his arm.151 The queen loved him so much she decided to nurse him.152 This made Prince Hunchback 150. Typically, physical deformity is a sign of mental and moral deformity in folk- and fairy tales. 151. There does not seem to be a particular significance to this shape, but the arrow is the weapon of both Diana, goddess of the hunt, of Apollo, the sun god, and of course, of Eros or Cupid. 152. Nursing was normally not done by aristocratic women, who turned their children over to wet nurses. See François Lebrun, La vie conjugale sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Armand Colin, 1975), 126, 130. However, several discourses after l660 place new emphasis on maternal care and maternalism; see Domna C. Stanton, “From the Maternal Metaphor to Metonymy and History.” See, in particular, Jean Girard de Villethierry, La vie des gens mariez ou les obligations qui s’engagent dans le mariage, prouvées par l’Ecriture, par les saints pères, et par les conciles, 4th ed. (1694; repr., Paris: François Emery, 1709), which advocates breast-feeding

103

104 Princess Little Carp very angry, since a mother’s vigilance is greater than a nurse’s, and it is much easier to fool the latter than the former. Now Hunchback, who thought only of doing his evil deed, showed an affection for the queen and a tenderness for the little prince that pleased the king greatly. “I would never have believed my son was capable of such goodness,” he said, “and if he continues to do so, I will leave him part of my kingdom.” These promises did not satisfy Hunchback. He wanted all or nothing. So one night he offered the queen some jams laced with opium.153 She fell asleep, and the prince, who lay in hiding behind the tapestry, immediately took the little prince and very quietly put in his place a big cat, so well swaddled that the cradle-rockers wouldn’t notice the theft. The cat cried, the rockers rocked; in short, there was such a terrible racket they thought the prince wanted to nurse. They woke the queen who, still half asleep and thinking she held her dear swaddled baby, gave him her breast. But the nasty cat bit her, and she let out a great cry. And when she looked at it, how she reacted when she saw the head of a cat instead of her son’s! Her grief was so great she thought she would die on the spot. The cries of the queen’s women roused the whole palace. The king took his dressing gown and ran to her apartment. The first thing he saw was the cat swaddled in the cloth of gold that usually covered his son. They had thrown it on the ground where it was making astonishing cries. The king was most alarmed: he asked the attendants whatever was going on and they told him they had no idea at all, but that the little prince was nowhere in sight, that they had searched for him in vain, and that the queen was grievously wounded. The king went into her room and found her in a singular in the process of emphasizing the importance of close bonds between parents (mothers in particular) and children. This period is considerably earlier than the traditional view that breast-feeding became a dominant practice among bourgeois and upper-class women after 1750; for this view, see, for instance, Elizabeth Badinter, L’amour en plus: Histoire de l’amour maternel XVIIe–XXe siècle (Paris: Flammarion, 1980). 153. In ancient times, opium is mentioned for its medicinal properties in the writings of the Greek physician, Galen (c. 130–c. 200), although Avicenna, the Persian physician and philosopher (980–1037), describes it as a stupefacient; it was also used with poison hemlock to put people to death quickly. Opium became stigmatized as a Near Eastern influence in Europe during the Inquisition, but it was (re)introduced into Western medicine in 1527 by Swiss physician and alchemist Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493–1541).

Princess Little Carp 105 state. Not wanting to worsen it with his own affliction, he took great pains to restrain himself so that he could console the poor queen. Meanwhile, Hunchback had handed his little brother over to one of his own men. “Take him to a faraway forest,” he said, “and leave him naked in the place most exposed to wild beasts, so that they will devour him and we’ll never hear of him again.154 I would take him there myself, for I greatly fear you will not carry out my order, but I must appear before the king. Go then, and rest assured that if I rule, I will not be ungrateful.” He put the poor child into a covered basket himself, and as he had become accustomed to Hunchback’s caresses, he recognized and smiled at him. But the pitiless man was no more moved than a rock. He went quickly to the queen’s chamber, half-dressed, he said, because of his great hurry. He rubbed his eyes like a man still asleep, and when he learned the bad news about his stepmother’s wound and the kidnapping of the prince and saw the swaddled cat, he let out cries so full of sorrow that the attendants tried their best to console him as if he were truly afflicted. He took the cat and wrung its neck with a ferocity that was natural to him. He wanted it understood, however, that it was only on account of the cat’s having bitten the queen. Not a soul suspected Hunchback, though he was evil enough that they should have. His crime remained hidden beneath his false tears. The king and queen were thankful to this ingrate and entrusted him to send inquiries to the fairies to find out what could have become of their infant. Impatient to end the investigation, he gave them several different and very enigmatic responses, all of which concurred that the prince was not dead, that he had been taken for a time for impenetrable reasons, that he would be returned in perfect condition, and that they should look for him no further because it would be wasted effort. He believed that, as a result, they would calm down. And what he believed, happened: the king and queen deluded themselves that one day they would see their son again. Meanwhile, the cat’s bite on 154. The attempt to get rid of an unwanted child recurs in Greek mythology, including in the story of Oedipus, whose father, Laius, heeding an oracle’s warning that he would die by one of his offspring, turns him over to his herdsman to expose him on a mountain; moved by compassion, the man gives the babe to the shepherds of King Polybus, whose childless wife raises him as her own.

106 Princess Little Carp the queen’s breast became so infected that she died. The king, crushed with sorrow, remained in his palace a full year. He still awaited news of his son, but he waited in vain. The man who had carried him off walked the whole night without stopping. When dawn began to break, he opened the basket and the delightful child smiled at him, the way he was used to doing with the queen when she took him in her arms. “Oh poor little prince,” he said, “how unhappy your fate! Alas, like a tender lamb, you will be fodder for some starving lion. Why did Hunchback choose me to help destroy you?” He closed the basket, so that he would no longer see an object worthy of such pity. But the child, who had gone the whole night without nursing, began to cry with all his might. The man who held him picked some figs and put them in his mouth. The sweetness of this fruit calmed him somewhat and thus he carried him the whole day until the following night, when he entered a vast and dark forest. He didn’t want to go in, for fear of being devoured; nevertheless, the next day he proceeded with the basket he was still holding. The forest was so big that no matter where he looked, he could not see its end. But in a spot covered with trees, he saw a rock that rose up in several different points. “This is, no doubt, the lair of the cruelest beasts,” he said. “I must leave the child here since I am in no position to save him.” As he approached the rock, a prodigiously large eagle instantly came out from it, flying around as if she had left something very dear to her there.155 In fact, it was her little ones that she was feeding in the depths of a kind of grotto. “Poor child, you will be a prey for these birds, who are kings over the others,” said the man. He undressed the child quickly and laid him amidst three eaglets. Their nest was very big and sheltered from the winds. He had a lot of trouble putting the prince in there because the side by which he could approach it was steep and leaned over a frightful precipice. Sighing, he went away and saw the eagle flying back swiftly to her nest. “Ah, it’s done!” he said. “The child will lose his life.” He sped away to avoid 155. The eagle has traditionally symbolized the father (it is identified with the God Jupiter, for example) and associated with power and war, but the seventeenth-century dictionaries of Antoine Furetière (1619–1688) and of the Académie Française (1694) both give aigle a feminine grammatical gender; only the dictionary of César Pierre Richelet (1631–1698) cites both masculine and feminine gender. Of course, in this tale, the eagle assumes maternal functions.

Princess Little Carp 107 hearing the child’s last cries. He went back to Hunchback and assured him he no longer had a brother. At this news, the barbarous prince embraced his faithful minister and gave him a diamond ring, promising him that when he became king, he would make him captain of his guards. The eagle returned to her nest and was perhaps surprised to find this new guest. Surprised or not, she followed the law of hospitality better than many people know how to do.156 She settled next to her nursling, spread her wings, and warmed him. Her care now seemed to be only for him. A special instinct157 made her look for fruits, peck at them, and pour the juice into the ruby mouth of the little prince. In short, she nourished him so well that the queen, his mother, could not have done it better. When the eaglets were a bit stronger, the eagle took them one at a time, sometimes on her wings, sometimes in her talons, and in this way, got them accustomed to looking at the sun without closing their eyelids.158 Sometimes the eaglets would leave their mother and flit around her a little, but the little prince did none of that and when she lifted him up into the air, he ran the great risk of falling and killing himself. But Fortune came to play a part. It was she who provided the prince with such an extraordinary nurse, and it was she who made sure the eagle would not let him fall. Four years passed. The eagle lost all her eaglets, for they flew away when they were big enough and returned no more to see their mother or their nest. But the prince, who did not have the strength to go far, stayed on the rock, and the provident and apprehensive eagle, fearing he might fall into the precipice, carried him to a place on the other side so high and so steep that savage beasts could not reach it. Now, Cupid, who is depicted as absolutely perfect, was even less perfect than the young prince. The rays of the sun could not tarnish the lilies and roses of his complexion. His features had something so symmetrical about them that the most outstanding painters could 156. This ancient, unwritten law exists in many cultures. The eagle is anthropomorphized, as are many animals in folk- and fairy tales and the fables of Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695). 157. D’Aulnoy thus “naturalizes” maternal instinct. 158. Furetière’s dictionary states: “We call good eyes ‘eagle’s eyes,’ because she stares at the sun fixedly” (s.v. aigle).

108 Princess Little Carp not have imagined their likeness. His hair was already long enough to cover his shoulders, and his countenance was so lofty nothing as noble and grand had ever been seen in a child. The eagle loved him with surprising passion.159 She brought him nothing but fruit for his nourishment, making a clear distinction between him and her eaglets, to whom she gave nothing but raw flesh. She was the despair of the shepherds in the region, for she carried off their lambs without pity. They talked of nothing but the eagle’s rapine. At long last, the shepherds tired of feeding her at the expense of their own flocks and resolved to look for her haunt. They separated into several bands, following her with their eyes and roaming the mountains and valleys; yet for a long time they could not find her. But finally, one day, they noticed she swooped down onto the big rock. The most determined of them dared to climb up, though there were a thousand dangers. At the time, she had two little eaglets she fed assiduously, but no matter how dear they were to her, her tenderness160 for the young prince was greater still because she had been with him far longer. When the shepherds found her nest, she was not there, so it was easy for them to break it to pieces and take everything in it. What a surprise when they found the prince! There was something so extraordinary about this that their narrow minds could in no way grasp it. They carried off the child and the eaglets. They cried out, and the eagle, who heard, swept down on those who had ravished her possessions. They would have felt the effects of her anger if they had not killed her with an arrow shot by one of the shepherds. The young prince, full of natural feelings,161 let out pitiful cries and wept bitterly when he saw his nurse fall. After this attack, the shepherds walked towards their hamlet. The next day there was to be a cruel ceremony for the following reason.

159. On parent/child love, see Marmoisan, n80, in this volume. 160. On tenderness, see Prince Rosebush, n18, in this volume. 161. See the definition of naturel in the Dictionaire de l’Académie Française (1694): “natural …also means the feelings that nature instills in fathers and mothers for their children, and in children for their fathers and mothers.”

Princess Little Carp 109 The country had long served as a refuge for ogres.162 Each inhabitant, in despair about such dangerous neighbors, had looked for ways to drive them off, but without success. These terrible ogres, incensed by the inhabitants’ hatred, doubled their cruelties and without exception, devoured all those who fell into their hands. One day, when the shepherds were finally assembled to deliberate about what they could do against the ogres, there suddenly appeared in their midst a man of terrifying size. Half his body had the shape of a stag covered in blue fur, and he had the feet of a goat, a club on his shoulder and a shield in his hand. He said to them, “Shepherds, I am the Blue Centaur.163 If you are willing to give me a child every three years,164 I promise to bring one hundred of my brothers here, who will wage such a fierce war against the ogres that we will chase them away, no matter how many there are.” The shepherds had difficulty agreeing to commit such a cruel act. But the most venerable among them said, “My companions, is it better for us to have the ogres eat our fathers, our children and our wives every day? We will lose one to save many.165 So let us not refuse the centaur’s offer.” The others consented right away. They took oaths to keep their word to the centaur and said he would get a child. 162. Ogres—giant, humanoid monsters featured in mythology, folklore, and fiction—are often depicted as feeding on human beings, especially children. The English word, ogre, comes from the French and was made popular first by Charles Perrault (in Little Thumbling) and d’Aulnoy (in The Orange Tree and the Bee). The French word was likely adapted from Basile’s Neapolitan term uerco (in standard Italian, orco), probably derived from the Latin Orcus, a divinity of the underworld. 163. This composite figure involves the centaur—half man and half horse with goat hooves— which is usually associated with the demonic, and a massive club traditionally identified with Hercules. 164. The demand recalls the myth of the Minotaur, which had a bull’s body and a human head, and was kept in a labyrinth in Crete by King Minos. He compelled the Athenians to send him a tribute (either yearly or every nine years, in the legend’s various strains) of seven youths and seven maidens to be devoured by the Minotaur. 165. The notion of sacrificing one to save many is ancient; indeed, it forms the core of Christianity. In an ironic register, it appears in La Fontaine’s fable, “The Animals Afflicted by the Plague,” which exposes how the powerful take advantage of the weak (The Complete Fables of Jean de la Fontaine, ed. and trans. Norman B. Spector [Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988]).

110 Princess Little Carp He left and returned, as he had said, with his brothers, who were as monstrous as he. The ogres were no less brave than they were cruel, and they waged several battles, but the centaurs were always victorious. Finally, the centaurs forced the ogres to flee. The Blue Centaur came to exact the reward for his troubles. Everyone agreed nothing was more fair, but when the time came to deliver the promised child, no family could resolve to give up its own. Mothers hid their little ones even in the bowels of the earth. The centaur did not like this nonsense, so after he had waited twice for twenty-four hours, he told the shepherds he would demand as many children as days he stayed among them. The delay ended up costing them six little boys and six little girls. Since the time when the shepherds settled this grave matter, every three years they would have a solemn ceremony to deliver the poor innocent child to the centaur. It was, in fact, the day after the prince had been taken from the eagle’s nest that they were supposed to pay this tribute, and although a child had already been selected, it’s easy to understand why the shepherds gladly put the prince in his place. The uncertainty of his birth166 (for they were simple-minded enough to believe at times that the eagle was his mother) and his wondrous beauty helped them decide to present him to the centaur: he was so finicky that he didn’t want to eat children who were not extremely pretty. The mother of the child who had been destined to this fate suddenly left death’s horrors and found life’s sweetness once again. They instructed her to dress the little prince as she would have her own son. She combed his long hair, made him a crown of little pink and white roses, which ordinarily grow on bushes, and put on him a dress167 with a trail of fine white linen and a sash made of flowers. Dressed this way he was made to walk at the head of several children who were to accompany him. But what can I say of the air of grandeur and nobility that already shone in his eyes? He, who had never seen anything but eagles and who was still at 166. The uncertainty of his birth and thus his lack of family mean that the boy’s sacrifice would not create warring conflict within the group, which is essential in finding the scapegoat. For a theory of the scapegoat, see René Girard, The Scapegoat (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). 167. According to Philippe Ariès, boys wore long dresses until the age of seven. See L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Seuil, 1973), 75–89.

Princess Little Carp 111 such a tender age, appeared neither fearful nor savage. It seemed that the shepherds were there just to please him. “Ah, what a pity!” they said to each other. “This child is going to be devoured! If only we could save him!” Several of them wept, but in the end, it was impossible to do anything else. The centaur was accustomed to appearing at the top of a rock, his club in one hand, his shield in the other, and from there, he would cry out to the shepherds: “Leave me my prey and draw back.” As soon as he saw the child they were bringing him, he displayed great joy and, laughing so loudly the mountains trembled, he said in a frightful voice: “This is the best meal I’ve ever had. I need neither salt nor pepper to gobble up this little boy.” The shepherds and shepherdesses cast their eyes on the poor child and said to each other: “The eagle spared him, which is a wonder, but now the monster is going to end his days.” The oldest shepherd took him into his arms and kissed him several times. “O my child, my dear child,” he said, “I don’t know you at all, but I feel I’ve already seen you a great deal! Must I be present at your funeral? What was Fortune doing, keeping you safe from the sharp talons and the hooked beak of the terrible eagle, if she was going to deliver you today to the carnivorous tooth of this horrible monster?” While the shepherd was wetting the prince’s rosy cheeks with tears from his eyes, this tender innocent boy put his hands through the man’s grey hair and smiled at him with his childish air. The more pity he inspired in the old man, the less eager he was to step forward. “Hurry,” cried the famished centaur. “If you make me come down, if I have to come before you, I will devour more than a hundred children.” Indeed, impatience seized him and he rose swinging his club round and round, when a great ball of fire suddenly appeared in the heavens, surrounded by an azure cloud. Everyone stared at this extraordinary spectacle, as the cloud and the ball came lower, little by little, and opened. A diamond chariot, drawn by swans, immediately emerged, holding one of the most beautiful ladies in the world.168 On her head there was a helmet of pure gold, 168. This spectacular sort of descent, which will reveal wondrous beings, recurs in seventeenth-century opera (also called tragédie en musique), such as those of Jean-Baptiste Lully (1633–1687) and of Philippe Quinault (1635–1688) (see his Atys [1676] for instance), and

112 Princess Little Carp covered in white feathers; the visor was up and her eyes shone like the sun. That her body was covered in rich armor and her hand was armed with a spear in flames confirmed she was an Amazon.169 “Shepherds!” she cried. “Do you have the inhumanity to give a child such as this to the cruel centaur? It is time to free you from your vow: justice and reason oppose such barbarous customs. Do not fear the ogres’ return. I guarantee your safety. I am an Amazon fairy. From this moment on, I take you under my protection.” “Ah, Madam!” the shepherds and shepherdesses cried, holding out their hands to her. “This is the greatest happiness that could befall us.” They could say no more, because the furious centaur challenged her to combat. He was rough and determined, but the fiery spear burned him everywhere it touched, and he uttered horrible screams that ended only with his life. He fell, scorched to the core. You would have thought a mountain had toppled over, so great was the noise when he fell. The frightened shepherds had hidden, some in the nearby forest, others in the hollows of rocks, from which they could see everything without being seen. It was there that the wise shepherd who held the prince in his arms had taken refuge, far more worried about what might befall this lovable child than about himself and his family, although it did merit consideration. After the centaur’s death, the Amazon fairy took a trumpet, which she blew so melodiously that invalids who heard it includes the appearance of Amazons. We thank Desmond Hosford for this reference. See later in this tale for other aspects that recall operatic features of the period. 169. The Amazon is a recurrent figure in this period, used, for instance, to describe the female warriors during the civil war of the Fronde (1648–1653), notably Mademoiselle de Montpensier, Louis XIV’s cousin (see Micheline Cuénin, “Mademoiselle, une Amazone impure?,” Papers in French Seventeenth-Century Literature 42 (1995): 25ff. The Amazon is also deployed during the regency of Anne of Austria (1601–1666); see Pierre Le Moyne, La femme forte (1647). By the end of the century, however, at a time of political and religious repressiveness, Gabrielle Suchon exhibits both a desire to invoke the Amazon as a model for women, but also a fear of advocating warring female rebelliousness See Domna C. Stanton and Rebecca M. Wilkin, eds. Gabrielle Suchon: “A Woman who Defends all the Persons of her Sex”: Selected Philosophical and Moral Writings, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010). See especially Suchon’s Treatise on Ethics and Politics, the general preface; Book III: foreword; chapter 10 and chapter 11.

Princess Little Carp 113 arose full of health, and the others felt a secret joy for reasons they could not express. Finally, at the harmonious sounds of the trumpet, shepherds and shepherdesses reassembled. When the Amazon fairy saw them, she went towards them in her diamond chariot, to reassure them completely, and lowering it bit by bit, she brought it to a stop three feet above the ground. It rolled on a cloud so clear it seemed to be made of crystal. The old shepherd, whom they called Sublime, appeared with the little prince clasped around his neck. “Approach, Sublime,” the fairy cried to him, “fear no more. I want peace to reign here in the future, and for you to enjoy the tranquility you seek. But give me this poor child; his adventures are already so remarkable.” The old man bowed deeply, lifted his arms and put the child into hers. Once she had him, she gave him a thousand caresses, kissed him, sat him on her knees and spoke to him. However, she knew that he understood no language, and that he did not talk. He made cries of joy or pain, and he let out sighs and inarticulate sounds because he had never heard anyone speak. Yet, he was utterly dazzled by the shining weapons of the Amazon fairy. He got up on her knees to reach her and to touch her helmet. The fairy smiled at him and said, as if he could understand: “When you are fit to carry arms, my son, I will not let you lack for any.” After she had caressed him still more, she returned him to Sublime. “Wise old man,” she said, “you are not unknown to me, but take to heart the care you give this child. Teach him to scorn worldly grandeur and to put himself above the blows of Fortune.170 Perhaps he was born to have a brilliant fortune, but I hold that he will be happier if he is wise than if he is powerful. The felicity of man must not consist in external greatness. To be happy, you must be wise, and to be wise, you must know yourself,171 know how to limit your desires and to be as content in the middling path as in opulence, to seek out the respect 170. These are teachings for the Stoic sage, along with the principles outlined below—limitation of desires, satisfaction with a middling path, and readiness to accept death. The notions are part and parcel of the code for heroism from the Renaissance to about 1650. 171. This is the principal ethical principle of Socrates outlined in the dialogues of Plato (427?–347 BCE).

114 Princess Little Carp of people of merit, have contempt for no one, and always be ready to leave without sorrow the possessions of this miserable life. But what am I saying, venerable shepherd? I tell you things you know better than I, but it is also true that I say them less for your benefit than for the other shepherds who are listening to me. Farewell, shepherds, farewell, shepherdesses, call me in a time of need. This same spear and this same hand that have just killed the Blue Centaur will always be ready to protect you.” Sublime and all those who were with him were as confused as they were enraptured. They could make no reply to the kind words of the Amazon fairy, in the troubled and joyous state they were in. They bowed down humbly before her, and while they were prone, the globe of fire rose gently to the middle region of the atmosphere and disappeared with the Amazon and the chariot. The frightened shepherds didn’t dare approach the centaur at first. Dead though he was, they were still afraid of him. But finally, little by little, they steeled themselves and decided to make a great pyre and reduce him to ashes, for they feared that his brothers, informed of what had happened to him, would come to avenge his death on them. This seemed a good plan: they lost no time and thus delivered themselves of the odious corpse. Sublime took the little prince into his cabin. His wife was ailing, and his two daughters had been unable to leave her to attend the ceremony. “Look, shepherdess,” he said to his wife, “here is a child cherished by the gods and protected by an Amazon fairy. We must consider him as our son from now on and give him an education that will make him happy.” The shepherdess was delighted with the gift he had brought her and took the prince on her bed. “At least if I cannot give him the great lessons he will receive from you,” she said, “I will raise him and cherish him as my own son.” “That is what I ask of you,” said the old man, and thereupon he gave him to her. His two daughters ran to see the child and were captivated by his incomparable beauty and all the graceful aspects of his little person. From that moment on, they began to teach him their language. Never was there such a fine and lively mind! He understood the most difficult things with an ease that astonished the shepherds.

Princess Little Carp 115 Soon he had made enough progress to take instruction only from Sublime.172 This wise old man was prepared to give him excellent lessons because he had been king of a beautiful and flourishing kingdom. But a usurper, his neighbor and enemy, had successfully conducted secret intrigues and won over certain troublemakers, who rose up and furnished him the means of taking the king and all his family by surprise. At the same time, this usurper had Sublime and his family locked up in a fortress to let them die of want. Such a strange change in their fortunes had no effect on the virtue of the king and queen. They endured the offenses the tyrant committed against them with constancy, and the queen, who was with child when this disgrace occurred, gave birth to a girl she wanted to nurse herself. She had two other charming girls who shared her troubles as much as their age allowed. At long last, after three years, the king won over one of his guards, who agreed to bring a small boat so that he could cross the lake in the middle of which stood the fortress where he was being held. The guard gave them files to whittle down the steel bars of their rooms, as well as ropes to climb down. They chose a very dark night. Everything went well and without a sound, and the guard helped them slide down the walls, which were of frightening height. The king went down first, then his two daughters, afterwards the queen, and then the little princess in a big basket. But alas, the basket had been badly attached, and all of a sudden they heard it fall to the bottom of the lake. If the queen had not fainted from sorrow, she would have awakened the whole garrison with her moans and cries. The king, cut to the quick by this accident, searched as much as possible in the dark of night. He even found the basket and hoped the princess would be in it, but she was no longer there. Then he began rowing to save himself and the rest of his family. At the shore they found the horses that the guard had brought, ready to take the king wherever he wanted to go. While they were in prison, the king and queen had a great deal of time to reflect and had realized that grand possessions in life are truly petty when you assess their real value. That realization, to172. As is frequently the case in fairy tales of this period, the young prince displays signs of noble birth, here “incomparable beauty” and a “lively mind.”

116 Princess Little Carp gether with the new misfortune that had just befallen them by the loss of their daughter, made them decide not to take refuge with neighboring kings who were their allies, but for whom they might be a burden. Setting their own course, they decided to settle in a fertile plain, the most agreeable of any they could have chosen. In this place, the king exchanged his scepter for a staff, bought a large flock, and became a shepherd. They built a small rustic house, sheltered on one side by the mountains and bounded on the other by a fish-laden stream. Here, they felt more tranquil than they had been on the throne. No one envied their poverty, they feared neither traitors nor flatterers, and their days passed without troubles; the king often said, “Ah, if men could cure themselves of ambition, how happy they would be! I was king, now I am a shepherd, and I prefer my cabin to the palace where I reigned.”173 It was under this great philosopher that the young prince studied. He did not know the station of his master, and the master did not know the birth of his disciple, but he saw in him such noble inclinations he could not regard him as an ordinary child.174 He noticed with pleasure that he almost always set himself at the head of his companions, with an air of superiority that drew their respect. He was constantly forming little armies, building forts and attacking them, and he went hunting and faced the greatest perils, no matter how the shepherd reproached him. All these things persuaded the prince that he was born to command. But while he is growing up and until he reaches the age of fifteen, we will return to the court of his father, the king. 173. The return to the land, away from the opulence of court and city life, is a dominant theme in reform literature of the end of the seventeenth century, e.g., in the work of François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715). On this agrarian reform, see Lionel Rothkrug, Opposition to Louis XIV (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965). This topos is also found in several other fairy tales of the period, including d’Aulnoy’s Wily Cinder and Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved; it is an aspect of what Norbert Elias terms “aristocratic romanticism,” an idealized vision of peasant life for nobles looking to escape changing social circumstances (The Court Society, trans. Edmund Jephcott [Oxford: Blackwell, 1983], 214–67). See Seifert, Fairy Tales, 75. 174. The mystery surrounding the protagonists’ identity is a topos of pastoral and heroic novels that d’Aulnoy uses in several other fairy tales, including Wily Cinder and Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved.

Princess Little Carp 117 Prince Hunchback saw that the king was already very old, and he had virtually no respect for him. He was growing impatient at having to wait so long for his inheritance. To console himself, he asked his father for an army so that he could conquer a kingdom quite near his own, whose fickle people welcomed him with open arms. The king was willing, on condition that before the prince left he would be witness to an act that he wanted the lords of his kingdom to sign, stating that if his youngest son ever came back, and they could be assured it was he, especially if they found the mark of an arrow on his arm, he would be sole heir to the crown. Hunchback not only wished to attend the ceremony, he also wanted to sign the act, though his father thought it very awkward to demand it of him. But since he felt certain of his brother’s death, he risked nothing, and he intended to make the most of this sign of his compliance. The king thus assembled the estates, addressed them, shed many tears in speaking of the loss of his son, touched all those who heard him, and after signing and having the most notable among them sign, he decreed that several original copies should be made as a reminder and that the act should be housed in the royal treasury. Then Prince Hunchback took his leave to head a strong army and attempt the conquest of the kingdom he had been invited to vanquish. After several battles, he killed the enemy with his own hands, took the capital city, left garrisons and governors everywhere, and went back to his father, to whom he presented a young princess named Little Carp,175 whom he had taken captive. She was extraordinarily beautiful and everything that nature had formed until that time and everything that the imagination could picture did not come close to her. When he saw Little Carp, the king was captivated, and Hunchback, who had seen her much longer, had fallen so deeply in love he didn’t have a moment’s rest. But she hated him as much as he loved her. Since he never spoke to her in any way other than as her master, and always reminded her she was his slave, her heart was so opposed to his harsh ways that she took every measure to avoid him. 175. According to Furetière’s dictionary, carpillon has the same meaning as carpeau or little carp. La Fontaine uses these terms in his fable, “The Little Fish and the Fisherman” (The Complete Fables, Bk. V, no. 3).

118 Princess Little Carp The king had given her an apartment in his palace and women to serve her. He was touched by the misfortunes of such a beautiful, young princess and, when Hunchback told him he wanted to marry her, he responded: “I consent, on condition that she has no aversion to the marriage, but she seems to me more melancholy when you are near her.” “That’s because she loves me,” said Hunchback, “and she doesn’t dare let it be known. The constraint she is under troubles her, but as soon as she is my wife, you will see her happiness.” “I would like to believe it,” said the king, “but aren’t you flattering yourself?” Hunchback felt very offended by his father’s doubts. “You are the reason, Madam,” he said to the princess, “that the king shows a harshness in his conduct that’s unusual for him. Perhaps he loves you. Tell me sincerely, and choose which one of us appeals to you more. As long as I see you reign, I will be satisfied.” He spoke this way to discern her feelings because he had no intention of altering his own. Young Little Carp, who did not yet know that most lovers are cunning and dissembling animals,176 fell into the trap: “I admit to you, my lord, that if it were up to me, I would choose neither the king nor you, but if bad fortune subjects me to such a hard necessity, I prefer the king.” “But why?” asked Hunchback, trying to restrain himself. “He is gentler than you, he reigns now, and perhaps he will live a shorter time than you.” “Ah! You little scoundrel!” cried Hunchback. “You want my father so you can be dowager queen shortly. You will assuredly not have him. He isn’t thinking of you one whit. I am the one who feels that benevolence, I dare say, a kindness misspent, for you are at bottom intolerably ungrateful. But even if you were a hundred times more ungrateful, you would still be my wife.” Princess Little Carp realized a little too late that it’s sometimes dangerous to say everything one thinks. To repair the situation she had just created, she said: “I wanted to plumb your feelings. I am very pleased that you love me enough to resist the harshness I have affected. I respect you already, my lord, so strive to make yourself loved.” 176. The gender of “lovers” (amants in French) makes it clear that d’Aulnoy has men in mind.

Princess Little Carp 119 The prince fell smack into the trap, as vicious as he was: ordinarily we are very foolish when we are very much in love, and we have a tendency, which is hard to correct, to fool ourselves. Little Carp’s words made him more gentle than a lamb; he smiled and pressed her hands, but hard enough to bruise them. As soon as he had left her, she ran to the king’s apartment and threw herself at his feet. “Save me, my lord, from the greatest of misfortunes,” she said. “Prince Hunchback wants to marry me. I confess that he is odious to me; don’t be as unjust as he is. My station, my youth, and the misfortunes of my family warrant the pity of a king as great as you.” “Beautiful princess,” he said to her, “I am not surprised that my son loves you. It is decreed to all who see you, but I will never forgive him for lacking the respect he owes you.” “Ah! My Lord,” she replied, “he considers me his prisoner and treats me like a slave.” “It is with my army that he defeated the man who vanquished the king, your father. If you are a captive, you are my captive, and I grant you your freedom, happy that my advanced age and white hair protect me from being your slave.” The grateful princess thanked him a thousand times and withdrew with her ladies. Meanwhile, Hunchback had learned what had just happened and resented it terribly. His rage grew greater still when the king forbade him to think of the princess as his future wife until he had rendered her so many important services that she could not help but wish him well. “I will have to work my whole life, then, perhaps in vain,” he said. “And I don’t like to waste my time.” “I am sorry for your sake,” said the king, “but it will not be otherwise.” “We shall see,” Hunchback said insolently as he left the room. “You order that my prisoner be taken away from me. But I would rather lose my life.” “The one you call your prisoner was mine,” the king added, irritated, “and she is free at present; I wish to make her mistress of her own destiny, without making her rely on your whims.”

120 Princess Little Carp Such a heated conversation would have gone on if Hunchback had not chosen to leave the room. At that moment, he conceived the desire to become master of both the kingdom and the princess. He had ingratiated himself with the troops when they were under his command, and seditious minds eagerly supported his evil plans. The king was warned that his son was trying to dethrone him, and since Hunchback was the stronger of the two, he had no choice but to adopt a policy of gentleness. He sent for his son and said, “Is it possible that you are so ungrateful you want to seize my throne and put yourself on it? You see that I am at death’s door; don’t hasten the end of my life. Haven’t I had enough grief with the death of my wife and the loss of my son? It is true that I oppose your plans for Princess Little Carp. I was thinking of you as much as of her in this matter: can we be happy with someone who doesn’t love us?177 But since you want to run the risk, I consent to everything. Give me time to talk to her and to prevail upon her to accept this marriage.” Hunchback wanted the princess more than the kingdom, for he was already enjoying the one he had conquered. So he told the king he was not as eager to reign as he thought, since he had signed the act that would disinherit him if his brother came back. He would contain himself and respect his father’s authority, so long as he married Little Carp. The king embraced him and went to find the poor princess, who was greatly alarmed about what would be decided. She still had her governess with her, and had her come into her dressing room. “Can it be possible,” she said, crying bitterly, “that after all the promises the king gave me, he has the cruelty to sacrifice me to that hunchback? If I have to marry him, my dearest, my wedding day will certainly be the last day of my life. It isn’t so much the deformity of his person that I dislike as the bad qualities of his heart.” “Alas, my princess,” replied the governess, “you are surely unaware that the daughters of the greatest kings are still victims, whose inclinations are never consulted. If they marry an attractive and benevolent prince, they can thank chance. But between one ape and another, what difference is there since kings only think of the interests of the state?” 177. This is a decidedly unconventional attitude for a seventeenth-century king or aristocrat. On marriages during this period, see Prince Rosebush, n21, in this volume.

Princess Little Carp 121 Little Carp was about to reply when she was told that the king awaited her in his chamber. She raised her eyes to heaven to ask for help. Once she saw the king, he did not have to explain what he had just decided. She understood well enough: she had an admirable sense of intuition and the beauty of her mind surpassed even that of her person. “Ah, Sire!” she cried, “what are you going to tell me?” “Beautiful princess,” he said, “do not consider your marriage to my son a misfortune. I beg you to consent to it freely. The lack of respect he has for your feelings reveals the ardor of his own. If he did not love you, he would have found more than one princess who would have been thrilled to share the kingdom he already has and the one he will have after my death. But he wants no one but you. Your disdain and your scorn have not been able to repel him, and you must believe he will never spare anything to please you.” “I fooled myself when I thought I had found a protector in you,” she answered, “but my hopes are dashed. You abandon me, but the just gods will not.” “If you knew all that I have done to save you from this marriage,” he added, “you would be convinced of my friendship for you. Alas, heaven gave me a son I loved dearly. When his mother was nursing him one night, some people came and stole him from his crib, and they put a cat in his place that bit her so cruelly she died. If that beautiful child had not been stolen from me, he would now be the consolation of my old age. My subjects would fear him, and I would have offered my kingdom and him to you. Hunchback, who now acts like the master, would have been lucky if they had even tolerated him at court. I lost this handsome son, princess, and that misfortune extends even to you.” “It is my fault that happened,” she replied, “and the prince’s life would have been of great benefit to me. I caused his death, Sire, so consider me guilty, and think of punishing me rather than of marrying me off.”178 “You were in no condition to do either good or ill to anyone at the time, beautiful princess,” said the king. “I do not blame you for 178. The princess’s logic is somewhat torturous, but she is trying to avoid marriage to the hated Hunchback.

122 Princess Little Carp my misfortunes. But if you do not wish to add to them, prepare to receive my son, because he has become the most powerful man here, and he could harm you greatly.” She replied only with tears. The king left her, and as Hunchback was impatient to know what had happened, the king went to find him in his chamber and told him that Princess Little Carp consented to the marriage and that he would give the necessary orders for the solemn ceremony. The prince was overcome with joy. He thanked the king and immediately sent for all sorts of stonecutters, merchants, and embroiderers. He bought the most beautiful things in the world for his mistress and sent her large baskets of gold filled with a thousand rare objects. She received them with some semblance of joy. Then he came to see her and said, “It was wretched of you, wasn’t it, Madam Little Carp, to refuse the honor I wished to pay you? Leaving aside the fact that I am quite attractive, people find that I have great wit. Besides, I will give you so many clothes, diamonds, and beautiful things there will be no queen in the world like you.” The princess replied coldly that the misfortunes of her family did not permit her to adorn herself as much as other women, and she begged him not to give her such grand presents. “You would be right not to put on your fineries if I didn’t give you permission to do so,” he said to her, “but you must think of captivating me. Everything will be ready for our wedding in four days. Amuse yourself, princess, and give all the orders you want in this palace, since you are already its absolute mistress.” After he had left her, she shut herself up with her governess and told her that she could either provide her with the means to escape or with those to kill herself on the day of her wedding. After the governess had explained to her the impossibility of running away, and the error of killing oneself to avoid life’s ordeals, she tried to persuade her that her virtue could contribute to finding peace of mind and that, without being madly in love with Hunchback, she could still respect him enough to be content with him. Little Carp did not give in to any of her admonitions. She told her governess that she had counted on her up until then, but that she knew what she had to do, and that even if everyone else failed her, she would not fail herself, and that great wrongs required great remedies.

Princess Little Carp 123 After that, she opened the window and, from time to time, looked out without saying a word. Her governess, who was afraid she might yearn to throw herself out, fell to her knees and, looking at her tenderly, said, “Ah, Madam, what do you want me to do? I will obey you, even if it costs me my life.” The princess embraced her and asked her to buy a cow and the clothing of a shepherdess. She said she would escape wherever she could and that the governess shouldn’t try to convince her otherwise because it was a waste of time, which she didn’t have. She said that what she also needed in order to get away was for the governess to dress a doll, put it in her bed, and say that Little Carp was indisposed. “You see, Madam,” the poor governess said, “ to what harm I will expose myself. Prince Hunchback will have no reason to doubt that I assisted with your plan. He will make me suffer a thousand ills to learn where you are, and then he will have me burnt or skinned alive. Given all that, you can’t say I don’t love you.” The princess was very troubled. “I want you to escape two days after I do,” she said. “It will be easy to fool everyone until then.” They carried out their plot so well that Little Carp had a costume and a cow that very night. The goddesses who descended from the height of Olympus, those who went to find the shepherd Paris and a hundred dozen others,179 would have seemed less beautiful than the princess in her rustic clothing. She left alone by the light of the moon, sometimes leading her cow on a rope and sometimes letting the cow carry her. But she faced this adventure scared to death, and if the slightest breeze rustled the bushes, if a bird left its nest or a hare its lair, she thought that thieves or wolves were going to end her life. She walked all night and wanted to walk all day, but her cow stopped to graze in a prairie, and the princess, tired because of her heavy clogs and the weight of her gray sackcloth dress, lay down on the grass beside a stream and took off her yellow linen mobcap to tie her blond hair, which kept tumbling in curls down to her feet. She looked to make sure no one could see her, ready to hide her curls 179. According to myth, the goddesses Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite solicited the judgment of Paris to determine which one of them was the fairest. Here, d’Aulnoy sets the scene within the tropes of the pastoral novel. See the Editors’ Introduction, 22.

124 Princess Little Carp quickly, but in spite of her precautions, she was suddenly surprised by a lady, who was armed completely, except for her head: she had taken off her helmet of gold covered in diamonds. “Shepherdess,” she said. “I am weary. Would you draw some milk from your cow so I can quench my thirst?”180 “Very gladly, Madam,” replied Little Carp, “if I had something to put the milk in.” “Here is a cup,” said the female warrior, who gave her a beautiful porcelain object. But the poor princess didn’t know how to go about milking the cow. “What is it?” said this lady. “Your cow has no milk? Or don’t you know what to do?” The princess began to cry, ashamed to appear clumsy before such an extraordinary person. “I admit to you, Madam,” she said, “I’ve only been a shepherdess a short time. All I am asked to do is to lead my cow to pasture. My mother does the rest.” “Your mother is with you, then?” continued the lady. “And what does she do?” “She is a farmer,” said Little Carp. “Close by?” asked the lady. “Yes,” replied the princess. “ I truly feel affection for her, and I am grateful to her for having given birth to such a beautiful girl. I want to see her; lead me to her.” Little Carp didn’t know what to say. She was not accustomed to lying and she didn’t know she was talking to a fairy, for fairies in those days were not as common as they have since become.181 She lowered her eyes and her face blushed brightly. Finally she said, “Once I leave the house for the fields, I don’t dare go home until evening. I beg you, Madam, do not force me to anger my mother, who might perhaps mistreat me if I did anything other than what she wants.” 180. This scene, a test of the protagonist’s (social and/or ethical) being, is frequent in folkand fairy tales; it is a central feature of Perrault’s The Fairies (1697) and L’Héritier’s The Enchantements of Eloquence (1696), both versions of the folkloric tale type ATU 480. Unlike those tales, however, the test here reveals the heroine’s innate goodness less than her need for the Amazon fairy. D’Aulnoy is also poking fun at the heroine’s pastoral disguise. 181. D’Aulnoy humorously evokes the popularity of fairy tales, which she did so much to create.

Princess Little Carp 125 “Ah, princess, princess,” said the fairy, smiling, “you cannot keep a lie going or play the role you’ve chosen unless I help you. Here, take this bouquet of wallflowers. You can be certain that so long as you hold it, Hunchback will not recognize you. Remember, when you get to the big forest, ask the shepherds who lead their flocks to tell you where Sublime lives. Go there and tell him you’ve come on behalf of the Amazon fairy, who asks him to put you up with his wife and daughters. Farewell, beautiful Little Carp, I have been your friend for a long time.” “Alas, Madam,” the princess cried, “do you abandon me, though you know me and love me and I have great need of assistance?” “The bouquet of wallflowers will not fail you,” she replied. “My moments are precious and I must let you fulfill your destiny.” After these words, she disappeared from view, and Little Carp was so afraid she thought she would die. Still, she felt a bit reassured and continued on her way, not knowing where the great forest was. But she said to herself: “This clever fairy, who appears and disappears, who knows me although I am dressed like a peasant and although she has never seen me, will surely lead me where she wants me to go.” So she held on to her bouquet, whether she walked or stopped. However, she barely advanced, for her refined manners were no help to her courage. When she stumbled on stones, she would fall, her feet would bleed, and she would have to lie down under the shelter of trees. She feared everything and often thought of her governess with concern. It was not without reason that she thought of this poor woman. For there are few examples to match that woman’s loyalty and zeal. She had dressed a large doll with the princess’s mobcap, hair ribbons, and fine linen. She went around her chamber very quietly, for fear of disturbing her, she said, and when anyone made a noise, she would scold them. People hurried to tell the king that the princess was indisposed. This did not surprise him. He attributed the cause to her displeasure and to the violence she was doing to her feelings. But when Prince Hunchback heard the news, he felt inconceivable sorrow. He insisted on seeing her, and the governess had great difficulty stopping him. “But at least let my doctor see her,” he said.

126 Princess Little Carp “Oh, my lord!” she cried. “That’s all it would take to kill her. She hates doctors and medicines. But don’t be alarmed. She needs only a few days of rest. It’s a migraine; it will pass as she sleeps.” She did get his word that he would not disturb her mistress, and she left the doll in the bed. But one evening, as she was preparing to escape, since she knew that the impatient prince would make new attempts to enter, she heard him at the door in a fury, trying to break it down without waiting for her to open it. What had driven the prince to such violence was that the princess’s ladies had become aware of the deception and, afraid of being badly treated, they had promptly gone to tell Prince Hunchback. His extreme anger cannot be described. He ran to the king, thinking he had played some part, but by the look of surprise on his face, he realized the king had known nothing. But as soon as the poor governess appeared, he threw himself on her. Grabbing her by the hair, he said, “Give Little Carpie back to me or I will tear your heart out.” She replied only with tears, and throwing herself to her knees, she begged in vain for him to hear her out. He dragged her off to the depths of a dungeon, where he would have stabbed her a thousand times if the king, who was as good as his son was evil, had not forced him to let her live in this horrible prison. The prince, in love and violent, gave the order that the princess should be pursued over land and sea. He left too and went rushing every which way like a madman. One day, when Little Carp had taken shelter under a rocky outcrop with her cow because the weather was frightful and the thunder, the lightning, and the hail made her tremble, Prince Hunchback, who was soaked to the skin, along with those who accompanied him, sought refuge under the same rocky ledge. When she saw him next to her, alas, he terrified her far more than the thunder. She took the bouquet of wallflowers in her two hands, so afraid was she that one would not suffice, and remembering the fairy, she said, “Do not abandon me, charming Amazon.” Hunchback cast his eyes on her. “What can you fear, you decrepit old woman?” he said. “If the thunder were to kill you, what harm would it do? Aren’t you at the foot of your grave?” The young princess was no less delighted than surprised to hear herself called old. “Without a doubt,” she said, “my little bouquet

Princess Little Carp 127 is working this miracle.” And in order not to enter into conversation, she pretended to be deaf. Seeing she could not hear him, Hunchback said to his confidant, who never left his side, “If my heart were more joyous, I would make this old woman go to the top of these rocks and I would push her over for the sheer pleasure of seeing her break her neck; there is nothing I would find more pleasant.” “But my lord,” replied the wretch, “if it would make you happy, I’ll take her, willingly or by force, and you’ll see her body bounce like a ball on all the rocky points, and the blood will run down to you.” “No,” said the prince, “I don’t have time for that. I must keep looking for the ingrate who makes my life so miserable.” With these words, he spurred his horse and galloped off at full speed. We can surely imagine the princess’s happiness, since the conversation he had just had with his confidant was quite enough to alarm her. However, she did not forget to thank the Amazon fairy, whose power she had now experienced, and continued on her journey. She arrived on the plain where the country’s shepherds had built their little houses. They were very pretty, and each shepherd had his own garden and fountain. There was nothing more refined in the Valley of Tempé and the shores of the Lignon.182 By and large, the shepherdesses were beautiful, and the shepherds forgot nothing that might please them. All the trees were carved with a thousand different initials and lovers’ verses.183 When Princess Little Carp appeared, they left their herds and followed her respectfully, inclined in her favor by her beauty and her extraordinary air of majesty. But they were surprised by the shabbiness of her clothes, for though they led a simple and rustic life, still they prided themselves on being kempt and proper.184

182. The valley of Tempé, in the north of Thessaly, is consecrated to Apollo, and was often cited in ancient works of poetry. In fact, it is the setting for the festivals in Molière’s The Magnificent Lovers (1670). The Lignon is the river that irrigates the Forez, the bucolic setting of the pastoral novel, L’Astrée (1607–1628), by Honoré d’Urfé: its themes, characters, and landscape became topoi in seventeenth-century literature. 183. The interlaced initials of lovers is a trope that recurs in L’Astrée and other pastoral works. 184. As in L’Astrée, shepherds and shepherdesses look—and behave—like members of the French upper classes.

128 Princess Little Carp The princess asked them to show her the house of the shepherd, Sublime, and they hastened to take her there. She found him sitting in a vale with his wife and daughters. A small stream ran at their feet and murmured softly. He was holding some water reeds, which he was skillfully working into a basket for fruit. His wife was spinning and his daughters were fishing with poles.185 As Little Carp approached them, she was moved by feelings of respect and tenderness that surprised her, and when they saw her, they too were so moved they changed color several times. “I am a poor shepherdess,” she said, greeting them humbly. “I come to offer my services on behalf of the Amazon fairy, whom you know. I hope that out of regard for her, you will kindly receive me in your home.” “My girl,” the king said, rising and greeting her in turn, “this great fairy is right to believe that we honor her completely. You are most welcome, and even if you had no other recommendation than the one you bring with you, our house would be open to you.”186 “Come closer, beautiful girl,” said the queen, stretching out her hand, “come let me embrace you. I feel full of good will toward you. I want you to think of me as your mother and my daughters as your sisters.” “Alas, my good mother,” said the princess, “I do not deserve this honor. It is enough for me to be your shepherdess and to keep your flock.” “My girl,” the king replied, “we are all equal here. You come from too fine a person for us to make any distinctions between you and our children. Come sit next to us and let your cow graze with our sheep.” She made some objection, insisting again that she had come only to do housework. But she would have been in some difficulty if they had taken her at her word. In truth, to see her was to realize she was made to command more than to obey; it was also likely that a 185. This idyllic setting is a locus amoenus of pastoral tranquility. 186. Thus the various threads of the tale draw together, bringing the mystery of the shepherd prince and the shepherdess princess together with the enigma of their lost parents. It has been argued that the trope of the abandoned child who must find his or her identity and place in society is fundamental to the structure of the novel; see Marthe Robert, Origins and the Novel, trans. Sacha Rabinovitch (Brighton, Sussex: Harvester, 1980).

Princess Little Carp 129 fairy as important as the Amazon would not have protected an ordinary person. The king and queen kept looking at her with a mixture of surprise and admiration that was difficult to understand. They asked her if she came from far, and she said yes; whether she had a mother and father, she said no; and to all their questions she would reply only in monosyllables, as much as respect allowed. “And what is your name, my child?” asked the queen. “They call me Little Carp,” she said. “The name is unusual,” replied the king. “Unless some adventure accounts for it, it is strange to have such a name.” She made no reply but took one of the queen’s spindles to unwind the threads.187 When she showed her hands, they were so dazzling it was like taking two confected snowballs out of her sleeves. The king and queen gave each other a knowing look and said, “Your clothes are too warm for the weather we are having, Little Carp, and your clogs are too hard for a young child like you. You must dress the way we do.” “My mother,” she replied, “I am dressed the way we are in my country, but as soon as it pleases you to order it, I will dress differently.” They admired her obedience, and especially the air of modesty188 that appeared on her face and in her beautiful eyes. Suppertime had come, so they rose and went into the house together. The two princesses had caught some fine little fish. There were fresh eggs, milk, and fruit. “I am surprised,” said the king, “that my son has not come home yet. His passion for hunting takes him farther than I like, and I always fear some accident will befall him.” “I fear it as you do,” said the queen, “but if you agree, we will wait so he can take supper with us.” 187. In seventeenth-century literature, the spindle is the emblem of proper female work and female speech, which should be—as it is here—discreet and reticent. On the role of the spindle in fairy tales, see Geneviève Patard, “De la quenouille au fil de la plume: Histoire d’un féminisme à travers les contes du XVIIe siècle en France,” Tricentenaire Charles Perrault: Les grands contes du XVIIe siècle et leur fortune littéraire, ed. Jean Perrot (Paris: In Press, 1998), 235–43. 188. Obedience and modesty are among the chief qualities of femininity in conduct manuals of the period.

130 Princess Little Carp “No,” said the king, “we mustn’t do that. When he returns, I ask that no one talk to him, but instead, be very cold toward him.” “You know his natural goodness,” said the queen; “this attitude can cause him so much grief it will make him ill.” “I can do nothing about that,” the king said. “We have to correct him.” They sat down at table, and some time before they had finished, the young prince entered. He had a roebuck around his neck, his hair was soaked with sweat, and his face was covered in dust. He was leaning on a small spear he usually carried with him; his bow was attached on one side, his quiver full of arrows on the other. There was something so noble and so proud in his face and bearing no one could look at him without paying attention and respect. “My mother,” he said, speaking to the queen, “the desire to bring you this buck had me running over mountains and plains today.” “My son,” the king said gravely, “you worry us more than you please us. You know all I’ve said to you about your passion for hunting, but you do not have the desire to correct yourself.” The prince blushed, but what disturbed him even more was to see a person present who was not part of the family. He replied that the next time he would come home earlier, or that he would not go hunting at all, even if he wished to. “That’s enough,” said the queen, who loved him with real tenderness. “I thank you for the present you’ve given me, my son. Come sit next to me and have your supper, for I’m sure you don’t lack appetite.” He was disconcerted by the serious way in which the king had spoken to him, and he hardly dared raise his eyes, for even though he was intrepid in facing danger, he was gentle and shy with those to whom he owed respect. Nevertheless, he regained his composure. He seated himself opposite the queen and cast his eyes on Little Carp, who had not waited as long to look at him. As soon as their eyes met, their hearts were so moved they didn’t know to what they should attribute the feeling.189 189. The first look is the only contact necessary to establish passionate love in seventeenthcentury literature; the theme recurs in numerous works, including the novels of La Fayette

Princess Little Carp 131 The princess blushed and lowered her gaze, but the prince continued to look at her, and so she gently raised her eyes to his and held them there a longer time. They were both mutually surprised and thought that nothing in the world could equal what they beheld before them. “Is it possible,” the princess would later say to herself, “that of all the people I saw at court, not one of them comes close to this young shepherd?” “How is it,” he would think in turn, “that this marvelous girl is a simple shepherdess? Ah! If only I were a king, so I could put her on the throne and make her mistress of my states, as she would be of my heart!” He continued to daydream and stopped eating. The queen, who thought it was from the distress of being greeted with icy anger, showed him great affection. She brought him exquisite fruits he greatly liked. He asked Little Carp to taste some; she declined, and without thinking of the person who had given them to him, he said sadly, “I have no use for them, then,” and coolly left them on the table. The queen did not notice, but the eldest princess, who did not dislike him in any way190 and who would have loved him greatly were it not for the difference she believed existed between her station and his, noticed this with some resentment. After supper, the king and queen withdrew. The princesses normally did what there was to do in the household. One milked the cows, while the other went to get cheese. Little Carp hastened to follow their example and to work, but she was not accustomed to it. She didn’t do anything right, so the two princesses laughingly called her the beautiful bungler. But the prince, already in love, helped her. He went to the fountain with her, he carried her jugs, he drew the water, and he came back heavily laden because he didn’t want her ever to carry anything. “But what do you think you’re doing, shepherd?” she would say. “Must I play the damsel here? I who have worked my whole life have I come to this plain to rest?” and the plays of Racine. See Jean Rousset, Leurs yeux se rencontrèrent: La scène de première vue dans le roman (Paris: Corti, 1981). 190. This kind of understatement (or negative turn to express a positive feeling) typifies the style of La Fayette’s novels, especially The Princess of Clèves (1678).

132 Princess Little Carp “You’ll do whatever pleases you, beautiful shepherdess,” he told her. “But on such occasions, do not deny me the pleasure of accepting my feeble help.” They returned together more quickly than he would have liked, for even though he hardly dared speak to her, he was thrilled to be with her. They each spent an uneasy night, but due to their lack of experience, they did not guess the cause. The prince impatiently awaited the hour when he could see the shepherdess, but she was afraid of the moment she would see him again. This new agitation that the sight of him caused her distracted Little Carp from her other troubles. She thought of him so often she thought less about Prince Hunchback. “Why, strange Fortune,” she would ask to herself, “do you give such grace, good looks, and appeal to a young shepherd destined only to keep his flock, and so much malice, ugliness, and deformity to a great prince destined to rule a kingdom?” Little Carp had not been curious enough to look at herself since her metamorphosis from princess to shepherdess.191 But now a certain desire to be captivating made her look for a mirror. She found the princesses’ looking glass, and when she saw her hair and clothing, she was distressed. “What a face!” she cried. “Such a sight! It’s not possible for me to stay buried alive in this coarse cloth any longer.” She washed her face and hands with water, and they became whiter than lilies. Then she went to find the queen and knelt down beside her. She presented her with a beautiful diamond ring (for she had brought some jewels with her). “My good mother,” she said, “I found this ring some time ago. I don’t know its value, but I think it’s worth some money. I beg you to accept it as proof of my gratitude for the kindness you’ve shown me. I also ask you to buy me some clothes and linen, so that I may look like the shepherdesses of this country.” The queen was surprised to see such a beautiful ring on the young girl. “I want to keep it for you,” she said, “not to accept it. As for the rest, you shall have everything you need this morning.” And indeed, she sent someone to a country town not far away and had them bring back the loveliest peasant dress ever seen. The cap, the shoes—it was all complete. Dressed this way, she appeared more charming than 191. On metamorphosis, see Prince Rosebush, n33, in this volume.

Princess Little Carp 133 Aurora.192 The prince, for his part, had not neglected his appearance. He had put a string of flowers on his hat and decorated his shoulder sling, to which his knapsack was attached, and his staff with flowers as well. He brought Little Carp a bouquet and presented it to her with all the shyness of a lover. She accepted it with an embarrassed look, even though she showed great presence of mind. Yet, when she was with him, she barely spoke and was always daydreaming. He did the same for his part: when he went hunting, if he found a proper spot to think about charming Little Carp, he would suddenly stop, instead of chasing the does and bucks he came across, and remain in that solitary place, composing verses, singing couplets for his lovely shepherdess, and talking to the rocks, the woods, and the birds. He had lost the good humor that made all the shepherds seek him out. However, it is difficult to love a lot and not to fear the one we 193 love. He was so afraid of incurring the shepherdess’ anger by declaring what he felt for her that he didn’t dare speak. Although she noticed he preferred her to the other girls and although this preference should have assured her of his feelings, she was still at times troubled by his silence. At other times, however, it filled her with joy: “If it is true that he loves me,” she would say, “how could I accept such a declaration? If I got angry, I might make him die. But if I don’t get angry, I would have reason to die of shame and sorrow. What! I, born a princess, should listen to a shepherd? Ah! Weakness too unworthy of me!194 I will never consent to it. My heart must not change with my clothes, and I already have too many things to reproach myself for since I arrived here.” Now the prince’s voice had a thousand natural graces, and perhaps, even if he had sung less well, the princess, predisposed in his favor, would not have tired of hearing him. She often asked him to sing his little airs. He said everything in such a tender way, his tones were so touching, she could not bring herself to stop listening to him. 192. Aurora, the goddess of the morning, arises from the couch of her consort, Tithounus, and, drawn on a chariot, she ascends to heaven to announce the coming of the sun to gods and mortals. 193. On such sentences or maxims, see Prince Rosebush, n26, in this volume. 194. This consciousness of class differences and what a person of aristocratic or royal blood “owes herself ” recurs in seventeenth-century literature, even in this egalitarian, pastoral setting.

134 Princess Little Carp He had made up words that he repeated to her over and over, and she understood all too well they were about her. Here they are: Ah! If it were only possible For some other divinity To equal you in beauty, and offer me The world to make me care for her, I would think myself happy truly To scorn that gift, and give my vows to you only. Although she pretended not to pay more attention to these words than the others, she nonetheless felt a liking for them that pleased the prince. It inspired him to be a bit bolder. He went specially to the river bank, to a place shaded by willows and service trees, for he knew that Little Carp led her sheep there every day. He took a chisel and wrote on the bark of a shrubby tree: In this refuge in vain I see, with calm, pleasures reign; Can I find a moment’s peace? Where? For Cupid wrings sighs from me here. The princess came upon him as he finished carving these words. He feigned embarrassment, but after a few moments of silence, he said: “You see an unfortunate shepherd who offers laments to utterly unfeeling things for the sufferings he should offer only to you.” She did not answer him, but lowering her eyes, she gave him the time he needed to declare his feelings. As he spoke, she debated in her mind how to take the words she heard from someone no longer indifferent to her. She favored him, and so readily made excuses for him. “He does not know my birth,” she thought, “his temerity is excusable. He loves me and thinks that I am not above him. But even if he knew my station …The gods who are exalted, don’t they want the hearts of men? Are they angry that we love them?” “Shepherd,” she said to him when he had stopped speaking, “I pity you. That’s all I can say because I don’t want to love. I already have troubles enough. Alas! What would be my fate if, to crown my misfortunes, my days were troubled by an affair of the heart?” “Ah, shepherdess,” he cried, “say, rather, that if you have troubles, nothing could allay them better. I would share them all; my sole

Princess Little Carp 135 concern would be to please you, and you could leave the care of your flock to me.” “Ah, would that heaven gave me that worry alone!” “How could you have others?” he asked, eagerly. “Being so beautiful, so young, without ambition, and knowing nothing of the vain pomp of the court? But no doubt you love someone here; a rival makes you cold and heartless toward me.” Saying these words, he changed color and became sad, for the thought tormented him cruelly. “I will confess that you have a rival, but he is hated and abhorred,” she said. “You would never have met me without my need to flee his tyrannical pursuit.” “Perhaps, shepherdess,” he said, “you will flee from me in the same way, for if you hate him simply because he loves you, I am the most hateful of men where you’re concerned.” “Either I do not believe you or I look on you more favorably,” she said, “but I truly feel I would not go as far to get away from you as from him.” The shepherd was overcome with joy at these kind words, and from that day on, he took every care to please the princess! Each morning he would look for the most beautiful flowers to make garlands for her, he would decorate her staff with ribbons of a thousand different colors, and he would make sure she was not exposed to the sun. As soon as she came along the banks or in the woods with her flock, he would bend branches, tie them together, and make a covered nook for her where the grass formed natural seats. All the trees bore her initials, he carved verses on them that spoke purely of her beauty, and he sang solely of Little Carp.195 The young princess saw these proofs of the shepherd’s passion, sometimes with pleasure, sometimes with worry. She loved him without really knowing it. She didn’t even dare look within herself for fear of finding that her feelings were too tender. But when we have this fear, aren’t we already certain of what we fear? The young shepherd’s affection for the young shepherdess could not be kept secret. Everyone noticed and praised it. Who could 195. The shepherd thus exemplifies the ideal courtly lover, perhaps best illustrated in Western literature by Tristan, in contrast to the other dominant figure of the male lover, which is Don Juan. Heroic novels of the seventeenth century consistently delineate the courtly ideal.

136 Princess Little Carp have blamed him in a place where everything was love? People said that when you saw the two of them, both perfect, they seemed to have been born for each other, that it was a master work of the gods that Fortune had entrusted to their little country, and that everything had to be done to keep them there. Little Carp felt a secret joy when she heard people praise a shepherd she found so worthy, but when she would think about the difference in their stations, she would become sad. She intended not to make her true self known, so as to give her heart more freedom. The king and queen, who loved her enormously, were not displeased by this nascent love. They considered the prince their son, and the shepherdess’s perfections did not captivate them any less than he was captivated. “Wasn’t it the Amazon who sent her to us?” they would ask. “And wasn’t it she who came to fight the centaur in favor of the child? Without a doubt this wise fairy has destined them for each other. We’ll have to await her orders and follow them.” Things were in this state—the prince always complaining about Little Carp’s indifference because she carefully hid her feelings from him—when one day, as the prince was hunting, a raging bear, which he could not evade, suddenly came out of a cave. It threw itself on him and would have devoured him if his skill had not been as great as his valor. After fighting on the top of a mountain for a long time, they rolled together to the bottom. Little Carp had come to rest there with several of her companions. They couldn’t see what was happening up above, but what could they think when they saw a man who seemed to be rushing headlong with a bear? The princess immediately recognized her shepherd and cried out in fright and sorrow. The others shepherdesses fled, and she remained the sole spectator of this combat. She even dared to push the metal shaft of her staff forcefully into the terrible animal’s snout, and love, doubling her strength, gave her enough to help her beloved. When he saw her, the fear of making her share his peril increased his courage so greatly he no longer thought of his own life, as long as he could save hers. Indeed, he killed the bear almost at her feet but then fell half-dead from two wounds he had received. Ah! What happened to her when she saw his blood run and stain his clothes! She could not speak, but in an instant her face was covered in tears. She put her head on his knees, and breaking her

Princess Little Carp 137 silence suddenly, she declared: “Shepherd, if you die, I will die with you. In vain have I hidden my secret feelings from you. Know them, and know that my life is tied to yours.” “What greater good could I wish for, beautiful shepherdess?” he cried. “No matter what happens to me, my fate will always be happy.” The shepherdesses, who had run away, came back with several shepherds, to whom they recounted what they had just seen. They helped both the prince and princess, for she was as injured as he was. They were cutting some branches to make a sort of stretcher, when the Amazon fairy suddenly appeared among them. “Do not worry,” she said to them. “Let me touch the young shepherd.” She took him by the hand, and putting her helmet of gold on his head, she said, “My dear shepherd, I forbid you to be injured.” He got up immediately, and the visor, which was raised, revealed on his face a martial air and sharp, flashing eyes that completely fulfilled all the fairy’s hopes for him. He was surprised by the way she had healed him and by the majesty of her whole person. Carried away with admiration, joy, and gratitude, he threw himself at her feet. “Great queen,” he said, “I was dangerously wounded, but just one look and one word from your mouth healed me. Alas! I have a wound deep in my heart that I do not want healed. I ask you to soothe it and to improve my fortune that I might share it with this beautiful shepherdess.” The princess blushed to hear him speak this way. She knew that the Amazon fairy recognized her, and she feared she would be blamed for giving hope to a lover so far beneath her. She didn’t dare look up, but the sighs that escaped her filled the fairy with pity. “Little Carp,” she said, “this shepherd is not unworthy of your esteem, not at all, and you, shepherd, who wish to change your state, rest assured that a great change will occur shortly.” She disappeared in her usual manner as soon as she had uttered these words. The shepherds and shepherdesses, who had come running to help, led the two in triumph to the hamlet. They had put the two lovers in their midst, and having crowned them with flowers as a mark of the victory they had just won over the horrible bear, which they carried behind them, they sang these words about the tenderness that Little Carp had shown the prince:

138 Princess Little Carp In these forests, everything enchants us; What happy days we will enjoy! A shepherd with his pleasing beauty Keeps the daughter of Love beside us. They arrived at Sublime’s house. They recounted what had happened, with what courage the shepherd had defended himself against the bear, with what generosity196 the shepherdess had helped him in this battle, and finally, what the Amazon fairy had done for him. The king, thrilled with this tale, ran to tell the queen. “Without a doubt,” he told her, “this boy and this girl have nothing common about them. Their eminent perfections, their beauty, and the care the Amazon fairy takes with them indicate something extraordinary.” The queen suddenly remembered the diamond ring Little Carp had given her. “I always forget to show you the ring this young shepherdess put into my hands with an uncommon air of grandeur, asking me to accept it and to use it to provide her with clothes like the ones we wear here.” “Is the stone beautiful?” the king asked. “I looked at it for only a moment,” the queen replied, “but here it is.” She gave him the ring, and as soon as he looked at it, he cried, “Oh, gods! What do I see? What? Didn’t you recognize the gift that I received from your own hands?” So saying, he pressed a little spring whose secret place he knew. The diamond rose up and the queen saw her portrait, which she had commissioned be painted for the king, and which she had attached to the neck of her little girl to play with when she was nursing her in the tower. “Ah, Sire,” she said, “what a strange adventure is this? It renews all my sorrows. Still, let us talk to the shepherdess; we must try to find out more.” She called her and said, “My daughter, I have waited until now for an admission from you, which would have given us much 196. Generosity does not simply mean liberality, but in fact connotes the valor of the martial hero, as in plays by Pierre Corneille (1606–1684). Using this term, then, d’Aulnoy ascribes heroic qualities to women—to Little Carp as well as to the Amazon fairy.

Princess Little Carp 139 pleasure, if you had made it in your own time. But since you continue to hide from us who you are, we feel it right to tell you that we know, and that the ring you gave me helped us untangle this enigma.” “Alas, my mother!” replied the princess, falling to her knees before her. “It is not for lack of confidence that I persisted in hiding my station in life from you. I thought you would be distressed to see a princess in the state I am in.” “My father was king of the Peaceful Islands,” she continued; “his reign was upset by a usurper, who locked him in a tower with the queen, my mother. After three years of captivity, they found the means to escape. A guard helped them. Under the cover of night, they lowered me in a basket. The rope broke, I fell in the lake, and no one ever knew that I did not drown.197 Fishermen who had put their nets out to catch carp found me. My size and weight made them think I was one of the most monstrous carps in the lake. Their hopes were disappointed when they saw me, and they considered throwing me back in the water to feed the fish, but in the end they left me in the nets and took me to the tyrant who immediately knew by the flight of my family that I was an unfortunate little princess, bereft of all help. His wife, who had been childless for several years, took pity on me. She kept me near her and raised me with the name of Little Carp. Perhaps it was her intention to make me forget my birth, but my heart has always told me who I am; it is a misfortune sometimes to have feelings that are so unsuited to one’s fortune. In any event, a prince named Hunchback came and conquered the usurper of my father’s kingdom, which he had quietly enjoyed ruling. “However, the change of tyrants made my fate even worse. Hunchback took me away, like one of the most beautiful prizes of his victory, and decided to marry me against my will. In this extremely violent situation, I decided to flee, utterly alone, dressed as a shepherdess and leading a cow. Prince Hunchback, who looked for me everywhere and who came upon me, would have undoubtedly recognized me if the Amazon fairy had not generously given me a bouquet of wallflowers to save me from my enemies. She did me just as fine a favor when she sent me to you, my good mother,” the princess continued, “and if I did not reveal my station to you earlier, it was not from lack of trust, 197. The lost child floating in a basket of reeds recalls the biblical account of Moses.

140 Princess Little Carp but rather in the hope of sparing you grief. I am not complaining,” she continued. “I have known nothing but peace since the day you took me in. Country life is so gentle and innocent I would have no trouble preferring it to life at court.” She was speaking so emphatically that she didn’t notice the queen had broken into tears and the king’s eyes were moist as well. But as soon as she had finished, both of them hurried to take her in their arms and held her for a time without being able to utter a word. She was as touched as they were, and she too began to cry. It would be hard to express the feelings, both pleasant and painful, that passed among these three illustrious, unfortunate people. Finally, the queen made an effort and said, “Is it possible, dear child of my soul, that after giving us so many regrets over your dreadful death, the gods are returning you to your mother to console her in her misfortunes? Yes, my daughter, you see before you the breast that carried and fed you in your earliest childhood. Here is your king and father, the person to whom you owe your life. Oh, light of my eyes! Oh, princess that the angry heavens took from us, with what transports we shall now celebrate your most happy return!” “And I, my illustrious mother, and I, my dear queen,” the princess cried, prostrate at her feet, “with what words, by what actions, can I let you know, both of you, everything that the respect and love I owe you make me feel? What? I find you, dear haven from my troubles, just when I stopped deluding myself that I would ever see you again.” Then the caresses increased and the three spent several hours this way. Afterwards, Little Carp withdrew, and her father and mother forbade her to speak of what had just happened. They dreaded the curiosity of the neighboring shepherds, who were for the most part rather uncouth. The king and queen nevertheless feared they would try to plumb mysteries that were not for them to know. The princess kept quiet with those who meant nothing to her. But she did not manage to keep the secret from her young shepherd. How can one be silent when one loves? She had blamed herself a thousand times for keeping her high birth from him: “Would he not be indebted to me by obligation, if he knew that I, born on the throne, had lowered myself to him? But alas! What little difference love makes be-

Princess Little Carp 141 tween the scepter and the staff! Can this chimerical grandeur, praised so highly, fill the soul and satisfy it? No, virtue alone has that right! It puts us above the throne and knows how to separate us from it. The shepherd who loves me is wise, clever, handsome; what more could a prince have than what he possesses?” As she was absorbed in these reflections, she saw the shepherd at her feet. He had followed her to the river’s edge to give her a garland of charming, varied flowers. “Where have you been, beautiful shepherdess?” he asked her. “I’ve been looking for several hours, waiting for you impatiently.” “Shepherd,” she said, “I’ve been preoccupied with an astonishing adventure. I would blame myself if I did not tell you, so remember that this sign of my trust requires eternal secrecy. I am a princess, my father was king, and I have just found him in the person of Sublime.” The prince was so stunned and troubled by this news he didn’t have the strength to interrupt her, though she told him her story with great kindness. He had so many reasons to be afraid, whether it be that the wise shepherd who had raised him would refuse him his daughter since he was a king, or that she herself, reflecting on the differences between a great princess and himself, would one day put an end to the kindness she had shown him. “Ah, Madam,” he said to her sadly, “I am a lost man; I have to renounce life itself. You were born to the throne, you have found your nearest relatives, and I, I am an unfortunate being who knows neither home nor country. An eagle was my mother, and her nest my cradle. Although you have deigned to cast favorable glances on me, you will be deterred from doing so in the future.” The princess thought for a moment, and then, without responding to what he had just said, she took a pin that held her beautiful hair and wrote on the bark of a tree: Do you love the heart that loves you? The prince immediately carved these words: By thousands and thousands of fires I feel inflamed. The princess wrote beneath: Enjoy the extreme happiness Of loving and of being loved.

142 Princess Little Carp Transported with joy, the prince threw himself at her feet and took one of her hands. “You give my afflicted heart hope, adorable princess,” he said, “and your new kindness has saved my life. Remember what you have just written in my favor.” “I could not forget it,” she said with a gracious air. “Count on my heart. It cares more for your interests than for mine.” Their conversation would no doubt have been longer if they had had more time, but they had to gather the flocks they kept, and so they hurried back. Meanwhile, the king and queen were discussing what course to take with Little Carp and the young shepherd. As long as she was unknown to them, they had approved of the nascent ardor kindling their souls. The perfect beauty that heaven had blessed them with, their minds, the grace that accompanied their every action, made the king and queen wish for their union to be eternal. But now they looked at this union quite differently when they considered that she was their daughter and that the shepherd was doubtless but an unfortunate boy left for savage beasts to avoid the trouble of feeding him. In the end, they decided to tell Little Carp that she should no longer encourage his hopes, and that she could even say to him she did not want to settle anywhere nearby. The queen called her in soon after. She spoke to her kindly, but what words can calm such violent distress? The young princess tried in vain to control herself, but her face at times turned a brilliant red, at others was so pale she seemed on the point of death, and her eyes dimmed with sadness—all this revealed her condition only too well. Ah, how she regretted the confession she had made! Nevertheless, she assured her mother, with great submissiveness, that she would follow her orders. But once she had withdrawn, she barely had the strength to throw herself on her bed, where she dissolved into tears and voiced a thousand laments, a thousand regrets. At last, she arose to take her sheep to pasture. But instead of going toward the river, she went deep into the woods where she lay on the moss, her head down, and began to think intently. The prince, who could not rest when he was not where she was, ran to look for her. He suddenly appeared before her. At the sight of him, she let out a great cry, as if she had been surprised, and rising quickly, she left him with-

Princess Little Carp 143 out a look. He was bewildered by such unusual behavior. He followed and then stopped her: “What’s this, shepherdess?” he asked. “Do you wish to kill me and to forgo the pleasure of seeing me die before you? You have certainly changed toward your shepherd; you no longer remember what you promised him yesterday.” “Alas!” she said, sadly casting her eyes on him. “What crime do you accuse me of? I am miserable; I must submit to orders that I am not allowed to shirk. Pity me, but stay away from the places where I might be. It must be so!” “It must be so?” he cried, holding his arms together with a desperate look. “Must I flee you, divine princess? Can you give me an order so cruel and so little deserved? What do you say should become of me? Can the vain hope to which I abandoned myself, by your leave, die out without ending my life?” Little Carp, as near death as her beloved, fell, silent and lifeless. At this sight, the shepherd was shaken by a thousand different thoughts. The state of his beloved let him know that she had no part in the orders she had been given, and this certainty somewhat diminished his grief. He didn’t lose a moment coming to her aid. A stream that ran slowly beyond the grass provided water for his shepherdess’s face, and the cupids, who were hidden behind a bush, told their little friends that he dared steal a kiss. Whatever happened, she soon opened her eyes, but then pushed her handsome shepherd away. “Flee, go away,” she said to him. “If my mother came, she would have every reason to be angry.” “I should leave you, then, to be devoured by bears and boars,” he asked, “or for some asp or serpent to come and bite you while you suffer a long fainting spell, alone in this solitary place?” “We must risk everything,” she said, “rather than displease the queen.” While they were having this conversation, full of tenderness and concern, the protective fairy suddenly appeared in the king’s chamber. She was armed as usual. The gem stones that covered her quiver and helmet shone less than her eyes as she addressed the queen. “You show no gratitude whatever, Madam, for the present I gave you in returning your daughter; she would have drowned in

144 Princess Little Carp the nets without me. You are on the verge of making the shepherd I entrusted to you die of sorrow. Do not consider any longer the differences that exist between him and Little Carp: it is time to unite them. Think of their marriage, illustrious Sublime,” she said to the king, “I wish it, and you will never have cause to regret it.” At these words, she left them without waiting for their response. They lost sight of her and only glimpsed a long stream of light after her, like rays of sunshine. The king and queen were both surprised and even joyful that the fairy’s orders were so direct. “There can be no doubt,” said the king, “that the station of this unknown shepherd is fitting for Little Carp. She who protects him is too noble to wish to unite people who would not be suitable for each other. It was she, as you see, who saved our daughter from the lake, where she would have perished. How have we deserved her protection?” “I’ve always heard it said,” replied the queen, “that there are good and bad fairies, that they take families in friendship or in aversion, according to their predilection, and the Amazon fairy’s is apparently most favorable toward us.” They were still talking when the princess returned. Her demeanor was languid and dejected. The prince, who had dared follow her only at a distance, arrived some time afterward, so melancholy198 one had only to look at him to guess some part of what was going on in his soul. During the meal, these two poor lovers, who were the joy of the household, did not say a word, nor did they dare raise their eyes. As soon as they had gotten up from the table, the king went into his little garden and told the shepherd to come with him. At this order, he went pale and an extraordinary shudder ran through his veins. Little Carp thought her father was going to send him away, so she was no less apprehensive than he was. Sublime went into a green arbor and sat down, looking at the prince. “My son,” he said to him, 198. Melancholy is a major literary and medical theme during the early modern period. The most well-known medical treatment is Anatomy of Melancholy (1621) by Robert Burton (1577–1640). Topoi associated with melancholy include the melancholic king, masculine love sickness, and male genius; on the negative associations of women’s humors and melancholy, see Juliana Schiesari, The Gendering of Melancolia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992).

Princess Little Carp 145 “you know with what love I have raised you. I have always regarded you as a gift from the gods to sustain and console me in my old age. But what will prove my friendship for you even more is that I choose you for my daughter, Little Carp. It is she whose drowning you have heard me lament at times; the heavens that now return her to me want her to be yours. I, too, wish this with all my heart. Would you be the only person who does not?” “Ah, my father!” cried the prince, bowing at his feet. “Dare I flatter myself to believe what I hear? Am I fortunate enough for your choice to fall on me, or do you just want to know what feelings I have for the young shepherdess?” “No, my dear son,” said the king; “do not remain in doubt between hope and fear. I am resolved to celebrate this wedding in a few days.” “You overwhelm me with goodness,” replied the prince, embracing his knees, “and if I express my gratitude badly, my excessive joy is the cause.” The king bade him rise. He said a thousand fine things to him, and though he did not tell him about the greatness of his station, he let him understand that his birth was far above the state to which Fortune had reduced him. But Little Carp, worried, had not been able to rest until she came into the garden after her father and her beloved. She watched them from afar, hidden behind some trees, and when she saw him at the king’s feet, she thought he was begging not to be condemned to a harsh separation. For this reason she wanted to hear no more and fled into the depths of the forest, running like a fawn pursued by dogs and huntsmen. She feared nothing, neither the ferocity of savage beasts, nor the thorns that pricked her on all sides. Echoes repeated her sad laments. It seemed that she thought only of dying, when her shepherd, impatient to announce the good news he had just received, hastened to follow her. “Where are you, my shepherdess, my lovely Little Carp?” he cried. “If you hear me, don’t run away; we are going to be happy!” As he said these words, he saw her down in a valley, surrounded by a group that included several hunters who were trying to tie her up, and a little man, hunchbacked and deformed. At this sight,

146 Princess Little Carp and at the cries of his beloved for help, he ran more swiftly than a powerfully shot arrow, and with no other weapon than his sling, he threw a stone so straight and formidable at the man who was abducting his shepherdess that he fell from his horse with a horrible wound to the head. Little Carp fell as well, but the prince was already next to her, trying to defend her from her abductors. Yet all his resistance did not help him, not at all. They seized him and would have cut his throat on the spot if Prince Hunchback—for it was he—had not signaled his men to spare him “because,” he said, “I want to see him die of many different torments.” They agreed, then, to tie him with thick ropes and used the same ropes for the princess as well, but in this way the two were able to talk to each other. Meanwhile, the men made a stretcher to carry the nasty Hunchback. As soon as it was finished, they left without any of the shepherds witnessing the misfortune of our young lovers so they could not tell Sublime what had happened. You can easily imagine his anxiety when night fell and he didn’t see them come home. The queen was no less alarmed. They spent several days with all the shepherds in the region, looking and crying for them in vain. You must know that Hunchback had not forgotten Princess Little Carp. Time had weakened his fixation, and so when he was not enjoying himself with some murder or other, and calmly cutting the throat of anyone who displeased him, he would go hunting and stay away even seven or eight days. He was on one of his long hunts when he suddenly saw the princess, who was crossing a path. Her suffering was so acute, and she was paying so little attention to what could happen to her that she had not carried the bouquet of wallflowers, and he recognized her as soon as he saw her. “Oh, of all misfortunes, the greatest misfortune of them all!” whispered the shepherd to his shepherdess. “Alas, we were so close to the happy moment when we would be united forever!” He told her what had happened between Sublime and himself. We can easily understand Little Carp’s regrets. “I am going to cost you your life,” she said, breaking into tears. “I am leading you to your execution, you for whom I would sacrifice my own blood. I am the cause of the misfortune that crushes

Princess Little Carp 147 you, and here I am, fallen once again by my own imprudence into the barbarous hands of my most cruel persecutor!” They spoke until they reached the town where the good old king lived, the father of the horrible Hunchback. His people came to tell him they were bringing his son on a stretcher because a young shepherd, trying to defend his shepherdess, had hit him so forcefully on the head with a stone from his sling that his life was now in danger. At this news the king was upset to learn that his only son was in such a state and ordered the shepherd placed in a cell. Hunchback secretly gave an order for them to treat Little Carp no better. He had decided that she would either marry him or that he would have her die in torment. The two lovers were only separated by a door, but its cracks allowed them the sad consolation of seeing each other in the noontime sun; the rest of the day and night they could talk. What tender and passionate words they said to each other! All that the heart can feel and the mind imagine they expressed to each other in terms so touching that each one melted in tears; perhaps if they were repeated they could still make someone weep. Hunchback’s confidants came every day to threaten the princess with imminent death if she did not save her life by consenting to the marriage graciously. She received these propositions with firmness and an air of contempt that made them despair their negotiations would ever work. As soon as she could talk to the prince, she said, “Don’t be afraid, my shepherd, that the dread of cruel torments will lead me to infidelity. At least we will die together, since we could not live together.” “Do you think you can console me, beautiful princess?” he said. “Alas, it would be easier for me to see you in the arms of this monster than in the hands of the executioners they keep threatening you with.” She did not share his feelings. She accused him of weakness and assured him constantly that she would set an example of dying with courage.199 199. Heroic novels of the period often feature this kind of competition between lovers over their desire to sacrifice themselves in lieu of the beloved. D’Aulnoy’s The Yellow Dwarf uses this narrative trope, but it leads to the demise of the lovers.

148 Princess Little Carp Hunchback’s wound was healing and his love was so irritated by the continual refusals of the princess that he decided to sacrifice her to his anger, along with the young shepherd who had treated him so badly. He chose the day for this dismal tragedy and asked the king to come with the senators and the great nobles of the kingdom. He went to the execution in an open litter so he could feast his eyes on the horror of the spectacle. As I’ve already said, the king did not know Princess Little Carp had been taken prisoner, so when he saw her dragged to her execution with her poor governess, whom Hunchback had also condemned, and the young shepherd, more handsome than the day, he commanded that they be brought onto the terrace where his whole court surrounded him. He did not wait for the princess to open her mouth to complain of the shameful way she had been treated. He hurried to cut the ropes that bound her, and then, when he looked at the shepherd, he was moved to the depths of his being with pity and tenderness. “Reckless young man,” he said, forcing himself to speak harshly, “what gave you the audacity to attack my son, a great prince, and nearly take his life?” Seeing this venerable old man dressed in royal purple, the shepherd, in turn, felt a respect and confidence he had never before felt. “Great monarch,” he said with admirable firmness, “the peril in which I saw this beautiful princess is the cause of my temerity. I did not know your son. How would I have known him from such a violent act, so unworthy of his rank?” He animated his speech with his voice and gestures. His arm was uncovered, and the arrow on it was too visible for the king not to notice it. “Oh, gods!” he cried. “Am I mistaken? Do I see in you the dear son I lost?” “No, great king,” said the Amazon fairy from the lofty heights where she appeared, mounted on a magnificent horse. “No, you are not mistaken. Here is your son. I kept him for you in an eagle’s nest, where his barbarous brother had him taken. This son will have to console you for the loss you will bear of the other.” As she finished these words, she swooped down on guilty Hunchback, and striking a blow in his heart with her burning lance, she did not let him contemplate the horrors of death for long. He was consumed as if burned by lightning.

Princess Little Carp 149 Then she approached the terrace and gave the prince weapons. “I promised you these,” she said. “With them you will be invulnerable, you, the greatest warrior in the world.” Instantly, they heard a fanfare of a thousand trumpets and all the instruments of war you can imagine. But this din soon gave way to a sweet symphony, melodiously singing the praises of the prince and the princess. The Amazon fairy got off her horse, took her place next to the king, and bade him to order promptly everything that was needed for the wedding of the prince and princess. She commanded a little fairy, who appeared as soon as she was called, to go and fetch the shepherd king, the queen, and his daughters, and return with speed. No sooner had the fairy departed than she immediately returned with these illustrious unfortunates. What satisfaction after such lengthy trials! The palace rang with cries of joy, and nothing ever equaled the happiness of those kings and their children. The Amazon fairy gave orders left and right; a single word from her did more than a hundred thousand people. The wedding took place with more magnificence than had ever been seen.200 King Sublime returned to his lands; Little Carp had the pleasure of taking him there with her dear husband. Thrilled to find a son so worthy of his friendship, the old king became young again, or at least, his old age was marked by so much satisfaction that he lived a good many years longer. Youth is an age in which the human heart Has all the feelings we want it to have. It is a wax so tender It can be molded in human hands; With no trouble you give it the shape Of vice and every virtue. Hard as we may try, however, Once carved, these cannot be erased. Happy is he who has an able pilot To help him find a propitious route On a sea so difficult. The prince I’ve just portrayed Had not a single danger to fear 200. For another scene of heroic apotheosis, see above, Princess Little Carp, n168, in this volume.

150 Princess Little Carp When the shepherd king governed his fate. In all the virtues this master knew to teach him, Even though Cupid put him under his empire. But take your flight, odious censors Who want a hero to resist tenderness. So long as reason is always its mistress, Love to glorious exploits gives brilliance.201

201. In this optimistic moral to the tale, love needs to be properly guided toward virtue, and then, in contrast to the plays of Racine, for instance, love can be governed by reason and thus enhance, rather than undermine, (male) heroism.

The Doe in the Woods Once upon a time there lived a king and queen who had a perfect marriage.202 They loved each other tenderly, and their subjects adored them. But they were deeply dissatisfied for there was no heir to the throne.203 The queen, convinced that the king would love her even more if she gave him a son, would go to a special resort every spring to take its salubrious waters.204 In the throng there, the number of foreigners205 was so large you could find people from every corner of the earth. There were several fountains in the great forest where people went to take their drink. These fountains were surrounded by marble and porphyry, and everyone took pride in making them more beautiful. One day, when the queen was sitting by a fountain, she told her ladies to withdraw and leave her alone. Then she began her usual laments: “I am so unfortunate that I have no child! The poorest women have them, and I have been asking heaven for one these past five years. Will I die without that satisfaction?” 202. By seventeenth-century standards, especially for a king and queen, this statement would be contrafactual and places the story in a fictitious universe. It is a recurring opening in d’Aulnoy’s fairy tales (e.g., The Orange Tree and the Bee; The Good Little Mouse; Babiole; The Pigeon and the Dove). On seventeenth-century marriages, see Prince Rosebush, n21, in this volume. 203. Seventeenth-century history offers a notable example of childlessness: the marriage of Louis XIII and Anne of Austria, which did not produce an heir (and then a spare) for twenty-three years after they were married. 204. Taking medicinal waters became fashionable, even after outbreaks of the plague, which lasted into the seventeenth century. The benefit of the waters in conception and procreation is also suggested at the opening of Charles Perrault’s tale, Sleeping Beauty: “Once upon a time, a king and a queen were very distressed that they had no children, so distressed, in fact, we can’t even describe it. They traveled to all the waters of the world” (Perrault et al., Contes merveilleux, 185). 205. On the status of foreigners in the seventeenth century, see Peter Sahlins, “Fictions of a Catholic France: The Naturalization of Foreigners, l685–1787,” Representations, special issue “National Cultures Before Nationalism,” (Summer 1994), 47:85–110; and Peter Sahlins, Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004).

151

152 The Doe in the Woods As she was speaking, she noticed the fountain waters begin to stir. Then a large crayfish appeared and said to her, “Great queen, you will finally have what you desire. I can tell you there’s a superb palace nearby, built by the fairies, but impossible to find because it’s surrounded by thick clouds that no mortal eye can see through. But since I am your very humble servant, and if you wish to put yourself in the hands of a lowly crayfish, I offer to lead you there.” The queen listened without interrupting, for the novelty of seeing a crayfish speak had greatly surprised her.206 She said she would happily accept its offer, although she didn’t know how to walk backward like a crayfish. It smiled and instantly turned into a beautiful little old woman.207 “Very well, Madam” she said, “I agree; let’s not walk backward. But consider me a friend, for I wish only what’s best for you.” She got out of the fountain without getting wet. Her clothes were white lined with crimson, and her gray hair was tied back with green ribbons. Never did an old woman have a more refined manner. She curtsied to the queen, who embraced her, and without further delay, she led her down a path into the woods. This surprised the queen, for although she had been in these woods thousands and thousands of times, she had never gone down this path. But how could she have? It was the fairy’s path for going to the fountain. Usually the path was closed off by brambles and thorns. But as soon as the queen and her guide appeared, the rosebushes grew roses, the jasmine turned to shrubs, the orange trees interlaced their branches to form a cradle of leaves and flowers, the earth was covered with violets, and a thousand different birds in the trees vied to sing to their hearts’ content. The queen had not gotten over her surprise when her eyes were struck by the unparalleled brilliance of a palace made of diamonds. The walls and rooftops, the ceilings, the floors, the stairs, the balconies, even the terraces—all were made of diamonds. In her 206. The expression of surprise at this character is a humorous reference to the magical fairy-tale setting, and this surprise is fairly frequent in stories by d’Aulnoy and the other conteuses, but atypical of many other folk- and fairy tales. 207. In fairy tales, little old women are usually not beautiful, but ugly and mean, and sometimes witches.

The Doe in the Woods 153 boundless admiration, she could not help but let out a great shout and ask the refined old woman who accompanied her whether what she saw was a dream or a reality. “Nothing could be more real, Madam,” she replied. With that, the doors of the palace opened and out came six fairies. But what fairies! They were the most beautiful, the most magnificent who had ever appeared in their empire. They all approached and curtsied deeply to the queen, and each one presented her with a flower made of gems to form a bouquet. There was a rose, a tulip, an anemone, a columbine, a carnation, and a pomegranate. “Madam,” they said, “we can give you no greater sign of our respect than to allow you to visit us here. We are most pleased to announce that you will have a beautiful princess; you will name her Desiree, for it’s true that you have long desired her.208 Do not forget to call us as soon as she is born because we wish to endow her with every good quality. You only have to take the bouquet we’ve given you and think of us when you name each flower. Rest assured we will immediately be in your chamber.” The queen, carried away with joy, threw herself around their necks and embraced them for more than a good half hour. Afterward, they invited the queen to come into their palace, which was beautiful beyond description. They had hired the Sun’s architect to build it, and he had made for them a smaller version of the palace he had built for the Sun.209 The queen, who bore its brilliance only with difficulty, would shut her eyes at every turn. The fairies led her into their garden. 208. There are echoes of the New Testament scene of the Annunciation to the Virgin here. On maternal feelings, see Marmoisan, n80, in this volume. 209. This reference to the Sun and his architect is a clear allusion to Louis XIV—the Sun King—and to Versailles. There were various architects involved, Louis Le Vau (1612–1670), being the most famous, along with André Le Nôtre (1613–1700), the landscape designer, and the painter, Charles Le Brun (1619–1690). They were part of the team also employed by Nicolas Fouquet (1615–1680), Louis XIV’s minister of finance, for the construction of Vaux-le-Vicomte—a palace so splendid it seemed to compete with the king’s own building plans and thus cost Fouquet his position and set the stage for his trial and imprisonment. Many authors of the period make glowing references to Versailles in their work, including Madeleine de Scudéry, the most successful novelist of the period, in her Promenade de Versailles (1669). On the various stages of construction of Versailles, see Claire Constans, Versailles, château de la France et orgueil des rois (Paris: Gallimard, 1989), 12–67.

154 The Doe in the Woods There had never been such beautiful fruits. The apricots were bigger than a human head, and you couldn’t eat the cherries without cutting them into quarters. They had so exquisite a taste that after the queen had tasted them she wished never to eat any other kind in her life.210 There was an orchard of candied trees that were still alive and grew like normal trees. I won’t even try to describe to you the queen’s transports, how much she spoke of little princess Desiree, how greatly she thanked the lovely fairies who announced such good news. In the end, there was no word of tenderness or gratitude left unsaid. The Fairy of the Fountain received all the thanks she deserved. The queen remained in the palace until evening. She loved music, and so they made sure she heard voices that seemed heavenly. They weighed her down with gifts, and after thanking these great ladies, she left with the Fairy of the Fountain. Her entire household was terribly worried about her in her absence; everyone was searching with much concern, unable to imagine where she might be. They even feared that some brazen foreigners might have abducted her,211 for she was young and beautiful. Thus everyone was most joyful upon her return, and since for her part, she felt infinite satisfaction at the wonderful promise she had just been given, she spoke in a pleasing and sparkling manner that captivated one and all. The Fairy of the Fountain left the queen close to her home and, at their parting, the compliments and embraces redoubled. The queen stayed another eight days taking the waters and made sure to return to the fairies’ palace with her coquettish old woman, who first appeared as a crayfish and then took her natural form. The queen left, became pregnant, and brought into the world a princess she named Desiree. She immediately took the begemmed bouquet she had received, called all the flowers, one after the other, and instantly saw the fairies arrive. Each had a different chariot: one was of 210. Versailles was celebrated for its extraordinary fruit and vegetable gardens. See Chandra Mukerji, Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 167–81. 211. The theme of the foreigners appears again, this time with a decidedly negative implication.

The Doe in the Woods 155 ebony drawn by white pigeons, another of ivory pulled by little crows, and still others of cedar and calembour.212 These were their conveyances for treaties and peace, but when they were angry, they used flying dragons and snakes that spewed flames from their mouths and eyes; lions, leopards, and panthers transported them from one end of the world to the other in less time than it takes to say “good day” or “good evening.” But this time they were all in the best possible mood. The queen saw them enter her chamber with a gay and majestic air. Their dwarves, both male and female, followed them laden with gifts. After they had embraced the queen and kissed the little princess, they laid out her layette; its cloth was so fine it could be used a hundred years and not wear out; the fairies had spun it in their free time. As for the lace, it even surpassed what I said about the cloth. The whole history of the world was represented on it, either by needle or spindle work.213 After that, they showed the swaddling clothes and covers they had embroidered for the princess. You could see a thousand different games on them that children like to play. Not since men and women began to embroider had anyone seen anything so marvelous. But when the cradle appeared, the queen cried out in admiration, for it surpassed everything she had seen before. It was made of a wood so rare it cost a hundred thousand crowns a pound.214 The four little cupids that held it up were masterpieces: no one could say enough about them, for their art greatly surpassed the material,215 even though it was diamonds and rubies. These little cupids had been animated by the fairies, and when the child cried, 212. According to Furetière’s dictionary (s.v. calamba), this is “a wood with a strong and fragrant odor, very rare even in India where it comes from and where it is already very expensive.” 213. The crafts of spinning and sewing are frequently linked to traditional storytelling. See the Editors’ Introduction, 2–3, in this volume. Here, and in The White Cat, d’Aulnoy uses these allusions as a metaphor for writing (the cloth representing “the whole history of the world”) and, by extension, makes the connection between fairies and women writers. 214. This is an obvious hyperbole; but translated into U.S. dollars, the price per pound of wood indicated here would be $60,000. 215. In the typical aesthetic formula of the period, art always surpasses material, brute nature. See Boileau, Art poétique, in Oeuvres complètes, ed. Françoise Escal (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), Canto 3, vv 1–4, 200. However, here the material has already been transmuted (or cultivated) into gemstones.

156 The Doe in the Woods they would rock it to sleep, which was marvelously helpful for the nurses. The fairies took the little princess on their knees, swaddled her, and gave her more than a hundred kisses; she was already so beautiful no one could see her without loving her. They noticed that she needed to nurse,216 so they immediately struck the ground with their wands, and the sort of nurse needed for such a lovely baby appeared. The only question was which qualities the child should be endowed with, but the fairies hurried to settle the matter. One endowed her with virtue, another with a fine mind, the third with miraculous beauty, the next with a happy fate, the fifth wished her enduring health, and the last, that she would succeed in every single thing she undertook. The queen, utterly delighted, was thanking them a thousand and a thousand times for the favors they had just done for the little princess, when they saw a crayfish enter the chamber. It was so large that the door was barely wide enough for it to pass. “Ah, most ungrateful queen!” said the crayfish, “you did not deign to remember me? Is it possible you have so quickly forgotten the Fairy of the Fountain and the good services I rendered you when I led you to my sisters? What? You called them all, and I am the only one you neglect. I certainly had a foreboding about this, and that’s what made me take the shape of a crayfish when I spoke to you the first time. I wanted to show you that your friendship would go backward instead of forward.”217 The queen, who was inconsolable about the offense she had committed, interrupted her and begged forgiveness. She told her that she thought she had named her flower, as she had the others, that it was the bouquet of gems that had misled her, and that she was incapable of forgetting her obligations to the fairy. She begged her not to withdraw her friendship, but especially, to act favorably toward the princess. All the fairies, who feared the crayfish would endow the princess with misery and misfortune, defended the queen to soften her hostile attitude. 216. In this tale, then, and in contrast to Princess Little Carp, the baby is fed by a nurse, rather than by its mother. See Princess Little Carp, n152, in this volume. 217. Of the crayfish (écrevisse), Furetière’s dictionary notes: “It is said proverbially that a man acts like a crayfish when he retreats instead of advancing.”

The Doe in the Woods 157 “My dear sister,” they said, “may it please Your Highness not to be angry with a queen who never had any intention to offend you. For mercy’s sake, give up the shape of a crayfish, and let us behold you with all your charms.” Now, I’ve already said that the Fairy of the Fountain was quite coquettish.218 So her sisters’ praises did soften her attitude a little. “Well,” she said, “I will not inflict on Desiree all the harm I had resolved to do: indeed, I wanted to destroy her, and nothing could have stopped me. However, I want to warn you that if she sees the light of day before the age of fifteen, she will have cause to regret it. It may cost her, perhaps, her life.” The tears of the queen and the pleas of the illustrious fairies did not change the sentence she had just pronounced. She withdrew backward, for she had not wanted to take off her crayfish dress. As soon as she had left the chamber, the sad queen asked the fairies for a way to spare her daughter the evils that threatened her. They held a meeting immediately, and after they had debated several different ideas, they decided on this one: they would have to build a palace without doors or windows, make a subterranean entrance, and raise the princess in that place until the fateful age that threatened her passed. Three waves of the wand began and finished this great edifice. It was made of white and green marble on the outside; the ceilings and floors were of diamonds and emeralds, which formed flowers, birds, and a thousand delightful things. Everything was hung with velvet tapestries of different colors, embroidered by the fairies’ hands, and since they were versed in history, they took pleasure in sketching the most beautiful and remarkable stories. The future was no less present than the past, and the heroic deeds of the greatest king in the world219 filled several wall-hangings. He has the bearing victorious Here of the demon of Thrace.220 218. On the coquette, see Marmoisan, n74, in this volume. However, the old woman coquette is typically an object of ridicule. 219. Another reference to Louis XIV. 220. Mars, that is to say Louis XIV. The king had held the role of War in the court ballet, Nozze (1654) and of Mars in Ercole amante (1662). But Hercules was unquestionably used

158 The Doe in the Woods The doubled lightning leaping from his eyes Mark his warring audacity. But there, more tranquil, more serene, In peace profound he governs France, By his laws proves to the world They all should envy his destiny. Wrought by the most skillful painters In pictures he appears with various features: Redoubtable in taking cities, And generous in making peace. The wise fairies had thought of this way to teach the princess about the events in the lives of heroes and other men. In the palace, you could see only by the light of candles, but there were so many of them it seemed to be a perpetual day. All the teachers she needed to become perfect were brought to this place. Her mind, her liveliness, and her cleverness almost always anticipated whatever subject they wished to impart, and each teacher stood in constant admiration of the surprising things she said, at an age when others hardly know their nurse’s name. After all, one is not endowed by fairies to remain stupid and ignorant. If her mind charmed all who approached her, her beauty had no less powerful an effect. She enraptured the most unfeeling, and her mother, the queen, would never have let her out of her sight had her duties not kept her at the king’s side. The good fairies came to see the princess from time to time, and they brought her rare objects without equal and clothes so well fashioned, so rich and refined, they seemed to have been made for the wedding of a young princess as appealing as the one I describe.221 But of all the fairies who cherished her, Tulip loved her the most and urged the queen to take the greatest care not to let her see the light of day before she was fifteen. more frequently in royal encomiastic discourse. Cf. Les travaux d’Hercule, by Eustache le Noble (1693–1694). 221. An allusion to Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, the young wife of the Duc de Bourgogne, Louis XIV’s grandson, whose marriage was celebrated in 1697. The daughter of the Duke Victor-Amédée II of Savoy and Anne-Marie d’Orléans, she was born on December 8, 1685, and arrived in France in November 1696 for her wedding. She soon she became the darling of her grandfather and the court.

The Doe in the Woods 159 “Our sister of the fountain is vindictive,” she said. “Whatever interest we take in this child, she will harm her if she can. So, Madam, you cannot be too vigilant.” The queen promised to keep a watchful eye constantly over this significant threat. But, as her dear daughter was approaching the time she was to leave the castle, she commissioned a painting of her, and her portrait was taken to the greatest courts of the universe.222 To look at it, no prince could help but admire it. But there was one prince who was so moved by it that he could not separate himself from the portrait. He put it in his study, where he would lock himself with the portrait, speak to it as if it were alive, and say the most passionate things in the world.223 The king, who almost never saw his son anymore, asked about his occupations and wondered what could prevent him from being as lively as usual. Some courtiers, in too much of a hurry to speak—there are many of this kind224—told him they feared the prince might be losing his mind because he was spending whole days closed up in his study, where they could hear him talking alone, just as if he were with someone. The king heard this news with concern. “Is it possible,” he said to his confidants, “that my son is losing his mind? He has always shown so much reason. You know the admiration that people have had for him until now, and as yet, I don’t see any distraction in his eyes; he just seems sadder to me. I must talk with him, and perhaps I will discern what kind of madness afflicts him.” He did in fact send for him, and then he ordered everyone to withdraw. After speaking of several matters to which he didn’t pay attention and responded rather badly, the king asked what had caused his mood and character to change so much. The prince thought the moment propitious and threw himself at his father’s feet.

222. See Prince Rosebush, n27, in this volume. 223. D’Aulnoy is literalizing the cliché, “a living likeness,” and poking fun at the literary topos of the suffering male lover. The anonymous fairy tale, The Speaking Portrait (1699), makes this literalized cliché the basis for an entire plot. See “Le portrait qui parle,” in Perrault et al., Contes merveilleux, 771–90; and Seifert, Fairy Tales, 169–72. 224. A typical, often repeated criticism of courtiers.

160 The Doe in the Woods “You have decided to have me marry Princess Black,” he said. “You find advantages in this alliance that I cannot promise you in marriage with Princess Desiree. But, my lord, I find charms in her that I will not find in the other person.” “And where have you seen these charms?” asked the king. “The portraits of both princesses have been brought to me,” replied Prince Warrior (for so they called him, since he had won three great battles). “I confess I have felt such a strong passion for Princess Desiree that if you do not take back the promises you made to Princess Black, I will have to die, happy to stop living if I lose the hope of belonging to the one I love.” “It is with her portrait, then, that you happily have conversations: but they make you ridiculous in the courtiers’ eyes,” the king said gravely. “They think you mad, and if you knew what reports have reached me, you would be ashamed of showing such weakness.” “I cannot reproach myself for this beautiful passion,” he replied. “When you have seen the portrait of this charming princess, you will approve what I feel for her.” “Go and get it now,” said the king with an air of impatience that showed his vexation. The prince would have been upset if he had not been certain that nothing in the world could equal Desiree’s beauty. He ran to his study and came back to the king, who became almost as spellbound as his son. “Ah, my dear Warrior,” he said, “I consent to your wish. I will feel young again when I have such a lovely princess at my court. I will immediately send ambassadors to the court of Princess Black225 to withdraw my promise. I prefer to wage war against her, even a cruel war.” The prince respectfully kissed his father’s hands and embraced his knees more than once. He felt such joy that he was barely recognizable. He urged the king to dispatch ambassadors not only to Black, but also to Desiree, and to choose the most capable and richest man for this task, for he had to make an outstanding appearance 225. Ambassadors played an important role during the reign of Louis XIV, even though the theoretical and political relation of the ambassador to a king by divine reign remains problematic. On ambassadors, see Ellen M. McClure, Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 103–92.

The Doe in the Woods 161 in such an important matter to convince her to do what he desired. The king cast his eye on Becafigue,226 an eloquent young lord who had a hundred million in revenue.227 He loved Prince Warrior passionately.228 He had the grandest equipage and the most beautiful livery imaginable made in order to please Warrior. His dispatch was great because the prince’s love increased every day, and he ceaselessly beseeched him to take leave. “Consider that my life depends on it,” he said in confidence, “that I am losing my mind when I think that the father of this princess could enter into an agreement with someone else, not want to break it in my favor, and that I could lose her forever.” To gain some time, Becafigue reassured him. He was pleased that the expense did him great honor: he led eighty carriages, all shining with gold and diamonds whose decoration was more perfect than the most perfected miniature.229 There were fifty other carriages, twenty-four thousand pages on horseback, even more magnificent than princes, but the rest of this grand procession did not disappoint in any way. When the ambassador finished his audience and was about to take leave, the prince embraced him tightly. “Remember, dear Becafigue,” he said, “my life depends on the marriage you negotiate. Forget nothing to persuade and to bring back the lovely princess I adore.” He loaded Becafigue down with a thousand presents whose style equaled their magnificence: amorous mottos carved on diamond seals, watches230 set in carbuncle covered with Desiree’s initials, and 226. According to Furetière’s dictionary, becafigue (bec-à-figue) is “a small bird, a kind of ortolan that lives on figs.” 227. Leaving aside the hyperbolic sum, this curious emphasis on Becafigue’s annual income is nonetheless consistent with the rising importance of wealth as rank in Louis XIV’s reign. See Elias, The Court Society, as well as Alain Faudemay, La distinction à l’âge classique (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1992). There is a striking equivalence here between eloquence and expenditure, negotiation and persuasion. 228. The close and loving relationship between favorite and master is a constant in French literature, as far back as the epic poem, The Song of Roland, and reveals a strong homosocial bent that shifts from the battlefield to the court during the early modern period. On the favorite, see also Marmoisan, n123, in this volume. 229. A small delicate painting. 230. The first watches are believed to have been made c. 1500 in Nuremberg, Germany.

162 The Doe in the Woods bracelets of rubies cut into the shape of hearts. He had thought of everything to please her! The ambassador carried the portrait of this young prince, which had been painted by a man so skillful it spoke, making little compliments full of wit. In truth, the portrait did not respond to everything that was said, but almost everything. Becafigue promised the prince he would neglect nothing to satisfy him, and, he added, he could carry so much money that if they refused him the princess, he would find the means to win over one of her ladies and carry her off.231 “Ah!” cried the prince. “I could not bring myself to do that. She would be offended by so disrespectful a ploy.” Becafigue said nothing and set off. News of his voyage preceded Becafigue’s arrival. The king and queen were delighted to hear of it, for they greatly respected his master and knew of the great deeds of Prince Warrior. But what they knew even better was his personal merit, and if they had searched the entire universe for a husband for their daughter, they could not have found one more worthy of her. They prepared a palace to lodge Becafigue and gave the necessary orders so that the court would appear in utmost magnificence. The king and queen had decided that the ambassador should see Desiree, but the fairy Tulip came to the queen and said: “Take care, Madam, that you do not lead Becafigue to our child” (that’s what she called the princess); “he must not see her so soon, so do not consent to send her to the king who is asking for her until the age of fifteen because if she leaves earlier, I am sure that some misfortune will befall her.” The queen embraced good Tulip, promising to follow her advice, and immediately went to see the princess. The ambassador arrived. It had taken his equipage twentythree hours to make the journey because it included six hundred thousand mules whose little bells and shoes were made of gold and whose velvet and brocade blankets were embroidered with pearls.232 231. Thus despite the wondrously artistic gifts he brings with him, the wealthy Becafigue considers, as a final resort, buying off the princess’s women and simply abducting her. Once again, Becafigue stands for the perceived power of money, but here displays its ambivalent effects. 232. This hyperbolic description nonetheless echoes the royal entry of Louis XIV and his bride, Marie-Thérèse, in Paris in 1660; La Fontaine’s Relation de l’entrée de la Reine à Monsei-

The Doe in the Woods 163 The streets were packed as never before because everyone had run out to see this equipage. The king and queen went to meet Becafigue, so pleased were they at his arrival. There’s no point describing the speech he made, and the ceremonies by both parties that took place: you can imagine them well enough. But when Becafigue asked to greet the princess, he was very surprised to have this honor denied him. “If we refuse something that seems so fitting, Lord Becafigue,” the king said to him, “it is not by some peculiar whim. We must share with you the strange adventure of our daughter.” “At the time of Desiree’s birth, a fairy conceived a real dislike for her and threatened her with great misfortune if she were to see the light of day before she was fifteen. We keep her in a palace where the most beautiful apartments are below ground. We had decided to take you there, but the fairy Tulip stopped us from doing anything of the kind.” “What is this, Sire!” replied the ambassador. “Shall I sadly be forced to return home without her? You bestow her to the king, my master, for his son; we await her arrival with unbearable impatience. Is it possible you dwell on such trifles as the predictions of fairies? Here is the portrait of Prince Warrior, which I was commanded to present to the princess. It resembles him so much that I believe I see the prince himself when I look at it.” He unfolded it immediately, and the portrait, which was instructed to talk to none but the princess, said, “Beautiful Desiree, you cannot imagine the ardor with which I wait for you. Come soon to our court and adorn it with your incomparable charms.”233 The portrait said nothing more, but the king and queen were so surprised they asked Becafigue to give it to them to take to the princess. This delighted him, and he placed it in their hands. The queen had not yet spoken a word to her daughter about what was happening. She had even forbidden the ladies who were with her to say anything about the ambassador’s arrival. But they had not gneur le Surintendant mentions seventy-two mules belonging to Cardinal Mazarin that had blankets covered in red velvet with gold and muzzles in solid silver; see La Fontaine, Oeuvres complètes, vol. 2, edited by Pierre Clarac. (Paris: Gallimard, 1958), 2:509–12. 233. More than merely “a living likeness,” the humanized portrait follows instructions and speaks to a specific person.

164 The Doe in the Woods obeyed her, and the princess knew that it concerned a great marriage. She was so prudent, however, she had not let her mother perceive anything. When the queen showed her the prince’s portrait, which spoke and paid her a compliment as tender as it was gallant,234 she was utterly surprised: she had never seen its equal. The prince’s good looks, his intelligent air, and the symmetry of his features astonished her no less than what the portrait had said. “Would you be upset to have a husband who looked like this prince?” asked the queen, laughing. “Madam,” she replied, “it is not for me to make a choice, so I will always be happy with whomever you choose for me.” “Come now,” added the queen, “if fate willed it should be him, would you not consider yourself happy?” She blushed, lowered her eyes, and said nothing.235 The queen took her in her arms and kissed her many times. She could not help shedding tears when she thought she was about to lose her daughter, for in only three months she would be fifteen. Hiding her distress, she told her everything that concerned her about the mission of the celebrated Becafigue, and she even gave her the rare objects he had brought to present to her. She admired them and praised with taste what was most unusual about them, but from time to time her gaze wandered off and fastened on the prince’s portrait with a pleasure she had not known before. The ambassador saw he was making useless entreaties to the king and queen to give him the princess; but they willingly made promises that were so solemn he had no reason to doubt them. He stayed with the king a short time and then returned posthaste to give his masters an account of his negotiations. When the prince found out that he could not hope to see his dear Desiree for another three months, his laments afflicted the entire court. He slept no longer, ate nothing at all, and became sad 234. Tenderness and “gallantry” are dominant qualities of the ideal courtly man in this period. See Prince Rosebush, nn18 and 40 and on the courtly lover, Princess Little Carp, n195, all in this volume. 235. Obedience, modesty, prudence, shyness, and generosity (see the remainder of this tale) count among the principal qualities of the honnête fille, the female ideal of the period, combining gender specific moral and behavioral traits. See Prince Rosebush, n36, in this volume.

The Doe in the Woods 165 and absent-minded. The bloom of his complexion tinged with worry, and he stayed for days on end on the sofa in his study, looking at the portrait of his princess. He wrote her constantly and presented these letters to the portrait as if it were capable of reading them. His strength diminished little by little, and he fell dangerously ill, but to guess the cause required neither physicians nor doctors. The king was in despair. He loved his son more tenderly than any father has ever done,236 and he was on the verge of losing him. What sorrow for a father! He did not see any remedy that could cure the prince. He wanted Desiree. Without her he would die. In this extreme circumstance, the king decided to go find the king and queen who had promised her, beseech them to take pity on the state to which the prince was reduced, and not delay the marriage, which would never take place if they stubbornly insisted on waiting until the princess was fifteen. This measure was extraordinary, but it would have been far more so if he had let his dear and handsome son perish. However, there was one insurmountable difficulty: his advanced age did not permit him to travel in anything but a litter, which was ill suited to his son’s impatience.237 Thus he sent the faithful Becafigue in haste, and he wrote the most touching letters in the world to convince the king and queen to do what he hoped for. During this time, Desiree had just as much pleasure looking at the prince’s portrait as he had in hers. She would go constantly to the place where it was, and no matter how careful she was to hide her feelings, others could not fail to discern them. Among them, Gillyflower and Long Thorn, her maids of honor, perceived the little worries that had begun to torment her. Gillyflower loved her passionately and was faithful to her, but Long Thorn had always felt secretly jealous of her merit and rank.238 Her mother had raised the princess, and after serving as her governess, she became her lady of honor. She should have loved the princess as the most delightful person in the world if she ahd not cherished her own daughter to the extreme.239 Because of 236. On paternal tenderness, see Marmoisan, n80, in this volume. 237. Litter: a vehicle, usually a curtained and covered coach that carried one passenger. 238. These names from the vegetal world reflect semantically the difference between the two maids. “Thorn” relates to the prick of jealousy. 239. This excessive love is negatively coded here.

166 The Doe in the Woods the hatred Long Thorn felt for the beautiful princess, she could not in any way wish her well. The ambassador who had been dispatched to the court of Princess Black was not pleasantly received once they discovered the message he had been charged to deliver. This Ethiopian princess240 was the most vindictive creature in the world. She believed that after an agreement had been made with her, she was being politely rejected and treated very cavalierly. She had seen a portrait of the prince and had become stubbornly enamored of it, and Ethiopian women, when they engage in love, love with more immoderate desires than others.241 “What, Mr. Ambassador?” she asked. “Doesn’t your master think me rich and beautiful enough? Walk through my states, you’ll see that none are more vast; come into my royal treasury and you’ll see more gold than all the mines of Peru have ever produced.242 Look, finally, at the blackness of my complexion, my crushed nose, my thick lips: don’t they meet the requirements of beauty?”243 “Madam,” responded the ambassador, who was afraid of beatings (more than those who are sent to the Sublime Porte),244 “I 240. Thus “black” is literalized to mean “Ethiopian,” and this racialization, in keeping with the ideology of the period, generates negative physical and character associations. See Elsa Dorlin, La matrice de la race: Généalogie sexuelle et coloniale de la nation française (Paris: La Découverte, 2006). 241. As medical treatises of the period show, African women were associated with hypersexual desires, and in this period of the threatening “rediscovery of the clitoris” are said to have hypertrophic clitorises (see Valerie Traub, The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early Modern England [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002], 201–20). 242. As with Africa, this reference to Peru situates d’Aulnoy’s text in the period of European colonialism and its preoccupation with extracting profitable resources, aided and abetted by the slave trade. See James Pritchard, In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas l670–1730 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 243. At a time when poetry celebrates blond hair, pale skin, and a small nose and mouth, this stereotypical portrait of blackness is meant to be a laughable antiportrait, which cannot but strike modern readers as racist. 244. Sublime Porte: also referred to as the Ottoman Porte, the High Porte, or the Bab-i Ali, designates the government and court of the “grand Turk” or Sultan, who was reputed to inflict beatings on his courtiers. On representations of Turks, and more broadly, of orientalism, see Michele Longino, Orientalism in French Classical Drama (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

The Doe in the Woods 167 blame my master as much as any subject is allowed to, and if heaven had placed me on the greatest throne in the universe, I truly know to whom I would offer it.” “Those words will save your life,” she told him. “I had decided to begin exacting my vengeance on you, but that would be unjust since you are not the cause of your prince’s bad behavior. Go tell him that he pleases me by breaking the engagement off because I don’t like unethical and discourteous people.”245 The ambassador, who asked for nothing better than to take his leave, had barely obtained it before he took full advantage of it. But the Ethiopian lady was too offended by Prince Warrior’s behavior to forgive him. She mounted an ivory chariot drawn by six ostriches246 that went ten leagues an hour. She repaired to the palace of the Fairy of the Fountain, who was her godmother and best friend. She recounted what had befallen her and begged her with great persistence to give satisfaction to her resentment. The fairy was sympathetic to her goddaughter’s pain, so she looked in the book that tells everything and immediately discovered that Prince Warrior was leaving Princess Black for none other than Princess Desiree, that he loved her desperately, and that he was even sick from impatience to behold her. This knowledge rekindled her anger, which had almost died out, and as she had not seen the princess since her birth, we can believe she would have done her no harm, if the vindictive Blackie247 had not beseeched her to do so. “What!” she cried. “This miserable Desiree still wishes to displease me? No, charming princess, no, my pet, I won’t allow them to disgrace you. The heavens and all the natural elements have an interest in this affair. Go home and rely on your dear godmother.” Princess Black thanked her and gave her presents of flowers and fruits, which she accepted graciously.

245. The Ethiopian woman is not wrong. Ethical behavior and courtesy are the twin elements of the ideal of the honnête homme of the seventeenth century. See Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art. 246. The ostrich, which is indigenous to Africa and Arabia, adds an exotic note. 247. Noiron: neither the dictionary of the Académie Française nor that of Furetière lists this term, but because of the suffix -on, “blackie” approximates the meaning.

168 The Doe in the Woods Ambassador Becafigue was proceeding with all speed towards the capital city where Desiree’s father was residing. He threw himself at the feet of the king and queen, shed many tears, and told them in the most touching terms that Prince Warrior would die if they refused him the pleasure of seeing the princess, their daughter, any longer. He said that it was only three months until she turned fifteen, that nothing unfortunate could happen to her in such a short time, and that he was taking the liberty of warning them that such great credulity toward little fairies damaged the reputation of his royal majesty. In short, he argued very ably with the gift of persuasion.248 They wept with him, imagining the sad state to which the young prince was reduced, and then told him they needed a few days to come to a decision and answer him. He replied that he could give them only a few hours, that his master was in extremis, that he thought the princess hated him, and that she was thus delaying her journey. They assured him he would know that very evening what could be done. The queen ran to her beloved daughter’s palace and told her everything that had happened. Desiree then felt a pain like no other: her heart clenched, she fainted, and the queen understood her feelings for the prince. “Don’t upset yourself, my dear child,” she said. “You can do everything for his cure. I am only worried about the threats that the Fairy of the Fountain made at your birth.” “I imagine that if we took certain measures, we could fool the wicked fairy,” she replied. “For example, couldn’t I travel in a carriage where I was completely sealed and would not see the light of day? It would be opened at night so we could be given something to eat. That way, I would arrive happily at the home of Prince Warrior.” The queen liked this ingenious idea greatly. She shared it with the king, who also approved it. Then they sent Becafigue word to come immediately, and he received clear assurances the princess would leave as soon as possible. He had only to return and give his master the happy news. To expedite matters further, they would not bother 248. In the seventeenth century, “the art of persuasion” is a synonym for the “art of captivating”; see, for instance, Blaise Pascal, Pensées, ed. Louis Lafuma (Paris: Seuil, l962), “De l’esprit géométrique” #512, 244–46; Pensées, trans. and introd. A. J. Krailsheimer (New York: Penguin, 1966), 210–12.

The Doe in the Woods 169 preparing the equipage and opulent clothing appropriate to her rank. Transported with joy, the ambassador threw himself at their majesties’ feet to thank them. Then he left without ever having seen the princess. Separation from the king and queen would have seemed unbearable to the princess if she had been less predisposed in the prince’s favor, but there are certain feelings that almost stifle all others.249 The carriage made for her was green velvet on the outside, ornamented with great gold plaques, and silver and rose-color edged brocade on the inside. The carriage was huge, had no glass, and closed better than a box. One of the premier lords of the kingdom was entrusted with the keys that opened the locks put on the doors. About her the Graces, laughs Pleasures and games. Respectful Cupids as well Hurried to follow her steps. She had an air majestic, A gentleness celestial. Good wishes she attracted, Not to mention the rest. The same charms she had that Made Adélaïde250 shine, With Hymen, serving as a guide, She cemented Peace for this place. Very few officers were chosen to accompany her, so as not to encumber her with a large retinue. After her parents had presented her with the most beautiful gems in the world and some sumptuous clothes—after, I say, the farewells that nearly suffocated the king, the queen, and all the court with tears—they closed her up in the dark carriage with her lady of honor, Long Thorn, and Gillyflower. You have perhaps forgotten that Long Thorn did not love Princess Desiree at all, but did love Prince Warrior very much, since she had seen his talking portrait. The arrow that had wounded her was so sharp that at the moment she departed, she told her mother she would die if the princess’s marriage took place, and that to save her, 249. On this kind of general statement (or sentence), see Prince Rosebush, n25, in this volume. 250. A direct reference to Marie Adélaïde de Savoie. See above, n221.

170 The Doe in the Woods her mother absolutely had to find a means to break off the wedding. The lady of honor told her not to be upset, that she would try to cure her wound and make her happy. When the queen sent her beloved child off, she entrusted her to this wicked lady of honor with loving words beyond anything anyone could say. “What a treasure I am entrusting to you!” she said. “She is more than my life. Take care of my daughter’s health, but above all, be careful she does not see the light of day. All would be lost. You know the evils that threaten her, so I have arranged with Prince Warrior’s ambassador that, until she reaches the age of fifteen, she will be placed in a castle where she will see no light other than candles.” The queen showered this woman with gifts to ensure greater exactness in her care. She promised to see that the princess was protected and to send a full report as soon as they arrived. The king and queen thus relied on her care and had no worries for their dear daughter. In some way, this helped to temper the sorrow her departure caused them. But Long Thorn learned every night from the princess’s officers, who opened the carriage to serve them supper, that they were approaching the town where they were awaited, and she kept urging her mother to carry out her plan, fearing that the king or the prince would come to meet her and that there would be no time left. And so, around midday, when the sun shoots its rays with force, she suddenly cut open the roof of the carriage where they were enclosed, with a big knife she had brought expressly for this purpose. Then, for the first time, Princess Desiree saw the light of day. No sooner had she looked at it and let out a deep sigh than she sprang from the carriage in the shape of a white doe251 and began to run to the nearby forest, where she hid in a dark place to mourn, without witnesses, the lovely form she had just lost. The Fairy of the Fountain, who was orchestrating this strange adventure saw that all who accompanied the princess were trying to do their duty—some following her and others going to the town to inform the prince of the misfortune that had just happened. The fairy seemed to unsettle nature instantly: lightning and thunder frightened the most confident, but with her magical skills, she transported the 251. The white doe may symbolize gentleness and purity.

The Doe in the Woods 171 princess’s people far away, to remove them from the place where their presence displeased her. Only the lady of honor, Long Thorn, and Gillyflower remained. This third person ran after her mistress, making the woods and rocks resound with her name and her laments. The two others, delighted to be free, didn’t lose a moment carrying out their plan. Long Thorn put on Desiree’s most splendid clothes. The royal mantle, which had been made for her wedding, was of unequaled richness, and the crown had diamonds two or three times bigger than a fist. Her scepter was made of a single ruby. The globe she held in her other hand was of a pearl larger than a human head. It was very rare and very heavy to carry, but she had to convince people she was the princess and neglect none of the royal ornaments. In this attire, Long Thorn, followed by her mother who carried the train of her mantle, proceeded toward the town. The false princess walked solemnly.252 She knew that a party would come to receive them, and indeed, they had not gone far at all when they saw a great cavalry and, in the middle, two litters shining with gold and gems, carried by mules adorned with long plumes of green feathers (green was the princess’s favorite color). The king, who was in one, and the ailing prince, in the other, did not know what to think of the two women approaching them. The most eager horsemen galloped toward them and judged by the magnificence of their clothing that the ladies were persons of distinction. The men dismounted and addressed them respectfully. “Kindly inform me,” Long Thorn said to them, “who is in those litters.” “Madam,” they replied, “it is the king and the prince, his son, coming to meet Princess Desiree.” “Pray go tell them she is here,” she continued. “A fairy jealous of my good fortune has scattered those who were accompanying me by a hundred claps of thunder, lightning, and astonishing wonders. But here is my lady of honor, who is entrusted with letters from the king, my father, and my gems.” 252. The false heroine or hero is a recurring feature in folktales; it is included in three of Propp’s thirty-one functions (L, Ex, and U). See Propp, Morphology of the Folktale, 60, 62, 63.

172 The Doe in the Woods At once, these cavaliers kissed the hem of her gown and went swiftly to announce to the king that the princess was approaching. “What?” he cried. “She is coming on foot in broad daylight?” They told him what she had said. The prince, burning with impatience, summoned them, and without asking them a single question, said, “You must admit that she is a prodigy of beauty, a miracle, a totally accomplished princess.” They made no reply, which surprised the prince. “Because there is so much to praise, you prefer to remain silent?” he asked. “My lord, you will see her,” said the boldest among them. “Apparently the fatigue of the journey has changed her.” The prince was surprised. If he had been less weak, he would have rushed out of the litter to satisfy his impatience and curiosity. The king stepped down from his litter and, advancing with all the court, joined the false princess. But as soon as he had set eyes on her, he let out a great cry and fell back several steps. “What do I see?” he said. “What treachery!” “Sire,” said the lady of honor, coming forward boldly, “here is Princess Desiree with letters from the king and queen. I also place in your hands the casket of gems they entrusted to me when we left.” The king kept a gloomy silence during this exchange, and the prince, leaning on Becafigue, approached Long Thorn. Oh gods! What became of him when he looked at this girl, with her extraordinary, terrifying size! She was so tall the princess’s clothes barely covered her knees. Her thinness was frightful; her nose, more hooked than a parrot’s, blazed a shiny red, and never had teeth been so black and badly set. In short, she was as ugly as Desiree was beautiful.253 The prince, who had been occupied exclusively with the captivating idea of the princess, was paralyzed, immobile at the sight of this girl. He didn’t have the strength to utter a word; he looked at her in astonishment and then addressed the king. “I have been betrayed,” he said. “The marvelous portrait upon which I pledged my freedom contains no trace of the person they sent 253. The signs of “ugliness” differ here from those of Princess Black. Long Thorn is very tall and thin, has a red, hooked nose, and blackened, badly set teeth; the last is associated with a low-class person.

The Doe in the Woods 173 us. They sought to deceive us; they have succeeded, and it will cost me my life.” “What do you mean, my lord?” said Long Thorn. “We sought to deceive you? Know that you’ll never be deceived if you marry me.” Her effrontery and pride were without example. The lady of honor went even further. “Ah, my beautiful princess!” she cried. “Where are we? Is this how they receive a person of your station? What fickleness! What behavior! The king, your father, will know how to demand satisfaction for this affront.” “It is we who will do so,” replied the king. “He promised us a beautiful princess, and he sends us a frightening skeleton, a mummy. I am no longer surprised he kept this fine treasure hidden for fifteen years! He wanted to trap a dupe, and the lot has fallen on us, but we can be avenged.” “What an outrage!” cried the false princess. “I am truly unfortunate to have come here on the word of such people. How wrong a person is to have a portrait painted that’s a tad more beautiful than one really is! But doesn’t this happen every day? If princes sent back their fiancées over such difficulties, very few would marry.” The king and the prince, beside themselves with anger, did not deign to answer her. They got back into their own litter, and without further ceremony, a bodyguard rode behind the princess, and the lady of honor was treated in a similar way. They took them into the town, and by order of the king, they were locked up in the Castle of Three Points.254 Prince Warrior had been so overcome by the blow that had just struck him he could not express his sorrow. When he had enough strength to lament, what did he not say about his cruel destiny! He was still in love, but the only object he had for his passion was a portrait. His hopes were dashed; all the lovely ideas he had invented about Princess Desiree had run aground. He would have preferred to die than to marry the one he took to be her. In sum, no despair had ever equaled his own. He could no longer bear the court and he resolved, as soon as his health allowed, to go away secretly to some solitary place and spend the rest of his sad life there. 254. In other words, three towers with pointed roofs.

174 The Doe in the Woods He revealed his plan to no one but the faithful Becafigue who, he was truly convinced, would follow him everywhere. He chose to speak with Becafigue more often than with anyone else about the nasty trick played on him. He had barely begun to feel better when he departed, leaving a long letter for the king on the table in his study, assuring him that as soon as he was calmer he would return. But he begged him, in the meantime, to think of their common vengeance and to keep the ugly princess always a prisoner. You can easily imagine the sorrow the king felt when he received this letter. He thought that separation from a son so dear would kill him. But while everyone was busy consoling him, the prince and Becafigue were getting farther away, and after three days they found themselves in a vast forest, so dark from the thickness of the trees, so pleasant from the freshness of the grass and the streams that ran everywhere, that the prince, tired from their lengthy journey (for he was still ill), got down from his horse and threw himself sadly on the ground, his hand under his head, barely able to speak he was so weak. “My lord,” Becafigue said to him, “while you rest, I’ll look for some fruit to refresh you, and explore the place where we are.” The prince did not answer him, and simply showed by a sign that he could do so. Now, we left the Doe—I mean, the incomparable princess— in the woods long ago. She wept, like a heartbroken doe, when she saw her face in a fountain that served as her mirror: “What? That’s me?” she exclaimed. “In the entire reign of the fairies, today I am reduced to suffering the strangest adventure to befall an innocent princess like me. How long will my metamorphosis last? Where can I hide so that lions, bears, and wolves do not devour me? How can I eat grass?” In short, she asked a thousand questions and felt the cruelest sorrow possible. If anything could console her, it was this: she was as beautiful a doe as she had been a princess.255 Hunger seized Desiree, so she grazed on the grass with good appetite and was surprised she could do it. Then she lay down on the moss, but night took her by surprise, and she spent it in inconceivable fright. She heard ferocious beasts near her, and often forgetting she was a doe, she tried to climb a tree. The light of day reassured her a 255. On these transformations, see the introduction to d’Aulnoy, n139, in this volume.

The Doe in the Woods 175 little. She admired its beauty, and the sun seemed so marvelous to her she didn’t tire of looking at it. Everything she had heard about the sun seemed far below what she saw: it was the only consolation she could find in such a deserted place. She stayed there all alone for several days. The fairy Tulip, who had always loved this princess, felt her misfortune keenly. But she was truly annoyed that the princess and the queen had paid so little heed to her advice. For she had told them several times that if the princess left before she was fifteen, she would be in great trouble. However, she did not want to abandon her to the fury of the Fairy of the Fountain: thus she led Gillyflower’s steps toward the forest, so this loyal confidant could console the princess in her misfortune. The beautiful doe was walking softly along a stream when Gillyflower, who could hardly walk anymore, lay down to rest. She was sadly wondering which way she should go to find her dear princess. When the doe saw her, she bounded in one jump over the stream, which was wide and deep, threw herself on Gillyflower and gave her a thousand caresses. Gillyflower was totally surprised for she didn’t know whether the animals in this canton felt particular friendship for people, which made them act more human, or if she actually knew her. After all, it was very peculiar for a doe to do the honors of the forest so well. She looked at her closely and saw with astonishment big tears streaming from her eyes. She no longer doubted this was her beloved princess. She took her feet and kissed them with as much respect as she had kissed her hands. She spoke to her and realized the doe understood her but could not answer.256 Tears and sighs intensified on both sides. Gillyflower promised her mistress she would not leave her, and the doe made a thousand little signs with her head and eyes that showed she would be very pleased if she stayed and that she would compensate for her troubles. They remained together almost the whole day. Little Doe257 was concerned that her faithful Gillyflower needed to eat. So she led her to a place in the forest where she had seen fine wild fruits. Gil256. Unlike the other animal-brides and animal-grooms in d’Aulnoy’s tales, Desiree cannot speak. 257. The French here is bichette.

176 The Doe in the Woods lyflower was dying of hunger and ate a great many. But after her light meal was finished, she felt worried, not knowing where they could retire to sleep. It was impossible to remain in the middle of the forest, exposed to all the dangers they might encounter. “Aren’t you afraid, charming Doe, to spend the night here?” she asked. The doe lifted her eyes toward heaven and sighed. “But you have already roamed part of this vast solitude,” continued Gillyflower. “Is there no little house, a coal cellar, a woodman’s cottage, a hermitage?” By the movements of her head the doe showed she had seen nothing. “Oh gods!” cried Gillyflower. “I will not be alive tomorrow. Even if I have the good fortune to avoid tigers and bears, I am certain that my fear is enough to kill me. But, dear princess, don’t think I regret life for myself; I regret it for you. To leave you in this place, bereft of all consolation? Alas! Could anything be sadder?” The little doe began to cry, sobbing almost like a person. Her tears touched the fairy Tulip who loved her tenderly. Despite her act of disobedience, Tulip had always watched over her safety. She appeared suddenly and said, “I don’t want to scold you. The state I see you in makes me too sad.” Little Doe and Gillyflower interrupted her, throwing themselves at her knees. The first kissed her hands and caressed them in the loveliest way in the world; the other beseeched her to have pity on the princess and to give her back her natural shape. “That’s not up to me,” said Tulip. “The person who does her so much harm has a lot of power, but I will shorten the time of her penance, and to make her condition less harsh, she will lose her doe’s shape as soon as the day leaves to make room for the night. However, as soon as Aurora258 appears, she will have to assume it again and run over the plains and through the forest like other does.” It was already a boon to stop being a doe at night, so the princess showed her joy by leaps and bounds, which made Tulip happy. “Go along this little path,” she told them, “and you’ll find a cabin that’s quite decent for a rustic place.” As soon as she had spoken these words, she disappeared. 258. Goddess of the dawn.

The Doe in the Woods 177 Gillyflower obeyed, and she and Little Doe took the path. They found an old woman sitting on the doorstep, finishing a fine wicker basket. Gillyflower greeted her. “My good mother,” she said, “would you take me in with my doe? I would just need a small room.” “Yes, my beautiful girl,” she replied, “I will happily give you refuge. Come in with your doe.” She led them at once to a very pretty room, all paneled in wild cherry. There were two small beds with white linen and fine sheets; everything looked so simple and so clean that the princess has since said she never saw anything more to her liking.259 As soon as night had fallen completely, Desiree stopped being a doe. She embraced her dear Gillyflower a hundred times, thanking her for her affection in accompanying her fate, and promising she would have very good fortune as soon as her penance was finished. The old woman knocked gently at their door. Without coming in, she gave Gillyflower excellent fruits, which the princess ate with great appetite. Then they went to bed. As soon as daylight appeared, Desiree, once again a doe, began to scratch at the door so that Gillyflower would open it for her. They showed visible regret at parting, though it was not for long, and Little Doe bounded into the thickest part of the woods and began to run there as usual. I have already said that Prince Warrior had stopped in the forest, and that Becafigue was roaming through it to find fruits. It was rather late when he came to the little house of the good old woman I’ve mentioned. He spoke to her politely and asked for things he needed for his master. She hurried to fill a basket and gave it to him. “I fear that if you spend the night without shelter, some mishap may befall you,” she said. “I can offer you shelter, very poor shelter, but at least it will keep you safe from the lions.” He thanked her and said he was with one of his friends, and would suggest to him that they come to her house. Indeed, he knew all too well how to persuade the prince, who let himself be taken to the good woman’s house. She was still at her door, and without making a noise, she led them to a room similar to the one the princess occupied, so close, in fact, one to the other they were separated only by a partition. 259. On this positive representation of simple country life, see Princess Little Carp, n173, in this volume.

178 The Doe in the Woods The prince spent the night with his usual worries. As soon as the sun’s first rays shone on his windows, he rose, and to take his mind off his sadness, he went into the forest, telling Becafigue not to come with him. He walked for a long time without taking a particular path. At last he arrived in a spacious place, covered with trees and mosses, from which a doe suddenly darted. He could not stop himself from following her. Hunting was his primary bent, but it was no longer so keen since he had a passion in his heart. Nevertheless, he pursued the poor doe, and from time to time, he would shoot an arrow at her, which made her almost die of fright, though she was not wounded:260 her friend, Tulip, was keeping her safe. Indeed, it took nothing less than the helping hand of a fairy to save her from such accurate shots. No person has ever been as tired as the Princess of Does, for the running she had to do was very new to her. Finally, she turned onto a path that happily made the dangerous hunter lose her from view. And feeling extremely tired, he did not persist in following her. The day passed and the doe saw with joy it was the time to retire; she turned her steps towards the house, where Gillyflower awaited her impatiently. As soon as she was in her room, she threw herself on the bed, panting; she was dripping wet. Gillyflower caressed her a thousand times, dying to know what had happened to her. The hour came for her to undoe,261 and the beautiful princess took her customary form back, throwing her arms around the neck of her favorite. “Alas!” she told her. “I thought I had nothing to fear but the Fairy of the Fountain and the cruel inhabitants of the forest, but today I was chased by a young hunter, whom I hardly saw, I was in such a hurry to escape. A thousand arrows threatened me with certain death. I still don’t know by what good fortune I was able to get away.” “You mustn’t go out anymore, my princess,” Gillyflower said. “Spend the dreadful time of your penance in this room. I’ll go to the nearest town to buy you books to amuse you. We’ll read the new tales written about fairies262 and we’ll write verses and songs.” 260. The arrow also suggests love, and the hunt its path, which is here depicted as ferocious, even sadistic. 261. D’Aulnoy invents the verb dé-bich-onner literally “to stop being a doe.” 262. A self-reflexive reference to the vogue of fairy tales.

The Doe in the Woods 179 “Hush, my dear girl,” replied the princess. “The captivating thought of Prince Warrior is enough to keep me pleasantly occupied. But the same power that reduces me to the sad state of a doe during the day forces me, in spite of myself, to do what they do. I run, I jump, and I eat grass just as they do. During that time, a room would be unbearable to me.” She was so worn out by the hunt that she asked to eat immediately. Then her beautiful eyes closed until the break of dawn. As soon as she saw the dawn, the usual metamorphosis took place and she returned to the forest. The prince, for his part, had come to join his favorite in the evening. “I spent the time running after the prettiest doe I ever saw,” he said. “She fooled me a hundred times with marvelous skill. I aimed so true I don’t understand how she evaded my shots. As soon as day breaks, I will go look for her again, and I won’t miss her.” Indeed, the young prince, wishing to get an image he thought chimerical out of his heart, was not displeased that his passion for hunting was keeping him occupied. At an early hour, he went to the same place where he had found the doe. But she made sure to stay well away, fearing an adventure similar to the one she had had. He cast his eyes on all sides. He walked a long time, and since he was getting warm, he was delighted to find some apples whose color he liked. He picked and ate some, and then, almost immediately, felt the need for deep sleep.263 He fell onto the fresh grass under the trees, where a thousand birds seemed to have agreed to meet. While he slept, our fearful doe, eager to find secluded places, passed by the spot where he lay. If she had seen him earlier, she would have run away, but she was so close to him she couldn’t stop from looking at him, and his slumber reassured her enough to allow her the time to have a good look at his features. Oh gods! What did she feel when she recognized him! Her mind was filled with his captivating image so she had not lost it in such little time. Love, Love, what do you want? Must Little Doe expose herself and lose her life at the hands 263. As with Snow White, the apple puts the prince into a sleep that leads to an encounter with love. Here, however, the male lover is found by the female who is/will be his beloved. The symbolic fruit of temptation, the dark forest, and the secluded site all create a scene for the expression of desire.

180 The Doe in the Woods of her beloved? Yes, for now that she is exposed, there will be no way to insure her safety. She lay down a few steps from him and her eyes, enraptured to see him, could not look away for a moment. She sighed and let out little moans. Finally, she became bolder, went even closer, and was touching him when he awoke. His surprise was extreme. He recognized that it was the same doe that had given him such a chase and that he had pursued for such a long time. But to discover she was so friendly seemed an exceptional thing. She didn’t wait for him to try to seize her but ran with all her strength while he followed with all of his. From time to time, they would stop to catch their breath, for the beautiful doe was still tired from running so much the day before, and the prince was no less tired than she. But what slowed Little Doe’s flight the most—alas! must I say it?—was the sorrow of leaving the one who had wounded her more deeply by his merit than he could with all the arrows he shot at her.264 He would often see her head turn toward him, as if to ask him if he wanted her to die from his shots, but when he was on the verge of reaching her, she would make new efforts to run away. “Ah, if you understood me, Little Doe,” he would cry, “you would not flee. I want to feed you. You are captivating, I’ll take care of you, I love you.” But these words did not reach her for the wind carried them away. Finally, after going around the whole forest, our doe, unable to run any more, slowed her steps, and the prince, hurrying his, came to her with a joy he no longer thought he was capable of. He could see she had lost all her strength. She was lying down like a poor half-dead little animal, and she was only waiting to see her life end at the hands of her victor. But instead of being cruel to her, he began to caress her. “Beautiful doe,” he said to her, “don’t be afraid. I want to take you away with me and I want you to follow me everywhere I go.” He cut some branches from the trees, bent them skillfully, covered them with leaves, grass, and moss, strewed some roses over them from the laden bushes, and then took the doe in his arms, put her head on his neck, and gently laid her on the boughs. He sat beside 264. D’Aulnoy makes it clear that the chase and the arrows are part of the rhetoric of love, which she gently mocks.

The Doe in the Woods 181 her, looking from time to time for fine grass, which he gave her and which she ate from his hand. The prince continued to talk to her, though he was sure she could not understand him. But as much pleasure as she had seeing him, she worried because night was approaching. “What would happen,” she wondered, “if he suddenly saw me change shape? He would be frightened and run away from me, but if he didn’t run away, would I have to fear everything here, all alone in the forest?” She kept thinking of how she could escape, when he provided her a way. Afraid that she needed something to drink, he went to see if he could find a stream, so he could take her there. While he was searching, she stole away quickly and ran to the little house where Gillyflower was waiting for her. She threw herself on her bed again, and then night came, her metamorphosis ended, and she told Gillyflower about her adventure. “Would you believe it, my dear?” she said. “My Warrior Prince is in this forest. It was he who has chased after me for two days, and when he caught me, he gave me a thousand caresses. Ah, how little the portrait they brought me resembles him! He is a hundred times better looking. The sloppiness of a hunter’s appearance takes nothing away from his good looks, and he has appealing features I cannot even describe. Am I not unfortunate to have to flee this prince, to whom I am destined by my family, who loves me, and whom I love? Why did a wicked fairy have to take such an aversion to me the day I was born and trouble every single day of my life?” She began to cry; Gillyflower consoled her and made her hope that in time her sorrows would transform into pleasures. Now, the prince returned to his dear doe as soon as he had found a fountain, but she was no longer where he had left her. He looked everywhere, but in vain, and felt upset with her that she had reason to flee. “What?” he cried. “Will I always have reason to complain about this deceitful, faithless sex?”265 He returned to the good old woman’s house full of melancholy. He told his confidant about the adventure with Little Doe and accused her of ingratitude. Becafigue could not help but smile at the prince’s anger. He advised him to punish the doe when he found her. 265. The prince reverts to misogynistic stereotypes of femininity.

182 The Doe in the Woods “I will stay here solely for that reason,” replied the prince. “Then we will leave and go farther on.” The day came again and the princess took on her shape as White Doe. She didn’t know what to do, whether to go to the same places where the prince usually went, or to take a completely opposite route to avoid him. She chose this last path and went far away. But the young prince, who was as cunning as she, did the same, thinking she would use this little ruse. So he came upon her in the thickest part of the forest. She felt safe there until she suddenly saw him. She immediately leaps up and jumps over the bushes.266 She flies lighter than the wind, as if she feared him even more because of the trick she had played on him the evening before. But at the very moment she crosses a path, he aims so well he shoots an arrow into her leg. She felt a sharp pain and, not having any more strength to run away, she fell. Oh cruel and barbarous Love, where were you then? What? You let a peerless girl be wounded by her tender lover? This lamentable catastrophe was inevitable, for this is how the Fairy of the Fountain had planned the end of the adventure. The prince approached and felt sharp regret seeing the doe’s blood run.267 He took long grass and tied it on her leg to ease the pain and then made her a new bed of branches. He held Little Doe’s head on his knees. “You are the cause of what happened, little flighty doe, aren’t you?” he said. “What did I do to you yesterday that made you abandon me? It won’t be the same today. I shall carry you off.” The doe said nothing. What could she have said? She was in the wrong and she couldn’t speak. It’s not always the case that those who are wrong keep quiet. The prince gave her a thousand caresses. “How I suffer for having wounded you!” he said. “You’ll hate me and I want you to love me.” To listen to him, it seemed as if an unseen spirit inspired everything he said to Little Doe. At last, the time came to return to his old hostess, so he shouldered his quarry, though he had difficulty carrying, leading, and sometimes dragging her. But she had no desire to go with him. 266. D’Aulnoy changes tenses here to make the scene more dramatic. 267. This could be interpreted as a symbolic representation of sexual penetration and defloration.

The Doe in the Woods 183 “What will become of me?” she asked. “What? I’ll be left alone with this prince? I’d rather die!” She made herself heavy to weigh him down; he was soaked from exhaustion and although the little house was not far, he truly felt that without some help, he would never make it. So he went to get faithful Becafigue, but before leaving his prey, he tied her to the foot of a tree with some sashes, for fear she would flee. Alas! Who would have thought that one day the most beautiful princess in the world would be treated this way by a prince who adored her? She tried in vain to tear the sashes off; her efforts just knotted them more tightly. She was about to strangle herself with a slipknot he had inadvertently made, when Gillyflower, tired of always being shut up in her room, went out to get some air and passed the spot where White Doe was struggling. What a shock to see her dear mistress! She couldn’t hurry quickly enough to untie her. But the sashes were knotted in different places. Finally, the prince arrived with Becafigue just as she was about to take the doe away. “However much respect I have for you, Madam,” the prince said to her, “I must oppose the theft you want to commit. I wounded this doe, and she belongs to me. I love her, and I beg you to let me be her master.” “My lord,” Gillyflower said politely, for she was attractive and gracious, “this doe was mine well before she was yours. I would give up my life sooner than I would the doe, and if you wish to see how well she knows me, I ask you to give her a bit of freedom. Come, my little white doe,” she said, “embrace me.” Little Doe threw herself at her neck. “Kiss my right cheek.” She obeyed. “Touch my heart,” and she put her foot there. “Sigh.” She sighed. The prince could no longer possibly doubt what Gillyflower had told him. “I am returning her to you,” he said honorably, “but I confess that it’s not without sorrow.” She went away quickly with her doe. They did not know that the prince was staying in the same house. He followed them from afar and was surprised to see them go into the good old woman’s house. He arrived there shortly after them, and prompted by curiosity, he asked the old woman who that young person was. She replied that she did not know, that she had received her at home with her doe, that she paid her well, and that she lived

184 The Doe in the Woods in complete solitude. Becafigue asked which room was hers. She told him it was so close to his that they were separated only by a partition. When the prince had retired, his confidant told him that either he was the most mistaken of men, or that this girl had stayed with Princess Desiree, for he had seen her when he had gone to the palace as ambassador. “What horrible memory do you make me recall,” the prince said to him, “and by what chance would she be here?” “That’s what I don’t know, my lord,” Becafigue said, “but I would like to see her again, and since a simple partition separates us, I am going to make a hole in it.” “Now there’s a truly useless bit of curiosity,” the prince said sadly, for Becafigue’s words had reawakened all his sorrow. He opened the window that looked out on the forest and began to daydream. Meanwhile, Becafigue was at work and had soon made a large enough hole to see the charming princess, dressed in a gown of silver brocade, with blush-pink flowers embroidered in gold and emeralds. Her hair fell in big curls onto the most beautiful chest in the world,268 her complexion shone with the liveliest color, and her eyes were ravishing. Gillyflower was on her knees in front of her and was dressing her arm, which bled abundantly. They both seemed quite distressed by the wound. “Let me die,” the princess was saying. “Death will be sweeter than the deplorable life I am leading. What? To be a doe all day, see the one I am destined for without speaking to him and telling him my dreadful adventure? Alas, if you only knew the touching words he spoke when I was under my metamorphosis, what the sound of his voice is like, what noble and engaging ways he has, you would pity me even more than you do for being in no condition to reveal my fate to him.” One can well imagine Becafigue’s astonishment at what he had just seen and heard. He ran to the prince and pulled him away from the window in an inexpressible transport of joy. “Ah, my lord!” he said. “Don’t delay; approach this partition and you’ll see the true original of the portrait that captivated you.” 268. This sexual detail adds to the scene’s voyeurism, which recalls the moment in Perrault’s Donkeyskin when the prince spies through a keyhole and sees the heroine trying on her many dresses. See “Peau d’âne,” in Perrault et al., Contes merveilleux, 160–61.

The Doe in the Woods 185 The prince looked and recognized his princess immediately. He would have died of pleasure, but he was afraid of being deceived by some magic trick. How could he reconcile the surprising encounter with Long Thorn and her mother, who were locked in the Castle of the Three Points and who were claiming to be Desiree and the lady in waiting? But his passion made him believe. We have a natural tendency to convince ourselves of what we wish, and on such an occasion we must either die of impatience or understand the situation. He went without delay to knock softly at the chamber door where the princess was. Gillyflower, thinking it was the good old woman, and indeed needing her help to dress her mistress’s wounded arm, hurried to open the door. She was surprised to see the prince, who entered and threw himself at Desiree’s feet. Overwhelming feelings made him speak in such an incoherent way that, whatever effort I made to discover what he said to her in those first few moments, I found no one who could really enlighten me.269 The princess’s responses were no less jumbled. But Love, who often serves as interpreter to the dumb, was present as a third party and convinced both of them that nothing cleverer had ever been said, at least, that nothing more touching or tender has ever been uttered. Tears, sighs, vows, even some gracious smiles—all of it was there. The night was spent this way, the day dawned without Desiree thinking about it, and never again did she become a doe. Realizing this, she was overjoyed beyond measure. The prince was so dear to her she did not delay to share her joy with him. She immediately began to tell her story with a grace and natural eloquence that surpassed even those of the most skillful.270 “What, my charming princess?” he cried. “It is you I wounded as a white doe? What shall I do to expiate such a crime? Will it be enough to die of sorrow before your eyes?” He was so afflicted you could see distress written on his face. Desiree suffered because of this 269. The narrator humorously casts herself as a judicious historian seeking “the facts.” 270. The notion that women have a “natural eloquence,” and that men must cultivate it through work—thus identifying women with the natural and men with artistry—is a common binary opposition in this period. See, for instance, La Bruyère, Les caractères, in Œuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1962), #37, pp. 79–80. See the Editors’ Introduction, n45, in this volume.

186 The Doe in the Woods more than from her wound. She assured him it was almost nothing, and that she couldn’t help loving a harm that brought her so much good. The manner in which she spoke was so kind he could not doubt her good will toward him. To inform her of everything in turn, he told her about the deception of Long Thorn and her mother, adding that he had to hurry and send word to his father, the king, about his good fortune in finding her, because he was going to wage a terrible war to avenge the wrong he believed had been done to him. Desiree begged him to send a letter with Becafigue. He was going to obey her, when the piercing sound of trumpets, bugles, timpani, and drums rang throughout the forest. They seemed to hear a lot of people pass close by the little house. The prince looked out of the window and recognized his flags, his field colors, and several officers. He ordered them to stop and wait for him. No surprise has ever been as welcome as the army’s. Everyone thought their prince was going to lead them to exact vengeance on Desiree’s father. In fact, the prince’s father was leading them despite his great age. He traveled in a litter of velvet embroidered in gold and was followed by an open chariot with Long Thorn and her mother. Prince Warrior saw the litter and ran to it, and his father, stretching out his arms, embraced him with a thousand proofs of his paternal love. “Where have you been, my dear son?” he cried. “How could you consign me to the sadness your absence caused me?” “My lord,” said the prince, “please listen to me.” The king immediately stepped down from his litter, and his son, drawing him aside to an isolated spot, told him of his fortunate encounter and the treachery of Long Thorn. The king was thrilled with this adventure and raised his hands and eyes to heaven to give thanks. At that moment, he saw Princess Desiree appear, more beautiful and brilliant than all the stars together. She rode a superb horse that bowed with every step. A hundred feathers of different colors decorated her head, and the biggest diamonds in the world had been placed on her clothes. She was dressed as a huntress, and Gillyflower, who followed her, was no less finely attired than she. This was the outcome of Tulip’s protection. She had managed

The Doe in the Woods 187 everything with care and success: the pretty house in the woods had been made over for the princess, and in the form of an old woman, she had entertained and feted her for several days. As soon as the prince recognized his troops and went to find his father, Tulip came into Desiree’s room, blew on her arm to heal her wound, and gave her the rich clothes in which she appeared before the king. He was so enchanted he had great trouble believing her to be a mortal. He said all the most courteous things one can imagine on such an occasion and begged her not to delay the happiness of his subjects to have her as their queen. “I have resolved to give my kingdom over to Prince Warrior,” he said, “to make him more worthy of you.” Desiree answered him with all the politeness we would expect from a person so well brought up. Then, casting her eyes on the two miserable prisoners who were in the chariot hiding their faces in their hands, she had the generosity to ask for their pardon and for the chariot to take them where they wished to go. The king consented to her wishes, admiring her good heart and praising her greatly. The order was sent for the army to retrace its steps. The prince mounted his horse to accompany his beautiful princess, and they were received in the capital city with a thousand cries of joy. Everything was prepared for the wedding day, which became solemn by the presence of the six benevolent fairies who loved the princess. They gave her the most sumptuous presents that have ever been imagined, among them the magnificent palace where the queen had gone to see them, which appeared suddenly in the air, carried by fifty thousand cupids, who set it down on a beautiful plain by the river. After such a gift, no one could offer a more exceptional present. Faithful Becafigue asked his master to speak to Gillyflower and to unite him to her when he married the princess. He was most happy to do so, and this lovable girl was very pleased to find such an advantageous situation after coming to a foreign kingdom. Tulip the fairy, even more generous than her sisters, gave her four gold mines in the Indies,271 so that her husband would not have an advantage and 271. Several colonial powers, including Portugal, England, and Sweden, competed to extract and export gold into Europe. Gold trade from Brazil became notable after 1680. However, in 1664, the Compagnie des Indes Orientales was officially established in India by Jean-

188 The Doe in the Woods say he was richer than she.272 The prince’s wedding festivities lasted several months, each day bringing new celebrations. The adventures of Little White Doe have been sung the world over. The princess was in too great a haste To leave those darkened places Where a wise fairy wished To hide her from the heavens’ light; Her misfortunes, her metamorphosis, Show us well enough the dangers A young beauty always faces, When too soon she appears in the world. O you, to whom Cupid generously Has given features that captivate: Beauty is often fatal, they’ve said; You cannot hide it well enough; You think of defending yourself From feeling love, by becoming loved; But know that when you give it, Next, you often come to feel it.

Baptiste Colbert (1619–1683), the finance minister of France. Like the more massive importation of silver, gold was also needed to fuel Louis XIV’s imperial wars. See also n242 above. 272. An interesting egalitarian note: the wife should be as wealthy as her husband.

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (c.1650–1724): Introduction Like several other conteuses, La Force turned to fairy tales after writing novels.273 She was particularly drawn to the “secret history,” which exposes the (usually fictional) love affairs of prominent historical figures, as either a backdrop or an explanation for their official political actions.274 La Force’s five novels, like those of other women novelists at the time, concentrate on female protagonists and propose a vision of history in which women are just as important as men.275 In addition to poetry published in Le Mercure Galant, La Force wrote two unpublished novels, another “secret history” novel, and a fictional account of an early seventeenth-century salonlike gathering, with descriptions of the sorts of parlor games played in those circles.276 As a writer, she was not as celebrated as some of the other conteuses, notably d’Aulnoy, Bernard, and L’Héritier, even though, like them, she was a member of the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua. Still, her wit and intelligence were recognized in her time. In March 1684, Le Mercure Galant states, “Her wit is known to everyone,” and in July 1685, “She has always been regarded as a good judge of sophisticated works (ouvrages d’esprit).”277 And the writers Antoinette Deshoulières and Antoine Hamilton (1646–1720) each dedicated poems to her.278 273.  Bernard and d’Aulnoy had also published several novels before they turned to fairy tales. See the introductions for these two authors in this volume. 274.  Histoire secrète de Bourgogne (Paris: Simon Benard, 1694); Histoire secrète de Henry IV, roy de Castille (Paris: Simon Benard, 1695); Histoire de Marguerite de Valois, reine de Navarre, sous le règne de François Ier (Paris: Simon Benard, 1696); Gustave Vasa, histoire de Suède (Paris: Simon Benard, 1697–98); Anecdote galante, ou Histoire secrette de Catherine de Bourbon (Nancy, 1703). Her fairy tales appeared in her volume, Les contes des contes (Paris: Simon Benard, 1697). 275. See, in particular, Faith E. Beasley, Revising Memory: Women’s Fiction and Memoirs in Seventeenth-Century France (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990). 276. Les jeux d’esprit ou la promenade de la Princesse de Conti à Eu par Mademoiselle de la Force, ed. M. le marquis de la Grange (Paris: Auguste Aubry, 1862). 277. Quoted in La Force, Les jeux d’esprit, xiv, xv. 278. Deshoulières’s “Epître chagrine” (“Sorrowful Epistle”) laments the fate of writers, and Hamilton’s verses celebrate their friendship. See Mary Elizabeth Storer, Un épisode littéraire, 111–12.

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190 Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force La Force was born around 1650 into an illustrious family of protestant aristocrats that included generals prominent during the Wars of Religion. Through her mother, she was probably related to the conteuse, Henriette-Julie de Castelnau de Murat. La Force was more active in court life than any of the other conteuses. Since her father was not the eldest son of his family—and thus did not have access to a rich inheritance—beginning in 1666, La Force became a lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie-Thérèse (1638–1683),279 the duchesse de Guise,280 and the dauphine.281 Initially she had the favor of Louis XIV, who sought a suitable husband for her; but she lost it when she was implicated in several scandals, including accusations that she possessed a pornographic novel and had love affairs. In 1687, La Force married a certain Charles de Briou, but without the consent of his father, who petitioned to have the marriage dissolved. After a lengthy trial that attracted the scandal mongers of the day, the union was indeed annulled in 1689. It was after this fiasco that she began to publish, first her “secret histories” and then, in 1697, her volume of fairy tales. That same year, La Force was exiled to a Benedictine convent in Gercy, ostensibly for writing “impious” songs, but likely also for her past reputation. During this confinement, she authored three novels, only one of which was published. She was authorized to return to court in 1715 and appears to have led a pious life until her death in 1724.282 La Force was clearly involved in the vogue of fairy tales from its very inception, even though her contacts with the other writers of contes de fées remain uncertain. Her collection of fairy tales, Les contes des contes (Tales of the Tales), appeared late in 1697, the same year as Perrault’s Stories or Tales of Yesteryear and d’Aulnoy’s Tales of the Fairies. The title of La Force’s collection vaguely recalls Basile’s The Tale of the Tales; but, as the publisher’s preface suggests, this 279. Louis XIV’s first wife. 280. Elizabeth-Marguerite d’Orléans (1646–1696). 281. Marie-Anne-Victoire de Bavière (1660–1690), wife of the dauphin (Louis de France, 1661–1711), son of Louis XIV and heir to the throne. 282. For biographies of La Force, see Storer, Un épisode littéraire, 109–28; Christine Dauphiné, Charlotte-Rose Caumont de La Force, une romancière du XVIIe siècle (Périgueux: P. Fanlac, 1980); and Lewis Seifert, “Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force (c.1650–1724),” in Raynard, ed., The Teller’s Tale.

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force 191 title is above all a superlative meant to distinguish it from the collections that had appeared before hers.283 Her eight tales, which are not set in a frame-narrative, reveal a diverse range of influences, styles, and messages. Certain stories rewrite specific literary texts such as Apuleius’s The Golden Ass (in More Beautiful than a Fairy), Basile’s Petrosinella (in Persinette), and a sixteenth-century prose version of the thirteenth-century Perceval (in The Enchanter); her other tales incorporate various motifs and characters from Greek and Roman mythology, other contes de fées, and folklore into plots of her own invention.284 Like the texts of the other conteuses, La Force’s works display a complex narrative structure, with embedded stories, parallel plots, and metalepses, among other techniques.285 Of all the conteuses and conteurs, though, La Force arguably deploys the widest range of messages about love. Thus, the familiar happy ending of The Land of Delights stands in contrast to The Power of Cupid, where the final poem declares: “For every happy love under your [Cupid’s] power, / we see a thousand unhappy ones; / We should abhor your flames, / Never feel them, and even less speak of them.”286 More striking is La Force’s reliance on conventional notions of “gallant” or “tender” love287 in some tales compared to the sensuality and mild eroticism in others.288 As a whole, then, La Force’s contes de fées question the commonplace depictions of love in the novels and fairy tales of her time. In developing her love plots, La Force also puts 283.  “Seeing that fairy tales had had such great success, I asked for these, which have been composed for some time. I was only able to obtain them with great difficulty. They have been so greatly appreciated by the persons of quality who have seen them that I do not fear to risk calling them the Tales of the Tales” (“Le libraire au lecteur,” Les contes des contes, np). 284. See Raymonde Robert, “Notice,” in Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, et al., Contes, 295–306. 285. See Marie-Agnès Thirard, “Les contes de Mlle de La Force: Un nouvel art du récit féerique à travers un exemple privilégié,” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 27, no. 53 (2000): 573–85. “Metalepsis” involves the intrusion of the narrator into the universe of the fictional characters (e.g. by shifting among scenes or subplots). 286. La puissance d’Amour, in L’Héritier et al., Contes, 414. 287. On tendresse, see Prince Rosebush, n18, in this volume. 288. Half of La Force’s tales include scenes of eroticism: The Enchanter; Green and Blue; More Beautiful than a Fairy; and Persinette.

192 Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force special emphasis on female subjectivity alongside the hero’s point of view.289 The Enchanter and Green and Blue demonstrate two different approaches to the fairy tale. Presented as an adaptation of “an old Gothic book,” The Enchanter recreates a vaguely medieval setting and, unlike several of her other tales (and those of other conteuses), does not include descriptions of luxurious court settings reminiscent of Louis XIV’s Versailles. Rather than provide upper-class readers with an idealized image of themselves or their values, this tale includes motifs that are alien to prose fiction at the time, including nudity, illicit sexuality, and brutal violence. Just as unconventional is the ambiguous final lesson, which preaches moral relativism: “By different paths, happiness we attain; / Vice leads us there, but honor does as well.”290 In contrast to this tale, one of the most unusual of the entire seventeenth-century vogue, Green and Blue hues more closely to the period’s literary expectations, recounting how two star-crossed lovers overcome impediments to ultimate bliss. But the path to this predictable ending is strewn with unexpected twists and turns. In its narrative structure, this story is what Raymonde Robert has called a “wager tale,” a form frequently used in the eighteenth century in which the two protagonists, ideally suited to one another, are separated by a mysterious prediction.291 This narrative pretext creates suspense, usually minimal in folk and fairy tales, and invites readers to speculate on possible solutions to the protagonists’ dilemma. The “wager” in Green and Blue is based on a popular belief about the incompatibility of the two colors, green and blue, but the story rejects this idea as superstition. As in other stories by La Force, this story includes scenes of veiled eroticism that highlight female desire.292 If the story concludes 289. For instance, see Green and Blue, in this volume. See Marcelle Maistre Welch, “L’éros féminin dans les contes de fées de Mlle de la Force,” in Actes de Las Vegas: Théorie dramatique, Théophile de Viau, Les contes de fées, ed. Marie-France Hilgar (Paris: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1991), 217–23, and Carolyn Vellenga, “Rapunzel’s Desire: A Reading of Mlle de la Force,” Merveilles et contes 6, no. 1 (1992): 103–16. 290. La Force, The Enchanter, 212, in this volume. 291. See Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire en France, 193–201. Murat’s Happy Pain is another seventeenth-century example of a “wager tale.” 292. See La Force, Green and Blue, 220–21, in this volume.

Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force 193 with the expected final marriage, it does so in unusual ways that reveal La Force’s imagination as a writer.

The Enchanter Notice for the tale below: The Enchanter is taken from an ancient Gothic293 book, named Perceval.294 We have omitted many things that 293. “Gothic” has the negative connotations of antiquated and old fashioned in the seventeenth century; see for instance, Boileau’s Art poétique (1674): “You would say that Ronsard on his rustic pipes / Comes again humming his gothic idyls,” II, v. 22, Oeuvres complètes, 162. 294. In fact, La Force’s model is not Perceval ou le conte du graal (Perceval or the Story of the Grail), c. 1180–90, by the twelfth-century French poet, Chrétien de Troyes, an unfinished text that depicts Perceval’s initiation into knighthood at the court of Artu, and then follows Gauvain, Artu’s nephew, in his quest for the holy grail. Rather, her tale resembles an episode from the first continuation of this romance, written anonymously in the twelfth century, entitled Caradoc. Raymonde Robert documents the existence of a 1530 edition in modern French of this first continuation at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (Res. Y2 74), which focuses on the illegitimate loves of a magician and a queen (Le conte de fées littéraire, 177–81). For three nights following the marriage of Ysenne de Carahès with the king of Nantes, the enchanter, Eliavrès, gives the appearance of a young woman to three animals—a greyhound, a trout, and a mare— and places them in the husband’s bed. This allows Eliavrès to spend the nights with her; he leaves her pregnant with a son, Caradoc, who then becomes a knight at King Arthur’s court. During a festival, an unknown knight exacts from the king the promise that a knight will cut off this stranger’s head: Caradoc accepts, but the cut-off head goes back onto the body. The knight demands the same right in return a year later, but at the moment of Caradoc’s decapitation, Eliavrès reveals that he is his father. Caradoc denounces the adultery to his presumed father, the queen is shut up in a tower, and the enchanter is forced to bed a bitch, a trout, and a mare, which produce a greyhound, a boar, and a horse, all of them, then, “brothers” of Caradoc. Enraged by their punishment, the queen and the magician trap Caradoc, and the magician summons a serpent that attaches itself to Caradoc’s arm, and that nothing can detach. He will be freed by a ruse: a maiden (Guinier) who loves him accepts to attract the snake onto her breast; but in trying to kill the reptile, the maiden’s brother (Sir Cador) cuts off the tip of her breast, which will ultimately be replaced by a golden nipple. Caradoc is freed, but his arm has been permanently damaged by the snake, which explains his nickname, Caradoc Short Arm. La Force is faithful to this old tale, with minor exceptions, among these, the person who conceives of the snake to hurt Carados. (See Robert, Le conte de fées, 177–79.) Caradoc also appears in other parts of Arthurian literature. It seems to be the case, however, that La Force is also thinking of the Green Knight from Chrétien’s Perceval, since the mysterious knight/enchanter here wears a green habit. And like Chrétien’s Perceval, The Enchanter features a quest for a patrilineal identity, because of a queen’s adulterous behavior. The themes of husbands who are jealous of the enchanters-lovers of their wives and who then build towers in which to confine their spouses appear in lais and fabliaux of the period, for instance, in Marie de France’s Yonec. The beheading test is a Celtic motif that appears in the Middle English Sir Gawain and the

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The Enchanter 195 did not conform to our customs and mores295 We have added many others. Some names have also been changed. This is the only tale not entirely written by the author; the rest are purely of her invention.296 • Once upon a time, there was a king called “the good king,” because he was virtuous and just, loved by his subjects and cherished by his neighbors. His fame had spread throughout the world, and so another king came to his realm to ask him for a wife. The good king, honored by such an act of confidence, chose the most captivating of his nieces and promised her to him. She was called Isène the Beautiful.297 News of such an illustrious marriage was spread the world over, so that everyone could witness the feasts and tournaments to celebrate it. It was wondrous that so many guests attended. Among the princes who came, the Lord of the Far-Away Islands drew great attention: he was handsome and a great Enchanter. As soon as he saw Isène the Beautiful, he fell in love and was very angry that she would belong to another. He felt sure that if he had come earlier and had asked the good king, he would have gained her hand. He was aggrieved by this thought and racked his brain to find a way to possess such a perfect beauty. The wedding finally took place, to his great regret. But he knew how to make excellent use of his magical gifts. On the wedding night, when the bride had been put to bed and was left alone, according to the custom of the time, she felt unable to stay in bed, because of the effect of some secret power. She got up and went into a small room next to her chamber. She sat on a daybed, happily looking at the rare objects in Green Knight. We thank Megan Moore for this information that helps place into context La Force’s particular rendition of the tale. 295. The notion of updating the ancients to conform to modern, seventeenth-century times, is part and parcel of the concept of bienséance (what is proper or fitting) and appears as well in the prefaces of Jean Racine’s plays; see for instance the preface to his Iphigénie en Aulide (1674). 296. This is not entirely true since Persinette seems to follow a folktale (ATU 310), popularly known as Rapunzel, the title of the Grimms’ tale. 297. In view of the tale of adultery that follows, Isène’s name may evoke that of Iseut (Isolde) and her relationship to King Mark and to Tristan.

196 The Enchanter this beautiful room, which was ablaze with light. But soon something else drew her attention: she saw the Lord of the Far-Away Islands enter. He knelt before her and told her he loved her. She felt such a powerful impulse298 toward him that no magic could create anything like it if it did not come from a natural feeling.299 He said the most beautiful things in the world to the queen; she responded so well he thought he was favored, and confessed he had placed in the king’s bed a slave300 for whom he would mistake her. Isène laughed, and spent the night making fun of her husband. When daylight came, she acted as if nothing had happened. The king, delighted with his good fortune, felt he was the happiest of men, but the Enchanter was the most in love and the most satisfied.301 He won all the prizes in the tournaments, and gave Isène the Beautiful a hundred signs of love, but no one noticed. They stole glances at each other; if they danced, they squeezed each other’s hand; at mealtime, they drank from the same glass: nothing compares to the happiness of a new love. The second night, the Enchanter stayed with the queen once again, and put his slave into the king’s bed. The day was spent in giving those proofs of love that have infinite appeal to refined souls, even when given in secret. The third night was similar to the other two. The Enchanter enjoyed the same delights, and the king thought he had as well, with the person beside him. When the celebrations were over, everyone went their separate ways and the king took leave of the good king, and led his new wife to his estates. Soon afterwards, she realized she was with child. When the time came, she gave birth to the most handsome prince ever seen. He was named Carados. The king loved him passionately because he thought he was the father, and the queen cherished him with great tenderness.302 298. See L’Héritier, Marmoisan, n94, in this volume. 299. So saying, the author discards the notion of an imposed spell on Isène. 300. Medieval romances, at least in the West, do not usually feature slaves, which the author treats casually—unremarkably—here. 301. Despite the rhetoric of indirection, the text nonetheless makes it clear that two couples had sexual relations that night. 302. Another example of parental love for the child. See Marmoisan, n80, in this volume.

The Enchanter 197 The prince grew rapidly and became more handsome by the day. When he was twelve years old, people thought he was eighteen. As soon as his teachers showed him something, within minutes he knew it better than they did. He danced well, sang just as well, rode well, and did all his work perfectly: he understood history, and was ignorant of nothing a great prince should know.303 He heard so often about the court of the good king that he developed a strong desire to travel there. He indicated this to the king and queen, but they objected: they could not consent to have such a handsome child leave them. But young Carados found their resistance intolerable and fell ill with sorrow. His father and mother, seeing him grow worse each day, decided to make him happy. They prepared a fine equipage for him, embraced him a thousand times, and let him leave. I won’t even tell you how he was received at the good king’s court; it goes without saying. People paid him a hundred compliments, and were surprised how well built, handsome, and charming he was. He finished improving his skills at the court. Then he went to war and performed so many fine deeds people spoke of nothing but his valor. He was eighteen when the king’s celebration took place. It was the king’s birthday, which he was accustomed to commemorating with great splendor. He would hold full court and usually grant everything requested of him. His throne was set up in a wondrously large hall, the front of which looked out onto the countryside, with grand archways from ceiling to floor, so it was easy to see who was arriving. It was there that a fine, large assembly surrounded the king’s throne. A very beautiful woman stood next to him along with a great number of princesses and ladies. Those present were in a joyful mood and thought only of rejoicing. Carados shone in this gathering, as does the rose over other flowers. Suddenly, they saw a horseman on the plain mounted on a beautiful white horse with a biscuit-colored mane and tail coming toward them gracefully. When he was close enough, people noticed he was dressed in green and girded with a magnificent sash on which hung a sword so brilliant with gems that its radiance was unbearable. 303. The social, physical, and intellectual skills of the prince (and the courtier) are featured in manuals of the period, beginning especially with Baltasar Castiglione’s Il Cortegiano (The Courtier), 1528.

198 The Enchanter He was divinely handsome. A hundred locks of blond hair covered his shoulders, a crown of flowers was on his head, and a boyant, cheerful expression enlivened his face. As he rode along, he sang most pleasingly. When he neared the hall, he sprang lightly to the ground, and the good king’s people, well trained, led his horse away to tend to it. He entered the hall where the good king was and had such a fine manner he attracted the gaze of the entire assembly. The ladies in particular found him charming. He walked toward the good king’s throne with noble daring after greeting the illustrious company. He knelt before the king, unfastened his sword, and laid it at his feet. “Sire,” he said, “I come to ask your majesty for a gift. I trust that on such a solemn day your goodness will not refuse me.” “Speak, winsome stranger,” the good king replied. “I refuse nothing on a day like today, and I would not begin refusals, which are against my custom, with you. I give you my word that whatever you ask, you shall have it.” “In that case,” replied the man, “I ask of you, Sire, an embrace for an embrace.” “What does that mean?” the bewildered king exclaimed. “You give me a riddle instead of asking a favor. I don’t understand, not at all.” Then the good king turned and asked all those assembled there if they knew what the words meant. They answered that they didn’t know, and so, once again he asked the man to explain himself. “An embrace for an embrace,” answered the man, “means nothing else, Sire, but that someone of this noble assembly must cut off my head with my sword, which you see here.” At this request, the assembly let out a long exclamation of astonishment. The king nearly fell off his throne with surprise. The queen scowled with horror, and her beautiful ladies showed distress. The good king tried to be relieved of such a barbarous promise and said he had been taken by surprise. But the stubborn man held firm and told the king that his honor was at stake. The king was as sorrowful as he could be. He asked in vain whether anyone wanted to carry out this horrible execution, but no one said a word, which upset the king even more. In vain did he explain to the man that he had cruelly troubled the joy of the day. But he remained firm that someone should cut off his head.

The Enchanter 199 Finally, Carados came forward and told the king he was too devoted to him to suffer the insult this man rendered him, given the impossible stakes he had placed on the boon he had been granted, and thus, that he was ready to make good on the king’s promise. The man smiled pleasantly as he looked at Carados and said he was ready to meet death. An executioner’s block was brought: Carados drew the deadly sword, the man knelt down and all eyes were fixed on this astonishing spectacle. Carados then severed the head from the body. It made three turns, and bounded three times, it planted itself back on the torso. The man got back up with a jaunty air.304 If everyone had been stunned by the request he had made, they were even more astonished by his resurrection. After all the shouting, a dumbfounded silence came over them for a long while, as if they were under a spell. The good king was gratified by this turn of events, and Carados even more so, having only committed an innocent murder.305 But the man cheerfully approached the king and knelt again. “Sire,” he said, “I call on you to make good on the gift you granted me.” “But haven’t I done so?” asked the king. “No, Sire,” he continued. “You have only granted me half of it. I requested an embrace for an embrace. Carados gave it to me, and now I must return the favor and cut his head off.” At this proposal, everyone began to shout; a thousand ladies’ screams most especially could be heard that seemed to protest such a barbarous request. The king was dismayed, the queen and all the ladies were beside themselves, and the assembly was upset, so well loved was Carados. He alone appeared calm, and told the king he would be only too happy to shed his blood in order to redeem the good king’s honor. The man looked at him again with a smile, and then turned to the king. “Sire,” he said, “I have disturbed the pleasure of this cel304. This scene, in which Carados unknowingly seems to kill his father, bears at least superficial resemblance to the myth of Oedipus. More generally, it recalls the cycle of death and rebirth that is central to some theories of the hero (see for instance Lord Raglan, “The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama,” in In Quest of the Hero, ed. Robert A. Segal [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990], 89–175). 305. The phrase, “an innocent murder,” is purposely paradoxical.

200 The Enchanter ebration enough. It would be too much commotion for one day. I will delay the execution of this affair, and I beg all these princes and lords to be here a year from today. I will return on that day for you to fulfill your promise, and we shall see if Carados has as much courage to suffer death as he had resolve to give me death.” After this, everyone sat down to dine, but the banquet was very melancholic for the guests were saddened by Carados’s fate. The year passed with many opportunities for this prince to attain glory, and he performed a hundred great feats. At the end of the year, he was the first to appear in the assembly hall. Everyone was dismayed and constantly turned their eyes toward the countryside, still hoping that perhaps they would not see the dreaded arrival of the man. He appeared at last, astride the same horse, with his green habit, sash, beautiful sword, and crown of roses. He sang, as he had previously, and knelt the same way before the king to ask that he fulfill his promise. The good king begged in vain to be released, and the queen, seeing that the king was having no success, came with her ladies to beseech him to grant Carados his life, offering him the most beautiful of the king’s nieces along with half of the kingdom. But the queen’s prayers and tears gained nothing. Carados alone seemed unmoved by the peril that threatened him. He came toward the good king with an assured air and asked him to let the inevitable end quickly. The block was brought and the prince presented his neck. The man raised his sword and held it in the air such a long time that Carados cast him a look that would have melted cruelty herself: “Finish with it,” he said. “You are giving me a thousand deaths instead of one.” At these words the man raised his arm higher still, then calmly put his sword back in its scabbard and offered Carados his hand to help him to his feet. “Rise, young prince,” he said, “you had already given signs of courage on a hundred occasions. I am very happy we have seen proof of your resolve.”306 A thousand cries of joy rose to the heavens at such an unexpected outcome. The good king descended from his throne and embraced the man. The queen, the ladies, and the entire assembly seemed more confounded than rational. 306. Both courage and resolve (or steadfastness) are qualities of the ideal knight.

The Enchanter 201 The celebration was full of cheer, when the man asked to speak to Carados in private. They went into a gallery where the man, after showing Carados signs of endearment, informed him that he was the Lord of the Far-Away Islands, and that he was his father. At this news the prince turned red, and his face lit up with anger. He told the Enchanter this was clearly not true, that he only wished to sully the reputation of Isène the Beautiful, and that her husband, the king, was his father. The Enchanter was surprised to find him so ill natured. “You are an ingrate,” he replied, “but you are nonetheless my son. It was I who bestowed on you the many fine qualities that make everyone love you. Ah, Carados! I fear you will regret your harshness toward me.” They separated, but a few days later Carados, who had not believed he was the son of the Enchanter, wished nonetheless to see the man whom he wanted to be his father. So he took leave of the good king and the queen and went to find the husband of Isène the Beautiful.307 He was greeted with great expressions of affection from the king and queen. When Carados and the king were alone, the king spoke of the fear he had felt for Carados’s life, threatened by a stranger, but the prince was imprudent enough to tell him everything the Enchanter had said. The king, who loved Carados with infinite tenderness, was struck by his tale and assured him that whatever the truth should turn out to be, he would not love him any the less, that he would always consider him his one and only son and successor. However, he had to clarify the matter with the queen, who could have had some dalliance with the Lord of the Far-Away Islands. They sent for Isène the Beautiful, who fainted when she heard the truth. She seemed entirely convinced and didn’t waste time denying it, but her greatest sorrow was to be accused and convicted by her own son.308 The king consulted Carados on a remedy for so great an injury. Carados said that although the king’s shame was secret, a dazzling revenge was required: the king should send for workmen from every quarter and use his wealth to have a tower of impenetra307. The husband, whom he no longer calls “father.” 308. It is noteworthy that she shows no signs of remorse.

202 The Enchanter ble strength built in which the queen would be locked under good, secure guard.309 This advice pleased the king and the plan was executed. In a few days, the tower was built, and the queen was locked up inside. Carados felt no remorse for the treatment he imposed on his mother,310 and after that, left to return to the good king’s court. He was only two days from the capital city of this kingdom when he glimpsed at a distance something bright in a meadow. As he got closer, he saw there were tents and that on the top of the highest there was a gold ball with an eagle made of the same material that seemed to rise toward the heavens. Carados went toward the tents. He didn’t see anyone, so he got off his horse and entered the tent that seemed most beautiful to him. Inside there was a fine bed, whose curtains were drawn. And on the bed lay a young person, unequaled in beauty, fast asleep.311 The prince was immediately captivated by the sight of something so lovely. The first moment was given to admiration, the second to love. And he loved without being able to stop himself from loving her.312 Contrary to the customs of that age of great passion, he became as bold as people are today.313 In fact, he was emboldened as soon as he fell in love. He began by putting one knee to the ground. He took the young girl’s hand and kissed it. But his audacity increased and she awoke, alarmed to find herself in the arms of a man she had not seen before.314 Then she screamed and tried to throw herself at the foot 309. The punishment of the woman is consistent with narratives inflected by patriarchal gender ideology; moreover, revenge against the man is not exacted, at least, not immediately. 310. Son and mother thus have similar traits. 311. There is an obvious similarity here with Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty. An even more precise parallel is Basile’s Sun, Moon, and Talia (likely the source for Perrault’s tale) in which a king happens upon a maiden in a magically induced sleep, then rapes and impregnates her. See Basile, The Tale of the Tales, 414. Here, however, the sleeping princess averts sexual aggression. 312. An immediate, involuntary impulse, as was the case with his mother and the Enchanter. 313. The “Gothic” period is thus identified with great passion and the timid, courtly, respectful lover. The contrast between the (virtuous) fairy-tale past and the (decadent) present is a leitmotiv throughout the narratives of the conteuses. See Seifert, Fairy Tales. 314. He thus behaves as his real father did with his mother.

The Enchanter 203 of her bed, when a Greek slave came running to her aid. First, she stretched out her hands to help her mistress, but after casting a glance at Carados, she voiced her great surprise. “Look at the man you’re running from,” she said to her young mistress, who turned her head and wild eyes toward the prince. But all at once they softened, and she smiled at him. “It is Carados,” she said with much joy; “it is Carados.” “I am most certainly Carados,” answered the prince, charmed by her sweetness. “But how do you know me?” “Wait a moment,” she replied, running into a nearby pavilion with her slave. She returned immediately, holding a large roll, which she opened to show Carados a portrait of himself.315 “This is your portrait,” she said. “As soon as I saw it, I loved you, and as soon as I loved you, I made you my intended and obtained my brother’s consent that I would never have any husband but you. We are going to the good king’s court, where my brother will ask for a wife and ask for you to be my husband. My brother is King Candor, and I am Adelis.” As she finished speaking, King Candor, almost as attractive as his sister, entered the tent. Adelis presented Carados to him, and from that time forth they loved each other as brothers. They went off together to the good king’s court. Everyone was captivated by the fine appearance and beauty of the brother and sister. The good king presented all his nieces to King Candor. He chose the loveliest and married her. The wedding of Carados and Adelis was about to be celebrated when a messenger arrived from the king, whom he thought was his father, instructing him to return in all haste. He departed, leaving the beautiful Adelis, but promising to return promptly. But don’t we all know that things that depend on destiny are not in our power? When Carados arrived, the king told him he was in a most difficult position. Every night, he could hear beguiling melodies coming from Isène’s tower; apparently, the Enchanter was making every effort to amuse her while in captivity. He was not mistaken. The Lord of the Far-Away Islands had despaired over the suffering inflicted on the queen because of her love 315. On portraits, see Prince Rosebush, n27, in this volume.

204 The Enchanter for him, and he wished to soften its harshness with constant proofs of his love. He had taken twelve beautiful girls and put them near her, along with some handsome men, and had thus assembled a pleasant court. The best musicians of the time were there, as well as good dancers and excellent actors. Plays were performed for her three times a week, and on the other nights there were either operas or delightful festivities with splendid banquets. In this way, he beguiled away the time the king wanted the queen to endure in great tedium. And all these pleasures were enhanced by his own company. Carados had no doubt but that the lord was acting out of love. He told the king that he would have to take the lord by surprise, which would be easy enough because he suspected nothing. That very night Carados went to the tower when he thought everyone was occupied with some pleasurable festivity. He entered noiselessly and slipped secretly among the guards. He captured the Enchanter, whose spells had no power once he had been seized. At first, Isène the Beautiful was so frightened she didn’t take care to hide her passion, but a long fainting spell finally betrayed her. The Enchanter was brought before the king, who wanted him put to death. But Carados argued that this punishment did not suffice, and that he must be tormented in some ignominious way. After thinking it over carefully, Carados ventured that the lord had to be made to suffer, and that nothing would be more cruel than to condemn him to the same fate the king had suffered. So on three different nights they gave the lord a slave, whom a skilled fairy had made to resemble Isène the Beautiful. He could not defend himself against this trap. Being in someone else’s power, his knowledge and his magic art had been rendered useless. He consoled himself in his cell, thinking that the queen was beside him. He suffered only from the hardships she endured, for he believed he was their cause. But just when he was saying the most sensitive, refined, and passionate words to her, the fairy unmasked the slave. She appeared in her natural form, and he realized his error and the trick played on him. Nothing can compare to the grief of the Lord of the Far-Away Islands. In the end, he was allowed to leave without being forced to

The Enchanter 205 promise never to see Isène the Beautiful again.316 Unfortunately, they forgot this most important point. The lord was allowed to live so that he might suffer the eternal shame of his infidelity. He felt it keenly and took himself to the tower to see Isène the Beautiful, whose pleasant companions had all been taken from her. He approached her, his hair in disarray, eyes downcast, pale, uttering only pitiful sighs with an expression of such grief it would have moved a person less concerned with his sorrow than was the queen. She looked at him sadly, and when he had regained his composure, he told her of the torture to which his love had been subjected with a thousand sobs. Isène turned pale herself, and was so bitterly enraged at the cruel Carados that she cried, “Is it possible he is our son? Let him die! I no longer know him. But no,” she continued, “may he suffer as you have suffered.” They spent time conferring and the following day the queen sent for Carados, saying she wanted to speak with him. He went to her and found her in a sorry state with her hair utterly disheveled. She said she did not think he would come so quickly, that she would hurry to dress her hair, but asked him to open the armoire and give her the lovely ivory comb sent to her from Rome. Carados went to obey her and opened the armoire, but barely had he reached out his hand when a serpent bit him, and coiled itself around his arm three times.317 The bite was so painful Carados fell to the ground with a frenzied cry. The guards ran in and carried him to the palace. All experts in surgery were summoned,318 but they could not heal him, nor could they tear the cruel serpent from his arm. 316. So her punishment—lack of freedom—is worse than his, even though they were arguably equally guilty for their passion. 317. The serpent is traditionally identified with woman (as Eve), and here it seems noticeably so, since La Force uses the female serpente, rather than the masculine serpent, the normal gender of “snake” in French. She is the instrument of the mother’s revenge. That the serpent cannot be removed from his arm can also be a sign of Carados’s sin (cruelty). 318. Surgery was considered an artisanal practice, on a par with the art of the barber until the end of the seventeenth century when a royal edict recognized his specific professional status; Louis XIV had “a first surgeon.” On surgery in the seventeenth century, see Laurence Brockliss and Colin Jones, The Medical World of Early Modern France (Oxford: Clarendon Press, l997).

206 The Enchanter News of this mishap soon reached everyone’s ears, especially the realm of the good king, where the entire court felt sorrow. But no sorrow was comparable to that of the beautiful Adelis, who left immediately with King Candor, her brother, to go to her unfortunate lover. She set out while Carados suffered violent pain. He lay in bed, but nothing could soothe him. He languished, wasting away from his severe affliction. One evening when he was more despondent than usual, he was told a messenger had just arrived on behalf of Adelis. He was troubled by this news but ordered that he be let in. When the messenger was near him, Carados kept his face turned to the wall so that he would not see how changed, how wasted he was. The messenger said to him that Adelis and King Candor would arrive the following day. Carados seemed satisfied and dismissed him. But when he was alone again, he turned to his page and told him to close the inner door tightly. Then he asked the page if he were truly his friend, and if he were ready to prove it to him. In tears, the poor page protested that he loved him so much that if need be, he would give him his life. Carados seemed heartened by this reassurance. He had himself dressed as best he could and ordered the page to bring his gems and any tools they would need. Once that was done, the two of them went down to the garden and made a hole in the wall that bordered on a forest. Carados worked using his good arm. When they were in the forest, they walked more than three days without knowing where they were, nourishing themselves wretchedly on whatever they found. At last, they spotted a hermitage, pleasantly situated on the bank of a stream, with a pretty garden full of fruits and vegetables. A hermit dressed in white came out of the chapel. Carados approached him, recounted his misfortune—the priest had already heard of it—and begged the hermit to hide him and to allow him to spend the rest of his sorrowful life with him. The good hermit promised to keep his secret and went to buy two white outfits for Carados and his page. He was so well disguised in this habit no one ever recognized him, not even the men whom the king had sent to search for him. They saw him but took him for a hermit. Meanwhile, King Candor and his sister had arrived at the place where they expected to find Carados. Adelis was immediately

The Enchanter 207 taken to his chamber. They found the door shut, so they banged on it and stated who was there, but no one answered. Surprised, the beautiful Adelis spoke up: “Open, open, my friend,” she said, “Your Adelis is here.” Still no word. Finally, Candor, impatient, had the door broken down, but they found nothing, not in the chamber nor in the bed. Poor Adelis was stunned. She cried and tore at her hair, and King Candor, seeing her violent grief, swore to search the countryside for two years until he found his dear friend, Carados. He set off on his quest, making inquiries wherever he went about what he was seeking, but he learned nothing new. The time he had set for his quest passed imperceptibly. His sorrow was still fresh, but he returned, full of despair, to the kingdom of the monarch who was thought to be Carados’s father. He felt some consolation at seeing his sister again. One day when he was in the forest, he found a welcoming stream and got off his horse to rest and avoid the great heat of the day. He walked a while in search of a comfortable place, and he had just found a very pleasant spot when he heard a sad voice that was lamenting bitterly. He stopped and was singularly surprised to realize, from the words he heard, that Carados himself was lamenting. His joy was so great he wondered if he were not mistaken. He approached softly and saw a man dressed in white lying at the water’s edge. He would have thought by his habit it was a hermit, if he had not noticed the arm with a serpent around it sticking out of his wide sleeve. At this sight, King Candor gave a great cry and, wild with delight, threw his arms around his friend’s neck. Nothing equaled Carados’s disarray at being discovered this way. He shed tears of shame and of tenderness. Candor embraced him a thousand times without being able to speak: great joys are silent. Finally, when both could speak, they explained their behavior as do two friends who truly love each other. After many legitimate reproaches on Candor’s side and bad excuses on Carados’s, Candor got Carados’s word that he would wait for him there without fleeing, as he had already done, and promised to return within six days. After these assurances, good King Candor left his friend and went in all haste to the king; without saying anything else, he asked permission to see Isène the Beautiful.

208 The Enchanter After receiving permission, he went to the tower and painted for Isène a touching picture of the unhappy state in which he had found Carados, entreating her, in the name of their blood ties, to forget the offenses her son had committed and to heal him. And because he wished to touch and to convince the queen, he even beseeched her, in the name of the Lord of the Far-Away Islands, to grant what he asked. Isène the Beautiful’s anger had softened with time. She answered King Candor that she was willing to heal her son, but that the only remedy seemed impossible to find, since it required a maiden as faithful as she was beautiful who would be willing to suffer for Carados.319 After this, Isène explained the procedure for the rest of the remedy. Candor thought a bit and, thanking the queen, he took his leave and went to find the beautiful and sad Adelis. She was beside herself with joy to see her brother again, and asked him whether he had news of Carados. He replied that he had found him, but in the most piteous condition. Finally, he told her there was also a remedy to heal him, but that it was most difficult to apply. She was eager to know what it was. “My sister,” he said, “we must find a maiden, as faithful as she is beautiful, willing to suffer for him.” “Ha!” she said. “I am a maiden, I am faithful, but I don’t know if I have enough beauty. No matter,” she said, “let’s see what power I do have.”320 They gave the necessary orders to transport what was needed to the hermitage, and then brother and sister set out. When beautiful Adelis stood before her beloved, he lowered his head and covered his face to hide his horrible alteration. He was so changed that even a beloved’s eye might not recognize him, if such a thing could happen. As soon as she saw him from afar, she ran to embrace him, but she was so shaken it seemed she would die. At last they told Carados about a part of the remedy only, for if he had known the peril to which Adelis would expose herself, he would never have consented, so much did he love her.

319. In an analogue to the central myth of Christianity, one suffers to save the other(s). The motif of the woman who suffers to save a man is central to animal-groom tales as well. 320. La Force implies a contrast between Adelis’s positive actions to help her lover, and Isène’s negative behavior, primarily bent on vengeance.

The Enchanter 209

Figure 6: Illustration from Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force, Les contes des contes (Paris: Simon Benard, 1697) 1:133. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Y28799 (1).

210 The Enchanter Two large basins were brought, one full of vinegar, the other of milk, and placed three feet apart. Carados was to get into the one with vinegar, and Adelis the one with milk. The princess hastened to undress Carados herself (this task was sweet to her), and when he was in the basin, she quickly got into the other. The serpent that was on Carados’s arm hated vinegar and was to uncoil itself and spring into the basin of milk, which it liked a great deal, with the intent of attaching itself to Adelis’s breast.321 King Candor stood between the two basins with his sword, ready to strike the serpent the moment it sprang into the air. Faithful Adelis had the tip of her breast outside the basin and tenderly called the serpent.322 When she saw that it didn’t come as quickly as she desired, she began to sing these words in a captivating voice: Serpent, look at my breasts, So tender, so beautiful; Serpent, look at my bosom, Whiter than the hawthorn. When it heard this lovely song, the serpent took a single leap into the princess’s basin and grasped the tip of her breast. King Candor was neither fast enough nor deft enough and, thinking he was cutting the serpent in two, he took along with its head the tip of his sister’s breast. The serpent died, but Adelis was in great danger. Her blood soon turned the milk to purple vermillion.323 She fainted, and the good hermit, who knew the virtues of medicinal herbs, quickly 321. The symbolism of maternal milk is doubled here by the breast. The ritual may be interpreted to mean a rebirth into purity. Many folktales posit the attraction of snakes to milk and the use of salt or vinegar to repel them. See for instance the variants of ATU 285 (The Child and the Snake). The motif of a snake that attaches to a woman’s breast (or pubic area) goes back to an iconographic detail in Romanesque art of the ninth through the thirteenth centuries. See Guy Pillard, “La femme aux serpents: Essai d’interprétation,” Bulletin de la Société de Mythologie Française 100 (January–March 1976): 22–28. Our thanks to Francesca Canadé Sautman for this information. 322. The scene is remarkable in a century that was preoccupied with—and devised rules about—decorum (la bienséance). In yet another turn, here, Adelis assumes the role of Circe, calling the phallic snake to its destruction by her captivating voice. 323. On blood and milk as emblems of the female, see Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is not One, trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,

The Enchanter 211 put some on the wound. This staunched the blood, and soon after she was healed. Carados was so overcome by this spectacle he felt no joy in finding relief (all true lovers would be the same). He screamed horribly from his basin, but no one listened to him. As Isène the Beautiful had ordered, King Candor commanded he be put into a bath. He came out of it more handsome than he had ever been, in short, the most captivating of men and the most desirable lover. In this condition, he appeared before Adelis, who couldn’t thank good fortune enough for delivering Carados from such a terrible evil. There were even aspects of this cure that Carados found infinitely worthy and that he relished. (Few women would have the requisite qualities to end such an injury.) Great joy quickly spread to the court of the good king, who was getting ready to attend the wedding ceremony of Carados and Adelis. As soon as Carados arrived before the king, whom he loved as a father, he asked for his mother’s freedom, which was granted. Full of joy, he rushed to the tower, threw himself at her feet, begged her pardon, and led her to the king, who found her so enchanting he yearned to marry her again. But he got no further than a desire, for his sudden death robbed him of the power to realize it. Carados was crowned, and once the good king had arrived with the queen, his marriage to Adelis was celebrated with magnificence, tournaments, and feasts in abundance. Isène the Beautiful was so beautiful that day it was hard to say who had the advantage, she or Adelis. A stranger garnered all the prizes and captivated the court by his fine appearance. He had a gold shield, and walking towards the good king and King Carados, told them that its buckle had such power it could restore anything that was missing. If it would please Adelis to test it, he would put back the tip of her breast. She was somewhat reluctant to do this, out of modesty, but Carados unfastened the clasps of her dress and revealed the most beautiful breast in the world.324 The stranger brought the buckle of his shield next to 1986), especially “The ‘Mechanics’ of Fluids,” and “When Our Lips Speak Together,” 106–18, 205–18. 324. Her modesty compounds the voyeurism of this scene of her undressing.

212 The Enchanter her, and it took hold immediately. A pretty tip of gold appeared on the queen’s breast, and from that time on she was called the queen with the golden nipple.325 This stranger revealed he was the Lord of the Far-Away Islands, Carados’s father, and he was greatly celebrated. He asked that Isène the Beautiful become his wife and his request was granted. It was right to reward such a long, ardent, and faithful love. The four spouses lived thereafter in perpetual happiness.326 By different paths, happiness we attain; Vice leads us there, but honor does as well: Witness the case of Beautiful Isène. After all her deserved torments, She enjoyed a thousand prosperities. Wise Adelis, so tender, so faithful, Persecuted wrongly for so long, Enjoyed a similar fate at last. Blind Deity, fortune too cruel, Bestow more fairly all that comes from you. Crush the wicked with eternal travails, But give the virtuous sweetest happiness.327

325. An etiological detail, see Prince Rosebush, n43, in this volume. 326. Despite the unusual turns in this tale, the marriage of two couples marks the traditional happy ending of comedic works. 327. The tension between the moral relativism at the beginning of these verses and the conventional desire for punishment of the wicked at the end mirrors the moral ambiguity of the entire tale.

Green and Blue Once upon a time there was a queen who saw she was with child. She called one of her sisters to her side, a fairy with profound knowledge named Sublime.328 The queen begged her to be present when the baby was delivered, and to reveal to her the child’s destiny. She gave birth to a little girl. The fairy took the child in her arms, and when she had looked at her closely, she saw in her features an extraordinary grandeur, nobility, and pride worthy of her blood line. But she also foresaw an inescapable fate if she were to love a common man. The fairy understood that the girl would not be truly happy unless she married a man who was both pleasing and her complete opposite, and that this happiness would only be achieved after great effort and travails. These complications and predictions troubled the fairy. She didn’t think the contradictory demands could be easily accomplished: the opposition seemed an obstacle to her, but she saw an even greater problem in finding a perfect man. Nature had gone into decline at that time, and no longer produced perfect men without great difficulty: extraordinary people were as rare then as they are now.329 The fairy thought for a while to decide what she should do with the little princess. She wanted to remove her completely from the reach of men,330 so she placed the child in a cloud,331 along with 328. This is the same name as the wise king/father figure in d’Aulnoy’s Princess Little Carp, which is included in this volume. 329. La Force deviates here from the more frequent opposition between a perfect fairy-tale past and a decadent present. See La Force, The Enchanter, n313, in this volume. The notion of decline was centrally involved in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, the first claiming that the height of achievement had been reached during the classical period of Greece and Rome, the second arguing that there had been great progress since those times, that the apogee had been reached during the era of Louis XIV, and that there would not necessarily be a decline thereafter. See, for instance, Charles Perrault, Le siècle de Louis le Grand, a panegyric delivered before the Académie Française in l687. 330. This effort to remove the girl-child from the presence of men is also a central theme in Murat’s Wasted Effort, which is included in this volume. 331. La Force literalizes the cliché, “to have one’s head in the clouds,” meaning to be out of touch with reality, but revises it to represent a place separated from a corrupt world. It also

213

214 Green and Blue her nurse and four princesses her own age. There she established the child’s home, far from the earthly world and its corruptions,332 and with these precautions, she hoped to make the princess an accomplished maiden one day. This princess had the most beautiful eyes in the world. They were blue, so quick and lively that her piercing looks alone could turn the cloud the very same color. That’s why the fairy, who was having difficulty choosing a name for the child, called her Princess Blue. Sublime took every care to make the princess’s soul as beautiful as her body was perfect. She had the satisfaction of seeing the girl ably fulfill her hopes. Blue had the keenest mind in the world. It was embellished with good knowledge, and leaving aside the black arts,333 nothing was unknown to her. She had as much reason as she had wits. The fairy confided to the princess the fate she had to avoid. Her pride drove her naturally toward a happy destiny, though she felt in her heart it would not be easy to get along with a prince if he were like most of the men she saw on earth. This discriminating taste pleased Sublime. She had not worked all alone to give Princess Blue such a singular abode, but had the help of a famous magician who was her close friend. Gossips claimed there was something more between them, and that Tiphis—for such was his name—had carried on an affair with her for a long time. What was certain was that neither did anything important without the other; they were on very familiar terms with each other and shared their plans. Tiphis had a son named Zélindor by a queen he had loved tenderly. This prince was so handsome, had so many fine qualities, and already felt such love for the princess, whom he saw often, that sometimes Sublime thought Zélindor was the illustrious lover destined for allows La Force later in the tale to play with the notion of “coming down to earth.” 332. The first of many signs of—and references to—marvels, wonders, and prodigies is thus established here with decidedly moral overtones. 333. “The black arts” involve magic, but in the early modern period, principally satanic or demonic practices during the witch hunts and the inquisition. The most famous of the antisatanic manuals was Malleus Maleficarum, also known as The Hammer of Witches, 2 vols., by Heinrich Institoris and Jacobus Sprenger, ed. and trans. Christopher S. Mackay (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Green and Blue 215 the girl. But she would quickly give that thought up, seeing no opposition between the two, and foreseeing no obstacles they would have to overcome if Tiphis and she would wish to marry each other.334 But let us leave these peaceful inhabitants in the ether for a while; we must go back down to earth. Two years before the birth of Princess Blue, a young monarch ruled the entire universe, as much by his power as by his gentleness and seductive qualities. Even his beauty helped to attract subjects. His name was Spring. The whole world brightened under his reign, everything flourished in his lovely empire, and his subjects loved, even adored, him. But destiny soon ravished charming Spring from the earth and his demise caused universal mourning. His wife, the queen, was with child at the time of his death, and philosophers, who had determined the course of the year and divided the seasons, gave the name of this handsome king to the most pleasing of all seasons, which has been called spring ever since.335 The queen gave birth to a son, who showed all the good qualities of his father at a very young age: thus they decided to call him Prince Green. His childhood was so lively and cheerful that they could not even describe the youth’s brilliant charms.336 They loved him as much as the king who had given him life, and he reminded everyone of him. Never was a son so worthy of his father. His court was elegant,337 and of the many beauties who schemed to conquer him, not one gained the glory of touching his proud heart, which love nonetheless wished to subjugate. He had just won a difficult victory, vanquishing an old prince famous for his harshness, a tyrant who made all of nature unhappy. After this victory, the prince only wanted to find relaxation in gallant celebrations and constant amusements. News of his renown spread everywhere. He was not unknown to Tiphis and Sublime, who admired him as much as others did. 334. That the characters are free to choose their spouses is contrary to the marital alliances imposed on royal children in the seventeenth century; see Prince Rosebush, n21, in this volume. 335. Another etiological detail. See Prince Rosebush, n43, in this volume. 336. On this notion of the inexpressible, see Marmoisan, n98, in this volume. 337. On the concept of “elegant,” and its relation to “gallant,” see the introduction to Bernard, n6, in this volume.

216 Green and Blue Zélindor was filled with secret jealousy for the many praises Prince Green received, and Princess Blue, greatly affected by him, couldn’t stop from secretly believing she was destined for such an enchanting prince. Despite the risk of a thousand troubles, she wished him to be the one the fates had promised her. She succombed to these thoughts, recognizing she would never love an ordinary man. Although she was attracted to Zélindor and he was in love with her, she found him rather ordinary when she compared him to what she had heard about Prince Green. The fairy Sublime read her secret thoughts and approved of them. She had such complete confidence in the Princess’s virtue and lofty feelings she sometimes allowed her to come down to the mountains, and from there on to the plains, to go hunting with her four attending princesses. She had even built a wondrous fountain in a valley so that she could bathe when she was weary and wanted to be refreshed. Princess Blue sometimes took her walks even further. She went to the cities to see plays and other curious or amusing things. But since Sublime didn’t want anyone to see this prodigious beauty, she made her invisible with a veil that had the power to hide her from human eyes. It was the veil of illusion, which hides the truth of things, and often makes them seem true when they are not.338 So when Blue wished to amuse herself, she would put the veil on her head and have her four princesses hold up its corners. She would then instantly take whatever shape she wanted: sometimes a superb building, another time a cabin, a clump of trees, or an obelisk,339 depending on her imagination, and in this way, she walked in safety. One day, when she was visiting a park of marvelous beauty, she heard the sounds of a hunt. She quickly put on her mysterious 338. Magic objects, especially articles of clothing, that allow characters to change appearances or become invisible are found throughout folk- and fairy tales. Here, the veil of illusion provides a literal and slightly humorous setting for the difference between being and appearances (être and paraître), a prominent commonplace in seventeenth-century literature. 339. After the series of familiar forms, the obelisk seems a surprising, exotic term. But, as Peter Burke points out, the memoirs of Charles Perrault, who served as building commissioner under Louis XIV, describes Colbert’s plans to have many triumphal monuments erected to the glory of the king, including obelisks, which symbolized eternal fame (see The Fabrication of Louis XIV [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992]).

Green and Blue 217 veil, wishing to appear as an opal statue lying on four sapphire pillars. Disguised in this form, she saw the entire hunting party pass back and forth, as everyone was amazed by the wonders of the statue before them. At last she saw a young man on horseback whom nature had favored with every perfection. As soon as he saw this beautiful work, he jumped down nimbly and examined for a time the statue, which had all the traits and graces of the princess, and resembled her so closely it almost seemed alive. Then he got down on his knees and wild with distress, he cried: “Oh God! Why did this masterpiece have to be created by a man’s hand?” The princess looked at this unknown young man and experienced unusual feelings. Never had she seen anything so charming. He was extraordinarily tall, but his figure was inexpressibly beautiful and appealing. His countenance was gay and smiling. The Graces had showered all their charms on him.340 Blue lost herself in contemplating such a perfect man. It was like a deadly poison for her heart. “Alas,” she said to herself, “could this be the one whose common qualities will make me so unhappy? For physical beauty is nothing without the ornaments of the mind and the qualities of the soul.” This thought lasted but a short time; she let herself believe the inside of the man would match the outside. While she was reflecting on this problem, the prince was studying her so attentively he had forgotten everything else. One of the young princesses quietly suggested to Blue that they be allowed to perform a concert to complete his confusion. Lovely Blue smiled and then agreed. So the four princesses sang these words out clearly: You see before your eyes the one thing that can charm, The only object you can love. It offers your heart glorious chains; For you, love, prepared these precious bonds. Hope, and remember that after long travails You may well find a delightful fate.341 At first, the prince was so startled to hear such beautiful voices coming from the sapphire columns, voices that harmonized 340. Note the extended description of female desire. 341. Verses often dot pastoral novels of the period.

218 Green and Blue precisely with the impulse he had for tenderness in his soul,342 that he didn’t know, in the face of such a model, whether he was truly in his natural state or if he was still spellbound. The words were repeated in song so often he didn’t miss a single one, and he allowed himself to be carried away by a flattering hope. “What must I do?” he cried, “to be worthy of burning with this ardor, and to be rewarded? Could certain labors shake my resolve? No, I would do even more than Hercules.”343 A single voice answered him: Seek and find the object that enthralled you.344 A second voice followed: Convince and captivate by turns. A third continued: Let love be your heart’s chief concern. A fourth ended the song: Love is the price and prize345 of love. As these words ended, Blue and her princesses disappeared. Her veil hid her from the eyes of the stranger, who remained in a sort of astonishment bordering on dumbness. “Where are you going?” he cried and then stopped, bewildered. “What has become of you, divine figure, whose image remains so vividly imprinted on my heart?346 It’s a marvel!” he went on. “What spells made what I saw? Am I in love with a statue, and could I hope to be my century’s Pygmalion?”347 342. On tenderness as conveying both the erotic and the paternal feeling described below, see Prince Rosebush, n18, and Marmoisan, n80, both in this volume. 343. A reference to the mythic labors of Hercules. 344. The questions by the prince and the answers by the mysterious voices conform to the questions d’amour, highly codified discussions about the nature of love and courtship found in seventeenth-century novels and poetry and modeled after those debated in the salons. See Pelous, Amour précieux, amour galant, 275–82. 345. The French prix can mean both price and prize; the meaning is ambiguous here. 346. In the seventeenth century, imagination means the capacity of the mind to form images. On the concept of imagination in this period, see Rebecca M. Wilkin, Women, Imagination and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008). See also John Lyons, Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005). 347. There are two versions of the myth; in one, a king of Cyprus falls in love with a statue; in the other, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a sculptor falls in love with the statue he has made.

Green and Blue 219 After much pondering, the poor prince tried in vain to regain his reason, but it did not come to his aid. No matter what he told himself about the vision, he did love her, and this fatal thought followed and persecuted him everywhere he went. Meanwhile, lovely Blue was in no better state than he was. She had decided to leave him abruptly and to disappear from sight only because she realized that if she stayed any longer, she might not be able to stop from revealing herself completely to him in her natural form. Flight seemed a sure way to safeguard her glory348 and to hide a weakness349 to which she would have succumbed despite her courage. She returned to her aerie abode with a racing heart. She knew the cause well enough. “So I yield to my destiny,” she said. “Is that good or bad? I love a stranger who may not be well born and whose character might make me blush if I knew it. But no,” she went on, “if I believe my heart, everything within him must match his fine presence. I could not love anyone unworthy of my love.” Prince Zélindor came to see her as often as he could, but the sight of him became unbearable to her. She treated him with such coldness that he was in despair. She was gentle by nature, so he couldn’t understand where this great change in her came from.350 She became dreamy and, thus, solitary. Since he was afraid someone else preoccupied her, he decided to observe her, often following the princess’s steps from afar. She had hunted all day, and toward evening, she went to the marvelous fountain the fairy Sublime had built especially for her. The water ran in a brilliant opal, and the sun’s last rays seemed to cut 348. The use of the term “glory” suggests that Blue has heroic aspirations, ones that echo the characters in Pierre Corneille’s plays (1606–1684); on the female version of glory proposed by Madeleine de Scudéry (1607–1701), see Chantal Morlet-Chantalat, La Clélie de Mademoiselle de Scudéry, de l’épopée à la gazette: Un discours féminin de la gloire (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1994), 162–77, 307–18. See also Noémie Hepp, “A la recherche du mérite des dames,” Destins et enjeux du XVIIe siècle, ed. Yves-Marie Bercé (Paris: PUF, 1985), 109–17. 349. The notion of love as weakness, even illness that must be combated and overcome, permeates works of the period, notably The Princess of Clèves (1678) by La Fayette and the plays of Jean Racine. 350. Thus Zélindor’s many qualities, both physical and mental, are no match for Blue’s passion for the unknown hunter, in other words, and as seventeenth-century works emphasize, merit is no match for love.

220 Green and Blue through it in search of their abode. The fires that burned in Blue’s eyes made an even more wondrous effect. You would have said they would set the water aflame, and with it the entire countryside. She bathed, her lovely body covered only with a transparent wisp of material.351 Her princesses were also with her, but no matter what they did to cheer her, her preoccupied mind thought solely of the handsome stranger. But what joy! What surprise! While playing with her companions, she suddenly spotted him leaning against a tree, watching her with eyes full of love. It was Prince Green: who else in the world could resemble him? Chance had led him there, and he was thrilled to find the marvelous original of the beautiful statue he had cast his eyes on and had kept in his imagination ever since. He was enthralled to see there was a girl in the world like the one he beheld before him. He flattered himself that she would not be insensitive to all the love he felt, and that having looked everywhere and having finally found her, the last verses that had been sung to him would truly come to pass. With this thought in mind, he was avidly observing the wonders before his eyes when the princess noticed him. She was in the water. Imprudently, she stood up without knowing what she was doing, but so doing offered new beauties to the gaze of the enamored prince. The proportions and grace of this divine figure sent him into such tender rapture he could not refrain from telling her impetuously all he felt. Blue couldn’t hide her body. She no longer had the veil of illusion, which was on the ground with her clothes. But to tell the truth, she wasn’t sorry; she found pleasure in the effect her beauty produced.352 There was so much thought in what the prince said, his feelings seemed so noble and natural, that the princess, with an instinct that is almost always infallible,353 did not doubt he was the one whom heaven had created for her happiness. She wanted to answer him with haughtiness, but she 351. This establishes the elements of a scene of voyeurism; as we learn, the lover is there watching the beloved bathing virtually nude, an echo of the Biblical scene of Suzannah and the Elders. 352. Far from merely being the object of the male gaze, Blue here presents her nude corporeal presence, even though the narrator iterates the moralistic “imprudently” and casts it as an unthinking act. 353. That her instinctual judgment is infallible likens the princess to the fairies of most other contes de fées.

Green and Blue 221 showed only modesty.354 So even as she begged him to leave, she held him back with a passionate gesture. She didn’t want him to speak of love any further, but her eyes showed him that love filled her heart. He finally obeyed her, but as a reward for his obedience, he obtained permission to meet the next day at the same place.355 When he had left, loveable Blue took her clothes and lay down at the fountain’s edge, waiting for her princesses to dress. But she didn’t have time to dream: Zélindor approached, saying he had witnessed what had just occurred. She found his indiscretion great and reproached him for it. “Ah,” he said, “I am losing you!” And because a lover’s insight is intense, he guessed who his rival was. “It’s Prince Green,” he said; “I don’t doubt it.” “I almost certainly suspected his identity,” the princess said to herself. “You love him,” he continued. “I saw it. But unless my father’s power fails me, I will prevent another man from enjoying a possession that Tiphis’s efforts have more than earned for me.”356 With these menacing words he left her. The princess withdrew, firmly resolved to confide in the fairy Sublime, once she had seen her lover again and knew whether he was, in fact, Prince Green. She foresaw that Zélindor would show up at her rendezvous the following day. So she went to find a pelican, whom she dearly loved and who had a rational mind.357 The pelican put the veil of illusion in 354. On modesty in the feminine ideal of this period, see Prince Rosebush, n36 and Princess Little Carp, n188, both in this volume. 355. On the submissive and courteous lover, see Princess Little Carp, n195, in this volume. 356. In this triangle, Zélindor affirms merit as the cause of love (rather than passion), but he also, and more negatively, views his beloved as a possession, a thing. 357. Considered particularly attentive to its young, the pelican was a symbol of self-sacrifice, even of Christ during the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Furetière’s dictionary states that it is “a hieroglyph of paternal love.” The seventeenth century witnessed debates as to the nature—and mind—of animals. René Descartes (1596–1650), for instance, considered animals to be closer to machines, while Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) pointed out incongruities in Descartes’s notion of the bête-machine; see also La Fontaine’s fable, The Man and the Snake (X, 1), which ascribes mind to animal. Seventeenth-century “theriophilist” philosophy derives from Plato, Pythagoras, Diogenes, Menander, Pliny, Porphyry, Plutarch and in the early modern period, from Montaigne. Our thanks to Desmond Hosford for this information.

222 Green and Blue his breast, at the very opening where he feeds his little ones, and carried it to the prince so he could hide from his rival’s eyes. The prince had gone to the fountain and had been waiting a long time: the usual result of a lover’s impatience. The pelican gave him the veil and taught him how to use it. After that, Blue left for the fountain. Prince Green ran toward her as soon as he saw her coming and spoke to her in the most forceful, tender, and passionate terms. The princess sat down on the ground. He took on the form of a small flowering pine bush,358 and was on his knees next to Blue when he confessed he was indeed Prince Green.359 She told him she was the daughter of the queen of the Indies,360 in fact, told him all that had happened to her since her birth, the strange abode she had been given to save her from an inclination361 that would be fatal, if it were not for a prince of real merit, who nevertheless represented some opposition between them. Everything was compatible between these two people. Because they saw no opposition, they didn’t understand how they were not destined for one another, for they already loved each other with great passion. Blue said she would speak to Sublime about this problem, certain that the fairy would be completely on their side. They swore eternal faithfulness to one another, then separated. Zélindor had come to the fountain and, not seeing his rival with the princess, suspected some trickery. He didn’t want to accost Blue, so he walked in another direction, but right to where Prince Green was. Not suspecting a possible misfortune, the prince had taken off the veil of illusion, and so he appeared openly before Zélindor’s eyes. I cannot describe Zélindor’s fury. He now knew there was a close friendship between his rival and the princess.362 Filled with waves of 358. Here the lover purposely transforms himself, thanks to the veil of illusion, but in d’Aulnoy’s The Orange Tree and the Bee and The Yellow Dwarf and Bernard’s Prince Rosebush, transformation into a vegetal form occurs against the central character’s wishes. 359. The choice of the pine fits his name. 360. Like the obelisk, the mother’s Indian origin adds yet another exotic detail to the narrative. 361. On the notion of inclination, see L’Héritier, Marmoisan, n94, in this volume. 362. The French amitié could mean both a platonic and an erotic relationship in the seventeenth century.

Green and Blue 223 impetuous jealousy, he ran to find Tiphis and told him all his woes. Tiphis heard them with the tenderness of a father, and shared in them as would a man who could do everything: this was a real advantage. Tiphis went without delay to level his complaint to the fairy Sublime, who had just been informed by Princess Blue of everything that troubled her. He didn’t find her inclined to share his feelings. In fact, they spoke to each other so heatedly they ended up quarreling and separating. When Tiphis had proposed that the fairy give Blue to Zélindor, she had mocked him and answered that his son was not worthy of a person as perfect as Blue. The fight between them was thus firmly established, and each went home. Princess Blue sent her faithful pelican to Prince Green to inform him of all that had happened and to tell him where he could come to her. They met in a wood of musk roses. Each tree was surrounded by small gardens. Such a lovely spot seemed made to serve the happiness of these perfect lovers.363 They caught sight of each other at the end of an immensely long path and, springing up, they began to run toward each other. Suddenly they each felt something at their feet that forced them to stop. Nets had emerged out of the earth and bound their feet, making it impossible for them to move. They were still so far apart they could only see each other; they could not speak. (But when you are in love, it means everything to see each other, even when you can do nothing more.) These unhappy lovers made a thousand useless tries to disentangle themselves, and their movements revealed to the other their despair. The four princesses were caught in the same manner, and all they could do, along with Blue, was to deplore this awful event. Night finally fell. It was unheard of for a person of Blue’s stature to spend the night this way, but they had to accept it, though not without shedding many a tear. 363. This ideal of the perfect lover(s), which originates in the Middle Ages, still appears in seventeenth-century literature, for instance, in the pastoral novel, Honoré d’Urfé’s L’Astrée (on the courtly lover, see d’Aulnoy, Princess Little Carp, n193, in this volume). Even in that work, however, its opposite, the Don Juanesque figure of Hylas, has an importance that will continue throughout the century, not only in Molière’s Dom Juan (1665), but also in La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves.

224 Green and Blue As soon as the day dawned, they saw an elegant swing in the air above them. The seat was magnificent and comfortable. Its ropes of gold and blue silk were held by four winged children.364 They stopped the swing and Prince Zélindor stepped down onto the ground. He cut the bonds of lovely Blue, and asked her to sit on the swing. When she tried to resist, he put her there by force, and then sat beside her. What sadness she felt at leaving the one she loved and following the object of her hatred! And what a spectacle for Prince Green, who watched his rival take his mistress up in the air! It was the first time in her life she was separated from her four princesses; she bade them a tender farewell, and the air was filled with the cries of sorrow of these unfortunate maidens. The swing rose up and then stopped next to the devastated Prince Green. Zélindor sang these verses to insult the prince’s grief: Nothing is equal to my great love, Nothing is equal to my bliss. Burst forth, joys of my heart! I shall possess what I love.365 The princess sharply felt the blow that Zélindor had dealt Prince Green. Aided by the fire of her love, she said tearfully to him: To you I will always be faithful, Neither rival nor death shall snuff my ardor. Let us love each other tenderly; Let us face our cruel destiny: When two hearts are united by mutual love The time will come when they are happy at last. She wept as she sang. From that time on, operas were created that still use this type of song.366 364. The scene almost visualizes paintings by Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). 365. More intercalated verses; see Prince Rosebush, n20, in this volume. 366. Another etiological reference. See Prince Rosebush, n43, in this volume. Operas become an important genre during the reign of Louis XIV. The Théâtre de l’Opéra, the home of grand opera in Paris, began in 1671 as the Académie des Opéras, under the direction of the poet, Pierre Perrin (c. 1620–1675), who installed his Académie Royale de Musique in the Palais-Royal in l673. But it was really Jean-Baptiste Lully (1633–1687), appointed superintendent of music at court by Louis XIV, who established opera as an art in France. After writing music for several of Molière’s comédies-ballets, he composed operas for the libretti of Philippe Quinault (1635–1688). See also Princess Little Carp, nn168, 200, in this volume.

Green and Blue 225 Zélindor was surprised by this sign of rapturous love and made his swing leave. It didn’t stop until it reached Tiphis’s superb palace where, above all else, the gardens were marvels. They were the model for those at Versailles.367 Every day the princess was offered a variety of pleasures. The pleasantly varied days would have been spun with silk and gold for a coquette,368 but the faithful princess only felt bitterness, and each day spent in Zélindor’s presence and Prince Green’s absence seemed to last a century. Tiphis took every care to have the princess look on his son with favor and to convince her he was the blessed lover promised by fate. He would say that she need not see a greater opposition than the contradiction between their two hearts, since his son’s burned with fire for her, and hers was as cold as ice for him. “Oh, leave me be!” the princess would answer; “what pathetic reasoning! The heavens promised me happiness through some opposition, but it isn’t in our hearts that it should exist. I can never be happy unless I love as much as I am loved.” She lived with sadness in this beautiful palace. Meanwhile, the fairy Sublime was surprised not to see Blue return home, and she sent the pelican to find her. He searched in so many places that he arrived on the day after Blue’s disappearance in the lovely woods, where the prince and four princesses were still stopped in their tracks. With his beak and claws, he broke the bonds that held them. Prince Green embraced him a thousand times to thank him for his release. Then the pelican left him and returned the princesses to the fairy Sublime. The prince said fine things to them, and they to him, but they still had to take leave of each other. He came out of the little 367. The gardens of Versailles, the subject of several panegyric texts, such as Madeleine de Scudéry’s Promenade de Versailles (1671), were considered technical and aesthetic marvels of their time, and had enormous aesthetic impact diplomatically and politically on the stature of the French nation and its aspirations toward becoming an empire. See Mukerji, Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles. That La Force claims Tiphis’s gardens are the model for Versailles may even tread on dangerous arrogance: suggesting preeminence over the king’s palace. On Versailles, see also The Doe in the Woods, nn209–10, in this volume. 368. On the coquette as a type, see L’Héritier, Marmoisan, n74, in this volume.

226 Green and Blue woods and saw a vast, barren plain stretched before him, without a single tree. He had been walking a while when the sun’s heat, which was beating down powerfully, made him extremely uncomfortable. He had eaten nothing for three days, and he was nearly in the throes of death. He wished to go back into the little woods to find some relief, but he couldn’t reach it, and in spite of himself, his steps continued to lead him through this horrible expanse of arid and noxious land. He was suffering, and his torment was horrible; he needed his tenderness to stop his insane thoughts, for he often felt a desire to run his sword through his own body.369 In this terrible state, he lifted his head to the burning sun and saw that the sky was totally dark. He felt no freshness, however, and didn’t know what was happening. When he was finally able to make out individual objects, he saw an innumerable number of birds of all kinds and colors, from the phoenix370 to the wren. The messenger of good news, his dear pelican, was at the head of this legion and came to a stop next to him. At the same moment, most of the birds touched ground, while the others remained in the air, but they all quickly joined together to form a palace with a curious structure. The prince was most surprised. He entered the palace through a marvelous portico. The rooms were a medley of a thousand different colors, the floors were made of the birds’ eggshells, and the ceilings of the material they use to make their wondrous nests. It was in this prodigious dwelling that the fairy Sublime made him understand she had some power over the same winds that had served as his dear princess’s abode until now. He was always served by his pelican and fed the most delicious meals. He thought constantly of Princess Blue. He was resolved to ask the pelican to search where she might be, when one day he saw a fine-looking woman coming toward him with the four princesses. He surmised it must be the fairy Sublime, and threw himself at her feet. She covered him with a thousand caresses and turned her smiling face toward him. 369. A sign of the link between eros and thanatos, the landscape being death’s correlative. 370. The phoenix is a mythic bird that rises from its own ashes.

Green and Blue 227 “I despaired that I could not end your misfortunes and those of Princess Blue,” she said, “because Tiphis’s knowledge is as great as mine. But I have studied your destiny so closely I finally understood that as soon as I discover what opposition there is between you, Tiphis’s spell will be broken; all I will have to do is to follow my pelican, find the princess, and take her back.” “I racked my brain uselessly, trying to find this opposition,” she continued. “I confess my stupidity: I did not find it. I’ve been living with worry for the past six months, separated from a girl I love so much, who deserves every bit of my tenderness. One day I was walking along, full of sadness. Without thinking, I stopped to consider the excellent organization of ants. One of those small republics was busy with its usual work: I watched them with pleasure when it suddenly came to me they were making different shapes, that so many small bodies had joined together and formed the following words distinctly: It’s in the names of these lovers, You’ll find the end of their torments. “I clapped my hands together in astonishment when I saw this, and then burst out laughing. ‘How stupid I am!’ I cried. ‘Oh, human prudence, how blind you are!’ Sometimes the simplest beings know more than sages do.”371 “I marveled a hundred times that such a small thing had perplexed me for so long. I recognized that Green and Blue have always seemed incompatible colors to common people, but I hope to put them together shortly by uniting the two people who bear the colors’ names.” “So I came to find you right away,” the fairy continued, “and I beg you, let’s not delay to go to Tiphis’s house, where we will find the princess.” “Will she still be faithful?” the prince asked. “I assure you of it,” Sublime said. “Let’s go then,” said the prince. And then the judicious pelican speedily took flight, followed by the whole of the flying palace, and we swiftly made the journey for it promised nothing but pleasure. 371. One fairly commonplace lesson of the tale.

228 Green and Blue This palace was set close to Tiphis’s, and its doors opened on their own. The fairy Sublime went in with no trouble, taking Prince Green by the hand, and followed by the four princesses. Tiphis was astonished to see them and didn’t know what to say or do. Princess Blue, who had been daydreaming by a fountain called Lancelade,372 heard the noise and slowly turned her head. When she saw those whom she loved most in the world, she quickly ran toward them, overcome with joy. “I see you again!” cried the prince, throwing himself at her feet. “And you see me faithful, just as I promised you.” The fairy, who didn’t want to waste time in frivolous talk or pastimes, much to Zélindor’s despair, had them return to their flying palace and took them to the queen of the Indies, Princess Blue’s mother. What joy for her! What bliss for the faithful lovers! Everything in the celebrations, which lasted a long time, was gallant, superb. On the day of their wedding, the fairy Sublime gave them each an attire that was unequaled in its singularity. The enchanted garments were made of a cloth of fine grasses, dotted with blue hyacinths; their matching cloaks were lined with velvety moss of a burgeoning green color.373 They were so beautiful in that lovely simple attire, which was so closely related to their names, people could not stop admiring them. A thousand prayers were offered up to the heavens for their prosperity: it was long and durable, because they loved each other always. Only the union of two hearts can make for happiness in life.374 A trifle separates lovers; We lose each other for want of understanding; In this state, many a tender heart still Steals a few instants of happiness! 372. This evokes Lancelot, the hero of Chrétien de Troyes’ romance, Le chevalier à la charrette ou Lancelot (c.1165–90), a famous knight of the legendary King Arthur’s Round Table, and the exemplar of the faithful lover. 373. This attire concretizes the colors blue and green. 374. Yet another of the tale’s morals.

Green and Blue 229 One of the greatest princes of Europe learned of this tale. He found it so pleasing and Prince Green so delightful that he was proud to bear his name.375

375. Raymonde Robert hypothesizes that Louis XIV took this name in one of his many dancing roles at court (L’Héritier et al., Contes, 387n1). La Force may also be referring to Henri IV (1553–1610), known as the “Vert Galant,” an allusion to his amorous dalliances.

Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat (c. 1668–1716) : Introduction Against the backdrop of a stormy personal life, Murat demonstrates a thorough knowledge of her period’s literary tastes, in works ranging from pseudo-memoirs and novellas to fairy tales and poetry. She published the bulk of her oeuvre between 1697 and 1699, beginning with a fictional memoir framed as a reply to a misogynist attack on women.376 In a plot with many twists, Murat’s memoir seeks to disprove accusations (supposedly) leveled against her and to show that “very often there is a lot more misfortune than unruliness in the conduct of women.”377 After three volumes of fairy tales,378 she then wrote a novella about a group of friends who travel to a country estate where they enjoy various diversions—anecdotes, ghost stories, poetry, love letters, and a fairy tale.379 Following a hiatus of some ten years, Murat published her last work, a novel with intercalated anecdotes and ghost stories.380 Beyond her published texts, she left an important manuscript journal that includes poetry, letters, and fairy tales. No matter how short-lived her career, Murat’s works were still recognized by her contemporaries, and she was elected to the Accademia dei Ricovrati of Padua, as were d’Aulnoy, Bernard, La Force, and L’Héritier. Born into a prominent aristocratic family, likely in 1668, Murat was married to Nicolas de Murat in 1691 and bore a son. Throughout the 1690s she was active in worldly Parisian circles, 376. La défense des dames, ou les mémoires de Madame la comtesse de M*** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1697). In this text, Murat responds to Pierre de Villiers, Mémoires de la vie du comte D*** avant sa retraite rédigez par M. de Saint-Évremont (Paris: M. Brunet, 1696). 377. Murat, “Avertissement,” in La défense des dames. 378.  Contes de fées. Dediez à Son Altesse Sérénissime Madame la Princesse Douairière de Conty. Par mad. la comtesse de M*** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1698); Les nouveaux contes des fées. Par madame de M** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1698); Histoires sublimes et allégoriques par Mme la comtesse D***, dédiées aux fées modernes (Paris: J. et P. Delaulme, 1699). These three volumes are available in Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat, Contes, ed. Geneviève Patard, Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, vol. 3 (Paris: Henri Champion, 2006). 379. Voyage de campagne. Par Madame la Comtesse de M**** (Paris: C. Barbin, 1699). 380. Les lutins du château de Kernosy, nouvelle historique. Par madame la comtesse de M*** (Paris: J. Le Febvre, 1710).

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232 Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat probably attended the salon of the Marquise de Lambert,381 and became acquainted with both d’Aulnoy and L’Héritier.382 But just as she was coming onto the literary stage, she was also being followed by the newly created Paris police, who accused her of “domestic impieties” and “a monstrous attachment to persons of her sex.”383 After an official warning, she left the capital in 1700 but then returned two years later, whereupon she was arrested and confined in several châteaux in France (in Loches, Saumur, and Angers) for a total of seven years. It was during the last years of this confinement that she penned her manuscript journal, which she addressed to her cousin, a certain Mademoiselle de Menou.384 In 1709, she was released on condition that she live with her aunt away from Paris, at which time she published her final work. After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, she was granted full freedom but never returned to Paris. She died in 1716.385 Today, Murat is best remembered for her fairy tales, which appeared in three volumes at the height of their first vogue, in 1698 and 1699. In the prefatory material she appends to her Sublime and Allegorical Stories, Murat projects an unmistakable desire to distinguish herself from the other conteuses. First, in a prefatory epistle, she dedicates her volume to the “modern fairies,” the other women writers who transformed the “Mother Goose tales” of lowly story381.  See the Introduction to d’Aulnoy, n130, in this volume. 382. See the Editors’ Introduction, n21, and Little Eel, n445, both in this volume. L’Héritier dedicates her tale, The Clever Princess, to Murat; she also addresses a poem to her celebrating her “simple Tales full of the prettiest turns of phrase” (“A Madame la Comtesse D. M.,” in Oeuvres meslées... de Mlle L’H***, 340). 383. From the police report of 1700 (quoted in Geneviève Patard, “Mme de Murat: La vogue du conte littéraire,” in Contes, by Murat, 13). On Murat’s lesbianism (or more accurately, tribadism), see David M. Robinson, “The Abominable Madame de Murat,” in Homosexuality in French History and Culture, ed. Jeffrey Merrick and Michael Sibalis (New York: Harrington Park Press, 2001), 53–67, and Robinson, Closeted Writing and Lesbian and Gay Literature, 26–34. 384. Ouvrages de Mme la comtesse de Murat. Journal pour Mlle de Menou, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, B. L. ms. 4371. 385. For more detailed biographical information, see Patard, “Mme de Murat: La vogue du conte littéraire,” and Geneviève Patard, “Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, Countess of Murat (1668?–1716),” in Raynard, ed., The Teller’s Tale.

Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat 233 tellers into fairy tales that recount only “great things.”386 But she also uses this dedication to offer them “several Tales in [her] own manner,” suggesting an individuality further explained in an accompanying Avertissement. There she claims to borrow from Straparola, along with the other conteuses, but asserts the originality of her tales, even when they use the same plotlines as others already published.387 Indeed, her fourteen stories have distinct features over and apart from the literary and mythological influences, the detailed descriptions of riches and palaces, and the “gallant” representation of love found throughout the contes de fées of the time. Unlike d’Aulnoy and others, she does not amplify folktale characters and motifs, but instead, evokes these only at the outset before devising plots of her own invention. At the start of Little Eel, for instance, the familiar motif of a grateful magical animal sets into motion a story with no other folkloric roots.388 Along with Bernard and d’Aulnoy, Murat does give several tales unhappy endings that present a negative vision of love and marriage.389 Her other stories dissect the intricacies of amorous passion, notably with maxims (or sentences) scattered throughout the narrative, but never with final moral verses.390 Also unusual are the occasional references to contemporaneous scientific discussions, including cabalistic thought and the ovist theories of 386. “Epître aux fées modernes,” in Murat, Contes, 199. 387.  “I would like to advise the reader of two things. First, I took the ideas for some of these Tales from an old book, entitled The Facetious Nights of Lord Straparola, printed for the sixteenth time in 1615. Apparently, Tales were very much in fashion in the last century since there were so many printings of this book. The Ladies who have written in this genre to date have drawn from the same source, at least for the most part. The second thing I have to say is that my Tales have been written since last April. If I have joined one of these Ladies in treating some of the same subjects, I have not taken any other model than the original, which would be easy enough to justify by the different paths we have taken. However mediocre the works we give to the public, we always feel for them a fatherly love that obliges us to justify their birth, and we would be very troubled to see them appear with any fault” (Avertissement, in Murat, Contes, 200). The “Lady” referred to here is d’Aulnoy, whose Prince Wild Boar and The Dolphin follow the same storylines as Murat’s The Pig King and The Turbot, respectively. 388. See Little Eel, n398, in this volume. 389. Little Eel; Wasted Effort; The Palace of Vengeance; Happy Pain. 390. See the Editors’ Introduction, 9–10.

234 Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat reproduction.391 Like the other conteuses, Murat does not hesitate to tailor the nascent fairy-tale form to her own interests and points of view. Both Little Eel and Wasted Effort depict unhappy love and in so doing, frustrate the expectations of a happy ending. In keeping with this dysphoric tone, both tales make unmistakable allusions to La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves, and the heroine’s struggle to overcome her passion. But they also highlight the powerlessness of fairies in matters of love. As is typical of other contes de fées, neither the fairy Little Eel nor the fairy mother of Wasted Effort can ensure the heroine’s union with the man she loves. However, Murat makes the fairies central characters in both tales, which puts the spotlight on their failure. Still, there are differences in the treatment of unhappy love. The tragic ending of Little Eel is tempered by the fairy’s transformation of the star-crossed lovers into trees, recycling a motif drawn from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, also found in d’Aulnoy’s The Yellow Dwarf.392 By contrast, in Wasted Effort, the conteuse inverts the prediction of final happiness in many fairy tales, and the fairy gives her daughter “the name of Wasted Effort, foreseeing that she would deserve it only too well.”393 To avert a tragedy she knows is inevitable, the fairy tells her daughter how to ensure happiness, but when Wasted Effort ignores her mother’s advice, she ends up spending her days “with other tender, unhappy, and loyal people”.394 The ultimate failure of magical powers in this tale suggests a disenchantment with the utopian premise of the genre. In this, her last fairy tale, Murat returns her readers to a world where the marvelous is ineffectual, and thus wholly imaginary.

391.  Murat derived her references to cabalistic thought (a form of esoteric mysticism) from Nicolas Montfaucon de Villars’s Comte de Gabalis ou entretiens sur les sciences secrètes (1670). See Raymonde Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire en France, 181–89. On Murat’s allusions to ovism (the medical theory that emerged at the end of the seventeenth century emphasizing the crucial role of the egg in reproduction), see Robert, Le conte de fées littéraire, 189–93; and Tucker, Pregnant Fictions. 392. See Little Eel, n466, in this volume. 393. See Wasted Effort, 270, in this volume. 394 . See Wasted Effort, 279, in this volume.

Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat 235

Figure 7: Portrait of Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat. Bibliothèque Nationale de France. N2 Murat, no. 55A7037.

Little Eel Regardless of the greatness to which destiny raises those she favors, no happiness is exempt from real sorrow.395 You cannot know fairies and not know that, however knowledgeable they may be, they have not been able to find the secret to prevent their misfortune of changing shape several days each month and taking the form of a terrestrial, celestial or marine animal.396 During these dangerous days, when they are prey to the cruelty of men, they often have difficulty saving themselves from the perils to which this cruel necessity exposes them. One fairy transformed herself into an eel,397 but was unfortunately caught by some fishermen. They carried her immediately to a small pond in the middle of a beautiful prairie where they would put the fish reserved for the table of their country’s king. Little Eel—for that was the fairy’s name—found a great many beautiful fish in this new abode, destined, as she was, to live but a few more hours. She had heard the fishermen saying among themselves that on that very evening the king was to give a great feast, for which these big fish had been chosen with care. What news for the unfortunate fairy! She blamed destiny a thousand times and sighed sorrowfully. Still, after 395. Murat begins with the general statement (or sentence) that constitutes the tale’s “lesson”: these are often located at the end of tales, though others are interspersed within the narratives. On these statements, see Prince Rosebush, n25, and Editors’ Introduction, 9–10. 396. On the theme of metamorphosis in the seventeenth-century contes de fées, see the Editors’ Introduction, 20, and Prince Rosebush, n33, in this volume. In this instance, metamorphosis is a recurring transformation for reasons unknown, imposed by a force equally unknown. However, the curse of assuming an animal form periodically is a feature of the Mélusine myth, especially popular in medieval France but still familiar in the seventeenth century. In French legend, Mélusine or Melusina is a fairy who changes into a serpent from the waist down one day a week. She marries a mortal, the count Raymond, the ancestor to the house of Lusignan, and makes him promise never to visit her on that day. When he breaks his promise and discovers her secret, she flees; thereafter, her appearance or her shrieks are said to foretell the death of the lord of the castle. She is depicted in Jean d’Arras’s La noble histoire de Luzignen (1393) (The Noble History of Lusignan). See Donald Maddox and Sara Sturm-Maddox, eds., Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction of Medieval France (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996). 397. The eel form recalls the snakelike or fishlike appearance that Mélusine was forced to assume from the waist down once a week.

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Little Eel 237 hiding for a time at the bottom of the pond to lament her misfortune privately, the desire to get away from imminent danger made her look all around to see if she couldn’t escape from this reservoir and get back to the river, just a short distance away. But she looked in vain: the pond was too deep for her to hope to get out without help, and her sorrow grew further still when she saw the fishermen who had caught her arrive. They began to cast their nets, but Little Eel, who avoided them skillfully, was in fact, only delaying her death by a few moments. The king’s youngest daughter was walking in the prairie at the time. She approached the pond to amuse herself and watch the fishing. The sun, which was setting, made its rays shimmer in the waves. Little Eel’s skin, which was very shiny, seemed golden in the sun in some places, and in others, mixed with different colors. The young princess noticed her, and thinking she was very pretty, ordered the fishermen to catch and give her the eel. They obeyed: the unhappy fairy was soon placed in the hands that would decide her life. When the princess had looked at Little Eel for a few moments, she ran to the river’s shore and, filled with compassion, put her back into the water.398 This unexpected favor touched the fairy’s heart with intense gratitude. She reappeared on the surface and said to the princess: “I owe you my life, generous Plousine,”399—for that was her name—“but this means great fortune for you. Don’t be afraid,” she continued, seeing the young princess ready to flee; “I am a fairy. I will prove the truth of my words to you by an infinite number of good deeds.” As they were accustomed to seeing fairies in those days,400 Plousine was reassured and paid great attention to Little Eel’s appealing promises. She even began to answer her, when the fairy interrupted her to say: “Wait until you’ve received my favors before declaring 398. The motif of a character who saves a magical animal (here a fairy transformed into an eel) out of compassion and is subsequently rewarded is recurrent in folk- and fairy tales. Among the conteuses who use this motif, see d’Aulnoy, The Beneficent Frog and The Good Little Mouse. 399. The origin of this name is unclear, although in Greek, plousios/plousia means wealthy or rich. 400. The reference to an undefined past when fairies were commonplace is frequent in the tales of the conteuses.

238 Little Eel your gratitude. Go now, young princess, and come back to this very place tomorrow morning. Consider what wish you desire to make, and I shall fulfill it immediately. Choose perfect, captivating beauty, or the greatest, most appealing mind, or infinite wealth.”401 With these words, Little Eel hid at the bottom of the water and left Plousine very pleased with her adventure. She resolved not to tell anyone what had just happened to her “because,” she said to herself, “if Little Eel is fooling me, my sisters will say it’s just a fable I made up.” After this bit of reflection, she went to rejoin her retinue, which was composed of only a small number of ladies. She found them just as they were searching for her. That night, young Plousine was wholly occupied with the choice she had to make: the wish for beauty almost won out, but since she had wits enough to wish for more, she decided to ask the fairy for the gift of intelligence. She rose with the light of day. She ran to the prairie to pick flowers, she said, and make a garland to present to her mother, the queen, when she arose. Her ladies spread out far and wide in the flower-studded prairie to choose the freshest, most beautiful buds. Meanwhile, the young princess ran to the river’s edge and, at the spot where she had seen the fairy, she found a column of perfectly beautiful white marble. A moment later, the column opened, the fairy stepped out, and she revealed herself to the princess. She was no longer a fish; she was a tall and beautiful lady with a majestic air; her hair and attire were bedecked in jewels. “I am Little Eel,” she said to the young princess, who was looking at her with rapt attention. “I have come to fulfill my promise. You have chosen intelligence, and from this moment on, you will have enough to warrant the envy of all those who, up until now, prided themselves on their own intelligence.” After these words, young Plousine felt very different than she had an instant earlier. She thanked the fairy with an eloquence she had never known.402 The fairy smiled at the astonishment on the princess’s 401. Unlike the three wishes granted to the peasant woman in Perrault’s Ridiculous Wishes, here the fairy offers a choice among three options, implying, at least momentarily, the incompatibility of beauty, intelligence, and wealth, and testing the heroine’s judgment. 402. Thus a better mind improves eloquence; this linguistic power does not come “naturally,” as some seventeenth-century authors claimed was the case for women. See, for instance, La Bruyère, Les caractères, in Oeuvres complètes, #37 (IV), pp. 79–80.

Little Eel 239 face for the ease with which she now expressed herself. “I am so grateful to you,” continued Little Eel graciously, “for preferring intelligence over beauty. This is commendable for a person your age. As a reward, I shall also grant you the beauty you so wisely disregarded today.403 Come back tomorrow at the same hour. You have until then to decide in what way you desire to be beautiful.” The fairy disappeared, leaving the young princess more excited by her good fortune than she had ever been. Her choice of intelligence was a product of her reason, but the promise of beauty gratified her heart; and whatever touches the heart is always the most keenly felt.404 The young princess left the water’s edge and went to get the flowers that her ladies presented to her. She made a lovely garland and took it to the queen. But how stunned the queen, the king, and all the court were to hear Plousine speak with a grace that transported their hearts! Her sisters, the princesses, tried in vain to say she was less clever than they, but they were obliged to express endless wonder and admiration. Night came. The princess, preoccupied with her hope for beauty, did not go to bed. Instead, she went into a room full of portraits where there were paintings of several queens and princesses of her lineage, portrayed as goddesses. Since all these portraits were beautiful, she hoped they would help her choose a beauty worth requesting from the fairy. First, a Juno405 appeared before her eyes: she was blond and had the proper air to represent the queen of the gods. Pallas and Venus came next, in a scene depicting the judgment of Paris.406 The noble pride of Pallas captivated the young princess greatly, but Venus’s 403. So doing, the fairy reaffirms the link between beauty and intelligence often found in the heroines of the conteuses. The notable exceptions are the versions of Riquet with the Tuft by Bernard and Perrault. 404. Another example of a sentence. 405. The Roman goddess assimilated to the Greek goddess Hera, the protector of women. The notion of “air,” which is often both indefinable and unmistakable, signifies high rank. See Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art, 125–26. 406. Pallas is the common epithet for the goddess Athena, emblem of wisdom; Venus is the goddess of love. Murat is using Roman names again, although the original myth of the judgment of Paris for the fairest woman involved their Greek names: Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. Plousine assumes the role of Paris here, since she must choose among these goddesses.

240 Little Eel beauty seemed to win out. Nevertheless, she went on to the following painting, where she saw Pomona407 reclining on a bed of gentle grass, under trees laden with the most beautiful fruit in the world. Pomona seemed so appealing that the princess, who understood everything since that very morning, was not in the least surprised that a goddess should take different shapes to please her. Diana appeared next just as the poets represent her: quiver on her back and bow in hand, chasing a stag, followed by a large troop of nymphs.408 Flora could be seen farther on: she seemed to be walking in a flower bed whose blooms, albeit admirable, shone less brilliantly than her complexion.409 Then she saw the beautiful and touching Graces, and that painting ended the tour of the chamber.410 And yet, the princess was struck by the pleasing painting above the fireplace. It was of the goddess of youth: a divine air permeated her person, and her hair was the loveliest blond in the world. The face had an appealing shape, the mouth was charming, the chest and waist were perfectly beautiful, and the eyes appeared to pose more of a risk to the mind’s reason than the nectar with which she seemed to enjoy filling a goblet. “I wish,” cried the young princess, after she had admired this wondrous portrait, “to be beautiful like Hebe, if possible, beautiful for a long time.”411 After this wish, she returned to her room, where the day she awaited seemed too slow in coming to sustain her impatience. It finally came, and she returned to the river’s edge. The fairy kept her word. She appeared and threw some water on Plousine’s face: the princess became as beautiful as she had desired. Some marine gods 407. Pomona is the Roman nymph who watches over fruit. Poets attribute amorous adventures to her. Ovid makes her the wife of Vertumnus, who is, as she is, a divinity linked to the annual return of seasons. Metamorphoses, XIV.642ff. 408. Diana is the Roman version of the Greek goddess, Artemis. She appears with her bow in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and is named “the quiver-bearing goddess” in “Acteon” (III.252). 409. Flora is the Roman deity of vegetative power, ruling over all that blooms and grows. 410. Goddesses of beauty, generally represented as three naked, young women who hold each other’s shoulders. Two look one way, and the middle Grace in the opposite direction. 411. Daughter of Zeus and Hera, Hebe is the goddess of eternal youth. She is often depicted as the handmaiden of the gods, for whom she pours their nectar; she frees men from chains and bonds. The Romans identified Hebe with Inventas, the personification of youthful manhood and the emblem of the eternal youth of the Roman state.

Little Eel 241 had accompanied the fairy. Their applause was the first recognition of blessed Plousine’s charm. She looked at herself in the water and could not recognize herself.412 Her silence and astonishment were the only signs of her gratitude. “I have granted all your wishes,” the generous fairy said to her, “and you must be happy. But I would not be happy if my good deeds did not surpass your desires. So with intelligence and beauty I give you all the treasures I have at my disposal.413 You can never exhaust them: you only have to wish for infinite riches, when you like, and you will receive them at that very moment, for yourself and for those whom you believe to be worthy.” The fairy disappeared, and young Plousine, now as beautiful as Hebe, returned to the palace. Everyone who met her was enraptured. They announced her arrival before the king, who admired her himself, though it was only by her voice and intelligence that she was recognized as the lovely princess. She told the king that a fairy had bestowed these precious gifts on her. They called her Hebe henceforth because she resembled the portrait of that goddess so perfectly. But now her sisters had a new cause for hatred toward her! Her mind had given them far less cause for jealousy than her beauty.414 The princes who had been attracted by her charms did not hesitate to become unfaithful to her sisters; in the same way, they abandoned every other beauty at court. Tears and reproaches did not stop the fickle lovers, and it is said that this behavior, which then seemed so surprising, has become the custom ever since.415 Everything burned with desire around Hebe, but her heart remained indifferent. Despite her sisters’ hatred, she left no stone unturned to please them. She wished for so many treasures for the eldest—to wish and to give were the same for her— that the greatest king of the land asked for her in marriage and wed her with an unbelievable display of magnificence. The king, Hebe’s father, decided to mount an armed 412. Thus she acts like the Narcissus of myth, who looked at his reflection in the water. 413. After intelligence and beauty, the fairy also gives Plousine/Hebe the third option (of her original choice), wealth. 414. The motif of jealous sisters is frequent in folk- and fairy tales, perhaps the most famous example being that of Cinderella’s sisters. 415. An etiological detail (cf. Prince Rosebush, n43, in this volume) that belies the common opposition between past and present in the contes de fées.

242 Little Eel campaign. The wishes of the beautiful princess made his every endeavor a success, and his kingdom filled with immense riches and made him the most fearsome of kings.416 Meanwhile, divine Hebe, bored with the commotion at court, decided to spend several months in a pleasant house not far from the capital city. She had dispensed with magnificence there, but everything was elegant417 and charmingly simple. Nature alone had beautified the walks; art had not been used.418 A wood surrounded this lovely retreat; its paths had something savage about them, broken as they were by streams and little torrents that made natural waterfalls.419 Young Hebe often walked in these solitary woods. One day, when she felt the boredom and languor that never left her become even more intense, she tried to discover the cause of her feelings. She sat on the grass at the edge of a stream whose gentle sounds sustained her reverie. “What sorrow comes to disturb my great happiness?” she asked herself. “What princess in the whole universe enjoys as perfect a happiness as mine? I have everything I wished for, thanks to the fairy’s kindness; I can shower everyone around me with fine possessions; every person I see adores me and my heart knows only serene feelings. No, I cannot imagine where this unbearable ennui, which has thwarted my happiness for some time, could come from.” These thoughts preoccupied the young princess. Finally, she resolved to go to the banks of Little Eel’s river and try to see her. The fairy, accustomed to granting Hebe’s wishes, appeared in the water. It was one of those days when she had metamorphosed into a fish. “I am always pleased to see you, my young princess,” she said to Hebe. “I know you have recently spent time in a solitary place, and 416. Hebe has been endowed with fairylike powers. 417. On elegance, see the introduction to Bernard, n6, in this volume. 418. In contrast to the predominant aesthetic of the period, which involves nature and art, here the second element is eliminated. That nature requires no human intervention to be “elegant” proves that we are in a fairy-tale universe. 419. The theme of retreat to nature is a commonplace of the period, especially as an escape from court, a site for reverie, or then for spiritual contemplation. See Bernard Beugnot, Discours de la retraite au XVIIe siècle (Paris: PUF, 1998). However, in contrast to pastorals of the early part of the century, such as d’Urfé’s novel, L’Astrée, nature’s wildness is praised here.

Little Eel 243 you seem to me to be in a languid state that does not suit your good fortune. What is wrong, Hebe? Will you confide in me?” “Nothing is wrong,” the young princess answered, with an awkward glance. “You have showered me with too much for anything to be lacking in the happiness you wrought.” “You are trying to fool me,” the fairy said. “I readily see you are no longer happy. But what more can you desire? Be worthy of my good deeds by a sincere confession,” the gracious fairy added, “and I promise to fulfill your wishes once more.” “I don’t know what I desire,” answered charming Hebe. “Yet I feel I lack something,” she continued, lowering her beautiful eyes, “and that this lack is absolutely necessary to my happiness.” “Ah!” cried the fairy. “It’s love you desire. Only passion can make you think as strangely as you do. That’s a dangerous inclination!”420 continued the prudent fairy. “But if you want love, you shall have it! Hearts are so naturally disposed to seize it. But I warn you: you’ll invoke my name in vain to make this fatal passion stop, which you believe to be such sweet bliss; my power does not extend that far.”421 “It doesn’t matter,” the young princess said quickly, smiling and blushing at the same time. “What would I do with all the gifts you’ve given me if I didn’t use them to make someone else happy?” The fairy sighed upon hearing these words, and hid in the water’s depths. Hebe went back to her solitary walk with a hope that was already beginning to calm her ennui. The fairy’s warnings worried her, but this wise reflection was soon banished by other thoughts, more dangerous and much more appealing. On her return, she found 420. The notion that humans can have all they wish for and still suffer from ennui is a fundamental aspect of the human condition, according to Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). For this Jansenist thinker, the only solution is a recognition of the emptiness of that condition without the quest for God. Murat does not take this path, but through the fairy, she does adopt the pessimistic view of love and passion as dangerous and destructive; see Green and Blue, n350, in this volume. For a discussion of “secular pessimism” and of other nonreligious authors who share this vision, see Domna C. Stanton, “The Ideal of ‘Repos’ in Seventeenth-Century French Literature,” L’Esprit Créateur (Spring-Summer, 1975): 79–104. 421. On the powerlessness of fairies in matters of love, see the Editors’ Introduction, 30–31, in this volume.

244 Little Eel a message from the king, requesting she come home at once for a celebration he had prepared for the following day. A few hours after she had received this message, she left for the court. The king and queen received her with pleasure. They told her that a foreign prince who was traveling had arrived a few days earlier, and that they wished to have him attend the celebration so that he could tell people in other lands about the dazzling magnificence in their kingdom. With a foreboding she did not comprehend, young Hebe began by asking her sister if the foreigner was appealing. “We’ve never seen anyone like him before,” she responded. “Describe him to me,” said Hebe with emotion. “He is like the heroes of paintings,” replied her sister.422 “His figure is handsome, his manner grand, and his eyes filled with a fire whose power has been fed by more than one indifferent heart at this court. He has the most beautiful face in the world, and his hair is closer to black than blond. He only has to appear to draw the attention of all who see him.” “You paint a very favorable portrait,” said young Hebe. “Isn’t it a bit flattering?” “No, my sister,” replied Ilérie with a sigh she could not contain. “Ah, you may find him even too worthy of captivating you.” That evening, the prince appeared before the queen and asked to be presented to beautiful Hebe, whom he had not seen before. Never were two hearts so quickly and keenly touched and with so many reasons to be moved.423 The conversation only involved unimportant things, but it was brilliant and pleasing, sustained by the ardor that the desire to captivate inspires. The queen withdrew, and as soon as beautiful Hebe had considered her own feelings, she realized she had lost the tranquility whose value she did not as yet grasp.424 “Little Eel,” she cried when 422. As in the scene of the portrait gallery, here again art sets the standard for real people. 423. On the first glance, see Princess Little Carp, n189, in this volume. 424. The narrator values tranquility over the troubles of passion, which are assimilated below into a poison; the same term appears in the novels of La Fayette to describe love, especially in The Princess of Clèves, where the heroine also becomes aware of her feelings for M. de Nemours when she is alone, beyond the power of his sight.

Little Eel 245 she was alone. “Ah! What object did you allow to come before me? Your wise advice is undone by his presence; why didn’t you give me the power to resist such touching charms? But perhaps their power even surpasses a fairy’s.” Hebe slept little that night. She arose early, and the care to prepare her finest attire for the evening’s celebration kept her busy all day with an attention she had never before shown: for the first time, she wished to captivate. The young stranger, occupied with the same desire, neglected nothing to appear attractive in charming Hebe’s eyes. Princess Ilérie also forgot nothing that could entice. She had a thousand beautiful traits, and when people saw her without Hebe, they thought her the most beautiful person in the world. But Hebe’s presence effaced everything. That evening there was a magnificent ball at the queen’s apartment, followed by a marvelous feast. The young stranger would have noticed the lavish magnificence if he’d been able to look at anything other than the beautiful Hebe. After the meal, singular, brilliant illuminations made a new day appear in the palace gardens.425 It was summer and the company went out to enjoy the pleasure of a promenade. The attractive stranger gave his hand to the queen, but this honor did not make up for his sorrow at being separated from the princess even for a moment. The trees were covered in festoons426 of flowers, and the lamps that created the illumination were placed in such a way that they represented bows, arrows, and Cupid’s other weapons, while in some places they formed words. The company entered a small wood lit up like the rest of the gardens. The queen sat by a pleasant fountain, around which they had placed grass seats decorated with garlands, carnations, and roses. While the queen chatted with the king and the large group of courtiers who surrounded them, the princesses amused themselves looking at some of the characters formed by the little illuminated lamps. The appealing stranger was next to Hebe at that moment; she turned to a place where arrows were represented and read aloud the words written below: 425. Fireworks were extremely elaborate and popular at Louis XIV’s Versailles. See d’Aulnoy’s The Doe in the Woods, nn209-10, in this volume. 426. According to Furetière’s dictionary, festoon (feston) is “an ornament composed of flowers, fruits and leaves mixed together and placed on the gates of temples or the doors of houses when some celebration is to take place.”

246 Little Eel Some are invincible “Those are the arrows that shoot from the eyes of divine Hebe,” the stranger said quickly, looking at her tenderly. The princess heard him and was embarrassed, but to the prince this seemed a happy omen for his love, since he did not sense any anger. The celebration ended with a thousand new pleasures. The stranger’s charms had touched Ilérie’s heart too deeply for her not to notice soon that he loved another. Before Hebe’s return to court, the prince had paid attention to Ilérie, but from that moment on he had been preoccupied only with his tenderness427 for Hebe. Indeed, the young stranger was trying to touch the beautiful princess’s heart with his love. He was in love and worthy of love. Her fate forced her to love, and the fairy had abandoned her to the inclinations of her heart. What good excuses for her to surrender! She could not struggle against herself for long.428 The charming stranger told her he was the son of a king, and that his name was Atimir.429 This name was known to the princess because the prince had performed wonders in a war between the two kingdoms. Since they had always been enemies, he had not wanted to appear at the court of the king, Hebe’s father, under his real name.430 After a conversation in which her heart finally took the sweet, dangerous poison the fairy had described, the young princess gave Atimir permission to reveal his background and his love to the king. Overcome with joy, the young prince ran to the king’s apartments and spoke with all the ardor his love inspired in him. The king led him to the queen. Since this marriage would establish perpetual peace in the kingdom,431 beautiful Hebe was promised to her happy beloved 427. On tenderness (tendresse), see Prince Rosebush, n18, in this volume. 428. The process of love remains unclear here: Hebe is forced to love, but in fact, she is being abandoned to her own tendencies, which she cannot combat, but which somehow still constitute an excuse for love. 429. Etymologically, the Greek atimia means dishonor but the suffx -ir adds a vaguely Eastern touch, for instance, through its likeness to “emir.” 430. Only now does it become clear why Atimir had to remain a stranger, but this potential enmity, with its echoes of Romeo and Juliette, is quickly dispelled. 431. The idea of perpetual peace recurs in seventeenth-century political texts, and assumes particular meaning in the context of Louis XIV’s failing wars at the end of the century, which

Little Eel 247 as soon as he received the consent of his father, the king. The news spread, and the princess Ilérie felt a sorrow as great as her jealousy. She cried and she moaned, but she had to restrain herself and hide her futile regrets.432 Beautiful Hebe and Atimir then began to see each other constantly, and their love grew each day. During these happy times, the young princess couldn’t understand why the fairies didn’t use all their knowledge to make mortals feel love, if they wished to grant them happiness. An ambassador from the king, Atimir’s father, then arrived 433 at court. They had been waiting for him with great impatience. He brought the consent they asked for, and all manner of preparations were undertaken for this great wedding. Atimir no longer had any cause for fear—a dangerous condition for a lover one wants to keep forever faithful.434 As soon as the prince was assured of his happiness, he became less ardent about his love. One day when he was going to join beautiful Hebe in the palace gardens, he heard women’s voices in a honeysuckle arbor. He heard his name mentioned, which made him curious to hear more. He quietly approached the arbor and readily recognized the princess Ilérie’s voice. “I will die before that fatal day, my dear Cléonice,” she was saying to a person seated near her. “The gods will not tolerate me seeing the ingrate I love united with the very fortunate Hebe. My torments are too painful for me to live for long.” “But Madam,” replied the girl who was with her, “Prince Atimir is not unfaithful; he never made any vows to you. Destiny alone causes your misfortune. Among so many princes who adore you, you’ll find one perhaps who is even more appealing than he, if this dreadful thought would not preoccupy your heart.” ruined the country financially and which would catalyze the alliance of European powers against the French ruler. 432. The motif of two sisters in love with the same man is common in folk- and fairy tales, but is rarely as developed as it is in this text. 433. On the theme of ambassadors, see The Doe in the Woods, n225, in this volume. 434. The narrator thus suggests that only fear can keep a male lover—by definition, fickle— in love.

248 Little Eel “As appealing as he!” said Ilérie. “Are there any in all the universe? Powerful fairy,” she added with a sigh, “of all the blessings you showered on the fortunate Hebe, I am only jealous of the tender love Atimir has for her.” The princess’s speech was interrupted by her tears. Ah, how happy she would have been if she had known how her words moved Atimir’s heart! She rose to leave the arbor, and the prince hid behind some trees so as not to be seen. Ilérie’s tears and passion had touched him, but he thought it was just a feeling of pity for a beautiful princess he was making unhappy in spite of himself. He went to find Hebe, and her charms banished all other thoughts from his heart. As he crossed the gardens to take Hebé back to the palace, he felt something under his feet. He picked the objects up and saw they were magnificent writing tablets.435 He wasn’t far from the arbor where he had heard Ilérie’s conversation. But he was afraid that if he showed Hebe the tablets, she would learn about his adventure. So he hid them, and the princess did not notice, busy as she was attaching something to her coiffure. That evening Ilérie did not appear in the queen’s apartment. People said she had been indisposed on returning from her walk. Atimir understood that she wished to hide the troubled state in which he had seen her in the arbor, and at this thought, his pity for her grew. As soon as he was in his apartment, he opened the writing tablets he had found. On the first sheet, he saw a figure formed by double A’s, crowned with myrtle436 and held up by two little Cupids, one of whom seemed to be drying his tears with his blindfold, while the other was breaking his arrows. The sight of this figure affected the young prince. He knew that Ilérie could draw perfectly and he turned the sheet to find out more: on the back he found these words: Fearsome Cupid made me see your charms; They’ve troubled the peace of my quiet heart. 435. Furetière’s dictionary indicates that tablet signifies “a small book or pocket agenda that has a few sheets of paper or parchment on which one writes…the things one wishes to remember.” 436. According to Furetière’s dictionary, the myrtle is a symbol of love, since the tree is dedicated to Venus.

Little Eel 249 Ah! What injustice is yours? Cruel one, you test on me the arrows You would use to wound another. The handwriting, which he recognized, proved only too well that the tablets were the princess Ilérie’s. He was so touched by her tender feelings, which were only sustained by a distant hope, not by his love or attentions. The verses reminded him that before Hebe’s arrival at court he had found Ilérie appealing. He began to see himself as unfaithful to this princess, but in fact, he was becoming truly unfaithful to the charming Hebe. Nevertheless, he fought these initial feelings. And yet, his heart was used to being fickle, and rarely can we correct ourselves from such a dangerous habit. He threw Ilérie’s tablets on a desk, determined not to look at them again, but a moment later, in spite of himself, picked them up once more and found a thousand things that ended by making Ilérie triumph over the divine Hebe. A multitude of confused feelings occupied the prince’s heart that whole night. In the morning he went to the king, who announced to him the day he had chosen for his marriage to Hebe. Atimir replied with embarrassment, which the king mistook for a sign of love. How little we know the hearts of men! It was a result of his infidelity. The king wished to go to the queen, and the prince was forced to follow. He had been there but a short time when princess Ilérie appeared with a languor that made her seem even more appealing in the eyes of fickle Atimir, for he knew the cause. He approached her, spoke at length, and made her understand he was no longer unaware of her feelings for him. He expressed himself with tenderness. This was too great a happiness for Ilérie! Ah! How could she receive such keen, unexpected happiness without feeling agitated! Then the charming Hebe came into the queen’s apartment. The sight of her made Ilérie and fickle Atimir blush. “How beautiful she is!” Ilérie said, looking at Atimir with an emotion she could not hide. “Shun her, my lord, or then finish taking my life!” The prince could not answer her; Hebe had approached them with a grace and charm that caused the ungrateful Atimir a thousand self-reproaches. He could not bear them for long. He left the princess, saying he was going to send a courier to the king, his father. She was so predisposed toward him she didn’t notice his involuntary glances at Ilérie. While

250 Little Eel Ilérie triumphed in secret, beautiful Hebe learned from the king and queen that she would be Atimir’s wife in three days. How unworthy he was now of the feelings that arose in lovely Hebe’s heart at this news! Although he was taken with his unfaithful ardor, the prince spent part of the day with Hebe. Ilérie witnessed this and thought she would die of jealousy a thousand times, for her love had increased the moment she had felt some hope. When he returned home that evening, the prince received a note from an unknown man. He opened it quickly and found these words: I surrender to a passion a thousand times stronger than my reason. This is no longer the time to hide the feelings that chance revealed to you. Come, Prince, come and learn the resolution I’ve taken thanks to the tender love you’ve given me. How happy I would be if it were only to cost me my life! The man who brought the prince this note told him he was to take him to the place where Ilérie was waiting. Atimir did not hesitate for a moment to follow him, and after various detours, he was shown into a small pavilion at the end of a covered path. The pavilion was quite well lit and there he found Ilérie alone with one of her ladies. The others were walking in the garden. When she withdrew to this pavilion, her ladies did not enter except by her order. Ilérie was seated on a pile of crimson velvet cushions embroidered with gold. Her dress of yellow and silver fabric was elegant, even magnificent. Her black hair, which was perfectly beautiful, was caught up by ribbons of the same color as her dress, and fastened with pins of yellow diamonds. When Atimir saw her, he could not convince himself that it was shameful to become unfaithful. He knelt next to her. Ilérie looked at him with a tenderness that revealed her heart’s emotions. “Prince,” she said, “I have not brought you here to persuade you to break off your marriage. I know only too well it has been decided. The few words with which you tried to soothe my unhappiness and my love do not allow me to believe you wish to abandon Hebe for me. But,” she continued with tears that completed the seduction of Atimir’s heart, “I want nothing more of a life you’ve made so painful. I will sacrifice it to my love without regret. And this poison,” she added,

Little Eel 251 showing him a little golden box she held in her hand, “will spare me the horrible torture of seeing you become Hebe’s husband.” “No, beautiful Ilérie,” cried the fickle prince, “I will not be her husband. I’ll give everything up to please you. I love you a thousand times more than I loved Hebe. And despite my duty and my word, so solemnly pledged, I am ready to take you to places where nothing will interfere with our love.” “Ah, Prince!” sighed Ilérie, “Shall I entrust myself to an unfaithful man?” “He will never be unfaithful to you,” replied Atimir, “and the king, your father, who gave me Hebe, will not refuse me the lovely Ilérie, when she is in my power.”437 “Come, then, Atimir,” said the princess after several moments of silence. “Let us go where my destiny and yours carry us. Whatever suffering it may cost me, nothing can equal in my heart the sweet pleasure of being loved by the one I love.”438 After these words, they made plans for their departure. There was no time to lose. They decided to leave the following night, and then they separated with difficulty. Despite Atimir’s vows, Ilérie was still afraid of Hebe’s charms. The rest of the night and the following day she was constantly preoccupied with these fears. Meanwhile the prince rapidly gave the necessary orders to ensure that his departure was secret. The next evening, as soon as everyone had retired in the palace, he went to find Ilérie in the garden pavillon where she awaited him with Cléonice. They left and made incredible haste to get out of the kingdom. In the morning, the news was revealed in a letter Ilérie wrote to the queen and one that Atimir wrote to the king. They were touching, and it was easy to see that love had dictated them. The king and queen were extremely angry, but nothing can express the acute suffering of the unfortunate, charming Hebe. What despair! What tears! What hopes and wishes she spoke to the fairy, Little Eel, to put an end to evils as cruel as those she had predicted long ago. But the fairy kept her word. In vain did Hebe return to the banks of the river: Little Eel did not appear. Hebe gave in 437. For Atimir, then, love means power over women. 438. Ilérie seems much more conscious than Atimir of the significance of their flight, which involves inevitable suffering, in her eyes.

252 Little Eel to the most horrible forms of despair. Princes at court, whom the good fortune of the ungrateful Atimir had chased away, felt their hopes reborn. But their attentions and their love seemed like new tortures to faithful Hebe. The king wished ardently for her to choose a husband, and pressed her to do so several times. But because of her love, this duty seemed too cruel and she resolved to escape from her father’s kingdom. Before her departure, however, she returned again to look for Little Eel. This time the fairy could not resist beautiful Hebe’s tears. She appeared. At the sight of her, the princess began to cry again and didn’t have the strength to speak. “At last, you know this fatal felicity I always tried to refuse you,” the fairy said to her. “But, Hebe, Atimir has punished you enough for not following my advice. Go then, flee this kingdom where everything reminds you of your love. When you get to the sea, you will find a vessel that will take you to the only place on earth where you can be cured of the unhappy love that fills you with despair. But remember,” added Little Eel, raising her voice, “when your heart has found calm again, never think for a moment to go look for Atimir’s fatal presence. It will cost you your life.” More than once had Hebe wished to see the prince again, no matter what price love would force her pay for this pleasure, but the remnants of reason and the concern for her reputation made her decide to accept the fairy’s proposal. She thanked her for this last good deed and left the following day to go to the seashore, followed by one of her ladies whom she trusted the most. She found Little Eel’s ship. It was covered in gold, the masts were inlaid with a marvelous design, the sails were of silver and rose-colored cloth, and you could see written all over them the word FREEDOM .439 The sailors were dressed in the same colors as the sails. Everything seemed to breathe the sweetness of freedom in this place. The princess entered a magnificent chamber. The furniture was remarkable and the paintings perfectly beautiful. But she was no less sad in this new abode than at the court of her father, the king. Her people tried in vain to amuse her with a thousand pleasures. She was not as yet in a condition to pay attention to such things. 439. The French liberté means both liberty and freedom; the second, which implies “freedom from,” seems more appropriate here.

Little Eel 253 One day, when she was looking at the painted murals in her room to distract herself, she noticed in a particular spot that represented a landscape a young, smiling shepherdess who was cutting nets to give a large number of captured birds their freedom. Some of these small animals, already having escaped, seemed to fly toward the heavens with marvelous speed. All the other murals represented similar subjects. Nothing spoke of love; everything praised the charms of freedom.440 “What?” the princess sadly cried to herself. “Will my heart always be impervious to such sweet happiness, for which my own reason makes so many useless wishes?” Unhappy Hebe passed her time this way, occupied with her love and her desire to forget it. The ship had been drifting for a month without stopping, when one morning, while she was on the deck, the princess saw from afar a land that appeared to be very beautiful. The trees were of surprising height and splendor. When the ship was close enough, she noticed the trees were covered with birds whose plumage had a lively and sparkling color. They were singing wonderful concerts with their sweet songs, but they seemed afraid of making too much noise. The ship approached the sparkling shore. The princess got off with her ladies, and as soon as she had breathed the island’s air, she felt her heart, by some unknown power, calm down. She closed her lovely eyes for a time and let herself drift into a pleasing slumber. This delightful country, which was unfamiliar to her, was called Peaceful Island. The fairy, Little Eel, a close relative of the princes who ruled this country had secured, two thousand years earlier, the blessed gift of curing unhappy passions. People say this gift still exists there, but the difficulty lies in being able to reach the island.441 The prince who reigned at this time was a direct descendant of the famous Princess Little Carp and her charming husband. A modern fairy, more knowledgeable and civilized than those of antiquity, has elegantly narrated the wonders of this couple.442 While beautiful Hebe was 440. Love is thus cast as the antithesis of freedom. 441. This symbolic geography of love recurs in Murat’s Wasted Effort (see n480, in this volume). On amatory maps of the period, see Peters, Mapping Discord. 442. This complimenting reference to d’Aulnoy’s Princess Little Carp casts the conteuse (including Murat herself) as a writer with magical powers, even as it signals her identification with the Moderns against the Ancients in the seventeenth century’s long debate. On the

254 Little Eel enjoying a rest—she had not tasted its sweetness for six months—the prince of Peaceful Island was walking in the woods that bordered the seashore. He was in his chariot, drawn by four young white elephants, and surrounded by a part of his court.443 The slumbering princess struck his eye; her beauty stunned him.444 He stepped down from his chariot with a speed and vivacity he had never felt before. At the sight of her, he felt all the love that Hebe’s charms were worthy of inspiring. The noise woke her, and opening her eyes, she made the young prince notice a thousand new beauties. He was the same age as Hebe, nineteen years old. His beauty was perfect. A thousand graces were visible over all of his person. His height was above the average man’s; his hair, which hung in great curls to his waist, was the same color as Hebe’s. His clothes were made of bird feathers of countless different hues. On top of this, he had a kind of trailing mantle made of swan’s feathers, attached to his shoulders by the most beautiful gems in the world. His belt was of diamonds, upon which hung, with chains of gold, a small saber covered in rubies. A type of helmet, made of feathers like the rest of his attire, covered his handsome head. And on one side of his helmet were attached, with a diamond of prodigious size, heron’s feathers, which made him most graceful.445 This prince was the first object to appear before the princess’s sight on her awakening. He seemed to merit her glances, and for the first time in her life she looked at someone other than Atimir with attention. “Everything assures me,” said the Prince of Peaceful Island to the princess, “that you can be none other than the divine Hebe. Who else could have such charms?” “Who could have told you so soon, my Lord, that I had come to this island?” asked the young princess, rising and blushing at the same time. Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, see the Editors’ Introduction, 11–13, and Joan DeJean, Ancients Against Moderns. 443. Elephants make the island exotic. 444. This trope of the sleeping beauty appears in seventeenth-century narratives from d’Urfé’s L’Astrée to Perrault’s fairy tale of the same name. 445. In addition to the gracefulness of the swan and the size of the heron, the prince, like the inhabitants of his country, is dressed like a bird, perhaps signifying freedom through the avian ability to fly.

Little Eel 255 “A powerful fairy,” replied the young king, “who, wishing to make me the happiest prince in the world, and in this country the most fortunate, had promised to lead you here, and had even permitted me more glorious hopes. But I feel keenly,” he added with a sigh, “that my destiny will depend much more on your goodness than hers.” After these words, to which she replied cleverly, the prince requested she get into his chariot and be driven to the palace. Out of respect, he did not ride next to her. But as she had understood from his speech and from the retinue around him that he was king of the island, she obliged him to sit next to her. Never had so spectacular a couple appeared together in the same chariot. At their sight, the prince’s entire court could not refrain from applauding them a thousand times. Along the way, the young prince talked to Hebe with much wit and tenderness, and the princess, pleased to have rediscovered her tranquil heart again, regained her liveliness. They arrived at the palace. It was not far from the water’s edge. Long and beautiful avenues led to it, surrounded by canals of running water. The palace was made of ivory and covered with agate. The prince’s guards were lined up in different courtyards. In the first, they were dressed in yellow feathers: they had quivers, bows, and arrows of silver. In the second, they were dressed in feathers the color of fire, with sabers trimmed in gold, decorated with turquoises. They went into the third courtyard where the guards were dressed in white feathers; in their hands they held short lances, painted and gilt and decorated with garlands of flowers. There had never been a war in this country, so they didn’t carry fiercer weapons.446 The prince, alighting from his chariot, led lovely Hebe to a magnificent apartment. There were many people at court, the ladies were beautiful, the men gallant and handsome; and although the inhabitants of the country were dressed only in feathers, their skill in arranging their hues made them appealing. That evening, the Prince of Peaceful Island gave a superb feast for beautiful Hebe, which was followed by a concert of sweet flutes, lutes, theorbos, and harpsichords. In this country they didn’t like instruments that made clattering noises. The concert was very pleasing. After a while, a beautiful voice sang these words: 446. This may be an implicitly ironic contrast with the nearly ceaseless wars during Louis XIV’s reign.

256 Little Eel I swear to your charms an ardor immortal. What happiness can ever be sweeter Than wearing a chain of such splendor? I’ll love tenderly, my heart will be true, And the final prize will depend on you. As this voice sang, the prince looked at Hebe tenderly, to convince her he believed everything these verses had just said to her. When the music had finished, it was late and the Prince of Peaceful Island led the princess to the apartment he had chosen for her. It was the most beautiful in the palace. She found a great number of ladies there whom the prince had appointed and to whom he had given the honor of staying with her. When the prince left beautiful Hebe, he was the most enamored of men. The ladies put the princess to bed, then withdrew, and only those she had brought with her remained in her room. “Who could believe it?” she said to them as soon as she was at liberty. “My heart is at peace! What god has calmed my torments? I love Atimir no longer; I can think that he is perhaps Ilérie’s husband without dying of torment. Is everything I see a dream? No,” she said a moment later, “even my dreams were not usually this tranquil.” Then she gave Little Eel a thousand thanks and fell asleep. The next day when Hebe awoke and opened the curtain around her bed, the fairy appeared with a gracious air that the princess had not seen on her face since the fatal day when she had asked her for love. “So,” the gracious fairy said to her, “it is fortunate I brought you here. Your heart is free, and so it will become content. I have cured you of a cruel passion. But Hebe, can I be certain that those horrible torments to which you were exposed will make you forever flee the places where you might see the ungrateful Atimir again?” What did the young princess not promise the fairy! What vows against love and against her faithless lover! “At least, remember your promises,” continued Little Eel with an air that inspired respect. “You will perish with Atimir if you ever try to see him again.447 However, everything here should rob you of that desire, which will be fatal to your life.” 447. This is the second time Little Eel has forewarned that Atimir’s love will lead to Hebe’s death: eros will inevitably result in thanatos.

Little Eel 257 “I don’t wish to hide from you any longer what I have decided in your favor,” the fairy continued. “The Prince of Peaceful Island is my relative; I protect his person and his empire. He is young, he is appealing, and no prince in the world is as worthy to be your husband. Reign, therefore, beautiful Hebe, in his heart and in his kingdom. Your father, the king, consents. I was at his palace yesterday; I told him and your mother, the queen, the present state of your fortunes, and they left your care entirely in my hands.” The princess wished to ask what the fairy had learned about Ilérie and Atimir since her departure, but she didn’t dare take the chance of displeasing her after so many good deeds. She used all the wits the fairy had given her to express her thanks. At that moment, people came into the princess’s chamber and the fairy disappeared. As soon as Hebe had gotten up, a dozen perfectly beautiful children, dressed as Cupids, brought her a dozen crystal baskets from the prince, full of the loveliest, most delightful flowers in the world. These flowers covered gemstone settings of all colors and of wondrous beauty. In the first basket presented to her she found this note. TO DIVINE HEBE Yesterday I swore a hundred times, “I love you only”: Never will I lose the lovely memory Of those vows, made by my violent tenderness, Cupid himself dictated them to me, And your charms will make me keep them eternally. After all the fairy had commanded the princess to do, she understood she was to accept the attentions of her new lover as those of a prince soon to be her husband. She graciously received the little Cupids. And no sooner had she dismissed them than eighty dwarves appeared, strangely but magnificently dressed, and laden with new gifts. They had brought clothes made of feathers; but their colors, the work, and the gems were so beautiful the princess admitted she had never seen anything so elegant. She chose a rose-colored outfit to wear that day. Her coiffure was decorated with a bouquet of feathers of the same color. She looked so charming with this new ornament that the prince of Peaceful Island, who came to see her as soon as she was dressed, felt his passion for her grow still more. Everyone at court hurried to

258 Little Eel admire the princess. In the evening, the prince suggested to beautiful Hebe they go down to the magnificent palace gardens. During the walk, the prince told Hebe that the fairy had made him hope for her arrival on the island four years ago. “But some time afterwards,” added the prince, “as I was eagerly asking her about her promises, she seemed sad, and said, ‘Princess Hebe has been destined by her father for another; but if my knowledge doesn’t deceive me, she will not belong to the prince chosen to be her husband. I will tell you what happens.’ Some months later the fairy came back to this island. ‘Destiny favors you,’ she said. ‘The prince who was to be Hebe’s husband will not become her husband, and soon you’ll see her, in this place, the most beautiful princess in the world.’ ” “It’s true,” Hebe said, blushing, “that I was to marry the son of a king, a neighbor to my father’s lands. But after various events, his love for my sister, the princess, made him decide to take her away from my father’s kingdom.” The Prince of Peaceful Island said a thousand tender things to beautiful Hebe about his happy fate, which, in concert with the fairy, had led her to his island. She listened with great pleasure, since his speech interrupted the tale of her adventures. She was afraid of not being able to speak of her unfaithful lover without letting the prince see how great her love for him had been. The Prince of Peaceful Island led Hebe into an extremely ornate grotto, which was enhanced by wondrous jets of water.448 The back of the grotto was dark, and there was a large number of niches filled with statues representing nymphs and shepherds, but you could barely make them out. The princess had been in the grotto but a few moments when she heard a pleasing sound of instruments. A brilliant illumination, appearing all of a sudden, allowed her to see that some of the statues were playing this concert, and the others came before 448. The grotto as a secret place for lovers, in the pastoral tradition, is here transformed into a site of art and beauty befitting the festivals at Versailles. Indeed, Madeleine de Scudéry mentions grottos in her Promenade de Versailles (Paris: Barbin, 1669, 72–73, 77). Collations in the garden, dancing statues, and sylvan deities emerging from behind trees were common in outdoor royal entertainments; see the collation with machines, plays with dance and music, ballet, and fireworks for the multiday Plaisirs de l’isle enchantée (1664) in Festes galantes et magnifiques, faites par le Roy à Versailles (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1673); see also Lully’s first opera, Cadmus et Hermione, 1673.

Little Eel 259 her to dance an elegant, carefully choreographed ballet,449 which was interspersed with delightful, tender songs. All the actors of this entertainment had been placed at the back of the grotto, the better to surprise the princess. After the ballet, savages450 came to serve a superb collation under an arbor of jasmine and orange blossoms. The entertainment had just ended when all of a sudden Little Eel the fairy appeared in the sky on a chariot drawn by four swans.451 She stepped down and announced to the Prince of Peaceful Island wonderful news: she wished him to become Hebe’s husband, and that this beautiful princess had promised her consent. The prince, overcome with joy, was not sure to whom he owed his first thanks, Hebe or Little Eel. And although joy does not make a person say things that are as touching as sorrow does, the prince nevertheless acquitted himself with wit and grace. The fairy didn’t wish to leave the prince and princess until the day for their marriage was set. It was to be in three days, and she bestowed superb presents on them both. At last, on the day she had chosen, they proceeded to the temple of Hymen,452 followed by the whole court and an infinite number of the island’s inhabitants. The temple was made of intertwined olive and palm tree branches that never withered, thanks to the fairy’s power. Hymen was 449. Ballets were one of the chief amusements at court. See Mark Franko, “The King Cross Dressed: Power and Force in Royal Ballets,” in From the Royal to the Republican Body, ed. Sara Meltzer and Kathryn Norberg (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 64–84. 450. The “savage,” here domesticated as a dressed up servant, nonetheless raises the specter of all the “savages” enslaved in the conquered territories of the French in the New World whom the Jesuits were trying to “civilize” into Christians (see the many volumes of these Jesuit relations, in Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, 73 vols. (Cleveland: Burrows, 1896–1901). Over a decade before Murat’s Little Eel was published, Louis XIV had issued his infamous Code Noir, which prescribed the status and treatment of the slave population. See the extensively commented edition of this Code by Louis Sala-Molins, Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan (Paris: PUF, 2002). See also Paul Butel, Histoire des Antilles françaises (Paris: Editions Perrin, 2007), especially, chapter I (“Les Antilles au XVIIe siècle”), 25–112; and Pritchard, In Search of Empire. 451. On these “machines,” featured in court entertainments, see also Princess Little Carp, nn168, 200, in this volume. 452. Hymen or Hymenaeus is the Greek god of marriage. He is variously described as the son of several gods and goddesses. In art he is represented like Eros, as a beautiful winged youth, only with a more serious expression, and carrying in his hand the marriage torch and nuptial veil. The marriage song or Hymenaeus is mentioned as early as the Iliad (xviii, 493).

260 Little Eel represented by a statue of white marble crowned with roses. It was set on an altar, decorated only with flowers, and leaning on a little Cupid of charming beauty and a laughing air, who was presenting him a crown of myrtle. Little Eel, who had built this temple, wanted everything to be simple to show that love alone can make a marriage happy. Combining love and marriage was the only difficulty; so it was a miracle worthy of a fairy that she had joined them together forever on Peaceful Island.453 And, contrary to the customs of other kingdoms, you could be a spouse, a lover, and a faithful person there. In this temple of Hymen, the beautiful Hebe, led by Little Eel, pledged her troth to the Prince of Peaceful Island and received his with pleasure. She did not feel the involuntary attraction for him she had felt for Atimir; but her heart, now free from passion, received this husand, by the fairy’s order, as a worthy prince for his person, and even more so, for his love. The marriage was celebrated with a thousand gallant entertainments, and Hebe was happy with a prince who adored her. Meanwhile, Hebe’s father, the king, had received ambassadors from Atimir, who was asking permission to marry Ilérie. Atimir’s father, the king, was dead, and he was now absolute master of his kingdom. With pleasure, Hebe’s father granted Atimir the princess he had carried off.454 After the wedding, the queen Ilérie, through new ambassadors, asked her father, the king, and her mother, the queen, permission to come to their court, to beg forgiveness for a wrong that love had made her commit, and that Atimir’s worthiness should excuse. The king allowed her to return, and Atimir came with her. A thousand festivities marked the day of their arrival. Shortly afterwards, beautiful Hebe and her charming husband also sent ambassadors to the king and queen to announce their marriage. Little Eel had already told Hebe’s parents, and the couple was received with equal pleasure and magnificence. Atimir was with the king when the ambassadors of Hebe and her husband presented themselves for the first time. The 453. Rarely in the seventeenth century do love and marriage go together. Unlike most of the fairy tales of the time, including those in this volume, love and marriage are irreconcilable, except on Peaceful Island. 454. The French, enlever, has the negative connotations of “abduct,” which makes the king’s “pleasure” all the more disturbing.

Little Eel 261 delightful thought of Hebe had never been fully erased from a heart where she had reigned with such power. Atimir sighed in spite of himself upon hearing about the happiness of the Prince of Peaceful Island. He even secretly accused Hebe of being unfaithful, without considering how many reasons he had given her to become unfaithful. The ambassadors of the Prince of Peaceful Island returned home laden with honors and gifts. They told their prince and princess how much joy the king and queen had shown at the news of their happy marriage. But, oh! Their recited tale was all too faithful! They told Hebe that Ilérie and Atimir were at court. These names, so dangerous to her peace of mind, made her uneasy. She was happy; but can mortals be continuously happy? She could not resist the impatience she felt to return to her father’s court. It was only, she said, to see him and her mother again. She even believed it. How often we fool ourselves about our own feelings when we love! Despite the fairy’s threats, meant to make her avoid the places where she might see Atimir again, she proposed the trip to the Prince of Peaceful Island. At first he refused, for Little Eel had forbidden him to let Hebe leave his kingdom. She continued to plead with him. He adored her, and he didn’t know about the passion she had felt for Atimir. Can we refuse anything to the one we love? He thought he would please Hebe by his blind compliance. He gave orders for their departure. Never had there been such magnificence as there was in his equipage and on his ships. Wise Little Eel, indignant at the little respect Hebe and the Prince of Peaceful Island had shown for her orders, abandoned them to their destiny and did not appear to give them prudent advice, which they had benefitted from so little. The prince and princess embarked. After a happy voyage, they arrived at the court of the king, Hebe’s father. The king and queen were filled with joy to see the beautiful princess again. They were charmed by the Prince of Peaceful Island, and celebrated their arrival with a thousand feasts in the kingdom. But Ilérie trembled when she learned of Hebe’s return. It was decided they would see each other again but would make no mention of all that had transpired. Atimir also asked to see Hebe again, and it seemed to Ilérie that he desired it too eagerly. Princess Hebe blushed when he came

262 Little Eel into her chamber; they were both so discomposed that all their wits could not help them get out of this state. The king, who was present, noticed it. He joined in their conversation, and to make the visit shorter, he suggested to the princess they go down to the palace gardens. Atimir did not dare extend his hand to Hebe. He respectfully took his leave and withdrew. But what ideas, what feelings he took away in his heart! All the passion, so keen and tender, he had felt for Hebe, rekindled in an instant. He hated Ilérie; he hated himself. Never was faithlessness followed by such repentance or pain. That evening, he went to the queen’s apartment. Princess Hebe was there and he paid attention to no one else. He took great efforts to speak with her, but she constantly avoided him, even though his glances made her understand his feelings all too well for her peace of mind. He continued for some time to let her know, by all his actions, that her eyes had regained their initial power over him.455 Hebe’s heart was alarmed. Atimir still seemed so appealing to her. She resolved to avoid him with as much care as he took to seek her out. She never spoke to him unless she was in the queen’s chambers, and then only when she absolutely could not avoid it. She also resolved to urge the Prince of Peaceful Island to return to his kingdom soon.456 But what difficulties arise when you must leave your beloved! One evening when she was occupied with this thought, she locked herself in her study so that she might daydream more freely.457 She found a note that someone had put in her pocket without her noticing. She opened it and Atimir’s handwriting, which she recognized, made her feel uneasy in a way that can’t be expressed. She felt 455. Feelings for the beloved or the once loved, however buried or overlaid by other feelings, constantly surface at the sight of—and gaze of—this other in seventeenth-century French literature, whence the need to avoid the beloved’s sight. See Rousset, Leurs yeux se rencontrėrent. 456. The strategy recalls that of La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves, who avoids the sight of M. de Nemours, and asks her husband to take her away from court back to their country estate. 457. This evokes the celebrated scene in The Princess of Clèves when the heroine escapes into the pavilion at Coulommiers to stare at the portrait of her love, M. de Nemours, and for once, to give expression to her feelings.

Little Eel 263 she should not read it, but her heart overcame her reason. She read these words: You’re no longer susceptible to my ardent love, You feel nought but indifference for me.458 Beauteous Hebe, your heart is fickle in turn And imitates too well my fatal inconstancy. Alas! That it cannot imitate my return! That happy time is no more, when, of my tender love, You deigned share the pleasures and the pains: We were, ’tis true, fickle, each in our turn, But I come back to you bound by the same chains. Alas! Can you not imitate my return? “Ah, cruel one!” the princess cried. “What have I done, that you try to rekindle in my soul a tenderness that cost me such suffering?” Hebe’s tears interrupted her words. Meanwhile Ilérie languished with well-founded jealousy. Atimir, swept away by passion, could no longer restrain himself. The Prince of Peaceful Island began to notice his love for Hebe. However, he wished to observe Atimir’s conduct further before he spoke of it to the princess. He adored her faithfully, and was afraid his own words would make her perceive the prince’s passion.459 A few days after Hebe had received the note, a tournament 460 was held. The princes and all the handsome young men at court were going to cross lances in honor of the ladies. The king and queen graced this entertainment with their presence. Beautiful Hebe and Princess Ilérie were supposed to award the prizes: one was a sword, whose hilt and scabbard were covered in gemstones of extraordinary beauty; the other, a bracelet of perfect, brilliant diamonds. The knights invited for the jousts appeared in wondrous magnificence and mounted the finest horses in the world. They all wore their ladies’ colors, and had gallant mottos on their shields,461 according to the feelings in their hearts. 458. As Racine’s plays show, indifference, not hate, is the opposite of passion. 459. The prince here replicates the stance of the Princess of Clèves’s husband. 460. An example of aristocratic and royal pastimes that seem to hark back, in nostalgic imitation, to the days of glorious knights. See Princess Little Carp, n173, in this volume. 461. A motto, according to Furetière’s dictionary (s.v. devise), “consists of the representation …of some phrase applied in a figurative way to some person’s advantage.”

264 Little Eel The Prince of Peaceful Island appeared superbly dressed, riding a bay horse with a black mane and a tail of incomparable beauty. His entire equipage glowed with the color of rose, the one that Hebe loved. On the light helmet over his head floated a spray of feathers of the same color. He drew applause from the spectators and looked so handsome with these brilliant arms that Hebe reproached herself secretly a thousand times for her feelings, which her misfortune had inspired for another. The Prince of Peaceful Island’s retinue was numerous, each man dressed in the fashion of his country: it was all elegant and magnificent. A squire carried his shield, and everyone hurried to see its motto. It was a heart pierced by an arrow; a little cupid was shooting a number of other arrows, trying to inflict new wounds, but except for the first, they all seemed to have been drawn in vain. These words were written underneath: I fear no others. The colors and the motto of the Prince of Peaceful Island made it clear to all that he wished to enter the lists as the beautiful Hebe’s knight. Everyone was busy looking at his magnificence when Atimir appeared. He was riding a black horse that seemed fiery and proud. That day, this prince’s attire was the color of dead-leaf brown. He had added neither gold, nor silver, nor gemstones. On his helmet, he had a spray of rose-colored feathers. And although he had affected great casualness in his adornment,462 he had such a fine appearance, rode his horse with such grace, and had such a proud air that as soon as he entered the arena, the entire assembly looked at nothing else. On his shield, which he carried himself, appeared a Cupid who was trampling chains beneath his feet while he attached other, very heavy bonds. The image was encircled by the words: These alone worthy of me. Atimir’s troop wore the color of dead- leaf brown and silver, lavishly covered in gemstones. These men were the principal members of his court; no matter how handsome they were, you could easily see from his manner that Atimir was born to command them. 462. See Marmoisan, n118, in this volume. Here, however, the verb “affected” adds a negative connotation of excessive effort.

Little Eel 265 It would be impossible to describe the different feelings that the sight of Atimir produced in Hebe’s heart and in Ilérie’s, and the cruel jealousy the Prince of Peaceful Island felt when he saw feathers the same color as his own floating on Atimir’s helmet. The words of Atimir’s motto set off even greater fury, but he kept its effects in check, the better to choose the time to unloosen it on his rival. The king and queen readily noticed Atimir’s audacity and imprudence. They felt extremely angry, but it was not the time to show it. The tournament began with the very beautiful sound of a thousand trumpets ringing in the air. All the young knights displayed their skill. Even though he was obsessed by the fury of jealousy, the Prince of Peaceful Island demonstrated his skill and triumphed. Atimir, who knew the first prize was to be awarded by Ilérie, did not proceed to dispute the Prince of Peaceful Island’s triumph. The judges on the field declared him the victor, and to the sound of praise and acclamation from the spectators, he walked with the greatest grace to the place where the king and the princesses were, in order to receive the diamond bracelet. Princess Ilérie presented it; he accepted it respectfully. Then, having saluted the king, the queen, and the princesses, he returned to his place in the ranks. Sad Ilérie had noticed only too well the contempt with which fickle Atimir had regarded the prize she had bestowed. She sighed sorrowfully, and beautiful Hebe felt a secret joy, which her reason could not deny her heart.463 They began new jousts, with the same results as the first. The Prince of Peaceful Island, inspired by the sight of Hebe, performed marvels, and was the victor a second time. But Atimir, bored with being a spectator to his rival’s glory, and pleased with the idea of receiving a prize from Hebe’s hand, then presented himself at the far end of the arena. The rivals looked at each other proudly, and the contest between two such great princes was celebrated by the spectators’ shouts, but they caused new turmoil in the princesses’ hearts. The princes raced, one against the other, with equal advantage. They broke their lances without being shaken. The applause doubled, and the princes, without giving their horses time to breathe, returned to the far end of 463. Once again, Murat emphasizes the predominance of heart over reason—and reasonableness—in love or any other passion. See Pascal’s famous pensée: “The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” Pascal, Pensées, trans. Krailsheimer, 154, fr. 423.

266 Little Eel the arena. They grabbed new lances and raced with the same luck and skill as the first time. The king, who feared that chance would determine the victor between these two rivals and who didn’t wish to have a man of renown feel discontented, quickly sent word to the princes that they should be satisfied with the glory they had achieved and should end the day’s contests with the previous one they had just completed. The messenger the king had sent approached them and they listened to his warrant quite impatiently, especially Atimir, who spoke out first: “Go tell the king,” he said, “that I would be unworthy of the honor he does me to be concerned with my glory if I could suffer another victor.” “Let us see,” said the Prince of Peaceful Island, spurring his horse with ardor, “who best deserves the king’s esteem and fortune’s favors.” The messenger had not yet returned to the king when the two rivals, prompted by feelings stronger than the desire to win the prize, had already finished their contest. Fortune favored the audacious Atimir, and he was the victor. The Prince of Peaceful Island’s horse, exhausted from the many fine rounds he had taken, stumbled and made his master fall into the sand. What joy for Atimir! And what rage for the unfortunate Prince of Peaceful Island! He got up quickly and approached his rival before anyone came near: “You’ve beaten me in the games, Atimir,” he said in a manner that showed his anger clearly enough, “but it’s with the sword that I wish to settle our differences.” “I consent,” replied the proud Atimir. “I shall await you tomorrow at sunrise in the wood at the end of the palace gardens.” The judges joined them just as they finished these words, and they both hid their anger, for fear the king would oppose their plan.464 The Prince of Peaceful Island mounted his horse again and rode at full tilt to get away from the fatal place where Atimir had just beaten him. Meanwhile, Atimir went to receive the prize from Hebe’s hand; she presented it to him with a discomfort that revealed the dif464. Duels were still fought by noblemen, despite seven royal edicts in the seventeenth century that forbade them. This sanction is already apparent in Corneille’s Le Cid (1637). See Micheline Cuénin, Le duel sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1982), and François Billacois, Le duel dans la société française des XVIe‑XVIIe siècles: Essai de psychosociologie historique (Paris: Editions de l’EHESS, 1986).

Little Eel 267 ferent emotions in her soul. And as he accepted it, Atimir displayed the extravagant signs of a man much in love. The king and queen, who had their eyes fixed on him, noticed this. Displeased with the day’s outcome, they returned to the palace. Preoccupied with his passion, Atimir left the arena, not wishing to be accompanied by a single one of his men; and Ilérie, beside herself with sorrow and jealousy, returned to her apartment. What feelings Hebe experienced! “We must leave,” she said to herself. “What other remedy can there be for the evils I sense and those I foresee?” Meanwhile, the king and queen resolved to ask Atimir to leave for his own kingdom to avoid the new troubles his love might cause them. They also resolved to put the same proposition to the Prince of Peaceful Island, in order to show no preference between them. But, oh, belated prudence too slow to act! While they were deliberating, the two princes were readying for combat. Meanwhile, Hebe returned from the jousts and asked immediately where the Prince of Peaceful Island was. They told her he was in the palace garden, that he wanted to remain there alone, and that he seemed very sad. Beautiful Hebe thought it her duty to console him for the minor disgrace he had just suffered, so without first going to her apartment, she went down into the gardens, followed only by a few of her ladies. She had begun to look for the prince when she entered a covered path and saw the amorous Atimir, who, overcome by passion and listening to nothing else, threw himself to his knees before the princess. Drawing the sword he had received from her hand that very day, he said, “Listen to me, beautiful Hebe, or let me die at your feet.” Hebe’s women, frightened by Atimir’s action, threw themselves on him to try to take the sword, which he was already turning on himself with great fury. Hebe, unhappy Hebe, wanted to flee, but then, there are so many reasons to remain with the one you love! The desire to quiet the rumors this adventure might create, the plan to beg Atimir to seek a cure for the passion that was so fatal to them, the pity such a touching sight elicits—all these things, in the end, stopped the princess. She approached Atimir. Her presence suspended his fury. He let his sword drop at her feet. Never was such agitation, such love, and

268 Little Eel such sorrow manifested in a fifteen-minute conversation. No words tender enough can express what these two unhappy lovers felt. Worried at being with Atimir so close to the Prince of Peaceful Island, Hebe made great efforts over her feelings to leave Atimir. And she did leave, commanding him never again to see her in his life. What a command for Atimir! If he hadn’t remembered the duel he was to have with the Prince of Peaceful Island, he would have turned his sword on himself a hundred times. But he wanted to die by gaining revenge against his rival. Meanwhile, beautiful Hebe withdrew to her apartment to avoid Atimir’s presence more safely. “Merciless fairy!” she cried. “You only predicted my death, if I saw this unhappy prince again, but the pains I feel are far more cruel than the loss of my life.” Hebe sent her people to look for the Prince of Peaceful Island in the gardens, and then in the entire palace, but they did not find him. This worried her greatly. They looked for him all night, but it was in vain, for he had hidden himself in a small rustic cottage in the middle of a wood to be more certain no one would prevent him from being present at the place set for the combat. He went there at sunrise, and Atimir arrived shortly thereafter. Impatient for revenge and victory, the rivals drew their swords. It was the first time the Prince of Peaceful Island had ever used his because there was never war on his island. He did not appear any the less fearsome an enemy to Atimir. He had little experience, but much valor and much love. He fought as a man who scorned life. And in this fight, Atimir upheld with dignity the high reputation he had acquired. The princes were driven by very different passions for their combat not to be ultimately fatal. They had equal advantage for a long while, but they inflicted such furious blows on each other they both fell on the grass, which soon turned red with their blood. The Prince of Peaceful Island fainted from the loss of his blood, and Atimir, fatally wounded, spoke Hebe’s name when he died for her. Some of the men who were looking for the Prince of Peaceful Island reached this place and were gripped with fear when they saw this cruel spectacle. Princess Hebe, drawn by her anxiety, had just come down into the gardens. She ran to the site where she heard

Little Eel 269 the cries of her people, who were confusedly saying the names of the two princes, and came upon the touching, fatal scene. She thought the Prince of Peaceful Island was dead, like Atimir: at that moment, there didn’t seem to be any difference between them. Hebe cast several looks at the two unfortunate princes, and then cried sorrowfully: “Precious lives have been sacrificed for me! I will avenge you with the loss of my own.” With these words, she threw herself on the deadly sword that Atimir had received from her, and pierced her breast before her servants, who were stunned by this cruel adventure, could dutifully stop her. She died, and the fairy, Little Eel, moved by so much unhappiness, against which she had placed as many obstacles as her knowledge allowed, appeared at the site where these beautiful lives had just ended. The fairy blamed destiny, and could not keep from shedding tears. But then she thought of helping the Prince of Peaceful Island, whom she knew was not dead. She healed his wound and had him transported in a flash to his island, where, with the wondrous gift she had given to that place, the prince consoled himself for his loss and forgot the passion he had felt for Hebe.465 The king and queen, who did not have similar succor, gave in completely to their sorrow; only time was able to console them. As for Ilérie, nothing can express her despair; she always remained faithful to her grief and to the memory of the unfaithful Atimir. Meanwhile, Little Eel, who had transported the Prince of Peaceful Island back to his kingdom, touched the sad remains of appealing Atimir and beautiful Hebe with her wand. They turned instantly into two perfectly beautiful trees.466 The fairy named them CHARMS , to preserve forever the memory of all the gifts that shone so brightly in these unhappy lovers.

465. Only a special, supernatural gift allows the lover to overcome and to forget his passion. 466. Many mythological narratives contain metamorphoses of people into trees, the most famous, perhaps, being that of Philemon and Baucis; see Ovid’s Metamorphoses VIII.611– 724; I.448–56. See Prince Rosebush, n33, in this volume, and d’Aulnoy’s The Yellow Dwarf.

Wasted Effort Once upon a time there was a fairy whose usual abode was in the forest. She had no children for a long time, but she finally gave birth to a daughter whose beauty was extraordinary from the moment she was born. Far from being joyous, however, the fairy thought she would die of sorrow. She gave her the name of Wasted Effort, foreseeing she would deserve it, since she had knowledge of all the misfortunes love was readying for her dear daughter. Even though she should have known it was impossible to avoid such misfortunes or to change destiny’s commands, she nevertheless wished to do everything in her power to keep at bay the evils that threatened the girl. To this end, she resolved to send the child away before she gained the use of reason. The fairy took her daughter to an island and cast such powerful spells on it no man could possibly reach its land.467 On this island she built a palace of gold, with enamel the color of fire, where she put little Wasted Effort; the furnishings showed fine taste and had a magnificence beyond anything ever seen before. The rest of the island had nothing but pleasant gardens. To amuse her daughter, the fairy confined to this delightful place a hundred young people her age, each more appealing than the other. She gave Wasted Effort only two women to care for her, and then returned to her forest, after first touching the women with the tip of her wand to make them forget everything they had seen before coming to the island.468 467. The motif of an island forbidden to men also occurs in d’Aulnoy’s Prince Lutin and in Murat’s Prince of Leaves. It is reminiscent of the “land of the Sarmatae” to which Madeleine de Scudéry’s alter-ego, Sapho, retires at the end of “The Story of Sapho,” in her multivolume novel, Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus (1649–1654). See The Story of Sapho, trans. and introd. Karen Newman,The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003). 468. The scenario here resembles the opening of La Force’s Persinette, one of the first literary versions of Rapunzel, made famous by the Brothers Grimm. In La Force’s tale, a fairy attempts to protect her adopted daughter from her fate—specifically the misfortunes of love—by confining her to a tower with magnificent rooms and furnishings. Persinette leads a happy existence there until she spies a handsome prince and falls in love. See “Persinette,” in Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier et al., Contes, 2:331–38.

270

Wasted Effort 271 This lovely child led a happy life until the age of fifteen, but her happiness could not last forever. One day, while walking in her gardens with the young girls who made up her court, she saw something extraordinary in the air. She stopped to ascertain what it could be, but fell into an inexpressible astonishment when she beheld a throne of flowers descend, carried by four female dwarves seated on a sort of fly called a dragonfly.469 As soon as this small retinue was on the ground, a person within came before Wasted Effort, who had still not gotten over her surprise. She greeted her in the most gracious manner in the world and said she hadn’t been able to deny herself the pleasure of seeing up close the charms of the island, which seemed utterly delightful. She said that her name was Anarine, that she was the daughter of the King of the Enchanters,470 and that she was going to the court of the King of Nations.471 She invited Wasted Effort to come with her to choose the prince most to her liking and to marry him. This speech puzzled Wasted Effort, but it also filled her with questions. At first, she didn’t reveal her curiosity to Princess Anarine. She merely said she wasn’t allowed to leave the island, but with great alacrity she extended an invitation for the princess to spend several days with her. The invitation was accepted. Anarine was less beautiful than Wasted Effort, but she was still very appealing. During her stay on the island, Wasted Effort asked for an explanation of what she had said on her arrival. Anarine was enormously surprised to find her so untutored, since she had such a good mind.472 She took pleasure educating her and informing her 469. The French term for dragonfly is demoiselle or unmarried girl. In legends, dwarfs usually have magic powers, but typically they are ugly, misshapen men. On the use of such “machines” in court entertainments, see Princess Little Carp, nn168, 200, in this volume. 470. By contrast, in The Enchanter, the eponymous character seems to work alone. 471. The term “King of Nations” recalls the language used in propaganda about Louis XIV’s stature and rule. The use of nation, applied to France, points to the development of the notion of a nation state in seventeenth-century France; see Domna C. Stanton, “The Monarchy, the Nation and its Others,” Acts of the Colloquium on Imagology: The Other, held at Mugla University, Turkey, ed. Michel Bareau, (Alta, Canada: Alta Press, 2005), 1–21. 472. The theme of the innocent girl, shut off from the world to prevent her from falling in love, is a recurrent theme in comedy, and in the seventeenth century, the act is usually perpetrated by a man, father or husband, as for instance, in Molière’s School for Wives. Here it is the mother who aims to protect her daughter by essentially imprisoning her on an island

272 Wasted Effort about what went on in the world. Anarine told her that she was tenderly473 loved by Prince Isabel, and that she could not look on his merit and charms with an indifferent eye. She would already have married him, but her father, the king, had insisted that before she submitted to the laws of marriage, she should first meet all the young princes in the world, to test whether she would always be faithful to Prince Isabel.474 Those princes were supposed to attend a tournament at the court of the King of Nations,475 where she was now going, and she said she hoped to see Wasted Effort on her return. Anarine departed soon after telling her story. She left Wasted Effort in a profound reverie. It was broken by the sight of something brilliant lying on the ground, which she picked up. It was a very beautiful box covered in gems that spelled the name of Prince Isabel and that Princess Anarine had dropped as she set off. Wasted Effort opened it with a beating heart that presaged all the unhappiness she was about to experience. In the box, she found a portrait476 of the most handsome and most attractive man in the world. She had never seen anything that gave her so much satisfaction to look at. Since she didn’t know how dangerous pleasures, especially those of love, are to life’s serenity, she didn’t make any effort to fight against the love she began to feel for the prince. She thought only of finding ways to see him in person. Until then, she had never imagined leaving the island, but what she felt in her heart in those instants made staying there unbearand giving her no education about the ways of the world. But her existence is less harsh than that of the eponymous heroine of La Force’s Persinette, who is left completely alone in her tower until she allows the prince to visit her by climbing up on her hair. 473. On tenderness, see Prince Rosebush, n18, in this volume. 474. This father/king is unusually enlightened. The negative view of marriage as a form of bondage with laws, as well as the recommendation to meet many young men to determine which one would be faithful, and finally, the choice of husband as rightfully Anarine’s all partake of the views of prowoman writers in the querelle des femmes, which featured far-reaching critiques of marriage. Heroines are also allowed to choose their husbands in d’Aulnoy’s The Doe in the Woods and Princess Little Carp, both in this volume. Unlike Murat’s Little Eel, the theme of faithfulness dominates Wasted Effort, even at the expense of the central character. On marriage in the seventeenth century, see also Prince Rosebush, n21, in this volume. 475. On tournaments, see Prince Rosebush, n28, in this volume. 476. On the portrait, see Prince Rosebush, n27, in this volume.

Wasted Effort 273 able. So she stopped taking walks anywhere but along the shore, in the hope of finding a way to flee from the place where she was sure never to see the one she loved, for the women close to her had revealed the secret that no man could possibly reach the island. One day, overcome with weariness, after she had walked almost all around the island, she felt the need to lie down on the grass to rest. She was deep in her own sad thoughts, when she heard the most beautiful voice in the world. She turned her head to see where it could be coming from and encountered a siren477 who asked what was making her so sad; she said she had followed her all day and felt pity for her. Wasted Effort didn’t need much convincing to reveal the nature of her troubles. She said that the cause was the sorrow of not being able to leave the island, without further explaining the true source of her pain. The siren promptly told her it would be easy to grant her wish and that if she would sit behind her, she would take Wasted Effort wherever she wanted to go. She accepted her proposal without delay and the siren transported her to a land that at first seemed frightful to her. It was a forest without apparent end where it seemed the sun could never be seen. A very old woman came to greet her and said that she had learned of her condition, had sent the siren to get her, and wanted to take care of her destiny. It was in fact her mother, the fairy. Through her arts, she had discovered what had happened and how useless all her precautions had been. She had thus resolved to bring her daughter near by to ease her unhappiness as much as she could. But she didn’t want to make herself known to her daughter, for she believed that the advice she would give as a friend would be received better than a mother’s reprimands.478 Indeed, the form she had assumed 477. This legendary creature, half woman, half bird, is noted for her magnificent song. In Homer’s Odyssey, her song is so powerful it lures men at sea to their destruction, shattering their ships against the rocks. 478. The attitude of the mother recalls that of Madame de Chartres in La Fayette’s The Princess of Clèves: “[Madame de Chartres] besought her [the Princess], not as a mother, but as a friend, to confide to her all the sweet speeches that might be made to her, and promised her aid in all those matters which so often embarrass the young” (La Fayette, The Princess of Clèves, ed. and trans. John Lyons [New York: W. W. Norton, 1994], 11). But unlike Madame de Chartres, the mother/fairy here is caught in a dilemma: she attempts to forestall Wasted Effort’s fate even though she has emblazoned it in her very name, a recognition of its inevitability.

274 Wasted Effort did inspire confidence in Wasted Effort and, not knowing who the old woman was, she thanked her for the help she kindly offered. Wasted Effort then asked with great insistence whether she knew Prince Isabel. The fairy sighed, said she had heard of him, and led her into the castle where she lived. It was in the most secluded part of the forest where the woods were the thickest. The castle was simply a building made of palm leaves woven with great art. She put her daughter in a small room, as pleasing as it was simple, and told her she knew all about her sorrows, even though Wasted Effort hadn’t shared them, and that she would strive to ease them. She then departed, leaving Wasted Effort astonished, but a bit calmer than she had been for days. Meanwhile, to console her daughter, the fairy tried to think of ways to make Prince Isabel come into her forest, for she hoped that Wasted Effort’s beauty, along with the spells she herself could cast, would keep him there. But she flattered herself in vain; the skill of captivating Anarine’s father surpassed her own.479 Nevertheless, she found a ruse to lure the prince as she had planned. He was in the land of Faithfulness,480 whose ruler was the king, his father, and he was thinking of nothing but his love for Anarine, awaiting her return with great impatience. His only amusement was the hunt. One day when he had gone hunting and, as was his custom, had wandered far from his attendants, his horse suddenly fell dead, to his utter astonishment. This accident left him in a quandary, for it was late and a long way back to the palace. While in this state of anxiety, he noticed a light bay horse with a black mane a few steps from him. It was the most beautiful and proudest horse he had ever seen. He was captivated and decided at once to mount him. But no sooner had he done so than he felt himself being carried off with such extraordinary swiftness it nearly took his breath away. The horse didn’t stop until he had reached the fairy’s forest.481 479. The hierarchy of magical powers is a recurrent motif in fairy tales. Here, for instance, the King of the Enchanters is more powerful than the Fairy of the Forest. 480. Again, the name of such a land is typical in the amatory maps of the period. See Little Eel, n441, in this volume. 481. The figure of the young hunter lost in the forest, a common motif in medieval literature, occurs in other fairy tales, including d’Aulnoy’s The Doe in the Woods, L’Héritier’s The Enchantments of Eloquence, and Murat’s The Fairy Princess.

Wasted Effort 275 You can imagine the prince’s surprise when he discovered he was at the entrance of a magnificent tent in the most pleasant part of the forest. He found everything there he could possibly need. Young children more beautiful than Cupid served him a supper of the most exquisite taste. They made a bed for him under a canopy of gold muslin where he lay down and slept perfectly, despite his concern for what had happened to him. He had the most pleasant dreams, and when he awoke, he experienced a new surprise at finding the most beautiful person he had ever seen standing next to his bed. It was Wasted Effort, brought that morning by her mother to meet the prince and to try to make him love her. She felt intense joy, which increased still more when she perceived the attentive looks the prince gave her beauty. He looked at her with pleasure, but felt nothing but admiration for her, though this was not the only feeling she wished to arouse.482 Nevertheless, she flattered herself that she would be able to arouse more tender feelings in him. She gave him a thousand signs of love, but the prince remained indifferent to them. He only felt Anarine’s absence, and nothing could distract him from the princess’s memory. He also felt aggrieved in being unable to leave the enchanted forest where he was constantly exposed to reproaches from Wasted Effort. One day, as he was walking and thinking of his misfortune, he saw a bird of paradise fly before his eyes.483 It told him to take one of its feathers and to go to the shore’s edge: he would find nothing in his way to stop him and, once he had arrived, he would be told what to do. The prince gently took a feather and set off at once. He was transported with joy when he came to the shore and saw Princess Anarine on a small floating island covered with flowers. He ran toward her with all the speed you can imagine. The island came closer and he had no trouble reaching it. Their pleasure in seeing each other again held them for a long time in an embrace, without being able to utter a 482. In amatory maps, as in salons of the period, distinctions are made between admiration, on the one hand, and on the other, love, which is immediate, not a result of effort, and surely not of reproaches, as this tale goes on to demonstrate. 483. The bird of paradise could refer to any number of avian species, including members of the paradisaeidae family or to a mythological species referenced in Persian, Ottoman, and Urdu poetry. Combined with the palm trees mentioned earlier in the tale, these birds establish a tropical setting.

276 Wasted Effort word. Finally Anarine told the prince that his father, the king, had sent word to the King of the Enchanters that the prince had disappeared and that no one could find out what had become of him, no matter how thorough the search. Through his arts, however, the King of the Enchanters had quickly discovered that the prince had been abducted by the Fairy of the Forests. Anarine had received this news when she had returned from her trip to the King of Nations. Her father had sent her to find Isabel after ordering the bird of paradise to warn him and give him one of its feathers to keep him safe from the fairy’s spells. The prince and princess didn’t have a long voyage. They arrived in the kingdom of the Enchanters, where they were met with inexpressible joy. The king gave orders for the preparations of their marriage, a feast where he wanted magnificence and gallantry484 to appear in all their splendor. While they were thinking only of their happiness, Wasted Effort, who had not found the prince in his tent, was in despair. She ran to the fairy to find out what had happened to him. The fairy told her it was useless to look for him: he was no longer in her power, for the King of the Enchanters had carried him off by a spell stronger than hers. Wasted Effort needed nothing more to understand the extent of her misfortune. The fairy consoled her somewhat by assuring her she would find a way to let the prince know every day how much Wasted Effort loved him; then, perhaps, he would be moved by her constancy.485 Since this was her only resort to satisfy her passion, Wasted Effort didn’t want to disregard it, though she also didn’t put much hope in its success. The first good use to which the fairy put her skill was to learn what Isabel did every day, in order to find ways to remind him constantly of Wasted Effort. One day, when he had fallen asleep by a fountain in the wood exhausted from the hunt, he was awakened by an extraordinary noise. Opening his eyes, he saw a small tree close by that was totally unknown to him: its leaves seemed dead, and instead of flowers, the tree was covered with tears that fell all around him. At the same time, Isabel heard the usual murmur of the fountain change into a languishing voice that asked him whether he would ever have 484. On the “gallant,” see the introduction to Bernard, n6, and Prince Rosebush, n40, both in this volume. 485. Constancy is a synonym of faithfulness in the amatory vocabulary of the period.

Wasted Effort 277 pity on the unfortunate Wasted Effort. This incident did affect him somewhat, but he wasn’t moved by it, and in a moment, he forgot what he had just heard. The next day, he went to the river’s edge to amuse himself fishing. All of a sudden, a terrifying storm arose and the river overflowed so much in an instant that the prince would have had difficulty saving himself if he hadn’t seen a pyramid of black marble close by. He entered it and climbed a staircase of black marble to the very top, where he found a spacious private room containing the whole story of Wasted Effort in figures of white marble so vividly represented he thought he was seeing her in the flesh.486 There was only one window in this room. He opened it to see if the storm had subsided, but all he saw were the forests of the fairy and poor Wasted Effort at the edge of a stream, bathed in tears. This sight surprised him, but it had no other effect on his heart. He went quickly downstairs, fearing some further enchantment, and was happy to see the most beautiful weather in the world, the river as calm as it had been before the storm, and nothing preventing his desire to leave this place. The pyramid disappeared, and he went back to his fishing. He was lucky; he caught many fish and was ready to leave when he saw a fish of unusual shape throw itself into his nets. Its scales were golden, and on each one these words were written: Will the sorrows of an unfortunate woman never touch you? The prince was astonished yet again; but without much thought about this latest incident, he threw the fish back into the river, where it hurried to the bottom. Prince Isabel returned calmly, as if nothing unusual had happened, preoccupied only with his love for Anarine and his desire to hasten his marriage with the lovely princess. Knowing this, the fairy decided to make one final effort to make her daughter happy. The prince could only leave the estates of the King of the Enchanters of his own accord, so it was not in the fairy’s powers to abduct him as she had done before. But she employed all the secrets of her art to instill feelings in him that would make him decide to leave on his own. To this end, she cast such a strong spell on a potion 486. The depiction of a lover’s story on an object that he or she encounters in the forest recalls an important episode in d’Urfé’s pastoral novel, L’Astrée. See also d’Aulnoy’s The Doe in the Woods, 155, in this volume.

278 Wasted Effort she concocted that Wasted Effort would finally have been happy and content if it had worked. But the destiny of this beguiling girl did not allow it to happen. The fairy put the liquid into a small phial she gave to a bat, and ordered the creature to enter the prince’s chamber on the eve of his wedding, to pour it in his bed when the sun had set, and to leave afterward.487 For the charm to have the desired effect, it was necessary that no one enter the prince’s chamber before sunrise. This had to be left to chance, since the fairy had no power over the Enchanter or his daughter. The bat did as he had been ordered and returned. As soon as the prince was in bed, he was overcome with a thousand worries that kept him from sleeping. He opened the curtain and saw in the light of a golden lamp that the furnishings in the room felt the same agitation as he;488 at the same time, he heard an infinite number of voices talking about his cruelty to Wasted Effort. He got up immediately to see where these voices could be coming from. He couldn’t help feeling some emotion when he realized that every single object in his chamber was expressing the most touching sentiments in the world. He softened and began to feel an emotion for Wasted Effort that he had never experienced until that moment. The Enchanter, to whom nothing was hidden, realized that a great change would occur in the prince’s heart. Since he had taken every effort to save Isabel for his own daughter, he ran to the prince’s apartment. He found the prince very agitated, but as soon as the king spoke, the prince no longer remembered anything that had just happened to him, except as if it had been a dream. His marriage to Anarine was celebrated the following day without his having any memory of Wasted Effort. Meanwhile, the fairy saw she could do nothing more to remedy her daughter’s misfortune, now that Prince Isabel had united his destiny with Anarine’s, and she didn’t want to delude her any longer. She informed Wasted Effort that she was her mother, and related all she had done to make her happy. She added that since she hadn’t succeeded, she wanted to take her to a land where she would find so many 487. Identified with the tropics and with the night, the bat is not a frightening animal here, but a helper. 488. An instance of objective correlative, often used in poetry, where the surroundings manifest the same feelings as the human character concerned.

Wasted Effort 279 people in her situation that perhaps the comparison she would make between their misfortunes and hers would ease her sorrow somewhat. She took her daughter to the Land of Love’s Injustices, which had the serenity of the Elysian Fields.489 Those who lived there were in pain, but the pain was not uncontrollable. In this kingdom, magnificence was unknown; people dressed simply, with no affectation of finery, because they no longer desired to captivate others; and they lived in little cabins. Nature alone, without any ornaments, made up the beauty of the walks.490 As the fairy had led her to hope, Wasted Effort’s sorrows were soothed somewhat because she saw she was not the only person to suffer. She stayed in this land willingly, never wishing to leave, for she had acquired the gentle custom of living with other tender, unhappy, and loyal people.

489. In Greek mythology, the abode of the blessed in another world, where they enjoy all manners of the truest pleasures. It appears in Homer’s Odyssey (iv.563ff), as well as in Virgil’s Aeneid (v. 541). Serenity, which is designed to make up for failure at love or love’s injustice, is thus not fully achieved here, since the inhabitants still feel “controlled” pain in their simple lives. 490. It is unusual in the seventeenth century to find a positive representation of brute nature. See Little Eel, n418, in this volume.

Critical Texts on the Conte de fées: Introduction Although the contes de fées were best sellers when they were first published, they elicited surprisingly little critical commentary, especially when compared to the many debates about epic poetry, tragedy, or the novel. The genre was considered marginal, even by those who wrote fairy tales;1 thus, prominent critics likely found them unworthy of commentary, an attitude expressed by those who wrote about them nonetheless. As the Parisian in the Abbé de Villiers’s Conversations on Fairy Tales concludes: “I fear that if some serious person overheard us, he would find our conversation unworthy of us.”2 And yet, this lack of close scrutiny also means that writers could largely mold the nascent genre without excessive concern for established and debated rules, and instead address the tastes of “worldly” readers. “We write to instruct and to entertain ourselves; we also write to instruct and entertain our friends,” says L’Héritier de Villandon of “novellas” (the term she uses for fairy tales), before concluding dismissively, “What does it matter if people without taste are not pleased with works that were not made for them?”3 But even as she attempts to ignore critics, L’Héritier paradoxically acknowledges their existence in a text that both defines and defends the new genre. Along with L’Héritier, a handful of writers give us a sense of contemporaneous reactions to the conte de fées. At the beginning of the vogue, in preemptive fashion, Charles Perrault 1. See the Editors’ Introduction, 10–11, in this volume. 2. 310, in this volume. The French text is available as: Pierre de Villiers, Entretiens sur les contes de fées, et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps, pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût, II. Entretien, Sur les petites comédies, et principalement sur les contes de fées, in L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique, ed. Rizzoni et Boch, 382–400. This text was originally published as: Pierre de Villiers, Entretiens sur les contes de fées, et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps, pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût (Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1699). 3. 291, in this volume. The French text is available as: L’Héritier de Villandon, “Lettre à Madame D.G.***,” in L’âge d’or du conte de fees: De la comédie à la critique, ed. Rizzoni et Boch, 371–78. This text was originally published as: Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, “Lettre à Madame D. G***,” in Oeuvres meslées …de Mlle L’H*** (Paris: Jean Guignard, 1696), 299–318.

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282 Critical Texts on the Conte de fées joined his cousin, L’Héritier, in speculating on the origins of fairy tales and advocating for their moral utility.4 Only after the fashion for fairy tales had taken hold did critics begin to emerge, namely, Abbé JeanBaptiste Morvan de Bellegarde (1648–1734), Abbé Pierre-Valentin Faydit (1644–1709), and Abbé Pierre de Villiers (1648–1728).5 In one sense, the dividing line between these two camps corresponds neatly to the ongoing Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, which debated whether ancient Greek and Roman or “modern” works were superior in art, literature, philosophy, and science.6 Perrault and L’Héritier defend their fairy tales on aesthetic, and especially, ethical grounds while promoting their (supposedly) French roots. Bellegarde, Faydit, and Villiers, on the other hand, see in the contes de fées a genre that failed to respect the rules extrapolated from ancient models and was thus marked by utter frivolity. But the views of the “modern” defenders and the “ancient” critics of the genre do not solely correspond to their positions within the Quarrel. With the exception of Faydit, for instance, they all agree on the importance of the marvelous, even if they disagree on how and when it should be used.7 There are additional points of convergence and divergence between L’Héritier and Villiers, who, along with Perrault, wrote the most 4. See Perrault, preface to the verse tales, in Perrault, et al., Contes merveilleux, 4 :103–8, and Perrault, preface to Memoirs of My Life, ed. and trans. Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989), 121–22. Murat also presents a defense of sorts in her dedicatory epistle to the “modern fairies” (“Epître aux fées modernes,” in Contes, ed. Patard, 3:199–200), and Catherine Bédacier (née Durand) gives a fictional account of the “origin of fairies” that indirectly defends the new genre while celebrating it (“Origine des fées,” in L’âge d’or du conte de fées, ed. Rizzoni and Boch, 5:407–20). L’Héritier offers further commentary on the genre in her tales The Clever Princess, The Enchantments of Eloquence, and Marmoisan. 5. See the Editors’ Introduction, n118, in this volume. Abbé Jean-Baptiste Morvan de Bellegarde, “Lettres curieuses de littérature et de morale” in L’âge d’or du conte de fées, 431–51; Faydit, “La télémacomanie” in L’âge d’or du conte de fées, 405–20; Villiers, “Entretiens sur les contes de fées, Entretien II” in L’âge d’or du conte de fées, 379–400, translated as Conversations on Fairy Tales, 294–310, in this volume). 6. See the Editors’ Introduction, 11–13, in this volume. 7. Faydit takes the extreme position that the marvelous is an example of the immorality (because of the untruthfulness) of fiction. While agreeing with Perrault and L’Héritier on the utility of the marvelous, Bellegarde and Villiers condemn what they see as its excessive use in the contes de fées.

Critical Texts on the Conte de fées 283 important commentaries on the genre.8 In the 1694 préface to the first edition of his verse tales, Perrault attributes the origins of his verse tales to “our elders,” by which he especially means the lower-class storytellers of France.9 L’Héritier and Villiers acknowledge this “source” but go beyond it to emphasize a more complicated genealogy. For both of them, fairy tales have prestigious cultural origins: L’Héritier claims they are derived from songs by twelfth-century troubadours,10 and Villiers from Aesopian fables, which, they both argue, later devolved into stories told by the illiterate classes. However, neither L’Héritier nor Villiers (nor Perrault for that matter) believes these stories can be appropriated without adapting them to contemporary expectations. For L’Héritier, this involves conforming to the tradition of the novel (whose sources were the troubadours’ songs, she contends), whereas for Villiers, a fierce critic of that genre, writers must return to the model of the ancient fable. For both, however, to write fairy tales is to recover an ideal form disfigured by the lower classes.11 As Perrault, L’Héritier, and Villiers see it, the turn to storytelling from the past is part of a search for an ethical justification of fairy tales. Echoing an argument popularized by Pierre-Daniel Huet’s treatise On the Origins of Novels,12 but ultimately harking back to Horace’s dic8. It is not insignificant that both L’Héritier and Villiers adopt “worldly” forms (the letter and the conversation, respectively) for their commentaries on the genre, following the example of Dominique Bouhours’s Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène (1671), among others. Using such forms (rather than a scholarly treatise, for instance) helps them to address the most influential reading public of the time, often termed la cour et la ville. 9. “[Our elders] did not tell [tales] with the elegance and ornaments that the Greeks and the Romans used in their fables; but they were always very careful to have their tales include a praiseworthy and instructive moral lesson” (Perrault, preface to the verse tales, in Contes merveilleux, by Perrault et al.,105). 10. On L’Héritier’s understanding of folklore, see Roger Francillon, “Une théorie du folklore à la fin du XVIIe siècle,” in Hören, Sagen, Lesen, Lernen: Bausteine zu einer Geschichte der kommunikativen Kultur, ed. Ursula Brunold-Bigler and Hermann Bausinger (Bern: Peter Lang, 1995), 205–17. 11. While ostensibly praising “the tales that our elders invented for their children,” Perrault nonetheless marks his critical distance from those narratives through the irony in his own tales (Perrault, preface to the verse tales, Contes merveilleux, by Perrault et al., 105). 12. L’Héritier is referring to the important Lettre de Monsieur Huet à Monsieur de Segrais de l’origine des romans ( …On the Origins of Novels) (l670), by Daniel Huet (1630–1721). However, Huet is critical of the Middle Ages in that treatise.

284 Critical Texts on the Conte de fées tum, dulce et utile, all three claim that marvelous fictions teach moral lessons more effectively than if those same lessons are stated baldly.13 “Our ancestors …noticed that the wisest maxims were not well impressed in the mind if presented plainly, so they dressed them up, so to say, and had them appear with adornments,” writes L’Héritier.14 Beyond this, however, the three commentators diverge widely. Whereas Perrault opines that the storytelling of the lower classes is morally sound and can thus serve as a model, L’Héritier decries the “scandalous adventures” she claims they introduced into tales by the troubadours. The novellas she and the “charming ladies” (the conteuses) are writing hold the promise of resurrecting an age of moral perfection because they portray the troudabours’ penchant for good deeds with “modern” decorum.15 Villiers, though, who considers that “piles of fairy tales …have been annoying us to death for a year or two,”16 has the Parisian and the Provincial characters strongly object to what they see as a lack of moral lessons in the contes de fées, whose narrative and stylistic sophistication, unlike the simplicity of Aesop’s fables, obscures their didactic premise. The two interlocutors insist that fairies—and the supernatural more broadly— can be used to morally instructive ends, but to achieve this goal, writers must have both skill and talent. Indeed, in an apparent contradiction to their insistence on an ethical imperative, Villiers’ interlocutors concede that a truly gifted author might succeed in writing fairy tales whose sole purpose was humorous. But the stories of the conteuses in no way rise to that level, they conclude, even as they endorse the fairy tale as a legitimate genre. As Villiers criticizes the contes de fées, he singles out the women who had written the bulk of them: “If those [women] who undertook to compose them had remembered that fairy tales were created only to formulate an important moral and make it concrete, we would not have considered them the lot of women and of ignorant men.”17 Allowing the possibility that women could have written mor13. See Julie Boch, “Le conte en débats: Introduction,” in L’âge d’or du conte de fées, ed. Rizzoni and Boch, 341. 14. See L’Héritier, Letter to Madame D.G***, 286, in this volume. 15. See Letter to Madame D.G.***, 287, 290–91, in this volume. 16. See Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales, 294, in this volume. 17. Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales, 297, in this volume.

Critical Texts on the Conte de fées 285 ally sound fairy tales but immediately countering it with misogynist bias, Villiers’ Parisian brings to the fore a question that Perrault and L’Héritier also entertain: what is women’s relation to the genre? In his Preface, but especially the frontispiece to his Stories of Tales of Yesteryear (fig. 3), Perrault sets a storytelling scene with women (“governesses” and “grandmothers”), all the better to demonstrate his own (masculine) ability to imitate—and transform—their simplicity.18 In her Letter to Madame D.G***, L’Héritier, too, idealizes stylistic simplicity in fairy tales, but not that of governesses and grandmothers. “Well conceived simplicity is not known to all,” she declares, referring to the urbane Parisian refinement in her own tales and those of the “charming ladies” she celebrates. However, Villiers rejects the works of the conteuses in favor of the ancient fable as the ultimate model; still, he looks to the storytelling of women, namely nursemaids, for inspiration. When, at the end of their conversation, the Parisian and the Provincial mention the one exception to their blanket condemnation of fairy tales, they cite Perrault’s Stories or Tales of Yesteryear. But in no way does this allusion constitute a valorization of nursemaids’ stories, since, as the Parisian points out, “you must be clever to imitate the simplicity of their ignorance deftly.”19 For Villiers, it seems, women could have a role in creating fairy tales only if men like Perrault appropriated them. As the tales in this volume attest, however, whatever restrictions Villiers may have wished to dictate, women not only wrote, but were widely recognized for their contes de fées in late seventeenth-century France.

18. At the end of the preface to his verse tales, Perrault includes a poem, attributed to L’Héritier, that explicitly praises his ability to imitate these storytellers: “The tale of Donkeyskin is recounted here / With great naiveté, / It entertained me as much as when, / At the fireside my nurse or my granny, / Told tales that held my mind spellbound” (Perrault, preface to the verse tales, in Contes merveilleux, by Perrault et al, 108). See Lewis C. Seifert, “Disguising the Storyteller’s Voice: Perrault’s Recuperation of the Fairy Tale,” Cincinnati Romance Review 8 (1989), 13–23. 19. Villiers, Conversations on Fairy Tales, 309, in this volume.

Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, Letter to Madame D.G. *** (1695)20 I know, Madam, that your numerous and pious occupations do not prevent you from enjoying the reading of witty and intelligent works at times, and that you wish to be informed of the nature of the novelties the mind produces. The cantankerous humor that some people called pious have and that makes them unsociable is nowhere apparent in you, even though you fulfill all the duties of a deep and solid piety. I thus take pleasure in informing you today that people have been sharing your taste for some time. Everywhere in society we see little stories whose sole purpose is to confirm pleasantly the soundness of proverbs. Our ancestors, who were ingenious in their simplicity, noticed that the wisest maxims were not well impressed in the mind if presented plainly, so they dressed them up, so to say, and had them appear with adornments. They put them in the little stories they invented or in telling events they embellished. Since these narratives had no goal other than to instruct young people,21 and since the marvelous alone strikes the imagination vividly, our ancestors were not stingy in adding wonders frequently to their fictions. Their plan was well thought out and quite happily executed for that time. For nothing is more capable of making the mind judicious and enlightened than filling it with wise maxims, and nothing can instruct young people more ably than to teach them about the happiness or misfortunes of those who have followed or neglected the rules of life.22 This is a copious subject for reflection and moralizing. For the most part, proverbs purify strange facts by the rays of good sense. I was delighted that the fashion of proverbs suited your taste so well, 20. The identity of Madame D.G*** is unknown, but she is cast as a friend of L’Héritier’s and a provincial. 21. Like Perrault in the preface to his verse tales (1694), L’Héritier here restricts the telling of oral narratives to children, but they were by no means the sole audience for them, nor in any way the primary readers of the seventeenth-century contes de fées. 22. L’Héritier also restricts the function of oral storytelling to didacticism, aligning it with the dominant rationale for literature at the time (plaire et instruire [to captivate and instruct]). See the Editors’ Introduction to this volume, 9–10.

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Letter to Madame D.G.*** 287 and I’ve not forgotten the conversation we had at the Hotel de S.C. on this topic:23 you know a great number of fine proverbs in a number of languages. I remember perfectly how astonished you were that people didn’t venture to write nouvelles (novellas), or tales that turn on the same ancient maxims. People have finally started to do this, and I too have dared enter the lists,24 to signal my attachment to charming ladies whose excellent qualities you know well. Persons of their merit and character seem to bring back the times of the fairies when there were so many perfect men and women.25 Today great merit is very rare, and I believe that before it can become more widespread, we will have to see again those happy times whose many wonders the troubadours recounted.26 But I speak to you of troubadours as if I were sure you were acquainted with those men. Despite your great knowledge of antiquity, they may still be unknown to you.27 On that chance, I will say something about them: but don’t read this if you should decide it contains nothing new. Their name is Provencal, and it means “finders” or “inventors.”28 Without giving citations, which would not be to your taste, nor to mine, permit me simply to refer you to what one of the most illustrious scholars said about them in the fine treatise he wrote on the 23. The “Hotel de S.C.” likely refers to a salon. Proverbs were in fashion as salon pastimes, although they were more often called “maxims,” such as those of François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680). 24. This term, associated with medieval tournaments, emphasizes the competitive or agonistic aspects of art. 25. A reference to the other conteuses, with whom L’Héritier professes solidarity. 26. The preference for ancient times is a conservative position that runs counter to the views of the Moderns of the period, even though it does emphasize the national past, rather than classical antiquity, as the partisans of the Ancients did in the seventeenth century. On the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, see the Editors’ Introduction, 12–13, in this volume. 27. Despite royal tournaments, the Middle Ages were not fashionable in the seventeenth century and were considered a “Gothic” or “barbarous” period: see the Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, s.v. gothique: “These peoples still have a manner that is barbarous and Gothic.” However, L’Héritier was one of a small number of writers and scholars who began to investigate that period. See Nathan Edelman, Attitudes of Seventeenth‑Century France Toward the Middle Ages (New York: King’s Crown Press, 1946). 28. From the French, trouver [to find] and trouvaille [a discovery].

288 Letter to Madame D.G.*** origin of novels.29 For myself, what I propose to tell you is that the troubadours are the authors of the little stories I mentioned to you. They were clever men; at the time, Provence had more of them than the rest of France, and still has many. They filled their tales with the astonishing wonders of fairies and wizards. And since being clever was cherished then, the troubadours were eagerly sought everywhere. They would go into the countryside to recite their tales to people of quality,30 and they charmed everyone who heard them. In little time, their reputation became so great that when sovereigns held entertainments, they were not considered complete without listening to one of those marvelous tales. However, gallant troubadours31 saw the design of their tales greatly improved upon. Before them, no one had ever heard of novels. But people wrote them and, from century to century, these sorts of works were improved and they finally achieved the peak of perfection with the illustrious Mademoiselle de Scudéry, who wrought them with such brilliance. Posterity will agree, along with us, that the admirable novels of this learned maiden are veritable poems in prose, but a prose as eloquent as it is refined.32 Despite the progress of novels, tradition preserved the tales of the troubadours. As they are usually full of surprising deeds and contain a good moral lesson, grandmothers and governesses have always told them to children in order to instill in their minds a hatred of vice and a love of virtue. They have since served no other purpose. 29. On this treatise by Huet, see the introduction to “Critical Texts” n12, in this volume. 30. A synonym for the nobility. 31. On the concept of “gallant,” see the introduction to Bernard, n6, and Prince Rosebush, n40, in this volume. 32. Scudéry was the author of, among other works, two ten-volume romances, Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus (1649–54) and Clélie (1654–60). She was the most successful novelist of the century, much to the dismay of a critic (and a partisan of the Ancients) such as Nicolas Boileau (1636–1711), who mocked the development of the novel in general and Scudéry in particular in his Dialogue des héros du roman (Dialogue on the Heroes of Novels) (1664–66). She was often praised by women, including in the poem, “The Ladies to Mademoiselle de Scudéry,” by Anne de la Vigne (1634–84), see The Defiant Muse: French Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present, ed. Domna C. Stanton (New York: The Feminist Press, 1986), 74–79. See also L’Héritier’s own “L’apothéose de Mlle de Scudéry” (1702).

Letter to Madame D.G.*** 289 But it’s a nearly inevitable fate that works carried to their perfection never fail to degenerate, and novels lost many of their fine traits. They were reduced in length33 and in this reduced size, few retained a grace of style and the embellishments of invention. In contrast to a Princess of Clèves34 and two or three others, which have captivated by the grandeur of feelings and the use of correct expression, we’ve seen an infinite number of short novels that lack taste, order, and polish. This decadence rendered novels distasteful and made people decide to go back to their origins; thus tales in the style of the troubadours have begun to reign again. A French Academician, renowned for his many excellent works and his admirable knowledge of all the beaux-arts, set into verse some tales of this type, which have been universally acclaimed.35 Then they were written in prose, and finally, this fashion became widespread….36 A great number of songs have also been published that are vapid in their sweetness. It seems better to return to the style of the troubadours than to be content with such insipidness. But in bringing back the style of ancient Gaul, it would be desirable to bring back as well the fine simplicity of manners and customs that people say were widespread in those happy times. Accounts of those periods always claim that vice was punished and virtue triumphed. You will see examples in the four novellas I’m sending you. There are no elements of the marvelous by means of enchantments in Marmoisan, nor in Artaut: 37 everything occurs in its 33. L’Héritier is referring to the important shift from the romance to the shorter (and more modern) novel, which occurs around 1660 with the works of Catherine Bernard; Edme Boursault; Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de La Fayette; Eustache Le Noble, Jean de Préchac; César de Saint-Réal; Jean Segrais; and Marie-Catherine des Jardins (Madame de Villedieu). 34. La Fayette’s 1678 novel. 35. These tales in verse by Perrault had been published in 1691, 1693, and 1694. 36. In the following paragraphs, which are omitted here, L’Héritier explains the nature of romances, but especially the songs they include, which are tender and gallant, satirical, or pastoral. Modern romances, she continues, strive to imitate the simplicity and naturalness of ancient romances; she cites a song Molière has Alceste sing in The Misanthrope (1666). 37. Artaut is the central character of L’Héritier’s own L’avare puni (The Miser Punished), a historical novella in verse.

290 Letter to Madame D.G.*** natural order. But in the other two, fairies play their part, and besides, these two short tales turn on proverbs. Don’t be surprised if I have set the scene of Finette38 at such a proximate time as the Crusades. You’ll see that I’ve not ignored the evidence that they began only at the end of the eleventh century.39 But beyond the fact that tradition is on my side, since it sets the story of Finette at the time of the Crusades, I have the famous example of Tasso, who introduced enchanters in his Jerusalem Delivered,40 and who places the setting also in this period. I have the example as well of Father Le Moyne, who includes enchantments in his poem on Saint Louis, even though this great king lived more than a century after Godfrey of Bouillon.41 Besides, it’s not surprising to see fairies spoken about in the eleventh century, since there are still people today who lack sufficient good sense and believe these kinds of fantasies. But what seems more astonishing to me is that these Gothic tales, which were only created to lead to good morals, are often filled with scandalous adventures. For example, you know that in the original tale of Finette, her two sisters are far from being as virtuous as I make them. Marriage is not mentioned at all. These are two unworthy persons whose odious weaknesses are recounted in shocking circumstances. Let me tell you more about what I think on this score: these tales were filled with impurities when they passed through the mouths of the lower classes, just as pure water always picks up filth when it passes through a dirty canal. If the tales of the populace are simple, they are also coarse; they don’t know what propriety is.42 Pass lightly 38. The full title of this tale is The Clever Princess or The Adventures of Finette. 39. L’Héritier underscores her knowledge of medieval history, unusual at the time, especially for a woman. 40. Torquato Tasso (1544–1595), an important sixteenth-century Italian writer, is the author of this epic (first version completed in 1575) about the exploits of Godfrey of Bouillon (c. 1060–1100), a leader of the First Crusade who became the first ruler of Jerusalem after its capture from the Fatimids. 41. Saint Louis ou le héros chrétien (Saint Louis or the Christian hero), 1653, by Pierre Le Moyne (1602–1671), illustrates the desire to create a Christian epic hero in France. Other texts with similar ambitions include Antoine Godeau’s Saint Paul (1654) and Georges de Scudéry’s Alaric, ou la Rome vaincue (1654) (Alaric or Rome conquered). 42. This view of the lower class is far from unusual in this period; see Pierre Ronzeaud, Peuple et représentations sous Louis XIV (Aix-en-Provence: Presses Universitaires de Provence,

Letter to Madame D.G.*** 291 over a licentious act full of scandal, and their retelling of it afterward will be filled with all those details. Criminal acts used to be described for a good end, which was to show they were always punished. But the populace that gave us the tales related them without any veil, and even linked the acts so well to the subject laid bare that it now takes little effort to recount the same adventures by covering them over. Well invented, they are no less striking covered over than when they are unveiled. The propriety of words takes nothing away from the uniqueness of things, and if the populace or the troubadours had expressed themselves as we do, their tales would have been even more worthy. Nevertheless, we must admit that those centuries didn’t have as great a sense of refinement for expression as ours does, but in general, they had much more refinement in their deeds, for they were centuries of good faith and generosity. In those times, people only thought of inspiring virtue, without concern for clever subterfuge, and no one was offended by the terms or means used to describe it. Today when we speak of morality it’s not the same. No matter how we do it, we never fail to be severely criticized. And yet, those who produce something, in public or in private, should expect this fate and not worry about it. We write to instruct and to entertain ourselves; we also write to instruct and to entertain our friends. Ordinarily that’s our proposed goal.43 When we have achieved it, we shouldn’t worry about the rest. What does it matter if people without taste are not pleased with works that were not made for them? They don’t have the capacity to profit from them, even less the ability to make ones that are as good. We must not, then, envy them the pleasure of criticism, good or bad. It’s the only area where they claim to distinguish themselves.44 If I wished to take the liberty of naming names, I would make you a fine list of these critics, and I would make you see at the same time that all their cleverness consists of examining a work on schoolboy principles; they just drew their 1988). By contrast, the upper classes are associated with “propriety” or bienséance (see The Enchanter, n295, in this volume). 43. L’Héritier thus situates the writer as a moralist and a peer, not a crass book merchant. 44. This is obviously a negative view of critics, even though L’Héritier herself writes as a critic in this letter.

292 Letter to Madame D.G.*** ideas from Horace or Juvenal.45 We hear them say in a serious tone: “Don’t you see there is no nominative there?46 What construction! That’s obscure; Horace would not have spoken like that!” Those who wish to praise them say: “Monsieur …does not compose. He is not a poet, but he is a connoisseur!47 Such a judicious critique!” However, try to consult them and they tire you with miserable remarks; most of them don’t even know how to speak French. These opinions show you that I’m not much alarmed by censure from those who take my works in their hands. Be they scholars or ignorant people, be they clever or deprived of common sense, I give them full authority to do so.48 However, if people in your province didn’t have as much refinement and delicacy, I would ask you to take good care not to let them see any of these nouvelles. Characters don’t speak of Phoebus in those tales,49 but vulgar provincials only like works filled with pompous gibberish they don’t understand one whit.50 One must be very enlightened to recognize differences in styles and their proper uses. Well conceived simplicity is not known to all.51 I don’t believe that either 45. Horace (65–8 BCE) and Juvenal (c. first–second century CE), celebrated authors of antiquity, were not only critics but satirists. 46. Nominative case, a term used in the grammar of languages with Latin-like features, but the case may have different functions. In English, the word “she” is said to be nominative. 47. According to Furetière’s dictionary, a connoisseur is “well instructed in the fine qualities of a thing (typically a painting or a play), presented to him or her (the feminine form exists as of 1659, according to Robert, Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique) to render a judgment of it.” 48. L’Héritier’s attitude is markedly different from those of other female writers who responded to the attacks of critics defensively and bitterly, as was the case with Marie de Gournay (1566–1645) early in the century. To be sure, L’Héritier was never subjected to the ridicule that Gournay had to endure throughout her life. See Domna C. Stanton, “Women as Object and Subject of Exchange: The Case of Marie de Gournay’s Le proumenoir, 1594,” L’Esprit Créateur 23, no. 2 (1983): 9–25. 49. The name for Apollo, the sun god, often used in poetry of the early part of the century. 50. This distinction between the vulgarity of the provinces and the sophistication of Paris, a staple in seventeenth-century writing, is perpetuated in L’Héritier’s letter. 51. L’Héritier refers here to the aesthetic of “casualness” (négligence, prized in this period [see Marmoisan, n118, in this volume]). Implicitly, she applies it to the fairy tales in her collection: their “simplicity” is the product of elite skill. See Seifert, Fairy Tales, 77.

Letter to Madame D.G.*** 293 the nouvelles that come from troubadours or romances ever find their proper worth among those who never got rid of the typical character traits we find in certain provinces. Learning, embellished by refinement, has exempted the [province] where you reside of these faults. You will easily be able to adopt the fashion that reigns today. But warn your friends not to judge this fashion merely by the works it made me produce, for they would do it an injustice. They will see a variety of works with different refinements. I am only showing the way to others. Isn’t that already doing a lot to be among the first to tread new routes? At least give me credit for being so bold and for entering the list by writing short stories about proverbs. This boldness shows how much I love you and how I am, Yours etc. THE END

Abbé de Villiers,52 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works, To Protect against Bad Taste (1699), from the Second Conversation53 The Provincial: Those who do not wish to take the trouble to study and become learned should at least decide to write no works other than those that require no talent. The Parisian: That is, in fact, what they believe they’re doing, but this has filled the world with so many collections of tales, so many little stories, and the piles of fairy tales that have been annoying us to death for a year or two. If we didn’t have any of those ignoramuses who stubbornly desire to write books, we would never have seen so much nonsense published. The Provincial: At least those ignorant fools were wise enough to attempt only books that require no erudition. But when you told me there were people with no talent who believe they are capable of writing books, I didn’t think you were talking about those bad authors. I thought you meant there were people convinced you can write good books without any talent. The Parisian: Do you suppose those authors believe their books are worthless? 52. Pierre de Cognac, Abbé de Villiers (1648–1728), a Cartesian and a moralist, also wrote a treatise, L’art de prêcher (The Art of Preaching) (1682), and several other works of criticism, incuding Traité de la satire (Treatise on Satire) (1695) and Vérités satiriques en dialogues (Satirical Truths in Dialogues) (1715). 53. The text is dedicated to the Men of the Académie Française. Like the other conversations in the volume, this one occurs between a Parisian and a provincial man. The opening pages, which we have not included, express outrage at all who presume to write books without any knowledge of Greek if they speak of Greek authors, of history if they compose a history, and most especially, of the rules of the theater and of writing plays if they engage in that practice. In short, such people lack serious, prolonged study, learning, and training. And yet, the Parisian, predictably more urbane, claims it is equally important to “study the world,” rather than simply Aristotle’s and Horace’s rules, a familiar debate that divided the mondains or worldly writers of the time from the more scholarly and erudite, but also, the Moderns from the Ancients in that century-long debate.

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Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 295 The Provincial: Yes, and I even believe they present them as such. I heard of a lady who wrote some of these fairy tales and who is the first to make fun of both the publishers and the readers who buy them. She tells everyone they’re the worst merchandise in the world, “but, after all, people want them,” she says, “they pay me well for them, so I’ll give them as many as they like.”54 The Parisian: Wouldn’t you respect this lady much more if she had become capable of writing good fairy tales? The Provincial: Well, can one write good ones? The Parisian: There is no work that can’t be good if one wants to become capable of doing it. The Provincial: What talent could be needed to write books that the ignorant attempt to write, such as collections,55 novels, and fairy tales? The Parisian: I don’t believe you should value these three types of works equally. Let’s speak of fairy tales, and then of novels and collections together, if you remain persuaded, as you say, that these last two types of work require no talent. The Provincial: What convinces me, in part, is that most collections and short novels are not judged on the manner in which they are composed, since you would have to be very skilled to do that. But let’s speak of fairy tales. You really believe such works can be good? The Parisian: It’s the same as when Aesop thought to write fables.56 You would have asked whether a book of fables can be good. But do we have any works better than those? 54. This remark probably refers to d’Aulnoy, whose Contes nouveaux, ou les fées à la mode (New Tales or Fairies in Fashion) had just been published (1698). On the ironic distance of the conteuses from the genre, see the Editors’ Introduction, 10–11, in this volume. 55. Villiers refers here to collections of poetry and letters by multiple authors. Such collections flourished throughout the entire century and yet were ridiculed by critics such as Boileau (see his “Satire VII,” Oeuvres complètes, 38–40). 56. Aesop, the celebrated Greek fabulist about whom little is known. The story of his life, which was already familiar to the historian Herodotus (fifth century BCE), has been

296 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works The Provincial: I’m not comparing Aesop’s fables with fairy tales. To write those fables requires all the wit, refinement, good sense, and even all the knowledge of an excellent philosopher. But why do we need fairy tales? They have neither sense nor reason; they are tales that put you to sleep while you’re awake57 and that nurses thought up to amuse children. The Parisian: Without a doubt, you judge the authors of fairy tales the same way as those who have written so many of them lately. They thought the tales required neither reason nor sense, and they succeeded perfectly well in writing them without those characteristics. Most of them even forgot what you said, that tales were invented for children, and they made them so long and in such a sophisticated style that even children would be bored with them.58 But let me respond to what you said, that we must not compare fairy tales with Aesop’s fables. It’s true that this comparison would be ridiculous if we had to judge these fairy tales by those we’ve seen. But let’s consider what a tale is, why it was invented, and how it should be written. You’ll see that it’s not at all different from a fable.59 The Provincial: I am actually quite convinced that if Aesop had written such tales, they would have been just as good as his fables. The Parisian: Still, you say that fables require wit, even erudition. Let’s agree, then, these are also necessary for tales.

overlaid by many fictions. His fable is an anecdote with a moral in which the characters are animals who behave as humans. The earliest collection of the Tales of Aesop was made by Demetrius of Phalerum (c. 350–c. 283 BCE); the earliest Latin collection was that of Phaedrus (first century CE). In seventeenth-century France, the most celebrated fables were those of Jean de La Fontaine. 57. Contes à dormir debout, a pejorative term for oral narratives of the lower classes at the time. 58. Like Perrault and L’Héritier (see Letter to Madame D.G***, n16, in this volume), Villiers presumes, incorrectly, that folktales were told primarily to children. 59. Unlike Perrault, who in the preface to his verse tales contrasts indigenous French contes (folktales) with ancient fables, Villiers’ Parisian here seeks to equate the two.

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 297 The Provincial: And yet, no philosopher, no skillful writer I know of, invented or composed60 fairy tales. They were invented by ignorant nurses, and have been considered so often the property of women61 that only women have written those that have appeared for some time and in such great numbers. The Parisian: I don’t say these tales could not have been good. There are women capable of still better work, and if those who undertook to compose them had remembered that fairy tales were created only to formulate an important moral and give it concrete form we would not have considered them the lot of women and of ignorant men. The Provincial: What? You would have wanted some serious philosopher to have produced them for the public? The Parisian: That’s not what I meant. I would have wanted the women who published them to do so only after becoming well instructed on what is necessary to succeed in this genre. But if a solemn philosopher (to use your term) had composed some, I would have found that very good. It would have seemed ridiculous to you, but allow me to say that you still neglect the purpose for which these tales were invented. You forget that the first to put them to use had the same purpose as Aesop, that is, to instruct and to correct. The Provincial: Nonetheless, it was nurses and old women who invented them. The Parisian: Even if that were true, I would be no less convinced they were invented solely to correct or to instruct. Quite the contrary. I would be astonished that nurses, possessing only nature’s lessons, could have imagined what had been invented by the wisest philosophers. But believe me, those tales were modeled on fables. The idea of animals that talk and think, which they already had, was 60. Villiers seems to be differentiating between inventing a tale by oneself and composing or recomposing one from various sources. 61. The identification of ignorant nurses as the authors of fairy tales thus negatively defines the genre as the property of women.

298 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works joined to the wonders that those who had made overseas voyages recounted at the time of the Crusades62; or, if you like, the idea some philosophers had, that each element was inhabited by people who sometimes appeared to men; or if you like even better, by the various genies in which Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and other peoples believed.63 It’s what made people imagine everything that’s attributed to fairies. Initially, the women to whom this name was given were only a kind of prophetess, for that’s what the name “fairy” means. It comes from the Latin word fatum, or rather, the Italian fata, since the Italians call any woman involved in the art of soothsaying fata.64 These women, who at first passed for soothsayers, were established as types of subaltern divinities. I say “subaltern,” for you know that the ancients acknowledged gods of different orders. Some were in the heavens, others in the air or on earth. These last took care of whatever concerned men, and they were called genies. Fairies were placed among these minor divinities and were given astonishing abilities and qualities. All that source material was used to compose fables, which made more of an impression on the minds of those who were to be instructed. Whether it was nurses or others who first made use of them, it’s still clear they were invented only for the instruction of men. The Provincial: I believe they were invented only to frighten little children or to entertain them. 62. The marvelous is thus a fundamental aspect of fairy tales, which the Parisian traces back to tales of the Crusades. L’Héritier gives a similar chronology but a different origin. See Letter to Madame D.G***, in this volume. 63. The Parisian conflates several sources traditionally mentioned to account for myths. Like L’Héritier, he considers oral narratives of the lower classes to be derivations of elite (upper-class) culture. 64. This is in fact the meaning that Richelet gives to “fairy” in his Dictionnaire français (1680): “she who predicts the future.” Furetière goes further in his dictionary: “Term we find in old romances said of certain women who possessed the secret of doing astonishing things; the people believe they had this talent because of communications with imaginary divinities. It was in fact a decorous (honnête) name for sorceresses or enchantresses …Fairies are no less able to perform marvels than the gods of mythology.” (This last sentence is found verbatim in L’Héritier’s The Enchantments of Eloquence, in L’Héritier de Villandon, et al., Contes, 91.)

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 299 The Parisian: Why don’t you also say it was to flatter the vanity of those who take pride in their own illustrious origins. You know fairies have often served this purpose. The Provincial: I actually believe we would know nothing about fairies if people weren’t fool enough to make their family illustrious by some miraculous event. You make me think it’s perhaps to this folly that we should attribute the origin of these tales. The Parisian: If that’s so, you make their origin very ancient. Families who count fairies among their ancestors take Hercules, Alexander, and many others as their models.65 But when it comes to the fabulous origins of these heroes, on which fairies were modeled, I would still be convinced the tales they engendered were specially imagined to reveal the duties they wished to teach men. The Provincial: Before going further, let me interrupt you to say something I just remembered. I read somewhere the pagans employed old women to recite orations in houses where people thought there were ghosts. Didn’t this lead to imagining fairies? Perhaps with time they came to believe that the old women who had power against ghosts were what we call fairies. The Parisian: That could be, but I would also think that for the pagans to use them as you say, they had to be persuaded that some mysterious power was attached to women’s old age. I don’t know what this idea could have been based on. The Provincial: Don’t you think certain women were held up as fairies to show the merit they had above others through a kind of allegory66 65. Probably the two most legendary heroes of antiquity, the first noted in Greek mythology for his enormous strength and execution of impossible labors, the second, the historical ruler who claimed to be descended from Hercules, was regarded as the “great” conqueror whose empire stretched to Asia. 66. The importance of allegory in understanding the fairy tale is emphasized throughout this conversation. Furetière’s dictionary defines allegory as “an extended metaphor, when we use a discourse which is proper for one thing to make us understand another.” In this

300 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works and figure of speech? It is said, for example, that Melusine67 was a fairy who changed herself into a snake on certain days of the week. It is also said that the famous Tower of Lusignan was built for her in a miraculous fashion and that when this tower was demolished, it was heard to utter long moans. I think all this means nothing more than Melusine was a very prudent princess,68 that she gained enough authority by her prudence to attain her ends easily, that she built a tower to serve as a fortress for her people, and that this tower was demolished despite the hope this princess entertained that she had made her fortress impregnable. The Parisian: Like you, I am convinced that the tale of Melusine is allegorical. In this respect, the same thing happened as with the gods in myths.69 Saturn, Janus, Jupiter,70 and most of the others were illustrious men, but eventually they were set up as gods through the allegories used to tell of their deeds and character.71 That’s also what convinces me all fairy tales must contain an instructive truth through allegory, as we see in the mythical history of the gods. Thus, in my opinion, there are no good tales of this sort, except ones from which conversation, allegory has a positive meaning, as it did in the seventeenth century, which regarded scripture, history, nature, and life itself to possess a cloak of figurality that we must penetrate to understand the mysteries of human existence. However, allegory was also viewed as a suspicious figure that could degenerate into signs that meant exactly the opposite of what they denoted. See Peters, Mapping Discord, 252. Here Villiers’ provincial figure uses allegory to offer a rational explanation for the supernatural powers attributed to fairies. 67. On Melusine, see Little Eel, n396, in this volume. 68. According to Furetière’s dictionary, prudence “is the first of the cardinal virtues; it teaches us to lead our lives wisely, and to follow right reason in our mores, discourses, and actions.” As a “feminine” virtue, prudence is identified with Minerva (Pallas Athena). 69. The French fable can mean fable, fiction, myth, or something false; see Furetière’s dictionary, s.v. fable. 70. In Greek mythology and in Roman mythology, which adopted the Greek gods, Jupiter was the chief deity; Saturn, the god of harvests; and Janus, the deity of beginnings. 71. This conception of the pagan gods as historical men whose deeds were recounted and transformed into divine feats, is not original; it is called “euhemerism,” after a Greek historian of the middle of the third century BCE, who assimilated the gods of Olympus to historical figures, deified in their lifetime because of politics or after their deaths by a grateful people. The theory was to be advanced and popularized by Abbé Antoine Banier in his Explication historique des fables (Historical Explanation of Myths, 1711–1715).

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 301 we can draw those kinds of lessons. All the others seem childish to me, and no matter how full of marvels they may be, I don’t like them any more than I would Aesop’s fables, if Aesop, in making animals speak, had wanted only to make them speak. What’s marvelous in Aesop’s fables is not that he makes animals speak (if he had stopped there it would have been sheer foolishness), but that he makes animals speak in order to instruct men. The Provincial: I am of your opinion, for it seems to me there isn’t a single tale that doesn’t end with some maxim or some general statement,72 which, if I am not mistaken, has even been expressed in verse. The Parisian: Yes, but have you always found much connection between the maxims and the tales they conclude? The Provincial: I found these tales so long and so filled with adventures that had little rapport among themselves that I didn’t even consider whether these were all related to the moral drawn from them. The Parisian: You would have made the effort in vain. You would never have found the relation as exact and as natural as it should be. The Provincial: From what I see, you want a unity in tales, as in works for the theater—in other words, that nothing not lead to the ending that’s intended.73 The Parisian: In tales, I would like to see what is essential in every respect put to use solely to instruct: I mean that one defines the goal and that everything serves the end one has conceived. You will acknowledge that’s not what all those who have written tales have done. Per72. In French, sentence. See Prince Rosebush, n26, in this volume. Villiers is referring to the moral lessons in verse that conclude many of the contes de fées. See the Editors’ Introduction, 9–10, in this volume. 73. Unity of action is one of the three unities that Aristotle prescribed for tragedy in his Ars Poetica. But here Villiers applies to the tale the dual demands of unity and morality, which is the Aristotelian prescription for epic poems. Villiers’ contemporary, René Le Bossu (1631– 1689), took up this idea in his Traité du poème épique (Treatise on the Epic Poem, 1675).

302 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works haps they didn’t even know it was necessary, and if that is so, you see indeed that they failed at the very definition with which they should have started. The Provincial: You should perhaps pardon them a fault they share with more serious authors. For would you swear that all those who treated the greatest and most serious moral truths knew they should define a goal and say nothing that does not relate to it? The Parisian: I know only too well that by not being informed of this rule people break it every day, and that the writers of tales are neither the only ones, nor the most guilty. It’s far worse to see preachers who don’t even know they should preach solely to persuade and to instruct. I don’t doubt that if you cared to notice, you would have heard several who, as they preached, thought of nothing but speaking for an hour or three quarters of an hour running.74 The Provincial: That’s actually a thought I’ve had many times while listening to most of our provincial preachers, and I expect we’ll talk about it a bit. But let’s return to tales. I would never have believed they could lead us so far, and that we could pass from fairy tales to sermons.75 The Parisian: You see, then, that the means of teaching morals seem unrelated, but that they are related in one way, which is instruction. The Provincial: Which is to say you would like a tale to be a sermon? 74. Preaching was considered an art, although those who showed too much artistry and too much concern for captivating and retaining the attention of their congregations were also accused of vanity. See, for instance, La Bruyère, “De la chaire” (“Of the Pulpit”), Les caractères, in Œuvres complètes, 445–57. On the tensions within this sacred discourse, see Domna C. Stanton, “On the Predicatory Mouth: Problematics of Communication in Bossuet’s Oeuvres ora­toires,” Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature 9 (1982): 102–21. 75. As this conversation demonstrates, fairy tales raise issues central to fables, plays, and preaching. Like all works of art, in this moralistic view, they should instruct and correct. What the interlocutors leave out and partisans of the Ancients—but also Perrault (in the preface to his verse tales)—emphasized just as much was the imperative to captivate the reader (or listener), following the ancient formula, dulce et utile.

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 303 The Parisian: The term “sermon” is not suitable, but after all, what else is it in essence? What does a nurse mean in recounting the tale of Donkeyskin?76 It’s a sermon she makes in her own way to the children she wishes to teach that virtue is rewarded sooner or later. But let’s no longer misuse the term “sermon,” which is devoted to more serious instruction than those we should receive from a tale. The Provincial: Why more serious? Can’t we teach everything of the most serious nature by means of a tale? The Parisian: No, and I strongly object to the fact that people have mixed the mysteries of religion into some tales of the past, and spoken of penitence, confession, and other similar duties of Christian life.77 The Provincial: That reminds me of the preface to Amadis, where the author claims that the astonishing adventures of so many marvelous paladins78 will inspire people to become worthy of the grace of God and of eternal beatitude.79 The Parisian: Was anything ever more out of place? In truth, I can’t even laugh at such an absurd thing. Everything related to religion should be banished from fiction. We can’t ever give holy religious instruction a tone that is too serious or too solemn,80 but in all other matters, we can use a tale to instruct. 76. Conte de peau d’âne was a generic term for oral folktales at the time; Peau d’âne is also a specific tale type (ATU 510B), a version of which Perrault included in his three verse tales. 77. Contrary to what Villiers seems to imply here, none of the seventeenth-century fairy tales include such religious allusions. He may be referring to Ariosto’s The Frenzy of Orlando, Boiardo’s Orlando in Love, or Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. 78. In medieval romances, the name given to the lords who followed Charlemagne to wars, and thus by extension, to errant knights. 79. On Amadis de Gaul, see the Editors’ Introduction, n62, in this volume. 80. This refusal to mix the marvelous with Christianity characterizes the position of the Ancients in the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, on the grounds, which Villiers advances here, that Moderns wished to compromise revealed religion in works of fiction, in other words, works of imaginings and lies. See, for instance, Boileau’s Art poétique (1674): “The terrible mysteries of a Christian’s faith / Are not conducive to joyful ornamentation /…And in your fictions, the guilty mixture / Even to truths gives an

304 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works The Provincial: I don’t know whether the simpleminded customs of the past—to mix religion with wholly mythical stories—did not give rise to so many apocryphal tales of the lives of saints that we still find in old legends. It seems to me that such lives are but allegorical tales used to promote certain virtues. They were invented more or less in the same centuries when fairies were thought up, and perhaps by the same authors who piously believed they were permitted to create saints as they pleased, and to propose them as examples to those they wished to impart the marvels of religion.81 The Parisian: I tend to share your opinion, for the centuries you speak of were extremely naive if we judge by certain writings of the time. They would have had to have been naive to dare to fabricate saints when there were so many real ones. But naiveté is capable of everything, in every type of nation. The Turks have saints as well, patterned on the heroes of myths. They have one they call Cheder’les, whom they have doing nearly the same things as Perseus and Bellerophon.82 But the difference between the Turks and us in this respect is that they still take all of that literally, while we see it only as the effect of naiveté and ignorance.83 aura of fiction” (Chant III, vv 199‑200, 203‑04, [Oeuvres complètes, 173–74]). The Moderns, for their part, argued that a new sense of the marvelous had to be invented, as Jean Desmarets de Saint Sorlin had tried to do in his Clovis ou la France chrétienne (Clovis, or Christian France) in l657. Charles Perrault, an apologist for the modern position, wrote three Christian poems. 81. These marvelous lives of saints were composed or collected by Jacobus de Voragine (c. 1228–1298), a Dominican Italian author of the famous Golden Legend. 82. It is strange that Villiers speaks of Turks as having saints, but Cheder’les is a Muslim hero who, like Saint George, saves a virgin exposed to the mercy of a dragon; he lives to assist other warriors in their battles. Perseus and Bellerophon are legendary slayers of monsters in Greek mythology, the first of the Gorgons or Medusas, the second of the fire-breathing monster, Chimæra; indeed, his name, Bellerophontes, means “slayer of monster.” 83. This reference to the Turks has particular resonance in light of the victories of the Ottoman Empire as far west as Vienna in 1683. Some have argued that Louis XIV was envious of the autocratic powers of the Ottoman emperor, whose representative he received at court, thinking he was an ambassador (he was not). This led to various “Turqueries” at Versailles, including Molière’s comedy-ballet, The Bourgeois Gentilhomme (1670). The literalism that Turks are accused of here is also a charge leveled against the Jews, for instance, by Blaise Pascal in his Pensées, Section XIX (“Figurative Law”), 104–15.

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 305 The Provincial: It’s true we’ve become more enlightened and, thanks to three or four learned men of this century, the history of the saints has been purged of all these myths.84 Yet, in the end, you will acknowledge it was only because people wanted to compose allegorical tales that they took advantage of the credulity of the simpleminded for so long. That misfortune would never have happened if people had aimed to do what you wish to be essential to tales, I mean to make them instructive. The Parisian: Even if people had no other intention in writing tales than to relate wondrous things, they would still have uttered just as much nonsense. The author who narrated the taking of Jerusalem by Charlemagne, and who had this prince travel to India, apparently did not intend to make an allegory and to include instruction in such a novel. He thought solely of putting Charlemagne in the best possible light; he wished to make him Alexander the Great’s equal; he believed he should have him conquer India and go to Jerusalem to make things even between the two conquerors.85 Believe me, when ignorant or malicious writers feel like spinning stories, nothing can stop them. And without harking back to those distant centuries, don’t we have writers from the last century who said things about Charles V and Francis I86 that were as fabulous as the voyages of Charlemagne to the Holy Land and India? Didn’t someone write that 84. Allusion to the hagiographers, essentially Jesuits, who in the seventeenth century tried to produce a history of the lives of saints, day by day, that aimed to distinguish fact from legend in the compendia of Voragine (see n81 above). The first volume of these Acta sanctorum (Acts of the Saints) appeared in Antwerp in 1643; the work continued into the twentieth century. 85. A reference to the author or authors of the Chronique du pseudo-Turpin (Chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin), perhaps an anonymous monk from Compostella, who wrote in the eleventh century, and the remainder, perhaps by a monk of Vienna in the twelfth century, although this is disputed. The text appears under the name of Turpin, the Bishop of Reims in Charlemagne’s time and a recurrent figure in epic poems of the period. The text seems part of a broader trend to make Charlemagne a founding Christian figure in contact with various places in the East. Our thanks to Megan Moore for this contextual information. 86. Charles V (1500–1558), King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor, ruled over extensive domains in Central, Western, and Southern Europe, as well as the various Castilian (Spanish) colonies in the Americas; Francis I (1515–1547), King of France.

306 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works Charles V plotted in the Conclave to have himself elected Pope and that he left the empire for this purpose? Didn’t someone else say that Francis I hoped to rescue the princes—his children held hostage in Spain—without paying their ransom, because he had been persuaded that he could make them disappear from Madrid by the power of magic, and transport them in the air all the way to Paris? Yet again, I say the makers of tales utter nothing but foolishness when they only want to write tales. The Provincial: What you have just said about the conquest of Jerusalem by Charlemagne prompts this thought: that one can use tales not only to instruct, but also to express praise or to create satires in an allegorical manner. It seems to me we have seen some tales of this last type.87 Perhaps the first use of tales was to praise or to criticize more subtly. The Parisian: If that were so, I would find those who invented them more judicious and more refined, despite the boorish centuries in which they lived, than we are today, where on the one hand we praise so boorishly those we need, and on the other, we criticize so injuriously everything that offends and displeases us. But to respond to what you say—that this might have been the first use of tales—I would sooner believe that the first invented tales were nothing but allegories of what happens in nature,88 and that under the names of fairies, people wanted to represent the elements and to describe the different productions of the sublunar bodies.89 At least that’s what was contained in 87. Although it is unclear what authors Villiers has in mind, d’Aulnoy, L’Héritier, Murat, and Jean de Préchac all used the genre to sing someone’s praise or chastise faults. Many fairy tales of this period include satire, albeit rarely in ad hominem form. 88. This theory, also advanced to explain the development of religion, was actually proposed in the nineteenth century by Hyacinthe Husson (La chaîne traditionnelle: Contes et légendes du point de vue mythologique [Paris: A. Franck, 1874]). 89. The scientific turn of the term, “sublunar bodies,” is consistent with this period of the scientific revolution (also called “the new science”) and the development of astronomy. The fascination with these discoveries gave rise to works of science fiction (such as those of Savinien Cyrano de Bergerac [1619–1655]), as well as public lectures in which various aspects of “the new science” were presented to worldly audiences, women in particular; see, for instance, Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757), Entretiens sur la pluralité des

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 307 the history and the names of the principal divinities of mythology, as you can see in Noël Le Comte and the other authors who took up the task of unfolding these mysteries for us.90 The Provincial: Despite what you say, I admit, for my part, that I don’t have much taste for these endless allegories. Most of the time they seem far-fetched to me. For example, I can’t agree that Tasso, who wrote such a beautiful poem,91 would have wanted us to understand his characters as allegorical. And as tiring as the verses of The Maiden [Joan of Arc] might be, I still find them more bearable than the long and dull preface where Chapelain92 states the Maiden represents divine grace and Charles VII93 human will. You will admit that the ancients never thought of that, and that Virgil94 never claimed his poem was allegorical. Why, then, couldn’t people write tales that were pretty, even though they meant nothing?95 Is it because people claim Don Quixote is a satire of Spanish chivalry that they find it so pleasing?96 mondes (1686); on this question, see Erica Harth, Cartesian Women (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992), and Londa Schiebinger, The Mind Has No Sex (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989). 90. Noël Le Comte or Natalis Comte, an Italian Renaissance scholar and author of a study of mythology, published in Venice in 1581, who aimed to reconcile the teachings of pagan authors with Christian dogma, by trying to discern in mythological narratives a metaphysical meaning compatible with the Bible. 91. On Tasso, see L’Héritier’s Letter to Madame D.G***, n40, in this volume. 92. The epic poem, La pucelle (The Maiden, 1656) by Jean Chapelain (1595–1674) was considered a failure, and mocked by Nicolas Boileau in the opening lines of his Art poétique. But the desire to produce an epic poem for France that would rival those of Homer and Virgil seems to have been an imperative for sixteenth-century writers, such as Pierre Ronsard (author of his own Franciade [1572]), when the French language openly aspired to equal—and eventually surpass—Latin. 93. Charles VII (1403–1461, r. 1422–1461), during which the episode of Joan of Arc occurred, as well as the end of the Hundred Years War. 94. Virgil (79–19 BCE), the author of The Aeneid, is one of the towering figures of the Ancients for the seventeenth century. 95. Aesthetic considerations now enter the conversation. 96. Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605–1615) was rapidly translated into French by César Oudin (1560?-1625) and François de Rosset (1571–1630) in the seventeenth century; its praises appear early on in the work of Pierre de L’Estoile (1546–1611), Agrippa d’Aubigné (1552– 1630) and Marie de Gournay (1565–1645).

308 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works What allegory is contained in the Comic Novel?97 What lessons can we draw from Amadis [of Gaul]? All these are excellent books, although they contain only frivolous imaginings that have no effect other than to entertain. The Parisian: Give me tales as good and as original as the books you’ve just named, and I will approve the idea that an author has no other goal than to make us laugh. But do you think that those who believe it takes no talent to write tales would be capable of writing anything approaching the quality of these works? When no instruction can be drawn from a tale, which is not the case here, wouldn’t it be necessary for an author to be extremely skilled to narrate the story with the simple and witty tone we find in these works? For simplicity and naturalness of narration are the principal merits of a tale.98 Believe me, it takes much wit, much reflection, and even much talent to relate things in a way that makes them pleasing and makes people laugh. So if the writers of tales had no other intention but to make people laugh, they would not be able to succeed without being skilled.99 The Provincial: What else do you need to make people laugh other than to say funny things? I think it consists more of a certain talent than of erudition and knowledge, and that an uneducated person can have that talent.100 The Parisian: I have trouble convincing myself of that. Every uneducated wag is a bad joker. If he makes people laugh, it’s only because of the pitiful things he says. 97. This comic novel about wandering comedians or actors by Paul Scarron (1610–1660) appeared in two parts, the first in 1651. 98. On simplicity and naturalness in the dominant aesthetic of the period, see Marmoisan, n118, in this volume. 99. The French expression habiles gens is a synonym for the century’s social and intellectual ideal of honnêtes gens. See Stanton, The Aristocrat as Art, 21–22, 50–52. 100. The provincial is raising here one of the basic debates in the French seventeenth century that pitted talent against knowledge and education, or put another way, the inborn versus the acquired.

Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works 309 The Provincial: It’s true that I’ve laughed reading some of the bad tales we’re talking about, but what made me laugh was only what I found insipid and ridiculous in them. The Parisian: Admit they didn’t make you laugh for very long, and that at the second reading, you tossed the work aside and cursed the author. That’s the difference between the witticisms of a clever man and those of a simpleton that make us laugh once, at most; whereas, the others always make us laugh. The Comic Novel and Don Quixote will make people laugh a thousand years from now. Today, you can barely hear people speak without disgust about bad tales, which, as you say, made you laugh once. To relate things in a way that always rouses and captivates, what talent don’t we need? We must understand human nature thoroughly to discover what captivates it.101 We must be thoroughly instructed in the language in order to use only striking terms. We must know the most subtle rules of eloquence to put each thing in its place and in its best light always. We have an infinite number of good authors who excelled in grave matters; we have few who have succeeded in amusing subjects. The Provincial: And yet, you will acknowledge that the best tales we have are those that best imitate the style and simplicity of nurses.102 For this reason alone, I am quite pleased with the tales attributed to the son of a celebrated member of the French Academy.103 Still, you cannot say that nurses are not ignorant. The Parisian: They are, it’s true, but you must be clever to imitate the simplicity of their ignorance deftly. That ability is not given to everyone, and whatever respect I might have for the son of the Academician 101. See Boileau’s Art poétique, III, vv: 359–60: “Let nature be your only study / You authors who claim the honors of comedy,” (Oeuvres complètes, 177). 102. Thus whereas the nurses’ style was rejected, the learned and aesthetic imitation of the purported simplicity of their narratives is now extolled. 103. The provincial is referring to Perrault and his Stories or Tales of Yesteryear (1697), the dedicatory letter of which is signed by his son, Pierre Perrault d’Armancour (1678–1700). This passage shows that the attribution of the collection was uncertain even in this period. See the Editors’ Introduction to this volume, n10.

310 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works of whom you speak, I have trouble believing the father didn’t have a hand in the work. But that, it seems to me, is enough talk of tales. I fear that if some serious person overheard us, he would find our conversation unworthy of us. The Provincial: On the contrary, I believe he would be edified because you have convinced me104 that the least serious of tales could have been useful and instructive if those who presented them to the public had not persuaded themselves falsely that they needed no talent to write such works.

104. The provincial’s admission that he was persuaded is not surprising, given the prototypical superiority of the Parisian to anything and anyone provincial. In this conversation, the Parisian has a larger speaking role than the provincial, approximately one-and-a-half times as great.

Appendix Fairy Tales by the Seventeenth-Century Conteuses (Titles in boldface are included in this volume.) Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy: Babiole The Beauty with the Golden Hair (La belle aux cheveux d’or) The Beneficent Frog (La grenouille bienfaisante) The Blue Bird (L’oiseau bleu) The Doe in the Woods (La biche au bois) The Dolphin (Le dauphin) Fortunate (Fortunée) Gracious and Percinet (Gracieuse et Percinet) The Green Serpent (Serpentin vert) The Golden Branch (Le rameau d’or) The Good Little Mouse (La bonne petite souris) Isle of Felicity (Ile de la félicité) The Orange Tree and the Bee (L’oranger et l’abeille) The Pigeon and the Dove (Le pigeon et la colombe) Prince Hobgoblin (Le Prince Lutin) Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved (La Princesse Belle-Etoile et le Prince Chéri) Princess Little Carp (La Princesse Carpillon) Princess Primavera (La Princesse Printanière) Prince Wild Boar (Le Prince Marcassin) The Ram (Le mouton) The Yellow Dwarf (Le nain jaune) The White Cat (La chatte blanche) Wily Cinder (Finette Cendron) Louise de Bossigny, comtesse d’Auneuil: Agatie Princess of the Scythians (Agatie princesse des Scythes) The Fairies’ Tyranny Destroyed (La tyrannie des fées détruite) The Knights Errant (Les chevaliers errants) Prince Curious (Le Prince Curieux) 311

312 Appendix Princess Léonie (La Princesse Léonie) Catherine Bernard: Prince Rosebush (Le Prince Rosier) Riquet with the Tuft (Riquet à la houppe) Catherine Bédacier Durand: The Fairy Lubantine (La fée Lubantine) The Miracle of Love (Le prodige d’amour) The Origin of the Fairies (L’origine des fées) Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force: The Enchanter (L’Enchanteur) The Good Woman (La bonne femme) Green and Blue (Vert et Bleu) The Land of Delights (Le pays des délices) More Beautiful than a Fairy (Plus belle que fée) Persinette The Power of Cupid (La puissance d’Amour) Whirlwind (Tourbillon) Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon: The Clever Princess or the Adventures of Finette (L’adroite princesse ou les aventures de Finette) The Dress of Sincerity (La robe de sincérité) The Enchantments of Eloquence or the Effects of Gentleness (Les enchantements de l’éloquence ou les effets de la douceur) Marmoisan or the Innocent Deception (Marmoisan ou l’innocente tromperie) Ricdin-Ricdon Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat: The Eagle with the Beautiful Beak (L’aigle au beau bec) The Fairy Princess (La fée princesse) The Father and his Four Sons (Le père et ses quatre fils) Happy Pain (Heureuse peine)

Appendix 313 The Island of Magnificence (L’île de la magnificence) Little Eel (Anguillette) The Palace of Vengeance (Le palais de la vengeance) Perfect Love (Le parfait Amour) The Pig King (Le Roi Porc) The Prince of Leaves (Le Prince des feuilles) The Turbot (Le turbot) Young and Beautiful (Jeune et belle) The Wild Man (Le sauvage) Wasted Effort (Peine perdue)

Editors’ Bibliography Primary Sources Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’. Le comte de Warwick. Par Madame d’Aulnoy. Paris: Compagnie des Libraires Associez, 1703. _____. Contes de fées. Edited by Constance Cagnat-Deboeuf. Folio Classique. Paris: Gallimard, 2008. _____. Les contes des fées. Par Madame D***. 4 vols. Paris: C. Barbin, 1697–98. _____. Contes des fées, suivis des contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode. Edited by Nadine Jasmin. Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 1. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004. _____. Contes nouveaux ou les fées à la mode. 4 vols. Paris: C. Barbin, 1698. _____. Fairy Tales by the Countess d’Aulnoy. Translated by James Robinson Planché. London: G. Routledge, 1855. _____. Histoire de Jean de Bourbon, Prince de Carency. Paris: C. Barbin, 1692. _____. Histoire d’Hypolite, comte de Duglas. Paris: L. Sylvestre, 1690. _____. Mémoires de la cour d’Angleterre. Par Madame D***. Paris: C. Barbin, 1695. _____. Mémoires de la cour d’Espagne. Paris: C. Barbin, 1690. _____. Nouvelles espagnolles. Par Madame D***. Paris: C. Barbin, 1692. _____. Nouvelles ou mémoires historiques, contenant ce qui s’est passé de plus remarquable dans l’Europe. Par Madame D***. Paris: C. Barbin, 1693. _____. Relation du voyage d’Espagne. Paris: C. Barbin, 1691. _____. Sentiments d’une âme pénitente, sur le Pseaume, Miserere mei Deus, et le retour d’une âme à Dieu, sur le Pseaume, Benedie anima mea, accompagnés de réflexions chrétiennes. Par Madame D***. Paris: Veuve Th. Girard, 1698. Basile, Giambattista. The Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones. Translated by Nancy L. Canepa. Series in Fairy-Tale Studies. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2007. 315

316 Editors' Bibliography Bernard, Catherine. Le comte d’Amboise. Paris: C. Barbin, 1689. _____. Éléonor d’Yvrée. Paris: M. Guéroult, 1687. _____. Fédéric de Sicile. Paris: J. Ribou, 1680. _____. Histoire de la rupture d’Abenamar et de Fatime. Paris, 1696. _____. Inès de Cordoue. Paris: M. et G. Jouvenel, 1696. _____. Inès de Cordoue. In Nouvelles galantes du XVIIe siècle, edited by Marc Escola, 391–449. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 2004. _____. Oeuvres de Catherine Bernard. Edited by Franco Piva. 2 vols. Fasano: Schena, 1993. Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas. Oeuvres complètes. Edited by Françoise Escal. Paris: Gallimard, 1966. Bouhours, Dominique. Entretiens d’Ariste et d’Eugène. Paris: S. MabreCramoisy, 1671. Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française. 1694. Marsanne: Redon, 1999. CD-ROM. Dictionnaire universel françois et latin, vulgairement appelé Dictionnaire de Trévoux. 5 vols. Paris: F. Delaulne, 1721. Diderot, Denis. Oeuvres complètes. Edited by J. Assezat and Maurice Tourneaux. 3 vols. Paris: Garnier, 1875–77. “Eloge de Mademoiselle l’Héritier.” Journal des Sçavans (December 1734) : 832–36. Festes galantes et magnifiques, faites par le Roy à Versailles, 1664. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1673. Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “Prefaces to the First and Second Editions of the Nursery and Household Tales.” In The Hard Facts of the Grimms’ Fairy Tales, by Maria Tatar, 203–22. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987. Institoris, Heinrich, and Jacobus Sprenger. The Hammer of Witches. Edited and translated by Christopher S. Mackay. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. La Bruyère, Jean de. Les caractères de Théophraste traduits du grec avec les caractères ou les moeurs de ce siècle in Œuvres complètes, edited by Julien Benda, 1–478. Paris: Gallimard, 1962. La Fayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de. The Princess of Clèves. Edited and translated by John Lyons. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994.

Editors' Bibliography 317 La Fontaine, Jean de. The Complete Fables of Jean de la Fontaine. Edited and translated by Norman B. Spector. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1988. _____. Oeuvres complètes. Vol. 1, edited by Edmond Pilon. Vol. 2, edited by Pierre Clarac. Paris: Gallimard, 1954–58. La Force, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de. Anecdote galante, ou histoire secrette de Catherine de Bourbon. Nancy, 1703. _____. Les contes des contes. Paris: Simon Benard, 1697. _____. Gustave Vasa, histoire de Suède. Paris: Simon Benard, 1697–98. _____. Histoire de Marguerite de Valois, reine de Navarre, soeur de François Ier. Paris: Simon Benard, 1696. _____. Histoire secrète de Bourgogne. Paris: Simon Benard, 1694. _____. Histoire secrète de Henry IV, roy de Castille. Paris: Simon Benard, 1695. _____. Les Jeux d’esprit ou la promenade de la princesse de Conti à Eu par Mademoiselle de la Force. Edited by M. le marquis de la Grange. Paris: Auguste Aubry, 1862. Le Prince de Beaumont, Jeanne-Marie. Magasin des enfans, ou dialogues d’une sage gouvernante avec ses élèves. 4th ed. 2 vols. Lyon: Jean-Baptiste Reguillat, 1773. L’Héritier de Villandon, Marie-Jeanne. Les caprices du destin ou recueil d’histoires singulières et amusantes, arrivées de nos jours. Paris: P. M. Huart, 1718. _____. L’érudition enjouée, ou nouvelles savantes, satiriques et galantes, écrites à une dame française qui est à Madrid. Paris: P. Ribou, 1703. _____. “Lettre à Madame D. G***,” In L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique, ed. Rizzoni et Boch, 371–78. _____. Oeuvres meslées . . . de Mlle L’H***. Paris: Jean Guignard, 1696. _____. La tour ténébreuse et les jours lumineux. Paris: Barbin, 1705. _____, ed. Mémoires de M. L. D. D. N. contenant ce qui s’est passé de plus particulier en France pendant la guerre de Paris, jusqu’à la prison du cardinal de Retz, arrivée en 1652. Avec les différens caractères des personnes, qui ont eu part à cette guerre, by Marie d’Orléans-Longueville duchesse de Nemours. Cologne, 1709. _____, trans. Les épîtres d’Ovide, traduites en vers françois par Mlle L’Héritier. Paris: Prault, 1732.

318 Editors' Bibliography L’Hériter de Villandon, Marie-Jeanne, Catherine Bernard, CharlotteRose de Caumont de La Force, Catherine Bédacier Durand, and Louise de Bossigny d’Auneuil. Contes. Edited by Raymonde Robert. Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 2. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005. Mayer, Charles-Joseph de. Le cabinet des fées; ou collection choisie des contes des fées, et autres contes merveilleux, ornés de figures. 41 vols. Amsterdam: Rue et Hôtel Serpente, 1785–89. _____. Le nouveau cabinet des fées. 20 vols. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1978. Montpensier, Anne Marie Louise d’Orléans, duchesse de. Galerie des portraits et éloges. Edited by E. Barthélémy. Paris: Didier, 1860. Murat, Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de. Contes. Edited by Geneviève Patard. Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 3. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006. _____. Contes de fées. Dediez à Son Altesse Sérénissime Madame la Princesse Douairière de Conty. Par Mad. la Comtesse de M***. Paris: C. Barbin, 1698. _____. La défense des dames, ou les mémoires de Madame la comtesse de M***. Paris: C. Barbin, 1697. _____. Histoires sublimes et allégoriques par Mme la Comtesse D***, dédiées aux fées modernes. Paris: J. et P. Delaulne, 1699. _____. Les lutins du château de Kernosy, nouvelle historique. Par Madame la Comtesse de M***. Paris: J. Le Febvre, 1710. _____. Les nouveaux contes des fées. Par Madame de M**. Paris: C. Barbin, 1698. _____. Ouvrages de Mme la comtesse de Murat. Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal. B. L. ms. 4371. _____. Voyage de campagne. Par Madame la Comtesse de M****. Paris: C. Barbin, 1699. Nemours, Marie d’Orléans-Longueville, duchesse de. Mémoires de M. L. D. D. N. contenant ce qui s’est passé de plus particulier en France pendant la guerre de Paris, jusqu’à la prison du cardinal de Retz, arrivée en 1652. Avec les différens caractères des personnes, qui ont eu part à cette guerre. Edited by Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon. Cologne, 1709.

Editors' Bibliography 319 Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Frank Justus Miller. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984. Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Edited by Louis Lafuma. Paris: Seuil, 1962. _____. Pensées. Translated with an introduction by A. J. Krailsheimer. New York: Penguin, 1980. Perrault, Charles. Memoirs of My Life. Edited and translated by Jeanne Morgan Zarucchi. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989. _____. Perrault’s Tales of Mother Goose: The Dedication Manuscript Reproduced in Collotype Facsimile with Introduction and Critical Text. Edited by Jacques Barchilon. 2 vols. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1956. Perrault, Charles, François de la Mothe-Fénelon, Louis de Mailly, Jean de Préchac, and François-Timoléon de Choisy. Contes merveilleux. Edited by Tony Gheeraert. Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 4. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005. Ronsard, Pierre de. Oeuvres complètes. Edited by Gustave Cohen. 2 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1950. Scudéry, Madeleine de. La promenade de Versailles. Paris: C. Barbin, 1669. _____. The Story of Sapho. Translated by Karen Newman. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal de. Correspondance. Edited by Roger Duchêne. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. 3 vols. Paris: Gallimard, 1972–78. Vernon, Jean-Marie de. L’amazone chrétienne ou les aventures de Mme de Saint-Balmon. Edited by Darne Leduc. Paris: La Pensée Universelle, 1973. Villethierry, Jean Girard de. La vie des gens mariez ou les obligations qui s’engagent dans le mariage, prouvées par l’écriture, par les saints pères, et par les conciles. 4th ed. Paris: François Emery, 1709. Villiers, Pierre de. Entretiens sur les contes de fées, et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps. Pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût. Dediez à Messieurs de l’Academie Françoise. Paris: Jacques Collombat, 1699.

320 Editors' Bibliography _____. Entretiens sur les contes de fées, et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps, pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût. II. Entretien, Sur les petites comédies, et principalement sur les contes de fées, In L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique, ed. Rizzoni et Boch, 382–400. _____. Mémoires de la vie du comte D*** avant sa retraite rédigez par M. de Saint-Évremont. Paris: M. Brunet, 1696.

Secondary Sources Adam, Antoine. Histoire de la littérature française au XVIIe siècle. 5 vols. Paris: Del Duca, 1949–56. Ariès, Philippe. L’enfant et la vie familiale sous l’Ancien Régime. Paris: Seuil, 1973. Ayres, Brenda, ed. The Emperor’s Old Groove: Decolonizing Disney’s Magic Kingdom. Introduction by Susan Hines. New York: Peter Lang, 2003. Baader, Renate. Dames de lettres: Autorinnen des preziösen, hocharistokratischen und “modernen” Salons (1649–1698): Mlle de Scudéry, Mlle de Montpensier, Mme d’Aulnoy. Romanistische Abhandlungen. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1986. Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. Badinter, Elizabeth. L’amour en plus: Histoire de l’amour maternel XVIIe–XXe siècle. Paris: Flammarion, l980. Barchilon, Jacques. “Biographie de Madame d’Aulnoy,” In Contes, by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, edited by Jacques Barchilon and Philippe Hourcade, vol 1: v–xxv. 2 vols. Paris: Société des Textes Français Modernes, 1997. Beasley, Faith E. Revising Memory: Women’s Fiction and Memoirs in Seventeenth-Century France. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. _____. Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenth-Century France: Mastering Memory. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006. Bell, Elizabeth, Lynda Haas, and Laura Sells, eds. From Mouse to Mermaid: The Politics of Film, Gender, and Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.

Editors' Bibliography 321 Bellemin-Noël, Jean. Les contes et leurs fantasmes. Ecriture. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1983. Benson, Stephen, ed. Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008. Beugnot, Bernard. Discours de la retraite au XVIIe siècle. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998. Billacois, François. Le duel dans la société française des XVIe–XVIIe siècles: Essai de psychosociologie historique. Paris: Editions de l’EHESS, 1986. Boch, Julie. “Le conte en débats: introduction.” In L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690–1709), edited by Nathalie Rizzoni and Julie Boch, 327–51. Borgerhoff, E. B. O. The Freedom of French Classicism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950. Bottigheimer, Ruth B. Fairy Godfather: Straparola, Venice, and the Fairy Tale Tradition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. _____. Fairy Tales: A New History. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009. _____. “France’s First Fairy Tales: The Restoration and Rise Narratives of Les facetieuses nuictz du Seigneur François Straparole.” Marvels & Tales 19 no. 1 (2005): 17–31. _____. “Tale Spinners: Submerged Voices in Grimms’ Fairy Tale.” New German Critique: An Interdisciplinary Journal of German Studies 27 (Fall 1982): 141–50. Brockliss, Laurence, and Colin Jones. The Medical World of Early Modern France. Oxford: Clarendon Press, l997. Burke, Peter. The Fabrication of Louis XIV. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992. Butel, Paul. Histoire des Antilles françaises. Paris: Editions Perrin, 2007. Canepa, Nancy. From Court to Forest: Giambattista Basile’s Lo Cunto de li Cunti and the Birth of the Literary Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1999. Cixous, Hélène. Coming to Writing and Other Essays. Edited by Deborah Jenson. Translated by Sarah Cornell. Introduction by Susan Rubin Suleiman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991. Collinet, Jean-Pierre. Préface to Contes, by Charles Perrault, edited by Jean-Pierre Collinet, 7–46. Paris: Gallimard, 1981.

322 Editors' Bibliography Constans, Claire. Versailles, château de la France et orgueil des rois. Paris: Gallimard, l989. Cornette, Joël. Chronique du règne de Louis XIV. Paris: SEDES, 1997. Coulet, Henri. Le roman jusqu’à la Révolution. Paris: A. Colin, 1967. Courtès, Noémie. L’écriture de l’enchantement: Magie et magiciens dans la littérature française du XVIIe siècle. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2004. Cuénin, Micheline. Le duel sous l’Ancien Régime. Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1982. _____. “Mademoiselle, une amazone impure?” Papers in French Seventeenth-Century Literature 42 (1995): 25–36. Dauphiné, Christine. Charlotte-Rose Caumont de La Force, une romancière du XVIIe siècle. Périgueux: P. Fanlac, 1980. Davis, Amy M. Good Girls and Wicked Witches: Women in Disney’s Feature Animation. Eastleigh [UK]: John Libbey Publishers, 2006. DeGraff, Amy Vanderlyn. The Tower and the Well: A Psychological Interpretation of the Fairy Tales of Madame d’Aulnoy. Birmingham, AL: Summa Publications, 1984. Defrance, Anne. Les contes de fées et les nouvelles de Madame d’Aulnoy (1690–1698): L’imaginaire féminin à rebours de la tradition. Geneva: Droz, 1998. DeJean, Joan. Ancients Against Moderns: Culture Wars and the Making of a Fin de Siècle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. _____. Introduction to Histoire de la Marquise-Marquis de Banneville, by François-Timoléon de Choisy, Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon, and Charles Perrault. Texts and Translations,  vii–xxvi. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2004. _____. Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Delaporte, Victor. Du merveilleux dans la littérature française sous le règne de Louis XIV. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1968. Delarue, Paul. Introduction to Le conte populaire français: Catalogue raisonné des versions de France et des pays de langue française et d’outre-mer, edited by Paul Delarue and Marie-Louise Tenèze, 1:7–47. 4 vols. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2002. Deloffre, Frédéric. Introduction to Le petit-maître corrigé. Edited by Frédéric Deloffre, 11–143. Geneva: Droz, 1955.

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324 Editors' Bibliography Franko, Mark. Dance as Text: Ideologies of the Baroque Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. _____. “The King Cross Dressed: Power and Force in Royal Ballets.” In From the Royal to the Republican Body, edited by Sara Meltzer and Kathryn Norberg, 64–84. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Fumaroli, Marc. “Les abeilles et les araignées.” In La querelle des Anciens et des Modernes: XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles, edited by AnneMarie Lecoq, 7–220. Paris: Gallimard, 2001. _____. “L’empire des femmes, ou l’esprit de joie.” In La diplomatie de l’esprit: De Montaigne à La Fontaine, 321–39. Paris: Hermann, 1994. _____. “Les fées de Charles Perrault ou de la littérature.” In Le statut de la littérature: Mélanges offerts à Paul Bénichou, 153–86. Geneva: Droz, 1982. Furetière, Antoine. Dictionnaire universel. 1690. Marsanne: Redon, 1999. CD-ROM. Génetiot, Alain. Poétique du loisir mondain, de Voiture à La Fontaine. Lumière Classique. Vol. 14. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1997. Genette, Gérard. “Vraisemblance et motivation.” In Figures II, 71–99. Paris: Seuil, 1969. Gibson, Wendy. Women in Seventeenth-Century France. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989. Girard, René. The Scapegoat. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986. Godenne, René. Histoire de la nouvelle française aux 17e et 18e siècles. Geneva: Droz, 1970. Grussi, Olivier. La vie quotidienne des joueurs sous l’Ancien Régime à Paris et à la cour. Paris: Hachette, 1985. Haase, Donald, “Feminist Fairy-Tale Scholarship.” In Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches, edited by Donald Haase, 1–36. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2004. _____. ed. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folktales and Fairy Tales. 3 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007. Habib, Claude. Galanterie française. Paris: Gallimard, 2006. Hanley, Sarah. “Configuring the Authority of Queens in the French Monarchy, 1600s–1840s.” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 32, no. 2 (2006): 453–63.

Editors' Bibliography 325 _____. Les femmes dans l’histoire: La loi salique. Paris: Indigo et Côtéfemmes, 1994. Hannon, Patricia. Fabulous Identities: Women’s Fairy Tales in Seventeenth-Century France. Faux Titre, 151. Amsterdam; Atlanta: Rodopi, 1998. _____. “Feminine Voice and the Motivated Text: Madame d’Aulnoy and the Chevalier de Mailly.” Merveilles et Contes  2, no. 1 (1988): 13–24. Harries, Elizabeth Wanning. Twice Upon a Tale: Women Writers and the History of the Fairy Tale. Princeton: Princeton Univeristy Press, 2001. Harth, Erica. Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. Harris, Joseph. Hidden Agendas: Cross-Dressing in Seventeenth-Century France. Biblio 17, 156. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2005. Heilbrun, Carolyn G. Towards a Recognition of Androgyny. New York: Knopf, 1973. Hepp, Noémie. “A la recherche du mérite des dames.” In Destins et enjeux du XVIIe siècle, edited by Yves-Marie Bercé, 109–17. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1985. Hobsbawm, Eric, and Terence Ranger, eds. The Invention of Tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Hoffmann, Kathryn A. “Matriarchal Desires and the Labyrinths of the Marvelous: Fairy Tales by Old Regime Women.” In Women Writers in Pre-Revolutionary France: Strategies of Emancipation, edited by Colette H. Winn and Donna Kuizenga, 281–97. New York: Garland, 1997. _____. “Of Innocents and Hags: The Status of the Female in the Seventeenth-Century Fairy Tale.” Cahiers du Dix-Septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal 6, no. 2 (Fall 1992): 203–11. Hourcade, Philippe. Mascarades et ballets au Grand Siècle (1643– 1715). Paris: Editions Desjonquères, 2002. Husson, Hyacinthe. La chaîne traditionnelle: Contes et légendes du point de vue mythologique. Paris: A. Franck, 1874. Irigaray, Luce. Ce sexe qui n’en est pas un. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1977.

326 Editors' Bibliography _____. This Sex Which is Not One. Translated by Catherine Porter. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985. Jasmin, Nadine. “ ‘Amour, Amour, ne nous abandonne point’: La représentation de l’amour dans les contes de fées féminins du Grand Siècle.” In Tricentenaire Charles Perrault: Les grands contes du XVIIe siècle et leur fortune littéraire, edited by Jean Perrot, 213–34, Paris: In Press, 1998. _____. Introduction to Contes des fées, by Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’Aulnoy, edited by Nadine Jasmin, 67– 125. _____. “Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness of Aulnoy (c.1650–1705).” In The Teller’s Tale, ed. Sophie Raynard. _____. Naissance du conte féminin. Mots et merveilles: Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy (1690–1698). Lumière Classique. Vol. 44. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002. Jolles, Andre. Einfache Formen: Legende, Sage, Mythe, Rätsel, Spruch, Kasus, Memorabile, Märchen, Wirtz. Tübingen: M. Niemeyer, 1974. Jones, Christine. “The Poetics of Enchantment.” Marvels & Tales 17, no. 1 (2003): 55–74. Knoepflmacher, U. C. Ventures into Childland: Victorians, Fairy Tales, and Femininity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Lebrun, François. La vie conjugale sous l’Ancien Régime. Paris: Armand Colin, 1975. Lemirre, Elisabeth, ed. Le cabinet des fées: Contes. Arles: P. Picquier, 2000. Lewis, Philip. Seeing Through the Mother Goose Tales: Visual Turns in the Writings of Charles Perrault. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Lieberman, Marcia. “ ‘Some Day My Prince Will Come’: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale.” College English 34 (1972): 383– 95. Longino, Michèle. Orientalism in French Classical Drama. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Lurie, Alison. “Fairy Tale Liberation.” New York Review of Books (December 17, 1970): 42–44. Lyons, John. Before Imagination: Embodied Thought from Montaigne to Rousseau. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.

Editors' Bibliography 327 Maddox, Donald, and Sara Sturm-Maddox, eds. Melusine of Lusignan: Founding Fiction of Medieval France. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1996. Magnanini, Suzanne. “Postulated Routes from Naples to Paris: The Printer Antonio Bulifon and Giambattista Basile’s Fairy Tales in Seventeenth-Century France.” Marvels & Tales  21, no. 1 (2007): 78–92. Magné, Bernard. “Le chocolat et l’ambroisie: Le statut de la mythologie dans les contes de fées.” Cahiers de Littérature du XVIIe Siècle 2 (1980): 95–146. Mainil, Jean. Madame d’Aulnoy et le rire des fées: Essai sur la subversion féerique et le merveilleux comique sous l’Ancien Régime. Paris: Editions Kimé, 2001. Maître, Myriam. Les précieuses: Naissance des femmes de lettres en France au XVIIe siècle. Lumière Classique. Vol. 25. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999. Marchal, Roger. Madame de Lambert et son milieu. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1991. Marin, Catherine. “Féerie ou sorcellerie? Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy.” Merveilles et Contes 6, no. 1 (May 1992): 45–58. Marin, Louis. “Les enjeux d’un frontispice.” L’Esprit Créateur 29, no. 3 (Fall 1987): 49–57. _____. “Essai d’analyse structurale d’un conte de Perrault: Les fées.” In Etudes sémiologiques, 297–318. Paris: Klincksieck, 1971. _____. Le récit est un piège. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1978. McClure, Ellen M. Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006. Messbarger, Rebecca, and Paula Findlen, eds. The Contest for Knowledge: Debates over Women’s Learning in Eighteenth-Century Italy. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Mitchell, Jane Tucker. A Thematic Analysis of Mme d’Aulnoy’s “Contes de fées.” Romance Monographs. Vol. 30. University, MS: Romance Monographs, Inc., 1978. Moine, Marie-Christine. Les fêtes à la cour du Roi Soleil, 1653–1715. Paris: Editions Fernand Lanore, l984.

328 Editors' Bibliography Morlet-Chantalat, Chantal. La Clélie de Mademoiselle de Scudéry, de l’épopée à la gazette: Un discours féminin de la gloire. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1994. Mortier, Raoul, ed. Dictionnaire Encyclopédique Quillet. Paris: Librairie Aristide Quillet, 1950. Mukerji, Chandra. Territorial Ambitions and the Gardens of Versailles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Palacio, Jean de. Les perversions du merveilleux: Ma Mère l’Oye au tournant du siècle. Paris: Séguier, 1993. Palmer, Nancy B., and Melvin D. Palmer. “English Editions of French contes de fées in England.” Studies in Bibliography  27 (1974): 227–32. _____. “The French conte de fées in England.” Studies in Short Fiction 11, no. 1 (Winter 1974): 35–44. Patard, Geneviève. “De la quenouille au fil de la plume: Histoire d’un féminisme à travers les contes du XVIIe siècle en France.” In Tricentenaire Charles Perrault: Les grands contes du XVIIe siècle et leur fortune littéraire, edited by Jean Perrot, 235–43. Paris: In Press, 1998. _____. “Mme de Murat: La vogue du conte littéraire.” In Contes, by Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de Murat, edited by Geneviève Patard, 9–51. Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 3. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006. Pelous, Jean-Michel. Amour précieux, amour galant (1654–1675): Essai sur la représentation de l’amour dans la littérature et la société mondaines. Paris: Klincksieck, 1980. Peters, Jeffrey. Mapping Discord: Allegorical Cartography in Early Modern French Writing. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2004. Pillard, Guy “La femme aux serpents: Essai d’interprétation,” Bulletin de la Société de Mythologie Française 100 (January–March 1976): 22–28. Piva, Franco. “A la recherche de Catherine Bernard.” In Oeuvres de Catherine Bernard, edited by Franco Piva, 1:15–47. 2 vols. Fasano: Schena, 1993. Pritchard, James. In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670–1730. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Editors' Bibliography 329 Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Translated by Laurence Scott. Introduction by Svatava Pirkova-Jakobson. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. Raglan, Lord. The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth, and Drama. In In Quest of the Hero, edited by Robert A. Segal, 89–175. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990. Rak, Michele. Da Cenerentola a Cappucceto rosso: Breve storia illustrata della fiaba barocca. Milan: Bruno Mondadori, 2007. Raynard, Sophie. La seconde préciosité: Floraison des conteuses de 1690 à 1756. Biblio 17, 130. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 2002. _____, ed. The Teller’s Tale: Lives of the Classic Storytellers. Albany: SUNY Press, forthcoming. Reeser, Todd W. Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture. North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures. Vol. 283. Chapel Hill: UNC Department of Romance Languages, 2006. Ringham, Felizitas. “Riquet à la houppe: Conteur, conteuse.” French Studies: A Quarterly Review 52, no. 3 (1998): 291–304. Rizzoni, Nathalie, and Julie Boch, eds. L’âge d’or du conte de fées: De la comédie à la critique (1690–1709). Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 5. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2008. Robert, Marthe. Origins and the Novel. Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch. Brighton, Sussex: Harvester, 1980. Robert, Paul, ed. Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française. Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert, 1979. Robert, Raymonde. Le conte de fées littéraire en France de la fin du XVIIe siècle à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1982. _____, ed. Contes, by Marie-Jeanne L’Héritier de Villandon et al. Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées. Vol. 2. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2005. Robinson, David M.“The Abominable Madame de Murat.” In Homosexuality in French History and Culture, edited by Jeffrey Merrick and Michael Sibalis,  53–67. New York: Harrington Park Press, 2001. _____. Closeted Writing and Lesbian and Gay Literature: Classical, Early Modern, Eighteenth-Century. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.

330 Editors' Bibliography Roche-Mazon, Jeanne. Autour des contes de fées: Recueil d’études de Jeanne Roche-Mazon, accompagnées de pièces complémentaires. Etudes de littérature étrangère et comparée. Paris: Didier, 1968. Ronzeaud, Pierre. Peuple et représentations sous Louis XIV. Aix-enProvence: Presses Universitaires de Provence, 1988. Ross, Deborah. “Escape from Wonderland: Disney and the Female Imagination.” Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies 18, no. 1 (2004): 53–66. Rothkrug, Lionel. Opposition to Louis XIV. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965. Rousset, Jean. Leurs yeux se rencontrèrent: La scène de première vue dans le roman. Paris: Corti, l981. Rowe, Karen E. “To Spin a Yarn: The Female Voice in Folklore and Fairy Tale.” In Fairy Tales and Society: Illusion, Allusion, and Paradigm, edited by Ruth B. Bottigheimer, 53–74. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986. Rowlands, Guy. The Dynastic State and the Army Under Louis XIV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Sahlins, Peter. “Fictions of a Catholic France: The Naturalization of Foreigners, 1685–1787.” Representations, special issue, “National Cultures Before Nationalism” 47 (Summer 1994): 85–110. _____. Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004. Sala-Molins, Louis. Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002. Saint-Amand, Pierre. “Le triomphe des beaux: Petits-maîtres et jolis hommes au dix-huitième siècle.” L’Esprit Créateur 43, no. 3 (Fall 2003): 37–46. Schiebinger, Londa. The Mind Has No Sex. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Schiesari, Juliana. The Gendering of Melancolia: Feminism, Psychoanalysis and the Symbolics of Loss in Renaissance Literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992. Scholar, Richard. The Je-Ne-Sais-Quoi in Early Modern Europe: Encounters with a Certain Something. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Editors' Bibliography 331 Seifert, Lewis C. “Disguising the Storyteller’s Voice: Perrault’s Recuperation of the Fairy Tale.” Cincinnati Romance Review 8 (1989): 13–23. _____. “Entre l’écrit et l’oral: La réception des contes de fées ‘classiques’.” In Le conte en ses paroles: La figuration de l’oralité dans le conte merveilleux du classicisme aux Lumières, edited by Anne Defrance and Jean-François Perrin, 21–33. Paris: Desjonquères, 2007. _____. Fairy Tales, Sexuality, and Gender in France, 1690–1715: Nostalgic Utopias. Cambridge Studies in French. Vol. 55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. _____. “Les fées modernes: Women, Fairy Tales, and the Literary Field in Late Seventeenth-Century France.” In Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France, edited with an introduction by Elizabeth C. Goldsmith and Dena Goodman, 129– 45. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995. _____. “Madame Le Prince de Beaumont and the Infantilization of the Fairy Tale.” French Literature Series 31 (2004): 25–39. _____. Manning the Margins: Masculinity and Writing in SeventeenthCentury France. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. _____. “The Rhetoric of Invraisemblance: ‘Les enchantements de l’éloquence’.” Cahiers du Dix-Septième 3, no. 1 (1989): 121–39. Seifert, Lewis C., and Catherine Velay-Vallantin. “Comments on Fairy Tales and Oral Tradition.” Marvels & Tales  20, no.  2 (2006): 276–80. Sermain, Jean-Paul. Le conte de fées du classicisme aux Lumières. L’Esprit des Lettres. Paris: Editions Desjonquères, 2005. Showalter, English. The Evolution of the French Novel, 1641–1782. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972. Soriano, Marc. Les contes de Perrault: Culture savante et traditions populaires. Tel, 22. 1968. Paris: Gallimard, 1977. Spielmann, Guy. Le jeu de l’ordre et du chaos: Comédie et pouvoirs à la fin de règne, 1673–1715. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002. Stanton, Domna C. The Aristocrat as Art: A Study of the Honnête Homme and the Dandy in Seventeenth- and Nineteenth-Century French Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.

332 Editors' Bibliography _____. “The Demystification of History and Fiction in Villedieu’s Annales Galantes.” Papers in French Seventeenth-Century Literature, Biblio 17, no. 31 (1987): 1–32. _____. “The Fiction of Préciosité and the Fear of Women.” Yale French Studies 62 (1981): 107–34. _____. “From the Maternal Metaphor to Metonymy and History: Seventeenth-Century Discourses of Maternalism and the Case of Sévigné.” In The Mother in/and French Literature, edited by Buford Norman, 1–32. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2000. _____. “The Ideal of ‘Repos’ in Seventeenth-Century French Literature,” L’Esprit Créateur (Spring–Summer 1975): 79–104. _____. “The Monarchy, the Nation and its Others.” In Acts of the Colloquium on Imagology: The Other, Mugla University, Turkey, edited by Michel Bareau, 1–21. Alta, Canada: Alta Press, 2005. _____. “On the Predicatory Mouth: Problematics of Communication in Bossuet’s Oeuvres oratoires.” Papers on French SeventeenthCentury Literature IX (1982): 102–21. _____. “Recuperating Women and the Man Behind the Screen.” In Sexuality and Gender in Early Modern Europe: Institutions, Texts, Images, edited by James Grantham Turner, 247–65. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. _____. “Women as Object and Subject of Exchange: The Case of Marie de Gournay’s Le proumenoir, 1594.” L’Esprit Créateur 23, no. 2 (1983): 9–25. _____, ed. The Defiant Muse: French Feminist Poems from the Middle Ages to the Present. New York: The Feminist Press, 1986. Stanton, Domna C., and Rebecca M. Wilkin, eds. Gabielle Suchon: “A Woman who Defends all the Persons of her Sex.” Selected Philosophical and Moral Writings. The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Storer, Mary Elizabeth. Un épisode littéraire de la fin du XVIIe siècle: La mode des contes de fées (1685–1700). 1928. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1972. Stuurman, Siep. “Literary Feminism in Seventeenth-Century France: The Case of Antoinette de Salvan de Saliez,” Journal of Modern History 71, no. 1 (March 1999): 1–27.

Editors' Bibliography 333 Tenèze, Marie-Louise. “Du conte merveilleux comme genre.” Arts et Traditions Populaires 18 (1970): 11–65. Thirard-Legris, Marie-Agnès. Les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy: Une écriture de subversion. Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 1998. _____. “Les contes de Mlle de La Force: Un nouvel art du récit féerique à travers un exemple privilégié.” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature 27, no. 53 (2000): 573–85. Thirouin, Laurent. Le hasard et les règles: Le modèle du jeu dans la pensée de Pascal. Paris: Vrin, 1991. Thwaites, Reuben Gold, ed. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents. 73 vols. Cleveland: Burrows, 1896–1901. Tiflin, Jessica. Marvelous Geometries: Narrative and Metafiction in the Modern Fairy Tale. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2009. Timmermans, Linda. L’accès des femmes à la culture (1598–1715): Un débat d’idées de Saint François de Sales à la Marquise de Lambert. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1993. Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Translated by Richard Howard. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975. Traub, Valerie. The Renaissance of Lesbianism in Early-Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Tucker, Holly. Pregnant Fictions: Childbirth and the Fairy Tale in Early Modern France. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2003. Uther, Hans-Jörg. The Types of International Folktales: A Classification and Bibliography, Based on the System of Antti Aarne and Stith Thompson. 3 vols. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 2004. Vaz da Silva, Francisco. “The Invention of Fairy Tales.” Journal of American Folklore 123, no. 490 (Fall 2010): 398–425. Velay-Vallantin, Catherine. “Charles Perrault n’a jamais existé.” La Grande Oreille 18 (October 2003): 36–39. _____. La fille en garçon. Carcassone: Garae/ Hésiode, 1992. _____. L’histoire des contes. Paris: Fayard, 1991. _____. “Le miroir des contes: Perrault dans les Bibliothèques Bleues.” In Les usages de l’imprimé, edited by Roger Chartier,  130–85. Paris: Fayard, 1987.

334 Editors' Bibliography _____. “Le monument aux contes.” La Grande Oreille 38 (July 2009): 68–72. Vellenga, Carolyn. “Rapunzel’s Desire: A Reading of Mlle de la Force.” Merveilles et Contes 6, no. 1 (1992): 103–16. Verdier, Gabrielle. “De Ma Mère L’Oye à Mother Goose: La fortune des contes de fées littéraires français en Angleterre.” In Contacts culturels et échanges linguistiques au XVIIe siècle en France, 185– 202. Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 1997. _____. “Figure de la conteuse dans les contes de fées féminins.” XVIIe Siècle 180 (1993): 481–99. Viala, Alain. La France galante: Essai historique sur une catégorie culturelle, de ses origines jusqu’à la Révolution. Les Littéraires. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2008. _____. Naissance de l’écrivain: Sociologie de la littérature à l’âge classique. Le Sens Commun. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1985. Vincent, Monique. “Les deux versions de Riquet à la houppe: Catherine Bernard (mai 1696), Charles Perrault (octobre 1696).” Littératures Classiques, 25 (1995): 299–309. Warner, Marina, From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1995. _____, ed. Wonder Tales. Illustrated by Sophie Herxheimer. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996. Welch, Marcelle Maistre. “Le devenir de la jeune fille dans les contes de fées de Madame d’Aulnoy.” Cahiers du Dix-septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 53–62. _____. “L’éros féminin dans les contes de fées de Mlle de la Force.” In Actes de Las Vegas: Théorie dramatique, Théophile de Viau, Les contes de fées, edited by Marie-France Hilgar, 217–23. Paris: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 1991. Wilkin, Rebecca M. Women, Imagination, and the Search for Truth in Early Modern France. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008. Zipes, Jack. Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales in North America and England. New York: Methuen, 1986. _____. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2006.

Editors' Bibliography 335 _____, “Introduction: Towards a Definition of the Literary Fairy Tale.” In The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales, edited by Jack Zipes, xv–xxxii. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. _____. Relentless Progress: The Reconfiguration of Children’s Literature, Fairy Tales, and Storytelling. New York: Routledge, 2008. _____, ed. Beauties, Beasts, and Enchantment: Classic French Fairy Tales. New York: NAL Books, 1989. _____, ed. Fairy Tales and Fables from Weimar Days. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1989. _____, ed. The Great Fairy Tale Tradition: From Straparola and Basile to the Brothers Grimm: Texts, Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 2001.

Index

Adam, Antoine, 38n135 Aesop, 295n56 allegory, 299-300, 306–8 Amadis of Gaul, 20, 303, 308 amazons, 64n64, 111–12n168, 112, 112n169. See also Princess Little Carp ambassadors, 160n225 Ammenmärchen, 3 Andersen, Hans Christian, 3, 23 androgyny, 72n78 animal bride, 101, 175n256 animal groom, 55n32, 175n256 Anne of Austria, 112n169, 151n203 Apuleius (The Golden Ass), 2, 191 Ariosto, Ludovico (Frenzy of Orlando), 20, 50, 59n41, 303n77 Aristotle, 301n73 Atwood, Margaret, 2 Aubigné, Agrippa d’, 307n96 Aulnoy, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’, 3–4; acquaintance with other conteuses, 98, 232; best known of conteuses, 97; celebrated in her day, 97; membership in Accademia dei Ricovrati, 98; Murat on, 11, 98n130, 233n387; novels by, 99; portrait of, 102; reception of, 38n136; salons and, 6n17, 98; success as author, 97– 99; translations of works by, 3, 97; tumultuous life of, 98; works

of, 97; wrote first fairy tale of seventeenth-century vogue, 99. See also Babiole; The Beneficent Frog; The Doe in the Woods; The Dolphin; Dom Gabriel Ponce de Leon; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy; The Good Little Mouse; Isle of Felicity; The New Bourgeois Gentleman; New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion; The Orange Tree and the Bee; The Pigeon and the Dove; Prince Hobgoblin; Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved; Princess Little Carp; Prince Wild Boar; Story of Hypolitus, Count of Douglas; The Tales of the Fairies; The White Cat; Yellow Dwarf Auneuil, Louise de Bossigny, comtesse d’, 4 Babiole (d’Aulnoy), 27, 43n148, 151n202 Barchilon, Jacques, 39 Baret, Paul, 5n12 Basile, Giambattista (The Tale of the Tales): motif of sleeping beauty, 202n311; ogres in tales by, 109n162; source for The Doe in the Woods, 101n147; source for Marmoisan, 64; source for seventeenth-century French fairy tale, 15; title of La Force’s volume and, 190–91

337

338 Index

Bastide, Jean-François de, 5n12 Bavière, Marie-Anne-Victoire de, 190n281 Beauty and the Beast, 2, 36, 55n32 Bédacier, Catherine (née Durand), 4, 282n4 Bellegarde, Jean-Baptiste Morvan de, 35, 282 Bellerophon, 304n82 Beneficent Frog, The (d’Aulnoy), 32, 43n148, 237n398 Bernard, Catherine, 4; competition with Perrault, 50n16; competitions won by, 47; conversion of, 48; definition of fairy tale by, 30n105; financial difficulties of, 48; Fontenelle’s promotion of, 48; friendships with male writers, 48; gallant tales of, 49; membership in Accademia dei Ricovrati, 48; Mme de Maintenon and, 48–49; novels of, 47; pension of, 48; poetry of, 47–48; protestantism of, 48; religious devotion of, 48–49; reputation in lifetime of, 47–48; success of, 47–48; tragedies of, 47–48. See also fairy tales by Bernard; Inez of Cordoba; Prince Rosebush; Riquet with the Tuft Bibliothèque des Génies et des Fées, 4n9, 42 bienséance, la: associated with upper classes, 291n42; depiction of love and, 31; The Enchanter and, 210n322; translation of word,

44; as updating of ancients, 195n295 Bignon, Jean-Paul, 4 Boch, Julie, 23 Boiardo, Matteo, 20, 303n77 Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas: Dialogue on the Heroes of Novels, 288n32; mockery of The Maiden, 307n92; notion of “gothic,” 194n293; on Christian marvelous, 303n80; on nature, 309n101; Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns and, 12; Satire X, 52n22, 61; views on collections of letters and poetry, 295n55 Boissy, Louis de, 5n12 Bottigheimer, Ruth, 15n50 Bouhours, Dominique, 81n98, 283n8 Bouillon, Godfrey of, 290 Bret, Antoine, 5n12 Briou, Charles de, 190 Burke, Peter, 216n339 Burton, Robert, 144n198 Byatt, A. S., 2 Cabinet des fées, Le (Mayer), 36n124 Carter, Angela, 2 Castiglione, Baltasar, 197n303 Caylus, Anne-Claude-Philippe de, 5n12 Cazotte, Jacques, 5n12 Cervantes, Miguel de, 307n96 Chapelain, Jean, 307n92 Charles V, 305 Charles VII, 307

Index 339

Cheder’les, 304n82 Chevrier, François-Antoine, 5n12 Choisy, François-Timoléon de, 3, 64n62 Chrétien de Troyes, 66n64, 194n294, 228n372 Child and the Snake, The (ATU 285), 210n321 childlessness, 151n203 Chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin, 305n85 Cixous, Hélène, 11 Clément, Catherine, 11 Clever Princess, The (L’Héritier): allusion to Murat in, 7, 232n382; childhood stories evoked in, 15; conversational aesthetic in, 24; didacticism of, 63; medieval setting of, 290 Code Noir, 259n450 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 187–88n271 Collinet, Jean-Pierre, 4–5n11 colonialism, early modern European, 166n242, 187n271 “coming to writing,” 11 Comparison of the Ancients and the Moderns (Perrault), 12 Comte, Natalis, 307 conte de fées. See fairy tale; fairy tale, eighteenth-century French; fairy tale, seventeenth-century French; fairy tale, seventeenthcentury French, by women; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy; fairy tales by Bernard; fairy tales by La Force; fairy tales by L’Héritier; fairy tales by Murat

contes de ma mère l’oye, 3 contes de vieilles, 3 conteuses, 4; as fairies, 27; female friendships of, 7; influence of, 5; invent tradition, 15; list of tales by, 311–13; model for fairy tale by, 5; neglect of, 4–5; salons and, 6nn16–17; scandals of, 6–7; self-awareness as women writers, 6. See also d’Aulnoy; Bernard; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy; fairy tales by Bernard; fairy tales by La Force; fairy tales by L’Héritier; fairy tales by Murat; La Force; L’Héritier; Murat conversational aesthetic, 24, 63 Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works (Villiers), 294–310; Aesopian fables as model for fairy tales, 284, 295–96, 301; allegory and fairy tales, 299n66, 300, 306–7; art of captivating not mentioned in, 302n75; attribution of Perrault’s prose tales in, 309n103; d’Aulnoy’s disdain for fairy tales, 295; children as audience for fairy tales in, 296n58; Christian duties in fairy tales, 303; Christian marvelous refused in, 303n80; Chronicle of the Pseudo-Turpin in, 305n85; cleverness needed to imitate nurses’ storytelling, 309; critique of conteuses, 284–85; euhemerism in, 300n71;

340 Index

fairies, 298–99; fairy tales and sermons, 302–3; fairy tales as imitation of nursemaids’ storytelling, 285; fairy tales as property of women, 297; fairy tales, negative view of, 281, 294, 309; fictional stories of saints’ lives, 304; folktales versus fables in, 296n59; gods of Greek and Roman mythology as allegory, 300; hagiographers mentioned in, 305n84; history of saints purged of myths, 305; humorous fairy tales possible, 284; instruction and correction as purpose of fairy tales, 295, 297; lack of moral lessons in fairy tales, 284, 301; length of fairy tales, 301; lesson of Donkeyskin, 303; maxims in fairy tales, 301; Melusine tale as allegory, 300; moral potential of supernatural, 284; Noël Le Comte or Natalis Comte’s interpretation of mythology, 307, 307n90; origins of fairy tales, 297–300; Perrault’s prose tales praised, 309; persuasion and instruction as goals for preachers, 302; reason and sense necessary in fairy tales, 296; religion banished from fiction, 303; satire as original function of fairy tales, 306; sources of marvelous in fairy tales, 298; talent and instruction needed to captivate, 308–9;

talent versus knowledge in, 308n100; Turks referenced in, 304n83; unity of action necessary in fairy tales, 301; wit and erudition necessary in fairy tales, 296; women capable of better fairy tales, 297; “wordly” form of, 283n8. See also Villiers coquette, 70n74, 85, 88, 157n218 Corneille, Pierre, plays by: allusions to, by d’Aulnoy, 21n64; Bernard and, 48; duel in Le Cid, 266n464; generosity, 138n196; heroism in, 219n348; honor in, 74n84 Country Trip, The (Murat), 24, 25n82 court, seventeenth-century French: ballets performed at, 90n116, 157n220, 259n449; carrousels at, 76n89; courtiers criticized, 159n224; fêtes galantes at, 76–77n90; lack of freedom at, 57n37; tournaments at, 53n28, 89n113, 263n460 Crébillon, Claude-Prosper de, 5n12 cross-dressing: discovery of biological sex in, 90n115; fictions, 77n92; in early modern wars, 64; in seventeenthcentury theater, 64. See also Marmoisan cuentos de viejas, 3 Cupid, 19 Cyrano de Bergerac, Savinien, 306n89

Index 341

Dark Tower and the Luminous Days, The (L’Héritier), 20n61, 25n82 Defrance, Anne, 41 Delarue, Paul, 22n69, 38 Demetrius of Phalerum, 296n56 Descartes, René, 221n357 Deshoulières, Antoinette Ligier de la Garde, 61n44, 189 Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin, Jean, 304n80 Deulin, Charles, 38 Diana, 240n408 Dictionnaire de l’Académie Française, definitions in: gothique, 287n27; naturel, 108n161 Diderot, Denis, 5n12, 77n91 Doe in the Woods, The (d’Aulnoy), 151–88; ambassadors in, 160n225; animal bride motif in, 101; annunciation to the Virgin echoed in, 153n208; apple as symbol of temptation in, 179n263; aristocratic romanticism in, 177n259; art versus nature in, 155n215; black-and-white bride motif in, 101; childlessness in, 151n202; choice of marriage partner in, 100; colonialism alluded to, 166n242, 187n271; coquette, 157n218; courtiers criticized in, 159n224; courtship as hunt in, 100; egalitarian marriage in, 188n272; excessive love in, 165n239; exchange of portraits in, 100; exoticism in, 167n246; false heroine in,

171n252; favorite and master relationship in, 161n228; female ugliness in, 152n206, 166n240, 166n243, 172n253; feminine ideal in, 164n235; foreigners in, 151n205, 154n211; frequently reprinted, 101n149; Louis XIV and Versailles alluded to, 153nn209–10, 157nn219–20; love in, 100–101; lovesickness of hero in, 28; Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie alluded to, 158n221, 169n250; metamorphosis in, 100–101; misogynistic stereotypes in, 181n265; muteness of heroine in, 175n256; narrator as historian in, 185n269; neologisms in, 178n261; nursing in, 156n216; onomastics in, 161n226, 165n238, 167n247, 175n257; portraits in, 159n223, 167n233; racial stereotypes in, 166nn240–41, 166n243, 167n247; rhetoric of love mocked in, 180n264; selfreflexivity in, 178n262; sexual symbolism in, 179n263, 182n267; surprise at magic in, 152n206; royal entry of Louis XIV and Marie-Thérèse echoed in, 162n232; royal marriage in, 151n202; spinning and sewing as metaphors for writing in, 155n213; Sublime Porte in, 166n244; suffering male lover topos in, 159n223; tenderness

342 Index

in, 164n234; voyeurism in, 184n268; wealth as rank in, 161n227, 162n231; white doe as symbol in, 170n251; women’s “natural” eloquence in, 185n270. See also d’Aulnoy; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy Dolphin, The (d’Aulnoy), 233n387 Dom Gabriel Ponce de Leon (d’Aulnoy), 9–10, 24n82 Donkeyskin (Perrault), 4n10, 12, 184n268, 303 Donoghue, Emma, 2 Dreuillet, la présidente, 5n12 Duclot, Charles, 5n12 duels, 266n464 dulce et utile, 21, 284, 302n75 Durand, Catherine Bédacier, née, 4, 282n4 education, seventeenth-century, 72n81 elegance, 47n6 Elias, Norbert: aristocratic romanticism, 116n173, 177n259; civilizing process, 16; The Civilizing Process, 85n108; Elysian Fields, 279n489 Enchanter, The (La Force), 194–212; beheading test in, 194n294; la bienséance in, 195n295, 210n322; Caradoc as source for, 194n294; eroticism in, 31; final moral in, 9–10, 192; hero of, 27, 271n470; illustration from 1697 edition of, 209; Isène as Isolde, 195n297; jealous husband theme

in, 194n294; maternal milk as symbol in, 210n321; medieval romance and, 20, 194n294; medieval setting of, 192; moral ambiguity of, 192, 212n327; motif of suffering to save another in, 208n319; notion of “gothic” and, 194n293, 202n313; paragraphs of, 45; past versus present in, 202n313; patricide in, 199n304; Perceval (Chrétien de Troyes) not source for, 194n294; qualities of ideal knight in, 200n306; sexual relations in, 196n301; skills of prince in, 197n303; slaves in, 196n300; snake on woman’s breast motif in, 210n321; surgeons mentioned in, 205n318; symbolism of serpent in, 205n317; unconventional nature of, 192; voyeurism in, 211n324; woman in tower motif in, 202 Enchantments of Eloquence, The (L’Héritier): activity of heroine in, 27; commentary on fairy tales in, 282n4; The Fairies (Perrault) and, 50n16; female eloquence in, 33, 63; heroine’s sisters in, 70n75; motif of hunter in forest in, 274n481; Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns and, 12, 298n64; test of protagonist in, 124n180 Epernon, duchesse d’, 34, 64 euhemerism, 300n71

Index 343

fables: compared to folktale by Perrault, 12; conteuses’ references to, by La Fontaine, 21; La Fontaine’s, source for d’Aulnoy, 99; L’Héritier on La Fontaine’s, 16n53; source for conteuses, 15, 25; Villiers on Aesopian, 283, 284 Fagnan, Marie-Antoinette, 5n12 fairies: allegory and, 299–300; as characters in fairy tales by conteuses, 26–27, 234, 237n400; etymology of, 298; as figures for conteuses, 11, 27, 253n442; as old women with power against ghosts, 299; powerless over love, 234; powers of, 26; predictions of, 51n20, 234; as soothsayers, 298; used by persons of illustrious origins, 299. See also Princess Little Carp; Wasted Effort Fairies, The (Perrault), 124n180 fairy tale: animal bridegroom tale, 55n32; attractions between human and vegetable in, 54n31; as children’s genre, 37; “compact” versus “complex,” 24, 36, 37; definition of, 3; dwarfs in, 271n469; English word derived from French, 3; feminist criticism of, 1–2, 1–2n3; hierarchy of magical powers in, 274n479; iconography and, 1, 2; imprecise setting, 68n70; jealous sister motif, 241n414;

magical change of appearance in, 216n338; marriage in, 2; metamorphosis in, 50; old women in, 152n207; physical deformity in, 103n150; publication in periods of crisis, 9; sexual implications in, 54n30; sibyls and, 2; sisters in love with same man motif in, 247n432; spindle in, 129n187; tests in, 83n102, 124n180; tropes in, 55n34; Victorian English, 9; women’s association with, 1–3; women’s movements and, 1–2 fairy tale, eighteenth-century French, 5, 36 fairy tale, seventeenth-century French: civilizing function of, 16; crafted without concern for rules, 281; dulce et utile in, 21, 284, 302n75; ethical justification of, in seventeenth century, 283–84; as “feminine” genre, 13; folklorists on, 14n47, 21–22, 38; frontispieces in, 16–18; influence of La Fontaine on, 16n53, 21, 99, 117n175; influence of opera and machine plays on, 21, 25–26, 29, 111n168, 224n366; intercalated verses in, 51n20; island as refuge for women in, 57n38; Italian influences on, 15; lack of moral lessons in, according to seventeenth-century critics, 284; little critical commentary on, in seventeenth century,

344 Index

281; love most prominent theme in, 100; as minor genre, 67n67, 281; modernism of, 11–13, 20–21, 61–62, 282, 287n26; moral lessons of, 9–10; nationalism of, 11; novels influence on, 21–23; opening scene in, 51n20; oral tradition and, 15n50, 16, 63–64, 66n63, 99, 101, 283; past versus present in, 202n313, 213n329; pietism of Louis XIV’s reign and, 8; portraits in, 53n27; Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns and critique of, 282; signs of noble birth in, 115n172; speculation about origins of, in seventeenth century, 283; toponyms in, 57n38; women’s relation to, according to seventeenth-century critics, 285. See also Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works; fairy tale, seventeenth-century French, by women; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy; fairy tales by Bernard; fairy tales by La Force; fairy tales by L’Héritier; fairy tales by Murat; Letter to Madame D.G.; Perrault fairy tale, seventeenth-century French, by women (conteuses): Basile as source for, 15, 64, 101n147, 109n162, 190–91, 202n311; beauty linked to intelligence in, 239n403; la bienséance in, 31, 44, 195n295,

210n322, 291n42; characters in, 26–34; chivalry in, 20; choice of marriage partner in, 93n121, 272n474; civilizing process and, 16, 30; complex form of, 23–24, 37; complicity and distance in, 13–14; conversational aesthetic of, 24, 63; critiques of, by folklorists, 37–38; critiques of, in seventeenth century, 34–35; as defense of fashionable secular society, 8, 11; distance from lower class storytellers in, 14–15, 19, 283; eighteenthcentury editions of, 36n124; elitism of, 11, 32; endings in, 32, 33, 233; English translations of, 43; as escapist fantasy, 8; expression of surprise at magic in, 152n206; fairies in, 26–27, 237n400; fathers in, 28, 72n80; features of, 26–34; folklore as source for, 14–16, 22, 37, 191, 283n10; frame narratives and, 24–26; la galanterie in, 29–30; girl removed from men motif in, 213n330; heroes in, 27–28; heroines in, 27, 32–33; hunter lost in forest motif in, 274n481; ignored, 38–39; individual and collective interests in, 11; intelligence of heroines in, 30–31; intertexts in, 13–25; kings in, 26, 28, 100, 101; lack of moral lessons in, according to Villiers, 284; length of, 22, 24n81; love in, 21, 29–34; magic

Index 345

in, 3, 21, 63; male infidelity in, 28; marriage in, 28–29, 33, 49–50, 121, 212n326, 233, 259n452, 260n453; Middle Ages in, 20, 192, 236n395, 290; new critical editions of, 42; novel/nouvelles as intertext for, 21–23; onomastics in, 26; parody in, 25; plot situations of, 28–29; popularity of, 11, 34–35, 37n130; powerlessness of fairies over love in, 234; power of heroines in, 32–33; proper names in, 26; Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns and, 253–54n442, 282, 287n26, 303n80; reception of, 34–42; rediscovery of, after 1968, 39; salons and, 5–6; self-reflexivity in, 178n262; seventeenthcentury French literary models for, 21; social and political realities in, 8; Straparola as source for, 14–15, 64, 233; as trivial entertainment, 10–11; unhappy endings of, 28–29, 32, 234; verisimilitude and, 22–23; as vogue, 34–35; women’s interests promoted in, 9; women represented in, 32–34; writing as leisure in, 11. See also Babiole; The Beneficent Frog; The Clever Princess; conteuses; Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works; The Doe in the Woods; The Dolphin; Donkeyskin;

The Enchanter; The Enchantments of Eloquence; The Fairies; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy; fairy tales by Bernard; fairy tales by La Force; fairy tales by L’Héritier; fairy tales by Murat; The Good Little Mouse; Green and Blue; Griselidis; Happy Pain; The Isle of Felicity; The Land of Delights; Letter to Mme D.G.; Little Eel; Marmoisan; marvelous; mythology; The Orange Tree and the Bee; The Pigeon and the Dove; The Pig King; The Power of Cupid; The Prince of Leaves; Prince Rosebush; Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved; Prince Hobgoblin; Princess Little Carp; Prince Wild Boar; The Ridiculous Wishes; Riquet with the Tuft; Sleeping Beauty; The Speaking Portrait; The Turbot; Wasted Effort; The White Cat; The Yellow Dwarf fairy tales by Aulnoy, MarieCatherine Le Jumel de Barneville, baronne d’, 97n126; active heroines in, 101; ambiguous morals in, 99; ambiguous

346 Index

relation to oral tradition in, 99; ambivalence toward genre in, 99; animal-groom tales in, 100n139; collections of, 97n126, 99; conventional and unconventional treatments of love, 100; Cupid in, 19; fairies’ roles in, 100–101; grateful animal motif in, 237n398; hyperbolic descriptions in, 99; influence of folkloric tale-types on, 99n137; influence of La Fontaine’s fables on, 99; irony in, 99–100; love as focus of, 100; male characters’ weakness in, 101; metamorphosis in, 100; mystery of protagonists’ identity in, 116n174; ogres in, 109n162; onomastics in, 26; republication of, 97, 98n132; return to the land in, 116n173; reworked stories of lower classes in, 99; royal protagonists in, 99; speech of animal brides and grooms in, 175n256; spinning and sewing as metaphor for writing in, 155n213; stylistic registers in, 100. See also d’Aulnoy; Babiole; The Beneficent Frog; The Doe in the Woods; The Dolphin; The Good Little Mouse; The Isle of Felicity; The Orange Tree and the Bee; The Pigeon and the Dove; Prince Hobgoblin; Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved; Princess Little Carp;

Prince Wild Boar; The White Cat; The Yellow Dwarf fairy tales by Bernard, Catherine, 49; dystopic elements in, 50; embedded, 49; fewer than other conteuses, 49; implausible adventures in, 49; influence of La Fayette on, 47; irony in, 47, 50; love in, 49–50; marriage in, 49–50; maxims in, 49; natural feelings in, 49; psychological realism of, 49; republished in eighteenth century, 49; unhappy endings in, 49–50; women’s responsibility in unhappy love in, 49–50. See also Bernard; Prince Rosebush; Riquet with the Tuft fairy tales by La Force, CharlotteRose de Caumont de, 190–91; Apuleius’ The Golden Ass and, 191; Basile and, 191; complex narrative structure of, 191; diverse range of, 191; eroticism in, 191, 191n288; Greek and Roman mythology and, 191; love in, 191; original plots of, 191; Perceval and, 191; title of collection of, 190–91. See also The Enchanter; Green and Blue; La Force; The Land of Delights; The Power of Cupid fairy tales by L’Héritier de Villandon, Marie-Jeanne, 61; conversational aesthetic in, 24, 63; dedication to women of, 63; defense of feminine virtues

Index 347

in, 63; didactic tone of, 63; digressions and descriptions in, 63; embedded, 63; fairy tale’s history and aesthetic in, 61; female vices in, 70n75; narrative voice of, 63; opposition to idleness in, 63; praise of caution in, 63; social critique in, 63; topical references in, 63. See also The Clever Princess; The Dark Tower and the Luminous Days; The Enchantments of Eloquence; L’Héritier de Villandon; Marmoisan fairy tales by Murat, Henriette-Julie de Castelnau, comtesse de, 233–34; final morals absent in, 233; folklore as source for, 233; love and marriage in, 233; powerlessness of fairies over love in, 234; scientific discussions in, 233–34; Straparola as source for, 233; unhappy endings of, 233. See also Happy Pain; Litle Eel; Murat; The Pig King; The Prince of Leaves; The Turbot; Wasted Effort Facetious Nights, The (Straparola), 14–15, 64, 233 Falques, Marianne-Agnès, 5n12 false hero/heroine, 171n252 fata, 26 fathers, 28, 72n80, 199n304, 272n474 Faydit, Pierre-Valentin, 35, 282 femininity, seventeenth-century

notions of: female glory, 219n348; female heroism, 138n196; honnête fille, 56n36,164n235; misogyny, 181n265; modesty, 56n36; obedience, 129n188. See also heroines; mothers; women Fénelon, François de Salignac de la Mothe-, 4, 35n118, 36n125, 116n173 Flora, 240n409 folklore: etiological tale, 60n43; idealization of, by Grimms, 37; L’Héritier and Villiers on, 283n10; motifs in, 52n23, 53n29; non-category in seventeenth century, 22; princess kept in tower in, 52n23; as source for conteuses, 14–16; as source for La Force, 191 Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier de, 48, 306–7n89 Force, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La. See La Force, CharlotteRose de Caumont Fougeret de Monbron, LouisCharles, 5n12 Fouquet, Nicolas, 153n209 frame narrative, 24–25 Francis I, 305 friendship, seventeenth-century, 222n362 Furetière, Antoine, dictionary of: aigle, 106n155, 107n158; allégorie, 299n66; becafigue, 161n226; carpillon, 117n175;

348 Index

carrousel, 76n89; connoisseur, 292n47; coquette, 70n74; devise, 263n461; écrevisse, 156n217; fable, 300n69; fée, 298n64; feston, 245n426; inclination, 78n94, 78n95; marmoisan, 66n63; myrte, 248n436; pélican, 221n357; prudence, 300n68; tablette, 248n435 galant: as elegant, 47n6; homme, 58n40; tales, 49 galanterie, la, 29 gambling, 69n71 Gassendi, Pierre, 221n357 Good Little Mouse, The (d’Aulnoy), 237n398 Gournay, Marie de, 307n96 Green and Blue (La Force), 213–30; choice of marriage partner in, 215n334; eroticism in, 192; etiological detail in, 215n335, 224n366; exoticism in, 216n339, 222n360; friendship in, 222n362; gardens of Versailles mentioned in, 225n367; girl removed from men motif in, 213n330; “head in clouds” cliché in, 213n331; instinctual judgment of heroine in, 220n353; love as weakness in, 219n349; love plot in, 31; love versus merit in, 219n350, 221n356; magic in, 214n333; notion of glory in, 219n348; obelisk in, 216n339; opera mentioned in, 224n366; past

versus present in, 213n329; pelican as symbol of selfsacrifice in, 221n357; perfect lover ideal in, 223n363; popular belief depicted in, 192; possible allusion to Henri IV in, 229n375; possible allusion to Louis XIV in, 229n375; Pygmalion myth in, 218n347; questions d’amour in, 218n344; signs of wonders in, 214n332; tenderness in, 218n342; vegetal metamorphosis in, 222n358; veil of illusion in, 216n338; voyeurism in, 220n351; wager tale, 192 Grenailles, François de, 56n36 Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm: black-and-white bride motif, 101n147; “compact” model of, 23; Rapunzel, 52n23, 195n296, 270n468; on seventeenthcentury French fairy tale, 37; synonymous with fairy tale, 3 Griselidis (Perrault), 4n10 Gomez, Madeleine-Angélique de, 5n12 Gueullette, Thomas-Simon, 5n12 Hamilton, Antoine, 5n12, 189 Hannon, Patricia, 24n81, 40–41 Happy Pain (Murat), 29, 192n291, 312 Harries, Elizabeth, 23–24, 25 Hebe, 240n411 Henri III, 94n123 Henri IV, 229n375

Index 349

Héritier de Villandon, Marie-Jeanne l’. See L’Héritier de Villandon, Marie-Jeanne Herodotus, 295–96n56 heroes, 27–28, 271n470, 299n65, 300 heroines, 27, 32–33, 101, 239n403 history, seventeenth century: chronique, 69n72; official versus private, 69–70n72; Villedieu’s appropriation of, 79n72 honnêteté, l’: as ethical behavior and courtesy, 167n245; habiles gens and, 308n99; honnête fille, 56n36, 164n235; Méré and, 47n6; pudeur and, 56n36; translation of word, 44 Horace, 292n45 Huet, Pierre-Daniel, 283 Husson, Hyacinthe, 306n88 Hymenaeus, 259n452 imagination, 218n346 implausibility, 49 inclination, 78n94, 85n106 Inez of Cordoba (Bernard), 24n82, 49 Isle of Felicity, The (d’Aulnoy), 24n82, 28n96, 99n133 Janus, 300 Jasmin, Nadine, 30, 41n144, 42, 44, 99n138 je ne sais quoi, le, 98n81 Jerusalem Delivered (Tasso), 20, 290, 303n77 Jolles, André, 21–22

judgment of Paris, 123n179 Juno, 239n405 Jupiter, 300 Juvenal, 292n45 kings, as characters in fairy tales, 26, 28, 100, 101 La Bruyère, Jean de (Les caractères), 13n45, 69n71 La Fontaine, Jean de (Fables): The Animals Afflicted by the Plague, 109n165; animals anthropomorphized in, 107n156; L’Héritier on, 16n53; The Little Fish and the Fisherman, 117n175; The Man and the Snake, 221n357; model for d’Aulnoy, 99; model for seventeenth-century French fairy tales, 21 La Force, Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de, 4; Antoine Hamilton and, 189, 189n278; Antoinette Deshoulières and, 189, 189n278; celebrity of, compared to other conteuses, 189; Charles de Briou and, 190; early involvement with vogue of fairy tales of, 190; exile of, 190; games of metamorphoses and, 6; lady-in-waiting at court, 190; member of Accademia dei Ricovrati, 189; novels by, 189; piety of, 190; poetry by, 189; protestant aristocratic family of, 190; related to

350 Index

Murat, 190; salons attended by, 6n17; scandals of, 190; wit and intelligence of, recognized, 189. See also The Enchanter; fairy tales by La Force; Green and Blue; The Land of Delights; Persinette; The Power of Cupid Lambert, Anne-Thérèse de, 98 La Morlière, chevalier de, 5n12 Land of Delights, The (La Force), 191 Lassay, marquise de, 5n12 La Tour du Pin, Phyllis de, 66n64, 98 la Vigne, Anne de, 288n32 Le Bossu, René, 301n73 Le Brun, Charles, 153n209 Le Moyne, Pierre, 112n169, 290 Le Noble, Eustache, 4 Le Nôtre, André, 153n209 Le Prince de Beaumont, MarieJeanne, 5n12, 36 L’Estoile, Pierre de, 307n96 Letter to Madame D.G.*** (L’Héritier de Villandon), 286–91; adaptation of popular oral tales, 291; aesthetic of “casualness” in, 292n51; attitude toward attacks in, compared to other women writers, 292n48; conception of writer in, 291n43; conteuses referred to, 287; criticism inevitable for writers, 291; critics of fairy tales dismissed, 281; decorum of fairy tales, 284; fairy tale as adaptation of oral storytelling, 283, 284; fairy tales as reaction

to novellas, 289; fairy tales derived from proverbs, 286; Huet on origin of novels, 287–88; identity of Madame D.G. in, 286n20; instruction of young people as goal of popular tales, 287; medieval setting of The Clever Princess, 290; Middle Ages evoked, 287–88, 289–90; modern expression versus past deeds, 291; moral decadence of present, 287; moral impropriety of popular oral storytelling, 290; moral purpose of L’Héritier’s works, 289–90; moral purpose of storytelling for children, 288; moral renewal from imitation of ancient Gaul, 289; novellas as decadent novels, 289; oral storytelling restricted to children in, 286n21; oral storytelling restricted to didacticism in, 286n22; origins of fairy tale, 282, 283; Parisian refinement as model for fairy tale in, 285; Paris versus provinces in, 292n50; Perrault’s verse tales praised, 289; The Princess of Clèves praised, 289; storytelling for children derived from troubadours, 288; troubadours as originators of novels, 288; troubadours as storytellers, 287–88; troubadours’ storytelling perfected by Scudéry, 288; “wordly” form, 283n8. See

Index 351

also fairy tales by L’Héritier; L’Héritier de Villandon; Marmoisan Levesque, Louise, 5n12 L’Héritier de Villandon, MarieJeanne, 4; acquainted with Murat, 232; admitted to Académie des Lanternistes, 62; advocate of women’s writing 61; biographical information on, 62n54, 63; childhood stories mentioned by, 15; competition with Perrault, 50n16; conversational esthetic of, 24, 63; defense of women’s writing against Boileau by, 61; defiantly single, 62; education of, 62; father of, historiographer for Louis XIV, 62; genres of writing by, 61; honorary membership in Accademia dei Ricovrati, 62; interest in Middle Ages, 61; memoir of Duchesse de Nemours edited by, 61; moral rectitude of, 62; Murat and, 7n21, 24; patrons of, 62; poems dedicated to women by, 61n44; portrait of, 65; position in Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, 12, 61–62; possible collaboration with the Abbé de Choisy, 64n62; possible collaboration with Perrault, 64n62; praise for Perrault’s imitation of women’s storytelling, 285n18; prizes and competitions won by, 62;

related to Perrault, 62; renown of, 62; royal pension of, 62; salons attended by, 6n17, 61– 62; self-awareness as woman writer, 7–8; self-reflexivity in, 24; translation of Ovid’s Heroids by, 61; unscandalous life of, 62; Villiers versus, on origin of fairy tales, 298n62. See also The Clever Princess; The Dark Tower and Luminous Days; The Enchantments of Eloquence; fairy tales by L’Héritier; Letter to Mme D.G.; Marmoisan Lieberman, Marcia, 1 Lintot, Catherine de, 5n12 literature, seventeenth-century French: art versus nature in, 155n215; beautiful prisoner trope in, 82n101; consciousness of class differences in, 133n194; cross-dressing in, 64; first glance of lovers in, 130n189; love as weakness in, 92n120; love for children in, 72n79; marriage in, 52n21, 60n42, 93n121; maxims in fictional texts of, 52n25; negligence as concept in, 91n118; sight of the beloved in, 262n455; signs of emotional disorder in, 56n35; spindle as emblem in, 129n187; submissive lover in, 58n39; theme of education in, 52n24 Little Eel (Murat), 236–68; duel in, 266n464; ennui in, 243n420; eros versus thanatos in,

352 Index

256n447; etiological detail in, 241n415; exoticism in, 254n443; grateful animal motif in, 237n398; grotto as lover’s space in, 258n448; heart over reason in, 265n463; Hebe, onomastics of, 240n411; heroine’s beauty equated with intelligence in, 239n403; heroine’s intelligence in, 27; indifference opposite of passion in, 263n458; jealous sisters motif in, 241n414; love and marriage in, 260n453; love as antithesis of freedom in, 253n440; love as dangerous in, 243n420; lovers transformed into trees in, 234; Melusine myth in, 236nn396–97; men’s infidelity in, 28, 272n474; metamorphosis in, 236n396, 269n466; motif of fairies common in past in, 237n400; nature in, 242nn418–19; nonfolkloric roots of, 233; perpetual peace in, 246n431; powerlessness of fairies over love in, 234; The Princess of Clèves alluded to, 234, 262nn456–57, 263n459; reference to d’Aulnoy in, 7n21, 98n130, 253n442; “savage” in, 259n450; sight of beloved in, 262n455; sisters’ rivalry for same man motif in, 247n432; sleeping beauty motif in, 254n444; symbolic geography

of love in, 253n441; three wishes motif in, 238n401; tournament in, 263n460; tranquility versus passion in, 244n424; translation of, 45; unhappy love in, 234; women’s “natural” eloquence in, 238n402. See also fairy tales by Murat; Murat Little Misses’ Magazine, or Dialogues of a Wise Governess with her Students (Beaumont), 36 Louis XIII, 151n202 Louis XIV: allusions to, in The Doe in the Woods, 153n209, 157nn219–20; ambassadors and, 160n225; centralized army and, 73n83; Code Noir and, 259n450; dancing roles of, 229n375; hardships during reign of, 8; imperial wars of, 187–88n271, 246–47n431; notion of progress and reign of, 13; pietism during reign of, 8, 48–49; propaganda about, 271n471; royal entry of, and Marie-Thérèse, 162n232; Turks and, 304n83; Versailles and, 153n209; wealth as rank during reign of, 161n227, 162n231; wives of, 94n122 love, theme of: as antithesis of freedom, 253n440; Bernard on, 49–50; la bienséance and, 31; competition between lovers, 147n199; as danger, 243n420; eroticism in, 31–32; excessive,

Index 353

165n239; first look between lovers, 130n189; first signs of, 52n26; esprit and, 30–31; la galanterie as, 30; gallant, 101; inclination and, 85n106; as indefinable impulse, 81n98; lovesickness and, 28; marvelous and, 30; most prominent theme in seventeenth-century French fairy tale, 100; préciosité and, 29n101; signs of, 52n26; symbolic geography of, 232n441; tender versus erotic in, 191; unattainable, 32; versus admiration, 275n482; versus merit, 219n350, 221n356; versus tranquility; 244n424; as weakness, 92n120, 219n349. See also Bernard; The Doe in the Woods; The Enchanter; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy; fairy tales, seventeenth-century French; Green and Blue; literature, seventeenth-century French; Little Eel; Marmoisan; marriage; novel, seventeenth-century French; Prince Rosebush; Princess Little Carp; The Princess of Cleves; Racine; Urfé; Wasted Effort Lubert, Mademoiselle de, 5n12 Lully, Jean-Baptiste, 20n62, 111n168, 224n366, 258n448 Lurie, Alison, 1 Lussan, Marguerite de, 5n12 machine plays, 21, 25

Mailly, Jean de, 4 Mainil, Jean, 42 Maintenon, Françoise d’Aubigné, duchesse de, 8, 48, 94n122 Malleus Maleficarum, 213n333 Marie-Adélaïde de Savoie, 158n221, 169n250 Marie de France, 194n294 Marie-Thérèse (Queen of France), 190 Marin, Louis, 39n137 Marmoisan (L’Héritier), 66–95; active heroine in, 33; amazon in, 64n64, 90; ambivalent impression of prince in, 92n119; androgynous ideal in, 71–72n78, 90n117, 91, 92n120; beautiful prisoner trope in, 82n101; choice in marriage in, 64; comic structure in, 74n85; commentary on fairy tale in, 282n4; compassion in, 80–81, 80n97; criticism of men in, 82n100, 85n108; cross-dressing in, 64, 77n64; false supernatural event in, 87n110; favorite in, 94n123; final moral in, 9n31; gallant man in, 87n112; heroine’s tests in, 63n60, 83n102; heterosexual love plot in, 64, 81n98; homoerotic subtext in, 64, 78n95, 84, 84n105; inclination in, 85n106; indefinable impulse in, 81n98; lack of marvelous in, 63, 289; literary sources of, 63–64, 64n59; marriage in, 93-

354 Index

94n122; maxims or sentences in, 71n77; moralism in,74n85; narrator’s interventions in, 75n86, 76n87; negligence in, 90n118; oral tradition as source for, 63; oral tradition evoked in, 94n124; page Ioland in, 78n96;“persons of the sex” in, 85n106; pronominal changes in,78n96, 81n99; rape in, 82n100; romance writers cited in, 66n64; scene of striptease in, 86n109; 1717 edition of, 44, 66n64; source of, in oral tradition, 63; threat of rape in, 82n100; titular name of, 66n63; tournament in, 89n113; women’s assumption of virile roles in, 64; as written version of oral tale, 68n69. See also fairy tales by L’Héritier; L’Héritier de Villandon marriage, seventeenth-century: choice of partner, 64, 93n121, 100, 120n177, 215n334, 272n474, 275n482; egalitarian, 188n272; jealousy in, 52n21; love in, 120n177; negative view of, 52n22; royal, 93n121, 93–94n122, 151n202; versus love, 60n42 marriage closure, 28–29 marvelous: Bernard’s use of, 49; Christian versus pagan forms of, 303–4n80; closures and, 32; juxtaposition of ancient and modern forms by conteuses,

12n44; L’Héritier on, 286, 289; love and, 30; as pretext for onomastics, 26; Princess Little Carp and, 101; Seifert on, 40; Sermain on, 42; seventeenth-century French critics of, 282n7; target of critiques, 35; unrestrained use of, by conteuses, 23; Villiers on, 298n62, 301, 303 masculinity: courtly lover ideal, 135n195; gallant man ideal, 87n112; ideal knight, 200n306; male infidelity, 28, 272n474; perfect lover ideal, 223n363; submissive lover ideal, 58n39; suffering male lover, 159n223 maternalism, seventeenth-century: breastfeeding, 103–4n152; new emphasis on after 1660, 103n152 Mayer, Charles-Joseph de, 36n124 maxims: d’Aulnoy and, 133n193; Bernard and, 49; in seventeenth-century French literature, 52n25; L’Héritier de Villandon and, 71n77; Villiers on, 301 medicinal waters, 151n204 melancholy, early modern, 144n198 Melusine, 236n396, 300 men. See fathers; heroes; kings; masculinity Mercure Galant, Le, 34, 47, 97, 189 Méré, Chevalier de, 47n6 metamorphosis: d’Aulnoy’s use of, 100, 101, 132n191; Bernard’s

Index 355

use of, 50; eroticism and, 31; game of, 6; Hannon on, 41; Murat’s use of, 236n396; Ovid and, 20, 55n33, 218n347, 234, 240nn407–8, 269n466 Middle Ages, 287n27, 290 Moirae, 27 Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin): The Bourgeois Gentilhomme, 304n83; choice of marriage partner in, 93n121; Dom Juan, 223n363; The Imaginary Invalid, 93n121; The Magnificent Lovers, 127n182; The Misanthrope, 70n74, 289n36; Quinault and, 224n366; references to, by d’Aulnoy, 21n64; School for Wives, 271n472 Moncrif, Francois-Augustin de, 5n12 Montalvo, Garci Rodríguez de, 20n62 Montdorge, Antoine Gautier de, 5n12 Montpensier, Anne-Marie Louise d’Orléans, duchesse de, 34n114, 53n27, 112n169 Mother Goose Tales, 3, 4, 36, 232 mothers: breastfeeding, 103–4n152; daughters and, 72n80, 273n478; love between children and, 72n79, 107n157; maternal milk as symbol, 210n321; new emphasis on, after 1660, 103n152; role of, in Wasted Effort, 273n478 Murat, Henriette-Julie de Castelnau,

comtesse de, 4; aristocratic family of, 231; on d’Aulnoy, 11, 233n387; d’Aulnoy’s acquaintance with, 232; arrest and exile of, 232; dedication by L’Héritier to, 7n21; defense of fairy tale by, 282n4; defense of women by, 231; desire to distinguish herself from other conteuses, 232–33; on differences between “ancient” and “modern” fairies, 14; L’Héritier’s acquaintance with, 232; literary works by, 231; manuscript journal by, 231, 232; marriage to Nicolas de Murat, 231; originality of fairy tales asserted by, 233; portrait of, 235; related to La Force, 190; salons attended by, 6n17, 231– 32; self-awareness as woman writer, 7; tribadism of, 232. See also The Country Trip; fairy tales by Murat; Happy Pain; Little Eel; The Prince of Leaves; Sublime and Allegorical Stories; Wasted Effort mythology, 304–5; allusions to, by conteuses, 19–20; d’Aulnoy’s use of, 101; divinities of, 300, 307; Hercules, 218n343; heroes in, 299n65, 300; judgment of Paris, 123n179; La Force’s use of, 191; Murat’s use of, 233; names from, used by Murat, 239n406; Ovid’s use of, 55n33, 269n466; pleasures of otherworld in,

356 Index

279n489; Pygmalion, 218n347; unwanted child in, 109n164 Narcissus, 241n412 negligence, 91n118, 292n51 Nemours, duchesse de, 61–62 New Bourgeois Gentleman, The (d’Aulnoy), 24n82 New Tales, or Fairies in Fashion (d’Aulnoy), 16, 34, 101, 295n54 Nodot, Jean, 4 nouvelle, 21–23 novel, seventeenth-century French, 21–23; agitation in, 52n26; competition between lovers in, 147n199; courtly lover ideal in, 135n195; heroic and pastoral novels, 22, 49, 135n195, 147n199; as model for fairy tale, according to L’Héritier, 283; nouvelles, 22; signs of love in, 52n26; verisimilitude and, 22, 23; verses in, 217n341. See also La Fayette; Scudéry; Sorel; d’Urfé; Villedieu old wives’ tales, 3 opera: allusions to, by conteuses, 21, 25, 224n366; fairies in, 26; love in, 29; popularity of, in seventeenth-century France, 224n366; spectacular descents in, 111n168. See also Lully; Perrin; Quinault opium, 104n153 Orange Tree and the Bee, The (d’Aulnoy), 222n358 Orlando in Love (Boiardo), 20,

303n77 Orléans, Elizabeth-Marguerite d’, 190 Oudin, César, 307n96 Ovid: Diana as character of, 240n408; Epistles by, 61n46; Philemon and Baucis in, 269n466; Pomona as character of, 240n407; popularity of, in early modern Europe, 20; Pygmalion as character of, 218n347; translation of Heroids by L’Héritier, 61; use of, by d’Aulnoy, 234; use of, by L’Héritier, 55n33. See also metamorphosis ovism, 234n391 Pajon, Henri, 5n12 Pallas, 239n406 Parcae, 27 parody, 25 Pascal, Blaise, 243n420, 265n463 Patard, Geneviève, 44 Perceval (Chrétien de Troyes), 191 Perrault, Charles: advocate of moderns, 10–11; attribution of prose tales by, 4n10, 67n68, 309n103; on Christian marvelous, 304n80; compact tales of, 24–25, 37; daughter of, 67n56; defense of fairy tale by, 282–84; difference of fairy tales by, from conteuses’, 4–5; ethical justification of fairy tale by, 283; frontispiece of Stories or Tales of Yesteryear, 18–19; Grimms

Index 357

on fairy tales by, 37; ironic distance from fairy tale of, 283n11; L’Héritier on, 285n18, 289; Le Prince de Beaumont on fairy tales by, 36; model for fairy tale by, 4, 24–25; notoriety of, 4; ogres in tales of, 109n162; origins of fairy tale according to, 283; pleasure versus useful instruction in fairy tales by, 10; preface to tales in verse by, 12; reception of fairy tales by, 36–39; relation to L’Héritier, 62, 64n62; representation of lower class storyteller by, 19; standard to which others compared, 4–5; tales of, 67n66; tests in tales of, 124n180; women’s storytelling as model for fairy tales of, 285. See also Comparison of the Ancients and the Moderns; Donkeyskin; The Fairies; Griselidis; The Ridiculous Wishes; Riquet with the Tuft; Sleeping Beauty; Stories or Tales of Yesteryear Perrin, Pierre, 224n366 Perseus, 304n82 Persinette (La Force): Basile as source for, 191; eroticism in, 31, 191n288; folkloric origins of, 195n296; princess in tower motif in, 52n23; Wasted Effort and, 270n468, 272n472 persuasion, art of, 168n248 petit maître, le, 77n91 Phaedrus, 296n56

Pigeon and the Dove, The (d’Aulnoy), 19n58, 20n61, 101n146, 151n202 Pig King, The (Murat), 233n387 Pomona, 240n407 portraits, 159n223, 163n233 Power of Cupid, The (La Force), 191 preaching, art of, 302 Préchac, Jean de, 4 la préciosité, 29n101 Prince Hobgoblin (d’Aulnoy), 270n467 Prince of Leaves, The (Murat), 270n467 Prince Rosebush (Bernard), 51–60; agitation as sign of love in, 52–53n26, 56n35; animal bridegroom motif in, 55n32; building place to encase love in, 55n34; as etiological tale, 60n43; first glance as love in, 52–53n26; folkloric and literary elements in, 50; human-vegetal transformation in, 222n358; implausible adventures in, 49; inadequate education in, 52n24; influence of The Frenzy of Orlando on, 50; intercalated verses in, 51n20; lover, gallant and submissive in, 58n39; marriage in, 52n21, 60; maxims in, 52n25; metamorphosis in, 50; modesty in, 56n36; onomastics in, 26; portrait in, 53n27; prediction in, 51n20; queen in, 59n41; sexual implications in,

358 Index

54n30; tenderness in, 51n18; tournament in 53n28. See also fairy tales by Bernard; Bernard Princess Beauteous Star and Prince Beloved (d’Aulnoy), 31, 102n145, 116nn173–74 Princess Little Carp (d’Aulnoy), 103–50; amazon fairy in, 112n169, 124n180; approach to fairy tale in, 101; centaur in, 109n163; consciousness of class differences in, 133n194; Cupid in, 19n58; eagle in, 106n155, 107n156; final moral in, 9n31; first glance in, 130–31n189; generosity of heroine in, 138n196; heroic apotheosis in, 111–12n168, 149n200; heroic qualities of women in, 138n196; heroine in, 101; humor in, 100; influence of L’Astrée on, 127n182–84; interlaced initials of lovers in, 127n183; judgment of Paris trope in, 123n179; law of hospitality in, 107n156; limited use of marvelous in, 101; literary motifs in, 101; lost child topos in, 139n197; love governed by reason in, 150n201; marriage, choice in, 120n177; maternal instinct and love in, 107n157; maxims in, 133n193; melancholy in, 144n198; mentioned by Murat, 7n21, 253; metamorphosis motif in, 100, 132, 132n191; mythological comparisons in,

20n59; name of father figure in, 213n328; nursing in, 103n152, 156n216; ogres in, 109n162; onomastics in, 26; opium in, 104n153; optimistic moral in, 150n201; parent/child love in, 108n159; passivity of male characters in, 27; pastoral settings in, 128n185; physical deformity in, 102n150; platonic ethical principle in, 113n171; prince incapable of serving princess in, 101; sacrifice of one for many in, 109n165; stoicism in, 113n170; tenderness in, 108n160; test of protagonist in, 124n180; translation of names in, 45; translations of, 43; trope of abandoned child in, 128n186; understatement in,131n190; unwanted child in, 105n154; wondrous spectacle in, 111n168. See also d’Aulnoy; fairy tales by d’Aulnoy Princess of Clèves, The (La Fayette): antithesis of perfect lover in, 223n363; avoidance of Nemours in, 262n456; Coulommiers scene in, 262n457; first encounter of lovers in, 52–53n26; ideal of submissive lover in, 58n39; love as poison in, 244n424; M. de Clèves in, 263n459; motherdaughter relations in, 72n80, 273n478; understatement in, 131n190

Index 359

Prince Wild Boar (d’Aulnoy), 28, 31, 233n387 Propp, Vladimir, 26, 171n252 proverbs, 286 Pygmalion, 218n347 Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns, 9–12, 61–62, 213n329. See also Boileau; fairy tale, seventeenth-century French; L’Héritier; Perrault; Villiers queens, 32–33 querelle des femmes, 13, 33, 272n474 questions d’amour, 218n344 Quinault, Philippe, 20n62, 111n168, 224n366 Racine, Jean (plays by): conception of la bienséance in, 195n295; first look between lovers in, 130n189; indifference as opposite of passion in, 263n458; love as weakness in, 92n120; love between mothers and children in, 72n79 ratafia, 83n103 Rétif de la Bretonne, Nicolas-Edme, 5n12 Richelet, Pierre, dictionary of, 298n64 Ridiculous Wishes (Perrault), 238n401 Riquet with the Tuft (Bernard; Perrault), 30–31, 49, 239n403 Robert, Raymonde: as editor of fairy tales, 44; on The Enchanter,

194n293; on folklore as source for the conte de fées, 14n49; on Green and Blue, 229n375; importance of work by, 39; on wager tales, 192 romance, medieval, 20–21, 26 Ronsard, Pierre de, 95n125, 307n92 Rosset, François de, 307n96 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 5n12 Saint-Balmon, Mme de, 66n64 Sainte-Hyacinthe, Hyacinthe de, 5n12 Salic Law, 32–33 salons, 5–6, 231–32 Saturn, 300 scapegoat, 100n166 Scarron, Paul, 308n97 Scudéry, Madeleine de: Artamene or Cyrus the Great, 22n71; Carte de Tendre, 51n18; Clélie, 51n18; L’Héritier on, 61, 288; notion of female glory of, 219n348; The Promenade of Versailles, 153n209, 225n367, 258n448; The Story of Sapho, 270n467 Seifert, Lewis C., 40 Senneterre, Henri-Charles de, 5n12 Sermain, Jean-Paul, 25, 42 Sévigné, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de (Correspondence), 5–6, 72nn80–81 Sexton, Anne, 2 sexuality: cross-dressing and homoeroticism, 64, 78n95, 84; eroticism, 31, 192; physical relations, 196n301; rape,

360 Index

82n100; symbolism of, 54n30, 179n263, 182n264; voyeurism, 211n324, 220n351. See also femininity; love; marriage; masculinity sibyls, 2 siren, 273n477 Sleeping Beauty (Perrault), 1, 54n30, 151n204, 202n311 Snow White, 179n263 Song of Roland, The, 161n228 Sorel, Charles, 74n85 Soriano, Marc, 39n137 Speaking Portrait, The, 159n223 steinkerque, 70n73 stoic ideal, 113n170 Straparola, Giovan Francesco (The Facetious Nights), 11–12, 14–15, 64, 233 Storer, Mary Elizabeth, 28 Stories or Tales of Yesteryear (Perrault): allusion to, by Villiers, 309n103; frontispiece of, 2n6, 285; Grimms’ view of, 37; influence of folklore on, 12; La Force’s fairy tales and, 190; not imitated by conteuses, 5; referenced by L’Héritier, 67n68, 68n69; taken as standard for all fairy tales, 4 Story of Hypolitus, Count of Douglas, The (d’Aulnoy), 24n82, 99 storytelling: criticism of fairy tales and, in seventeenth century, 283; and fairy tales of the conteuses, 14, 15, 19, 63, 286n22; iconography of,

1; impropriety of, 290–91; L’Héritier on, 284; Perrault on, 284; as origin of fairy tale in seventeenth century, 284–85; sibyls and, 2; spinning and, 2, 155n213; Villiers on, 285. See also folklore Sublime and Allegorical Stories (Murat), 14, 232 Sublime Porte, 166n244 Suchon, Gabrielle, 112n169 surgery, in early modern France, 205n318 syllepsis, 14 Tales of the Fairies, The (d’Aulnoy), 3, 7, 190 tale-type, 14n47 Tasso, Torquato, 20, 290, 303n77, 307 tender/tenderness, 51n18, 78n94,164n234 Tenèze, Marie-Louise, 28 Tessin, Carl-Gustave, 5n12 Thirard, Marie-Agnès, 41 Todorov, Tzevetan, 23n77 Trévoux, Dictionnaire de, 70n73, 78n94 troubadours, 287–88 Tucker, Holly, 41 Turbot, The (Murat), 233n387 Urfé, Honoré d’ (Astrea): depiction of love in forest in, 277n486; interlaced initials of lovers in, 127n183; Lignon river in, 127n182; model for d’Aulnoy’s

Index 361

fairy tales, 100; model of perfect lover and his antithesis in, 223n363; model of submissive lover in, 58n39; retreat to nature in, 242n419; topoi for seventeenth-century French literature in, 127n182; trope of sleeping beauty in, 254n444 Vaux-le-Vicomte, 153n209 Velay-Vallantin, Catherine, 37n129, 66n63, 67n65 Venus, 239n406 verisimilitude, 22–23 Versailles: castle of, 153nn209-10; fireworks at, 245n425; gardens of, 225n367; grottos at, 258n448 Viala, Alain, 30, 51n18 Villars, Nicolas Montfaucon de, 234n391 Villedieu, Marie-Catherine de, 69–70n72 Villeneuve, Gabrielle-Suzanne de, 5n12 Villethierry, Jean Girard de, 103n152 Villiers, Abbé Pierre de, 294n52; admiration for Perrault, 10; as “ancient,” 282; critique of contes de fées, 35; critique of conteuses, 8; on etymology of word “fairy,” 27n92; on Murat, 231n376. See also Conversations on Fairy Tales and Other Contemporary Works Virgil, 307 Voisenon, Henri de, 5n12

Voragine, Jacobus de, 304n81 wager tale, 192 Walt Disney Company, 1 Wasted Effort (Murat), 270–79; admiration versus love in, 275n482; choice of marriage partner in, 272n474; depiction of love in forest motif in, 277n486; Elysian fields in, 279n489; enlightened father in, 272n474; fairies as central characters in, 234; faithfulness in, 272n474; girl removed from men motif in, 213n330, 271n472; hierarchy of magical powers in, 274n479; hunter lost in forest motif in, 274n481; island forbidden to men in, 270n467; marvelous ineffectual in, 234; mother in, similar to Mme de Chartres, 273n478; narrative logic of, in title, 28; nature in, 279n490; objective correlative in, 278n488; opening reminiscent of La Force’s Persinette, 270n468; powerlessness of fairies over love in, 234; prediction of final happiness undone, 234; The Princess of Clèves alluded to, 234; siren in, 273n477; symbolic geography of love in, 253n441; tropical setting in, 275n483; unhappy love in, 234 wet nurses, 103n152, 156n216 White Cat, The (d’Aulnoy), 155n213

362 Index

women: association with fairy tale, 1–3; defense of, by L’Héritier, 63; defense of, by Murat, 231; heroic qualities of, 138n196; interests of, promoted in fairy tales of conteuses, 9; language and, 33–34; “natural” eloquence of, 13, 33, 63, 185n270, 238n402; old, in fairy tales, 152n207; as “persons of the sex,” 85n106; represented in fairy tales of conteuses, 32–34; social roles of, in fairy tales, 32–33; stereotypes about ugliness of, 152n206, 166n243, 172n253; storytelling of, 285; virile roles assumed by, 64. See also conteuses; fairies; femininity; heroines; marriage; mothers; queens; sibyls; siren; wet nurses wonder tale, 14 Yellow Dwarf, The (d’Aulnoy), 147n199, 222n358, 234, 269n466 Zipes, Jack, 3n7, 43