"I would not for any quantity of gold part with the wonderful tales
which I have retained from my earliest childhood or have met with in
my progress through life."
The reader will by this arrangement observe, in a clearer way than
probably he has yet had an opportunity of doing, the rise, progress,
and decline of the genuine Fairy Tale--so thoroughly French in its
origin, so specially connected with the age of that "Grand Monarque"
whose reign presents us, in the graphic pages of St. Simon and
Dangeau, with innumerable pictures of manners and customs, dresses and
entertainments, the singularity, magnificence, profusion, and extent
of which scarcely require the fancy of a d'Aulnoy to render fabulous.
In my introduction to the tales of that "lively and ingenious lady,"
I have already shown the progress of the popularity of this class
of composition; but in the present volume it will be seen how, in
the course of little more than half a century, the Fairy Tale, from
a fresh, sparkling, simple yet arch version of a legend as old as
the monuments of that Celtic race by whom they were introduced into
Gaul, became first elaborated into a novel, comprising an ingenious
plot, with an amusing exaggeration of the manners of the period;
next, inflated into a preposterous and purposeless caricature of its
own peculiarities; and finally, denuded of its sportive fancy, its
latent humour, and its gorgeous extravagance, subsided into the dull
common-place moral story, which, taking less hold of the youthful
imagination, was, however laudable in its intention, a very ineffective
substitute for the merry monitors it vainly endeavoured to supersede.
Too much like a lesson for the child, it was too childish for the man.
The Fairies were dismissed in consequence of the incapacity of the
writers to employ them; but they were not to be annihilated. They still
live in their own land, to laugh at those mortals who will not laugh
with them and learn while they laugh. Modern art may vainly invoke
them to perform fresh marvels, but enough power still exists in their
old spells to enchant youth, amuse manhood, and resuscitate age; and,
despite the hypercritic and the purist, they will continue to exercise
their magic influence over the human mind so long as it is capable of
appreciating wit, fancy, and good feeling. As Mademoiselle Lheritier
wrote two hundred years ago--
Ils ne sont pas aisées à croire,
Mais tant que dans le monde on verra des enfans,
Des mères et des mères-grands
On en gardera la memoire.