[47] "Ce qui nous indique que ce receuil contenait les contes
vulgairement connus sous ce titre."--B. W.
[48] _Oie_ being derived from the Low Latin word _Auca_ (Du
Cange _in voce_).
[49] The Italians have the same proverb--"Nel tempo ove Bertha
filava."
[50] In the coffin of Jeanne de Bourgogne, the first wife of
Philip de Valois, were found the Queen's ring of silver, her _distaff_
and _spindle_. The tomb of Jeanne de Bourbon, Queen of Charles V.
of France, also contained part of her crown, her golden ring, and
her distaff of gilt wood (_vide_ Lenoir, _Notes Historiques sur les
Exhumations faites en 1793 dans l'Abbaye de St. Denis_).
[51] See a learned and interesting paper on the Distaff and
Spindle, by J. Y. Akerman, Esq., Sec. F.S.A., _Archæologia_, vol.
xxxvii.
[52] There was another edition, in French and English,
published at the Hague three years afterwards:--_Contes de ma Mère
l'Oye, en Français et en Anglais_. Par Perrault, avec des figures
gravées par Fokke. La Haye: Neaulme, 1745. 12mo. It was a rare book in
1784, when it was sold, at the sale of the library of the Duc de la
Vallière, for twenty-three livres nineteen sous.
[53] Mr. Dunlop, who alludes to this story, speaks of the
murder of his wives. The author of _L'Art de Vérifier des Dates_,
gives him but one wife, Catharine de Thouars, daughter and heiress of
Mille de Thouars, Seigneur de Chabanais et Confolent, whom he married
December 31st, 1420, and who survived him, and was re-married to Jean
de Vendôme, Vidame d'Amiens. She therefore lived with him for twenty
years, and bore him one daughter, Marie de Laval, Dame de Raiz, who
married twice, and died the 1st of November, 1458. Père Anselme says
he was contracted in 1416 to Jeanne Paynel, daughter and co-heiress
of Fouques, Seigneur de Hambye; but that she died previous to the
celebration of the marriage.
[54] In the marginal note I have mentioned _Jack and the
Bean-stalk_. This is an error. There are no seven league boots in
that story. It is _Jack the Giant Killer_ only who is the fortunate
proprietor of the "shoes of swiftness," which either suggested, or were
suggested by, the boots aforesaid.
[55] "Of the _ten_ stories in the _Mother Goose's Fairy Tales_
of Perrault, _seven_ are to be found in the _Pentamerone_," says Mr.
Keightley, in his _Tales and Fictions_, p. 184. I have already shown
that there were only eight stories in the _Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_,
and in the _Pentamerone_ I find but two that have any similitude to the
tales of Perrault--viz., _Gagliuso_ and _La Gatta Cenerentola_, both
differing widely in many points from the ancient Breton traditions.