_Riquet à la Houpe_ is perhaps the least known of the eight _Contes de
ma Mère l'Oye_; but although it has not the attractive qualities which
have occasioned the popularity of the others, it is an excellent story,
with a valuable moral, though, strangely enough, the _moralité_ with
which it concludes takes no notice of it. The object of the story is
evidently to show the superiority of mental to personal qualifications,
and the power of the former not only to compensate for ugliness and
deformity, but even to make one forget them. The concluding verses,
however, point only to the fact that love can embellish its object, and
turn even defects into beauties, passing over the more important one of
the cause of the love itself.
Some writers have fancied the hero of this story to have been a person
of distinction at the Court of Louis XIV., forgetting that, like the
rest in the collection, it is a "histoire du tems passé." But, as
Monsieur de Plancy remarks, "On voit souvent des allusions ou il n'y en
a point;" and, as in the case of _Le Chat Botté_, the application may
have been made to the man from the story.
The reader has been referred to this Appendix by a marginal note at
page 32, respecting the _Queue de Renard_. The explanation offered
by the editor of the French edition of 1826 is, that "les cuisiniers
élégans se coiffaient dans leur négligé de travail de la peau de
quelqu' animal, dont ils laissaient pendre la queue;" and he adds, "on
voit encore, dans certaines provinces, des _chasseurs_ coîffé ainsi."
That a huntsman should sport a fox's brush, or wear a cap made of the
fur of any animal, is not in the least remarkable or uncommon; but I
do not see how it can be taken as a fact in support of the assertion
that cooks did so either in the time of Louis XIV. or at present; and
the Editor does not give us any authority for that assertion. Of all
animals, a fox would be the last I should imagine a French cook would
select to furnish him with a trophy or a sign of company, and that
"twenty or thirty rôtisseurs" should _all_ have "_la_ lardoire à la
main et _la_ queue de renard _sur l'oreille_," appears to me, if we are
to consider the author to have meant actually the tail of a fox, a very
remarkable circumstance, as the use of the definitive article in both
cases shows the "queue de renard" must have been as much the mark of a
cook as the "lardoire," or larding-pin. I confess I am not satisfied
with this explanation; and all my own researches and those kindly made
for me by friends both in Paris and London, have hitherto failed in
throwing any light upon this curious passage. "Queue de Renard" is
the name of a plant known by us as foxtail, and it is also applied
to a particular family of flowers; but it is likewise the name of an
implement. "Outil a deux biseaux ou chanfreins par le bout dont on se
_sert pour percer_."--Bescherelle. This description looks vastly like
some accessory to the larding-pin.
The same authority has also: "Queue de renard à étouper. Le queue de
cet animal dont se servent les doreurs pour appliquer les feuilles d'or
ou d'argent." This, as we know, is not the entire brush, but a portion
of the hair. In default of any positive information, I will merely make
three suggestions: 1. A portion of the herb foxtail, dried, which might
be used as a whisk. 2. A small instrument for piercing or skewering.
3. A portion of the brush, as used by gilders of wood or metal, and
probably by the _rôtisseurs_ of that day, as we find it was customary
to gild the beaks and legs of the game and poultry served up at the
royal banquets. Favin, amongst other writers, tells us of a grand
banquet in which "le quatrième service fut d'oyseaux tans grands que
petits, et _tous le service fut doré_."
In the Form of Cury there is a receipt for making "Viande Riall"
(royal), in which the cook is told, after he has dressed it in
"dysshes plate," to "take _a barre of golde foyle_ and another of
_silver foyle_, and lay hom (them) on, Saint Andrew's cross wyse,
above the potage, and then take sugre plate, or gynger plate, or paste
royale, and kutte hom of lozenges, and plante hom in the voide places
between the barres, and serve hit forthe." The peacock served in his
"hakell,"--_i.e._, neck feathers, or in his "pride"--_i.e._ with tail
displayed, &c.--had always his bill gilt.
Whatever, in fine, the "queue de renard" may have been, I cannot doubt
that, worn "sur l'oreille," it was a distinctive mark of a _rôtisseur_
of that day, as a pen behind the ear has been of a clerk in ours;
and the probability is in favour of the third interpretation, as
_rôtisseurs_ were, as their name implies, those cooks who prepared the
roasted dishes only, and in all the old accounts it is especially the
"rotie" that is "doré."
_Riquet à la Houpe_ is supposed to have inspired Madame de Villeneuve
with the idea of the _Beauty and the Beast_. In my notice of that
story, I shall have a word to say in refutation of that supposition.
_Riquet with the Tuft_ was the first of those fairy extravaganzas
which the public have so kindly received during twenty years, at the
Olympic, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Haymarket, and the Lyceum. It
was written in conjunction with Mr. Charles Dance, and produced at the
Olympic under Madame Vestris's management, December 26th, 1836.