HENRIETTE JULIE DE CASTELNEAU, daughter of Michel, second Marquis de
Castelnau, Governor of Brest, and granddaughter by the mother's side,
to the Count d'Angnon, Marshal of France, was born at Brest in 1670.
At the age of sixteen, she came to Paris in the costume worn by the
peasants in Brittany, the language of which province she spoke very
fluently. Her appearance in this dress caused such a sensation that the
Queen desired her to wear it on her presentation at Court. She married
Nicholas, Count de Murat, Colonel of Infantry and Brigadier des Armées
du Roi, descended from a family established in Auvergne before 1300,
and that afterwards passed into Dauphiné. Being suspected by Madame
de Maintenon of having been part author of a libel in which all the
persons composing the Court of Louis XIV., in 1694, were caricatured or
insulted, she was banished to Auch, Department du Gers. After the death
of Louis XIV., the Regent Duke of Orleans, at the request of Madame de
Parabere, recalled Madame de Murat in 1715. She did not, however, long
enjoy her return to Paris, as she died at her Château de la Buzardiere
in Maine the following year (1716), at the early age of forty-six.
She was the author of many works, both in prose and verse,[56] but is
best known by her _Contes des Fées_, six of the most popular of which
are here translated. Four of these (_Le Parfait Amour_, _Anguillette_,
_Jeune et Belle_, and _Le Palais de la Vengeance_) were printed in
1766, and again in 1817, in the collection of Fairy Tales attributed to
the Countess d'Aulnoy, of whom Madame de Murat was the contemporary,
but certainly not the rival. Her stories have more the character
of romances and novels than fairy tales, with a strong infusion of
sentiment, such as is to be found in the writings of Madame de Scuderi,
Madlle. de La Fayette, the Countess d'Auneuil, and others of that
period.