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POPULAR TALES
_This is a volume in the Arno Press collection_
INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE
_Advisory Editor_
Richard M. Dorson
_Editorial Board_
Issachar Ben Ami
Vilmos Voigt
_See last pages of this volume
for a complete list of titles_
POPULAR TALES
[Charles Perrault]
Edited by
Andrew Lang
[Illustration: New York Times Company logo]
ARNO PRESS
A New York Times Company
Editorial Supervision: LUCILLE MAIORCA
Reprint Edition 1977 by Arno Press Inc.
Reprinted from a copy in
The Princeton University Library
INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE
ISBN for complete set: 0-405-10077-9
See last pages of this volume for titles.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Perrault, Charles, 1628-1703.
Popular tales.
(International folklore)
Translation of selected tales from Contes.
Reprint of the 1888 ed. published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford.
I. Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912. II. Title. III. Series.
PQ1877.A25 1977 398.2 77-70607
ISBN 0-405-10118-X
PERRAULT'S POPULAR TALES
_LANG_
London
HENRY FROWDE
[Illustration: Oxford Logo]
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
AMEN CORNER, E.C.
PERRAULT'S
POPULAR TALES
EDITED
_FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITIONS, WITH
INTRODUCTION, &c._
BY
ANDREW LANG, M.A.
LATE FELLOW OF MERTON COLLEGE
Oxford
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
MDCCCLXXXVIII
[_All rights reserved_]
_PREFACE._
_This edition of the stories of_ Perrault _is intended partly as an
introduction to the study of Popular Tales in general. The text of the
prose has been collated by_ M. Alfred Bauer _with that of the first
edition (Paris, 1697), a book which probably cannot be found in England.
I have to thank_ M. Bauer _for the kind and minute care he has bestowed
on his task. We have tried to restore the original text of 1697, with
its spelling, punctuation, use of capital letters, and so forth. One
might have compared the text of_ Perrault's _prose tales, as published
in a book in 1697, with their original form in_ Moetjens's _Recueil or
Magazine. Unluckily the British Museum only possesses the earlier
volumes of the Recueil, in which the less important stories, those in
verse, were first published. The Text of the tales in Verse has been
collated, by myself and_ Mrs. Ogilby, _with that of the Recueil. The
Paris editions of 1694 and 1695 I have never seen. In his 'Contes en
Prose de Charles Perrault'_ (Jouaust, _Paris_, 1876), M. Paul Lacroix
_published the more important readings in which the Recueil differed
from the ultimate text. The changes shew good taste on the part of_
Perrault: _one or two tedious gallantries, out of keeping with the
stories, were removed by him._
_Two of the most useful books that have been read by me in preparing
this edition are_ M. Andre Lefevre's _edition of the Contes, with his
bibliographical and other notes, and the 'Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye avant
Charles Perrault,' by the late_ M. Charles Deulin. _I have also read, I
think, most of the modern editions of the Contes which offer any fresh
criticism or information, and acknowledgments will be found in the
proper place._
_The Introduction contains a brief sketch of_ Perrault, _and of the
circumstances in which his tales were composed and published. Each prose
story has also been made the subject of a special comparative research;
its wanderings and changes of form have been observed, and it is hoped
that this part of the work may be serviceable to students of Folklore
and Mythology._
_In this little book, as in all researches into tradition, I have
received much aid from the writings and from the kind suggestions of_ M.
Henri Gaidoz, _and from the knowledge and experience of_ Mr. Alfred
Nutt. _It is almost superfluous to add that without the industry of such
students as_ Herr Reinhold Koehler, M. Paul Sebillot, Mr. Ralston, M.
Cosquin, _and very many others, these studies of story could never have
been produced_.
A. L.
_INTRODUCTION._
CHARLES PERRAULT.
In Eisen's portrait of Charles Perrault, the medallion which holds the
good-natured face under the large _perruque_ is being wreathed with
flowers by children. Though they do not, for the most part, know the
name of their benefactor, it is children who keep green the memory of
Perrault, of the author of _Puss in Boots_ and _Bluebeard_. He flies for
ever _vivu' per ora virum_, borne on the wings of the fabulous Goose,
_notre Mere L'Oye_. He looked, no doubt, for no such immortality, and,
if he ever thought of posthumous fame, relied on his elaborate
_Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes_ (4 vols. Paris, 1688-96). But
fate decided differently, and he who kept open the Tuileries gardens in
the interests of children for ever, owes the best of his renown to a
book in the composition of which he was aided by a child.
Though a man of unimpeached respectability of conduct, Charles Perrault
was a born Irregular. He was a truant from school, a deserter of the
Bar, an architect without professional training, a man of letters by
inclination, a rebel against the tyranny of the classics, and immortal
by a kind of accident.
He did many things well, above all the things that he had not been
taught to do, and he did best of all the thing which nobody expected him
to have done. A vivid, genial and indomitable character and humour made
him one of the best-liked men of his age, and better remembered than
people with far higher contemporary reputation than his own.
Charles Perrault, as he tells us in his _Memoires_ (1769, Patte, Paris;
1 vol. in 12), was born at Paris, on January 12, 1628. At the age of
nine he was sent to the College de Beauvais, and was aided in his
studies by his father, at home. He was always at the head of his form,
after leaving the Sixth (the lowest) which he entered before he had
quite learned to read. He was not a prodigy of precocious instruction,
happily for himself. He preferred exercises in verse, and excelled in
these, though the gods had not made him poetical. In the class of
Philosophy he was deeply interested, wrangling with his teacher, and
maintaining, characteristically, that his arguments were better than the
stock themes, 'because they were new.' Thus the rebel against the
Ancients raised his banner at school, where one recruit flocked to it, a
boy called Beaurin. Young Perrault and his friend took a formal farewell
of their master, and solemnly seceded to the garden of the Luxembourg,
where they contrived a plan of study for themselves. For three or four
years they read together as chance or taste directed: this course had
not in it the making of a scholar.
Perrault's first literary effort was a burlesque of the Sixth book of
the AEneid, a thing rather too sacred for parody in Scarron's manner. His
brother the doctor took a hand in this labour, and Perrault says 'the
MS. is on the shelf where there are no books but those written by
members of the Family.' The funniest thing was held to be the couplet on
the charioteer Tydacus, in the shades,
Qui, tenant l'ombre d'une brosse,
Nettoyait l'ombre d'un carrosse.
Perrault, as a young man, was moderately interested in the fashionable
controversy about Grace, _pouvoir prochain et pouvoir eloigne_, and the
jargon of the quarrel between Port Royal and the Jesuits. His brother, a
doctor of the Sorbonne, explained the question, 'and we saw there was
nothing in it to justify the noise it made.' He persuaded himself,
however, that this little conference was the occasion of the _Lettres
Provinciales_. The new Editor will doubtless deal with this pretension
when he comes to publish Pascal's Life in the series of _Grands
Ecrivains de la France_. Unlike Perrault, Pascal thought 'que le sujet
des disputes de Sorbonne etoit bien important et d'une extreme
consequence pour la religion.'
The first of the Provincial Letters is dated January 23, 1656. Charles
Perrault was now twenty-eight. In 1651 he had taken his _licences_ at
Orleans, where degrees were granted with scandalous readiness. Perrault
and his friends wakened the learned doctors in the night, returned
ridiculous answers to their questions, chinked their money in their
bags,--and passed. The same month they were all admitted to the Bar. His
legal reading was speculative, and he proposed the idea of codifying the
various customs; but the task waited for Napoleon. Wearying of the Bar
he accepted a place under his brother, Receiver-General of Paris. In
this occupation he remained from 1654 to 1664. He had plenty of leisure
for study, his brother had bought an excellent library, and Perrault
speaks of 'le plaisir que j'eus de me voir au milieu de tant de bons
livres.' He made verses, which were handed about and attributed to
Quinault. That poet, getting a copy from Perrault, permitted a young
lady whom he was courting to think they were his own. Perrault claimed
them, and 'M. Quinault se trouvait un peu embarrasse.' However, when
Quinault said that a lady was in the case, the plagiary was forgiven.
Perrault afterwards wrote a defence of his _Alceste_. A trifling piece
which Perrault composed on this little affair pleased Fouquet, who had
it copied on vellum, with miniatures and gilt capitals.
In 1657 Perrault directed the construction of a house for his brother.
The skill and taste he shewed induced Colbert to make him his subaltern
in the superintendence of the Royal buildings, in 1663. A vision of a
completed Louvre, and of 'obelisks, pyramids, triumphal arches, and
mausoleums,' floated before the mind of Colbert. Then there would be
_fetes_ and masquerades to describe, and as Chapelain recommended
Perrault, who was already the author of some loyal odes, (such as the
wise write about Jubilee times,) he finally received an elegant
appointment, with 500, later 1000 _livres_ a year. This he enjoyed till
1683. A little Academy of Medals and Inscriptions grew into existence:
Perrault edited panegyrics on the king, and made designs for Gobelin
tapestries.
Perrault's next feat was the suggestion of the peristyle of the Louvre,
introduced into the design of his brother Claude, the architect. After
the Chevalier Bernini had been summoned from Rome to finish the Louvre,
and had been treated with sumptuous hospitality, a variety of disputes
and difficulties arose, and, by merit or favour, the plan of Perrault's
brother, Claude, by profession a physician, was chosen and executed.
People said 'que l'architecture devoit etre bien malade, puisqu'on la
mettait entre les mains des medecins.'
'M. Colbert asked me for news of the Academy, supposing that I was a
member. I told him that I could not satisfy him, as I had not the honour
of belonging to that company. He seemed surprised, and said I ought to
be admitted. "'Tis a set of men for whom the king has a great regard,
and as business prevents me from often attending their councils, I
should be glad to hear from you what passes. You should stand at the
next vacancy."' So writes Perrault, and he did become a candidate for
Immortality. But a lady had begged the next place for an Abbe, and next
time, a doctor had secured it for a _cure_. Finally, the Academy elected
Perrault, he says, without any canvass on his part. Perrault introduced
election for the Academy by ballot, and he himself invented and provided
a little balloting machine, which he does not describe. One day when the
King was being publicly rubbed down after a game at tennis, an
Academician prayed that the Academy might be allowed to read addresses
to his Majesty. The King, who had probably given some courtier the side
walls and a beating, graciously permitted the Academy to add its voice
to the chorus of flattery. Perrault now disported himself among
harangues, the new Versailles fountains, grottoes, arches of triumph,
and royal devices, his brother executing his designs. They were sunny
years, and Le Roi Soleil beamed upon the house of Perrault. But a
dispute between his brother, the receiver of taxes, and Colbert caused a
coolness between Charles Perrault and the Minister. M. Perrault also
married a young lady to please himself, not to please Colbert. But,
before leaving the service of the Minister, the good Perrault had
succeeded in saving the Tuileries gardens for the people of Paris, and
for the children, when it was proposed to reserve them to the Royal use.
'I am persuaded,' he said, 'that the gardens of Kings are made so great
and spacious that all their children may walk in them.' We owe Perrault
less gratitude for aiding Lulli, who obtained the monopoly of Opera, a
privilege adverse to the interests of Moliere. If Perrault thought at
all of the interests of Moliere, he probably remembered that his own
brother was a physician, and that physicians were Moliere's favourite
butts. 'Il ne devait pas tourner en ridicule les bons Medecins, que
l'Ecriture nous enjoint d'honorer,' says Perrault in his _Eloges des
Hommes Illustres_ (1696-1700). Moliere's own influence with the king
corrected the influence of Lulli, and he obtained the right to give
musical pieces, in spite of Lulli's privilege, but he did not live long
to enjoy it[1].
Ten years afterwards Colbert became _si difficile et si chagrin_, that
Perrault withdrew quietly from his service. He had been employed in
public functions for twenty years (1663-1683), he was over fifty, and he
needed rest. Louvois excluded him on the death of Colbert from the
_petite Academie_. He devoted himself to the education of his children,
who were 'day-boarders' at the colleges, and returned at night to the
paternal house in the Faubourg St. Jacques. 'Les moeurs ne sont pas en
si grande surete' at a public school, Perrault thought. In 1686 he
published his 'Saint Paulin Evesque de Nole, avec une Epistre
Chrestienne sur la Penitence, et une Ode aux Nouveaux Convertis.'
(Paris, J. R. Coignard.) It is dedicated to Bossuet, in a letter, and
Perrault trusts that great poets will follow his example, and write on
sacred subjects. Happily his example was not followed, _la raillerie et
l'amour_ possessing stronger attractions for minstrels, as Perrault
complains. He throws his stone at Comedy, which Bossuet notably disliked
and condemned. But this did not prevent Perrault, seven years later,
from writing little comedies of his own. _Saint Paulin_ is prettily
illustrated with vignettes on copper after Sebastien le Clerc, vignettes
much better than those which hardly decorate _Histoires ou Contes du
Tems passe_. An angel appearing to Saint Paulin in gardens exactly like
the parterres of Versailles is particularly splendid and distinguished.
As for the poem, 'qui eut assez de succes malgre les critiques de
quelques personnes d'esprit,' the story is not badly told, for the
legend of the Bishop has a good deal of the air of a _conte_, reclaimed
for sacred purposes. The _Ode aux Nouveaux Convertis_ is not a success.
Perrault comparing Reason to Faith, says that Reason makes the glories
beheld by Faith disappear, as the Sun scatters the stars. This was an
injudicious admission. The _Saint Paulin_ may be bought for two or three
francs, while the _Histoires ou Contes_, when last sold by public
auction in the original edition (Nodier's copy, at the Hamilton Sale,
May 1884), fetched L85. It is a commercial but not inaccurate test of
merit.
Perrault's _Memoires_ end just where they begin to be interesting. He
tells us how he read his poem _Le Siecle de Louis XIV_, to the Academy,
how angrily Boileau declared that the poem was an insult to the great
men of times past, how Huet took Perrault's side, how Boileau wrote
epigrams against him, how Racine pretended not to think him in earnest,
and how he defended himself in _Le Parallele des Anciens et des
Modernes_. Here close the Memoirs, and the hero of the great Battle of
the Books leaves its tale untold.
The quarrel is too old and too futile to require a long history.
Perrault's remarks on Homer, the cause of the war, merely show that
Perrault was quite out of sympathy with the heroic age and with heroic
song. He avers that, if a favourable Heaven had permitted Homer to be
born under Louis XIV, Homer would have been a much better poet.
'Cent defauts qu'on impute au siecle ou tu naquis
Ne profaneroient pas tes ouvrages exquis[2].'
Men of letters who were men of sense would have smiled and let Perrault
perorate. But men of letters are rarely men of sense, and dearly love a
brawl. M. E. de Goncourt once complained that M. Paul de St. Victor
looked at him 'like a stuffed bird,' because M. de Goncourt declared
that Providence had created antiquity to prevent pedagogues from
starving. Boileau was not less indignant with Perrault, who, by the way,
in his poem had damned Moliere with faint praise, and had not praised La
Fontaine, Racine, and Boileau at all. The quarrel 'thundered in and out
the shadowy skirts' of Literature for ten years. Boileau turned and rent
the architect-physician Claude Perrault in his _Art Poetique_. But
Boileau, stimulated by Conti, who wrote on his _fauteuil_, '_tu dors,
Brutus,_' chiefly thundered in his _Reflexions Critiques_ on Longinus
(1694). 'He makes four errors, out of ignorance of Greek, and a fifth
out of ignorance of Latin,' is an example of Boileau's amenities. Why
Boileau should have written at such length and so angrily on _un livre
que personne ne lit_, he does not explain. Perrault kept his temper,
Boileau displayed his learning. Arnauld had the credit of making a
personal peace between the foes. Boileau suppressed some of his
satirical lines (Satire X. line 459), and we now read them only in the
foot-notes. Boileau's letter to Arnauld, in which he expresses his
willingness even to read _Saint Paulin_ for the sake of a peaceful life,
is not unamusing. 'Faut-il lire tout _Saint Paulin_? Vous n'avez qu'a
dire: rien ne me sera difficile' (June 1694). Meanwhile Perrault, in his
comedy _L'Oublieux_, was mocking people who think it a fine thing 'to
publish old books with a great many notes[3].' But Perrault himself was
about to win his own fame by publishing versions of old traditional
Fairy Tales.
The following essay traces the history and bibliography of these Tales.
Perrault's last years were occupied with his large illustrated book,
_Eloges des Hommes Illustres du Siecle de Louis XIV_ (2 vols. in folio.
102 portraits.) He died on May 16, 1703. His fair enemy in the bookish
battle, Madame Dacier, says '_il etoit plein de piete, de probite, de
vertu, poli, modeste, officieux, fidele a tous les devoirs qu'exigent
les liaisons naturelles et acquises; et, dans un poste considerable
aupres d'un des plus grands ministres que la France ait eus et qui
l'honoroit de sa confiance, il ne s'est jamais servi de sa faveur pour
sa fortune particuliere, et il l'a toujours employee pour ses amis_.'
Charles Perrault was a good man, a good father, a good Christian, and a
good fellow. He was astonishingly clever and versatile in little things,
honest, courteous, and witty, and an undaunted amateur. The little thing
in which he excelled most was telling fairy tales. Every generation
listens in its turn to this old family friend of all the world. No
nation owes him so much as we of England, who, south of the Scottish,
and east of the Welsh marches, have scarce any popular tales of our own
save Jack the Giant Killer, and who have given the full fairy
citizenship to Perrault's _Petit Poucet_ and _La Barbe Bleue_.
[Footnote 1: _Registre de La Grange_, p. 11.]
[Footnote 2: 'Exquis' is good.]
[Footnote 3: _L'Oublieux_ was written in 1691. It was printed from the
MS. by M. Hippolyte Lucas. _Academie des Bibliophiles_, Paris, 1868.]
PERRAULT'S POPULAR TALES.
'Madame Coulanges, who is with me till to-morrow, was good enough to
tell us some of the stories that they amuse the ladies with at
Versailles. They call this _mitonner_, so she _mitonned_ us, and spoke
to us about a Green Island, where a Princess was brought up, as bright
as the day! The Fairies were her companions, and the Prince of Pleasure
was her lover, and they both came to the King's court, one day, in a
ball of glass. The story lasted a good hour, and I spare you much of it,
the rather as this Green Isle is in the midst of Ocean, not in the
Mediterranean, where M. de Grignan might be pleased to hear of its
discovery.'
So Madame de Sevigne writes to her daughter, on the 6th of August, 1676.
The letter proves that fairy tales or _contes_ had come to Court, and
were in fashion, twenty years before Charles Perrault published his
_Contes de Ma Mere l'Oye_, our 'Mother Goose's Tales.' The apparition of
the simple traditional stories at Versailles must have resembled the
arrival of the Goose Girl, in her shabby raiment, at the King's
Palace[4]. The stories came in their rustic weeds, they wandered out of
the cabins of the charcoal burners, out of the farmers' cottages, and,
after many adventures, reached that enchanted castle of Versailles.
There the courtiers welcomed them gladly, recognised the truant girls
and boys of the Fairy world as princes and princesses, and arrayed them
in the splendour of Cinderella's sisters, 'mon habit de velours rouge,
et ma garniture d'Angleterre; mon manteau a fleurs d'or et ma barriere
de diamans qui n'est pas des plus indifferentes.' The legends of the
country folk, which had been as simple and rude as _Peau d'Ane_ in her
scullion's disguise, shone forth like _Peau d'Ane_ herself, when she
wore her fairy garments, embroidered with the sun and moon in thread of
gold and silver. We can see, from Madame de Sevigne's letter, that the
_Maerchen_ had been decked out in Court dress, in train and feathers, as
early as 1676. When the Princess of the Green Isle, and the Prince of
Pleasures alighted from their flying ball of crystal, in Madame
Coulanges' tale, every one cried, 'Cybele is descending among us!'
Cybele is remote enough from the world of fairy, and the whole story,
like the stories afterwards published by Madame d'Aulnoy, must have been
a highly decorated and scarcely recognisable variant of some old
tradition.
How did the fairy tales get presented at Court, and thence win their
way, thanks to Perrault, into the classical literature of France?
Probably they were welcomed partly in that spirit of sham simplicity,
which moved Louis XIV and his nobles and ladies to appear in Ballets as
shepherds and shepherdesses[5]. In later days the witty maidens of Saint
Cyr became aweary of sermons on _la simplicite_. They used to say, by
way of raillery, 'par simplicite je prends la meilleure place,' 'par
simplicite je vais me louer,' 'par simplicite je veux ce qu'il y a de
plus loin de moi sur une table.' This, as Madame de Maintenon remarked,
was 'laughing at serious things,' at sweet simplicity, which first
brought Fairy Tales to the OEil de Boeuf[6]. Mlle. L'Heritier in
_Bigarrures Ingenieuses_ (p. 237) expressly says, 'Les Romances modernes
tachent d'imiter la simplicite des Romances antiques.' It is curious
that Madame de Maintenon did not find this simplicity simple enough for
her pupils at St. Cyr. On the 4th of March, 1700, when the fashion for
fairy tales was at its height, she wrote to the Comte d'Ayen on the
subject of harmless literature for _demoiselles_, and asked him to
procure something, 'mais non des contes de fees ou de _Peau d'Ane_, car
je n'en veux point[7].'
Indeed it is very probable that weariness of the long novels and pompous
plays of the age of Louis XIV made people find a real charm in the
stories of _Cendrillon_, and _La Belle au Bois Dormant_. For some
reason, however, the stories (as current in France) existed only by word
of mouth, and in oral narrative, till near the end of the century. In
1691 Charles Perrault, now withdrawn from public life, and busy fighting
the Battle of the Books with Boileau, published anonymously his earliest
attempt at story telling, unless we reckon _L'Esprit Fort_, a tale of
light and frivolous character. The new story was _La Marquise de
Salusses, ou la Patience de Griselidis, nouvelle_[8]. _Griselidis_ is
not precisely a popular tale, as Perrault openly borrowed his matter
from Boccaccio, and his manner (as far as in him lay) from La Fontaine.
He has greatly softened the brutality of the narrative as Boccaccio
tells it, and there is much beauty in his description of the young
Prince lost in the forest, after one of those Royal hunts in Rambouillet
or Marly whose echoes now scarce reach us, faint and fabulous as the
horns of Roland or of Arthur[9]. Nay, there is a certain simple poetry
and sentiment of Nature, in _Griselidis_, which comes strangely from a
man of the Town and the Court. The place where the wandering Prince
encounters first his shepherdess
'Clair de ruisseaux et sombre de verdure
Saisissait les esprits d'une secrete horreur;
La simple et naive nature
S'y faisoit voir si belle et si pure,
Que mille fois il benit son erreur.'
So the Prince rides on his way
'Rempli de douces reveries
Qu'inspirent les grands bois, les eaux et les prairies.'
The sentiment is like Madame de Sevigne's love of her woods at Les
Rochers, the woods where she says goodbye to the Autumn colours, and
longs for the fairy _feuille qui chante_, and praises 'the crystal
October days.' Of all this there is nothing in Boccaccio. Perrault, of
course, does not repeat the brutalities of the Italian tyrant, in which
Boccaccio takes a kind of pleasure, while Chaucer veils them in his
kindly courtesy.
To _Griselidis_ Perrault added an amusing little essay on the vanity of
Criticism, and the varying verdicts of critics. In this Essay, Perrault
apparently shews us the source from which he directly drew his matter,
namely Boccaccio in the popular form of the chap-books called _La
Bibliotheque Bleue_. 'If I had taken out everything that every critic
found fault with,' he says, 'I had done better to leave the story in its
blue paper cover, where it has been for so many years.' Thus Perrault
borrowed from the Bibliotheque Bleue, not the Bibliotheque Bleue, as M.
Maury fancied, from Perrault[10].
In 1694 Moetjens, the bookseller at The Hague, began to publish a little
Miscellany, or Magazine, in the form of the small Elzevir collection,
called _Recueil de pieces curieuses et nouvelles, tant en prose qu'en
vers_. Perrault had already published _Les Souhaits Ridicules_, in a
Society paper, Le Mercure Galant (Nov. 1693). He now reprinted this
piece, with _Griselidis_ and _Peau d'Ane_, in Moetjens' _Recueil_[11].
These versified tales caused some discussion, and were rather severely
handled by anonymous writers in the _Recueil_. In 1694, Perrault put
forth the three, with the introductions and essay, in a small volume.
Probably each tale had appeared separately, but these treasures of the
book-hunter are lost. Another edition came out, with a new preface, in
1695[12].
This is the early bibliographical history, as far as it has been traced
by M. Andre Lefevre, of the stories in verse. They received a good deal
of unfriendly criticism, and Perrault was said, in _Peau d'Ane_, to have
presented the public with his own natural covering. This witticism,
rather lacking in finish, is attributed to Boileau in an epigram
published in Moetjens' _Recueil_. Boileau was still irritated with
Perrault for his conduct in the great Battle of the Books between the
Ancients and Moderns. By a curious revenge Perrault, who had blamed
Homer for telling, in the Odyssey, old wives' fables, has found, in old
wives' fables, his own immortality. In the _Parallele_, iii. p. 117, the
Abbe quotes Longinus, and his admiration of certain hyperboles in Homer.
The Chevalier, another speaker in the dialogue, replies, 'this sort of
Homeric hyperbole is only imitated by people who tell stories like _Peau
d'Ane_, and introduce Ogres in seven-leagued boots (_bottes a sept
lieues_).' The 'seven-leagued boots' are in the Chevalier's fancy an apt
parallel to the prodigious bounds made by the horses of Discord, in the
Iliad. Thus, even before Perrault began to write fairy tales, he and
Boileau had a very pretty quarrel about _Peau d'Ane_. Boileau happened
to remember that Zoilus of old had reviled Homer for his _contes de
Vieilles_, and thus he could conscientiously treat Perrault as a new
Zoilus. In the fifth volume of his works (Paris, 1772), in which these
amenities are republished, there is a Vignette by Van der Meer
representing Homer, very old and timid, cowering behind a shield which
Boileau, like Ajax, holds up for his protection, while Perrault, in a
sword and cocked hat, throws arrows at the blind bard of Chios. The
strange thing is that they were all in the right. The Odyssey, as
Fenelon's Achilles tells Homer in Hades, and as Perrault knew, is a mass
of popular tales, but then these are moulded by the poet's art into an
epic which Boileau could not over-praise[13].
In the edition of his stories in verse, published in 1695, Perrault
replied to the criticisms that reached him, 'I have to do,' he said,
'with people who can only be moved by Authority, and the example of the
Ancients;' meaning Boileau and the survivors of the great literary feud.
Perrault therefore adduces old instances of classical _contes_, the
_Milesian Tales_, and _Cupid and Psyche_ in Apuleius. 'The Moral of
_Cupid and Psyche_,' he says, 'I shall compare to that of _Peau d'Ane_,
when once I know what it is.' Then he declares that his Contes have
abundance of moral, which is true, but there are morals even in _Cupid
and Psyche_. He sketches, very pleasantly, the enjoyment of children in
those old wives' fables; 'on les voit dans la tristesse et dans
l'abattement tant que le heros ou l'heroine du conte sont dans le
malheur, et s'ecrier de joie quand le temps de leur bonheur arrive.'
Indeed this was and is the best apology for M. Perrault of the French
Academy, when he stooped his great perruque to listen to his little
boy's repetition of his nurse's stories, and recorded them in the
chronicles of Mother Goose.
Had Perrault only written _contes_ in verse, it is probable that he
would now be known chiefly as an imitator of La Fontaine. Happily he
went further, and printed seven stories in prose. It is by these that he
really lives, now that his architectural exploits, his sacred poems, his
Defence of the Moderns, are all forgotten save by the learned. His
Fairies have saved him from oblivion, and the countless editions and
translations of his _Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye_, have won him
immortality[14].
The tales in prose appeared in Moetjens' _Recueil_ in the following
order: In 1696, in the second part of Volume V, came _La Belle au Bois
Dormant_ (our 'Sleeping Beauty'); and in 1697 (Vol. V. part 4), came _Le
Petit Chaperon Rouge_ ('Red Riding Hood'), _La Barbe Bleue_
('Blue-beard'), _Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botte_ ('Puss in Boots,' or
'The Master Cat'), _Les Fees_ ('The Fairy'), _Cendrillon, ou la petite
pantoufle de verre_ ('Cinderilla,' in the older English versions, now
'Cinderella'), _Riquet a la Houppe_ ('Riquet of the Tuft'), and _Le
Petit Poucet_ ('Hop o' My Thumb, Little Thumb').
While Moetjens was producing these in his Miscellany, there was
published in Paris, at Perrault's bookseller's (Guignard), a little
volume called _Bigarrures Ingenieuses, ou Recueil de diverses Pieces
galantes en prose et en vers_. The author was Mlle. L'Heritier de
Villaudon, a relation of Perrault's. It is to his daughter, a
Mademoiselle Perrault, that she addresses her first piece, _Marmoisan ou
l'Innocente Tromperie_. The author says she was lately in a company
where people began to praise M. Perrault's _Griselidis_, _Peau d'Ane_
and _Les Souhaits_. They spoke also of 'the excellent education which M.
Perrault gives his children, of their ingenuity, and finally of the
_Contes naifs_ which one of his young pupils has lately written with so
much charm. A few of these stories were narrated and led on to others.'
_Marmoisan_ is one of the others, and Mlle. L'Heritier says she told it,
'avec quelque broderie qui me vint sur le champ dans l'esprit.' The tale
is, indeed, all embroidery, beneath which the original stuff is
practically lost[15]. But the listener asked the narrator to offer it 'a
ce jeune Conteur, qui occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son
enfance.'
In a later page she wonders that the Contes should have been 'handed to
us from age to age, without any one taking the trouble to write them
out.' Then she herself takes the trouble to write the story of Diamonds
and Toads, a story known in a rough way to the Kaffirs--and hopelessly
spoils it by her _broderie_, and by the introduction of a lay figure
called _Eloquentia Nativa_ (_Les Enchantemens de l'Eloquence_, ou _Les
Effets de la Douceur_). One has only to compare Mlle. L'Heritier's
literary and embroidered _Eloquentia_ with Perrault's _Les Fees_ (the
original of our _Diamonds and Toads_), to see the vast difference
between his manner, and that of contemporary _conteurs_. Perrault would
never have brought in a Fairy named _Eloquentia Nativa_. Mlle.
L'Heritier's _Eloquentia_ (1696) was in the field before Perrault's
unembroidered version, _Les Fees_, which appeared in Moetjens' _Recueil_
in 1697. The Lady writes:
'Cent et Cent fois ma Gouvernante
Au lieu de Fables d'animaux[16]
M'a raconte les traits moraux
De cette Histoire surprenante.'
Here, then, is Mlle. L'Heritier speaking of one of Perrault's children
who has written the fairy tales, 'with so much charm.' At this very time
(1696-1697), fairy tales, 'written with much charm,' in prose, and
without the author's name, were appearing in Moetjens' _Recueil_. In
1697 these prose _contes_ were collected, published, and declared to be
by P. Darmancour, Perrault's little boy, to whom the _Privilege du Roy_
is granted[17].
Critics have often declared that Perrault merely used the boy's name as
a cover for his own, because it did not become an Academician to publish
fairy tales, above all in prose. It may be noted that Perrault did not
employ his usual publisher, Coignard, but went to Barbin. There might
also have been a hope that little Perrault Darmancour, while shielding
his father, 'fit parfaitement bien sa Cour en meme tems,' like _Le Petit
Poucet_. Considering how Perrault's other works are forgotten, and how
his Tales survive, and regarding his boy as partly their author, we may
even apply to him the Moral of _Le Petit Poucet_.
'Quelquefois, cependant, c'est ce petit Marmot
Qui fera le bonheur de toute la famille!'
The dedication, signed P. Darmancour, is addressed to Mademoiselle, and
contains very agreeable flattery of the sister of the future Regent[18].
These motives would, indeed, account for Perrault's use of his boy's
name. But it had occurred to me, before discovering the similar opinion
of M. Paul Lacroix, that P. Darmancour really was the author of the
_Contes_, or at least a _collaborateur_[19]. The naivete, and popular
traditional manner of their telling, recognised by all critics, and the
cause of their popularity, was probably given by the little lad who, as
Mlle. L'Heritier said, a year before the tales were published, 'a mis
depuis peu les Contes sur le papier avec tant d'agrement.' The child,
according to this theory, wrote out, by way of exercise, the stories as
he heard them, not from _brodeuses_ in Society, but from his Nurse, or
from old women on his father's estates. The evidence of Madame de
Sevigne and of Mlle. L'Heritier, as well as the testimony of the
_contes_ which ladies of rank instantly took to printing, shews how the
stories were told in Society. Allegorical and other names were given to
the characters, usually nameless in _Maerchen_. Historical circumstances
were introduced, and references to actual events in the past. _Esprit_
raged assiduously through the narratives. Moreover the traditional tales
were so confounded that Madame d'Aulnoy, in _Finette Cendron_, actually
mixes _Cinderella_ with _Hop o' My Thumb_[20].
Contrast with these refinements, these superfluities, and incoherences,
the brevity, directness, and simplicity of _Histoires et Contes du Tems
passe_. They have the touch of an intelligent child, writing down what
he has heard told in plain language by plain people. They exactly
correspond, in this respect, to the Hindoo folk tales collected from the
lips of Ayahs by Miss Maive Stokes, who was a child when her collection
was published.
But, if the little boy thus furnished the sketch, it is indubitable that
the elderly Academician and _beau esprit_ touched it up, here toning
down an incident too amazing for French sobriety and logic, there adding
a detail of contemporary court manners, or a hit at some foible or
vanity of men. 'Livre unique entre tous les livres,' cries M. Paul de
St. Victor, 'mele de la sagesse du vieillard et de la candeur de
l'enfant!' This delightful blending of age and youth (which here _can_
'live together') is probably due to the collaboration we describe.
Were it a pious thing to dissect Perrault's _Contes_, as Professors of
all nations mangle the sacred body of Homer, we might actually publish a
text in which the work of the original Darmancour and of the paternal
_Diaskeuast_ should be printed in different characters. Without carrying
mere guess-work to this absurd extent, cannot one detect the older hand
in places like this,--the Ogre's wife finds that her husband has killed
his own children by misadventure: 'Elle commenca par s'evanouir (car
c'est le premier expedient que trouvent presque toutes les femmes en
pareilles rencontres)'? One can almost see the Academician writing in
that sentence on the margin of the boy's copy. Again, at the end of _Le
Petit Poucet_, we read that he made a fortune by carrying letters from
ladies to their lovers, 'ce fut la son plus large gain. Il se trouvoit
quelques femmes qui le chargeoient de lettres pour leurs maris, mais
elles le payoient si mal, et cela alloit a si peu de chose, qu'il ne
daignoit mettre en ligne de conte ce qu'il gagnoit de ce cote-la.' That
is the Academician's jibe, and it is he who makes Petit Poucet buy
Offices 'de la nouvelle creation pour sa famille.' 'You never did that
of your own wit,' as the Giant says to the Laddie in the Scotch story,
_Nicht_, _Nought_, _Nothing_. But 'Anne, ma soeur Anne, ne vois-tu rien
venir?' 'Je ne vois rien que le Soleil qui poudroye et l'herbe qui
verdoye!' or 'Tire la chevillette, le bobinette cherra,' or 'Elle alla
donc bien loin, bien loin, encore plus loin'; _there_ the child is
listening to the old and broken voice of tradition, mumbling her ancient
burden while the cradle rocks, and the spinning-wheel turns and hums.
It is to this union of old age and childhood, then, of peasant memories,
and memories of Versailles, to this kindly handling of venerable
legends, that Perrault's _Contes_ owe their perennial charm. The nursery
tale is apt to lose itself in its wanderings, like the children in the
haunted forest; Perrault supplies it with the clue that guides it home.
A little grain of French common sense ballasts these light minions of
the Moon, the elves; with a little toss of Court powder on the locks,
_pulveris exigui jactu_, he tames the wild _fee_ into the Fairy
Godmother, a grande dame de par le monde, with an agate crutch-handle on
her magic wand. 'His young Princesses, so gentle and so maidenly, have
just left the convent of Saint Cyr. The King's sons have the proud
courtesy of Dauphins of France: the Maids of Honour, the Gentlemen of
the Bed-chamber, the red-nosed Swiss guards, sleep through the slumber
of the _Belle au Bois Dormant_[21].'
They are all departed now, Dukes and Vicomtes and Princes, the Swiss
Guards have gone, that made the best end of any, the hunting horn is
still, and silent is the spinning wheel. The great golden coaches have
turned into pumpkins again, the coachman has jumped down from his box,
and hidden in his rat-hole, the Dragoon and the Hussar have clattered
off for ever, the Duchesses dance no more in the minuet, nor the fairies
on the haunted green. But in Perrault's enchanted book they are all with
us, figures out of every age, the cannibal ogre that little Zulu and
Ojibbeway children fear not unreasonably; the starving wood-cutter in
the famines Racine deplored; the Princess, so like Mademoiselle; the
Fairy Godmother you might mistake for Madame d'Epernon; the talking
animals escaped from the fables of days when man and beast were all on
one level with gods, and winds, and stars. In Perrault's fairy-land is
room for all of them, and room for children too, who wander hither out
of their own world of fancy, and half hope that the Sleeping Beauty
dwells behind the hedge of yew, or think to find the dangerous distaff
in some dismantled chamber.
The _Histoires et Contes du Tems Passe_ must clearly have been
successful, though scant trace of their success remains in the criticism
of the time[22]. We may measure it by the fleet of other books of fairy
tales which 'pursue the triumph and partake the gale.' The _Contes de
Fees_ of Mad. La Comtesse de M---- (Murat) were published by Barbin in
1698. How little the manner resembles Perrault's 'fairy-way of writing,'
how much it deserves the censure of the Abbe de Villiers, may be learned
from the opening sentence of _Le Parfait Amour_. 'Dans un de ces
agreables pais qui sont dependans de l'Empire des Fees, regnoit la
redoutable Danamo, elle estoit scavante dans son art, cruelle dans ses
actions, et glorieuse de l'honneur d'estre descendue de la celebre
Calipso, dont les charmes eurent la gloire et le pouvoir en arrestant le
fameux Ulisse, de triompher de la prudence des vainqueurs de Troye.'
The second story, _Anguillette_, is so far natural, that it contains a
friendly Eel (as in the Mangaian legend of the Eel-lover of Ina); but
this Eel is a fairy, condemned to wear the form of a fish, for certain
days in each month. These narratives are almost unreadable, and scarcely
keep a trace of the popular tradition. The tales of Madame d'Aulnoy, on
the other hand, introduced the _White Cat_, the _Yellow Dwarf_, _Finette
Cendron_, and _Le Mouton_ to literature and the stage, where they
survive in pantomime and _feerie_. _Beauty and the Beast_ first appears,
at the immoderate length of three hundred and sixty-two pages, in _Les
Contes Marins_ (La Haye, 1740) by Madame de Villeneuve.
Literary Fairy Tales flourished all through the eighteenth century in
the endless _Cabinet de Fees_. As for Perrault's Tales, they were
republished at the Hague, in 1742, with illustrations by Fokke. In 1745,
they appeared, with Fokke's vignettes, and with an English translation.
An English version, translated by Mr. Samber, printed for J. Pote, was
advertised, Mr. Austin Dobson tells me, in the _Monthly Chronicle_,
March 1729. There have been innumerable editions, often splendidly
equipped and illustrated, down to the present date. This little book
alone, of all Charles Perrault's labours, has won 'the land of matters
unforgot.' Odysseus, Figaro, and Othello are not more certain to be
immortal than Hop o' my Thumb, Puss in Boots, and Blue Beard, the heroes
whom Charles Nodier so pleasantly called 'the Ulysses, the Figaro, and
the Othello of children.'
[Footnote 4: Grimm, _Kinder- und Hausmaerchen_. No. 89.]
[Footnote 5: _Ballet des Arts, danse par sa Majeste; le 8 Janvier,
1663._ A Paris. Par Robert Ballard. M.DC.LXIII.]
[Footnote 6: _Madame de Maintenon d'apres sa Correspondance._ Geffroy,
ii. 211. Paris, 1887.]
[Footnote 7: _Madame de Maintenon d'apres sa Correspondance._ Geffroy,
i. 322.]
[Footnote 8: Paris: de l'imprimerie de Jean Baptiste Coignard, imprimeur
du Roy et de l'Academie Francoise, rue Saint Jacques, la Bible d'or,
1691. The Bibliotheque Nationale and the Arsenal possess copies of this
duodecimo of 58 pages. One of the copies is inscribed _Donne par
Lautheur_ 1691. (Lefevre. _Contes de Charles Perrault_, p. 167. Paris,
_s. a._)]
[Footnote 9: Paul de Saint Victor, _Les Contes des Fees_, in _Hommes et
Dieux_, p. 475. Paris, 1883.]
[Footnote 10: _Les Fees du Moyen Age_, p. 101. Paris, 1843.]
[Footnote 11: Recueil, 1694. _Peau d'Ane_, p. 50. _Les Souhaits
Ridicules_, p. 93. _Griselidis_, p. 233.]
[Footnote 12: Coignard Veuve. Paris.]
[Footnote 13: _Dialogues des Morts par feu Messire Francois de Salignac
de la Motte Fenelon_, vol. i. p. 23. Paris, 1718. 'L'autre n'est qu'un
amas de contes de vieilles.' Achilles thus anticipates Gerland's
_Altgriechische Maerchen in der Odyssee_.]
[Footnote 14: Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye is the title on the frontispiece.
The term occurs in Loret, _La Muse Historique_. (Lettre V. 11 Juin,
1650.)
'Mais le cher motif de leur joye,
Comme un conte de la Mere Oye,
Se trouvant fabuleux et faux,
Ils deviendront tous bien penauts.'
]
[Footnote 15: In her _Moralite_, Mlle. L'Heritier says,--
'Cent fois ma nourrice ou ma mie
M'ont fait ce beau recit le soir pres des tisons,
Je n'y fais qu'ajouter un peu de broderie.'
]
[Footnote 16: The _Fables d'animaux_ are probably even older than
_contes_ _Diamonds and Toads_. A Mouse and a Frog, as well as the Old
Woman who survives as _La Fee_, take part in the tale as the Kaffirs
tell it in _The Story of Five Heads_, in Theal's _Kaffir Folk Lore_, pp.
48, 49. The Kaffir story slides into a form of _Beauty and the Beast_.
By some unexplained accident a story of Mlle. L'Heritier's _L'Adroite
Princesse_ slipped into editions of Perrault's _Contes_, in 1721, if not
earlier, and holds its place even now.]
[Footnote 17: _Histoires ou Contes du Tems Passe, avec des Moralites._ A
Paris. Chez Claude Barbin, sur le second peron de la Sainte-Chapelle; au
Palais. Avec Privilege de sa Majeste, 1697. In 12o. 230 pp. Bibliotheque
de M. Cousin, 9677. The frontispiece, by Clouzier, represents an old
woman spinning, and telling tales to a man, a girl, a little boy, and a
cat which, from its broad and intelligent grin, naturalists believe to
be of the Cheshire breed. On a placard is written
CONTES
DEMA
MERE
LOYE.
A copy, modified, of the engraving is printed on the cover of M. Charles
Deulin's _Les Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye avant Perrault_. (Paris, Dentu,
1879.) The design holds its own, with various slight alterations, in the
English chap-books of _Mother Goose's Tales_, even in the present
century. There is a vastly 'embroidered' reminiscence of Clouzier in the
edition edited by M. Ch. Giraud, for Perrin of Lyon, 1865.]
[Footnote 18: Mademoiselle was Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, born 1676,
sister of Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans, and Regent.
See Paul Lacroix in _Contes de Perrault_, Paris, s. d. (1826.)]