There was once a queen who had a son so ugly and misshapen that it was
questioned for a long time whether he was a human creature or not. A
fairy who was present at his birth declared that he would be none the
less amiable for all his ugliness, because he would have uncommon
intelligence and wit. She added that he would have the power, by virtue
of a gift which she had just bestowed upon him, to give the same
talents which he possessed to the person whom he should love best. All
this was some comfort to the poor Queen, who was in great distress at
having such an unsightly child.
As soon as the child began to talk he said a thousand pretty things,
and in everything he did he was so unusually clever that every one was
delighted with him. I forgot to tell you that he was born with a little
tuft of hair on his head, and on this account they called him Riquet
with the Tuft; for Riquet was the family name.
Seven or eight years after this the Queen of a neighboring kingdom had
twin daughters. The firstborn was more beautiful than the day. The
Queen was so very happy over this that it was feared that such excess
of joy would do her harm. The same fairy who had been present at the
birth of little Riquet with the Tuft was here too; and to moderate the
Queen’s joy she told her that this little Princess should have no sense
at all, but should be as stupid as she was pretty. This mortified the
Queen very much, but soon she had a still greater sorrow, for the
second daughter was extremely ugly.
“Do not afflict yourself so much, madam,” said the fairy. “Your
daughter shall have it made up to her in other ways; she shall have so
much intelligence and wit that her want of beauty will hardly be
noticed.”
“God grant it may be so,” replied the Queen; “but is there no way to
make the elder, who is so pretty, have a little sense?”
“I can do nothing for her in the matter of sense,” said the fairy, “but
everything in the matter of beauty; and therefore, as there is nothing
I would not do for your satisfaction, I will bestow on her as a gift
the power to make handsome the person whom she likes best.”
As the two Princesses grew older, their perfections grew with them.
Everywhere people talked of the beauty of the elder and of the wit of
the younger. It is true that their defects increased considerably with
their years. The younger grew visibly uglier, and the elder became more
stupid every day; either she made no reply to what was asked her, or
she said something very silly. She was, besides, so clumsy that she
could not place four pieces of china on the mantelpiece without
breaking one, nor drink a glass of water without spilling half of it on
her clothes.
Although beauty is a great advantage to a young girl, in society the
younger sister was almost always preferred to the elder. People would
go first to the more beautiful to see and admire her; but they very
soon left her for the more clever sister, to enjoy listening to her
pleasant conversation; and it was amazing to see how in less than a
quarter of an hour the elder was without a person near her, while the
whole company was crowding about the younger. The elder, dull as she
was, noticed this very plainly, and would have given, without a moment
of regret, all her beauty to have half the wit of her sister. The
Queen, for all her good sense, could not help reproaching her often for
her stupidity; this made the poor Princess ready to die of grief.
One day, when she had withdrawn to a wood near by to lament her
misfortune, she saw coming towards her an ugly little man, very
unpleasant to look at, but most magnificently dressed. It was the young
Prince Riquet with the Tuft, who had fallen in love with her from her
portraits, which were scattered everywhere, and had now left his
father’s kingdom to have the pleasure of seeing her and talking with
her. He was charmed at finding her thus alone, and addressed her with
all imaginable respect and politeness. Having observed, after he had
paid her all the usual compliments, that she seemed very melancholy, he
said to her, “I cannot understand, madam, how a person as beautiful as
you are can be also as sorrowful as you appear to be; for although I
can boast of having seen a great number of beautiful ladies, I declare
to you that I never saw any one whose beauty approaches yours.”
“You are very kind to say so, sir,” answered the Princess; and here she
stopped.
“Beauty,” replied Riquet with the Tuft, “is so great an advantage that
it ought to make up for all else; and when any one possesses it, I do
not see that there is anything that can afflict her very much.”
“I would much rather,” said the Princess, “be as ugly as you are and
have sense, than have the beauty which I possess, and be as stupid as I
am.”
“There is nothing, madam, which shows more plainly that we have sense
than to believe we have none; and it is the nature of that gift that
the more people have it, the more they believe they lack it.”
“I do not know how that may be,” said the Princess, “but I know very
well that I am extremely stupid, and that is the cause of my grief.”
“If that is all which troubles you, madam, I can very easily put an end
to your sorrow.”
“And how will you do that?” said the Princess.
“I have the power, madam,” said Riquet with the Tuft, “of giving to
that person whom it is my fortune to love best as much wit as it is
possible to have; and as you, madam, are that person, it will only
depend on yourself if you have not as much wit as any one can have,
provided only you are pleased to marry me.”
The Princess was much confused and did not speak a word.
“I see,” continued Riquet with the Tuft, “that this proposal disturbs
you, and I do not wonder at it; but I will give you a whole year in
which to make up your mind about it.”
The Princess had so little sense, and at the same time so great a
desire to have some, that she imagined that the end of this year would
never come; so she accepted the proposal which was made to her. She had
no sooner promised Riquet with the Tuft that she would marry him in a
year from that day than she realized a great change in herself; she
found herself saying with incredible ease whatever she wished, and
saying it, too, in a clever, fluent, and natural manner.
She began at that moment a brilliant conversation with Riquet with the
Tuft, which she sustained with such ease that Riquet began to think
that he had given her more wit than he had reserved for himself.
When she returned to the palace the court did not know what to think of
so sudden and extraordinary a change; for now she said as many sensible
and extremely clever things as before she had said stupid and silly
ones. The whole court was delighted beyond measure over it; the younger
sister was the only one who did not share the general happiness; for,
having no longer any advantage over her sister in the line of wit and
sense, she appeared beside her a homely, disagreeable girl.
The King himself was now guided by the advice of the elder sister, and
sometimes would even hold a meeting of the council in her apartments.
As the report of this change spread everywhere, all the young Princes
of neighboring kingdoms made efforts to gain her favor, and almost all
of them asked for her hand in marriage; but she did not find any one
who had enough wit to satisfy her. So she heard them all without
binding herself to any one of them.
However, there came one so powerful, so rich, so witty, and so handsome
that she could not help feeling a great liking for him. When her father
saw this he told her that he was leaving her to be her own mistress in
the matter of choosing a husband, and that she had only to express her
wishes. She was so sensible that she knew so serious a matter deserved
her careful consideration; so she thanked her father and asked him to
give her time to think it over.
She went, by chance, to walk in the same wood where she had met Riquet
with the Tuft, to deliberate on what she should do. While she was
walking in deep reflection she heard a dull noise under her feet, as of
a great many people running busily to and fro. Listening more
attentively she heard one say, “Bring me that saucepan”; another, “Give
me that kettle”; and a third, “Put some wood on the fire.”
At that moment the ground opened, and she saw under her feet a great
kitchen full of cooks, scullions, and all sorts of servants and people
necessary to prepare a magnificent feast. There came forward a company
of twenty or thirty cooks, with larding needles in their hands and
foxtails in their caps, who took their places in one avenue of the wood
about a very long table, and went to work busily, keeping time with a
tuneful song.
The Princess, in astonishment at the sight, asked them for whom they
were working.
“For Prince Riquet with the Tuft, madam, whose wedding takes place
to-morrow,” replied their chief.
The Princess, more surprised than ever, remembered all at once that it
was that day twelvemonth on which she had promised to marry Prince
Riquet. At the thought she was ready to sink into the ground. What made
her forget was that when she made the promise she was very silly; and
when she took the new sense that the Prince bestowed on her, she forgot
all that she had done in the days of her stupidity. She walked on, but
had not taken thirty steps before Riquet with the Tuft presented
himself before her, magnificently attired like a man who was going to
be married.
“You see, madam,” said he, “that I am exact in keeping my word; and I
do not doubt that you are come to fulfill yours, and to make me, by
giving me your hand, the happiest man in the world.”
“I will confess frankly to you,” replied the Princess, “that I have not
yet made up my mind in this matter, and that I do not believe that I
shall ever be able to consent to what you desire.”
“You astonish me, madam,” said Riquet with the Tuft.
“That I can well believe,” said the Princess; “and assuredly if I had
to do with a clown or a man of no sense, I should find myself very much
at a loss. ‘A Princess always keeps her word,’ he would say to me, ‘and
you must marry me, since you have promised to do so.’ But as he to whom
I speak is the man of all others in the world who has the most sense, I
am sure he will hear reason. You know that when I was only a fool I
could hardly make up my mind to marry you. Now that I have the sense
which you gave me, which makes me much harder to please, how can you
expect me to come to a decision to-day which I could not agree to
before? If you thought seriously of marrying me, you made a great
mistake in removing my stupidity and making me see things more plainly
than I did before.”
“If a man without wit or sense,” replied Riquet, “would be justified in
reproaching you for breaking your word, why do you wish, madam, that I
should not make use of the same right in a matter where the happiness
of my whole life is at stake? Is it reasonable that persons of wit and
sense should be worse off than those who have none? Can you pretend
this,—you who are so wise and who wished so much to be? But come to the
point, if you please. Except for my ugliness is there anything in me
which displeases you? Do you object to my birth, my sense, my temper,
or my manners?”
“Not at all,” said the Princess; “I like in you all that you have
mentioned.”
“If that is the case,” replied Riquet with the Tuft, “I shall soon be
happy, for you have the power to make me the most handsome of men.”
“How can that be?” asked the Princess.
“It can be done,” replied Riquet with the Tuft, “if you love me enough
to desire that it should be; and in order that you may have no doubt
about it, know that the same fairy who at my birth bestowed on me the
power of making clever the person I love best, has given you the power
of making as handsome as you please him whom you love best and for whom
you desire this favor.”
“If that be the case,” said the Princess, “I wish with all my heart
that you may be the comeliest and handsomest Prince in the world, and I
bestow on you this gift in so far as I am able.”
The Princess had no sooner pronounced these words than Riquet with the
Tuft seemed to her eyes the comeliest, handsomest, and most pleasing
man she had ever seen.
Some people say that it was not the fairy’s charm, but love alone which
made this great change. They declare that the Princess, when she had
reflected upon the perseverance of her lover, upon his discretion, and
all the good qualities of his heart and mind, saw no longer the
deformity of his body nor the ugliness of his face; that his hump
seemed to her no more than the grand air of a man who put on a look of
importance; that where before she had noticed that he limped badly, she
now found it nothing more than a careless grace of carriage which
charmed her. They tell, too, how his eyes, which were squinting,
appeared to her on that account the more brilliant, while their
irregularity passed in her judgment as a mark of the warmth of his
love; and finally that his great red nose gave, in her opinion, a
martial and heroic air to his appearance.
However that may be, the Princess promised immediately to marry him,
provided he obtained the consent of the King her father. The King knew
that his daughter had a high esteem for Riquet with the Tuft, and was
well informed, too, as to the cleverness and prudence of the Prince. So
he received him gladly as his son-in-law. The next day their wedding
was celebrated as Riquet with the Tuft had foreseen, and according to
the orders which he had given long before.