Chapter XXIII: Part 23

The second Prince, whom they had named Fortuné, got on wonderfully. His papa and mamma loved him passionately, and never thought of their eldest-born. The wicked woman to whom they had given him was no sooner in her own house than she took from him the beautiful clothes in which he was enveloped, and gave them to her own son, who was the same age as Fatal; and having wrapped the Prince in an old petticoat, she carried him into a wood where there was an immense number of wild beasts, and put him into a hole with three little lions, in order that he might be devoured. But the mother of these lions did him no harm; on the contrary, she suckled him, which made him so strong, that he ran quite alone at six months. Meanwhile the son of the nurse, whom she made pass for the Prince, died, and the King and Queen were charmed to think they had got rid of him.

Fatal remained in the wood until he was two years old; and a nobleman of the Court, who went to hunt there, was astonished to find him in the midst of the beasts. He took pity on him, carried him to his house, and having learnt that they sought for a child to keep Fortuné company, he presented Fatal to the Queen.

They gave a master to Fortuné to teach him to read, but they forbad the master to make him cry. The young Prince, who had overheard this, cried every time that he took up his book--so that at five years old he did not know his letters, whilst Fatal read perfectly, and already knew how to write. To frighten the Prince, they commanded the master to whip Fatal every time that Fortuné failed in his duties. Thus Fatal, however good he might be, did not escape being beaten; whilst Fortuné was so wilful and so naughty, that he always ill-treated his brother, whom, however, he did not know to be such. If any one gave Fatal an apple or a toy, Fortuné snatched it out of his hands; he made him be silent when he wished to speak; obliged him to speak when he wished to be silent; in a word, he was a little martyr, on whom no one had any pity.

They lived thus till they were ten years old, and the Queen was much surprised at the ignorance of her son. "The Fairy has deceived me," said she; "I thought that my son would be the wisest of Princes, because I wished he might succeed in all that he should desire to undertake." She went to consult the Fairy on the subject, who said to her, "Madam, you should have wished your son to have a good disposition rather than talent. He only desires to be wicked, and he succeeds in being so, as you see." After having said these words to the Queen, she turned her back on her. The poor Princess, much afflicted, returned to the palace. She would have scolded Fortuné to oblige him to do better; but instead of promising to correct his faults, he said that if they vexed him he would starve himself to death. Then the Queen, quite frightened, took him on her knee, kissed him, gave him sugar-plums, and told him that he should not study for a week if he would but eat as usual.

Meanwhile Prince Fatal became a prodigy of learning and of gentleness; he was so accustomed to be contradicted, that he had no will of his own, and devoted himself to forestall the fancies of Fortuné. But that naughty child, who was enraged at seeing him more clever than himself, could not bear him, and the masters, in order to please the young Prince, beat Fatal every minute. At length the wicked boy told the Queen that he would not have Fatal any longer in his sight, and that he would not eat till they had driven him from the Palace. Thus poor Fatal was turned into the street, and as they were afraid of displeasing the Prince, no one would receive him.

He passed the night under a tree dying with cold, for it was winter, and having nothing for his supper but a morsel of bread which some one had given him in charity. The next morning he said to himself, "I will not remain here doing nothing; I will work to gain my livelihood until I shall be big enough to go to the wars. I remember having read in history that common soldiers have become great captains; perhaps I may have the same good fortune if I am an honest man. I have neither father nor mother, but God is the Father of orphans; He has given me a lioness for my foster-mother; He will not forsake me." After having said this, Fatal rose up and said his prayers--for he never failed to pray to God morning and evening--and when he prayed he cast down his eyes, joined his hands, and did not look about him. A countryman, who was passing, and saw that Fatal was praying with all his heart, said to himself, "I am sure that must be an honest boy; I should like to take him to keep my sheep; God will bless me for his sake." The countryman waited till Fatal had finished his prayer, and then said, "My little friend, will you come and keep my sheep?--I will feed and take care of you." "I will, certainly," replied Fatal; "and I will do all in my power to serve you well."

This countryman was a large farmer, who had a great number of servants who robbed him very often, and his wife and children robbed him also. When they saw Fatal, they were very well contented. "He is a child," said they; "he will do all we wish." One day the wife said to him, "My little friend, my husband is a miser who never gives me any money; let me take a sheep, and you can say the wolf has carried it off." "Madam," replied Fatal, "I would render you a service with all my heart, but I would much rather die than tell a story or be a thief." "You are a little fool," said the woman; "no one will know what you have done." "God will know it, Madam," replied Fatal; "He knows all that we do, and He will punish liars and those who steal." When the farmer's wife heard these words, she threw herself on him, beat him, and tore out a handful of his hair. Fatal cried, and the farmer hearing him, asked his wife why she beat the child? "Because," said she, "he is a glutton; I saw him this morning eat a pot of cream which I was going to take to market." "Fie! how horrid it is to be greedy," said the farmer; and immediately called a servant, and bade him whip Fatal.

It was of no use the poor child saying he had not eaten the cream; they believed the mistress rather than him. After this, he went into the fields with his sheep, and the farmer's wife said to him, "Well! will you now give me a sheep?" "I should be very sorry to do so," said Fatal; "you can do what you will with me, but you cannot oblige me to tell a lie." To revenge herself, the wicked creature then set all the other servants to treat Fatal ill. He remained in the fields night and day; and instead of giving the same food to him as to the other servants, she sent him nothing but bread and water, and when he returned she accused him of all the harm that was done in the house.

He passed a year with this farmer, and although he lay on the bare ground and was so ill-fed, he became so strong that he appeared to be fifteen when he was only thirteen; besides, he was become so patient, that he did not mind even when they scolded him unjustly. One day that he was at the farm, he heard say that a neighbouring King was engaged in a great war. He asked his master to discharge him, and went on foot into the kingdom of this Prince to become a soldier. He engaged himself to a Captain who was a great lord, but behaved himself more like a common porter, he was so brutal; he swore, he beat his soldiers, he robbed them of half the money which the King gave for their food and clothing; and under this wicked Captain, Fatal was even more unhappy than with the farmer. He had engaged himself for ten years, and although he saw the greater number of his comrades desert, he would never follow their example, for he said, "I have received the money to serve ten years; I should rob the King if I failed in my word." Although the Captain was a wicked man, and ill-treated Fatal like the others, he could not help esteeming him because he saw that he always did his duty. He gave him money to do his commissions, and Fatal had the key of his chamber when he went to the country, where he dined with his friends.

This Captain was not fond of reading; but he had a large library, to make believe to those who came to his house that he was a clever man, for in that country they thought that an officer who did not read history could never be anything but a fool and an ignoramus. When Fatal had finished his duties as a soldier, instead of going to drink and gamble with his comrades, he shut himself up in the Captain's chamber and tried to learn his profession by reading the lives of great Generals, and by these means he became capable of commanding an army.

He had already been seven years a soldier when he went to the war. His Captain took six soldiers with him, to make a search in a little wood; and when in this little wood, the soldiers said quite low, "We must kill this wicked man, who beats us and steals our bread." Fatal told them they must not do such a wicked action; but, instead of listening to him, they said they would kill him with the Captain, and all five drew their swords. Fatal placed himself by the side of the Captain, and fought with so much valour that he alone killed four of the soldiers. His Captain, seeing that he owed his life to him, begged his pardon for all the ill he had done him; and having reported his conduct to the King, Fatal was made a Captain, and the King granted him a large pension.

Oh, you may be sure the soldiers did not wish to kill Fatal, for he loved them like his children; and far from robbing them of what belonged to them, he gave them his own money when they were wounded, and never took it away again when in an ill humour. Meanwhile a great battle was fought, and the General commanding the army having been killed, all the officers and soldiers were retreating in disorder, but Fatal cried aloud that he would rather die sword in hand than fly like a coward. His own men answered that they would not abandon him, and their good example having shamed the others, they rallied round Fatal and fought so well that they routed the enemy, and took the hostile King's son prisoner. The other King was very pleased when he heard that he had gained the battle, and said to Fatal that he would make him General of all the army. He presented him to the Queen and the Princess his daughter, who gave him their hands to kiss.

When Fatal saw the Princess, he remained motionless. She was so beautiful, that he felt madly in love with her, and then he was indeed miserable; for he felt that a man like himself was not fit to marry a great Princess. He resolved, therefore, carefully to conceal his love, and every day he suffered the greatest torment; but it was much worse when he found that Fortuné, having seen a picture of the Princess, who was named Gracieuse, had fallen in love with her, and that he had sent ambassadors to demand her hand in marriage.

Fatal thought he should die of grief; but the Princess Gracieuse, who knew that Fortuné was a wicked, cowardly Prince, begged the King, her father, so hard not to make her marry him, that he replied to the ambassador that the Princess did not wish to marry yet. Fortuné, who had never been contradicted, was in a fury when he heard the reply of the Princess; and his father, who could refuse him nothing, declared war with the father of Gracieuse, who did not distress himself much about it, for he said, "So long as I have Fatal at the head of my army, I do not fear being defeated."

He sent for his General, and ordered him to prepare for war; but Fatal, throwing himself at his feet, told him that he was born in the kingdom of the father of Fortuné, and that he could not fight against his native Sovereign. The father of Gracieuse was in a great rage, and told Fatal that he would put him to death if he refused to obey him; but that, on the contrary, he would give him his daughter in marriage if he gained the victory over Fortuné. Poor Fatal, who loved Gracieuse passionately, was sorely tempted, but in the end resolved to do his duty.

Without saying anything to the King, he quitted the Court, and abandoned all his wealth. Meanwhile, Fortuné put himself at the head of his troops, and marched to give the King battle; but at the end of four days he fell ill of fatigue, for he was very delicate, never having taken any exercise. The heat, the cold--everything made him ill. However, the ambassador, who wished to make his court to Fortuné, told him that he had seen at the Court of Gracieuse the little boy who had been banished from the Palace, and that they said the father of Gracieuse had promised him his daughter. Fortuné at this news put himself in a great passion, and as soon as he was better, set out again determined to dethrone the father of Gracieuse, and promised a large sum of money to any one who would bring Fatal to him dead or alive.

Fortuné won a great victory, although he did not fight himself, for he was afraid of being killed. At length he besieged the capital city of his enemy, and resolved to take it by assault. The eve of this day they brought Fatal to him, bound in chains, for a great number of people had been tempted by the reward to seek for him. Fortuné, charmed at being able to revenge himself, resolved, before commencing the assault, to have Fatal beheaded in sight of the enemy. That same day he gave a great feast to his officers to celebrate his birthday, being just twenty-five years old. The soldiers in the besieged city having learnt that Fatal was taken, and that in an hour he was to be beheaded, resolved to perish or save him, for they remembered the benefits he had conferred on them whilst he was their General. They asked permission of the King to make a sortie, and this time they were victorious.

The gift of Fortuné had ceased, and he was killed in endeavouring to escape. The victorious soldiers ran to take off the chains of Fatal, and at the same moment they saw two brilliant chariots appear in the air. The Fairy was in one of these chariots, and the father and mother of Fatal were in the other, but asleep. They only awoke as their chariot touched the ground, and they were very much astonished to find themselves in the midst of the army.

The Fairy then addressing the Queen, and presenting Fatal to her, said, "Madam, behold in this hero your eldest son; the misfortunes which he has undergone have corrected the defects of his character, which was violent and passionate. Fortuné, on the contrary, who was born with good inclinations, has been entirely spoilt by flattery, and God has not permitted him to live longer, because he would have become more wicked every day. He has just been killed; but to console you for his death, learn that he was on the point of dethroning his father, because he was tired of waiting to be King." The King and Queen were very much astonished, and embraced Fatal with all their heart, of whom they had heard speak honourably. The Princess Gracieuse and her father learnt with joy the adventures of Fatal, who married Gracieuse, with whom he lived a long time in perfect happiness, because it was founded in virtue.

APPENDIX.

CHARLES PERRAULT.

Member of the Académie Française, and _premier commis des batimens du Roi_, was born, as he himself tells us in the _Mémoires_ he left to his children, in Paris, on the 12th of January, 1628; and at eight and a half years of age was sent to the College of Beauvais, where he gave early proof of his literary abilities. He died in 1703. Although the author of many creditable compositions, both in prose and verse, he is indebted for his celebrity to that collection of Fairy tales which, under the title of _Histoires, ou Contes du Tems passé_, were first published in 1697, and speedily obtained a world-wide popularity as _Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_, known in England as _Mother Goose's Fairy Tales_.

They were published by Perrault, under the name of his son, Perrault D'Armancour, at that time a child only ten years old, whose name is appended to the dedication of the first edition to "Mademoiselle," _i.e_., Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, sister of Philippe, Duke of Chartres, and, after the death of Louis XIV., Regent of France. Mademoiselle was born 13th September, 1676. The title, _Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_, has given rise to much controversy, and a great deal of paper, not to say learning, has been wasted in the attempt to discover the original source of the stories, and the reason of their being called those of "Ma Mère l'Oye." The former question I shall reserve for discussion in my notices of the tales themselves. The latter we will dispose of at once. Monsieur Colin de Plancy, in his valuable edition of the _Œuvres Choisis de Charles Perrault_, 8vo, Paris, 1826; and Baron Walkenaër in his _Lettres sur les Contes des Fées attribués à Perrault, &c_., Paris, 12mo, same date, have pretty well exhausted the subject. The three principal derivations that have been insisted upon, are:--

Firstly. That in an ancient _fabliau_, "a goose is represented telling stories to her goslings, worthy of them and of her."

Secondly. That in the frontispiece to the first edition of Perrault's _Fairy Tales_, an old woman is represented spinning, and beside her are three children, one boy and two girls, whom she is apparently amusing by her stories; and that as underneath this are the words _Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_,[47] this old woman is no less a personage than Ma Mère l'Oye _in propria persona_.

Thirdly. That Ma Mère l'Oye is one and the same individual with La Reine Pédauque, the goose or bird-footed Queen, a soubriquet applied by some to a Bertha, Queen of France; and by others to St. Clotilde and the Queen of Saba.

The first is an assertion without proof. The second a mere opinion, which is instantly met by another--namely, that the old woman is repeating to her hearers the stories of Ma Mère l'Oye. The third is a tangible proposition, and has been dealt with accordingly.

At St. Marie de Nesle, in the diocese of Troyes, at St. Bénigne de Dijon, at St. Pierre de Nevers, St. Pourcain in Auvergne, and in divers other churches in France, the statue is to be seen of a queen with a web-foot, and therefore called La Reine Pied-d'oie, or Pédauque.[48] This statue is said by Mabillon, but without giving any authority for his assertion, to represent St. Clotilde.

The Abbé Lebœuf believes that the origin of this name is to be found at Toulouse. He quotes a passage in Rabelais, who, speaking of certain large-footed persons, says, "they were splay-footed, like geese, or Queen Pédauque in her portrait formerly at Toulouse;" "and the Abbé concludes," says Monsieur de Plancy, "curiously enough, that the Queen Pédauque is the Queen of Saba;" supporting his opinion by the following tale in the _Targum of Jerusalem_:--

"The Queen of Saba was so fond of bathing, that she plunged every day in the sea. When she went to visit Solomon, he received her in an apartment of crystal. The Queen of Saba on entering it, imagined that the Monarch was in the water, and in order to pass through it to him, she lifted her robe. The King then seeing her feet, which were hideous, said to her: 'Your face unites all the charms of the most beautiful women, but your legs and feet correspond but little to it.'"

Even if we could suppose Solomon to have been so ungallant, there does not appear much in this Hebrew story to bear upon the subject; for what possible reason was there for attributing these stories to the Queen of Saba? Bullet, _doyen_ of the University of Besançon, goes back to the eleventh century, in France, for the source of this epithet. The Good King Robert had married his relative, Bertha; Gregory V. compelled him to divorce her, and imposed on him a penance of seven years. The King, who loved Bertha, refused obedience, and the Pope excommunicated him. He was deserted by everybody except two servants. In the meanwhile, Bertha was said to have been brought to bed of a monster resembling an ill-formed duck, or, according to others, a goose. Abbon, Abbot of Fleury, brought the supposed offspring to the King, who, horrified at the sight of it, repudiated Bertha, leaving her, however, the title of Queen. The dreadful story was circulated that she had given birth to a goose, and that she had herself become goose-footed, as a punishment for her criminal marriage. Her name of Bertha gave more authority to this story in the eyes of the people. They remembered that Bertha or Bertrade, wife of Pepin-le-bref, was surnamed "Bertha with the Great Foot," because she had one foot larger than the other; and they called the repudiated wife of Robert, "Bertha au pied d'Oie." It is possible also, remarks Mons. de Plancy, that this fable was invented to flatter Queen Constance, who succeeded her, for it was the period of credulity and superstition. Constance went to Toulouse. She was lodged in front of an aqueduct so narrow that a man could not pass through it. To amuse the Princess, they told her it was the bridge of Queen Goose, or of the queen with the goose's foot. This story was afterwards amplified, and it became a saying that Queen Pédauque was of Toulouse.

In the _Contes d'Entrapel_, by Noël Dufail, published during the latter half of the sixteenth century, a man is made to swear by "the spindle of Queen Pédauque;" and therefore Bullet assumes that she must have been Queen Bertha, because there is an old French saying, "when Queen Bertha spun,"[49] which is applied to any marvellous story of bygone days, or to events that are said to have happened "once upon a time." This is very inconclusive. In the middle ages, spinning was a favourite occupation of queens and princesses, and Queen Bertha was by no means an exception.[50] There is another French saying, similarly applied to an incredible tale--"It is of the time when King Robert sang to the lute," the said King Robert being the husband of Queen Bertha. This is all tantamount only to our old English sayings, "When Adam was a little boy," and "When Adam delved and Eve span," &c. It is also more than probable that the Bertha of the proverb is identical with the Frau Berchta of German superstition. She is said to live in the imaginations of the upper German races in Austria, Bavaria, Swabia, Alsace, Switzerland, and some districts of Thuringia and Franconia. She appears in _The Twelve Nights_ as a woman with shaggy hair, to inspect the spinners, when fish and porridge are to be eaten in honour of her, and all the distaffs must be spun off. This superstition was also common in England:--

Partly work and partly play
You must on St. Distaff's day.

That is, the day after Twelfth Day, and is evidently the relic of some pagan rite in honour, most probably, of Freya or Frega, the Venus of the Scandinavians. "Dame Bertha horned," is one of the characters in_ Les Evangiles des Conoilles_ (Quenouilles), the joint composition of Jean d'Arras and three other writers, in 1475. It was translated into English, and printed by Winkyn de Worde, with the title of _The Gospelles of Distaffs_.[51]

A writer who signs himself Philetymus, has acutely pointed out a more probable origin of the title of_ Contes de ma_ (or _de le_) _Mère l'Oye_, which it is clear, from passages in Boileau and Molière, was applied to a certain collection of old stories, long before Perrault published his _Histoires du Temps Passé_. This writer refers us to the customs of antiquity and the superstitions of the middle ages. He recals to us that the ancient Romans confided their dwellings to the care of their geese. He alludes to the two hundred thousand Crusaders who, in 1096, directed their march by the flight of a goose from Hungary to Jerusalem; to the guardian fairies of the Château de Piron in the Contentin, who, at the time of the invasion of the Normans, transformed themselves into wild geese; to the _benevolent_ and _protecting_ dwarfs of the Canton of Berne, who are said to have been all goose-footed; and above all, to Marguerite de Navarre, who, in her _Heptameron_, calls herself Oisille; and he concludes by saying, "C'est que la bonne dame Oisille, veuve de grand expérience y représente la Mère l'Oie; c'est que du conté le moins discret elle sait tirer toujours une conclusion favorable à la morale.... Contes de la Mère l'Oie c'est à dire contes de la vieille grand mère, jaseuse et criande comme l'Oie mais comme l'Oie, surtout gardienne vigilante de la maison.... J'allais dire de la Vertu."

There is, amidst all this suggestion, one fact to repose upon. It is, that Perrault was not the inventor of the stories he published; that he merely transmitted to writing, no doubt with some touches of his own, tales of the nursery which had descended orally from the earliest ages of the Celtic occupation of Armorica or Bretagne, to the peculiar superstitions of which we shall find, as we proceed, they all have more or less reference, and that the particular stories printed in the first edition of his _Histoires du Temps Passé_, had long been popularly known as _Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_. In 1678, at the age of fifty, Perrault retired from his public office to dedicate himself entirely to literature and the education of his children. Some ten years afterwards he composed a novel in verse, founded on a celebrated tale in the _Decamerone_ of Boccaccio, and well known to us as _Patient Grizzel_, his title being _La Marquise de Salusses; ou, la Patience de Griselidis_. It was published at Paris, by Jean Baptiste Coignard, in 1691. La Fontaine had, as early as 1678, said, in the fourth Fable of his eighth Book, _Le Pouvoir des Fables_--

----"Et moi même
Au moment que je fais cette moralité
Si Peau d'Ane m'etait conté
J'y prendrais un plaisir extrême."

These lines it would seem induced Perrault to versify the old nursery story of _Peau d'Ane_, with which Louis XIV., when an infant, used to be rocked to sleep; and in 1694, on the publication of the second edition of his _Griselidis_, he added to it his metrical version of _Peau d'Ane_, and _Les Souhaits Ridicules_, known to us as _The Three Wishes_. The success of these stories led him to publish, in 1697, his collection of _Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_, under the title of _Histoires du Temps Passé_, and in the name of his son, as before stated. This collection consisted of eight stories only, all in prose: _La Belle au Bois Dormant_, _Le Petit Chaperon Rouge_, _Barbe Bleue_, _Le Chat Botté_, _Les Fées_, _Cendrillon_, _Riquet à la Houpe_, and _Le Petit Poucet_--a proof that _Peau d'Ane_ was not one of the _Contes de ma Mère l'Oie_, any more than _Griselidis or Les Souhaits Ridicules_. The same eight stories alone appear in the second edition in 1707 (four years after the death of Perrault), and in the third edition by Nicolas Gosselin, in 1724. It is not until 1742, when an edition of the _Histoires du Temps Passé_ was published at the Hague,[52] that we find any addition to the first eight stories, and then we have for the first time the story of _L'Adroite Princesse; ou, Les Aventures de Finette_, presented to us, with a dedication to the Countess of Murat, as a story by Perrault, although a story with that title and on that subject was published by Madlle. Lheritier in 1696, in a work entitled, _Œuvres Mêlées, contenant Nouvelles et autres Ouvrages en Verse et en Prose_, in which also appears a letter from the author to the daughter of Perrault. But even in the Hague edition of 1742, there is no _Peau d'Ane_, and it is only in comparatively modern collections that a prose version of that story, as well as the one in verse actually written by Perrault, is, with _L'Adroite Princesse_, _Griselidis_, and _Les Souhaits Ridicules_, added to the eight original _Contes de ma Mère l'Oie_, or _Histoires du Temps Passé_.

From these eight stories I have selected six, omitting only _Le Petit Chaperon Rouge_, and _Les Fées_, so well known in the nursery as _Little Red Riding Hood_ (why "Riding?") and _Toads and Diamonds_, and for the atmosphere of which they are alone calculated. On the others I shall now offer a few observations in their order of publication, and in the same spirit as those appended to the Fairy Tales of the Countess d'Aulnoy.

BLUE BEARD.

_La Barbe Bleue_ is founded, according to Mons. Colin de Plancy, on a tradition of Lower Brittany; and he remarks that Perrault must have heard it from the lips of nurses, or perhaps peasants, to have written with so much _naïveté_ the scene of Sister Anne. He states also that it is pretended that Blue Beard was actually a nobleman of the house of Beaumanoir. He does not, however, seem to have been aware that the original of this terrible portrait is also said to have been Gilles de Laval, Seigneur de Raiz, created Maréchal de France, June 21st, 1429, for his defence of Orleans against the English, but whose infamous conduct in Brittany so exasperated the public against him, that in 1440 he was arrested by order of the Procureur-Général de Bretagne, and having been tried and found guilty, was condemned to be hanged and burnt, and underwent that sentence in a field at Nantes, on the 8th of October (some say 23rd of December) of that same year, after exhibiting, says the chronicler, great signs of repentance; his body was taken out of the flames, and buried in the church of the Carmelites at Nantes. It was, we are told, his taste for luxury and libertinism which plunged him into all the crimes for which he was so fearfully punished. He squandered a revenue of two hundred thousand crowns per annum, an enormous sum in those days, and which he had inherited at the age of twenty. He never travelled without being accompanied by an army of cooks, musicians, dancers of both sexes, packs of hounds, and two hundred saddle horses. Unfortunately for him, he thought it necessary to include in his suite of attendants some fortune-tellers and pretended magicians, which it is possible in those days may have caused the credulous multitude to impute to him some atrocities of which he may have been innocent. The whole _procès_ is said to be still extant: but we are not furnished with any details which would identify him with the gentleman who rejoiced in a blue beard, and expiated his offences by being run through the body with cold iron, instead of being roasted at a stake like the guilty but penitent Marshal.[53] Whether the line of Beaumanoir or of Laval has the best claim to the honour of his relationship, may be still a matter of dispute; but the fact more important to our present inquiry is, that in either case it is a tradition of Bretagne, and therefore strengthens the theory of Mons. de Plancy and the Baron Walkenaër.

There is no fairy in this story, but there is an enchanted key. "La clef," says the author, "etait fée." In the old translations this is rendered "the key was a fairy." "Fée" is, however, in such instances as these, not a noun substantive, but an adjective, now obsolete, but to be found in Cotgrave, spelt with a third e in the feminine. "Fée, m.; éee, f.: Fatall appointed, destined; also, taken, _bewitched_ or forespoken; also, _charmed_, _inchanted_."--EDIT. 1650.

There is another popular passage in this story which requires a word of remark:--"Je ne vois rien que le soleil qui poudroie et l'herbe qui verdoie." This has been generally translated, "I see nothing but the sun which makes a dust, and the grass which _looks_ green." Mons. de Plancy appends a note to this passage, as follows:--"1. Poudroyer, darder, éblouir les yeux. 2. Verdoyer, jeter un éclat vert."

With great submission to so high an authority, I must venture to differ with him on this point. "Poudroyer" is an old French verb, signifying to reduce to powder. "Je poudroie, tu poudroies, il poudroie," &c. "Un cheval Espagnol _poudroyant_ tous les champs," J. B. Rouss; and Bescherelle, in his _Dictionnaire National_, remarks, quoting the actual passage from Perrault, "Ce mot sonore poètique, épargnant une périphrase est a regretter." Verdoyer is also a verb active, signifying to grow or become green, and I have therefore taken the liberty to render the above celebrated reply, "I see nothing but the sun making dust" (that is to say, reducing the soil to dust by its heat), "and the grass growing green." It is the flock of sheep that afterwards raise or make _a_ dust. It may be thought I am "making a dust," to use a familiar phrase, about a trifle; but I wished to point out that unless we could say in English, "the sun that _dusts_ and the grass that _greens_," we cannot approach the terse and graphic description of dear Sister Anne.

Mons. de Plancy observes that the incidents of this story (excepting, of course, that of the enchanted key) are not impossible, provided they are supposed to have occurred in the middle ages; but that Perrault has placed them nearer his own times, by saying that Blue Beard's widow employed part of her fortune in purchasing commissions for her two brothers, as the sale of commissions in the French army was not known before the reign of Francis I.; but he does not notice that the mention of dragoons and musqueteers brings them still nearer. Blue Beard has been a favourite subject with the dramatists, both French and English. The celebrated melodrama by George Colman the younger, produced at Drury Lane Theatre, in 1798, in which the scene was transferred to the East, was rendered still more popular by the music of Michael Kelly: the "March in Blue Beard" was perpetrated on every piano alternately with the "Duke of York's March," the "Battle of Prague," and the "Overture to Lodoiska."

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY IN THE WOOD.

The charming fairy tale of _La Belle au Bois dormant_ is the gem of the collection. Its popularity is as great at the present day as it was two hundred years ago. I have called the reader's attention in a marginal note to the first mention probably of seven league boots,[54] but I reserved for the Appendix some observations upon the earliest mention of Ogres and Ogresses. The Baron Walkenaër, in his letters already quoted, has, I think successfully, combated the earlier notion that the word Ogre was derived from a classical source. He deduces it from the Oigours or Igours, a Turkish race mentioned by Procopius in the sixth century. Some tribes of Oigurs established themselves in the Crimea, and their language was called "Lingua _Ouguresca_" by the Italian merchants who first traded with them. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries all Tartars were confounded under the name of Oigurs. When the Magyars, a Tartar tribe from the banks of the Wolga, overran Dacia and Pannonia, the names of the ancient Huns and of the ferocious Oigurs were united to designate them. They were first called Hunnie-Gours, and their country Hunnic-Gourie, from whence Hongrois and Hungary. The atrocities committed by and attributed to the Oigurs spread horror and alarm throughout Europe. Their cruelties to infants, in which they have been only equalled by the barbarous Sepoys in the recent calamitous events in India, took especial hold of the imaginations of those to whose care children were specially entrusted, and the appellation of Oigur or Ogre became synonymous with that of cannibal, or any other ferocious monster in human form. In Roquefort's _Glossaire de la Langue Romaine_, Ogre is also derived from the same source. That "l'Huorco" of the Italians, the Orco of Bojardo and Ariosto, may be derived from the Latin Orcus, according to Minucci, as Mr. Keightley imagines, I am not prepared to dispute. Such curious coincidences are common to all who have wandered in the mazes of etymology; but I will merely suggest that it is quite as probable that Orco and Huorco were also derived from Oigur, the name by which the Tartars of the Crimea were known to the Italians as early as the twelfth century, as we have already seen. Florio, however (1598), says, "Orco as Orca, a _sea_ monster," which the Ogre never was.

Spinning with the distaff is the oldest form. A wheel appears in illuminations of the fourteenth century, but the woman hent stood to her work. The more modern spinning-wheel, at which women sit, was invented in 1530, by a citizen of Brunswick, named Jurgen. For illustration of the accident to the Princess, it is perhaps worthy of remark that in the Pyrenees and western provinces of France the spindle is sometimes pointed with iron. "It is thus," says Mr. Akerman (the author of a paper on the Distaff in the _Archæologia_, vol. xxxvii.), "rendered a stiletto, with which the woman could defend herself." The same antiquary informs us that "the art of spinning in its simplest and most primitive forms is yet pursued in Italy, where the women of Caià still twirl the spindle unrestrained by that '_ancient rustic law which forbade its use without doors_.'" So that the father of the Sleeping Beauty had a sort of precedent for his "Must not spin with spindles Act."

The Germans have a version of this story called _Briar-Rose_: vide Grimm's _Kinder und Hausmärchen._

MASTER CAT; OR PUSS IN BOOTS.

_Maître Chat; ou, le Chat Botté._--This capital story is said by Mr. Dunlop and Mr. Keightley to be taken from a collection of stories by Giovan Francesco Straparola, printed at Venice in 1550-54, under the titles of _Tredici Piacevole Notte_, and translated into French "with considerable embellishments" in 1585. That the first story of the Eleventh Night is derived from the same source as Perrault's there can be little doubt; but I am not by any means prepared to admit that Perrault was indebted to that or any other printed collection for this or any one of those eight stories which it is clear were well known in France as _Les Contes de ma Mère l'Oye_. Straparola, who seems to have borrowed largely from Morlini, and collected stories wherever he could find them, drew upon the traditions of Brittany as well as on the fabliaux of Provence. It is indeed notorious that the Italian novelists were indebted almost entirely to the Trouvères or Troubadours of Languedoc, whilst they themselves admit that the plots of their romances were of Armorican origin.

In Britanie of old time
These lays were wrought, so saith this rhyme.

Says the old translator of the _Lai le Fraine_, the author of which Mr. Dunlop acknowledges "must have been better informed than any modern writer" (_History of Fiction_, 8vo, 1845, p. 196). In the second edition of the Countess D'Aulnoy's _Fairy Tales_, I took an opportunity of vindicating that lady from the charge so hastily preferred against her both by Mr. Dunlop and Mr. Keightley, and I now contest as strongly the accuracy of the opinions of the same writers respecting the tales of Charles Perrault. Neither in the story of Straparola, first of the Eleventh Night, nor in the _Gagliuso_ of Signor Basile (whose _Pentamerone_, published in 1672, is also roundly asserted to have been the "origin" of the French _Contes des Fées_[55]), do we find _Puss in Boots_. What would _Le Maître Chat_ be, were he not also _Le Chat Botté_? Nor is there an Ogre--that especial characteristic of a legend of Brittany--nor consequently the delicious scene between him and Puss, which so dramatically winds up the French story. The same unmistakeable indications of its being a veritable _Histoire du Temps Passé_, militate against the belief alluded to by M. de Plancy, that the Marquis de Carabas was intended as a portrait of some particular nobleman of the time of Louis XIV.; and therefore that the usurpation of the castle and property of the ogre might be an allusion to the indelicate seizure by D'Aubigné of the domains of a Protestant, an exile in consequence of the religious persecutions at the close of the seventeenth century, "In which case," he adds, "the Cat would be Madame de Maintenon!" What a pity so ingenious an idea should be destitute of foundation. It is more probable that the wits of the day compared the illustrious individuals to the Marquis de Carabas and his Cat.

I have kept the old English title of _Puss in Boots_, though it is not literally that of the original. It would have been an indictable offence to have altered it.

The tricks of the cat to catch the rats are described almost in the words of Lafontaine, in his fable of _Le Chat et le Vieux Rat_, in which Maître Mitis, "l'Alexandre des chats," a second Rodillard, "se pend la tête en bas" and "s'enfarine" for the same purpose.

FOOTNOTES:

[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.

CINDERELLA; OR THE LITTLE GLASS SLIPPER.

_Cendrillon; ou, la Petite Pantoufle de Verre_. Here, again, could it enter the heart of an Englishman to call this anything but _Cinderella_? I am proud to say I was not equal to such a sacrifice to principle. I should have been afraid to meet the eyes of my grandchildren. There are persons, however, who have been cruel enough to tamper with the second title, to destroy "the little glass slipper," and tell us that in the original story it was not a pantoufle "de _verre_," but "de _vair_"--_i.e._, a fur much worn in the middle ages, and from which the charge of vair in heraldry was taken. I thank the stars that I have not been able to discover any foundation for this alarming report. Even should it be unfortunately the fact, it would not affect the _Conte de ma Mère l'Oye_, as handed down to us by Perrault. In that, it is an undeniable "pantoufle de _verre_," and has been said to represent allegorically the extreme fragility of woman's reputation, and the prudence of flight before it is _too late_. There appears to be no doubt that this story is founded on an old Armorican tradition, as in 1826 an alteration of an ancient Breton chronicle was published by Madame Piette, entitled _Laurette de Karnabas; ou, la Nouvelle Cendrillon_, which is taken from the same source, but divested of its fairy agency; and the Countess d'Aulnoy had previously availed herself of some portions of the tale of _Cendrillon_ in her story of _Finette Cendron_.

The trial of the slipper is like that of the ring in the story of _Peau d'Ane_, and a "little glass shoe" is the subject of a German fairy tale. The Germans have also a version of _Cinderella_, in which the slipper is of "pure gold."

At the banquet it will be remembered that the Prince is said to have given Cinderella both oranges and citrons. These do not appear to us at present as particularly suggestive of the magnificence of a royal collation; but in the seventeenth century, Portugal oranges were considered a present worthy princes of the blood. "Monsieur, me vint voir," says the Duchesse de Montpensier, in her _Memoirs_, "il me donne des oranges de Portugal." Molière, in his description of the comedy which formed a portion of the famous fêtes given at Versailles, in 1668, by Louis XIV., tells us that "d'abord on vit sur le théâtre une colation magnifique d'oranges de Portugal;" and in his own comedy, _L'Avare_, when Harpagon apologises to his mistress for not having prepared a collation for her, his son replies, "J'y ai pourvu, mon père, et j'ai fait apporter ici quelques bassins _d'oranges de la Chine, de citrons doux_, et de confitures." Also, according to L'Emery (_Traités des Aliments_, 1705), the citron was supposed to give a better colour to the lips, and the ladies of the Court in the 17th century, therefore, "portoient en main _des citrons doux_, quelles mordoient de tems en tems pour avoir les livres vermeilles."--Le Grand D'Aussi.--_Vie Privée des Français_, tom. i. p. 251.

RIQUET WITH THE TUFT.

_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_."