Chapter XXIV: Part 24

In the Form of Cury there is a receipt for making "Viande Riall" (royal), in which the cook is told, after he has dressed it in "dysshes plate," to "take _a barre of golde foyle_ and another of _silver foyle_, and lay hom (them) on, Saint Andrew's cross wyse, above the potage, and then take sugre plate, or gynger plate, or paste royale, and kutte hom of lozenges, and plante hom in the voide places between the barres, and serve hit forthe." The peacock served in his "hakell,"--_i.e._, neck feathers, or in his "pride"--_i.e._ with tail displayed, &c.--had always his bill gilt.

Whatever, in fine, the "queue de renard" may have been, I cannot doubt that, worn "sur l'oreille," it was a distinctive mark of a _rôtisseur_ of that day, as a pen behind the ear has been of a clerk in ours; and the probability is in favour of the third interpretation, as _rôtisseurs_ were, as their name implies, those cooks who prepared the roasted dishes only, and in all the old accounts it is especially the "rotie" that is "doré."

_Riquet à la Houpe_ is supposed to have inspired Madame de Villeneuve with the idea of the _Beauty and the Beast_. In my notice of that story, I shall have a word to say in refutation of that supposition. _Riquet with the Tuft_ was the first of those fairy extravaganzas which the public have so kindly received during twenty years, at the Olympic, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Haymarket, and the Lyceum. It was written in conjunction with Mr. Charles Dance, and produced at the Olympic under Madame Vestris's management, December 26th, 1836.

LITTLE THUMBLING.

_Le Petit Poucet._--This story, under the titles of _Hop o' my Thumb_, _Little Thumb and his Brothers_, &c., has been continually reprinted amongst our English nursery tales; and as I have already spoken of ogres and seven-leagued boots, there is little else in it that calls for observation. The latter are said to have been "fées"--_i.e._ enchanted, as the key in _Blue Beard_. The attempt of the parents to lose the children in the wood is an incident in Madame d'Aulnoy's story of _Finette Cendron_, drawn, no doubt, from the same source, as Cambry, in his _Voyage au Finisterre_, bears witness to _Le Petit Poucet_ having been an "ancien conté populaire," which has for ages amused "les enfans de la Basse Bretagne." I think it is quite unnecessary for me to go into the question of this story being founded on an episode in Homer's _Odyssey_, to prove that Perrault was not thinking of Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, or that the pebbles and bread were not suggested by the clue of Ariadne.

In Grimm's _Kinder und Hausmärchen_ are several stories about Thumbling; and I need scarcely remind the reader that England has her own renowned _Thomas Thumb_.

THE COUNTESS DE MURAT.

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

The plots of them were most probably taken from

"Les contes ingenus quoique remplis d'addresse Qu'ont inventés les Troubadours."

For to this she is specially invited in the verses at the end of the prose story of _L'Adroite Princesse_, which is dedicated to her, and attributed to Perrault. It has been shown, however, that if that version of _L'Adroite Princesse_ were really written by him, it was not published till 1742, thirty-nine years after the death of the reputed author, and twenty-six after the death of the lady to whom it is dedicated.

PERFECT LOVE.

_Le Parfait Amour_ is a story exhibiting considerable talent, although deficient in those lively sallies, those amusing whimsicalities and allusions to the manners and dresses of the period which give so much piquancy to the Fairy Tales of Perrault, and the more elaborate compositions of Madame d'Aulnoy. The interest is entirely of a serious character; but the magic ring, with its power over the four elements--the value of which is destroyed by the too hasty wish of the lover--is an ingenious and dramatic idea, and the fatal lamps a truly affecting situation. This is the first Fairy Tale that gives us a picture of the Gnomes, and their subterraneous magnificence--a superstition existing all over Europe; the Trolls, or underground men of the North; the little people and ground mannikins of Germany; and the Korr or Korred of Brittany.

"The wise
And prudent little people, who keep warm
By their fine fires, many a fathom down
Within the inmost rocks. Pure native gold,
And the rock crystals, shaped like towers, clear,
Transparent, gleam with colours thousand-fold
Through the fair palace; and the little folks,
So happy and so gay, amuse themselves
Sometimes with singing."[57]

And accordingly we find them singing the charms of Irolite, and entertaining the lovers with "une musique fort harmonieuse, mais un peu barbare."

FOOTNOTES:

[56] Her _Histoires Sublimes et Allegoriques_ has been attributed by the Abbé Langlet du Fresnoy to the Countess d'Aulnoy.

[57] Idyllen &c., von J. R. Wyss, translated by Mr. Keightley (_Fairy Mythology._)

ANGUILLETTE.

_Anguillette_ is a story of the same character as _Le Parfait Amour_. The interest is wholly serious, and the termination tragical, reminding one, by the transformation of the victims into trees, of the catastrophe of the _Yellow Dwarf_ of Madame d'Aulnoy. The inconstancy of Atimir is very naturally drawn; and there is considerable merit in the general conduct of the story.

YOUNG AND HANDSOME.

_Jeune et Belle_ might almost be placed amongst the pastoral romances of D'Urfey and George de Montemayor. It is full of Watteau-like tableaux, many of them suggested, probably, to the writer as to the painter by the Fêtes Champêtre so much in vogue during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries at the Court of Versailles.

The sudden and unexpected introduction of Zephyr at the very close of the story as the Deus ex machinâ, is quite in accordance with the taste of the period, though much out of place in a fairy tale. It is not, however, for me to find fault with it, as it afforded me a hint for a character which enabled Mr. Robson to display the versatility of his genius in the last of that long series of extravaganzas I have already alluded to.

In the "Collection" above mentioned, this tale was substituted for Madame d'Aulnoy's _Serpentin Vert_, the _dénouement_ of which is also produced by the incongruous introduction of mythological personages.

THE PALACE OF VENGEANCE.

_Le Palais de la Vengeance_ was printed in the "Collection" as Madame d'Aulnoy's, under the title of the _Palace of Revenge_. It is principally remarkable for its satirical conclusion--a very original one for a fairy tale, as the lovers are married, and do not "live happy ever afterwards."

THE PRINCE OF LEAVES.

_Le Prince des Feuilles_ is, to the best of my knowledge, presented for the first time in an English garb. It is more of a fairy tale than the four preceding it, and appears to me to have been suggested to Madame de Murat by her residence at Auch, where, indeed, it is most likely to have been written.

The natural history of the turquoise had been newly popularized by the publications of Chardin and other Oriental travellers; and more particularly by that of a book by Boethius de Boot, _Le Parfait Joallier_; Lyons, 1644. The turquoise "de la Vieille Roche," that Madame de Murat speaks of, is a stone found near Nichapour and Carasson, in Persia--the true Oriental turquoise; whilst those called "de la Nouvelle Roche," are not stones, but petrified bones, and are found in Europe, particularly in France, at Auch, (the very place to which Madame de Murat was exiled;) and near Simmorre, in the Département du Gers; and in the Nivernais, according to the account of Reamur in the _Mémoires de l'Académie_, 1715.

Turquoises were formerly very highly prized, and all kinds of virtues and properties attributed to them, the greater part of which are fabulous, although detailed gravely by de Boot, who was physician to Rodolph II., Emperor of Germany. The jewellers, even in his day, took great pains to distinguish between those that retained their colour and those that turned green. A fine unchanging turquoise, the size of a filbert, sold in that day for two hundred thalers and upwards. "The turquoise possesses such attractions," says de Boot, "that men do not think their hands are well adorned, nor their magnificence sufficiently displayed, if they are not decked with some of the finest." The name is supposed to have been derived from Turkey, the country from which they were probably first imported; but others deduce it from Turchino, a name given by Italians to a particular blue.

Even at this day, the discoloration or loss of a turquoise is considered a prognostication of evil.

THE FORTUNATE PUNISHMENT.

_L'Heureuse Peine_ is also, I believe, new to the English reader. It is an exceedingly graceful story, and the _dénouement_ is novel as well as ingenious. The "little animal" into which the unfortunate Naimée is transformed, is not specified by the author, but from an allusion to its _manière de marcher_, I suppose it to be a crayfish, a favourite with the writers of fairy tales.

MADEMOISELLE DE LA FORCE.

CHARLOTTE ROSE DE LA FORCE was the daughter of François de Caumont, Marquis de Castel-Moron, and granddaughter of Jacques de Caumont, Duc de la Force, whose escape from the massacre of St. Bartholomew is celebrated in the _Henriade_ of Voltaire, and who afterwards greatly signalized himself by his exploits during the reign of Henry IV. and Louis XIII. She was born in the Castle of Casenove, near Bazas, in Guienne, about 1650, and died in Paris in 1724. Her mother, Marguerite de Vicof, was Dame de Casenove, and daughter of the Baron de Castelnau. Mademoiselle de la Force would therefore appear to be maternally connected with Madame de Murat. She is said to have been married, in 1687, to Charles de Brion; but that the marriage was declared null and void ten days afterwards. She was the author of several memoirs and romances, and of an Epistle, in verse, to Madame de Maintenon; but is best known by her fairy tales, _Contes des Contes_, though only one of them has, to my knowledge, appeared previously in English. That one is--

FAIRER THAN A FAIRY.

_Plus Belle que Fée_ was published, with the usual abridgments and alterations, about twenty years ago, in a collection of nursery tales. The story bears a strong resemblance to the _Gracieuse and Percinet_ of the Countess d'Aulnoy; and though the plot is rendered more intricate by the addition of another pair of lovers, it does not gain in interest as much as it loses in coherence and simplicity. The fair author has, however, appended a note to her story called _L'Enchanteur_, which forbids us to suppose that she was indebted to any previous writer for the plot of her story. She says--"This story (_L'Enchanteur_) is taken from an ancient romance ('ancien livre Gothique') named _Perséval_, several things being omitted which were not in accordance with our modern tastes, and several others added. Some names are changed. It is the only story that is not entirely the composition of the author. _All the others are purely of her invention._" After this positive declaration, which we have no right to question, why should we refuse to give credit to the Countess d'Aulnoy for the possession of equal powers of imagination?

I am by no means impugning the originality of _Plus Belle que Fée_, in pointing out that the notion of the _Fair of Time_ seems to have been suggested by an old fairy legend of Normandy. "Near the village of Puys, half a league to the north-east of Dieppe, there is a high plateau, surrounded on all sides by high entrenchments, except that over the sea, where the cliffs render it inaccessible. It is named 'La Cité de Limes,' or 'Le Camp de Cæsar,' or simply 'Le Catel' or 'Castel.' Tradition tells that _the Fées used to hold a fair there, at which all sorts of magic articles from their secret stores were offered for sale_, and the most courteous entreaties and blandishments were employed to induce those who frequented it to become purchasers; but the moment any one did so, and stretched forth his hand to take the article he had selected, the perfidious Fées seized him, and hurled him down the cliffs."[58] I cannot say that Mademoiselle de la Force has made the most of this tradition, supposing her to have been acquainted with it. Her allusion to the entertainments at Marly, to which alone she says this fair was to be compared, has reference, I think, to a "Fancy Fair," as we should now call it, in which the stalls were attended, as in our days, by the principal personages of the Court. I feel satisfied that I have somewhere seen an account of that entertainment, but unfortunately have no note which would enable me to turn to the authority.

FOOTNOTES:

[58] Keightley's _Fairy Mythology_, 12mo, 1850, p. 474. There was also a piece, called _La Foire des Fées_, written by Le Sage, and acted at the Foire St. Germain.

THE GOOD WOMAN.

_La Bonne Femme_ is far superior to _Plus Belle que Fée_. It is indeed worthy of Madame d'Aulnoy, and I cannot account for its never having previously met with a translator. It will be recognised by playgoers as the foundation of my Fairy Extravaganza, _The Good Woman in the Wood_, in which form the dramatic incidents of this charming story were first introduced to a London public. As we are bound, after the author's declaration, to consider it an original story, we need not trouble ourselves to hunt after its source. The other original fairy tales--_Percinet_, _Tourbillon_, _Vert et Blue_, _Le Pays des Délices_, and _La Puissance d'Amour_--bear no comparison to the two I have selected.

MADAME DE VILLENEUVE.

GABRIELLE SUSANNE BARBOT, "daughter of a gentleman of Rochelle," and widow of Monsieur de Gallon, Seigneur de Villeneuve, Lieutenant-Colonel of Infantry, died at Paris, in the house of Crebillon, the tragic writer, Dec. 29th, 1755. Such is the sum of the information afforded us by editors and biographers, concerning the author of one of the most popular fairy tales ever written.

THE BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

_La Belle et la Bête._--Thousands of English readers have no doubt been all their lives under the impression that they knew nearly by heart the story of _Beauty and the Beast_; and though few, alas! may have taken the trouble to inquire who was the author of it, those who have, imagine themselves indebted for it to Madame Leprince de Beaumont. Nay, there are many, no doubt, in France who are under the same belief, for "_La Belle et la Bête_, par Madame Leprince de Beaumont," is, without a word of explanation, at this moment circulating as a portion of the French Railway Library, and was published, with various other stories, in a small edition of _Contes des Fées_ only last year, under her name, by a bookseller on the Quai des Augustins, Paris. It is only those who have read the original story by Madame de Villeneuve, either in the _Contes Marins_,[59] or in the _Cabinet des Fées_, who will not be surprised to find that Madame de Beaumont has merely the merit of having cut this admirable work down to the smallest comprehensible dimensions, and made a pretty little nursery tale of one of the most ingeniously constructed stories in the whole catalogue of fairy chronicles.

The story of the Beast is but alluded to in a few words, and that of the real parents of Beauty altogether omitted. It is no answer to say that the version by Madame de Beaumont is an agreeable story, that the moral is preserved, and that there are portions of the original tale which required alteration or omission. In justice to Madame de Villeneuve, it ought never to be printed without the acknowledgment that it is simply an abridgment of her composition, adapted to the use of juvenile readers, by Madame de Beaumont. I have omitted a dozen lines, and softened one objectionable expression; but, with the exception of this very slight and indispensable alteration, Madame de Villeneuve's story is now placed before the English public in its entirety.

It was published in 1740, and Mr. Dunlop remarks that "it surpasses all that has been produced by the lively and fertile imaginations of France or Arabia;" but in his notice of the tales of Perrault, he says that it is an expansion of and adoption from _Riquet à la Houpe_. I think this is one of those hasty conclusions of which we are all occasionally guilty. I cannot, for my part, see any resemblance between the two stories. In _Riquet_, an ugly and deformed prince wins the hand of a lovely princess--the usual triumph of mind over matter; but in _Beauty and the Beast_, the suitor is not merely a repulsive man, but a monster of the most horrible and tremendous description, and who is specially prohibited from availing himself of those mental powers which might in the slightest degree affect the judgment of the lady. Pity and gratitude are the motives which influence Beauty to sacrifice her own happiness to ensure that of the Beast. In the other case, admiration of the talent of Riquet renders the Princess gradually blind to the defects of his person. _Le Mouton_ of Madame d'Aulnoy offers infinitely more points of resemblance. The transformation of the King into a ram by a jealous and vindictive fairy, and the permission given by him to Merveilleuse to visit her family, on her solemnly promising to return by a stated period, are features too obvious to be overlooked. The despair of the Ram in consequence of her not fulfilling her promise on the last occasion, is also like that of the Monster; but Madame de Villeneuve has avoided the tragical catastrophe; and notwithstanding the similarity I have pointed out, _Beauty and the Beast_, taken as a whole, deserves all the praise that those who are best acquainted with it have unanimously accorded to it.

It is a curious circumstance that the _Gatta Cennerentola_ of Basile, and the German version of _Cinderella_, both commence with the departure of the father on a journey, and the requests of his daughters corresponding exactly in their general character with those in _Beauty and the Beast_, while we find nothing of the sort in Perrault's _Cendrillon_. I infer from this that the Italian and German writers have mixed two old stories together, and that Madame de Villeneuve's is founded on one of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[59] So called from being supposed to be narrated on board a ship bound to St. Domingo. 4 vols. 12mo. Paris, 1740-41. They were republished under the title of _Le Temps et la Patience_, in 1768.

THE COUNT DE CAYLUS.

ANNE CLAUDE DE TUBIERRE, DE GRIMOAD, DE PESTILS, DE LEVI, COMTE DE CAYLUS, was born in Paris, in 1692, and died the 3rd of September, 1765. He entered the French army early, and distinguished himself in Catalonia and at the siege of Fribourg. After the Peace of Rastadt he visited Italy, and in 1717 went to the Levant in the suite of the Ambassador of France to the Sublime Porte. During this journey he undertook an adventure which proves his courage as well as his love of art. On arriving at Smyrna, he was anxious to profit by the necessary delay of a few days to visit the ruins of Ephesus, which are about twelve hours' journey from that place. The neighbourhood was at that time infested by a band of brigands, the chief of which was the notorious and terrible Caracayoli. The roads were exceedingly unsafe for travellers; but the Count de Caylus was not to be daunted. He provided himself with a dress made simply of sail-cloth, and carrying nothing about him that could tempt the most petty thief, he sought out two of the band of Caracayoli, and bargained with them for a safe conduct from Smyrna to Ephesus and back again, the money to be paid only on his return. It being their interest to take care of him, he found them the most faithful guides in the world. Caracayoli, on learning the object of his journey, politely offered to assist his researches. He informed the Count that in the neighbourhood of his retreat there were some ruins well worthy his inspection, and to expedite his visit to them, he mounted him and one of his guides on two fine Arabian horses. The ruins proved to be those of Colophon. The Count returned to the retreat of Caracayoli, and passed the night there, and the next morning proceeded to the site of the ancient city of Ephesus, from whence he was safely conducted back to Smyrna by the brigands, each party well satisfied with their bargain.

After his return to France, in 1717, he made several other journeys abroad, and paid two visits to London. At Paris he occupied himself with drawing, music, painting, writing, and sculpture. He wrote the lives of the most celebrated painters and sculptors of the Royal Academy, and founded in that Academy an annual prize for the students who were most successful in expressing the passions. In 1742 he was elected an honorary member of "L'Académie des Inscriptions," in which he founded another prize of five hundred livres for the best essays on the manners and customs of the ancients. He formed a splendid collection of Etruscan, Greek, Roman, and Gaulish antiquities, an account of which was published (seven vols. 4to, the last in 1767) by Monsieur le Beau. He discovered the ancient art of encaustic painting, and of tinging marble, from hints in the works of the elder Pliny. But all this occupation and study did not prevent this eminent scholar and antiquary from indulging in the lighter pursuits of literature. He did not disdain to acknowledge the fascination of a fairy tale, or to contribute to the number of them. I have selected three from his _Féeries Nouvelles_, which are in my judgment the best, and display the greatest variety of style and power of imagination. The first,--

PRINCESS MINUTE AND KING FLORIDOR.

_La Princesse Minutie et le Roi Floridor_ is written in a spirit of playful satire, which reminds one of those sprightly caricatures of fairy tales which flowed so pleasantly from the pen of Count Hamilton; but, unlike _Le Belier_ and _Fleur d'Epine_ of that accomplished satirist, _Princess Minute and King Floridor_ presents us with a sound and serious moral, which at this moment, when the sacrifice of important interests to routine and etiquette has caused so much animadversion, is singularly _apropos_. It also reads a pleasant lesson to those who neglect or misuse the great means and opportunities which it has pleased Providence to bestow upon them, and amidst all its whimsical extravagances, never ceases to whisper in the words of Solomon--

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways and be wise.

Floridor was the name of a celebrated French actor of the seventeenth century. In _Le Temple du Destin_, written by Le Sage, and acted at the Fair of St. Laurent in 1715, the High Priest of Destiny observes upon the vanity of an actor--

Tout ce qui reluit n'est pas or
Ils out tous ce génie,
Chacun se croit un Floridor
La plaisante manie!

THE IMPOSSIBLE ENCHANTMENT.

_L'Enchantement Impossible_ is an amusing story with one blemish, which I have ventured to correct by the omission of half a dozen lines, and the suppression of an unnecessary indelicacy. Unlike the last, this is a mere work of fancy, without any particular object--a sort of illustration of the old song and saying, _Love will find out the way_. The Mer-man and his sister would seem to point out a Breton origin for this story, as the belief in these marine marvels is strong upon the coast of Brittany, where the females are called Morgan (sea-women), or Morver'de (sea-daughters), and are supposed to draw down to their palaces of gold and crystal, at the bottom of the ocean, those who venture imprudently too near the edge of the water; but the Count de Caylus was too well acquainted with the classical Tritons and Syrens to render it necessary for him to draw upon the legends of Armorica for such materials, and it is probable the story is entirely of his own invention.

The absurd fashions in hair-dressing, glanced at in this story, by the introduction of a fairy with her hair dressed _en chien fou_, are commented upon in a little volume called _Histoires des Modes Française_; Amsterdam and Paris, 1773. "The number of these _frisures_," says the writer, "is almost infinite. Every year, every month, produces new ones. We have seen, in succession, hair dressed _en bequille_ (crutch fashion), _en graine d'epinards_ (spinach fashion!), _en baton rompu_ (broken stick!); yesterday it was _en aile de pigeon_, to-day it is _en débacle_."

BLEUETTE AND COQUELICOT.

_Bleuette et Coquelicot_ is a charming fairy tale of the pastoral order, unexceptionable in its style, and salutary in its instruction. I have only to add, in further illustration of the head-dress of Arganto (p. 360), that "Foreign _Marshalle_ Powder" was advertised in 1781 at sixteen shillings per pound, by R. Langwine, at the sign of the "Rose," opposite New Round Court, Strand; and that receipts for making it occur as late as in Gray's _Supplement to the Pharmacopœia_, in 1836. The author of _L'Histoire des Modes Française_, quoted above, says he does not "despair of one day seeing rose-coloured hair powder, blue heads," &c.; and in _Plocacosmos_ (1781), we actually find receipts for making yellow, _rose-pink_, and black hair powder; while Goldsmith, in his _Citizen of the World_, Letter III., mentions both black and _blue_.

MADEMOISELLE DE LUBERT.

Of this lady we have but very meagre information. She was born about the year 1710, and is said by some writers to have been the daughter of a President; and by others, of a "Trésorier de Marine." She appears to have led a studious and retired life, her love of literature indisposing her to marriage. Her _Contes des Fées_ were commenced about 1740; and several have been attributed to her pen which she disavowed. Those she acknowledged were:--_Terserion_, _La Princesse Lionette et le Prince Coquerico_, _Le Prince Glacé et la Princesse Etincelante_,_ La Princesse Couleur de Rose et le Prince Celadon_, _La Princesse Camion_, and _La Nouvelle Léonille_. She was also the author of a translation of _Amadis des Gaules_, _Les Hauts Faits d'Esplandian_, and _Anecdotes Africaines_, published in 1752. Voltaire and Fontenelle called her "Muse et grace." She was living in 1772, and died before 1779. She had disappeared from society for some time previously, and was presumed to be still living at that date; but a letter written by some one who knew of her decease, inserted in the _Journal de Paris_ of that year (No. 69), addressed to the author of _L'Almanach des Dames Illustres_, by "l'Ombre de Mademoiselle de Lubert," and dated from the "Mille et unième Bosquet des Champs Elisées," seems to have been considered sufficient authority; though as no precise time or place is mentioned, the letter might have been written by the lady herself had she wished to deceive the public. She had, however, reached a very respectable age, and it is probable that she was dead at that period.

"Her _Contes des Fées_," remarks one of her critics, "are not nearly equal to those of Mademoiselle de Murat and other ladies who have written in that style. They have less of moral purpose and allegorical allusion." This is quite true; and my object in publishing the two I have selected is to illustrate, as I have mentioned in my preface, the decline of the Fairy tale. Mademoiselle de Lubert is one of the latest of her class. Her stories are only designed to amuse. The publication of _The Thousand and One Nights_, by Galland, and the immense popularity that work immediately obtained, evidently affected the composition of fairy tales. Wild, extravagant adventures, unconnected incidents, transformations without point or object, a straining after the merely marvellous, and a total abandonment of the laughing philosophy and the unaffected morality which distinguish and immortalize the stories of Perrault and d'Aulnoy, were the first effects of the circulation of the _Arabian Nights Entertainments_. The next was the Orientalizing of every tale of enchantment. Dull Caliphs and Sultans deposed the merry old Kings who "once upon a time" ruled in Fairyland. The amours of the seraglio and the harem were substituted for the innocent courtships of princes or shepherds. The manners and dresses of the time, those delicious anachronisms which impart so much pleasantry--ay, and instruction--to the fairy tale, were carefully avoided; and the characters, arrayed in what the writers flattered themselves were Eastern costumes, were seriously placed in situations compared to which that of Molière's _Monsieur Jourdain_ as _Mamamonchi_ was a nearer approach to reality. Even those that had some claim to Oriental origin were so altered and "manufactured for the European market" that they were said to appear--

--en sortant de chez Barbin[60]
Plus Arabe qu'en Arabie.

_Le Mercure Galant_ was flooded with these productions. _Almanzor et Zehra, Conte Arabe_; _Almerine et Zelima, Conte Oriental_; _Balky, Conte Oriental_; _Zaman, Histoire Oriental_, _&c._ Then we have _Contes Mogol_, _Contes Turcs_, _Contes Chinois_, _Contes Tartares_, _Contes Persans_, _&c._; but we are forgetting Mademoiselle de Lubert and her

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Barbin was the publisher of the _Mille et une Nuits_.

PRINCESS CAMION.

A translation of _La Princesse Camion_, much abridged and altered, was published in the _Child's Fairy Library_ some twenty years ago, under the title of _Princess Minikin._ The plot of this story is intricate without being ingenious. The persecution of Camion by Marmotte is purely capricious, and her contrivances are of the clumsiest description. In the original, Zirphil is commanded to "take off, one by one, the scales of the whale;" but a whale has no scales that it could feel the deprivation of. It is skinning the fish alive that would be a cruel operation, and I have therefore rendered "_écorcher_" in that sense, and not to scale, as it had been previously translated, in accordance with the specific direction quoted above. The transformation of the unfortunate Princess into a crayfish, and her being shelled instead of pounded as Marmotte had decreed, is all of the same character. The long story told by her in that state to the other crayfish in the plantation is a lame way of enlightening either Zirphil or the reader, and has to be continued in as lame a manner by Citronette. The pounding the crayfish for the King's soup, and the disappearance of them in flames when they are put into the mortar, seems to point to an Eastern origin. The latter portion reminds us of the black man flinging the fish into the fire, in the story of "The Fisherman and the Genius," in the _Arabian Nights_, where there is also a city changed into a lake, and all its inhabitants into fishes, and re-transformed in the end and restored to the rightful monarch, the young King of the Black Island. The crayfish broth may be an allusion to the well-known _Bisque d'Ecrévisse_, but it is also an Oriental dish; for while this book was passing through the press, a morning journal announced that "the eldest royal son of his Majesty the First King of Siam," on his arrival at Claridge's Hotel, "after satisfying himself that due provision had been made for the comfort of his staff, retired to rest, having first partaken of a frugal repast, prepared by his own _chef-de-cuisine_, consisting of _crabfish pounded_ with various Eastern condiments."--_Morning Post_, October 31st, 1857.

The eagerness with which the nobles of the Court sought for the servile office of filling the King of the Whiting's bowl with sea-water, is the only stroke of satire in the story, and evidently levelled at the candle-holding and similar ceremonies of "le grand et le petit coucher." To stand and hold a "bougeoir allumé," while Louis XIV. undressed himself, was, says St. Simon, "une distinction et une faveur qui se comptait, tant le Roi avait l'art de donner l'être à des riens."

In a note to the expression, "shrieks like Melusine's," page 398, I have suggested that some portion of _Princess Camion_ might have been founded on the romance of _Melusine_. This romance was composed towards the end of the fourteenth century, by Jean d'Arras, at the desire of the Duke de Berri, son of John, King of France, and was founded on an incident recorded in the archives of the family of Lusignan, which were in possession of the Duke. It is briefly as follows:--

THE LEGEND OF MELUSINE.

A King of Albania, named Elinas, had married the beautiful Fay Pressine, by whom he had three daughters at a birth, Melusine, Melior, and Palatine. Fay had stipulated that he should never enter her chamber during the period of her confinement; but the King having broken his promise in his anxiety to embrace his newly-born children, the Queen cried out that she was compelled to leave him, and immediately disappeared with her three daughters. She retired to the Court of her sister, the Queen of the "Isle Perdue," and as her children grew up, instructed them in the art of sorcery. Melusine having learned from her mother the conduct of her father, determined to be revenged on him, and proceeding to Albania, by means of her newly-acquired art carried off the King and shut him up in a mountain called Brandelois. The Queen, who still retained some affection for her husband, on becoming acquainted with this unnatural act, punished Melusine by sentencing her to become every Saturday a serpent from the waist downwards, till she should meet with a lover who would marry her on condition of never intruding on her during the time of her transformation, when she was ordered to bathe; with a promise that if she strictly attended to this injunction, she might eventually be relieved from her weekly disgrace and punishment. Melusine was excessively beautiful, and Raimondin, son of the Count de Forez, having met with her in the forest of Colombiers,[61] fell in love with her so deeply that he married her without hesitation on the prescribed conditions. She built for him, near the spot where they had met, the Castle of Lusignan, and bore him several children; but her husband's jealousy being excited by a cousin, who suggested to him that Melusine had a criminal object in secreting herself on a Saturday, he made a hole with his sword in the door of the chamber to which she was wont to retire, and perceived her in her state of transformation. The various versions of this legend differ in the details of the consequences; but all agree in stating that Melusine, reproaching him with the breach of his word, disappeared, and left him to end his days as a hermit on Montserrat. The popular belief was, that she appeared on what was called the Tower of Melusine when any of the lords of Lusignan were about to die; and Mezeray assures us, on the faith "of people who were not by any means credulous," that previous to the death of a Lusignan, or of a king of France, she was seen on this tower in a mourning dress, and uttered for a long time the most heart-piercing lamentations. The Duke de Montpensier destroyed the castle in 1574, on account of the resistance made to his arms in it by the Huguenots; but the family of Lusignan, till it merged in that of Montmorency-Luxembourg, continued to bear for its crest a woman bathing, in allusion to the story of Melusine.

Ange par la figure, et serpent par la reste.--_Delisle._

PRINCESS LIONETTE AND PRINCE COQUERICO.

_La Princesse Lionette et le Prince Coquerico_ is an infinitely better story than _La Princesse Camion_: but, like that, its aim is no higher than to excite the interest and awaken the wonder of its readers. As a work of fancy, however, it is one of the best of its class, and I believe is now for the first time translated into English.

I do not recollect any story on which it could be said to be founded; but at the end of _La Tyranine des Fées détruite_, by the Countess d'Anneuil, is a story, entitled _La Princesse Lionne_, in which a princess is changed into a lioness, and persecuted by a fairy called La Rancune; but there the similarity ends. Mademoiselle de Lubert edited an edition of the _Nouveaux Contes des Fées_ of the Countess d'Anneuil, and may have taken an idea from that particular incident.

The model of the globe in which Prince Coquerico saw and heard all that passed in the universe, and witnessed the opera, the play, and the orations at the _Académie Française_, reminds one of the room in the Palace of the Beast, the various windows of which afforded Beauty similar entertainment.

The Fairy Tigreline's employments of spinning and threading pearls, is in strict accordance with the manners of the sixteenth century. "Passons avec les dames," says Rabelais, "nostres vie et nostres temps _à enfiler les perles ou à filer_, comme Sardanapalus."--Livre i. chap. 33. I have mentioned (p. 438) that the opera of _Armide_ was considered the _chef-d'œuvre_ of Quinnault. The music was composed by Lulli, and it is reported that he made Quinnault write the last act over again five times, which so disgusted the poet that he ceased to write for the stage from that period. The incident of the shield is that in which Ubaldo holds before Rinaldo his adamant or diamond shield, in which the latter sees himself reflected in his effeminate attire, is awakened to a sense of his degraded situation, and abandons the enchanted gardens of Armida.--Book xvi.

FOOTNOTES:

[61] At a spring called the Fountain of Thirst, or the Fountain of the Fays, "corruptly called 'La Font des _Sees'_" (says a writer in 1698), and every year, in the month of May, a fair is held in the neighbouring mead, when the pastrycooks sell figures of women '_bien coiffées,_' called 'Merlusines.'

MADAME LEPRINCE DE BEAUMONT.

JEANNE LEPRINCE DE BEAUMONT was born at Rouen, in 1711, and commenced her literary career in 1748, by the production of a romance, called _La Triomphe de la Vérité_; shortly after which she came to England, and resided in London for a considerable time, occupying herself as a governess, and in writing works for the instruction as well as the amusement of youth. That which acquired the most popularity was _Le Magazin des Enfans_, in which appeared her abridgment of _Beauty and the Beast_, and her original _Fairy Tales_. She was twice married. Her first was an unfortunate union, annulled almost immediately afterwards. Her second marriage took place in England, but to a Frenchman; and in 1762 she returned to France for the benefit of her native air. In 1768, she purchased a small estate, called Chenavoi, and died in 1780. Her miscellaneous works amount to seventy volumes; but even _Le Magazin des Enfans_ is scarcely remembered in the present day, and the four short fairy tales which terminate this volume are, with the abridgment of _Beauty and the Beast_, the only effusions by which she is popularly known in England. The best of them is

PRINCE DÉSIR AND PRINCESS MIGNONE.

It is more like one of the good old Breton stories--pleasant, short, and with a sound moral.

PRINCE CHÉRI,

Corrupted into "Prince Cherry" in our children's books, exhibits the influence of the importations from the East. But that it has so manifest a moral, it might pass for a French alteration of an Oriental tale. The names of Suliman and Zélie would encourage the suspicion.

THE WIDOW AND HER TWO DAUGHTERS.

_La Veuve et ses Deux Filles_ is better known by the title of _Blanche and Vermillion_, under which it has been frequently printed, and was also produced on the French stage by Mons. Florian, in March, 1781. The moral of the story is declared by the Fairy to be that excessively trite and common-place axiom, that happiness consists in content, or, in the words of the author, the possession of things only that are necessary without wishing for more; but the author forgot to show us that Blanche was discontented. It does not appear that she wished for superfluities, or to be a "great Queen," or that such an idea ever entered her head till the Fairy promised her she should become one, "not to reward," but "to punish," her for begrudging to give away her plums. Poor Blanche is therefore made an _unhappy_ queen; her low birth renders her an object of contempt at Court; the King is a worthless person, who neglects the innocent girl his passion induced him to place upon his throne, and who is the mother of his children; and at length the miserable wife exclaims that "happiness is not to be found in magnificent palaces but in the innocent occupations of the country." Now this is foolish--it is worse, for it is false and injurious. There is as much happiness in palaces and on thrones, thank God, as there is in cottages. The occupations of a virtuous sovereign are as innocent as those of a husbandman, while the power to do good, existing with the will, must make the balance of happiness greatly in favour of the former. The cares of State are burdensome enough, no doubt, and the more conscientious the monarch, the weightier the sense of responsibility; but has the countryman no cares, no sorrows, no _vices_? The legal occupations of all classes are "innocent." Is it only kings and nobles who yield to temptations or indulge in the evil propensities of our common nature? There has been too much of this fallacy infused into what are called moral stories, and at the risk of being accused of breaking a butterfly on the wheel, I have singled out this particular instance, as _Blanche and Vermillion_ is to be found in almost every child's story-book. That the author's intention was laudable, I do not doubt; but to read a wholesome lesson, she should have shown Blanche to have been discontented with the lot assigned to her by Providence, pining to mix in society for which she was neither fitted by birth nor education, and dreaming that happiness consisted solely in rank, wealth, and luxury. The moral should have been, not that such possessions were incompatible with virtue and happiness, but that their owners were not exempted from the frailties and sufferings of humanity, and that unequal marriages were rarely fortunate ones. All this, it will be said, she might mean, but it is not evident; and the only impression made upon a child's mind by this story, if any impression can be made by it whatever, is the very absurd and objectionable one, that all kings and queens are wicked and unhappy, and all farmers and dairy-maids virtuous and contented.

PRINCE FATAL AND PRINCE FORTUNÉ.

This is another of the moral Fairy Tales of Madame de Beaumont, and, as _Fatal and Fortuné_, a great favourite with the compilers of children's story-books. It is healthier in tone than the preceding: the value of adversity is difficult to impress on a young mind, and it is pointed out in this little tale as well, perhaps, as it could be; but there is one observation I must venture to make in reference to a point of taste. The writers of the old Fairy Tales never mix up the Almighty with fairies and enchanters. The superior powers are invariably the mythological divinities of ancient Greece and Rome. Their heroes and heroines pray to "the gods," not to "God." The introduction of the sacred name is, I am well aware, too frequent in familiar French conversation, to render it a matter of criticism in the original language; and I fully acquit Madame de Beaumont of any intentional irreverence; but it is a fact worthy of remark, that in an age and at a Court which are described as particularly licentious, the writers for youth or entertainment carefully abstained from an unnecessary profanity of which they had examples enough in the older fabliaux and romances, not only of their own country, but throughout Europe; and that although the majority of these authors were in the highest ranks of society--members of the circle that surrounded the throne of one of the most despotic monarchs in the civilized world--they never spared the foibles or the crimes of princes, or the hypocrisy and treachery of their parasites.

The fearless frankness, indeed, with which they satirized the follies and inveighed against the vices of the great, is as honourable to them as their perfect freedom from that questionable morality which would deny in any class the existence of virtue and the enjoyment of happiness founded upon it. Madame de Beaumont's admission that such may be the case concludes her story of _Fatal and Fortuné_ more satisfactorily than her insinuation to the contrary does that of _The Widow and her Two Daughters_.

So much has been said in this Appendix about _Peau d'Ane_ and _L'Adroite Princesse_, that although, as in the case of _Prince Marcassin_ and _Le Dauphin_, in my former volume, I have not included them in the body of the work, I think it may be as well, as in the above instance, to give in this place an analysis of their plots, they being undoubtedly two of the oldest fairy tales of their class on record.

PEAU D'ANE.

A Princess, in order to escape the persecution of the King, her father, on a point of conscience, consults a fairy, who is her godmother, and by her advice successively requests her father to give her three dresses--the first of the colour of the sky, the second of the colour of the moon, and the third of the colour of the sun, believing he will be unable to fulfil his promises. He succeeds, however, in procuring for her the three dresses; and she is then instructed to ask him for the skin of a marvellous ass in the royal stables, which supplies the King daily with an ample quantity of gold coin, under the impression that his Majesty will never consent to such a sacrifice. The infatuated Monarch, however, does cause the ass to be killed and flayed, and the Princess, on the receipt of the skin she has requested, is reduced to flight. The Fairy tells her to put the three fine dresses and all her jewellery, &c. in a large trunk, which by magical power is to follow her underground, and appear whenever she needs it; and begriming her face and hands, and wrapping herself up in the ass's skin, the Princess escapes from the palace, and travels into the dominions of a neighbouring monarch. She there obtains employment in a farm as a scullion and keeper of the pigs and poultry, her only pleasure consisting in occasionally locking herself up in her miserable room, and putting on her fine dresses and jewellery, which appear at her wish, as the Fairy promised her.

The son of the King of this country happens to visit this farm occasionally as he returns from hunting, and one day peeps through the keyhole of the door, and sees Peau d'Ane (as the Princess is called, from the only dress she wears in public) arrayed in one of her richest robes. He is dazzled with her beauty, and believing her to be some divinity, he is afraid to burst open the door, and returns to the palace, where he falls perfectly love-sick, refusing to eat, drink, or take any amusement. He inquires who lives in that wretched room at the farm, and is told an ugly, dirty, kitchen wench, called Peau d'Ane, for the reason aforesaid. He declares that nothing can cure him but a cake made by her hands. After all sorts of expostulations, they yield to his wishes, and Peau d'Ane is ordered to make a cake for the Prince. She has seen him on his visits to the farm, and is equally in love with him. She makes the cake, and drops, by accident or design, a magnificent emerald ring into it. The Prince devours the cake, and finds the ring. He immediately declares that he will marry no one but the woman who owns that ring. On this determination being made public, all the unmarried ladies in the Court and kingdom endeavour to fit on the ring, but it is too small for any one to pretend to the ownership. At length Peau d'Ane is sent for at the Prince's wish, and dropping her hideous ass's skin, appears in magnificent attire, and places the ring easily on her finger. Everybody is astonished, the Prince and his parents delighted, and the nuptials take place, being honoured by the presence of Kings and Fairies from all quarters, and specially by the father of the Princess, who has recovered from his infatuation.

This story, founded originally on the legend of St. Dipne, was a favourite in France from an exceedingly early period, and was versified by Perrault, and published with _Les Souhaits Ridicules_, as I have already stated, in 1694. He alludes to the original nursery tale in his _Parallele des Anciens et des Modernes_, 1689, in which he makes the partisan of the ancients say, "Les fables Milesiennes sont si puériles, que c'est leur faire assez d'honneur que de leur opposer nos Contes de _Peau d'Ane_ et de _la Mère l'Oye_." The prose version of this tale was not published until many years after his death, and is supposed by Baron Walkenäer not to have been his composition; and I think there is a point unnoticed by the Baron which supports that opinion. The story is dedicated to Mademoiselle Eleanore de Lubert.[62] Now, if this be Mademoiselle de Lubert, author of _La Princesse Camion_, &c., she was not born till some years after the death of Perrault; and as in the dedication we find the lines

"Quoique vous soyez à l'aurore,
Du printemps de vos jeunes ans,"

the dedication itself could not have been written much before 1720, Mademoiselle de Lubert having been born about 1710.

There is another story in the _Contes ou Joyeux Devises de Bonaventure Desperiers_, Novel 130, of a young girl named "Peau d'Ane," and "how she got married by the means furnished her by the Ants." A gentleman fell in love with a merchant's daughter, named Pernette. The father and mother, not daring flatly to refuse their consent, attached to it what they considered an impossible condition--namely, that for a given period previous to her marriage the girl should wear no other apparel than the skin of an ass. Pernette, returning the gentleman's affection, was not to be discouraged by this obstacle, and cheerfully wore the skin of an ass for the appointed time. Foiled in this matter, they set their wits to work to invent something more impracticable. They insisted that she should lick up, grain by grain, a bushel of barley, which they spilt for that purpose on the ground. Nothing daunted, she applied herself to this task; but the ants repaired to the same spot, and took away all the barley by degrees, without being noticed, so that it appeared as if Pernette had done it; and her parents considering further opposition useless, the girl obtained her husband. The story concludes with the assertion that "Vray est que tant quelle vesquit le sobriquet de Peau d'Ane lui demeura."