[18] Mademoiselle was Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, born 1676, sister of Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans, and Regent. See Paul Lacroix in Contes de Perrault, Paris, s. d. (1826.)
[19] In the introduction to the Jouaust edition of 1876 M. Paul Lacroix has probably gone too far in attributing to Perrault's son the complete authorship of the Tales. It is true that the title of the Dutch reprint of 1697 describes the book as 'par le fils de Monsieur Perrault.' The Abbé de Villiers, however, in his Entretiens sur les Contes des Fées (à Paris chez Jacques Collombat, 1699), makes one of his persons praise the stories 'que l'on attribue au fils d'un célèbre Académicien,' for their freshness and imitation of the style of nurses. Another speaker in the dialogue, The Parisian, replies, 'quelque estime que j'aie pour le fils de l'Académicien, j'ai peine à croire que le père n'ait pas mis la main à son ouvrage,' p. 109. This opinion is probably correct. It seems that Perrault was not troubled by attacks on his Contes, and, in biographical works the tales were long attributed to his son. But M. Paul Lacroix declares that this son was nineteen years of age when the stories appeared. This looks incredible on the face of it. Mlle. L'Heritier could hardly have said about a young man of nineteen, that he 'occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son enfance' in writing out Contes naifs. Nor would a man of that age, in a century too, when the young took on them manly duties so early, describe himself in his dedicatory letter as 'un enfant.' M. Charles Giraud gives the boy's age as ten, without citing his authority. (Lyons Edition of 1865, p. lxxiv.) Moreover the idea of educating a young man of that age by making him write out fairy tales would have seemed, and would justly have seemed, ridiculous. We must believe that P. Darmancour was a child when the stories were published, and we may agree with the Abbé Villiers that the Academician 'put a hand to them.' M. Lacroix's authority is the discovery by M. Jal of the birth of Pierre Perrault, a son of Charles, who would have been nineteen in 1697. (Jal's Dictionnaire Critique, p. 1321.) But Jal did not find the register of baptism of Mademoiselle Perrault. It follows that he may have also failed to find that of other young Perraults, including 'P. Darmancour.' Each of Perrault's first sons (May 25, 1675; Oct. 20, 1676), was called Charles, the second had a Samuel added to the name. Perrault may also have had two or more Pierres; in any case, unless P. Darmancour were an idiot, his education could not have been conducted by making him write out nursery tales at nineteen.
[20] Even in the popular mouth almost any formula may glide into almost any other, and there is actually a female Hop o' My Thumb in Aberdeenshire folklore. But Madame d'Aulnoy's seems a wanton confusion. The Aberdeen female Hop o' My Thumb is Malty Whuppy, Folk Lore Journal, p. 68, 1884. For Finette Cendron, see Nouveaux Contes des Fées, par Madame D——, Amsterdam, Roger, 1708.
[21] Paul de Saint Victor, Hommes et Dieux, p. 474.
[22] L'Histoire de Mélusine (Barbin, Paris, 1698) is dedicated like Histoires et Contes du Tems Passé to Mademoiselle. The author says, 'Si tost que la plus célèbre des Fées a sceu que votre Altesse Royale avoit eu la bonté de donner de favourables audiences aux Fées du bas ordre, et qu'elle avoit pris quelque plaisir au recit de leurs avanteures,' she came forward and asked Mademoiselle to patronise her own. A burlesque 'Privilége en faveur des Fées dans ce temps où l'on a tant d'engouement pour les Contes des Fées' ends the volume.
Fairies and Ogres.
The stories of Perrault are usually called 'Fairy Tales,' and they deserve the name more than most contes, except the artificial contemporary tales, because in them Fairies or Fées do play a considerable part. Thus there were seven Fairies, and an old one 'supposed dead or enchanted,' in the Sleeping Beauty. There is a Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, and, as will be shown in the study on Cinderella, she takes the part usually given, in traditional versions, to a cow, a sheep, or a dead mother who has some mystic connection with the beast. The same remarks apply to the Fairy Godmother in Peau d'Ane. She, too, does for the heroine what beasts do in purely popular European variants, and in analogous tales from South Africa.
The fairies in Riquet of the Tuft are of little importance, as the narrative is not really traditional, but of literary invention for the most part. The fairy in The Two Wishes is not a fairy in the South African variants where divers magical or animal characters appear, nor can Mother Holle in Grimm (24) be properly styled a fairy. Thus, of all Perrault's Fairies only the Fairies of the Sleeping Beauty (repeated in Riquet of the Tuft) answer to Fairies as they appear in genuine popular traditions, under such names as Moirai, or Hathors, in ancient Greek, and Egyptian versions. These beings attend women in child-bed, as they attended Althea when she bore Meleager, and they predict the fortunes of the infant.
Perrault's fairy godmothers (unlike the fairies of real legend) are machinery of his own, and even he dispenses with Fairies altogether in Blue Beard, Hop o' my Thumb, and Puss in Boots; while in Les Trois Souhaits the mythological machinery of the classics is employed, and Jupiter does what a fairy might have done. It is true that the key of the forbidden door, in Blue Beard, is said to be Fée; but this only means that, like the seven-leagued Boots in Hop o' my Thumb ('elles estoient Fées'), the key has magical qualities. The part of Fairies, then, is very restricted, even in Perrault, while, in traditional Märchen all over the world, Fairies or beings analogous to the Fairies appear comparatively seldom.
In spite of this the Fairies have so successfully asserted their title over popular tales, that a few words on their character and origin seem not out of place. Fairies are doubtless much older than their name; as old as the belief in spirits of woods, hills, lonely places, and the nether world. The familiar names, fées, fades, are apparently connected with Fatum, the thing spoken, and with Fata, the Fates who speak it, and the God Fatuus, or Faunus, and his sister or wife Fatua[23]. Preller quotes the Fatuae as spiritual maidens of the forests and elements, adding the other names of Sagae and Sciae, to Fatuae, and Fata[24]. He compares the Slavonic Wilis: and, to be brief, the Apsaras of India, the Nereids of ancient and modern Greece, and the Good Ladies and Fairies of Scotland, with many of the Melanesian Vuis, forest-haunting spirits, are all of the same class, are fairy beings informing the streams and wilds. To these good folk were ascribed gifts of prophecy, commonly exercised beside the cradle of infancy, deabus illis quae fata nascentibus canunt, et dicuntur Carmentes[25]. As Maury shows[26], the local Fairies of Roman Gaul were propitiated with altars: