ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE
Marie Catherine le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness of Aulnoy[Frontispiece.]
Gateway of Fuenterrabia[46]
A Town of Central Spain[100]
Medina del Campo[144]

INTRODUCTION

AT the end of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth there were several women in France who had gained no small reputation for the writing of amusing if somewhat extravagant Contes des Fées. Of these Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness of Aulnoy, has best survived her contemporaries as the author of La Chatte Blanche, La Grenouïlle Bien-complaisante, Le Prince Lutin, L’Oiseau Bleue, and of other tales which, as M. La Harpe has thought, place her supreme in the realm of delicate frivolity.

The life of this brilliant woman will doubtless present a contrast with most preconceptions of her character based upon a mere reading of her books; and we may be surprised to find in her such a marked individuality, so peculiarly in touch with her time, and offering so little of the ideal and sensitive nature it was fairly natural to infer. We have not, in fact, a mere writer of amusing tales and half romantic histories, but an intriguing, though charming, woman, of a bold and often reckless nature, sufficient to stamp her a worthy daughter of her time. And, after all harsh verdicts have been passed, we shall, I think, return to Madame Aulnoy, by way of her books, with a feeling of affection and interest.

Barneville, near Bourg-Achard (Eure), is her birthplace. Her father was Nicolas-Claude Le Jumel, and her mother, who subsequently married the Marquis of Gudaigne and went with him to Rome, Judith-Angélique Le Coustellier. Nicolas is said to have served long in the armies of Louis XIV., and to have been related to some of the best families of Normandy. Judith later, when in Rome, seems to have rendered peculiar services to the Spanish court, for which she was duly rewarded.

The date of their daughter’s birth is not positively fixed. It is given as 1650 or 1651, but no record of baptism remains, and of the life of Madame Aulnoy previous to the date of her marriage with François de La Motte little is known. That event occurred on Monday, the 8th of March, 1666.

But if the minor details of her life are wanting, we have yet a general and quite sufficient survey of its broader lines. Married at sixteen to a man thirty-six years her senior, we may find in the character of her husband (“un assez triste personage,” as one of his biographers has named him) no uncertain commentary on the subsequent behavior of his wife.

He is described as: “Un bel homme, bien fait, d’abord valet de pied de César, duc de Vendôme, qui cherchait d’avoir de beaux hommes à son service.”

He rose in the confidence of this master, who in 1649 to 1650 employed him in important affairs. This duke of Vendôme, called by Le Vassor[[1]] “un mince capitaine, que ne sut jamais se faire craindre ni se faire estimer,” had, on his return to France in 1641, been accused of an attempt to poison Richelieu. These were the days of the celebrated Brinvilliers, when Acqua Tofana had been brought from Italy and the number of poisoners was increasing in France. The duke had again returned after the death of Richelieu, and under Mazarin in 1650 was given the government of Bourgogne. In 1653 he took Bordeaux, and two years later put to flight the Spanish fleet before Barcelona. It was in 1653 that La Motte, rising to prosperity with the fortunes of his master, was made Chevalier de Saint-Michel, and one year later he purchased for 150,000 livres from Claude Gobelin the Barony of Aulnoy in Brie. His success was, however, of short duration, and his money soon slipped away. He died in 1700 in his eightieth year, “Accablé de ses infortunes et des infamies de ses filles, dont il y en a deux qui imitent leur mère.”