The fairy said a great deal more to the same effect, for the fairies, who have the power of doing so many things with their wands, have also the power of saying still more; but it will be sufficient for you to know, that during this lecture, Tantaffaire seemed very much ashamed, and that it is asserted, that she succeeded, in the end, in overcoming in herself, those fears which she considered so blamable and ridiculous in others.
And now, perhaps, you will ask me what there is so extraordinary in my tale? What! do we still meet with reasoning princesses who are afraid of these little creatures, a thousand times smaller than themselves, which neither bite, nor pinch, nor scratch, and which run so rapidly, that they can scarcely be perceived?
"Mamma," said Clementia, "I saw immediately that it was a chimney-sweep, and then a mouse that was meant;" and after a moment's reflection, she added, "One ought not, certainly, to be afraid of either chimney-sweeps or mice; but I do not think it was so ridiculous in the princess Tantaffaire, to have been more afraid of a mouse than of a chimney-sweep."
"Why so, my dear?"
"Why, mamma, because we know very well that the chimney-sweep is a man."
"And I think no one can be ignorant that a mouse is a mouse."
"No; but we know why the sweep comes, and what he wants to do; whereas this little creature, which runs nobody knows how, and nobody knows from where, and which goes and returns hardly giving one time to see it.... In fact, mamma, many persons who are grown up are afraid of mice, but no one is afraid of a chimney-sweep."
"And yet they are perfectly aware," said Madame de Laumont, "that the one does no more harm than the other."