SOURCE: “The Creation of a Modern Genre” and “Conclusion,” in Perrault's Morals for Moderns, Peter Lang Publishing, 1985, pp. 35-54 and 155-58.

[In the following essays, Morgan analyzes Perrault's development of the prose conte (tale) in relation to other prose and verse forms of the era, and offers reasons for Perrault's lasting literary significance.]

THE CREATION OF A MODERN GENRE

Perrault's Contes du temps passé were selected by him to represent traditional French tales which illustrated the superior moral character of modern culture. In terms of structure and expression, however, the Contes are not traditional at all. Each tale is composed of a brief title, a short narrative in prose, and a one-or two-stanza moral which offers a sophisticated commentary upon the text. This pattern does not in fact correspond to a previously established literary form. How then did this new genre arise, and how may it be defined more fully?

Any answer to these questions should take several factors into account. First, there are indications in Perrault's earlier writings as to why he undertook the writing of tales, and which of their aspects he considered to be most important. Second, such concerns as length, vocabulary level, and mode of expression were carefully manipulated by Perrault to accord with his particular intentions, and comparison of the Contes with various contemporary works to which they bear some resemblance will reveal much about the literary devices which Perrault accepted and rejected.

In the two decades prior to the publication of the Contes, Perrault demonstrated considerable interest in fables, as a light form of entertainment which incorporated a clever or useful message. The Fables of La Fontaine, first published in 1688, inspired in Perrault a strong admiration which he expressed many years later in the Parallèle:

Il y entre une naïveté, une surprise et une plaisanterie d’un caractère qui lui est tout particulier, qui charme, qui émeut, et qui frappe tout d’une autre manière. (III, 303-4)

Perrault specifically stresses the Fables' qualities of naturalness and humor, and their distinctiveness from other works—traits which Perrault would later incorporate into the Contes.

In 1675, Perrault published his own collection of fables entitled Le Labyrinthe de Versailles. This work commemorates the animal fountains in the maze at Versailles, each of which corresponds to an Aesop fable. Perrault's Labyrinthe consists of short summary paragraphs followed by verse moralités, as in the following example:

“Le Chat Pendu et les Rats”

Un Chat se pendit par la patte, et faisant le mort, attrapa plusieurs Rats. Une autre fois il se couvrit de farine. Un vieux Rat lui dit, quand tu serais même le sac de la farine, je ne m’approcherais pas.

Le plus sûr bien souvent est de faire retraite,
Le Chat est Chat, la Coquette est Coquette.(1)

There is an obvious similarity in behavior between this cat and Le Chat botté, who also covered himself with flour. Taken in more general terms, however, this fable represents a prototype of the later Contes, possessing the similar structure of a prose narrative followed by a verse moral.

The fables in Le Labyrinthe also manifest a consistent conceptual division between their two parts, parallel to that of the Contes. The narrative recounts a single event or episode, using simple and direct language which nonetheless achieves vivid personification and humor. Its lesson is implicit rather than stated outright. The moralité then follows as a separate entity, set apart physically by typographical space and stylistically by its verse form. It is further distanced from the narrative by the fact that it applies the implicit moral to a human situation which has nothing to do with the actual fable. In the poem above, the moral of mistrusting the cat in disguise is transformed into one of mistrusting the flirtatious woman. These moralités force a re-examination of the reader's expectations about the fable, and what at first seemed straightforward now appears tongue-in-cheek when viewed from the perspective of human social behavior.

Perrault also wrote longer fables entirely in verse, following more closely the model of La Fontaine. In 1686, he published a French translation of Charles Du Périer's Latin poem Leo Aeger, Vulpes et Lupus (Le Lion malade, Le Renard et le Loup). In this tale, the King of Beasts falls ill. The Wolf, wishing to curry favor, accuses the Fox of lacking concern for the Lion's plight; the Fox then claims to have consulted an oracle who decreed that the Lion could only be cured by wrapping himself in a fresh wolfskin. The “oracle's” instructions are then carried out. At the end of the tale, which is entirely in alexandrine couplets, there is a separate moral in italics:

Cette fable, comme je crois,
Nous veut dire en son Badinage,
Qu’il ne faut pas, si l’on est sage,
Se jouer à plus fin que soi.(2)

In addition to its shortened line length (eight syllables instead of twelve), the moral is markedly distant from the tale, referring to “Cette fable” and its “badinage,” and its tone is more informal, with the speech-like interjection “comme je crois.” By allying himself with the reader in a conversational address (“cette fable … nous veut dire”), Perrault implies that the moral is not merely a universal truth, but that it has some concrete application to the reader's own experience. This device of judging the tale from the reader's perspective appears in the later Contes, representing one of the distinctive traits of their verse moralités:

La Fable semble encor vouloir nous faire entendre …

(“La Belle au bois,” p. 107)

On voit bientôt que cette histoire
Est un conte du temps passé …

(“La Barbe bleue,” p. 129)

Car ainsi sur ce Conte on va moralisant …

(“Cendrillon,” p. 164)

Ce que l’on voit dans cet écrit …

(“Riquet à la houppe,” p. 181)

After Perrault's involvement in the Querelle in 1687, he recognized the value of contemporary fables in supporting the moderns' cause. In praising the charm and novelty of La Fontaine in the Parallèle (Volume III, 1692), Perrault went on to say that “Il y a dans toutes ses Fables une infinité de choses semblables, toutes différentes entre elles, et dont il n’y en a pas une seule qui ait son modèle dans les écrits des Anciens” (p. 305). Then in 1699, Perrault published a translation of Latin fables written by Gabriele Faerno (c. 1520-1561), whom he considered to be a modern author. Perrault's translations are in French verse, only a few lines in length each, and without separate morals. Despite their brevity, Perrault admired their originality, defending them in his “Avertissement” to the Traductions des Fables de Faërne:

Monsieur de Thou qui fait mention dans son Histoire une mention [sic] fort honorable de notre Auteur, prétend que Phèdre [Phaedrus] ne lui a pas été inconnu, et même il le blâme de l’avoir supprimé pour cacher les larcins qu’il lui a faits; mais ce qu’il avance n’a aucun fondement et ne peut lui avoir été suggéré, que par la forte persuasion où sont tous les amateurs outrés de l’Antiquité qu’un Auteur moderne ne peut pas faire rien d’excellent, s’il n’a un Auteur ancien pour modèle.³

In the above passage, the phrase “les amateurs outrés de l’Antiquité” was also used by Perrault in the Parallèle (Preface, Vol. I) and recalls the critics “qui ne peuvent être touchés que par l’autorité et par l’exemple des Anciens,” mentioned in the preface to the recueil of verse contes.

Perrault further used modern fables and tales to illustrate what he perceived to be the modern era's moral superiority over ancient times. In Volume II of the Parallèle (1690), discussing minor forms of eloquence (eloquences subalternes), he stated:

Ces fables Milésiennes sont si puériles, que c’est leur faire d’honneur que de leur opposer nos contes de Peau d'Ane et de ma Mère l’Oye, ou si pleines de saletés comme l’âne d’or de Lucien ou d’Apulée, les amours de Clitiphon et de Léucippe, et plusieurs d’autres qu’elles ne méritent pas qu’on y fasse attention. (p. 125)

This passage represents perhaps the earliest direct reference by Perrault to traditional tales, for which contes de Peau d’Ane and contes de ma mère l’oye were generic terms in his day. In this context, such tales are implied to be relatively less puerile and salacious than tales of antiquity. In Volume III (1692), he praised them more explicitly, in discussing subjects suitable for opera:

Les contes de vieille comme celui de Psyché en fournissent les plus beaux sujets … elles ont le don de plaire à toutes sortes d’esprits, aux grands génies, de même qu’aux enfants … et charment la raison davantage que toute la vraisemblance imaginable. (pp. 283-4)

Although Perrault here chooses the classical tale of Psyche as an example, he uses the expression “contes de vieille,” which referred specifically to traditional tales, to describe other tales of equal value.

Even earlier in the Parallèle, Perrault had already discussed the more general notion that “un ouvrage qui divertit innocemment” might have potential moral impact:

On y voit une représentation naïve de la vie ordinaire des hommes, et une infinité de certaines impertinences qu’on fait tous les jours sans s’en apercevoir, dont ce livre et ceux qui lui ressemblent sont le meilleur de tous les correctifs. (I, 136)

Perrault's Contes would later conform to this model, as a work in which ordinary situations such as drawing water from a well “Les Fées” are used to illustrate a moral precept.

Perrault's first verse tale, La Marquise de Salusses ou la Patience de Griselidis (1691), was not described by him as a conte, but rather as a nouvelle. The term nouvelle was a translation of the Italian novella, and according to Richelet's dictionary of 1680, “la matière des nouvelles, ce sont les finesses et les tromperies galantes et tout ce qui se passe de surprenant et de gaillard dans le commerce du monde amoureux.”⁴ In 1665, La Fontaine had published a collection of tales entitled Nouvelles en vers tirée [sic] de Bocace et de l’Arioste; La Fontaine's use of the term was simply an acknowledgment of his source. Griselidis follows this model closely, for its subject is taken directly from Boccaccio and it is written entirely in verse.

The remainder of Perrault's tales are all subtitled as contes. The use of this term was somewhat flexible, as for example La Fontaine's second edition of Nouvelles was entitled Contes et nouvelles (1665), and one of the poems included in it was subtitled “nouvelle tirée des contes de la Reine de Navarre.”⁵ In the preface to the second edition, however, La Fontaine gave his views on the genre of the conte:

On m’en peut faire deux principales [objections]: l’une que ce Livre est licentieux, l’autre qu’il n’épargne pas assez le beau sexe. Quant à la première, je dis hardiment que la nature du Conte le voulait ainsi … Qui voudrait réduire Bocace à la même pudeur que Virgile, ne ferait assurément rien qui vaille; et pécherait contre les Lois de la bienséance en prenant à tâche de les observer.⁶

La Fontaine's concept of the conte was that of a form which was by nature improper, to the extent that it could not be bowdlerized without violating the convention of appropriateness of subject to genre. Since it offered no virtuous moral example, the function of the conte was merely to amuse the reader.

Perrault did not share this restricted view. All his contes are remarkably circumspect, as befitting a work intended to illustrate the superior morality of modern culture. As he states in the preface to the verse tales (1694):

J’aurais pu rendre mes Contes plus agréables en y mêlant certaines choses un peu libres dont on a accoutumé de les égayer; mais le désir de plaire ne m’a jamais assez tenté pour violer une loi que je me suis imposée de ne rien écrire qui pût blesser ou la pudeur ou la bienséance. (pp. 6-7)

In this passage, Perrault treats ribaldry as an embellishment to the conte, and not an essential part of its nature. He displays here an awareness, however, of an “accustomed” form of the conte which he himself consciously rejects on moral grounds.

The issue of versification offers another point of comparison between Perrault's contes and those of his predecessor. La Fontaine took the prose tales of Boccaccio and Ariosto and rendered them into verse, stating in his preface: “je m’accommoderai, s’il m’est possible, au goût de mon siècle.”⁷ His choice of rhymed verse reflects the contemporary view that the refinements of poetic form would compensate for the somewhat questionable subject matter, and render the work more acceptable to a sophisticated audience.

Perrault followed La Fontaine's lead in the two verse tales which he subtitled contes: Peau d’Ane and Les Souhaits ridicules. At the same time, however, he was pondering the issue of prose versus poetry in the Parallèle. In Volume III (1692), he defended prose, specifically in the case of tales:

Comme les comédies qui sont en prose ne sont pas moins des poèmes dramatiques que les comédies qui sont en vers, pourquoi les histoires fabuleuses que l’on raconte en prose ne seraientelles pas des poèmes aussi bien que celles que l’on raconte en vers? Les vers ne sont qu’un ornement de la poésie, très grand à la vérité, mais ils ne sont point de son essence. (p. 148)

All Perrault's subsequent contes were in fact written in prose, and his words here make it evident that this choice was conscious, rather than an unthinking imitation of a traditional source. The use of prose does not, moreover, indicate that Perrault thought any less of his eight contes de ma mère l’oye than he did of his three verse tales. In the seventeenth-century opposition between “culture mondaine” and “culture savante,” simple prose was in fact a rhetorical challenge to what Marc Fumaroli has termed “la maniérisme de la rhétorique galante.”⁸ As Fumaroli further states:

Dans l’échelle des styles, en poésie, en musique comme en prose, la référence à la ‘naïveté’ à la fois ‘populaire’ et ‘des vieux âges’ est une constante du siècle, un garde-fous de la culture mondaine contre le péril pédant et contre le péril précieux.⁹

Further insight into Perrault's concept of the conte may be derived from his use of the term to describe an amusing story in the Parallèle (II, 1690). In discussing the difference between “l’amour grossier” of the ancients and “la fine galanterie” of modern authors, the Chevalier recounts how a friend of his once gave a demonstration of medical dissection, using a wild boar's carcass:

Quand il eut fait, on remit le Marcassin entre les mains du Cuisinier qui avait paru de mauvaise humeur pendant toute la dissection, parce qu’il s’était imaginé qu’on avait amené cet homme-là pour lui apprendre à habiller un Marcassin, de quoi cependant il croyait qu’il n’avait pu venir à bout. Comme nous sortions je l’entendais qui disait avec indignation en tirant toutes les entrailles à la fois, et les jetant fièrement contre terre, voilà comme je fais moi, peste des ignorants avec leurs petits couteaux, faut-il tant de façons pour habiller un Marcassin.

L’Abbé: Ce conte explique parfaitement ma pensée, et marque bien la différence qu’il y a entre l’Amour grossier qui va brusquement à ses fins et la Galanterie raffinée qui s’arrête aux plux petites circonstances, et qui fait une exacte anatomie des moindres mouvements du coeur. (II, 38)

This conte describes a relatively humble but humorous situation, informal in tone and enlivened with the cook's physical actions and colloquial speech. There is an implied message about human nature: that one may err by judging things only from one's own narrow point of view. According to the Abbé's subsequent remark, this narrative alone constitutes the conte. The analysis, however, is an important complement to the tale, reinterpreting its inherent message and drawing a new, more sophisticated conclusion. From the reader's standpoint, the conte and the appended moral form a single unit, the two parts of which correspond to the narrative and moral used by Perrault in Le Labyrinthe and later in the Contes.

Finally, the term conte was associated in Perrault's day with a particular type of tale which had long been popular in aristocratic salons. As early as 1677, Madame de Sévigné described such tales to her daughter:

Mme de Coulanges … voulut bien nous faire part des contes avec quoi l’on amuse les dames de Versailles; cela s’appelle les ‘mitonner.’ Elle nous mitonna donc, et nous parla d’une île verte, où l’on élevait une princesse plus belle que le jour; c’étaient les fées qui soufflaient sur elle à tout moment.¹⁰

These unpublished prose tales were true contes de fée, featuring supernatural creatures and human heroes who embodied every virtue of aristocratic society. They provided an ideal vehicle for flattery, both of the royal family and of one's friends within the salon. In addition, they offered the opportunity to display imagination and wit in a context free from the constraints imposed by more serious, conventional literary forms.

Only a few of these tales were published prior to the Contes. The earliest is often considered to be L’Ile de la Félicité, a story inserted into L’Histoire d’Hypolite Comte du Duglas (1690) by Mme d’Aulnoy. In 1695, three tales appeared in Mlle Lhéritier's Oeuvres meslées. Then, after the publication of Perrault's Contes in 1697, there was a sudden intensification of interest in the conte de fée, as indicated by the following partial list of titles appearing in 1698: Contes de fées by Mme d’Aulnoy (four volumes), Contes de fées and Nouveaux contes de fées by Mme de Murat, Fées and Contes des Contes by Mlle de la Force, Les Illustres Fées, contes dédiés aux Dames by the Chevalier de Mailly, and even the parody Contes moins contes que les autres by Préchac.¹¹ The vogue was short-lived, however, virtually disappearing by the turn of the century.

The literary contes de fée were quite elaborate in composition and in language, compared to the contes of both La Fontaine and Perrault. The stories often ran to hundreds of pages in length, incorporating dozens of separate episodes. Embellishment was valued over logic, as in Mme d’Aulnoy's tale La Grenouille bienfaisante: a frog is sent to seek help for a captured princess, but in so doing he must climb ten thousand steps—an operation taking over a year.¹² Characters were given fanciful, pretentious names, such as Mlle Lhéritier's fairy “Eloquentia nativa” (in Les Enchantements de l’Eloquence) or Mme de Murat's princes “Fortune,” “Princillon,” and “Brillantin,” who married the princesses “Fleurbelle,” “Princillette,” and “Mandarine” (in Le Turbot).¹³

These tales are an important reflection of contemporary literary attitudes, demonstrating that the ideals of preciosity had by no means vanished from the scene. In addition, novelty, surprise, and charm—the qualities which Perrault praised in La Fontaine—are dominant virtues in these tales. Bernard Magné has attributed to this movement an even more profound significance:

La mode des contes de fées se rattache parfaitement à l’évolution idéologique et esthétique du règne personnel de Louis XIV. Apparu dans les milieux de la cour, élaboré sous sa forme écrite par un petit nombre d’intellectuels écrivains appartenant à ces mêmes milieux, destiné à un public essentiellement mondain et savant, ce genre se donne d’emblée comme nouveau, donc moderne et national.¹⁴

Perrault's Contes resemble the literary contes de fée in his descriptions of virtuous heroes and gracious fairies. He also made good use of his tales' potential for flattery, as in the Contes' “Epître à Mademoiselle”:

Et jamais Fée au temps jadis
Fit-elle à jeune Créature,
Plus de dons, et de dons exquis,
Que vous en a fait la Nature? (p. 90)

In the view of his contemporaries, however, most of the published contes were considered to be imitations of Perrault. The author of his obituary in the Mercure Galant stated categorically that “L’heureuse fiction où l’Aurore et le petit Jour sont si ingénieusement introduits et qui parut il y a neuf ou dix années [Feb. 1696] a fait naître tous les Contes de Fées qui ont paru depuis ce temps-là.”¹⁵

Perrault's tales are also very different in conception and execution from the literary contes de fée. The first important difference is in the intended audience of the tales. Perrault addressed his fellow Academicians, stating in the verse recueil: “j’ai affaire à bien des gens qui ne peuvent être touchés que par l’autorité et par l’exemple des Anciens” (p. 3). The writers of the conte de fée, however, were described as follows by Mme de Murat, in her “Avertissement” to Histoires sublimes et allégoriques (1699): “Les Dames qui ont écrit jusqu’ici en ce genre …”¹⁶ Her work is furthermore “Dédiée aux Fées Modernes,” and contains a long epistle in praise of these beautiful and aristocratic “fées modernes.” By identifying women as both authors and readers, Murat indicates that the audience of these tales was the salon, not the Académie. Corroborating evidence is provided by the Abbé de Villiers, who referred deprecatingly to women writers of tales in his Entretiens sur les contes de fées (1699):

… si celles qui ont entrepris d’en composer s’étaient souvenues que ces Contes n’ont été inventés que pour développer et rendre sensible quelque moralité importante, on ne les aurait point regardés comme le partage des ignorants et des femmes.¹⁷

Setting aside Villiers' disdainful condemnation of “des ignorants et des femmes,” he nonetheless specifies women as the principal authors of such tales. Furthermore, his remarks illuminate another important difference between Perrault's tales and the contes de fée: the presence or absence of “quelque moralité importante.” Perrault's moral ideal was stated in the preface to the verse recueil:

Partout la vertu y est récompensée, et partout le vice y est puni. Ils tendent tous à faire voir l’avantage qu’il y a d’être honnête, patient, avisé, laborieux, obéissant, et le mal qui arrive à ceux qui ne le sont pas. (p. 5)

In contrast, the authors of contes de fées often tried to mirror the cynical values of the circle of intimates whom they sought to entertain. One example is the following excerpt from the conclusion to Mme d’Aulnoy's Le Mouton:

Souvent les plus beaux dons des cieux
Ne servent qu’à notre ruine,
Le mérite éclatant que l’on demande aux dieux
Quelquefois de nos maux est la triste origine.(18)

Another difference between Perrault's Contes and the literary contes de fée is the fact that the latter tales were characteristically packed with allusions to the readers themselves, or to circumstances known only to their closed society. For example, Mlle Lhéritier's Les Enchantements de l’Eloquence features the following description of the heroine, Blanche:

… les choses brillantes qui sortaient de sa bouche attiraient encore plus de monde que celles qui sortent de la bouche de Mr de * * *, toutes belles qu’elles sont. Ce peuple avait raison: n’était-il pas bien plus agréable de voir sortir des pierres précieuses d’une belle petite bouche comme celle de Blanche qu’il ne l’était de voir sortir des éclairs de la grande bouche de cet orateur tonnant qui était cependant si couru des Athéniens.¹⁹

Perrault's tales contain topical allusions, as in the list of sleeping courtiers in La Belle au bois dormant. They are, however, much more subtle, never referring directly to a specific person or place. In keeping with his intention of offering “une moralité louable et instructive,” rather than the destructive satire of individuals, Perrault describes abstract situations and for the most part nameless characters, emphasizing metaphor over concrete description.

Finally, Perrault's Contes differ from the contes de fée in terms of their attitude towards genuinely traditional tales, ones which were recognized as products of popular culture and not of a single individual's imagination. Mme de Murat expressed her contemporaries' point of view in her “Epistre aux Fées Modernes”:

Les anciennes Fées vos devancières ne passent plus que pour des badines auprès de vous. Leurs occupations étaient basses et puériles, ne s’amusant qu’aux Servantes et aux Nourrices … les effets les plus considérables de leur Art se terminaient à faire pleurer des perles et des diamants, moucher des émeraudes, et cracher des rubis … C’est pourquoi tout ce qui nous reste aujourd’hui de leurs Faits et Gestes ne sont que des Contes de ma Mère l’Oye. Elles étaient presque toujours vieilles, laides, mal vêtues, et mal logées … Vous ne vous occupez que de grandes choses, dont les moindres sont de donner de l’esprit à ceux et celles qui n’en ont point, de la beauté aux laides, de l’éloquence aux ignorants, des richesses aux pauvres, et de l’éclat aux choses les plus obscures. Vous êtes toutes belles, jeunes, bien faites, galamment et richement vêtues et logées, et vous n’habitez que dans la Cour des Rois, ou dans les Palais enchantés.²⁰

Mme de Murat goes to considerable lengths here to disassociate her type of tale from the contes de ma mère l’oye chosen by Perrault, specifically mentioning his story Les Fées. Her contemptuous words “moucher des émeraudes” and “cracher des rubis” reflect her judgment that the physical detail of the gems' origin is repugnant to her refined audience, outweighing the importance of the moral principle which is illustrated by the tale. In place of that moral, she values the external trappings of the upper class (beauty, clothing, lodging) and its aesthetic ideals (esprit, éloquence, éclat).

The parallels between Perrault's Contes and the various contemporary writings discussed above reveal to what extent the Contes may be seen as a natural outgrowth of the literary trends of the time. Far from springing full-blown from some vanished popular source, the Contes incorporate established themes and stylistic conventions. For example, Perrault's narratives recall both the Aesopian fables (imitated by him in Le Labyrinthe) and the Italian novella in its original prose form. Perrault's plots often involve fairies, princes, and princesses, echoing a practice which had been popular in the salons for over twenty years. The verse moralités are closely parallel in structure and in tone to La Fontaine's fables and contes. They are also oriented towards the social behavior and experience of a refined literary audience, a trait shared not only with La Fontaine's works but with the literary conte de fée.

It is not so much the similarities, however, as it is the differences between Perrault's Contes and other contemporary forms which best define the Contes' distinctiveness as a literary genre. Perhaps the most obvious difference concerns structure. The sequence of a simple prose narrative followed by an elaborate verse moral contrasts both with the all-prose Italian novella and the all-verse conte and fable. To the contemporary reader, trained to associate a particular style of writing with a specific subject matter, Perrault's unusual combination presents a conflict of signals which offers not only novelty but a certain challenge for the tales' interpretation.

The narrative itself, set off by a short title naming a familiar traditional character, begins most often with the simple formula of “il était une fois.” The text, entirely in prose, avoids complex vocabulary and imagery and often imitates the patterns of speech. All of these features bespeak humility, spontaneity, and popular origin, giving what Perrault stated in his preface as “une image de ce qui se passe dans les moindres Familles” (p. 89). This acknowledgment of the traditional sources serves to identify his tales with those same “contes que nos aïeux ont inventés” (preface to verse recueil, p. 5) which had often figured in Perrault's arguments for the moderns. At the same time, the use of prose is a defense against those who might claim that it was not the tale itself which was worthy, but only its impressive presentation. Such might be said of La Fontaine's contes, but not of Perrault's. For the reader, the prose narrative thus places the tales firmly within the context of the Querelle, and reinforces their persuasiveness as examples of superior modern culture.

In contrast, the verse moralités evoke the very opposite of humility and tradition. Their form identifies the intended audience as the sophisticated literary society to whom La Fontaine addressed his own verse fables and contes, and who could appreciate the moralités' subtlety and irony. The verse structure calls special attention to the moral, reminding the reader of Perrault's contention that the existence of a useful moral elevated the modern tale over its classical precedents.

Perrault's separation of the tale into prose and verse components further emphasizes the contrast between the narrative's deadpan tone and the moral's direct appeal to the tastes and interests of the reader. In a clever reversal of expectations, the prose is abstract and distant whereas the verse is ‘familiar,’ allying itself with the reader's own perspective and experience.

A second major difference between the Contes and their rivals lies in the choice of subject matter. The Contes shun the animal subjects associated with fables and the mythological characters of classical tales; in keeping with Perrault's argumentative stance, each of the Contes is defiantly non-classical in its plot and characters. Not just any modern tale would do, however, as there is a further contrast between the Contes' subjects and those of the literary conte de fée. While pretending to the modesty of traditional inspiration, the latter were almost entirely imagined by individual authors, and owed very little to folklore. In this regard, the tales chosen by Perrault were far more logical counterparts to the anonymous stories and fables of antiquity.

Another crucial aspect of Perrault's subject matter is of course the fact that the Contes “renferment tous une Morale très sensée, et qui se découvre plus ou moins, selon le degré de pénétration de ceux qui les lisent” (p. 89). This is in evident contrast to the negative moral example in the conte, and the frequent absence of moral example in the literary conte de fée. Perrault's statement that the moral “se découvre plus ou moins” also alludes to the fact that the tale itself offers one implicit moral whereas the verses offer worldly variations upon that theme. The presence of multiple morals, each of which is valid within a certain frame of reference, is one of the unique features of Perrault's Contes.

The genre represented by the Contes may therefore be defined by a two-part structure. First, a prose narrative recounts a traditional tale of non-classical origin which contains a moral example or lesson, using simple language reminiscent of popular speech. Second, a verse moralité offers a sophisticated commentary addressed to the contemporary audience. The first part presents the genius of “nos aïeux” in its amusing simplicity; the second part demonstrates the cleverness of the author, in embroidering upon the original lesson to produce “une moralité louable et instructive” which is pertinent to modern society. These distinctive characteristics comprise a new genre which effectively supports the cause of the moderns, and therefore may logically be termed the conte moderne.

Finally, it is essential to consider the role of entertainment value in determining Perrault's choice of subject matter and presentation for the conte moderne. He was fully conscious of the power of nostalgic recognition, as he demonstrated by selecting as the frontispiece to the Contes an engraving of an old woman and three children in front of a blazing hearth. On the wall is a placard reading “contes de ma mère l’oye,” a phrase which does not actually appear in the text. By virtue of summoning memories of childhood and using plots already proven to be pleasing, Perrault could anticipate a certain degree of favorable reception for his work. In addition, the pre-established plot serves as a background which casts into relief Perrault's own alterations and insertions, which include humorous details, objective asides, and most importantly the verse morals.

The success of Perrault's effort was to prove the accuracy of his perceptions, showing that even the humblest products of “le siècle de Louis le Grand” could inspire the creation of a worthy rival to the classically-inspired contemporary genres.

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CONCLUSION

The place of Perrault's Histoires ou Contes du temps passé avec des moralitez within the body of seventeenth-century French literature has been assured by the work's overwhelming success. It ranks among the handful of works whose message is accessible to later generations, and whose readership crosses barriers of time and nationality.

This success does not, however, account for the full impact of the Contes upon French literature. First of all, the Contes represent a modern genre which inspired a spate of imitations in its own day, and which had a profound influence upon literature of the marvelous. After Perrault, there came Galland's translation of the Thousand and One Nights, Le Cabinet des Fées, Mme Leprince de Beaumont's La Belle et la Bête—and of course every French writer for whom the Contes formed part of a childhood repertoire and an introduction to written language.

Victor Fournel, in 1862, was perhaps the first critic to recognize that Perrault's role in the Querelle, which so heavily influenced the Contes, was instrumental in shaping the attitudes of later writers:

Ce que Descartes avait fait pour la philosophie, Perrault le fit pour la littérature: il introduisit le doute et le libre examen … Son mérite fut de renverser l’idole de l’autorité pure, de la tradition absolue et tyrannique, de la convention s’imposant sans contrôle. C’est à lui que remonte la révolution romantique, qui devrait le compter parmi ses aïeux.²¹

Perrault's Contes may also be seen as a worthy rival to the formidable achievements of the recognized moralistes. In the same way that La Fontaine's Fables, La Bruyère's Caractères, or La Rochefoucauld's Maximes are distinguished by their commentary upon the foibles of their contemporaries, so do the Contes illuminate the social, literary, and moral practices of Perrault's peers.

There is a difference, however, between Perrault and these other writers, one which may account in part for both the Contes' lesser reputation among critics and their greater popularity with every other sort of reader. This difference lies in the gentleness of Perrault's satire, and in the sense of optimism which pervades all of his writings. According to his own words, he sincerely believed in the possibility of a positive moral example, and in the importance of moral rectitude and bienséance. With Perrault, one need not assume that unblemished characters such as “la belle au bois dormant” or “Riquet à la houppe” wear hypocritical masks concealing baser natures. Their virtue may be trite, but it is virtue nonetheless.

In the preface to his Apologie des femmes, Perrault makes an appeal to Boileau which summarizes Perrault's own attitude in the Apologie, and to some extent also in the Contes:

… que ne compose-t-il un Ouvrage purement de lui, où il n’y ait point de médisance, et qui plaise par la seule beauté de son génie. Pourquoi, au lieu de se renfermer, comme il fait, dans la peinture de ce qu’il y a de laid dans les hommes, ne s’occupe-t-il à célébrer les vertus que le Ciel leur a données?²²

It is true that Perrault's moralist observations are often disillusioned, but even these serve an instructional purpose, forming part of what Perrault describes as “les sémences qu’on jette qui ne produisent d’abord que des mouvements de joie et de tristesse, mais dont il ne manque guère d’éclore de bonnes inclinations” (p. 6). In this sense, Perrault forces us to re-examine our notion of littérature moraliste as being unremittingly cynical and sardonic; Perrault himself stands out as a moraliste optimiste.

Perrault's Contes must also be acknowledged as a masterful achievement in strictly literary terms. The work remains today as the most successful example of a genre which it created; moreover, its style is unrivalled in subtlety, wit, and that elusive quality known as charm. In 1699, the Abbé de Villiers described Perrault's tales in the following way:

Pour conter ces choses d’une manière qui pique et qui plaise toujours, de quelle capacité n’a-t-on pas besoin? Il faut connaître parfaitement la nature pour trouver ce qui lui plaît, il faut être instruit à fond de la langue, pour n’employer que des termes qui frappent; il faut savoir les plus délicates règles de l’éloquence, pour mettre toujours chaque chose à sa place et en son jour: enfin que ne faut-il point?²³

All that remains to be said here of the Contes is a final summation by Perrault himself. He was writing of “universal eloquence” in the Parallèle, but his words apply prophetically to his own Contes du temps passé:

Entrer dans les sentiments de ceux à qui on parle, se concilier leur bienveillance, narrer clairement et brièvement le fait dont il s’agit, raisonner juste et conséquemment … ces beautés ne sont point de pur goût ni de fantaisie, elles sont aimées et le seront éternellement de tout le monde.²⁴

Notes

1. “Le Labyrinthe de Versailles,” in Charles Perrault, Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers (Paris: J.-B. Coignard, 1675), p. 235.

2. Charles Perrault, Le Lion Malade, le Renard et le Loup. Fable, traduite du Latin de Mr du Périer (Paris: André Cramoisy, 1686), p. 5.

3. Traductions des Fables de Faërne (Paris: Coignard, 1699), n. pag.

4. Pierre Richelet, Dictionnaire François (Genève: Chez Jean Herman Widerhold, 1680; facsimile reprint, Genève: Slatkine Reprints, 1970), 2 vols.

5. Contes et Nouvelles en vers de M. de la Fontaine (Paris: Barbin, 1665).

6. Contes et Nouvelles, pp. 7-8.

7. Contes et Nouvelles, p. 5.

8. Marc Fumaroli, “Les Enchantements de l’éloquence: Les Fées de Charles Perrault ou De la littérature,” in Le Statut de la littérature, Mélanges offerts à Paul Bénichou (Genève: Librairie Droz, 1982), p. 158.

9. Fumaroli, p. 158.

10. Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marquise de Sévigné, Correspondance, II, ed. Roger Duchêne (Paris: Gallimard, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, 1974), p. 516.

11. See Mary Elisabeth Storer, Un épisode littéraire [de la fin du XVIIe siècle: La Mode des contes de fées (1685-1700). Paris: Champion, 1928.], for a complete bibliography of the literary conte de fée.

12. Mme d’Aulnoy, “La Grenouille bienfaisante,” in M. E. Storer, Contes de fées du grand siècle (New York: Institute of French Studies, Columbia University, 1934), p. 53.

13. Mme de Murat, “Le Turbot,” in Histoires sublimes et allégoriques (Paris: Florentin et Delaulne, 1699).

14. Bernard Magné, Crise de la littérature française sous Louis XIV: Humanisme et nationalisme (Lille: Université de Lille III, 1976), II, 642.

15. Le Mercure Galant, May 1703, pp. 248-49.

16. Histoires sublimes et allégoriques, n. pag.

17. Villiers, [Pierre (Abbé de)], Entretiens [sur les contes de fées et sur quelques autres ouvrages du temps, pour servir de préservatif contre le mauvais goût, Paris: J. Collombat, 1699], p. 77.

18. Mme d’Aulnoy, “Les Moutons,” in Storer, Contes de fées du grand siècle, p. 40.

19. Mlle Lhéritier, “Les Enchantements de l’Eloquence,” in Rouger, p. 264.

20. Histoires sublimes et allégoriques, n. pag.

21. Victor Fournel, La Littérature indépendante et les écrivains oubliés (Paris: Didier et Compagnie, 1862), p. 389.

22. L’Apologie des femmes (Paris: Veuve J.-B. Coignard, 1694), n. pag.

23. Entretiens sur les contes de fées, p. 108.

24. Parallèle [des Anciens et des modernes. 4 vols. Paris: Coignard, 1688-97. Facsimile reprint, ed. H. R. Jauss and M. Imdahl. Munich: Eidos Verlag, 1964], II, 49.