[In the following essay, Hubert discusses d'Aulnoy's use of humor in her fairy tales, including humor directed toward the genre itself.]

Perrault, the famous author of Ma Mère l'Oye, so skillfully imitated the apparent simplicity of folklore that the underlying sophistication of his tales can easily be overlooked. Perrault's aristocratic contemporaries, Mme d'Aulnoy, Mme Murat, Mlle de La Force do not even require the services of an imaginary homespun narrator. They show fondness for detailed descriptions and contempt for straight storytelling. Magic usually plays a decisive part in their tales, and none of the characters manage to display the human ingenuity and resourcefulness of a Petit Poucet or a Riquet à la Houpe. Whereas Perrault never completely lost sight of reality, many of his feminine counterparts maintained a close connection with the fantastic world of dreams. Mme d'Aulnoy achieved greater fame than her rivals, for she successfully harmonized the various aspects of fairy tale literature: adventure, love, imagination, morality and social tradition. We have shown elsewhere that Mme d'Aulnoy, far from reducing love to conventional simplicity, endows it with a different form of complexity in each tale.¹ We shall now attempt to show that irony and wit, for which Perrault has deservedly been praised, are transformed into poetic humor in Mme d'Aulnoy's tales.

The humor in “Le Prince Marcassin” is fairly obvious. The prince who plays the hero's role is an ugly boar. Mme d'Aulnoy cleverly exploits the discrepancy between his intellect and his appetite, his status and his appearance. Dressed in beautiful baby clothes, a boar, who has already devoured Gargantuan portions of food for days, is presented to the still bedridden mother. Later he will wear diamond earrings and bracelets. Clothes do not suffice, for he must learn to behave like a perfect gentleman and become an expert horseman, dancer, and musician. Naturally, he has a special talent for hunting: “… il ne se passait guère de jours qu'il n'allât pas à la chasse, et qu'il ne donnât de terribles coups de dents aux bêtes les plus féroces et les plus dangereuses.”²

Unfortunately, the boar grows up and falls in love. As the son of a king, he must claim the beautiful Ismène. His lack of success makes him pine away, and, in his despair, he forces the reluctant maiden to marry him: “… je ne suis pas un Adonis, j'en conviens, mais je suis un sanglier redoutable; la puissance suprême vaut bien quelques petits agréments naturels” (II, 291). Even before they reach the altar, the richly scented hero devours the bride with his eyes. He transforms the wedding march into a series of hops and jumps. After the bride's suicide on their wedding night, the grief stricken Marcassin writes a poetic epitaph. When advised to refrain from amorous entanglements, he asserts his rights: “… les hiboux trouvent des chouettes, les crapauds des grenouilles, les serpents des couleuvres; suis-je donc audessous de ces vilaines bêtes?” (II, 300). Certainly he is not immune to vanity, flattery, and self-love. He marries Ismène's sister, pointing out to her that men with beast's faces are rarer than beasts with men's faces. Greater simplicity and honesty characterize this second marriage. The palace is lit by pig-shaped lamps.

After the suicide of his second bride, Marcassin has a change of heart. He decides to give up being a beast among men in order to be a man among beasts. This does not mean a conversion to humility: “Il me sera aisé d'être leur roi, car j'ai la raison en partage, qui me fera trouver le moyen de les maîtriser” (II, 306). Although he decides to partake of all boarlike activities, he brings his writing materials with him. And in the wilderness he finds the type of romance which had eluded him at court. Marthésie, the youngest of three sisters, pities him for his undeserved fate. Marcassin, who reacts strongly to flattery, soon becomes as demanding as Alceste: Marthésie must enjoy life with him in the wilderness. Fortunately, she is less attached to society than Célimène. Her true love makes the boarskin shrink and turns the simple cavern into a superb pavilion. The happy ending would imply that Mme d'Aulnoy might agree with Mercury's statement in Amphitryon: “Les bêtes ne sont pas si bêtes que l'on pense.”

“La Chatte Blanche” is a witty love story about a princess whose feelings do not alter when she is metamorphosed into a white cat. Brought up in a tower, under the watchful eyes of three fairies, the princess is surprised and overwhelmed by the charms of the first prince who pays attention to her. The discrepancy between the depth of her feelings and the naïveté of her account gives this scene comic, if not burlesque, overtones: “Je vis le roi qui me tendit les bras et qui me dit avec sa trompette qu'il ne pouvait plus vivre sans moi” (II 139). Love makes the young princess resourceful. With the help of her two faithful servants or confidants, a dog, and a parrot, she weds the prince. The fairies in the meantime have selected a most ugly and unsuitable husband for the princess: “Jamais depuis qu'il y a des nains, il ne s'en est vu un si petit. Il marchait sur ses pieds d'aigle et sur les genoux ensemble, car il n'avait point d'os aux jambes, de sorte qu'il se soutenait sur deux béquilles de diamants. Son manteau royal n'avait qu'une demi-aune de long, et traînait de plus d'un tiers. Sa tête était grosse comme un boisseau, et son nez si grand qu'il portait dessus une douzaine d'oiseaux, dont le ramage le réjouissait” (II, 142). Misplaced statistical precision, fancy, disproportion build up this dynamic, humorous portrait. The princess, who refuses this proposal, has to do penance as a white cat.

The metamorphosis does not deprive her of charm and splendor. A prince will soon enter her domain and discover panels decorated with heroic legends of Rodilardus, Puss in Boots, and others. Refined cats appear to play the guitar which sounds treacherously like miaowing. Then enters the white cat, duly preceded by a cortege of rats and mice. The cat, widowed shortly before her metamorphosis, appears in mourning to greet her much honored guest: “Fils de roi, sois le bienvenu, ma miaularde majesté te voit avec plaisir” (II, 115). Entertainment continues in the ritual manner characteristic of important courts; ballets are performed by cats and monkeys dressed as Moors and Chinese. When the cat's world has become an inescapable reality, love is gradually evoked through gold-chiseled cupids decorating rooms. The prince has to partake in a symbolic hunt: five hundred cats leading five hundred greyhounds are bound to bring back a goodly booty of birds and rabbits. The prince falls in love with the irresistible tabby. This not at all unusual situation appears humorous because calm and wisdom remain on the side of the feline to whom the bewildered lover says: “… ou devenez fille, ou rendez-moi chat” (II, 118). The cat, whose sophisticated speech would be acceptable at the Academy, merely continues to mystify the prince. During his repeated and prolonged stays he becomes a witness of the country's political life: “L'on y devait brûler quatre chats, dont le procès était fait dans toutes les formes. Ils étaient accusés d'avoir mangé le rôti du souper de la Chatte Blanche, son fromage, son lait, d'avoir même conspiré contre sa personne avec Martafax et Lhermite, fameux rats de la contrée, et tenus pour tels par La Fontaine, auteur très véritable: mais avec tout cela, l'on savait qu'il y avait beaucoup de cabale dans cette affaire, et que la plupart des témoins étaient subornés” (II, 121). By thus alluding to contemporary abuses and modern literature, Mme d'Aulnoy, in the manner of the burlesque poets, makes fun of her own story. A mighty war takes place between the rats and the cats which is settled neither by strategy nor by reason. Rats can swim, cats cannot, that is why the latter win! They are clever enough to think of self-preservation: they do not exterminate the loser. But justice and war are but interludes in the great love episode. Finally, the white cat persuades the prince to cut off her head and tail. Bereft of these animal characteristics, she regains her human shape and her former husband who has become indistinguishable from the prince. This tale seems all the more amusing because Mme d'Aulnoy places love on a pedestal and makes all other happenings, including the loss of human shape, appear insignificant in comparison.

In both previous tales, humor arises to a large extent from the sentiment which develops between a human being and a creature which bears the shape, if not the characteristics, of an animal. In “La Grenouille Bienfaisante,” the good fairy appears in the shape of a frog and the bad fairy in the shape of a lioness. The latter, an extremely powerful sorceress, has populated her entire domain, centered around a quicksilver lake, with her victims. A pregnant queen, daring enough to pursue, in the manner of Diana, her warfaring husband, falls prey to the lioness. The fairy asserts her rights and authority: “… je veux ce que je veux” (II, 56). She wants pâté de mouches. The goodwilling frog comes to the rescue of the queen who knows neither how to catch a fly nor how to bake. Six thousand frogs rub themselves with sugar to attract flies.

The juxtaposition of frog and lioness as good and bad fairies is meant to make us laugh. The frightening beast imposes cruel conditions on the queen which the little creature then eliminates. The frog is an ordinary batrachian, but when she wears a rosehood she can speak, laugh, or cry; she also acquires power. But the extent of her magic seems rather fanciful or capricious. Thanks to the help of a bat, she brings scented herbs to the barren country at great speed. Although she occasionally uses hawks for transportation, when she goes to the king's court to report that the queen is still alive, she advances at a normal frog's pace. It takes her well over a year to climb a steep stairway.

Upon her arrival, she does not deliver her message very rapidly, for she has become a creature of ceremonies. She appears in true feminine elegance to do justice to her role as ambassador: “Elle fit faire une litière assez grande pour mettre commodément deux oeufs; elle était couverte toute d'écaille de tortue en dehors, doublée en peau de jeunes lézards; elle avait cinquante filles d'honneur; c'était de ces petites reines vertes qui sautillent dans les prés, chacune était montée sur un escargot, avec une selle à l'anglaise, la jambe sur l'arçon d'un air merveilleux; plusieurs rats d'eau vêtus en pages, précédaient les limaçons, auxquels elle avait confié la garde de sa personne: enfin rien n'a jamais été si joli, surtout son chaperon de roses vermeilles, toujours fraîches et épanouies, lui seyait le mieux du monde” (II, 62). In order to be fully trusted and not to be taken for a vulgar toad she has to display ability and knowledge. She puts on a spectacle which has little to do with ambassadorial dignity. Lizards, rats, snails and frogs loose their ugly animal appearance. Their eyes twinkle like stars; they become majestically tall; they dance a graceful ballet without thumps. The frog and her company transform themselves into scented flowers mounted on nimble legs. In the final scene, they become fountains mirroring purity and grace, abolishing reality, letting illusion survive alone.

Another ceremony is yet to come. The king and queen's daughter has to be sacrificed, for her father has unknowingly promised her to a fearful dragon. The indignant words of her mother become absurd when concern for the destiny of a nation is replaced by a reference to pie-filling: “Père dénaturé, pourriez-vous donner les mains à une si grande barbarie? Quoi! mon enfant serait mis en pâte” (II, 70). The sacrifice is prepared as if in full consciousness the characters were emulating Psyche and Iphigenia. Mme d'Aulnoy often equates, with tongue in cheek, events belonging to the classical and fairy tale world. The jasmine crowned Moufette is carried on a litter by four-hundred white-clad virgins. Her duly grief-stricken parents follow. The hungry dragon, having sharpened his three rows of teeth, steps out of line. Such an anticlimax does not enable the reader, who has seen endless wars stopped by a good-natured whim, to believe that a dreadful event is pending. Sooner or later the frog will arrange matters so that Moufette can marry Moufy who merely has to kill the dragon. In a state of bliss all metamorphoses become possible—the frog extends into a beautiful dawn floating over an arch of triumph, made from the dragon's skeleton, which frames the loving couple for eternity. Undoubtedly, Mme d'Aulnoy gives humorous treatment to the conventions in this tale, both those of the fairy tale and those of society.

In Le Serpentin Vert, Mme d'Aulnoy tells of the trials and tribulations of Laideronette, a princess uglified, as Alice would say, by a wicked fairy. Mme d'Aulnoy clearly indicates that she intends to pay lip service to fairy tale tradition. The rich and powerful Magotine, overlooked by the heroine's parents, is angry as all fairies must be when they fail to receive an invitation or a present. Magotine imposes her childlike, dictatorial whims on Laideronette; for instance, the princess has to give a lesson on metaphysics to a colony of ants. Surprisingly, Magotine shows her willingness to withdraw her request: “Hé bien reine, vous ne leur apprendrez pas la philosophie, mais vous donnerez à tout le monde, malgré vous, des exemples de patience qu'il sera difficile d'imiter” (I, 327). In other words, the only thing that matters is that the fairy maintains the tradition of imposing impossible tasks and threatening vengeance.

Neither Laideronette nor her lover enjoy their natural shape. Because of the ugliness of the princess and the deformity of the serpent, love seems beyond their reach. After overcoming the dangers of shipwreck, Laideronette arrives at the land of the pagodas where her ugliness escapes notice. She is offered entertainment of such high quality that boredom is impossible ever after. This dreamlike existence kindles desires she had wanted to suppress. Who is the master of the land where she is treated so regally? An invisible lover, a voice, emerges. Their nascent love appears both delicate and amusing: “La princess avança les bras pour la prendre, mais on lui prit la main, on la serra, on la baisa, quelques larmes tombèrent dessus, on était si saisi qu'on ne pouvait parler …” (I, 322). The invisible courtship takes place in the midst of official court entertainment.

Eventually the princess weds her invisible lover and then seeks to find out more about him. Her future is prophesied in a recent version of Psyche to which her attendants refer her. Her situation nevertheless remains ambiguous. Has she married a monster or Cupid? When by means of a lamp she tries to learn the truth, she discovers that she has an ugly green snake for a husband. Laideronette-Psyche utters indignant accusations against Serpentin Vert, claiming that her love and devotion really deserve a better fate.

The love story is set off by short anecdotes on the same theme. Early during her stay in Pagodaland, stories of intrigue, jealousy, falsehood and unfaithfulness are told to Laideronette. Later, a canary messenger, provided by the fairy Protectrice, reveals to the heroine that he is a Spanish nobleman metamorphosed because he made advances to the proud daughter of an English ambassador. The woman he wooed became a wasp. Although the canary was fully aware of this metamorphosis, his amorous pursuits continue: “Je voltigeais autour d'elle avec l'empressement d'un amant que rien ne pouvait détacher; elle essaya plusieurs fois de me piquer. “Voulez-vous ma mort, belle guêpe, lui dis-je, il n'est pas nécéssaire pour cela d'employer votre aiguillon, il suffit que vous m'ordonniez de mourir, et je mourrai” (I, 333).

The canary enhances the comedy by stringing together endless incidents of other unhappy loves, other unmatched lovers, of jealous husbands, of unfaithful wives, all of whom have changed into animals in order to do penance. Their respective animal shapes depend on their previous behavior and status: gluttons become pigs, angry men become lions. In the forest, thus populated with people from all walks of life, the strangest partners dance together: “… on y voyait des lions danser avec les agneaux, les ours conter les douceurs aux colombes, et les serpents se radoucir pour des linottes. On voyait un papillon en intrigue avec une panthère” (I, 335). By presenting so many facets of weird love relations, Mme d'Aulnoy stresses the mutual devotion of hero and heroine.

As in “La Grenouille Bienfaisante,” entertainment itself becomes a constant source of humor. The princess is entertained from morning to night by pagodas, ballet, tragedy, small talk, music. This never-ending spectacle, summarizing the great theatrical ambitions of the time, turns out to be a mere puppet show. Amidst festivities, the pagodas become involved in a war instigated by the wicked Magotin. Army strategy and political maneuvers prove to be even more entertaining than dramatic performances. The pagodas, who had previously explained the current events to Laideronette, had put on the same level “… des traités de paix, des ligues pour faire la guerre, trahisons et ruptures d'amants …” (I, 320). The marionettes had launched the attack against the pagodas. Their general is the immortal Polichinelle, assisted by a reliable army of wasps, butterflies, and beetles. The Pagoda army consisting of a few lizards and frogs does not stand a chance. The wicked fairy will torture the heroes a little longer before Laideronette becomes the Reine Discrète who recognizes Cupid's bow and arrow. In this tale Mme d'Aulnoy has integrated poetically various forms of humor which make fairy tale literature worthy of comparison with some contemporary comédies-ballets and divertissements.

Mme d'Aulnoy, as shown through her descriptions of festivities, palaces, and the many strange creatures who populate her tales, evinces rich imagination which would overwhelm the reader were it not constantly interspersed with comic traits and witticisms. Her humor is not cruel or even sophisticated, for it depends not so much on the discrepancy between the real and the ideal, but on divergent and conflicting aspects of the imagination. Thus, laughter never loses its close connection with poetry or dreams; and when it does put a stop to imagination, it invariably replaces it with love.

Notes

1. “L'Amour et la féerie chez Madame d'Aulnoy,” Romanische Forschungen, fascicule I, 1963.

2. Madame d'Aulnoy, Les Contes des Fées, Mercure de France (Paris, 1946), II, 289. All quotations are from this edition.