pas des plus indifferentes.' The legends of the
country folk, which had been as simple and rude as _Peau d'Ane_ in her
scullion's disguise, shone forth like _Peau d'Ane_ herself, when she
wore her fairy garments, embroidered with the sun and moon in thread of
gold and silver. We can see, from Madame de Sevigne's letter, that the
_Maerchen_ had been decked out in Court dress, in train and feathers, as
early as 1676. When the Princess of the Green Isle, and the Prince of
Pleasures alighted from their flying ball of crystal, in Madame
Coulanges' tale, every one cried, 'Cybele is descending among us!'
Cybele is remote enough from the world of fairy, and the whole story,
like the stories afterwards published by Madame d'Aulnoy, must have been
a highly decorated and scarcely recognisable variant of some old
tradition.

How did the fairy tales get presented at Court, and thence win their
way, thanks to Perrault, into the classical literature of France?
Probably they were welcomed partly in that spirit of sham simplicity,
which moved Louis XIV and his nobles and ladies to appear in Ballets as
shepherds and shepherdesses[5]. In later days the witty maidens of Saint
Cyr became aweary of sermons on _la simplicite_. They used to say, by
way of raillery, 'par simplicite je prends la meilleure place,' 'par
simplicite je vais me louer,' 'par simplicite je veux ce qu'il y a de
plus loin de moi sur une table.' This, as Madame de Maintenon remarked,
was 'laughing at serious things,' at sweet simplicity, which first
brought Fairy Tales to the OEil de Boeuf[6]. Mlle. L'Heritier in
_Bigarrures Ingenieuses_ (p. 237) expressly says, 'Les Romances modernes
tachent d'imiter la simplicite des Romances antiques.' It is curious
that Madame de Maintenon did not find this simplicity simple enough for
her pupils at St. Cyr. On the 4th of March, 1700, when the fashion for
fairy tales was at its height, she wrote to the Comte d'Ayen on the
subject of harmless literature for _demoiselles_, and asked him to
procure something, 'mais non des contes de fees ou de _Peau d'Ane_, car
je n'en veux point[7].'

Indeed it is very probable that weariness of the long novels and pompous
plays of the age of Louis XIV made people find a real charm in the
stories of _Cendrillon_, and _La Belle au Bois Dormant_. For some
reason, however, the stories (as current in France) existed only by word
of mouth, and in oral narrative, till near the end of the century. In
1691 C