mb, Little Thumb').

While Moetjens was producing these in his Miscellany, there was
published in Paris, at Perrault's bookseller's (Guignard), a little
volume called _Bigarrures Ingenieuses, ou Recueil de diverses Pieces
galantes en prose et en vers_. The author was Mlle. L'Heritier de
Villaudon, a relation of Perrault's. It is to his daughter, a
Mademoiselle Perrault, that she addresses her first piece, _Marmoisan ou
l'Innocente Tromperie_. The author says she was lately in a company
where people began to praise M. Perrault's _Griselidis_, _Peau d'Ane_
and _Les Souhaits_. They spoke also of 'the excellent education which M.
Perrault gives his children, of their ingenuity, and finally of the
_Contes naifs_ which one of his young pupils has lately written with so
much charm. A few of these stories were narrated and led on to others.'
_Marmoisan_ is one of the others, and Mlle. L'Heritier says she told it,
'avec quelque broderie qui me vint sur le champ dans l'esprit.' The tale
is, indeed, all embroidery, beneath which the original stuff is
practically lost[15]. But the listener asked the narrator to offer it 'a
ce jeune Conteur, qui occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son
enfance.'

In a later page she wonders that the Contes should have been 'handed to
us from age to age, without any one taking the trouble to write them
out.' Then she herself takes the trouble to write the story of Diamonds
and Toads, a story known in a rough way to the Kaffirs--and hopelessly
spoils it by her _broderie_, and by the introduction of a lay figure
called _Eloquentia Nativa_ (_Les Enchantemens de l'Eloquence_, ou _Les
Effets de la Douceur_). One has only to compare Mlle. L'Heritier's
literary and embroidered _Eloquentia_ with Perrault's _Les Fees_ (the
original of our _Diamonds and Toads_), to see the vast difference
between his manner, and that of contemporary _conteurs_. Perrault would
never have brought in a Fairy named _Eloquentia Nativa_. Mlle.
L'Heritier's _Eloquentia_ (1696) was in the field before Perrault's
unembroidered version, _Les Fees_, which appeared in Moetjens' _Recueil_
in 1697. The Lady writes:

'Cent et Cent fois ma Gouvernante
Au lieu de Fables d'animaux[16]
M'a raconte les traits moraux
De cette Histoire surprenante.'

Here, then, is Mlle. L'Heritier speaking of one of Perrault's children
who has written the fairy tales, 'with so much charm.' At this very time
(1696-1697), fairy tales, 'writte