med, and
would justly have seemed, ridiculous. We must believe that P. Darmancour
was a child when the stories were published, and we may agree with the
Abbe Villiers that the Academician 'put a hand to them.' M. Lacroix's
authority is the discovery by M. Jal of the birth of Pierre Perrault, a
son of Charles, who would have been nineteen in 1697. (Jal's
_Dictionnaire Critique_, p. 1321.) But Jal did not find the register of
baptism of Mademoiselle Perrault. It follows that he may have also
failed to find that of other young Perraults, including 'P. Darmancour.'
Each of Perrault's first sons (May 25, 1675; Oct. 20, 1676), was called
Charles, the second had a Samuel added to the name. Perrault may also
have had two or more Pierres; in any case, unless P. Darmancour were an
idiot, his education could not have been conducted by making him write
out nursery tales at nineteen.]

[Footnote 20: Even in the popular mouth almost any formula may glide
into almost any other, and there is actually a female Hop o' My Thumb in
Aberdeenshire folklore. But Madame d'Aulnoy's seems a wanton confusion.
The Aberdeen female _Hop o' My Thumb_ is _Malty Whuppy_, Folk Lore
Journal, p. 68, 1884. For _Finette Cendron_, see _Nouveaux Contes des
Fees_, par Madame D----, Amsterdam, Roger, 1708.]

[Footnote 21: Paul de Saint Victor, _Hommes et Dieux_, p. 474.]

[Footnote 22: _L'Histoire de Melusine_ (Barbin, Paris, 1698) is
dedicated like _Histoires et Contes du Tems Passe_ to _Mademoiselle_.
The author says, 'Si tost que la plus celebre des Fees a sceu que votre
Altesse Royale avoit eu la bonte de donner de favourables audiences aux
Fees du bas ordre, et qu'elle avoit pris quelque plaisir au recit de
leurs avanteures,' she came forward and asked Mademoiselle to patronise
her own. A burlesque 'Privilege en faveur des Fees dans ce temps ou l'on
a tant d'engouement pour les Contes des Fees' ends the volume.]

FAIRIES AND OGRES.

The stories of Perrault are usually called 'Fairy Tales,' and they
deserve the name more than most _contes_, except the artificial
contemporary tales, because in them Fairies or Fees do play a
considerable part. Thus there were seven Fairies, and an old one
'supposed dead or enchanted,' in the _Sleeping Beauty_. There is a Fairy
Godmother in _Cinderella_, and, as will be shown in the study on
_Cinderella_, she takes the part usually given, in traditional versions,
to a cow, a sheep, or a dead mother who has some mystic