The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
1922
The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault
1922
Translated by J. E. (Jean Edmond) Mansion
These are the originals. Before Disney softened them and the Brothers Grimm darkened them further, Charles Perrault wrote these eight tales for the sophisticated courts of Louis XIV. They read like children's stories. They are not. Cinderella wins her prince through quiet calculation and a shoe that fits perfectly. Little Red Riding Hood does not get rescued by a huntsman. Blue Beard is a claustrophobic thriller about a woman trapped in a castle with a murderer, listening to his key drip blood. Puss in Boots is a con artist who engineers a fortunes for his master through sheer audacity. Behind every enchantment lies a lesson in survival: trust no strangers, keep your promises, and never, ever open the forbidden door. What makes Perrault endure is his knowing wink. Each tale ends with a verse moral, and they are not for children. They are sardonic, practical, often brutal in their wisdom: beauty without sense is a jewel in a sow's nose; the path to marriage runs through the kitchen. The Doré illustrations that accompany these tales have defined our visual imagination of them for over a century. This is where fairy tales come from, and what they were always meant to do: teach us how the world works, often through terror, always through transformation.
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“FIRST MORALGood manners are not easyThey need a little care,But when we least expect itBring rewards both rich and rare.SECOND MORALBrute force or bribes of diamondsBend others to your will,But gentle words have greater powerAnd gain more conquests still.””
— Charles Perrault
“The less there is of eloquence, the more there is of love.””
— Charles Perrault
“of the culprit. Architecture next engaged his attention, and in 1657 he designed a house at Viry for his brother and supervised its construction.””
— Charles Perrault
“ever called her child.) The poor creature told her frankly all the matter, not without dropping out infinite numbers of diamonds. “In good faith,” cried the mother, “I must send my child thither. Come hither, Fanny, look what comes out of thy sister’s mouth when she speaks!””
— Charles Perrault
“Perhaps it also demonstrates that any young girl can live quite healthily on coarse bread and clear water – so long as she has fine clothes.””
— Charles Perrault
