The willing suspension of belief in the French seventeenth century fairy tale . 1

Although written fairy tales are found in earlier French literature, it can be said that the fairy tale came of age as written text in France in 1696 when a vogue was launched that continued until at least 1730. At one level of reading, French fairy tales of that time reveal both of the functions usually considered to characterise the fairy tale genre: pleasurable escapist involvement and the capacity to exert an existential influence on the reader. It must be presumed that without the ability to influence the reader in the usual ways, the tales could not, as they have done, dominate the tradition of written fairy tales across three cultures, Anglophone, German and French, for 300 years. It is the intention of this study to show that while the seventeenth century avatar of the fairy tale exerts the same two universal functions, a second level of reading, perceptible to the initiated readers of the tim e who shared the au thor’s socio-esthetic norms, enriches both functions and even contradicts the action of one.


Introduction
A lthough w ritten fairy tales are found in earlier French literature, it can be said that the fairy tale came of age as w ritten text in France in 1696 when a vogue was launched that continued until at least 1730.At one level of reading, French fairy tales of that time reveal both of the functions usually considered to characterise the fairy tale genre: pleasurable escapist involvement and the capacity to exert an existential influence on the reader.It must be presum ed that w ithout the ability to influence the reader in the usual ways, the tales could not, as they have done, dominate the tradition of written fairy tales across three cultures, Anglophone, G erm an and French, for 300 years.It is the intention of this study to show th at while the seven teen th century av atar of the fairy tale exerts the sam e two universal functions, a second level of reading, perceptible to the initiated readers of the tim e who sh ared the a u th o r's socio-esthetic norm s, enriches both functions and even contradicts the action of one.

Traditional functions
O f the two functions referred to, the capacity to exert an existential influence can be m oralistic, therapeutic, ideological, or apt to institutionalise socio-cultural norms.This T h is title is, o f coursc, a subversion o f ihe w ell-know n p h rase "willing su sp en sio n o f d is b e lie f used by S.T. C oleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1960Literaria ( (1817), 14:169)), 14:169).action can be overt or covert, deliberately cultivated or unconscious.The variation is due to the fact that not all these influences operate in all stories.A narrator or writer inevitably adapts his writing to suit the tastes of his public, the climate of his age or whatever message it is that he wishes to convey, while a read er will react the most strongly to things having relevance for his present condition (see Bettelheim , 1986: passim andZipes, 1986:9-62).In the seventeenth century versions, as 'everyone knows' (every critic cited evokes these), Tom T hum b's good fortune com forts children who feel abandoned, Red Riding H ood's fate is a dreadful warning against disobeying one's m other, C inderella proves the rewards of virtue and so on.And messages of this type and this level are multiple and also subject to differences of opinion, which seem s to prove the contention that the reader perceives what is meaningful for him.Zipes (1989), for instance, sees an effort in Perrault's work to emphasise gender roles in a male dom inated society while Welch (1983) sees the presence of a feminist rebellion.
The tales' capacity for the second universal characteristic, escapism, is not just multiplied, it is contradicted at a second level of reading.The phenom enon of escapist reading, the fact that a genre dealing with flagrant fantasy can provoke tem porary b elief in the reader, appears paradoxical when one stops to think about it.Todorov insists that the fairy tale does accom plish "that im possible union by which a re ad er believes w ithout believing' ' (1970:88), and "takes the m arvellous literally" (174).B utor's writing suggests how this happens.The fairy tale acts as a persuasive autonom ous world because its "very structure (...) isolates it " (1973:352).That structure is built from conventions that equate to the laws of a land.These are signalled for the reader from the beginning by m arkers such as the formulaic "once upon a time", or the triplication that multiplies tasks (350-52) and so on.The reader accepts that character of 'otherness' and the distance from his own world, sets aside the criteria he would use in real life or even in other types of literature, and willingly suspends his disbelief.We shall show that the authors of the seventeenth century tale, by m eans of a self-conscious system of auto-referentiality, disrupt th at distancing effect of 'otherness' on which belief in the fairy tale depends.
By tradition , fairy tales are outside tim e and space, or at least so old that when their adventures took place, "hens had teeth" (Brekilien, 1973:162).An uninitiated reader could easily miss the specific seventeenth century character of the tales under consideration here.A nachronism s abound, like the 'gophered cuffs' on a dress, the exotic luxury im plied in serving 'China oranges' (tangerines) at a ball in P errau lt's work, or the précieiix2 dialogue and accents ("Time and obstacles did not d etract from the intensity o f his lover-like impatience", says Mme de M urat of her hero in "La Princesse Camion" - Anon., 1988:91).F or the m odern read er, these seem p art of the arch aic vagueness o f the fairy tale in general.But they are elem ents chosen from the context of th eir first readers, and they were inserted with a view to a particular effect.It is indispensible to recall that, all appearances to the contrary, the fairy tale was not w ritten for a juvenile public.C h ild ren 's lite ratu re as such was barely beginning (see Enfance et littérature, 1991).The target audience, the intended reader of the written fairy tale was a sophisticated adult.T hat adult had a very particular collective, socio-esthetic code.(F or a fuller discussion, see Godwin, 1985.)The following points may be taken as representing the essence of that society and as having left traces on every aspect of life at the time, other genres of fiction, and other arts.
Consisting mainly of the leisured aristocracy, that society had the hallmarks of an exclusive club.Adherence to prevailing norms was all -to be a member, it was necessary to embrace the codes for dress, speech, ethical matters, artistic preferences and current preoccupations endorsed by the group.Paradoxically, being distinctive, bringing surprise and a subtle difference to those codes, what in rhetoric is called varietas, was a cultivated art.The chief preoccupation of that leisured caste was a search for diversion, and the public persona of its m em bers was playful.R eal games were regularly played, and techniques deploying am bivalence, disguise and surprise w ere favoured.T he category of in tellectu al play included enigm as, em blem s, allegories and symbols, with the rh eto rical device of the conceit3 being characteristic.

Seventeenth century prose fiction
Prose fiction within that group presents four aspects that affect the treatm ent of the fairy tale, and perm it the reader to comprehend the ways in which techniques of literary illusion are eclipsed or deform ed.T hese are: a persistant nostalgia for the complex, obsolete baro q u e novels; the desire to ring the changes on th e story types in circulation; the theoretical relegation of all fiction to the status of frivolous diversion;4 and a preoccupation with literary verisimilitude.5

Disassociation and apology
The prevailing attitudes to fiction were of param ount im portance for the fairy tale genre.It is probably the most frivolous of all story types, and it rarely appears without some kind of apology expressed in the paratext6 or a framing narrative explaining that they were part of an unserious, broader am usem ent.O f six volumes examined for this study, three take the form of a frame novel, a genre that was reactivated in response to the nostalgia for the complexity of the baroque works (see Godwin, 1990).The framing story is the pretext for an am usem ent motif: a group is in search of diversion.B ernard's Inês de Cordoue (1979) includes two fairy stories, which are told by young women who com pete politely to amuse in the company of the queen.In Lenoble's L e Gage touché (1980) first published in 1697, a game of forfeits leads to a series of narrations, whose register runs from the scatalogical to the courtly, and includes two fairy tales.In La Comtesse de Mortane (1699) by Bedacier, a man tells a fairy tale to two ladies to fill an idle m om ent in a garden.The w riter in each case thus claims to be a transcriber rather than an author, disclaiming responsibility for the tales, and is seemingly uninterested in the recognition due to the artist.
Not only is there a conformity to prevailing fashion here regarding the global structure of the w orks, it is quite obvious th a t a search for v ariatio n s, ludism and a conventional apology for indulging in fiction are all bro u g h t into o p eratio n .A nd the playfulness o p e ra te s at m ore th a n o n e level; th e a u th o rs a re playing w ith th e notio n of play.Reproducing an amusing activity within the description of an entertainm ent is a form of mise-en-abyme'?this is doubled by its parallel in real life, for games of forfeits, the telling of stories, and polite competition figure among the daily social activities of the aristocracy.Such insistance on the context of the telling would have acted to some extent to distract the reader from a purely escapist reading by drawing his attention to the m anner as well as the m atter of his work.
Many works of the time open with prefaces, 'notices to the re ad er' or dedications which disclaim any serious intention on the part of the author.T here is firstly the insistance on the notion of frivolous pastime, often referred to as a 'bagatelle' and often accom panied by a rem inder of underlying didactic intentions8 as in the case of P errault who writes that his stories are "not simply bagatelles, but contain a useful m oral" (Préface, 1967:3).9The ambiguity here, of course, depends on the fact that fiction -am usem ent -was a very serious aspect of polite society, while the attention to detail, and the quality of the work prove that it was far from being the product of a careless moment.So, once again, the initiated reader of the seventeenth century would have recognised the game; he would have suspended his belief.

A genre for children?
T h ere is a sim ilar association o f the tales with children which is rarely sincere.The intended reader was not a child but an adult.The oral tradition does recognise children as the intended public, and associating the tale with children was firstly a homage to tradition.But it was also, secondly, the source of playful ambiguity, and thirdly, an added means for underplaying the seriousness of the author's intention.
B ernard dedicates her work to the prince of D om bes,10 and hopes it "will am use [him] during his childhood".But all is rarely what it seems, in seventeenth century writing, and this dedication (unpaginated), contains a further play on words, which is unlikely to have m eant much to a baby prince.Bernard continues by expressing the hope that if the prince happens to learn to read from her book, thus "seeing [his] own name in a book for the first time, [she] will have the honour of having provided him with a novel pleasure (un plaisir d 'une espêce loute nouvelle)".There are four meanings in play.The word nouvelle has both meanings of the English word 'novel': new, and a style of book.The pun thus promises the prince firstly the new experience of seeing his nam e in print and secondly the pleasure procured by the reading of a novel.Thirdly, the reference to the style of book called nouvelle is charged with meaning and is tantam ount to an undertaking to provide a work faithful to the exigencies of improved verisim ilitude,11 a prom ise fulfilled in the framing story, though not, of course, in the included fairy tales.Fourthly, there is undoubtedly also a subtle allusion to the fact that at the date of publication of the book, written fairy tales of the type included were still a novelty, B ernard's carrying the earliest date (1696) for any written text of the current vogue.This witty proliferation of meanings exploits, once again, the question of belief and disbelief.
A nother extra-textual m ethod of associating a fairy story with a childish audience is to attribute it to a childish narrator.Lenoble does this in his L e Gage touché.Two of the pledges requiring a story as forfeit are "a doll's toy" (1980:231) and "a tiny ivory ball" (254), and the ages of the narrators are given as fourteen and eight.At the end of the second fairy tale, the reader is reminded that the narrator is a little girl when the audience praises her memory and her intelligence.Perrault goes even further, printing the name of his third son, Pierre d'A rm ancour, as author in one of his books.This is universally held to be a spurious attrib u tio n .Even in the case of a story supposedly told to grown women, in B edacier's L a Comtesse de Mortane, one of the ladies is credited with saying "Ah, 1 love fairy tales as much as if I w ere still a child" (1699, 11:224).She is expressing the typical ambiguity of the age: a fondness for fiction shared by all, and an em barrassed acknow ledgement that such a preoccupation was not really considered fit for responsible adults.
The texts themselves can exacerbate the ambiguity of the intended audience by adopting a childish tone and register.This is the case for Mme d 'Aulnoy's "Finette Cendron" whose heroine is the youngest of th ree little sisters.T h eir squabbles are re p o rte d with an authentic-sounding acrimony that includes the epithet "baboon" (Anon., 1988:63); Finette addresses her horse as gentil dada, in English "nice horsie" or even "gee-gee" (58); when her sisters need her help, they try to bribe her with offers of their "pretty dolls, their little silver dishes, their other toys and their sweets" (60).The superlatives that form a convention of all fairy tales take on a particularly childish tone in the narration of this story, "so far, so far t h a t ..." (58) as do the ideophones, like the "ting ting ting" of the horse's harness (73).This should not fool the reader; the story was composed for the adult ladies of the salon and the appearance of artlessness would have delighted them.
Perrault's tales are well known for their ambiguity of register.Chupeau, 1986) which has nothing to do with the psycho-analytical approach of other schools of criticism.
To nam e just one example, the expression to have seen the w olf has the general idiom atic m eaning of undergoing an u n p leasan t experience when applied to a man, but a specifically sexual co nnotation when applied to fem ales.The application to "Little Red Riding Hood" is obvious.
Perrault also appends moral verses at the end of his tales whose message is never limited to the superficial moral lesson.T h ere are e ith e r two verses, or one which developes two different messages, and one of the messages is always cynical and worldly (see M alarte, 1968M alarte, , 1990M alarte, and Brody, 1968).The sophistication o f these verses acts retrospectively to produce a second interpretation of the text.It is interesting that m odern children's books, concerned with the surface message of Perrault's tales, usually omit the moralities.

Subversion of illusion
Fairy stories devoid of ambiguity seem to be the exception rather than the rule at the time.Excluding Perrault's, only one of 38 stories examined for this study "Incarnat, blanc et noir" (Anon., 1988) by an anonymous author, is that simple.The other 37 reveal some form of self-conscious m anipulation which disrupts the processes of illusion either periodically, or by perm itting a simultaneous reading at two levels.

Verisimilitude as pastiche
A reader is struck, firstly, by an almost universal reappropriation of the rules in force for re a listic w riting.It has a lread y b een sta te d th a t v e risim ilitu d e was an im p o rta n t p reoccup atio n at the tim e. T he reactiv atio n of a genre as b latan tly m arvellous and unbelievable as the fairy tale is almost a paradox in that climate.But the way recognised techniques of vraisemblance are applied -as pastiche -together with an understanding of the im portance accorded to ludism and variation, shows that a playful, highly conscious juxtaposition of antithetical literary trends was well-suited to prevailing esthetics.
A rapid parenthesis will recall the situation prevailing regarding realist writing.Publication of the huge, m ulti-volum e baroq u e novels simply stopped around 1660, and for good reasons.Those novels are anything but plausible, being filled with w hat w ere called by most, 'absurdities'.Charles Sorel, one of many who use this term, enum erates them in his De la C onnoissance des Bons Livres (1981), first pub lish ed in 1671.T h e gist was a recognition o f the need to narrow the gulf separating read er and text, and the greatest cause of this rift was the attribution of French seventeenth century m ores to heroes of other nationalities and other times.This was a result of exclusiveness and homogeneity of the readers, who simply had no interest in anyone outside their 'club'.Even a Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, had to appear to embrace the prevailing social codes of the readers when given a role in a novel by La Calprenêde.The difficulties were resolved, little by little, by francisation, modernisation and an attention to the correspondance of cause and effect that brought the characters and their experiences effectively closer to those of the reader.
Du Plaisir lists the techniques used for the new style of vraisemblartce in his Sentiments sur les Lettres et sur VHistoire of 1682, in the form of a description of the new novel, usually called nouvelle, that had replaced the baroque novel.These techniques include a reduction in length, and in the num ber of protagonists and of adventures attributed to them, and a linear exposition of the plot.These are implemented in many fairy tales, although others, whose authors p referred perhaps to p ander to the nostalgia for the baroque, redeploy techniques such as the convoluted plots beginning in median res followed by retrospective narrations (one example is Mme d 'Aulnoy's "La C hatte Blanche", 1988:19-56).The new structures represent a search for reason and an attem pt to establish, in the reader's mind, an impression of the existence of a real world referent.So Du Plaisir advises an author to give a precise spatial and tem poral setting, to mention which king was currently reigning, and to in dicate, at the sta rt of a story, the c h aracter trait of a protagonist which will motivate the ulterior developments of the plot.
These are the techniques that commonly appear in the form of pastiche in the seventeenth century fairy tale.The story included in Bedacier's La Comtesse de Mortane begins "There was once, long ago, a fairy in Asia ... widowed, with a daughter in whom was seen, from the start, a penchant for pleasure which surprised all those who approached her" (1699: 225).
T he h eroine is nam ed, significantly, L ubantine (the French word lubie m eans caprice, whim).H er inclination for pleasure is accom panied by a refusal to be hindered in its pursuit, and this will be the direct cause of multiple deaths at the end.But the rationalism of this com bination of cause and effect is underm ined by the magic at her disposal in her search for pleasure.Then, the precision and the realism of the spatial "in Asia" and the temporal "long ago" are mere illusions, and are also contradictory.Fairies live in fairy land, not in Asia, which is a vast continent consisting of many countries ... ."Long ago" implies the g reatest possible vagueness which is co n tra d icted by th e spu rio u s p recision of a geographical referent.Even more whimsical is the start of "Prince Sincere" of Mme de Lintot: O The silkworms, it might be added, play no further role in the story!Such a parody of verisim ilitude, naturally, has the opposite effect from that of a serious application of the techniques (as they w ere succesfully im plem ented, for instance, in the nouvelle).So far from encouraging an illusion of reality, of m aking the re a d e r want to suspend his disbelief, the parody increases the distance betw een reader and text, and his aw areness of th at distance, by insisting on the con trast betw een real and unreal, and drawing attention to the difference by the ironic deploym ent of rules which normally serve to give fiction the colours of reality.

Conventions overturned
This process can be considered a playful tam pering with contem porary preoccupations; literary convention, as much as the m arvellous ch aracter of the story, is the butt of the irony, or perhaps one should say the ta rg e t of a witty variatio n .P arody is firstly an acknow ledgem ent of prevailing norms, and secondly a consciously ludic divergence from them.This subverting of prevailing norms of realism by applying them to a genre in which they can not accom plish th eir effect is also a subversion o f th e norm s for m arvellous lite r a tu re .E sta b lish in g an im p re ssio n o f d ista n c e , o f 'o th e r n e s s ', is a n ecessary precondition for the functioning o f the m arvellous tale, as was m ade clear by B u to r's statem en t concerning the 'iso la tio n ' o f the fairy tale w orld.T his is p aten tly not the intention of the authors here.They subvert that im pression of distance even while it is apparently being re-established by the parody of realism .The subversion is operated by the evocation of elem ents of the reader's own world, in this case the naming of a continent he knows, and by the very contem porary style of ludism.This leads the reader back to that fundam ental 'absurdity' of seventeenth century fiction, the attrib utin g o f contem porary, nationalistic mores to protagonists of other times and other places.It is almost as though the fairy tale, the least serious of the sub-genres within the already frivolous genre of prose fiction, legitimised the reprise of the absurdities of the baroque novels that were still read and spoken of with affectionate nostalgia.T he aristocratic literate society, once again, preferred to contem plate its own image, regardless of the plausibility of the context, but in a ludic mode that attenuates, by its ambiguity, the gravity of infringing the latest codes for vraisemblance.

Anachronisms
Ludic tre a tm e n t of the type ju st seen constitutes a link with the seventeenth century context.Anachronisms are another, like the tangerines and gophered cuffs seen at the start of this study, to which could be added technological novelties like "a sort of trum pet that broadcasts the voice" and "an excellent magnifying glass [telescope]" (M m e d 'Aulnoy, 1988:47,48).A nother frequently used technique is intertextual allusion: Mme d'Aulnoy, in the m oral verse she appends to her version of C in d erella, called "F in ette Cendron", readopts the less worldly of the two morals of P errault's C inderella, notably that coals of fire (kindness in return for ill treatm ent) constitute the best form of revenge (1988:75).Such hom age to a direct precursor would not have been m ade at random ; intertextual allusions w ere a co n secrated p art of the literary playfulness in fashion and a way of associating the tales with the context of their telling rather than their origins.

Feminism
Most fairy tales do not merely emphasise the themes of marriage, constancy and dalliance th at w ere the m ajor topic of books and discussion in F rance; they tre a t them from a contem porary fem inist point of view.Form ulae such as "I know many others in our own century...", and "In our century, this type of union is frequent" (D 'Aulnoy, 1988:103-104, 139) are common.The majority of these writers are women, and it is women who set the tone of the social groups of the time.A particularly anti-sexist current had been born in the salon of Mile de Scudéry, w here favourite topics for discussion w ere the double standards applied to men and women, and the unhappiness of women in arranged m arria ges.The striking them e of B ernard's "Riquet á la houppe" is sum med up by the cynical maxim "lovers turn into husbands in the long run " (1979:72).Mme d'Aulnoy's "Blue Bird" ends with a verse that affirms that it would be b etter to be a bird of any species, even an owl, than to marry and have a person you hate perm anently before your eyes (1988:139).Welch (1983) cites this one, and many other examples to support her thesis that this is a common them e among the women fairy tale writers of the time.
Welch's view of these works contradicts that of Zipes (1986:41), who believes that the tales of the period are meant, with their happy endings, to encourage girls to conform and accept male dom ination, and to behave with "reserve and patience" (1986:41) in a society where even a m arried woman rem ained a minor in the eyes of the law.Welch, on the contrary, sees an affirm ation of libertinism (and it is true that outside Perrault's works, the heroines frequently enjoy what Mme d'Aulnoy's "White Cat" calls "receiving [the hero] as husband").
The heroines are also independent, full of initiative and strength.It is perhaps significant that w here P errau lt's Tom T hum b is male, Mme d 'Aulnoy's Finette C endron, who has sim ilar ad ventures, should be a girl.P errau lt is a m ale au th o r, and Z ip es is mainly considering Perrault's tales.Mme d'Aulnoy is an authoress, being interpreted by a woman.Welch (1983:53) points out that "the importance accorded to conjugal bliss but in a magical context in which dreams can come true, emphasises the lack of hope in the authors of these tales that such a condition could be realised".Welch (1983:57) also affirms that it is the "supernatural ambience that permits the distortion of the prevailing moral codes".Such an insistance on contem porary reality by m eans of showing the opposite in an impossible (marvellous) context is a function of the traditional tale,12 but the significance of the title of the present study is again evident.Fem inine readers were being encouraged to suspend, not their disbelief, but their belief so that for the time of a dream , they could inhabit an utopia with customs they would have loved to follow.

3 Political ideology
The tales reflect contem porary socio-ideological norm s by th e ir blatantly aristocratic perspective.Tim e could be spent on the exploration of details like clothing, menus, the terminology for functions of domestic service like 'cham berlain', and even the description of palaces and gardens which d iffer from th e obligatory topos o f the m ore 'serio u s' nouvelles only in the use of precious stones instead of the more common marble, and the use of m aterials that lack the necessary robustness for building in real life (butterflies' wings, for example).But it is the exclusive character, and the indifference to the realities of other social strata, that signal the overriding ideology of these tales.
Perrault invokes the popular origins of his tales in his prefaces, but a careful reading of his stories shows that this was simply another game.Welch (1990) notes examples proving that any people of low er class that ap p ear are used m ore as a counterfoil to em phasise the nobility of the heroes than anything else.She also confirms the im pression left by the reading done for this study, namely that the lower classes are virtually invisible.W riters other than Perrault rarely invoke the peasant origins of the tales, and simply ignore the realities of the life of those outside court circles.Even the famine of around 1695 -which today would provoke a world-wide aid program m e -is ignored, except in the glancing, disapproving reference to the parents of Tom Thum b who so cruelly decided to abandon their children.Admittedly other critics like Zipes believe that that particular episode does constitute a criticism of an aristocracy which could make a tenant farm er wait for payment.
Even so, such low key, isolated criticisms hardly weigh against the overriding perspective of privilege that marks the tales.Welch (1990:224-225) suggests that the rustic setting of seventeenth century fairy talesand this is admittedly as frequent or more frequent than a setting in some splendid palaceis to be com pared to the eth o s w hich d ictated the vogue for th e p asto ral novel th at disappeared around 1630.It served the prevailing taste for exoticism, and disguise, and flattered the nostalgia for pastoral novels.This is a very persuasive thesis, for D 'U rfé's p asto ral novel, L'A strée, still figured regularly in the lite ra ry gam es o f disguise and metamorphosis in the salons, and was still used as a model for dalliance and debate.It

Précieux style
Reference to the contemporary context also sees a deployment of the style characteristic of seventeenth century gallantry, which implies the use of em blem s and conceits, and the addition of literary ornam ents called, for part of the century, préciosité.
The use of emblems is seen in the choice of names like Prince Sincere or Princess Desires.T hese are som etim es accom panied by an explanation o f th eir symbolic value: D esires affirms th at she "was considered the most charm ing thing possible, everyone loved [her] and wished to possess [h e r]... all wishes were subject to [her] will, and [she] had a place in every heart", a statem ent which is no less than a definition of the notion of desire (Mme de L a Force, A non., 1988:13).T he sam e type of conceit is to be read on artefacts in the stories.T he prince who loves D esires exerts his m agical pow ers to help her with the impossible task leaving a perm anent inscription on tidal sands.A bronze plaque appears, em bedded in the sand, engraved with the following verse: T The embellishm ent of the story by a poem, the choice of the them e of inconstancy, the way the them e is developed through antithesis, the use of astral imagery and the conceit itself, are all characteristic of the précieux.

D eparture from the folklore tradition
The tales, as should be evident at this stage, acquire a certain am bivalence from the fact that they are both like, and unlike, the tales of the oral tradition from which they sprang.
Only one au th o r (of those read for this study) abandons all preten ce o f transcribing a c o n se c ra te d ta le and a c c e n tu a te s, on the co n trary , the act of inventing.B edacier (1699:230) makes her narrator portray his heroine with features that his audience recognise im m ediately as those of his mistress.She is p art of his audience, and he invites her to furnish the portrait of the hero according to her personal preferences .This is a rupture with the usual processes of illusion whereby the protagonists are real people with, for example, a physiognomy that the writer must report, not create.The audience expresses its surprise at what they call a "Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre" in a fairy tale which ought to end "happily ever after".The narrator then admits that he had "not known a single word of his story when [he] began it" (292-4).
The narrator has valid reasons for shaping his story in a particular way, that stem from the developm ent o f the fram e story.M aking included story and fram e story correspond is anoth er technique th at results from the playful ethos of précieux society, and C atherine Bernard, at least, uses the same technique in Inês de Cordoue.H er included stories match the tem peram ent of their narrators in tone and mood, while the dénouem ents foreshadow their destinies.

Conclusion
It is thus im possible to believe that w riters of fairy tales around 1700 intended only to provoke a norm al degree of escapist reading.T he techniques identified here are too foreign to the framework of the traditional tale, too elegant, too witty, too perfectly suited to th e eth o s of the age and to o o b tru siv e for one to b eliev e they w ere ran d o m or unintentional.The authors have displaced the read er's attention from the m atter to the m an n er of telling, and they do this in a d e lib e ra te ly tra n s p a re n t d isru p tio n o f the fundam ental characteristics o f a genre.The plot and the destinies of the characters were not th e real cen tre of in te re st for th e sev en tee n th cen tu ry re a d e r.T h e fairy ta le 's supernatural, marvellous elem ents were valued, but never allowed to attain the élan of su stain ed literary illusion.In stead , th e im possible, m arvellous ch aracteristics w ere intensified; they w ere m ade even m ore im possible by a juxtaposition with seventeenth century realities.
T he reader, always an accom plice, was given a new role.To participate fully, he had to suspend, not his disbelief, which would have allowed him, as Todorov phrases it, "to take the marvellous literally".H e was required to concentrate on other aspects of the telling, to recognise and enjoy the deploym ent of a collective literary esthetics he him self had had helped to found and to propagate.To do this, he willingly suspended his belief.

P
le a se n o te th a t all tra n sla tio n s from F re n c h in th e p re s e n t study a re th o se o f th e a u th o r.T itles re m a in in F re n c h ; all o th e r F re n c h w o rd s a rc tra n sla te d , u n le ss th e o rig in a l w o rd will clarify a point b ein g m ade.

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re n c h préciosité has a m o re p recisc sense th a n th e e q u iv alen t E nglish te rm , an d d id n o t, in its origin, have th e suggestion o f affectatio n im plicit in E nglish.It m e an t, "a cult o f refin ed lan g u ag e an d m a n n e rs th a t e s ta b lis h e d itse lf in F re n c h high s o c ie ty o f th e 1670's" (T h e C o n cisc O xfo rd D ictionary o f Literary T erm s, 1990).F o r this reaso n , th e F re n c h w o rd, an d th e adjective précieux will be used.

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C onccit.A n unusually far-fctch cd o r e la b o ra te m e ta p h o r o r sim ile p resen tin g a surprisingly apt p a ra lle l b e tw e e n tw o d is s im ila r th in g s o r fe e lin g s ... C o n c e its o fte n e m p lo y th e d e v ic e s o f h y perbole, p arad o x , an d oxym oron" (Ibid).T h e im m ense en th u siasm for all form s of fiction is not su rp risin g in a society w ith so m uch leisure, an d th e n u m b e rs o f books pu b lish ed and th e w ide circulation they enjo y ed co n trad ict th e official statu s o f th a t fiction as negligible.T h a t official status w as d u e to th e o p p o sitio n ex p ressed by th e c h u rc h to 'u n tr u t h s ' a n d to th e c ritic a l h e s ita tio n s c a u se d , o n th e o n e h a n d , b y th e la ck o f p re c e d e n ts for th e g en re in th e classical hie rarch ie s, a n d on th e o th e r h an d , by th e lack o f 'ru le s' co difying th e g e n re .It w as to b e a lo n g tim e b e fo re th e e sse n tia l lib e rty o f fictio n g e n re s w as recog nised.T h e w o rd used is vraisem blancc, an d a lth o u g h it h ad not yet b e e n lib e ra te d fro m c o n s tra in ts o f b ie n sé a n c e (s o c io -m o r a l c o d e s) a n d a rig id a p p lic a tio n o f lite r a ry co n v e n tio n s, th e m e a n in g im p lie d by its d ire ct tra n sla tio n o f 'se e m in g tr u e ' w as g ain in g m o re an d m o re g ro u n d .It is an elusive concept.T h e clearest exposition available is th a t o f K ibedi-V arg a (1990).
T h e te rm is G e n e tte 's.H e d e sig n a te s as p a ra te x t "th ose e le m e n ts w hich tra n sfo rm a text in to a b o o k [including] p refaces [etc]" (1987:7-8)."M ise-en -ab y m e ... in te rn a l re d u p lic a tio n o f a lite ra ry w o rk o r p a r t o f a w o rk ... C h in e se box effect."{The C oncise O xford D ictionary o f Literary Term s, 1990.)T h e p le a th a t fictio n w as 'm o ra l' a n d ex e m p lary w as o n e o f th e d e fe n s e s re g u la rly o ffe re d by w riters and read e rs o f fiction at th e tim e. N o te th a t th e G a m ie r ed itio n o f P e rra u lt used h e re is still co n sid e red to b e am o n g st th e b est texts available an d w as re-issu ed in 1981.T w o o th e r excellen t e d itio n s h ave s u b se q u e n tly a p p e a re d .T h e first, ed ited by J.-P .C o llin et, a p p e a re d in 1981 in th e G a llim a rd F o lio scries; in p a p e rb a c k , it c o m b in e s ec o n o m y w ith e d ito ria l q u ality .T h e seco n d , e d ite d by R .Z u b c r , w as issu ed by th e p restig io u s Im prim erie N ation ale o f F ran ce in 1987 an d is b o th sch o larly an d luxurious.
10 O f in te re s t is th e fact th a l alm ost all w riting w as d ed icate d explicitly to an influ en tial m e m b e r o f th e F re n c h C o u r t, u su ally in th e e x p e c ta tio n o f fu tu re serv ic es o r a p e n s io n .T h e P rin c e o f D o m b es w as Ihe son o f th e D uke o f M aine.T h e la tte r w as o n e o f th e ch ild ren b o rn d u rin g Louis X IV 's liaison w ith M ad am e d e M o n tesp an .H e w as legitim ised to w ard s 1675 an d m a rrie d to o n e o f th e king's nieces.II m ust be assu m ed th a t th e com plim ent im plicit in th e d ed icatio n w as aim ed, in th e sh o rt te rm , at w in n in g th e ap p ro v al of th e b ab y p rin c e 's p a re n ts an d g ra n d p a re n ts .T h e covert way in w hich this is accom plished constitutes a fifth level o f play in Ihe d ed icatio n .11 T h e s h o rte r, m o re re a listic w orks lh a l su ccee d ed Ihe m u lti-v o lu m e b a ro q u e novels w ere m ostly called nouvelles.
n c e u p o n a tim e in th e la n d o f th e Z in z o la n lin s liv ed a k in g w h o h a d a n e x tre m e p a s s io n fo r silkw orm s; h e sp en t days o n en d in his g ard en s p lu cking m u lb erry leaves for th e ir food; an d he shut h im s e lf in h is s tu d y th e r e s t o f th e tim e in o r d e r to w a tc h th e little in s e c ts w o rk in g ... (A n o n ., 1988:187).
is at any rate clear that the exclusivism and preoccupation with their own caste on the part of th e lite ra ry p u b lic led to a n o th e r fo rm o f the c o n ta m in a tio n o f th e fairy ta le by contem porary values.12 T h a t is th e way B u to r (1973:53-54) in te rp re ts th e politico -id eolog ical m e ssag e o f tra d itio n a l fairy ta le s fo r th e p e a s a n t c la s s.T h e fact th a t a g o o s e g irl c o u ld m a r r y a p rin c e , fo r e x a m p le , u n d erlin es th e unlikelih oo d o f such a hap py chan ge o f statu s in real life.
h e faith o f ordinary lovers, T h e ir ard o u r and th e ir oaths, A rc w ritten on shifting sands, But w hat is felt for your b ea u tifu l eyes, Is inscribed in th e firm am en t in le tte rs o f starry fire; T hey can never b e erased (18).

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n o n ., L iv esq u c, Lintot et at.1988.Plus belle q ue f i e el autres conies.L e Cabinet d es fé e s , II.A rle s : E d itio n s P hilippe P icquicr.A ulnoy, M m e d \ 1988.Contes d e M m e d 'A uln oy.L e Cabinet des f é e s ,\ .A rle s : E d itio n s Philippe P icquicr.B ed acier, C. de.1699.L a C om tesse de M ortane.P aris : B arbin.B ern a rd , C. 1979(1696).Inês de Cordoue.G en eva : Slatkine.B ettclheim , B. 1986 (1976).V ie Uses o f E nch an tm en t: the M eaning a n d Im p o rta n ce o f Fairy Tales.H arm o n d sw o rth : P enguin.B rekilien, Y. 1973.C ontes et légendes d u pays breton.Q u im p e r : N a tu re et B retag n e. Brody, J. 1968.C h arles P e rra u lt, co n teu r (d u ) m o d c rn c.D 'un siêcle á Tautre.C e n tre M arseillais de R ec h erch e su r le X V IIe sidclc.pp.79-87.B utor, M .1973.O n F airy T ales.In: G ras, V .G .(ed .)F.uropean Literary Theory a n d Practice fr o m P henom enology to Structuralism .N ew Y o rk : D ell.p. 349-62.C h u p ca u , J. 1986.S ur l'équivoque cn jo u éc au G ra n d Siêcle: P exem plc du Petit C haperon Rouge dc C h arles P errau lt.X V IIe Siêcle.150, 38(l):3 5-4 2. C o lerid ge, S.T. 1960(1817).Biographio Literaria.L o n d o n : J.M .D e n t & Sons.C oncise O xford D ictionary o f Literary Term s. 1990.O x ford : U n iversity P ress.D u Plaisir.1975 (1682).Sen tim en ts su r les Lettres et sur TH istoire.G en ev a : D ro z.E n fa n ce et littérature au X V IIe siêcle, special n u m b e r, L ite ra tu re s C lassiques, 1991,14.G c n c tte , G .1987.Seuils.P aris : E d itio n s du Seuil.G odw in, D .1985.Verité et idéal d a ns la nouvelle franqaise de Segrais á Robert C halles.U n iv ersité de P rovence.T h ê sc dacty lo g rap h iée so u m ise p o u r le D o c to ra l de T ro isiêm e C ycle.(U n p u b lish ed .)G odw in, D .1990.T h e F ra m e N ovel an d th e "P leasu re o f B eing D ifferent".S eventeenth C entury French S tu d ies, X II:38-52.
Their (surface) universality, the presence of moral values suited to children won the approval of two educationalists of his time, Mme de Maintenon who established a school at St Cyr, and Fénélon, tutor to the dauphin(Zipes, 1986:12).P errault's prefatorial claims that he is writing for children are thus half serious, yet also a game.It becomes what Loskoutoff (1986) term s a surenchêre, 'an overbid', a case of protesting too much.For other aspects of P errau lt's tales are not in ten d ed for children.He deploys a vocabulary rich in double m eanings and sexual innuendo (see