Perrault
perorate. But men of letters are rarely men of sense, and dearly love a
brawl. M. E. de Goncourt once complained that M. Paul de St. Victor
looked at him 'like a stuffed bird,' because M. de Goncourt declared
that Providence had created antiquity to prevent pedagogues from
starving. Boileau was not less indignant with Perrault, who, by the way,
in his poem had damned Moliere with faint praise, and had not praised La
Fontaine, Racine, and Boileau at all. The quarrel 'thundered in and out
the shadowy skirts' of Literature for ten years. Boileau turned and rent
the architect-physician Claude Perrault in his _Art Poetique_. But
Boileau, stimulated by Conti, who wrote on his _fauteuil_, '_tu dors,
Brutus,_' chiefly thundered in his _Reflexions Critiques_ on Longinus
(1694). 'He makes four errors, out of ignorance of Greek, and a fifth
out of ignorance of Latin,' is an example of Boileau's amenities. Why
Boileau should have written at such length and so angrily on _un livre
que personne ne lit_, he does not explain. Perrault kept his temper,
Boileau displayed his learning. Arnauld had the credit of making a
personal peace between the foes. Boileau suppressed some of his
satirical lines (Satire X. line 459), and we now read them only in the
foot-notes. Boileau's letter to Arnauld, in which he expresses his
willingness even to read _Saint Paulin_ for the sake of a peaceful life,
is not unamusing. 'Faut-il lire tout _Saint Paulin_? Vous n'avez qu'a
dire: rien ne me sera difficile' (June 1694). Meanwhile Perrault, in his
comedy _L'Oublieux_, was mocking people who think it a fine thing 'to
publish old books with a great many notes[3].' But Perrault himself was
about to win his own fame by publishing versions of old traditional
Fairy Tales.

The following essay traces the history and bibliography of these Tales.
Perrault's last years were occupied with his large illustrated book,
_Eloges des Hommes Illustres du Siecle de Louis XIV_ (2 vols. in folio.
102 portraits.) He died on May 16, 1703. His fair enemy in the bookish
battle, Madame Dacier, says '_il etoit plein de piete, de probite, de
vertu, poli, modeste, officieux, fidele a tous les devoirs qu'exigent
les liaisons naturelles et acquises; et, dans un poste considerable
aupres d'un des plus grands ministres que la France ait eus et qui
l'honoroit de sa confiance, il ne s'est jamais servi de sa faveur pour
sa fortune particuliere, et il l'a toujours employee pour ses a