ing is that they were all in the right. The Odyssey, as
Fenelon's Achilles tells Homer in Hades, and as Perrault knew, is a mass
of popular tales, but then these are moulded by the poet's art into an
epic which Boileau could not over-praise[13].

In the edition of his stories in verse, published in 1695, Perrault
replied to the criticisms that reached him, 'I have to do,' he said,
'with people who can only be moved by Authority, and the example of the
Ancients;' meaning Boileau and the survivors of the great literary feud.
Perrault therefore adduces old instances of classical _contes_, the
_Milesian Tales_, and _Cupid and Psyche_ in Apuleius. 'The Moral of
_Cupid and Psyche_,' he says, 'I shall compare to that of _Peau d'Ane_,
when once I know what it is.' Then he declares that his Contes have
abundance of moral, which is true, but there are morals even in _Cupid
and Psyche_. He sketches, very pleasantly, the enjoyment of children in
those old wives' fables; 'on les voit dans la tristesse et dans
l'abattement tant que le heros ou l'heroine du conte sont dans le
malheur, et s'ecrier de joie quand le temps de leur bonheur arrive.'
Indeed this was and is the best apology for M. Perrault of the French
Academy, when he stooped his great perruque to listen to his little
boy's repetition of his nurse's stories, and recorded them in the
chronicles of Mother Goose.

Had Perrault only written _contes_ in verse, it is probable that he
would now be known chiefly as an imitator of La Fontaine. Happily he
went further, and printed seven stories in prose. It is by these that he
really lives, now that his architectural exploits, his sacred poems, his
Defence of the Moderns, are all forgotten save by the learned. His
Fairies have saved him from oblivion, and the countless editions and
translations of his _Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye_, have won him
immortality[14].

The tales in prose appeared in Moetjens' _Recueil_ in the following
order: In 1696, in the second part of Volume V, came _La Belle au Bois
Dormant_ (our 'Sleeping Beauty'); and in 1697 (Vol. V. part 4), came _Le
Petit Chaperon Rouge_ ('Red Riding Hood'), _La Barbe Bleue_
('Blue-beard'), _Le Maistre Chat, ou le Chat Botte_ ('Puss in Boots,' or
'The Master Cat'), _Les Fees_ ('The Fairy'), _Cendrillon, ou la petite
pantoufle de verre_ ('Cinderilla,' in the older English versions, now
'Cinderella'), _Riquet a la Houppe_ ('Riquet of the Tuft'), and _Le
Petit Poucet_ ('Hop o' My Thu