n old
woman spinning, and telling tales to a man, a girl, a little boy, and a
cat which, from its broad and intelligent grin, naturalists believe to
be of the Cheshire breed. On a placard is written

CONTES
DEMA
MERE
LOYE.

A copy, modified, of the engraving is printed on the cover of M. Charles
Deulin's _Les Contes de Ma Mere L'Oye avant Perrault_. (Paris, Dentu,
1879.) The design holds its own, with various slight alterations, in the
English chap-books of _Mother Goose's Tales_, even in the present
century. There is a vastly 'embroidered' reminiscence of Clouzier in the
edition edited by M. Ch. Giraud, for Perrin of Lyon, 1865.]

[Footnote 18: Mademoiselle was Elizabeth Charlotte d'Orleans, born 1676,
sister of Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orleans, and Regent.
See Paul Lacroix in _Contes de Perrault_, Paris, s. d. (1826.)]

[Footnote 19: In the introduction to the Jouaust edition of 1876 M. Paul
Lacroix has probably gone too far in attributing to Perrault's son the
complete authorship of the Tales. It is true that the title of the Dutch
reprint of 1697 describes the book as 'par le fils de Monsieur
Perrault.' The Abbe de Villiers, however, in his _Entretiens sur les
Contes des Fees_ (a Paris chez Jacques Collombat, 1699), makes one of
his persons praise the stories 'que l'on attribue au fils d'un celebre
Academicien,' for their freshness and imitation of the style of nurses.
Another speaker in the dialogue, The Parisian, replies, 'quelque estime
que j'aie pour le fils de l'Academicien, j'ai peine a croire que le pere
n'ait pas mis la main a son ouvrage,' p. 109. This opinion is probably
correct. It seems that Perrault was not troubled by attacks on his
_Contes_, and, in biographical works the tales were long attributed to
his son. But M. Paul Lacroix declares that this son was nineteen years
of age when the stories appeared. This looks incredible on the face of
it. Mlle. L'Heritier could hardly have said about a young man of
nineteen, that he 'occupe si spirituellement les amusemens de son
enfance' in writing out _Contes naifs_. Nor would a man of that age, in
a century too, when the young took on them manly duties so early,
describe himself in his dedicatory letter as 'un enfant.' M. Charles
Giraud gives the boy's age as ten, without citing his authority. (Lyons
Edition of 1865, p. lxxiv.) Moreover the idea of educating a young man
of that age by making him write out fairy tales would have see