ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates in a series of vignettes in the French literary tale evidence of both the tale’s readily adaptable form and also how well it navigates rapidly shifting political and social landscapes. It discusses the year of a notable publication, showcases an exemplary moment when the conte de fees and its progeny charted paths through the brambles of French sociability and politics. Flexibility and malleability allowed writers of French fairy tales to take up a variety of important late-century debates, including those concerning the social roles of men and women, how to repurpose ancient literature for modern life, and the social norms around marriage. French tales had earned their initial renown through a positive reception among the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French elite. The language and inaugural appearance of ‘fairy tales’ can be traced in the last decade of the seventeenth century to the work of Marie-Catherine d’Aulnoy.
