History Literature / PrincessBelleEtoile

* BrideAndSwitch: The king's mother convinces him to annul his marriage to Blondine and marry a young princess to produce an heir. When he is on the point of going through the ceremony, his three children and nephew arrive and tell their story. In response to this, he welcomes Blondine back as his wife, sends the false bride away with some precious stones as compensation for her trouble, and marries his daughter Belle-Etoile off to his nephew Chéri.

* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: The evil queen mother, along with Roussette and the maid Feintise, are locked up and eaten by dogs.

* ObnoxiousInLaws: Played straight with the King's mother (Belle-Etoile's paternal grandmother), but averted with the princess who is Roussette, Brunette, and Blondine's mother (Belle-Etoile's maternal grandmother). The former hates her sons' wives and concocts a plan to get rid of her grandchildren. After Brunette dies and the grandchildren are abandoned, she tries to force the king to end his marriage to Blondine. The queen mother, Roussette, and their maid Feintise are punished at the end by being locked in a dungeon and eaten by dogs, while Blondine's mother survives and is reunited with her youngest daughter and grandchildren.

* FaceHeelTurn: Roussette becomes jealous of her two younger sisters because they became the beloved wives of a king and a prince and she only married an admiral; this leads her to join forces with her sisters' evil mother-in-law against them.

* DecompositeCharacter: There being no Chéri equivalent in the source story "Ancilotto, King of Provino", his three quests were originally undertaken jointly by the young princess' two brothers (who likewise succeeded at the first two, failed at the third, and was rescued by their sister.)

* AdaptationalHeroism: The source story "Ancilotto, King of Provino" has ''both'' of the Queen's sisters being evil. In this version, only the eldest (Roussette) is evil, while the middle sister (Brunette) is loving and supportive, although she doesn't get to play much of a role in the plot beyond giving birth to Chéri as she sadly dies immediately afterward.

* BrideAndSwitch: The king's mother convinces him to annul his marriage to Blondine and marry a young princess to produce an heir. When he is on the point of going through the ceromany, his three children and nephew arrive and tell their story. In response to this, he welcomes Blondine back as his wife, sends the false bride away with some precious stones as compensation for her trouble, and marries his daughter Belle-Etoile off to his nephew Chéri.

* AdaptationalHeroism: The source story "Ancilotto, King of Provino" has ''both'' of the Queen's sisters being evil. In this version, only the eldest (Roussette) is evil, while the middle sister (Brunette) is loving and supportive, although she sadly dies giving birth to Chéri.

* BrideAndSwitch: The king's mother convinces him to annul his marriage to Blondine and marry a young princess to produce an heir. When he is on the point of going through the ceromany, his three children and nephew arrive and tell their story. In response to this, he welcomes Blondine back as his wife, sends the false bride away with some precious stones as compensation for her trouble, and marrieshis daughter Belle-Etoile off to his nephew Chéri.

** Brunette's even handsomer son Chéri ("darling") is Belle-Etoile's sweetheart who ends up marrying her.

** Brunette's son Chéri ("darling") is Belle-Etoile's sweetheart who ends up marrying her.

''Princess Belle-Etoile'' is a FairyTale by Creator/MadameDAulnoy, published in ''Les Contes des Fées''.

* EvenEvilHasStandards: Feintise, Queen Blondine's lady-in-waiting, may be in cahoots with the treacherous plan to ruin the Queen, but she cannot bring herself to obey the wicked order to kill her children and nephew; instead, she sends them all out to sea in a boat along with some jewellery to reward anyone who would be kind enough to adopt them.

* NoNameGiven: Neither the King, nor his brother, nor their evil mother, are ever referred to by name, despite the former two being Blondine and Brunette's husbands and the latter being the main villain of the story.

* NoNameGiven: Neither the King, nor his brother, nor their evil mother, are ever referred to by name, despite the former two being Blondine and Brunette's husbands.

An impoverished former queen with three daughters kindly entertains and feeds a beggar woman who is really a fairy in disguise, and as a reward, she tells them that the next wish each of them makes without thinking of her will be fulfilled. As a result of said wishes, the three daughters - Roussette, Brunette and Blondine - to the king's admiral, the kings brother, and the king himself.

An impoverished former queen with three daughters kindly entertains and feeds a beggar woman who is really a fairy in disguise, and as a reward, she tells them that the next wish they make without thinking of her will be fulfilled. This results in the respective marriages of the three daughters - Roussette, Brunette and Blondine - to the king's admiral, the kings brother, and the king himself.

Years later, the four grown children finally discover their origins, and return to the palace to be received by the king; Chéri and Belle-Etoile have fallen in love in the meantime. The king's mother, realising these are the same grandchildren she had ordered to be killed, makes another attempt. She recruits the same maid who had sent them away on the boat to tell Belle-Etoile a tale of the legendary dancing water that will preserve her youth; Chéri sets out on a quest to retrive it, and after numerous adventures, returns victorious. The same maid spins a similar tale about a singing apple; again Chéri sets out, and successfully retrieves it. However, when he embarks on a third quest in response to the maid's tale of an omniscient green bird, on the point of success he falls into a hall in the mountain and is trapped.

Petit-Soleil sets out to rescue Chéri but suffers the same fate, as does Heureux after him. Only Belle-Etoile, by listening to the advice of a dove she rescues, is able to successfully free her brothers and cousin, and retrieve the green bird as well. The King has been advised by his evil mother to set aside his marriage and remarry. The four children arrive at the wedding and reveal who they are, with the green bird confirming their story, resulting in the King cancelling the wedding, recalling Queen Blondine into his good graces, punishing the villainesses, and blessing the marriage of his daughter Belle-Etoile to his nephew Chéri.

* NotBloodSiblings: The titular heroine is found with her two brothers and her cousin as a baby and they are all raised by the same couple. Princess Belle-Etoile and her cousin fall in love and find it very strange that she doesn't react to him the way she does to her brothers. Then, they learn they are foundlings and set out, and so find that they are only first cousins, and marry.

Queen Blondine gives birth to two sons and a daughter, and her sister Princess Brunette dies shortly after bearing a son. The king's mother hates her two new daughters-in-law, and Roussette joins forces with the former out of jealousy of her sisters; they enact an evil plot to ruin Queen Blondine by placing puppies in place of her children, whom they abduct immediately after their birth and replace with puppies; the ruse works, and the disgraced Blondine is exiled from court and sent back to her mother. Her maid is in on the plot but cannot bring herself to carry out the order to kill the children, so she sends them out to sea in a boat, resulting in them being discovered and adopted by the captain of a pirate ship and his wife. They name Brunette's son Chéri, and Blondine's children Petit-Soleil, Heureux and the titular Belle-Etoile.