Line #36 Creator/MadameDAulnoy


1	[[quoteright:237:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/11669958_1x1_large.jpg]]
2
3	Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy (1650/1651-January 14, 1705) was a French author who coined the term "{{Fairy Tale}}s".
4
5	Madame d'Aulnoy's personal life is mysterious, but we do know that she wrote 24 literary fairy tales in her lifetime, which mix and match folk motifs from oral tradition with her own sensibilities. She was a key pioneer in the genre as we know it today — in fact, she was the one to give it the name "Fairy Tale" (or "Contes des Fees" in her native French).
6
7	Madame d'Aulnoy's works aren't as well known today as some of her contemporaries, but her influence is profound. Countless tropes inextricably linked with the modern images of fairy tales: ThePowerOfLove, BeautyEqualsGoodness, {{Fairy Godmother}}s and {{Fairy Devilmother}}s, even PrinceCharming himself.
8
9	Her tales can be read in this [[https://web.archive.org/web/20191225115903/http://surlalunefairytales.com/authors/daulnoy.html link]].
10
11	----
12	!!D'Aulnoy's Fairy Tales with pages of their own on this site include:
13
14	[[index]]
15	* "Literature/TheBlueBird"
16	* "Literature/TheFairOneWithGoldenLocks"
17	* "Literature/GraciosaAndPercinet"
18	* "Literature/PrincessBelleEtoile"
19	* "Literature/TheYellowDwarf"
20	[[/index]]
21
22	Her works are in the public domain and can be found online [[https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/book.php?id=36 here]] and in the [[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=madame+d%27aulnoy&submit_search=Go%21 Project Gutenberg]].
23
24	----
25	!! Examples of tropes in d'Aulnoy's ''Contes des Fées'':
26	* BeastAndBeauty: Many of her tales are in the "animal bridegroom" mold, where the love of a beautiful woman changes a creature into a handsome human husband. However, there are also a few transformed heroines in her tales, such as "The White Cat".
27	* BeautyEqualsGoodness: All of her heroes and heroines are astonishingly good-looking, and all her villains are hideously ugly. She plays with this idea slightly in "Green Serpent", a relative of "Literature/BeautyAndTheBeast" where a wicked fairy crashes a christening and curses the baby with ugliness, but it's reversed partway through the story.
28	* BejeweledTropes: D'Aulnoy gives detailed descriptions of all the pretty things that appear in her stories, creating a lush and luxurious fantasy world.
29	* EatsBabies: The tribe of ogres featured in Creator/MadameDAulnoy's "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20200122171343/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/hopomythumb/stories/beeorangetree.html The Bee and the Orange Tree]]" will ''eat their young'' if they do not sleep with their golden crowns. Aimée, the princess in the story, steals crowns from two young ogres to give to her and her prince--these two ogres end up getting eaten.
30	* EvilMatriarch: "[[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fairy_Tales_by_the_Countess_d%27Aulnoy/The_Pigeon_and_the_Dove The Pigeon and the Dove]]": Constancio's mother is described as "the most wicked and vindictive princess in the world" and very much lives up to it. She threatens to kill her son's beloved Constancia in front of him, sends scorpions, toads, and snakes after her, sells Constancia into slavery, and even ''holds a mock funeral for her'' when Constancio believes that she is dead.
31	* FairyGodmother:
32	** In "The Blue Bird" and "The White Doe", the fairy godmothers help rivals of the protagonists.
33	** Several fairy godmothers, including an evil one, appear in "Princess Mayblossom".
34	** "Finette Cendroun" is an early "Literature/{{Cinderella}}" variant that plays the fairy godmother trope straight however, and even predates Creator/CharlesPerrault's use of the trope.
35	* FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: In [[https://web.archive.org/web/20200221221609/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/1892/princessmayblossom.html "Princess Mayblossom"]], the evil ambassador Fanfarinet tries to eat the titular princess after she refuses to share the food she was offered by the plants and animals on the DesertedIsland they are stranded on (she had been specifically warned not to share any food). The princess responds by drawing her dagger and [[EyeScream stabbing the ambassador in the eye]] - and does it so furiously that the ambassador immediately dies.
36	--->''"There, you ungrateful wretch!", she cried, "take this last favor from my hands, the one you have best deserved! Be an example to all false lovers in time to come; and may your faithless soul never rest in peace!"''
37	* TheGrandHunt: "The White Cat" features a scene where the eponymous cat and the Prince go on a hunt. The prince rides a wooden horse and the cat rides a monkey.
38	* LoveAtFirstSight: Double Subverted in ''The Princess Mayblossom''. The cursed princess glimpses the ambassador for a king, falls madly in love with him, and elopes, only to discover he's a horrible person. When she is rescued, however, the ambassador's king had followed him, and she falls in love with ''him'' immediately and lives happily ever after.
39	* MysticalPregnancy: In "The Dolphin," the fairy Grognette punishes Prince Alidor for [[DisproportionateRetribution sitting on her rock]] by making Princess Livorette pregnant with his child, resulting in a scandal that gets them both banished.
40	* OurFairiesAreDifferent: Fairies of all stripes appear in her stories, of varying moral allegiances. Some are beautiful and generous benefactors, others are wicked and cast curses, and others seem to work according to their own fairy-logic independent of human morals.
41	* PrinceCharming: She was the first to actually give this name to the male lead of her story, with Roi Charmont (literally, "King Charming") as the hero of "Literature/TheBlueBird".
42	* ThePowerOfLove: A recurring theme in her stories.
43	* SelfFulfillingProphecy: In "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20050114004905/https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/rosette.html Princess Rosette]]", the fairies (reluctantly) predict that the princess will cause grave danger, or even death, to her older brothers. So her parents lock her in a tower. When they die, her brothers immediately free her. She learns that people eat peacocks and, in her innocence, resolves to marry the King of the Peacocks. Her loving brothers try to bring this about and end up in grave danger (though they do survive).
44	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse:
45	** In "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20200105215626/https://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/1892/benevolentfrog.html The Benevolent Frog]]", the Lion Fairy does not appear again after her encounter with the king when she imprisons his wife and daughter in the castle.
46	** In "[[https://web.archive.org/web/20191230083402/http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/aulnoy/1892/beeorangetree.html The Bee and the Orange Tree]]", when Aimée stings Tourmentine, the ogress and her husband disappear from the story.

Context Creator / MadameDAulnoy