Rival Sisters and Vengeance Motifs in the contes de fées of d'Aulnoy, Lhéritier and Perrault

J'espère au reste continuer le dessein quei'ay de iustifier les femmes.

Henriette-Julie de Murat (208)

It has often been acknowledged by scholars that Mme d'Aulnoy is like many of her contemporaries—Mlles Lhéritier, Bernard, and de La Force, Mmes de Murat, and d'Auneuil—in that most of their fairy tales deal with heroines who dress as men, venture outside the house to redeem their families' honor, and often question seventeenth-century assumptions about invariable gender characteristics (Harries 39). But scholars have also pointed out the dubious manner in which the conteuses are serving women's interests, especially considering the submission of the heroines to a male code, and the taming of female desire according to typical male views of female nature—all points which mark the morals attached to the end of almost every narrative, or else the conventional ending with a marriage.¹ Although I share in general the position of those more cautious feminist critics who emphasize the fact that the women's literary contes de fées reveal "simultaneous resistance to and complicity with patriarchal constructions of gender identities" (Seifert, "Female Empowerment" 28) in this article I will continue to explore the elements of subversion in order to demonstrate the process of the redefinition of femininity in the female-penned fairy tales and the extent to which the characters described by Mme d'Aulnoy and Mlle Lhérititer exhibit a psychology comparable with that of late seventeenth-century novels and dramatic texts.

For this purpose I will focus primarily on the case study of Mme d'Aulnoy's Finette Cendron from the first literary vogue of the fairy tales (1690-1715). In particular, through a close reading I will examine the motif of the rival sisters and of the theme of vengeance in the tale's moralité in comparison with Perrault's Cendrillon and Le Petit Poucet and with Lhéritier's L'Adroite Princesse ou Les Aventures de Finette.

D'Aulnoy vs. Perrault and Lhéritier

Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy received the privilege of publishing her Les Contes des Fées in March 1697, which included, among other tales, Finette Cendron; this was only a few months after Charles Perrault published his Histoires ou Contes du temps passé (December 1696). Although Cendrillon and Le Petit Poucet are missing from the manuscript of Les Contes de ma mère L'Oye attributed to Perrault, there is persuasive evidence that d'Aulnoy knew these tales when she wrote her Finette Cendron.² In fact, the second half of her heroine's name, "Cendron," in the conte's title denotes the literary kinship with Perrault's Cendrillon. But the play of influences goes even deeper. The character's first name, "Finette," suggests that d'Aulnoy was also familiar with the L'Adroite Princesse (already published in 1696) by Marie-Jeanne Lhéritier de Villandon, the niece of Charles Perrault. Thus, in composing her Finette Cendron, d'Aulnoy combines two separate Perrault tales (Le Petit Poucet and Cendrillon), and employs some psychological characteristics of Lhéritier's heroine in her portrayal of Finette.

The first part of the d'Aulnoy's version of the tale reveals both its similarities and discrepancies with Perrault's Petit Poucet at various levels. The conte begins with a description of how the destitute king and queen are resolved to abandon their three daughters. Upon hearing her parents' plan, Finette, the youngest, goes to her fairy godmother in order to obtain the means to go back home. Despite the Fairy's repeated help, the queen gets rid of them on the third attempt. Finette and her two older sisters, Belle de Nuit and Fleur d'Amour, wander in a forest until the heroine spies a palace in which they eventually decide to ask for shelter. There they are received by a couple of ogres, whom Finette outwits and kills, and the three girls keep the house for themselves.

The main difference between these two tales, therefore, has to do with...