The Fairy Tales of Madame D'Aulnoy Author:Marie-Catherine Baronne D'Aulnoy The Fairy Tales of Madame d'Aulnoy, were an immediate success and were reprinted numerous times during the eighteenth century, both inside and outside of France. These fairy tales appeared at the beginning of a period in which the fairy tale itself was very popular in France. The success of Madame d'Aulnoy's fairy tales may be traced to her use... more » of a popular genre and themes; to a lively style; and to a structure that embodied the transformation taking place in the French outlook of the beginning of the eighteenth century. Although the genre of Madame d'Aulnoy's fairy tales is formally the conte, these fairy tales are more like the dominant prose fiction. Love is the most important theme in the Contes des fees, and it is treated there as it was in the nouvelle/roman of the time. Travel and utopias are themes found in these fairy tales which will be more fully developed by the eighteenth century. The presentation of animals recalls the long seventeenth-century debate over the rational capabilities of animals, a debate that continued well into the eighteenth century. Nature is seen as a courtier at Versailles would know it. The epic hero of the seventeenth century seems to have become much more passive, but the appearance of hidden resources within him assures the continuance of the process of transformation and renewal which the Contes des fees present.« less