AULNOY (or AuNOY),

See also:

• MARIE

MARIE

See also:

• CATHERINE
• CATHERINE, SAINT

CATHERINE LE JUMEL DE BARNEVILLE DE LA MOTTE, BARONNE  D' (c . 1650-1705), French author, was born about 165o at Barneville near Bourg-Achard (Eure) . She was the niece of Marie Bruneau des Loges, the friend of Malherbe and of J . G. de Balzac, who was called the " tenth Muse." She married on the 8th of March 1666 Francois de la Motte, a gentleman in the service of Cesar, duc de Vendome, who became Baron d'Aulnoy in 1654 . With her mother, who by a second marriage had become marquise de Gudaigne, she instigated a prosecution for high treason against her husband . The conspiracy was exposed, and the two women saved themselves by a hasty flight to England . Thence they went (February 1679) to Spain, but were eventually allowed to return to France in reward for secret services rendered to the government . Mme. d'Aulnoy died in Paris on the 14th of January 170 . She wrote fairy tales, Conies nouvelles ou les Fees a la mode (3 vols., 1698), in the manner of Charles Perrault . This collection (24 tales) included L'Oiseau bleu, Finite Cendron, La Chatte blanche and others . The originals of most of her admirable tales are to be found in the Pentamerone (16J7) of Giovanni Battista Basile . Other works are : L'Histoire d'Hippolyte, comte de Duglas (169o), a romance in the style of Madame de la Fayette, though much inferior to its model; Memoires de la cour d'Espagne (1679-1681); and a Relation du voyage d'Espagne (1690 or 1691) in the form of letters, edited in 1874-1876 as La Cour et la eille de Madrid by Mme .

B .

Carey; Histoire de Jean de Bourbon (1692); Memoires sur la cour de France (1692); Memoires de la cour d'Angleterre (1695) . Her historical writings are partly borrowed from existing records, to which she adds much that must be regarded as fiction, and some vivid descriptions of contemporary manners . The Diverting Works of the Countess d'Anois, including some extretilely untrustworthy " Memoirs of her own life," were printed in London in 1707 . The Fairy Tales of Madame d'Aulnoy, with an introduction by Lady Thackeray Ritchie, appeared in 1892 . For biographical particulars see M. de Lescure's introduction to the Conies des Fees (1881) .