Biography

A Fairy Tale Disney Won’t Be Selling

The one about the inventor of “Contes de Fées” or fairy tale

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy lead a colorful and scandal ridden life. She also gave us the genre of “fairy tales.”

Did you ever ask-where the notion of Fairy Tale began? I did.

The notion of Fairy Tale was introduced in 1697 by a french nobel woman, Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy (1650–1705). Though stories including fairies, goblins, magical beasts had been around for more than 6000 years, Madame d’Aulnoy is considered the “inventor” of the genre based on the title of her book Contes de Fées (Fairy Tales).

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy, whom I’ll call Marie-Catherine for short, lead a life far from the stuff of a Disney Princess’ dreams. Would Disney tell the story of a 13 year old girl being married to a 45 year old man, Baron d’Aulnoy? Maybe, after all, Beauty and the Beast isn’t that far off the plot.

You may be surprised to know in the 1690s average age of marriage was 23 for women and 28 for men. The decision to marry off 13 year old Marie-Catherine to old man Baron d’Aulnoy was likely her step-father’s doing, though some accounts claim it was her mother’s idea. I’m leaning toward the stepfather as a play to advance the family into the second-estate of French nobility.

Marie-Catherine’s natural father was a Lord. Lords, though considered noble, were the very bottom of the hierarchy of French nobility. Her mother, widowed twice, kept trying to wed-up so to speak. It would appear husband number two had the same notion by arranging Marie-Catherine’s marriage to a Baron as it would elevate the family status into the more powerful tier of second-estate.

Marie-Catherine had her first child, a daughter at 14 years of age. Her second child, and only son, came within the same year 11 months later. Both children died before they reached 2 years of age. She had 2 more children by the Baron one in 1668 and another 1669. Four children in 3 years, it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to figure out the Baron was breeding his child-wife for a viable son.

By many accounts Marie-Catherine’s husband was a violent man, recklessly extravagant and riddled with debt. Divorce, in her social strata, was out of the question. Getting out of this disastrous marital arrangement took some creativity. By the time Marie-Catherine was 19, the Baron was Baron of nothing-he’d sold his estate to cover huge gambling debts. King Louis XIV allowed her husband to keep the title-but it was meaningless.

History, court records, and Marie-Catherine’s autobiographical tales inform us after six years of marriage, by age 19, the Baroness had taken a lover. As if that wasn’t scandalous enough, she and her mother convinced their respective lovers to accuse the Baron d’Aulnoy of treason against King Louis XIV.

The Baron spent 3 years in jail before he was able to convince the King’s court he was innocent of the charges brought against him. He was acquitted and Marie-Catherine’s lover along with her mother’s consort were executed for falsely accusing the Baron.

Marie-Catherine’s mother fled to England. Marie-Catherine barely escaped arrest by leaping out a window and seeking sanctuary in a convent.

After living in the convent for 2 years with her infant daughter she moved back to Paris. She remained estranged from her husband and lived independently the reminder of her life. Though not alone, as she had two more daughters by unknown fathers.

Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy published her first book at age 39. Her stories were very popular and profitable in her day. Sadly, they were complex plots and could not be sanitized easily for children. Her stories didn’t carry forward in time as the stories by Charles Perrault (author of the Cinderella tale we know best) or Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (author of Beauty and the Beast) did.

Charles Perrault, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve, Walt Disney and all the relationship therapists owe a huge debt to Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy. If not for her abusive husband, scandalous life and rich imagination we wouldn’t have met Prince Charming and dreamed of living happily ever after.

A bit of writing by 13 year old-married Madame d’Aulnoy

Reader, if you have my book and I don’t know you and you don’t appreciate what’s inside, I wish you ringworm, scabies, fever, the plague, measles, and a broken neck. May God assist you against my maledictions.

Dear Reader, this quote was found in the article linked below

For more information:

Many of the sources used to develop this piece contradict each other. I tried to piece together the common threads, and tease out truths hidden between the lines and shaded with the sepia tones of history.

Exploring the many names of Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Comtesse d’Aulnoy — was she Baroness, Countess, or mere Madame? One particular source seemed to have the most authenticity and rigor, https://anecdota.princeton.edu/archives/1566.

On Love, Power and Gender in Seventeenth-century France