""Once upon a time there was a king and a queen...", "once upon a time there was a little village girl..." All it takes is this magic key to open up to us the world where Sleeping Beauty appears in turn. , Little Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard or Cinderella. Perrault draws from ancient folklore to tell us in short and alert stories stories that deliciously take us away from the world, before the final moral leads us back there. Fairy tales ? Without a doubt. But, as much as the marvelous, what delights us is the naturalness and the skilful simplicity of an art of writing which, on each page, seduces our imagination.
First published separately in 1694 and 1697, it was not until the end of the 18th century that the tales in verse and prose were brought together in the same volume, a sign that the enthusiasm they had aroused during the lifetime of Perrault did not contradict himself, despite the severe judgment of men of letters, at the time of the Enlightenment, for these puerile trifles. But the largest public remained faithful to these tales — and this public today is us, whose childhood spirit has not been lost.
