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PERRAULT, CHARLES (1628-1703)

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 183 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PERRAULT, See also:CHARLES (1628-1703) , See also:French author, was See also:born in See also:Paris on the 12th of See also:January 1628. His See also:father, See also:Pierre Perrault, was a See also:barrister, all of whose four sons were men of some distinction: See also:Claude (1613-1688), the second, was by profession a physician, but became the architect of the Louvre, and translated See also:Vitruvius (1673). Charles was brought up at the See also:College de See also:Beauvais, until he See also:chose to See also:quarrel with his masters, after which he was allowed to follow his own See also:bent in the way of study. He took his degree of licencie en See also:droit at See also:Orleans in 1651, and was almost immediately called to the Paris See also:bar, where, however, he practised for a very See also:short See also:time. In 1654 his See also:brother became See also:receiver-See also:general of Paris, and made Charles his clerk. After nearly ten years of this employment he was, in 1663, chosen by See also:Colbert as his secretary to assist and advise him in matters See also:relating to the arts and sciences, not forgetting literature. He was controller-general of the See also:department of public See also:works, member of the See also:commission that afterwards See also:developed into the Academie See also:des See also:inscriptions, and in 1671 he was admitted to the See also:Academic francaise. Perrault justified his See also:election in several ways. One was the orderly arrangement of the business affairs of the See also:Academy, another was the See also:suggestion of the See also:custom of holding public seances for the reception of candidates. Colbert's See also:death in 1683 put an end to Perrault's See also:official career, and he then gave himself up to literature, beginning with See also:Saint Paulin eveeque de Nole, avec une epitre chretienne sur la penitence, et une See also:ode aux nouveaux convertis. The famous dispute of the ancients and moderns arose from a poem on the Siecle de See also:Louis le See also:Grand (1687), read before the Academy by Perrault, on which Boileau commented in violent terms. Perrault had ideas and a will of his own, and he published (4 vols., 1688-1696) his Parallele des anciens et des modernes.

The controversy that followed in its See also:

train raged hotly in See also:France, passed thence to See also:England, and in the days of See also:Antoine Houdart de la Motte and See also:Fenelon See also:broke out again in the See also:country of its origin. As far as Perrault is concerned he was inferior to his adversaries in learning, but decidedly See also:superior to them in wit and politeness. It is not known what See also:drew Perrault to the See also:composition of the only works of his which are still read, but the See also:taste for See also:fairy stories and See also:Oriental tales at See also:court is noticed by Mme de See also:Sevigne in 1676, and at the end of the 17th See also:century gave rise to the fairy stories of Mlle L'Heritier de Villaudon, whose Bigarrures ingenieuses appeared in 1696, of Mme d'See also:Aulnoy and others, while Antoine See also:Galland's See also:translation of the Thousand-and-One Nights belongs to the See also:early years of the 18th century. The first of Perrault's contes, Griselidis, which is in See also:verse, appeared in 1691, and was reprinted with Peau d'dne and See also:Les Souhaits ridicules, also in verse, in a Recueil de pieces curieuses—published at the See also:Hague in 1694. But Perrault was no poet, and the merit of these pieces is entirely obscured by that of the See also:prose tales, La Belle au bois dormant, See also:Petit See also:chaperon See also:rouge, La Barbe bleue, Le Chat botte, Les Fees, Cendrillon, Riquet a la houppe and Le Petit poucet, which appeared in a See also:volume with 1697 on the See also:title-See also:page, and with the general title of Histoires ou contes du temps passe avec des moralites. The See also:frontispiece contained a See also:placard with the inscription, Contes de ma See also:mere foie. In 1876 See also:Paul See also:Lacroix attributed the stories to the authorship of Perrault's son, P. Darmancour, who signed the See also:dedication, and was then, according to Lacroix, nineteen years old. See also:Andrew See also:Lang has suggested that the son was a See also:child, not a See also:young See also:man of nineteen, that he really wrote down the stories as he heard them, and that they were then edited by his father. This supposition would explain the mixture of naivete and See also:satire in the See also:text. Perrault's other works include his Memoires (in which he was assisted by his brother Claude), giving much valuable See also:information on Colbert's See also:ministry; an Eneide travestie written in collaboration with his two See also:brothers, and Les Hommes See also:illustres qui ont paru en France See also:pendant ce siecle (2 vols., 1696-1700). He died on the 16th of May 1703, in Paris.

His son, Perrault d'Arma-Court, was the author of a well-known See also:

book, Contes des fees, containing the See also:story of See also:Cinderella, &c. Except the tales, Perrault's works have not recently been re-printed. Of these there are many See also:modern See also:editions, e.g. by Paul Lacroix (1876), and by A. See also:Lefebvre (" Nouvelle collection Jannet," 1875) ; also Perrault's Popular Tales (See also:Oxford, 1888), which contains the French text edited by Andrew Lang, with an introduction, and an examination of the See also:sources of each story. , See also Hippolyte Rigault, Hist. de la querelle des anciens et des modernes (1856).

End of Article: PERRAULT, CHARLES (1628-1703)

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