SOURCE: Duggan, Anne E. “Feminine Genealogy, Matriarchy, and Utopia in the Fairy Tale of Marie-Catherine D'Aulnoy.” Neophilologus 82, no. 2 (April 1998): 199-208.

In the essay below, Duggan argues that d'Aulnoy created a fairy-tale version of salon culture in her stories as a means of envisioning a utopian space for aristocratic women.

The rise of Louis XIV's absolutist regime marks the fall of both the nobility of the sword and the précieuses of the salons. Over the course of the seventeenth century, all hopes of retaining a feudal or feudal-like order were lost; consequently, the nobility lost the legitimate foundation of its political, social and economic identity. What was left of this “feudal” identity was in part recuperated by the salons. Feudalism became a sort of fashion, where nick-names functioned like titles conveying social worth earned by one's polite conversation and civility, and the salons themselves might be seen as...