It will certainly outlive _Thalaba the Destroyer_, and possibly even the _Life of Nelson_. As for Gabrielle Susanne, wife of M. de Gallon, Seigneur de Villeneuve and lieutenant-colonel of infantry (whom she outlived), she wrote a number of romantic stories--_Le Phénix Conjugal, Le Juge Parvenu, Le Beau-Frère Supposé, La Jardinière de Vincennes, Le Prince Azerolles_, etc. I am not--perhaps few are--acquainted with these works. Madame de Villeneuve died in 1755 and lives only by grace of her _La Belle et La Bête_; and that again lives in despite of its literary defects. It has style; but the style inheres neither in its language, which is loose, nor in its construction. The story, as she wrote it, tails off woefully and drags to an end in mere foolishness. Since Perrault, who is usually accepted as the fountainhead of these charming French fairy-stories, belongs almost entirely to the seventeenth century, it may be asked why Mr. Dulac has chosen to depict his Princes and Princess in costumes of the eighteenth? Well, for my part, I hold that he has obeyed a just instinct in choosing the period when the literature he illustrates was at the acme of its vogue. But his designs, in every stroke of which the style of that period is so unerringly felt, provide his best apology. My own share in this volume is, perhaps, less easily defended. I began by translating Perrault's tales, very nearly word for word; because to me his style has always seemed nearly perfect for its purpose; and the essence of 'style' in writing is propriety to its purpose. On the other hand the late M. Ferdinand Brunetière has said that Perrault's is 'devoid of charm,' and on this subject M. Brunetière's opinion must needs out-value mine ten times over. Certainly the translations, when finished, did not satisfy me, and so I turned back to the beginning and have rewritten the stories in my own way, which (as you may say with the Irish butler) 'may not be the best claret, but 'tis the best ye've got.'