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xvi made for themselves a greater or lesser reputation. Amongst this latter class were many of high rank and considerable fortune, great personal beauty, and general amiability. The doors of their magnificent hotels were thrown open to the Muses.

The Romances of Mademoiselle de Scuderi were found to be too long, the character of them too sententious. The Allegorical Romances, the "Argenis" of Barclay, the Cleopatras and Cassandras which the "Polexandre" of Gomberville had introduced, were no longer to be endured. There was a demand for what the Spaniards called an Entreteniamento, a narrative occupying not more than ten or a dozen pages instead of as many volumes. Fashion is always running into extremes. The extent of a Fairy Tale satisfied this new caprice. Though principally designed for the amusement of children, the style was so improved, so much more plot was introduced, so much wit and grace imparted to them by successive writers, that they speedily assumed an interest for maturer readers, for the man of the world and the man of imagination. Their freedom from all licentiousness had placed them from their first appearance in the hands of children and of young females, and they were shortly to be found everywhere—on the table of the village pastor and of the sovereign. They were read of an evening by the cottage fireside and in the Chateau de Versailles. Hostile criticism was not, however, wanting. The Abbé de Villiers undertook to satirize the Fairy Tale; but criticism failed, and the Fairy Tale increased its circulation. The simpler Stories of Perrault were succeeded by the more elaborate compositions of the Countesses de Murat, d'Aulnoy, d'Auneuil, and Mademoiselle de la Force. Enjoyed by Madame de Maintenon, they were not disdained by the young courtiers, the Chevaliers de la Terrasse, who followed Louis XV.: but the Regent was not the man to protect the Fairies, and the