Imaginary dialogue between Nicolas Boileau and Charles Perrault
by Charactorium · Charles Perrault (1628 — 1703) · Literature · 5 min read
It is in the study with small-paned windows of Charles Perrault, on the rue de l'Arbre-Sec, that one evening in the winter of 1698 Nicolas Boileau comes to find him. On the table, a goose quill dries in its inkwell, near a bound collection still warm from the printer. The two men have known and squabbled with each other for years — one defends the Ancients, the other the Moderns — and it is as a courteous adversary, with a mocking eye, that Boileau settles in to push his rival to justify himself.
—Perrault, I have not forgotten that session of 1687 when you read your Siècle de Louis le Grand before us. Did you see me ready to spring?
How could I have missed it, my dear Boileau? You were red as a provoked rooster, and your colleagues had to hold you back by the sleeve. But consider: I never said the Ancients were contemptible. I said they were great, yes, but men like us, and not gods to be worshipped on bended knee. That is my entire crime. You kiss the dust of Homer; I believe the human mind has not aged in two thousand years, that it builds, invents, surpasses. The century of our King is worth that of Augustus. Like it or not, I maintain it, and my Parallèle demonstrates it point by point.
You kiss the dust of Homer; I believe the human mind has not aged in two thousand years.
—You speak of demonstrating. But four volumes of dialogues to belittle the masters of Antiquity — is that not much ado, Charles?
Much ado? It is you, the satirist, who reproaches me for noise! My dialogues belittle no one: they measure. I take my reader through the gardens, I show him eloquence, poetry, astronomy, mechanics, and I ask him at every step whether our moderns have added nothing. The answer is obvious. Have we less genius because we were born later? Centuries change nothing about the reach of the mind. I wanted to deliver my contemporaries from that superstition that bends them before everything ancient. Let Virgil be admired, fine; let them forbid themselves from surpassing him, never.
Have we less genius because we were born later?
—Let us move to something lighter — though. It is whispered that these Histoires du temps passé published last year are from your hand, under the name of young Darmancour. True?
You whisper like all Paris, Boileau, and you smile into the bargain. The privilege bears the name of my son Pierre Darmancour, and I shall stick to that. Imagine a grave academician, busy with a four-volume Parallèle, signing stories of fairies and Puss in Boots! They would laugh in the drawing-rooms. Suppose I wanted to give this nineteen-year-old boy a title to present at court, and that a father may help his son without disowning anything. These Mother Goose tales, I loved them too much to abandon them entirely — but to each his rank. Draw whatever conclusion you please; I do not forbid it.
A grave academician signing stories of fairies and Puss in Boots! They would laugh in the drawing-rooms.
—You, the champion of the Moderns, go fetching your stories from nurses and old women at evening gatherings. Is that not contradicting yourself?
On the contrary, it is my very system! You Ancients go seeking your fables from the Greeks and Latins, those old women of Antiquity. I draw from a very French, very living source, that of fireside evenings. My tales have a moral, like your apologues; they instruct while amusing. Little Red Riding Hood teaches young girls to beware of smooth-talking wolves. Cinderella rewards kindness. See: the wisdom of our grandmothers is worth that of your laurel-crowned authors. I simply gave a polished form, an academician's adornment, to what the people already knew. The modern does not despise the popular: it ennobles it.
The modern does not despise the popular: it ennobles it.
—Before the fairies, you served Colbert for twenty years at the Surintendance des bâtiments. Does the man of letters miss the man of the office?
Miss it? I am proud of it, Boileau. They think me a study poet; I was a clerk from 1662, I kept the accounts, supervised the quarries and the workers. It was I who oversaw the construction of the colonnade of the Louvre, of which my brother Claude was the architect — a Perrault with the pen, a Perrault with the compass. I even dared what Colbert refused me: to open the garden of the Tuileries to the Parisian public. He feared the flowerbeds would be damaged; I replied that a beautiful locked garden is but a locked chest. The people walk there today. Believe me, one learns as much from men while building palaces as from reading Horace.
A beautiful locked garden is but a locked chest.
—Serving Colbert so close to power, was that not also a way to place your Moderns where honors are decided?
You attribute a court strategy to me, my dear rival, and you are not entirely wrong. Yes, I had Colbert's ear, and yes, I used that credit to support the arts of our time, the academies, pensions for living scholars rather than dead shadows. Is it a crime to want the France of Louis the Great to honor its own talents? I helped draw up the list of illustrious men of this century — one hundred and four portraits of Frenchmen living or recently dead. That is my way of making war: not by satire that wounds, but by praise of what my country produces best, here and now.
Pensions for living scholars rather than dead shadows.
—Allow a more serious question. Since you lost your wife, in 1678, you are seen withdrawn near your children. Did that lead you to the tales?
You touch where I am tender, Boileau, and I thank you for doing so without malice. Having become a widower, I gradually left the offices to devote myself to my sons. In the evening, before putting them to bed, I would tell them those stories I had heard as a child, of ogres, seven-league boots, fairy godmothers. And seeing their eyes light up, I understood that these tales despised by the learned were worth fixing in writing. Griselidis, Peau d'Âne, the Ridiculous Wishes first, in verse; then the tales in prose. My grief brought me closer to childhood, and childhood gave me a kingdom that my academic quarrels had never given me.
My grief brought me closer to childhood, and childhood gave me a kingdom.
—You speak of fixing these stories. But why write them down, when they lived only by word of mouth, at evening gatherings?
Because what lives only by word of mouth dies with the last mouth that knows it. I have seen nurses carry treasures to their graves. In writing them, I did not kill them: I gave them a bound collection, engravings, a moral, the means to cross the ages. Consider, you who defend the Ancients: if no one had written Aesop, where would your Aesop be today? I did for Mother Goose what the Greeks did for their fables. And who knows — perhaps a distant century will still read my Little Red Riding Hood when my Parallèle sleeps on the shelves. The learned quarrel passes; the tale remains.
What lives only by word of mouth dies with the last mouth that knows it.
—Let us return to our common house. Since your election in 1671, you have weighed heavily on our Dictionary. Too much, some will say. What did you defend there?
What I have always defended, my dear colleague: the living language, that which is spoken at court and in the city, against the old-fashioned words that some wanted to revive. What good is a dictionary that would embalm dead words? I argued for present usage, for the French of our century, clear and polished. It was consistent with everything else: I am a Moderne even in the columns of the alphabet. We worked for years, word after word, to fix this language that Richelieu entrusted to us. And you know, you who sit among us: on many articles, we agreed without even realizing it. The quarrel does not prevent us from building together.
What good is a dictionary that would embalm dead words?
—One last word, as a friend this time. When all is said and done, what do you want to be remembered for — the polemicist, the clerk, or the storyteller?
What a fearsome question, Boileau — and coming from you, almost tender. The polemicist gave you work, and I admit our jousts amused me as much as they irritated you. The clerk served his King with honor. But if I must be frank in this study, at this late hour, I believe my heart leans toward the storyteller. A Parallèle is discussed, refuted, grows old. A child who shudders at the wolf, who cries for Donkey-Skin, who laughs at Puss in Boots — that is what cannot be refuted. I spent my life proving that the Moderns were equal to the Ancients; it could be that my best proof was a simple little red riding hood.
It could be that my best proof was a simple little red riding hood.
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This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Charles Perrault's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.