Les Sept Femmes de la Barbe-bleue et autres contes merveilleux

by Anatole France (Creator)

On a émis sur le personnage fameux, vulgairement nommé la Barbe-Bleue, les opinions les plus diverses, les plus étranges et les plus fausses. Il n’en est peut-être pas de moins soutenable que celle qui fait de ce gentilhomme une personnification du soleil. C’est à quoi l’on s’est appliqué il y a une quarantaine d’années dans une certaine école de mythologie comparée. On y enseignait que les sept femmes de la Barbe-Bleue étaient des aurores et ses deux beaux-frères les deux crépuscules du matin et du soir, identiques aux Dioscures qui délivrèrent Hélène ravie par Thésée. A ceux qui seraient tentés de le croire, il faut rappeler qu’un savant bibliothécaire d’Agen, Jean-Baptiste Pérès, démontra, en 1817, d’une façon très spécieuse, que Napoléon n’avait jamais existé et que l’histoire de ce prétendu grand capitaine n’était qu’un mythe solaire. En dépit des jeux d’esprit les plus ingénieux, on ne saurait douter que la Barbe-Bleue et Napoléon n’aient réellement existé. Une hypothèse qui n’est pas mieux fondée consiste à identifier cette Barbe-Bleue avec le maréchal de Rais, qui fut étranglé par justice au dessus des ponts de Nantes, le 26 octobre 1440. Sans rechercher avec M. Salomon Reinach si le maréchal commit tous les crimes pour lesquels il fut condamné ou si ses richesses, convoitées par un prince avide, ne contribuèrent point à sa perte, rien dans sa vie ne ressemble à ce qu’on trouve dans celle de la Barbe-Bleue;c’en est assez pour ne pas les confondre et pour ne pas faire de l’un et de l’autre un seul personnage. Charles Perrault qui, vers 1660, eut le mérite de composer la première biographie de ce seigneur justement remarquable pour avoir épousé sept femmes, en fit un scélérat accompli et le plus parfait modèle de cruauté qu’il y eût au monde. Mais il est permis de douter, sinon de sa bonne foi, du moins de la sûreté de ses informations. Il a pu être prévenu contre son personnage. Ce ne serait pas le premier exemple d’un historien ou d’un poète qui se plaît à assombrir ses peintures. Si nous avons de Titus un portrait qui semble flatté, il parait, au contraire, que Tacite a beaucoup noirci Tibère. Macbeth, que la légende et Shakespeare chargent de crimes, était en réalité un roi juste et sage. Il n’assassina point par trahison le vieux roi Duncan.

Genres: Ebooks, Classics

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

French critic Anatole France, pen name of Jacques Anatole François Thibault wrote sophisticated, often satirical short stories and novels, including Penguin Island (1908), and won the Nobel Prize of 1921 for literature.

Anatole France began his career as a poet and a journalist. From 1867, he as a journalist composed articles and notices.

In 1869, Le Parnasse Contemporain published La Part de Madeleine of his poems. In 1875, he sat on the committee in charge of the third such compilation. He moved Paul Verlaine and Stéphane Mallarmé aside.

Skeptical old scholar Sylvester Bonnard, protagonist of famous Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard (1881), embodied own personality of the author. The academy praised its elegant prose.

Anatole France in La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque (1893) ridiculed belief in the occult and in Les Opinions de Jerome Coignard (1893) captured the atmosphere of the fin de siècle.

People elected him to the Académie française in 1896.
People falsely convicted Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army officer, of espionage. Anatole France took an important part in the affair, signed manifesto of Émile Zola to support Dreyfus, and authored Monsieur Bergeret in 1901.

After the nearsighted Abbot Mael baptized the animals in error, France in later work depicts the transformation into human nature in 1908.

People considered most profound La Revolte des Anges (1914). It tells of Arcade, the guardian angel of Maurice d'Esparvieu. Arcade falls in love, joins the revolutionary movement of angels, and towards the end recognizes the meaningless overthrow of God unless "in ourselves and in ourselves alone we attack and destroy Ialdabaoth."

People awarded him "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament" in 1921.

In 1922, the Catholic Church put entire works of France on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (Index of Prohibited Books).

He died, and people buried his body in the Neuilly-sur-Seine community cemetery near Paris.

Reviews

[Alain Gaboriault · Rating 4 out of 5]

J'ai bien aimé! Les trois premiers contes sont des contes merveilleux qui, toutefois, ne finissent pas merveilleusement. Tandis que le dernier conte pourrait presque passer pour un essai sur le bonheur.

[A.M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Seven Wives of Bluebeard
Now this is an odd version - it’s an attempt to remake Bluebeard as the poorly done by and misunderstood victim. *blinks* yeah, I know, right?

There was so great a desire to make me believe in the man’s cruelty that it could not fail to make me doubt it. P18

*eyes narrow* uh huh
The miracle of the Great Saint Nicolas
What the heck did I just read? Pickled children?
The story of the Duchess of Ciocne and of Monsieur De Boulingrin (who slept for a hundred years in company with the Sleeping Beauty)
Yeah, I mean what did happen to everyone else who was asleep with the princess? They wake up to find their family and their loved ones dead, and their fortune gone.

The Shirt.
The King’s doctor advises that he will be cured when he can wear the shirt of a happy man. His advisors think that such a man can’t be hard to find so, they head off to ask all the people they believe are happy; the talented, the rich, the adored. Naturally, they don’t find any, and for a year the King sickens. Until finally they find a man who lives inside a tree. They manage to communicate what they want and he would be happy to oblige … but he doesn’t wear a shirt.

***
This was one of those scanned versions and it did have a few errors but it was easy enough to work out what the words were supposed to be. The stories, on the other hand, were fairly odd even for fairy tales.
2 stars

[Corina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay... so weird I actually feel compelled to leave a comment.

The seven wives of Blue Beard - It was kind of funny and it was his own fault for repeating the same mistake for 7 times. Nope, I don't feel sorry for him .

The miracle of the Great Saint Nicolas - I'll have to quote another comment here "What the heck did I just read?". This one is beyond weird with God telling Saint Nicolas to bring back to life three pickled children. All three turn out to be pure evil and pretty much destroy Nicolas, his niece and the whole town. The only good part is that the inn keeper that picked the children learnt to be good or at least not a killer anymore.
I pretty much fail to see the lesson in this story other than no good deed goes unpunished and to not listen to bodiless voices...

The Sleeping Beauty story is almost normal compared to the first two. It could be seen as an X-Files episode with the Duchess as Mulder and Monsieur Boulingrin as Scully. He manages to sleep for 100 years and still doesn't believe in supernatural.

The Shirt. This one was my favorite story and it bumped my rating up by a star. I loved the sarcasm and the irony about each social classes' reasons for unhappiness. The ending was brilliant and funny.

[Isabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Voilà une version bien raffraichie de Barbe Bleue.

[Irène Wadowski uliasz · Rating 3 out of 5]

je ne m'attendais pas lire une version défendant cette "pauvre victime" qu'était Barbe bleue. ce fut intéressant