Nothing could be more unlike the simplicity of Perrault. Madame D’Aulnoy’s stories are rich in embroideries of the folk-tale themes. She makes something very like a novel of her “_L’Oiseau Bleu_”; but the adventures of the bird-lover are well known in such ballads as “the Earl of Mar’s Daughter”, and no artifice can hide the traces of an old “_cante-fable_”. The wicked step-mother of all fairy-tales transforms the prince into a bird; but the spy set to watch the princess at last falls asleep, and then the princess opens her little window and sings: