# The White Cat

_Retold by Talerie (talerie.com) from Contes des fées, after Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy_ · 83 min read · ages 8+

Three princes compete for their father’s crown, and a talking White Cat gives the youngest a tiny dog in an acorn and cloth in a millet seed. When the prince cuts off the White Cat’s head and tail, she is a young woman again; at court she steps from a crystal rock, gives away three of her six kingdoms, and marries him.

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Once upon a time there was a king who had three sons, all handsome and all brave. He was afraid that they might grow eager to rule before he died, and there were even rumors that they were trying to win followers so they could take his kingdom from him.

The king felt old, but his mind and his abilities had not grown any weaker, and he had no wish to hand over a place he still filled so well. So he decided that the best way to live in peace was to keep his sons busy with promises he could always find a way around.

He called them into his private study and spoke to them very kindly.

“You will agree with me, my dear children,” he said, “that at my great age I can no longer attend to the affairs of my kingdom as carefully as I once did. I am afraid my subjects may suffer for it. I mean to set my crown on the head of one of you, but it is only fair that, for such a gift, you should look for ways to please me.”

“I intend to retire to the country,” he went on, “and it seems to me that a clever, pretty, faithful little dog would be good company for me there. So, without choosing my eldest son over my youngest, I declare that whichever of you three brings me the most beautiful little dog will at once become my heir.”

The princes were surprised that their father should care so much for a little dog. Still, the two younger ones saw that it might work in their favor, and they gladly accepted the task of going to find one. The eldest was too timid, or too respectful, to stand up for his rights as the firstborn. They took their leave of the king. He gave them money and jewels, and told them to come back without fail in one year, on the same day and at the same hour, to bring him their little dogs.

Before setting out, they went to a castle only a league from the city. They took their closest friends there and gave great feasts, at which the three brothers swore eternal friendship. They promised to go about the business without jealousy or bad feeling, and that the luckiest of them would always share his good fortune with the others.

At last they set off, agreeing to meet at the same castle on their return so that they could go to the king together. They wanted no one to follow them, and they changed their names so that no one would know them.

Each one took a different road. The two elder brothers had many adventures, but I will tell only those of the youngest.

He was charming, with a merry, lively mind, a fine head, a noble figure, regular features, and good teeth, and he was skilled in everything a prince ought to do well. He sang pleasantly, and he played the lute and the theorbo with a delicacy that enchanted everyone who heard him. He could paint as well. In a word, he was a very accomplished young man, and so brave that he knew no fear at all.

Hardly a day went by when he did not buy dogs: big ones and little ones, greyhounds, mastiffs, bloodhounds, hunting dogs, spaniels, water dogs, and lapdogs. As soon as he had a handsome one and found a handsomer, he let the first one go and kept the other. It would have been impossible for him to lead thirty or forty thousand dogs all by himself, and he wanted no gentlemen, no valets, and no pages traveling with him.

He went on his way with no plan for how far he would go, until night, thunder, and rain caught him in a forest where he could no longer make out the paths.

He took the first road he came to, and after walking a long time he saw a little light. This made him think there must be a house nearby where he could take shelter until morning. Guided by the light, he came to the gate of a castle, the most splendid he had ever imagined. The gate was made of gold and covered with carbuncles, and their clear, bright light shone over the whole countryside. That was the light the prince had seen from so far away.

The walls were of transparent porcelain in many colors, and on them was painted the history of all the fairies from the creation of the world until that day. The famous adventures of Donkey Skin, of Finette, of the Orange Tree, of Graciosa, of Sleeping Beauty, of the Green Serpent, and of a hundred others were not forgotten.

The prince was delighted to recognize Prince Sprite among them, for Prince Sprite was a distant cousin of his. But the rain and the bad weather kept him from staying any longer in a place where he was getting soaked to the bone, and besides, he could see nothing at all where the light of the carbuncles did not reach.

He went back to the golden gate. There he saw a deer’s foot hanging from a chain made entirely of diamonds. He marveled at such magnificence, and at how trusting the people of the castle must be. “After all,” he said, “what is to stop thieves from cutting this chain and prying off the carbuncles? They would be rich forever.”

He pulled the deer’s foot, and at once he heard a bell ring that, by its sound, seemed to be made of gold or silver. A moment later the gate opened, but all he could see was a dozen hands in the air, each holding a torch. He was so astonished that he hesitated to go forward, until he felt other hands pushing him from behind, and not gently.

So he walked on, feeling very uneasy, and just in case he laid his hand on the hilt of his sword. But as he stepped into an entrance hall inlaid with porphyry and lapis lazuli, he heard two lovely voices singing these words:

Do not fear the hands you see,  
for nothing here will do you harm,  
unless your heart would like to be  
safe from a lovely face’s charm.

He could not believe that anyone who invited him so graciously meant to do him harm afterward. So when he felt himself pushed toward a great coral door, which opened as soon as he came near it, he went in. He found himself in a hall of mother-of-pearl, and then in one room after another, each decorated differently, and so rich in paintings and jewels that he was quite spellbound.

Thousands upon thousands of lights hung from the vaulted ceiling of the hall all the way to the floor, and they lit part of the other rooms as well. Those rooms were full of chandeliers, candelabra, and tiers of shelves covered with candles. The splendor was such that it was hard to believe it could really exist.

When he had passed through sixty rooms, the hands that were leading him stopped. He saw a big, comfortable armchair, which moved up to the fireplace all by itself. At the same moment the fire lit itself. The hands, which seemed to him very lovely, small, white, plump, and nicely shaped, undressed him, for he was wet, as I have already said, and they were afraid he might catch cold.

Without his seeing anyone, he was handed a shirt as fine as one meant for a wedding day, and a dressing gown of gold-shot silk embroidered with little emeralds that formed monograms. The bodiless hands brought a table up to him and laid out everything he needed to groom himself. Nothing could have been more magnificent. They combed his hair so lightly and so skillfully that he was very pleased.

Then they dressed him again, but not in his own clothes; they brought him much richer ones. He silently admired everything that happened, and now and then he felt little shivers of fear that he could not quite shake off.

When he had been powdered, curled, perfumed, adorned, and fitted out, and made handsomer than Adonis, the hands led him into a room splendid with gilding and fine furniture. All around the walls hung paintings of the most famous cats: Rodilardus hanging by his feet before the council of rats; Puss in Boots and the Marquis of Carabas; the Cat Who Could Write; the Cat Who Was Turned into a Woman; witches turned into cats, and their midnight sabbath with all its rites. Nothing could have been stranger than those pictures.

The table was laid with two places, and beside each stood a little golden casket holding the knife, fork, and spoon. The sideboard held an astonishing number of vases of rock crystal and a thousand rare stones.

The prince was wondering for whom the two places had been set when he saw some cats take their seats in a little orchestra built especially for them. One held a book filled with the strangest musical notes in the world. Another held a roll of paper with which he beat time, and the rest had little guitars.

All at once each of them began to mew in a different key and to scratch at the strings of the guitars with their claws. It was the strangest music anyone had ever heard. The prince would have thought he was in hell, if he had not found the palace far too marvelous for such an unlikely idea. Still, he covered his ears, and laughed as hard as he could at the poses and faces of these new musicians.

He was thinking over all the things that had already happened to him in the castle, when he saw a little figure come in, not even a cubit tall. This tiny creature was covered by a long veil of black crape. Two cats led her. They were dressed in mourning, in long cloaks, with swords at their sides. A great procession of cats followed them; some carried rat traps full of rats, and others carried mice in cages.

The prince could not get over his astonishment, and he did not know what to think. The little black figure came closer, and when she lifted her veil, he saw the most beautiful little white cat that ever was or ever will be. She looked very young and very sad. She began to mew so softly and so sweetly that it went straight to his heart.

“King’s son,” she said to the prince, “you are welcome. My meowing majesty is glad to see you.”

“Lady Cat,” said the prince, “you are very generous to give me such a warm welcome. But you do not seem to me an ordinary little beast. Your gift of speech and this splendid castle of yours are proof enough of that.”

“King’s son,” the White Cat answered, “please stop paying me compliments. I am plain in my speech and my manners, but I have a good heart. Come,” she went on, “let supper be served, and let the musicians be quiet, for the prince does not understand what they are saying.”

“Are they saying something, madam?” he asked.

“Of course,” she said. “We have poets here who are extremely clever, and if you stay with us a little while, you will see it for yourself.”

“One has only to hear you to believe it,” the prince said gallantly. “But then, madam, I do consider you a most unusual cat.”

Supper was brought in, and the hands, whose bodies could not be seen, served it. First two bisques were set on the table, one of young pigeons and the other of very fat mice. The sight of the second kept the prince from eating the first, for he imagined that the same cook had made both.

But the White Cat guessed from his face what was on his mind. She assured him that his food was cooked separately, and that he could eat whatever was put before him and be certain there were no rats or mice in it.

The prince did not need to be told twice, for he was sure that the beautiful little cat would not want to deceive him. He noticed that she wore on her paw a little portrait set in a flat stone, and this surprised him. He asked her to show it to him, thinking it must be Master Minagrobis. He was astonished to see a young man so handsome that it seemed hardly possible nature could have made such a face, and so much like the prince himself that no painter could have caught him better.

She sighed, grew even sadder, and fell into a deep silence. The prince saw clearly that there was something extraordinary behind it. Still, he did not dare ask, for fear of displeasing or grieving her. He told her all the news he knew, and he found her very well informed about the affairs of princes and everything else that was happening in the world.

After supper the White Cat invited her guest into a hall with a stage, on which twelve cats and twelve monkeys danced a ballet. Some were dressed as Moors and others as Chinese. It is easy to imagine the leaps and capers they made, and every now and then they scratched one another. That was how the evening ended.

The White Cat wished her guest good night. The hands that had led him so far took him up again and brought him to a suite of rooms on the opposite side of the palace from the one he had seen. It was less grand than charming. The walls were covered with butterfly wings, whose colors formed a thousand different flowers. There were also feathers from very rare birds, which perhaps had never been seen anywhere but there.

The beds were hung with gauze, tied back with a thousand bows of ribbon. Great mirrors ran from the ceiling to the floor, and their frames of chased gold showed a thousand little Cupids.

The prince went to bed without a word, for there was no way to make conversation with the hands that served him. He slept little, and was woken by a confused noise. At once the hands pulled him out of bed and put him into a hunting suit.

He looked down into the courtyard and saw more than five hundred cats. Some led greyhounds on leashes, and others blew horns. It was a great holiday: the White Cat was going hunting, and she wanted the prince to come along.

The helpful hands brought him a wooden horse that could gallop at full speed and walk beautifully. He objected a little to riding it, saying that he was very far from being a knight errant like Don Quixote, but his protests did him no good, and they set him on the wooden horse anyway. It had a saddlecloth and a saddle embroidered with gold and diamonds.

The White Cat rode a monkey, the handsomest and proudest that had ever been seen. She had put aside her great veil and wore a dragoon’s cap, which gave her such a bold little air that all the mice in the neighborhood were afraid of her.

There was never a more delightful hunt. The cats ran faster than the rabbits and the hares, and when they caught one, the White Cat had the hounds given their share in front of her, and a thousand clever tricks were played that were great fun to watch. The birds were not very safe either, for the kittens climbed the trees, and the master monkey carried the White Cat right up into the eagles’ nests, so she could do as she pleased with their little eaglet highnesses.

When the hunt was over, she took a horn no longer than a finger, which gave a sound so clear and so loud that it could easily be heard ten leagues away. As soon as she had blown two or three calls on it, she was surrounded by all the cats in the country. Some appeared in the air, riding in carriages, and others came by water in boats. Never had so many been seen in one place.

Nearly all of them were dressed in different ways. She returned to the castle with this splendid procession and asked the prince to come too. He was glad to, although it seemed to him that so many cats in one place had something of the witches’ sabbath about it, and the talking cat amazed him more than all the rest.

As soon as she was home again, her great black veil was put back on her. She had supper with the prince. He was hungry and ate with a good appetite. Liqueurs were brought, which he drank with pleasure, and at once they made him forget the little dog he was supposed to bring the king.

From then on he thought only of mewing with the White Cat, that is to say, of keeping her good and faithful company. He spent his days in pleasant amusements: sometimes fishing or hunting, and then there were ballets, tournaments, and a thousand other things that he enjoyed very much.

Often the lovely White Cat even composed verses and little songs so full of passion that it seemed she must have a tender heart, and that no one could write as she did without being in love. But her secretary, an old tomcat, wrote so badly that although her works have been preserved, it is impossible to read them.

The prince had forgotten even his own country. The hands I have spoken of went on serving him. Sometimes he was sorry he was not a cat, so that he could spend his life in such good company.

“Alas,” he would say to the White Cat, “how it will grieve me to leave you! I love you so dearly. Either become a girl, or make me a cat.”

She found his wish very amusing, and gave him only mysterious answers that he could hardly understand at all.

A year passes very quickly when you have no cares and no troubles, when you are happy and in good health. The White Cat knew when he had to go back, and since he no longer thought about it, she reminded him.

“Do you know,” she said, “that you have only three days left to look for the little dog the king your father wants, and that your brothers have found some very handsome ones?”

The prince came to himself and was amazed at his own carelessness. “By what secret spell,” he cried, “have I forgotten the thing that matters most to me in all the world? My honor and my fortune depend on it. Where am I to find a dog good enough to win the kingdom, and a horse fast enough to travel so far?” He began to fret, and he grew very unhappy.

The White Cat softened and said to him, “King’s son, don’t worry. I am your friend. You can stay here one more day, and although it is five hundred leagues from here to your country, the good wooden horse will carry you there in less than twelve hours.”

“Thank you, lovely Cat,” said the prince, “but it isn’t enough just to go back to my father. I have to bring him a little dog.”

“Here,” said the White Cat. “This is an acorn, and in it is a dog more beautiful than the Dog Star.”

“Oh, Lady Cat,” said the prince, “Your Majesty is making fun of me.”

“Hold the acorn up to your ear,” she went on, “and you will hear him bark.”

The prince did as she said, and at once the little dog went yap, yap. He was overjoyed, for a dog that fits in an acorn must be very small indeed. He wanted to open it, he was so eager to see the dog, but the White Cat told him the dog might catch cold on the road, and that it would be better to wait until he was in front of the king his father.

Thanking her a thousand times, he said a very tender goodbye. “I assure you,” he added, “the days have seemed so short with you that I am almost sorry to leave you here. And although you are queen here, and all the cats who pay court to you are wittier and more gallant than ours, I still beg you to come with me.”

The White Cat answered this offer only with a deep sigh.

They parted. The prince was the first to reach the castle where he had arranged to meet his brothers. They arrived soon after, and were surprised to see in the courtyard a wooden horse that jumped better than any horse in the riding schools.

The prince came out to meet them. They embraced several times and told one another about their travels. But our prince hid the truth of his adventures from his brothers. He showed them a wretched dog that was used to turn the roasting spit, saying he had found it so pretty that it was the one he was bringing the king.

However great their friendship, the two elder brothers felt a secret joy at their youngest brother’s poor choice. They were at supper, and they nudged each other under the table, as if to say that they had nothing to fear from that quarter.

The next day the three of them set off together in one carriage. The king’s two elder sons had little dogs in baskets so fine and delicate that one hardly dared to touch them. The youngest carried the poor turnspit, who was so muddy that no one could stand to have him near.

When they reached the palace, everyone crowded around to welcome them. They went into the king’s rooms. The king could not decide between them, for the little dogs his two elder sons presented were almost equally beautiful. The two of them were already arguing over which would be his heir when their youngest brother settled the matter by taking from his pocket the acorn the White Cat had given him.

He opened it quickly, and everyone saw a little dog lying on cotton. It passed through the middle of a ring without touching it. The prince set it on the floor, and at once it began to dance a sarabande with castanets, as lightly as the most famous dancer in Spain. It was of a thousand different colors, and its silky coat and its ears trailed on the ground. The king was quite put out, for it was impossible to find any fault with the little dog’s beauty.

Yet he had no wish at all to part with his crown. The smallest flower on it was dearer to him than all the dogs in the universe. So he told his sons that he was pleased with their efforts, but that they had done so well at the first thing he had asked of them that he wanted to test their skill once more before keeping his word.

He gave them a year to search, by sea and by land, for a piece of cloth so fine that it would pass through the eye of a needle used for Venetian point lace.

All three were very unhappy at having to set off on a new quest. The two elder princes, whose dogs had been less beautiful than their youngest brother’s, agreed to it. Each set off his own way, without as many signs of friendship as the first time, for the turnspit had cooled their friendship a little.

Our prince mounted his wooden horse again. Counting on no help but the White Cat’s friendship, he rode off at full speed and went back to the castle where she had welcomed him so warmly. He found all its doors open, and the windows, roofs, towers, and walls lit by a hundred thousand lamps, which made a wonderful sight.

The hands that had served him so well came out to meet him and took the bridle of the excellent wooden horse, which they led away to the stable, while the prince went into the White Cat’s room.

She was lying in a little basket, on a very neat mattress of white satin. She wore a loose little nightcap and looked low in spirits. But when she saw the prince, she made a thousand leaps and as many capers to show him how glad she was.

“Whatever reason I had to hope you would come back,” she said to him, “I confess, King’s son, that I did not dare count on it. I am usually so unlucky in the things I wish for that this one takes me by surprise.”

The grateful prince petted her a thousand times. He told her how his journey had gone, which she perhaps knew better than he did, and that the king wanted a piece of cloth that could pass through the eye of a needle. He said he truly believed the thing was impossible, but that he had not given up trying, for he was counting on her friendship and her help for everything.

The White Cat grew more serious and told him that this was a matter that needed thought. Luckily, she said, there were cats in her castle who spun very well. She would put her own claw to the work and hurry it along. So he could rest easy, with no need to travel far to look for what he would find more easily in her house than anywhere else in the world.

The hands appeared, carrying torches, and the prince followed them with the White Cat into a magnificent gallery that ran along a great river. Over the river a marvelous display of fireworks was set off. Four cats were to be burned there; they had been tried in all due form.

They were accused of eating the roast from the White Cat’s supper, and her cheese and her milk, and even of plotting against her person with Martafax and the Hermit, famous rats of those parts, as La Fontaine, a most truthful author, tells us. But for all that, everyone knew there had been a great deal of scheming in the affair, and that most of the witnesses had been bribed. Be that as it may, the prince won the cats a pardon. The fireworks hurt no one, and finer rockets have never been seen.

Then a very elegant midnight supper was served, which gave the prince more pleasure than the fireworks, for he was very hungry; his wooden horse had brought him faster than anyone had ever traveled. The days that followed passed like those that had come before, with a thousand different entertainments that the clever White Cat gave her guest. He was perhaps the first mortal ever to have had such a good time with cats and no other company.

It is true that the White Cat had a pleasant, sociable mind, and knew a little of nearly everything. She was more learned than a cat is allowed to be. Sometimes the prince marveled at it.

“No,” he would say to her, “all these wonderful things I see in you cannot be natural. If you love me, charming Minette, tell me by what miracle you think and speak so well that you could be admitted to the most famous academies of learned men.”

“Stop asking questions, King’s son,” she would say. “I am not allowed to answer them. You may push your guesses as far as you like, and I won’t stop you. Let it be enough for you that I always keep my claws sheathed with you, and that I care tenderly about everything that concerns you.”

Little by little this second year slipped away like the first. There was hardly anything the prince wished for that the busy hands did not bring him at once: books, jewels, paintings, ancient medals. He had only to say, “I want such and such a jewel from the treasure room of the Great Mogul, or of the King of Persia,” or “such and such a statue from Corinth or from Greece,” and at once he saw before him what he wanted, without knowing who had brought it or where it came from.

That has its pleasures; and when you need a rest, it is sometimes very nice to find yourself the master of the finest treasures on earth.

The White Cat, who always looked after the prince’s interests, warned him that the time for him to leave was drawing near. He could set his mind at rest about the piece of cloth he wanted, she said, for she had made him a marvelous one. She added that this time she wished to give him an escort worthy of his birth, and without waiting for his answer, she made him look down into the great courtyard of the castle.

There stood an open coach of gold, enameled in flame color, with a thousand gallant mottoes that pleased the mind as much as the eye. Twelve horses as white as snow, harnessed four abreast, drew it. Their harness was of flame-colored velvet embroidered with diamonds and trimmed with plates of gold. The lining of the coach matched it, and a hundred carriages drawn by eight horses each followed it, all filled with lords of noble bearing in the most splendid clothes.

The coach was also escorted by a thousand bodyguards, whose uniforms were so thickly covered with embroidery that the cloth could not be seen. What was most remarkable was that the White Cat’s portrait appeared everywhere: in the mottoes on the coach, on the bodyguards’ uniforms, and hanging from a ribbon on the coats of the men in the procession, like a new order of knighthood she had honored them with.

“Go,” she said to the prince, “go and appear at the court of the king your father in such splendor that your magnificence overawes him, so that he can no longer refuse you the crown you deserve. Here is a walnut. Be sure not to crack it until you stand before him. In it you will find the piece of cloth you asked me for.”

“Dear Blanchette,” he said, “I confess that I am so moved by your kindness that, if you would only agree, I would rather spend my life with you than have all the greatness I can expect anywhere else.”

“King’s son,” she replied, “I am sure your heart is good. That is a rare thing among princes. They want to be loved by everyone, and they want to love no one. But you show plainly enough that every rule has its exception. I am grateful for the affection you show a little white cat who, when all is said and done, is good for nothing but catching mice.”

The prince kissed her paw and left.

It would be hard to believe how fast he traveled, if we did not already know how the wooden horse had carried him more than five hundred leagues from the castle. The same power that had driven the horse now hurried the others so hard that they spent only twenty-four hours on the road. They did not stop anywhere until they reached the king’s palace, where the prince’s two elder brothers had already arrived.

Seeing no sign of their youngest brother, they congratulated themselves on his carelessness and whispered to each other, “What luck! He is dead or ill. He won’t be our rival in the important business about to be settled.”

At once they unrolled their cloths. These were in fact so fine that they passed through the eye of a large needle, but not through a small one. The king, delighted with this excuse for a quarrel, showed them the needle he had meant. By his order the magistrates had brought it from the city treasury, where it had been carefully locked away.

There was a great deal of grumbling over this dispute. The princes’ friends, and especially the eldest prince’s, since his cloth was the finest, said it was nothing but a quibble, full of trickery and cunning. The king’s supporters argued that he was not bound by terms he had never set.

At last, as if to settle the matter, there came a delightful sound of trumpets, kettledrums, and oboes. It was our prince arriving in grand state. The king and his two sons were all equally astonished at such magnificence.

When he had bowed respectfully to his father and embraced his brothers, he took the walnut from a box covered with rubies and cracked it. He expected to find the much-praised piece of cloth inside, but instead there was a hazelnut. He cracked that too, and was surprised to find a cherry stone.

Everyone looked at one another. The king laughed quietly and mocked his son for being so gullible as to think he could bring a piece of cloth in a walnut. But why should the prince not believe it, when he had already produced a little dog that fit inside an acorn?

So he cracked the cherry stone, which was full of its kernel. At that a great noise rose in the room, and nothing could be heard but, “The youngest prince has been made a fool of!”

He did not answer the courtiers’ unkind jokes. He opened the kernel and found a grain of wheat, and inside the grain of wheat a grain of millet. Now, to tell the truth, he began to have his doubts, and he muttered under his breath, “White Cat, White Cat, you have made a fool of me.”

At that very moment he felt a cat’s claw on his hand, scratching him so hard that it bled. He did not know whether the scratch was meant to give him courage or to make him lose heart. Still, he opened the grain of millet.

Everyone was astonished when he drew from it a piece of cloth four hundred ells long, and so marvelous that all the birds, the animals, and the fishes were painted on it, with the trees, the fruits, and the plants of the earth; the rocks, the rare things, and the shells of the sea; and the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets of the heavens.

There were portraits, too, of the kings and other rulers then reigning in the world, and of their wives, their sweethearts, their children, and all their subjects, without the smallest street urchin being left out. Each one, in his own station, played the part that suited him and was dressed in the fashion of his own country.

When the king saw the cloth, he went as pale as the prince had gone red from searching for it so long. The needle was brought, and the cloth went through its eye and back again six times. The king and the two elder princes kept a gloomy silence, although now and then the beauty and rarity of the cloth forced them to say that nothing in the universe could compare with it.

The king heaved a deep sigh and turned to his children. “Nothing,” he said, “can comfort me so much in my old age as seeing how you defer to my wishes. So I want you to undertake one more test. Go and travel for another year, and whichever of you brings back the most beautiful girl at the end of it shall marry her and be crowned king at his wedding. In any case, my successor must marry. I swear, I promise, that I will no longer put off giving the reward I have promised.”

All the injustice fell on our prince. The little dog and the piece of cloth deserved ten kingdoms rather than one. But he was so well brought up that he would not go against his father’s will, and without delay he got back into his coach. His whole escort followed him, and he returned to his dear White Cat.

She knew the day and the very moment he was to arrive. The whole road was strewn with flowers, and a thousand incense burners smoked on every side, and especially in the castle. She sat on a Persian carpet under a canopy of cloth of gold, in a gallery from which she could watch him coming back. He was received by the hands that had always served him. All the cats climbed up onto the gutters to welcome him with a frantic chorus of mewing.

“Well, King’s son,” she said to him, “so here you are back again, and still without a crown?”

“Madam,” he answered, “your kindness had put me in a position to win it. But I am convinced the king would find it harder to give it up than I would find pleasure in having it.”

“No matter,” she said. “You must leave nothing undone to deserve it, and I will help you in this. Since you have to take a beautiful girl to your father’s court, I will find you one who will win you the prize. Meanwhile, let us enjoy ourselves. I have ordered a sea battle between my cats and the terrible rats of these parts. My cats may find it hard going, for they are afraid of water. But otherwise they would have too great an advantage, and one must make things as even as one can.”

The prince admired Lady Minette’s good sense. He praised her warmly and went with her onto a terrace that looked out over the sea.

The cats’ ships were great pieces of cork, on which they sailed quite comfortably. The rats had joined several eggshells together, and those were their ships. The battle was stubborn and fierce. The rats threw themselves into the water and swam much better than the cats, so that victory went back and forth twenty times.

But Minagrobis, admiral of the cat fleet, drove the rat nation to utter despair. He gobbled up the general of their fleet, an old, experienced rat who had sailed three times around the world in good ships, on which he had been neither captain nor sailor, but only a stowaway living on the ship’s bacon.

The White Cat did not want the poor wretches destroyed entirely. She had a head for politics, and she reflected that if there were no more rats or mice in the country, her subjects would live in an idleness that might do her harm.

The prince spent this year as he had spent the other two, that is, hunting, fishing, and playing games, for the White Cat played chess very well. Now and then he could not help asking her new questions, to find out by what miracle she could speak. He asked her whether she was a fairy, or whether she had been turned into a cat by some transformation.

But she never said more than she chose to, and her answers were little words that meant nothing. He could easily tell that she did not want to share her secret with him.

Nothing slips away faster than days spent without trouble or sorrow, and if the White Cat had not taken care to remember when it was time to go back to court, the prince would certainly have forgotten it altogether.

On the eve of his departure she told him that it was up to him alone to take home one of the most beautiful princesses in the world. The hour had come at last, she said, to undo the fatal work of the fairies, and for that he must bring himself to cut off her head and her tail, and throw them quickly into the fire.

“Me?” he cried. “Blanchette, my love! Could I be cruel enough to kill you? Oh, surely you only want to test my heart. But you can be certain it could never fail in the friendship and gratitude it owes you.”

“No, King’s son,” she went on, “I don’t suspect you of any ingratitude. I know your worth. It is neither you nor I who decide our fate in this matter. Do as I wish, and we shall both begin to be happy, and you will see, on the word of a good and honorable cat, that I am truly your friend.”

Two or three times tears came into the young prince’s eyes at the mere thought of having to cut off the head of his little kitten, who was so pretty and so sweet. He said again the tenderest things he could think of, to make her change her mind. She answered stubbornly that she wanted to die by his hand, and that it was the only way to keep his brothers from getting the crown.

In a word, she pressed him so hard that he drew his sword, trembling, and with an unsteady hand he cut off the head and the tail of his good friend the White Cat.

At that same moment he saw the most charming transformation imaginable. The White Cat’s body grew tall, and all at once it turned into a young woman so beautiful that words cannot describe her; there has never been another so perfect. Her eyes delighted every heart, and her gentleness held them. Her figure was majestic, her bearing noble and modest; she had a warm, easy mind and winning manners. In short, no one had ever seen anyone lovelier.

The prince was so surprised at the sight of her, and so pleasantly surprised, that he thought he was under a spell. He could not take his eyes off her. He was too amazed to say a word.

But that was nothing to what he felt when he saw an extraordinary number of ladies and lords come in. Each of them had a cat skin, a tomcat’s or a she-cat’s, thrown over their shoulders. They came and bowed down to the ground at the queen’s feet, to show her their joy at seeing her in her natural shape again.

She received them with a kindness that showed plainly what kind of heart she had. After she had held court for a few moments, she ordered them to leave her alone with the prince, and this is what she told him.

“Do not think, my lord, that I have always been a cat, or that I was born of humble people. My father was king of six kingdoms. He loved my mother dearly and left her entirely free to do whatever she liked. What she loved most of all was traveling. So, when she was expecting me, she set off to see a certain mountain about which she had heard astonishing things.

“While she was on her way, she was told that near the place she was passing through there stood an ancient fairy castle, the most beautiful in the world. At least, that was what an old tradition said, for no one ever went inside, so no one could judge. But it was known for certain that these fairies had in their garden the best fruit, the tastiest and most delicate that had ever been eaten.

“At once the queen my mother felt such a violent craving for that fruit that she turned her steps toward the castle. She came to the gate of that splendid building, which shone with gold and blue on every side. But she knocked in vain. No one at all appeared; it seemed that everyone inside was dead.

“Her craving only grew with the difficulty. She sent for ladders, so that her people could climb over the garden walls, and they would have managed it if the walls had not grown higher before their very eyes, although no one was working on them. They tied ladders one to another, but the ladders broke under the weight of the men sent up them, and the men were crippled or killed.

“The queen was in despair. She could see great trees laden with fruit that she was sure was delicious, and she wanted to eat it or die. So she had very rich tents put up in front of the castle, and she stayed there six weeks with her whole court. She neither slept nor ate. She sighed without stopping and talked of nothing but the fruit in the garden no one could enter.

“At last she fell dangerously ill, and no one could do the least thing to help her, for the pitiless fairies had not so much as shown themselves since she had camped near their castle. All her officers were terribly distressed. Nothing could be heard but weeping and sighing, while the dying queen begged her servants for fruit. But she wanted none except the fruit she was denied.

“One night, when she had dozed off for a little while, she woke to see a little old woman, ugly and bent with age, sitting in an armchair at the head of her bed. The queen was wondering how her ladies could have let a stranger come so near her, when the old woman spoke.

“‘We find Your Majesty very tiresome,’ she said, ‘to be so stubbornly set on eating our fruit. But since your precious life depends on it, my sisters and I agree to give you as much as you can carry away, and as much as you can eat while you are here, provided you make us a gift.’

“‘Oh, good mother,’ cried the queen, ‘tell me what it is! I will give you my kingdoms, my heart, my soul, if only I can have the fruit. No price could be too high.’

“‘We want Your Majesty to give us the daughter you are carrying,’ said the fairy. ‘As soon as she is born, we will come and fetch her. She will be brought up among us. There is no virtue, no beauty, no learning that we will not give her. In a word, she will be our child, and we will make her happy. But mark this: Your Majesty will not see her again until she is married.’

“‘If the offer suits you,’ she went on, ‘I will cure you this very moment and take you into our orchards. Night or no night, you will see well enough to choose whatever you like. If what I say does not please you, good night, Madam Queen. I am going to sleep.’

“‘However hard the terms you set me,’ answered the queen, ‘I accept them rather than die, for I am sure I have not one more day to live, and so I would lose my child along with my own life. Cure me, wise fairy,’ she went on, ‘and do not let me wait a moment longer to enjoy the privilege you have just granted me.’

“The fairy touched her with a little golden wand and said, ‘May Your Majesty be free of every ill that keeps you in this bed.’

“At once it seemed to my mother as if a very heavy, stiff robe that had been crushing her was being lifted off, and that it clung tighter in certain places. Those were probably the places where the illness was worst.

“She called all her ladies and told them, with a cheerful face, that she was perfectly well, that she was going to get up, and that at last the gates of the fairy palace, so firmly bolted and barred, would be opened to her, so she could eat the beautiful fruit and carry away as much as she pleased.

“Every one of her ladies believed the queen was delirious and dreaming of the fruit she had longed for so much. So instead of answering her, they began to cry, and they had all the doctors woken to see what state she was in.

“The delay drove the queen to despair. She kept asking for her clothes, and they kept refusing them. She grew angry and very red in the face, and they said it was the fever.

“But when the doctors came in, felt her pulse, and went through all their usual ceremonies, they could not deny that she was in perfect health. Her women saw the mistake their zeal had led them into and tried to make up for it by dressing her quickly. Everyone begged her pardon, peace was made, and she hurried after the old fairy, who had been waiting for her all along.

“My mother went into the palace, which nothing could have made more beautiful. You will easily believe that, my lord,” she added, “when I tell you that it is the very palace we are in now.

“Two other fairies, a little less old than the one who was leading my mother, met her at the door and gave her a very warm welcome. She begged them to take her straight into the garden, to the trees along the walls where she would find the best fruit.

“‘It is all equally good,’ they told her, ‘and if you did not want the pleasure of picking it yourself, we would only have to call it, and it would come here to us.’

“‘I beg you, ladies,’ said the queen, ‘let me have the joy of seeing something so extraordinary.’

“The oldest fairy put her fingers in her mouth and whistled three times. Then she called out, ‘Apricots, peaches, clingstones, nectarines, cherries, plums, pears, heart cherries, melons, muscat grapes, apples, oranges, lemons, currants, strawberries, raspberries, come running at my call!’

“‘But,’ said the queen, ‘everything you have just called ripens in a different season.’

“‘Not in our orchards,’ they said. ‘Here we have every fruit on earth, always ripe, always good, and it never spoils.’

“At that very moment the fruit came, rolling and creeping along all higgledy-piggledy, without getting bruised or dirty. The queen, impatient to satisfy her craving, threw herself on it and took the first pieces that came to hand. She did not so much eat them as devour them.

“When her hunger was a little eased, she asked the fairies to let her go to the trees along the walls, so she could have the pleasure of choosing the fruit with her eyes before she picked it.

“‘We gladly agree,’ said the three fairies, ‘but remember the promise you have made us. You will not be allowed to take it back.’

“‘I am sure,’ she replied, ‘that one is so happy with you, and this palace seems so beautiful to me, that if I did not love the king my husband so dearly, I would offer to stay here too. So you need not fear that I will go back on my word.’

“The fairies were very pleased, and they opened all their gardens and all their orchards to her. She stayed there three days and three nights without wanting to leave, she found them so delightful. She picked fruit to take with her, and since it never spoils, she had four thousand mules loaded with it and took them away.

“To their fruit the fairies added baskets of gold, exquisitely worked, to carry it in, and many rare things of enormous value. They promised her that they would bring me up as a princess, make me perfect, and choose me a husband. She would be told of the wedding, they said, and they very much hoped she would come.

“The king was overjoyed at the queen’s return, and the whole court showed her how glad they were. There was nothing but balls, masquerades, tilting at the ring, and banquets, at which the queen’s fruit was served as a rare delicacy. The king ate it in preference to anything else that could be offered him.

“He knew nothing of the bargain she had made with the fairies, and he often asked her what country she had gone to, to bring back such good things. She would tell him they grew on an almost unclimbable mountain; another time, that they came from the valleys; then from the middle of a garden, or from a great forest. The king was puzzled by so many contradictions. He questioned the people who had gone with her, but she had so strictly forbidden them to tell anyone about her adventure that they did not dare speak of it.

“At last, as the time for my birth drew near, the queen grew anxious about what she had promised the fairies, and she fell into a dreadful melancholy. She sighed every moment, and she grew thinner and paler by the day. The king grew worried. He pressed her to tell him the cause of her sadness, and after much hesitation, she told him everything that had passed between her and the fairies, and how she had promised them the daughter she was going to have.

“‘What!’ cried the king. ‘We have no children, you know how much I long for one, and for two or three apples you could promise away your daughter? You cannot have any love for me at all.’

“With that he heaped a thousand reproaches on her, and my poor mother almost died of grief. But he was not satisfied with that. He had her shut up in a tower, with guards on every side, to keep her from having any dealings with anyone in the world except the officers who served her; and even those he changed, replacing the ones who had been with her at the fairies’ castle.

“The quarrel between the king and the queen threw the court into the deepest dismay. Everyone put away their rich clothes and dressed to match the general sorrow. The king, for his part, seemed pitiless. He no longer saw his wife, and as soon as I was born, he had me brought to his palace to be nursed there, while she stayed a prisoner and very unhappy.

“The fairies knew everything that happened. They were furious. They wanted me; they looked on me as their property and felt that keeping me from them was robbing them. Before seeking a revenge to match their anger, they sent a grand embassy to the king, to warn him to set the queen free and restore her to his favor, and also to ask him to give me to their ambassadors, so that I could be nursed and brought up among them.

“The ambassadors were hideous dwarfs, so small and so misshapen that they could not persuade the king of anything. He refused them roughly, and if they had not left in a hurry, worse might have happened to them.

“When the fairies heard how my father had behaved, they were as angry as anyone could be. After sending into his six kingdoms every evil that could lay them waste, they let loose a terrible dragon. Wherever it went it left poison behind it; it ate men and children, and its breath killed the trees and the plants.

“The king was in the depths of despair. He asked all the wise men of his kingdom what he should do to protect his subjects from the misfortunes he saw crushing them. They advised him to send all over the world for the best doctors and the finest remedies, and also to promise their lives to any criminals condemned to death who would agree to fight the dragon.

“The king was satisfied with this advice and followed it, but it brought him no comfort, for the dying went on, and no one went against the dragon without being eaten. So he turned to a fairy who had protected him since he was very small. She was very old and hardly ever got out of bed anymore. He went to her house and reproached her a thousand times for letting fate persecute him without coming to his aid.

“‘What do you want me to do?’ she said to him. ‘You have angered my sisters. They have as much power as I do, and we rarely act against one another. Think about making peace with them by giving them your daughter. The little princess belongs to them. You have shut the queen up in a close prison. What has that lovely woman done to you, that you treat her so badly? Make up your mind to keep the promise she gave. I assure you, you will be loaded with blessings.’

“The king my father loved me dearly. But since he saw no other way to save his kingdoms and free himself from the deadly dragon, he told his friend that he had decided to trust her. He was willing to give me to the fairies, since she assured him I would be cherished and treated as a princess of my rank. He would also bring back the queen, and his friend had only to tell him to whom he should entrust me, to carry me to the fairy castle.

“‘You must take her in her cradle to the Mountain of Flowers,’ the old fairy told him. ‘You may even stay nearby, to watch the celebration that will take place there.’

“The king told her that in a week he would go there with the queen, and asked the old fairy to let her sisters the fairies know, so they could make whatever arrangements they saw fit.

“As soon as he was back at the palace, he sent for the queen, with as much tenderness and ceremony as he had shown anger and fury when he had her made a prisoner. She was so worn down and so changed that he would hardly have recognized her, if his heart had not told him this was the same woman he had loved so much.

“With tears in his eyes he begged her to forget the pain he had just caused her, and promised it would be the last she would ever suffer from him. She answered that she had brought it on herself by her rashness in promising her daughter to the fairies, and that if anything could excuse her, it was the condition she had been in.

“At last he told her that he meant to hand me over to them. The queen in her turn fought against the plan. It seemed that some fate had a hand in it, and that I was always to be a cause of quarrels between my father and my mother.

“She moaned and wept a great deal without getting what she wanted, for the king saw only too well where refusing would lead, and our subjects went on dying as if they were guilty of our family’s faults. In the end she agreed to what he wished, and everything was made ready for the ceremony.

“I was laid in a cradle of mother-of-pearl, decorated with the most charming things art could invent. All around it hung garlands and festoons of flowers, and the flowers were made of precious stones, whose different colors caught the sun and threw off rays so brilliant that no one could look at them. The splendor of my clothes surpassed, if that is possible, the splendor of the cradle. All the bands of my swaddling clothes were made of great pearls.

“Twenty-four princesses of the royal blood carried me on a very light litter. Their gowns were extraordinary, but they were not allowed to wear any color but white, as a sign of my innocence. The whole court went with me, each person in their proper rank.

“While we were climbing the mountain, we heard sweet music coming nearer. At last the fairies appeared, thirty-six of them, for they had invited their good friends to come with them. Each one sat in a pearl shell larger than the one Venus rode in when she rose from the sea. They were drawn by sea horses, which did not go very well on land, and they looked grander than the greatest queens in the world, but for all that, they were old and ugly beyond words.

“They carried olive branches, to show the king that his submission had won their favor. And when they held me, they petted me so extravagantly that it seemed they wanted to live for nothing but to make me happy.

“The dragon that had served their revenge on my father came after them, bound with chains of diamonds. They took me in their arms, petted me a thousand times, gave me many gifts, and then began the fairies’ round dance. It is a very merry dance, and you would not believe how those old ladies leaped and capered.

“Then the dragon that had eaten so many people came crawling up. The three fairies to whom my mother had promised me sat on its back and set my cradle between them. They struck the dragon with a wand, and at once it spread its great scaly wings, finer than crape and streaked with a thousand strange colors. And so they flew back to their castle.

“When my mother saw me up in the air on that savage dragon, she could not help crying out. The king comforted her with the assurance his friend had given him that no harm would come to me, and that I would be cared for as well as if I had stayed in his own palace.

“She grew calmer, although it was very painful for her to lose me for so long, and to know she alone was the cause. For if she had not wanted to eat the fruit from that garden, I would have stayed in my father’s kingdom, and I would never have suffered all the sorrows I still have to tell you.

“Know then, my lord, that my guardians had built a tower especially for me. In it were a thousand beautiful rooms for every season of the year, magnificent furniture, and delightful books. But there was no door, and one always had to come in through the windows, which were enormously high. On top of the tower was a lovely garden, with flowers, fountains, and green arbors that kept off the heat in the hottest dog days.

“There the fairies brought me up, with more care than anything they had promised the queen. My clothes were of the latest fashion, and so magnificent that if anyone had seen me, they would have thought it was my wedding day. They taught me everything that suited my age and my birth. I did not give them much trouble, for there was hardly anything I did not understand very easily. They liked my gentleness, and since I had never seen anyone but them, I would have stayed contentedly in that state for the rest of my life.

“They always came to see me riding on the savage dragon I have already spoken of. They never talked to me about the king or the queen. They called me their daughter, and I believed I was. No one in the world stayed with me in the tower except a parrot and a little dog they had given me to amuse me, for both were gifted with reason and talked wonderfully well.

“One side of the tower stood above a sunken lane, full of ruts and of trees that blocked the way, so that I had never seen anyone there since I had been shut in. But one day, when I was at the window chatting with my parrot and my little dog, Toutou, I heard a noise. I looked all around, and I saw a young knight who had stopped to listen to our conversation. I had never seen one except in pictures.

“I was not sorry that an unexpected meeting gave me this chance. Not suspecting the danger that comes with the pleasure of looking at someone lovely, I leaned out to look at him, and the more I looked, the more I enjoyed it. He bowed low to me and fixed his eyes on me. He seemed quite at a loss as to how he might speak to me, for my window was very high, he was afraid of being overheard, and he knew very well that I was in the fairies’ castle.

“Night fell almost at once, or, to put it more truly, it fell without our noticing. He blew his horn two or three times and cheered me with a few hunting calls, and then he rode off. It was so dark that I could not even tell which way he went.

“I stayed lost in thought. I no longer found the same pleasure I had always found in chatting with my parrot and my dog. They said the prettiest things in the world to me, for fairy animals grow witty; but my mind was elsewhere, and I had not yet learned how to hide it. Parrot noticed. He was sharp, and he kept to himself whatever was going through his head.

“I made sure to get up at daybreak. I ran to my window, and I was delighted to see the young knight at the foot of the tower. He was magnificently dressed. I flattered myself that I had something to do with it, and I was not mistaken.

“He spoke to me through a sort of trumpet that carries the voice, and with its help he told me that until then he had never cared for any of the beauties he had seen, but that all at once he had been so deeply struck by mine that he could not understand how he could go on living without seeing me every day of his life.

“I was very pleased with his compliment, and very troubled that I did not dare answer it, for I would have had to shout at the top of my lungs and run the risk of being heard better by the fairies than by him. I was holding some flowers, and I threw them to him. He received them as a great favor; he kissed them several times and thanked me.

“Then he asked me whether I would allow him to come under my windows every day at the same hour, and, if I were willing, to throw him something. I had a turquoise ring, which I pulled off my finger and threw to him in great haste, making signs to him to go away quickly. For I could hear, on the other side, the fairy Violente mounting her dragon to bring me my breakfast.

“The first thing she said as she came into my room was, ‘I smell a man’s voice in here. Search, dragon!’

“Oh, what a fright I had! I was frozen with fear that the dragon would go out through the other window and follow the knight, whom I already cared for a great deal.

“‘Really, Mama,’ I said (for the old fairy wanted me to call her that), ‘you are joking when you say you smell a man’s voice. Does a voice have a smell? And even if it did, what mortal would be bold enough to try climbing up this tower?’

“‘What you say is true, my girl,’ she answered. ‘I am delighted to hear you reason so prettily. I suppose it is my hatred of all men that sometimes makes me think they are close by.’

“She gave me my breakfast and my distaff. ‘When you have eaten,’ she said, ‘be sure to spin, for you did nothing yesterday, and my sisters will be angry.’ And in fact I had been so taken up with the stranger that I had not been able to spin at all.

“As soon as she was gone, I tossed the distaff aside in a little temper and went up onto the terrace to see farther across the countryside. I had an excellent spyglass. Nothing blocked my view, and I was looking in every direction when I caught sight of my knight on the top of a mountain. He was resting under a rich pavilion of cloth of gold, surrounded by a very large court.

“I had no doubt that he was the son of some king who lived near the fairies’ palace. Since I was afraid that if he came back to the tower the terrible dragon would find him, I went and fetched my parrot. I told him to fly to that mountain, where he would find the one who had spoken to me, and to beg him, on my behalf, never to come back, because I feared the watchfulness of my guardians, and that they might do him some harm.

“Parrot carried out his errand like the clever parrot he was. Everyone was surprised to see him come flying at full speed, perch on the young king’s shoulder, and speak softly into his ear. The young king felt both joy and pain at this message. My concern for him warmed his heart, but the difficulty of speaking to me weighed him down, though it could not turn him from his resolve to win me.

“He asked Parrot a hundred questions, and Parrot asked him a hundred in return, for he was curious by nature. The king gave him a ring for me in place of my turquoise. It was a turquoise too, but much finer than mine, cut in the shape of a heart and set with diamonds.

“‘It is only right,’ he added, ‘that I should treat you as an ambassador. Here is my portrait, which I give you. Show it to no one but your charming mistress.’ He fastened his portrait under Parrot’s wing, and Parrot carried the ring in his beak.

“I waited for my little green messenger with an impatience I had never known before. He told me that the one I had sent him to was a great king, that he had received him in the best way in the world, and that I could be sure he no longer wanted to live for anyone but me. Even though it was very dangerous to come to the foot of my tower, he was ready for anything rather than give up seeing me.

“This news upset me greatly, and I began to cry. Parrot and Toutou comforted me as best they could, for they loved me dearly. Then Parrot gave me the king’s ring and showed me the portrait. I confess I have never been so happy as I was to be able to look closely at the one I had seen only from far away. He seemed even more charming than I had thought. A hundred thoughts came into my mind, some pleasant and some sad, and they made me unusually restless.

“The fairies who came to see me noticed it. They told one another that I must be bored, and that they had better think of finding me a husband of fairy blood. They talked of several, and settled on little King Migonnet, whose kingdom lay five hundred thousand leagues from their palace; but that was no obstacle to them.

“Parrot overheard this fine plan and came to tell me about it. ‘Oh, how I pity you, my dear mistress,’ he said, ‘if you become Queen Migonnette! He’s a frightful little ape. I’m sorry to tell you, but truly, the king who loves you wouldn’t take him on as a footman.’

“‘Have you seen him, Parrot?’

“‘I should think so,’ he went on. ‘I was raised on the same branch as him.’

“‘What do you mean, on a branch?’ I asked.

“‘Yes,’ he said. ‘You see, he has an eagle’s feet.’

“Such a report grieved me terribly. I gazed at the charming portrait of the young king. I was sure he had given it to Parrot only so that I could see it. When I compared him with Migonnet, I lost all hope, and I made up my mind to die rather than marry the dwarf.

“I did not sleep all night. Parrot and Toutou talked with me. Toward morning I dozed off a little, and since my dog had a keen nose, he smelled that the king was at the foot of the tower. He woke Parrot.

“‘I bet the king is down there,’ he said.

“Parrot answered, ‘Be quiet, chatterbox. Just because your eyes are nearly always open and your ears always pricked, you can’t stand other people getting some rest.’

“‘But let’s bet,’ the good little dog said again. ‘I know he’s there.’

“Parrot replied, ‘And I know he isn’t. Didn’t I forbid him to come, on our mistress’s behalf?’

“‘Oh, you and your forbidding!’ cried my dog. ‘A man in love listens to nobody but his heart.’ And with that he began to tug at Parrot’s wings so hard that Parrot lost his temper.

“I woke to the cries of the two of them, and they told me what the quarrel was about. I ran, or rather I flew, to my window.

“There I saw the king holding out his arms to me, and through his trumpet he told me that he could no longer live without me. He begged me to find a way to get out of my tower or to let him in. He called all the gods and all the elements to witness that he would marry me at once, and that I would be one of the greatest queens in the world.

“I ordered Parrot to go and tell him that what he wished seemed almost impossible to me. Yet, trusting the word he had given me and the oaths he had sworn, I would set myself to do what he wanted. I begged him not to come every day, for in the end someone might notice, and the fairies would show no mercy.

“The king went away overjoyed at the hope I had given him, and I found myself in the greatest difficulty in the world when I thought over what I had just promised. How could I, so young, so inexperienced, and so timid, get out of a tower that had no doors, with no help but Parrot and Toutou? So I decided not to attempt a thing I could never manage, and I sent Parrot to tell the king so.

“He wanted to kill himself before Parrot’s eyes. But at last he charged the bird to persuade me either to come and watch him die or to bring him some relief.

“‘Sire,’ cried the feathered ambassador, ‘my mistress is persuaded enough. It is only the means she lacks.’

“When Parrot told me everything that had happened, I grieved more than I ever had before. The fairy Violente came and found my eyes swollen and red. She said I had been crying, and that if I did not tell her why, she would burn me; for all her threats were always terrible.

“Trembling, I answered that I was tired of spinning, and that I wanted to make little nets to catch the small birds that came to peck at the fruit in my garden.

“‘What you want, my girl,’ she said, ‘won’t cost you any more tears. I’ll bring you as much cord as you like.’

“And indeed I had it that very evening. But she warned me to think less about working and more about making myself beautiful, because King Migonnet was to arrive very soon. I shuddered at this unwelcome news and said nothing.

“As soon as she was gone, I began two or three pieces of net. But what I really worked at was a rope ladder, and it was very well made, though I had never seen one. It is true that the fairy did not give me as much cord as I needed, and she was forever saying to me, ‘But, my girl, your work is like Penelope’s. It never gets any further, and you never tire of asking me for more to work with.’

“‘Oh, Mama,’ I would say, ‘it’s easy for you to talk! Can’t you see that I don’t know how to go about it, and that I burn it all? Are you afraid I’ll bankrupt you with string?’

“My simple air amused her, although she had a very disagreeable and very cruel temper.

“I sent Parrot to tell the king to come one evening under the windows of the tower, where he would find the ladder, and that he would learn the rest when he arrived. I did fasten it very firmly, meaning to escape with him. But when he saw it, he did not wait for me to come down. He climbed up eagerly and sprang into my room while I was getting everything ready for our flight.

“The sight of him filled me with such joy that I forgot the danger we were in. He renewed all his vows and begged me not to put off taking him as my husband. We took Parrot and Toutou as witnesses of our marriage. Never was a royal wedding held with less pomp and noise, and never were two hearts happier than ours.

“Day had not yet come when the king left me. I told him of the fairies’ dreadful plan to marry me to little Migonnet, and I described his looks to him, which horrified him as much as they did me.

“My husband was hardly gone before the hours seemed to me as long as years. I ran to the window and followed him with my eyes in spite of the dark. But how astonished I was to see in the air a chariot of fire drawn by winged salamanders, which flew so fast that the eye could scarcely follow it!

“The chariot was escorted by a number of guards riding on ostriches. I did not have time to take a good look at the little ape who was crossing the sky like this, but I easily guessed that it was a fairy or an enchanter.

“Soon afterward the fairy Violente came into my room. ‘I bring you good news,’ she said. ‘Your suitor arrived a few hours ago. Get ready to receive him. Here are clothes and jewels.’

“‘And who told you,’ I cried, ‘that I wanted to be married? That is not my intention at all. Send King Migonnet away. I won’t put on a single pin more for him. Whether he finds me pretty or ugly, I am not for him.’

“‘Well, well!’ said the fairy angrily. ‘What a little rebel! What an empty head! I won’t stand for any nonsense, and I’ll…’

“‘What will you do to me?’ I replied, red in the face at the names she had called me. ‘Could anyone be brought up more dismally than I am, in a tower with a parrot and a dog, seeing several times every day the horrible shape of a dreadful dragon?’

“‘Oh, you ungrateful little thing!’ said the fairy. ‘Did you deserve so much care and trouble? I told my sisters only too often that we would get a sorry reward for it.’ She went to find them and told them about our quarrel, and they were all equally astonished.

“Parrot and Toutou warned me seriously that if I went on being so stubborn, they could see bitter sorrows coming. I felt so proud to own the heart of a great king that I scorned the fairies and the advice of my poor little companions.

“I did not dress up, and I made a point of doing my hair crooked, so that Migonnet would find me unattractive. We met on the terrace. He came in his fiery chariot. Never since there have been dwarfs has one so small been seen. He walked on his eagle’s feet and on his knees at the same time, for there were no bones in his legs, so he held himself up on two diamond crutches.

“His royal mantle was only half an ell long, and more than a third of it trailed on the ground. His head was as big as a bushel basket, and his nose so large that a dozen birds perched on it, whose singing delighted him. His beard was so wild that canaries built their nests in it, and his ears stood a cubit above his head; but that was hardly noticed, because of the tall pointed crown he wore to look taller.

“The flames of his chariot roasted the fruit, withered the flowers, and dried up the fountains in my garden. He came toward me with his arms open to embrace me. I stood up very straight, so his chief squire had to lift him up. But as soon as he came near, I fled into my room and shut the door and the windows, so Migonnet went back to the fairies, very angry with me.

“They begged his pardon a thousand times for my rudeness. To calm him down, for he was a dangerous person to cross, they made up their minds to bring him into my room at night while I was asleep, tie my hands and feet, and put me with him in his burning chariot, so that he could carry me off.

“Once this was settled, they hardly scolded me at all for my rudeness. They only said I must think about making up for it. Parrot and Toutou were surprised at such gentleness.

“‘Do you know, my mistress,’ said my dog, ‘my heart tells me no good will come of this? The fairy ladies are strange people, and Violente most of all.’

“I laughed at his fears and waited for my dear husband with the greatest impatience. He was too eager to see me to be late. I threw down the rope ladder to him, fully resolved to go away with him. He climbed up lightly and said such tender things to me that I still do not dare call them back to mind.

“We were talking together as peacefully as we might have done in his own palace, when all at once we saw the windows of my room burst in. The fairies came in on their terrible dragon. Migonnet followed them in his chariot of fire, with all his guards on their ostriches.

“The king was not afraid. He drew his sword and thought of nothing but protecting me from the most dreadful thing that has ever happened. For, must I tell you, my lord? Those cruel creatures drove their dragon at him, and before my eyes it devoured him.

“In despair at his fate and at mine, I threw myself into the jaws of that horrible monster, wanting it to swallow me as it had just swallowed everything I loved in the world. The dragon was willing enough. But the fairies, crueler even than the dragon, would not allow it.

“‘She must be kept for longer suffering,’ they cried. ‘A quick death is too sweet for this unworthy creature.’

“They touched me, and at once I found myself in the shape of a white cat. They brought me to this splendid palace. They turned all the lords and ladies of the kingdom into cats, toms and she-cats; and some they left with only their hands visible. And they brought me down to the miserable state in which you found me.

“They told me who I really was, that my father was dead, and my mother too, and that I would be freed from my cat’s shape only by a prince who looked exactly like the husband they had snatched from me. It is you, my lord, who have that likeness,” she went on. “The same features, the same bearing, the same voice. It struck me the moment I saw you. I was told everything that was to happen, and I still know everything that will happen. My sorrows are about to end.”

“And mine, lovely queen,” said the prince, throwing himself at her feet, “will they last long?”

“I love you already more than my life, my lord,” said the queen. “We must set out for your father’s court. We shall see what he thinks of me, and whether he will consent to what you wish.”

She went out, the prince gave her his hand, and she got into a carriage with him. It was far more magnificent than any he had had before, and the rest of the escort matched it so well that all the horses’ shoes were made of emeralds and the nails of diamonds. That has perhaps never been seen except that once.

I will not repeat the delightful conversations the queen and the prince had together. If she was unequaled in beauty, she was no less so in wit, and the young prince was as perfect as she was, so the things they thought of were all charming.

When they were near the castle where the prince’s two elder brothers were to meet him, the queen climbed inside a little rock of crystal, all of whose points were set with gold and rubies. Curtains hung all around it, so that no one could see her, and it was carried by handsome young men splendidly dressed.

The prince stayed in the beautiful carriage. He caught sight of his brothers strolling with princesses of exquisite beauty. As soon as they recognized him, they came forward to greet him and asked whether he was bringing a lady.

He told them he had been so unlucky that on his whole journey he had met only very ugly ones, and that the rarest thing he was bringing was a little white cat. They laughed at his simplicity.

“A cat!” they said to him. “Are you afraid the mice will eat our palace?”

The prince replied that it was indeed not very wise to want to give such a present to his father. With that, they all set off for the city.

The elder princes rode with their princesses in open coaches all of gold and blue. Their horses wore plumes and tufts of feathers on their heads, and nothing could have been more dazzling than that procession. Our young prince came after them, and then the crystal rock, which everyone gazed at in wonder.

The courtiers hurried to tell the king that the three princes were arriving.

“Are they bringing beautiful ladies?” the king asked.

“It is impossible to see anything lovelier.”

At this answer he looked annoyed. The two princes hurried upstairs with their wonderful princesses. The king received them very kindly and did not know which of them to give the prize to. He looked at his youngest son and said, “So this time you have come alone?”

“Your Majesty will find in this rock a little white cat,” answered the prince, “who mews so sweetly and keeps her claws in so nicely that she is sure to please you.”

The king smiled and went to open the rock himself. But as soon as he came near, the queen touched a spring, and all its pieces fell away. She appeared like the sun when it has been hidden for a while behind a cloud. Her blond hair hung loose over her shoulders and fell in great curls all the way to her feet. Her head was crowned with flowers, and her gown was of light white gauze lined with rose-pink taffeta.

She rose and made a deep curtsy to the king, who, overcome with admiration, could not help crying out, “Here is the one beyond compare, the one who deserves my crown!”

“Sire,” she said to him, “I have not come to take from you a throne you fill so worthily. I was born with six kingdoms. Allow me to offer one of them to you, and to give one to each of your elder sons. All I ask of you in return is your friendship, and this young prince for my husband. Three kingdoms will still be enough for us.”

The king and the whole court sent up long cries of joy and amazement. The wedding was held at once, and so were the weddings of the two elder princes, and the whole court spent several months in feasts and merrymaking. Then each couple went away to rule their own lands. And the beautiful White Cat was remembered forever after, as much for her kindness and her generosity as for her rare worth and her beauty.

The young prince had good luck, for he  
found in his Cat a royal bride,  
as worthy of his love as she  
was ready to reign at his side.

When two enchanting eyes would win  
a heart, it puts up little fight,  
and all the less when gratitude  
is there to make the flame burn bright.

And should I leave the mother out,  
whose craving brought the White Cat woe?  
To taste the fairies’ fatal fruit  
she let her little daughter go.

Mothers, whose little ones are fair,  
hate what she did, and so beware.

---

- Read online: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-white-cat-original
- Version: longer, more faithful retelling; the gentler retelling: https://talerie.com/en/tales/the-white-cat.md
- Author's country: France (https://talerie.com/en/tales/country/france)
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15618848
- Tale type: ATU 402 (per Wikidata)
- Source: Contes des fées par Mme d'Aulnoy (Paris: Corbet aîné, 1825), «La Chatte blanche» (https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Contes_des_f%C3%A9es_(Aulnoy,_1825)/La_Chatte_blanche)
- Public-domain basis: Talerie contemporary retelling (CC0 2026), based on: Contes des fées par Mme d'Aulnoy (Paris: Corbet aîné, 1825), «La Chatte blanche» — original: author died 1705 (+70 passed)
- License: CC0-1.0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)