AULNOY (or AUNOY), MARIE CATHERINE LE JUMEL DE BARNEVILLE DE LA MOTTE, BARONNE D' (c. 1650-1705) , French author, was born at Barneville near Bourg-Achard (Eure). She married on March 8 1666, Francois de la Motte, a gentleman in the service of Cesar, duc de Ven dome, who became Baron d'Aulnoy in 1654. With her mother, who by a second marriage had become marquise de Gudaigne, she instigated a prosecution for high treason against her husband. The conspiracy was exposed, and the two women saved them selves by a hasty flight to England. Thence they went (Feb. 1679) to Spain, but were eventually allowed to return to France in reward for secret services rendered to the government.
Mme. d'Aulnoy wrote fairy tales, Contes nouvelles ou les Fees a la mode (1698), in the manner of Charles Perrault. This col lection (24 tales) included L'Oiseau Bleu, Finette Cendron, La Chatte Blanche and others. The originals of most of her admi rable tales are to be found in the Pentamerone (163 7) of Giovanni Battista Basile. Other works are : L'Histoire d'Hippolyte, Comte de Duglas (169o), a romance in the style of Mme. de la Fayette, though much inferior to its model; Memoires de la cour d'Espagne 0679-80; and a Relation du voyage d'Espagne (1690 or 1691) in the form of letters, edited in 1874-76 as La Cour et la vale de Madrid by Mme. B. Carey; Histoire de Jean de Bourbon (1692) ; Memoires sur- la cour de France (1692) ; Memoires de la cour d'Angleterre (1695). Her historical writings are partly borrowed from existing records, to which she adds much that must be regarded as fiction, and some vivid descriptions of contemporary manners.