La Belle et la Bête

Beauty and the Beast

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A rich merchant has three sons and three daughters; the youngest, so lovely she is called la Belle, is kinder than her two proud elder sisters, who mock her for reading. The merchant loses everything but a little house in the country, where Belle works hard and the sisters idle. A year later a ship comes in; the sisters ask for dresses, Belle only for a rose. The merchant comes back as poor as before, gets lost in a snowy forest and finds an empty, lit palace that feeds and lodges him. Next morning he picks a branch of roses and a terrible Beast condemns him to death unless one of his daughters comes of her own will in his place; it sends him home with a chest of gold. Belle insists on going. The Beast welcomes her, the father leaves, and a lady in a dream promises her a reward. Belle finds her own rooms, a mirror that shows her home, and every evening the Beast comes to supper and asks her to be his wife; she says no but grows fond of him. She asks to visit her sick father for a week; a ring on the table will bring her back. Her unhappily married, jealous sisters keep her past the week, until she dreams the Beast is dying in the garden. She goes back, finds him dying by the canal, revives him and promises to marry him; the Beast becomes a handsome prince, freed from a wicked fairy's spell. The good fairy of her dream brings her family, turns the sisters into statues at the palace gate until they mend their hearts, and Belle and the prince marry and live long in a happiness founded on virtue.

Retold from Contes moraux pour l'instruction de la jeunesse (Barba, Paris 1806): La Belle et la Bête by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont (public domain).