Abstract: Predominant in vocabulary and polysemantics, poverty inspires the style and structure of short stories where, generally following the same schema, a child hero passes from humility to glory in a devoted echo of the Christ Child so beloved of Perrault. However, Fénelon, who has the same sense of devotion linked to his mysticism, reverses this schema, for pedagogical purposes, in the stories he wrote for the Duke of Burgundy.
