« Ma chère Julie n’a jamais lu de romans » Madame Leprince de Beaumont et la recherche d’un romanesque nouveau

For an author as concerned with education as Leprince de Beaumont, novels are a problem. As a source of moral corruption, they are to be condemned ; as a popular genre, they can be used for teaching. The authoress opted to use fiction in a moral and didactic perspective. Her novels propose Christian responses to their heroines’ moral and sentimental vagaries. Her original novelistic practise and production reconcile the force of imagination, sensitivity, moral value and Enlightenment knowledge.