In 1695, Charles Perrault dedicted his collection of fairy tales Tales of Mother Goose to nineteen-year-old Élisabeth-Charlotte d’Orléans, the niece of Louis XIV. In his dedication letter, Perrault crafted a distinctive emblematic portrait of the princess, employing a device—a symbolic image accompanied by a short poetic inscription. In late seventeenth-century France, symbolic portraiture played a crucial role in shaping the public image of royalty. This portrait, designed specifically for Élisabeth-Charlotte, reflects a broader visual and literary tradition in which noble character was conveyed across generations and between genders. The device Perrault created for her transformed a well-established royal symbol—the red rose—into a representation of the princess’s virtue, lineage, and sovereign potential.
Adapted from a previous device designed for Louis XIV, the red rose with thorns signified more than aesthetic grace. A classical symbol of Venus, the rose alluded to Élisabeth-Charlotte’s birthright: she was “born crowned” and “born to be beautiful,” a claim reinforced by the motto Je suis belle et suis née pour estre couronnée. However, beyond its connotations of beauty, the rose also carried military resonance. The Latin phrase Juncta Arma Decori, previously inscribed on Louis XIV’s emblem, suggested a duality of elegance and strength, paralleling the noble education that emphasized both charm and command. Just as the rose was both delicate and armed, so too was the princess’s character envisioned as enchanting yet formidable.
Perrault’s accompanying prose letter expanded on this theme, arguing that noble leadership transcended gender. He emphasized that a ruler must inspire both love and awe, balancing gentleness with authority. Addressing Élisabeth-Charlotte directly, he wrote:
Mademoiselle, there is some disproportion between the childish simplicity of these tales and the astonishing cluster of lights that nature and education have gathered in you… But who better to know how people live than the people that Heaven intends to lead them?
Through this dedication, Perrault reinforced the idea that a princess was not merely an ornament of the court but a future sovereign, shaped by education and duty. The red rose, transferred from king to princess, thus became more than a token of beauty—it symbolized Élisabeth-Charlotte’s place within the lineage of noble power and her destined role in the continuum of royal leadership.
Jennifer Davis Taylor (she/her) is a postdoctoral fellow with the Centre for Book Culture and Publishing at the University of Reading, UK, where she studies the impact of book construction and related artistic processes on images of women in Early Modern France. Her current book project explores the place of women in Perrault’s art theory and studio practice
