A Winter's Tale

by Sir Thopas

The House of Bourbon has ruled France for two hundred years, yet there is a deadly curse that plagues its members. Disease and death follow them like old friends, black magic envelopes them like a burial shroud, and there are whispers, dark whispers, of princes and kings and dukes transforming into hideous beasts.

1. Preface

Preface

For those of you who enjoyed my "Letters to a Loved One" series, this story is a reworking of those earlier fanfics. When I started writing the first fanfic (also titled A Winter's Tale) I had decided that I wanted to write it as a collection of letters. I am an amateur historian myself, and much of my time is spent digging through old letters. I always enjoyed trying to recreate the whole story when I had only bits and pieces to work with. When dealing with letters, you often only have one half of the story. The replies that the other correspondent may have sent have long disappeared. Some of the letters may be missing, sometimes they refer only obliquely to events that were too horrible or painful to talk about openly. I wanted to recreate that ambiguity, but, unfortunately, I encountered many problems. I wanted this series to be as historically correct as possible, but the politics and culture of 18th century France is not well understood by the average lay reader. I found myself writing long-winded author's notes at the beginning of each chapter just so the story would make some kind of sense. Many times these notes were longer than the chapter itself. I decided the best way to tell this story would be through prose. This way I could introduce whatever details I needed the reader to know within the actual story, instead of having to rely on notes that were often quite dry and boring. All of the Beauty and the Beast stories that I have written - A Winter's Tale, Tender is the Night, The Art of Love, Air and Angels, and The Flesh and the Spirit - will be integrated into this new story. This story will also contain the plots from the three fanfics that I had intended to include in the "Letters to a Loved One" series but had not yet written: The Cure for Love (Babette), The Stolen Child (Chip), and Utopia (Maurice).

That being said, while I have tried to make this story historically accurate, I have only done so up to a certain point. This story takes place in an alternate universe filled with magic, legendary creatures, and, of course, the Disney characters themselves. For example, one change that I made to history was to give Charles, the Duke of Berry (1686-1714) a son. The real Duke of Berry died childless, but here he is the father of Beast. Other Disney princesses - Cinderella, Snow White, Jasmine, etc. - will also be a part of this universe.

Finally, the portrait used in the cover art is Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher.

I hope you enjoy the story.