The Women of Bluebeard: Airheads, Survivors, or Murderers?

Charles Perrault's version of Bluebeard stresses that the heroine's rendezvous with disaster was a result of her impertinence and curiosity, not because Bluebeard was a monster. Anatole France's "The Seven Wives of Bluebeard" also tries to disenchant the monstrosity of Bluebeard by blaming the seven wives' disreputable natures for wrongly labeling Bluebeard, or rather Monsieur de Montragoux, as murderer. France insists that Bluebeard's newest wife, Jeanne de Lespoisse, was instead the murderer, and her greed and immorality was the cause of Monsieur de Montragoux's murder. There was no closet with the hanging dismembered bodies of the other six wives- only the "fairy key" was retained from the myth, but it was the fact that "the criminal wife mistook... the reflection of the sky still enpurpled by the roses of dawn...for a bloodstain on iron" that disclosed the seventh wife's true nature. (Zipes, 581) Mdme de Montragoux's crime was her affair with the Chevalier de la Merlus, which eventually led to her scheme to murder Monsieur de Montragoux for his estate. The effect of portraying the seven Madames de Montagoux as women with absolutely atrocious merits and virtues, in particular the seventh wife, strengthens Perrault's claim that women's troubles arise from their indiscretions. These women weren't struggling against a grotesque murderer. Instead many of the wives took advantage of Monsieur de Montagoux's "kindness and tenderness... [that] would have softned the most savage hearts," especially the "execrable brood of Lespoisse." (Zipes, 580) From the untameable Colette Passage to Jeanne de La Cloche, who "loved wine and drank it to excess" and the foolish Angele de La Garadine, Monsieur de Montagoux suffered the most unfortunate marriages, and all their vices drove Bluebeard to make the worst decision to marry Jeanne de Lespoisse.

Anatole France spares no expense on berating all the vices of women. In order to save the reputation of Bluebeard, France also tries to pass this story as a true story. (But the inclusion of the "fairy key" quickly blows his cover.) The end effect is that the seven wives of Bluebeard appear as complete wretches (or bitches, for that matter) and Bluebeard ends up as a martyr for men's virtus and virility.