The real strength of his longer stories lies in their many phantasmagorical elements. His collection of tales set in a land where faerie has determined the people must change sex every year on their birthday also aspires to the status of a conte philosophique. His tales expand on the notion that the fays have a council which regulates their activity and Faerie comes to refer to the polity of the fays, a kind of parallel world in which fays and other supernatural beings live. He displayed a flair for the bizarre that continually edged into the surreal, and never entirely forsook the spirit of parody in which he had commenced. The Comte de Caylus was one of the major writers of the “second wave” of fairy tales produced in the 1730s and 1740s, when the publication of unlicensed works became far too abundant for effective suppression by the authorities.
But the fay Paisible took from her pocket an ardent mirror, which she always carried with her and placed it in such a manner that it heated up her enemies. The mermen had no doubt that with the stones and oysters they could soon shatter the glass chariot.
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