Departing from the formulas established by Mme d'Aulnoy, he introduced magic and marvels in his fairy tales to entertain his readers and bring his gallant lovers together.
[5] The chevalier de Mailly contributed a poem to the Mercure Galant December 1700, on the occasion of the departure for Spain of the duc d'Anjou as Philippe V.[6] He declaimed his verses in the Café Procope, with the other wits of Paris.
The wife of a bookseller, Auroy, who had advanced him 50 écus testified against him in 1702; it appeared to her that the manuscript, La Fille capitaine,[8] instead of working up the personal memoirs of a well-known Parisian woman— recognizably the adventuress and singer Julie d'Aubigny—[9] which Mme Auroy had entrusted to him;, produced a result instead that proved to be too scandalous to publish: it featured bedroom scenes and an escaping nun setting a fire to her convent.
A follow-up report of 15 September 1711 noted that he had returned to Paris and, being apprehended, spent a month in the Châtelet, following which he retired quietly to Rouen,[10] where he seems to have remained, for his last work was printed there.
In the deductive reasoning shown by his princes of Serendip, taken up by Voltaire in Zadig, the chevalier de Mailly is sometimes credited as the originator of the clue-driven detective novel.