Although some speculation exists regarding their personal and professional relationships, these women maintained familiarity through their similar social statuses, frequent participation in French literary society, and interactions within their literature.
As Lewis C. Seifert put it, "Here was a (rare) literary movement dominated by women writers..."[1] In seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, salons were social centers for discussion and new ideas.
[5] Primarily created and led by women in the seventeenth century,[6] these hubs challenged social structures, especially courtly ideals and the concept of nobility.
[3] Although female authors benefitted from these social evolutions, Harries argues that their restriction to domestic settings such as the salon has had a strong impact on how les conteuses are remembered today.
Les conteuses portrayed love differently from the traditional techniques of other French fairy tales, depicting the emotion as complex, with multiple possible outcomes, not all of them happy.
For example, Marie-Jeanne L'hériter defines moral goals closely in "Les Enchantements de l'éloquence,", portraying characters with positive mentalities who prosper in life despite tragedy or financial fluctuations.
[9] For example, in Belle-Belle, ou le chevalier Fortuné by Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy, the main character, along with her sisters, cross-dress as men in order to join the royal army.