PERRAULT, CHARLES, was born at Paris on the 12th of January 1628, and studied at the college of Beauvais, where he distinguished himself in scholastic disputation, and in making verses. Having completed his studies, he was admitted as advocate; but Colbert soon deprived the law of his services, and, in the year 1664, appointed him first commissary for the superintendence of royal buildings. The Academy of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, and that of Sciences, were founded on memoirs drawn up by Charles Perrault, who had now become comptroller-general of buildings; and he was admitted into the French Academy in 1671, in the room of the Bishop of Léon. But the impracticable character of Colbert having at length wearied out his patience, he retired from his public situation, and, devoting himself to literature, produced his poem entitled Siècle de Louis XIV., which appeared in 1687, and involved him in a war with the learned, by reason of his exalting the modern in comparison with the ancient authors. He defended himself, however, in the Parallèle des Anciens et Modernes, which appeared at Paris in 1688, and excited the antagonism of Boileau in his Reflexions sur Longin. In addition to the works just mentioned, Charles Perrault wrote a considerable number of poetical pieces now all but forgotten. Perrault died at Paris on the 16th of May 1703. His son PERRAULT D'ARMACOURT was the author of the well-known Contes de Fées, which contain the nursery classics of "Cinderella," &c.