To answer this, let's go back first to the original text(s) of Beauty and the Beast (much of what follows is borrowed from Miglia, 2019).

The Tale(s)

The version of the "Beauty and the Beast" folk tale (ATU 425C in the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index) that was used as a basis for the Cocteau and Disney film versions was originally written by Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740, who published it anonymously as a lengthy three-part novel. In 1756, the first part of the story was rewritten and condensed by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont. Villeneuve's created the characters and the general outline of the story, but it is Beaumont's shorter version which is the one most disseminated today.

Villeneuve was an aristocratic widow who had become the governess of the famous writer Crébillon (the elder) who was also in charge of Royal censorship. This "old muse", as she was called by Voltaire, was probably in charge of much of the censorship as the old poet spent his time with the stray cats and dogs he took in his home. This did not make Villeneuve exactly popular with fellow writers, but she was successful as an author though careful to remain anonymous. Her tale was not meant for children: it includes some sexual innuendo, notably when the Beast repeatedly asks Belle to "sleep with him" (it is revealed later that he actually meant "sleeping" and not "having sex", but still). Also, the Beast has a prehensile trunk, "like that of an elephant", that he puts on the neck of Belle's terrified father.

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont was born in a bourgeois family but had wed an aristocrat, from whom she was quickly separated though she kept his name. She worked as a private tutor for wealthy families both in France and England, where she started developing her own teaching methodology, and wrote successful books under her own name. Her shortened and kid-friendlier version of Beauty and the Beast was included in her compendium of fairy tales, Le Magasin des Enfants, which had a strong pedagogical bent: the purpose of her book, stated in its very title, was to educate children:

We will apply ourselves as much to forming their hearts as to enlightening their minds.

In both versions, Belle is described as an avid book reader (and TV watcher: in Villeneuve's version, the Beast provides her with a flat screen that allows her to watch live operas and news like "a celebrity wedding or interesting revolutions", including a revolt of Janissaries; in Beaumont's version, she can only do a Zoom session with her Dad, and it's one-way). In Villeneuve, Belle has "a great love for reading" that she can satiate thanks to the Beast's large library. In Beaumont, her love for reading is presented as part as her character: while her sisters are shown to be frivolous, Belle "spent most of her time reading good books."

The Disney versions include characters who criticize Belle for reading, like Gaston in the 1991 version:

Belle, it's about time you got your head out of those books, and paid attention to more important things like me. The whole town's talking about it. It's not right for a woman to read. Soon she starts getting ideas and thinking.

This is not the case in the version of the tale written by Villeneuve and Beaumont: Belle's sisters are jealous of her because she's pretty. In Beaumont's version, they even find her stupid!

Belle, a physically and morally perfect character, is described as loving books and the Beast gives her books to read (good for him!). For Villeneuve and Beaumont, it was normal, natural, and educational for young women to read books ("good books" of course, more on that later). Beaumont, an educator, thought that books could only be useful if they were both entertaining and adapted to the age of the public, and she encouraged her public to read.

In Belote et Laidronette, another of her tales, Laidronette is ugly but so well-read that her much older husband trusts her with his business (he treats her like a friend and does not love her because she's too ugly: it's not that a progressive story). Her sister Belote, kind and beautiful but uneducated, marries a young prince, but he abandons her because she's boring. Laidronette helps her sister to become smart by having her doing a lot of reading and thinking. Belote works hard and "makes suprising progress in all sciences" but fails to get her husband back. During a ball, the cunning Laideronette makes Belote talk to the prince under a mask: the husband falls again in love with Belote thanks to her wit.

Villeneuve and Beaumont were prolific women writers, who were both very active in the literary scene of 18th century France, and England in the case of Beaumont. They were successful, but this was not without struggle. Villeneuve preferred to be remain anonymous and her books were printed outside France. Beaumont was a public figure but her works were unappreciated by literary circles. Under the guise of fairy tales, their books pushed a number of ideas, including that of the benefit of a comprehensive education for women. Beaumont, in the foreword of the Magasin des Enfants, mocked those who were critical of women writers:

I would rather compose a book, including the preface and even, at a pinch, the dedication letter, than place a ribbon.

Reading is not for fun

Villeneuve and Beaumont, writers of the Enlightenment, worked in a society where two major debates had been taking place since the previous century: the value (and dangers) of reading and the education of women.

Since the invention of the printing press, book publishing and thus book reading had been thriving activities: in Ancien Régime France, there were books for all budgets, of all styles, and on all topics, unless it was a dangerous one that attacked religion or the King. However, when it came to education, the general rule, which lasted until the mid-19th century, was borrowed from Pliny the Younger: multum, non multa: read a lot, but always the same books. Whether instruction was provided in a religious institution (as was often the case) or by lay tutors, the choice of reading material for young people was extremely narrow and heavily constrained, at least in theory. In addition to their literary value (a notion that changed over the centuries), books had to be edifying and teach religious and moral virtues.

But there were so many dangerous books, including licentious books - the bad books - and so many frivolous ones! Beaumont herself says that Belle read not just books, but good books. Up to the late 19th century, many educators, notably religious ones, warned against reading out of curiosity, and claimed that big readers (like Belle) were "empty brains, light minds, complacent and ignorant" (Abbot Goudet, 1864, cited by Chervet). Reading was like food, some said: it was nourishing, but it could be poisonous. Reading could make you mentally weak and sick. The same belief was applied to the poor and to colonial subjects.

Novels were particularly targeted. This literary genre, not yet fully identified as such, was free of formal constraints and was accessible to a large public, even to those who had not been trained in Greek and Latin. It was increasingly popular, particularly with women. By the end of the 17th century, the reading public had a large choice of novels, including gigantic roman-fleuves spanning tens of volumes, such as Madeleine de Scudéry's 2-million words Artamène ou le Grand Cyrus (1649). But for many thinkers, novels were a minor genre, and the fact that they were popular with women may have been partly responsible for this perception. Novels were at least vaguely despicable, at worse dangerous. The first edition of Antoine Furetière's dictionary (1690) defined novels as "fabulous books containing stories of love and chivalry, invented to entertain and occupy the idle." People wrote entire books dedicated to prove that novels were not just useless, but detrimental to the heart and to the mind. Unlike religious books or historical books, who were bringing Truth, novels were fictional, false, and thus put "falsehoolds in the minds of their readers", as warned Abbot Jacquin in his *Entretiens sur les romans" (1755), where he pleads during 400 pages that people should avoid at all cost those "pernicious" works.

-> Women readers in danger