The Castle Maids were a group of characters in the 1991 Disney animated feature film Beauty and the Beast. As their group name implies, they act as the maids for Beast's Castle. Thanks to the curse by the Enchantress on their master, all of them were transformed into featherdusters. There were at least nine in total. Although most of them were just background characters with little role in the plot, there was one in particular that was a slightly more major character, acting as the sometimes-girlfriend of Lumiere.
Physical appearance[]
Due to the curse at the castle, the maids became feather dusters. Their appearance was that of a feather duster, including a wooden body alongside brown and white goosefeathers done in a manner similar to a dress. They also possessed a white cap-like device at the top right below a handheld cord. They also for some reason have a mole on their right cheeks.
With the exception of Lumiere's girlfriend, none of the feather dusters human forms are actually seen in the ending of the film.
Appearances[]
Beauty and the Beast[]
Not counting Fifi, their only appearance in the original film was during the musical number "Be Our Guest", where they proceeded to "dance" by dusting their feathers on the table top. Cogsworth, to no avail attempted to tell them to tone down their song (obviously out of fear of invoking the Beast's wrath due to their disobeying the stipulation of not feeding Belle after she refused to dine with him), with their dancing closer to him eventually forcing him to flee. They then proceeded to do the finale of the song. There were nine featherdusters sighted during this time, although ten were seen when Lumiere shoves Cogsworth out of the way.
In the DVD special edition, they make one more appearance during the song Human Again, where they were involved in cleaning up Belle's bedroom, including opening up the window shades. Six of them were seen during this time.
Marvel Comics serial[]
The featherduster maids briefly appeared in Issue 2 of the series, where they were proceeding to rehearse for a ballet as part of the Wardrobe's surprise party. There were six doing dance routines when Cogsworth was proceeding to check up on them, with two of them getting into a minor argument about who was the prima ballerina, while a third simply tells one of them that one of them was a "prima donna." In the ending of the issue, they also proceeded to do a dance number for the Wardrobe and everyone in the ballroom for the ballet, although while dancing two of them argued in hushed tones for one to stop upstaging the other, and the other claiming she's the better "feather." There were seven seen (one being obscured by the edge of the panel) in this portion.
In Issue 7, two featherdusters were seen with Lumiere as Chip tried to ask whether Lumiere would play in the snow with him, only to be told off by him.
In Issue 12, two of the featherdusters were dusting Belle's bed, and then decided to join the Wardrobe in partaking in an opera she wrote that was based on something Belle told her earlier, wanting to show off their singing voices. These two, in addition to two more featherdusters, were later seen participating in the actual opera in the Library, also inadvertently nearly ruining Beast's attempt to reveal he had rebound her favorite book after it got ruined in the storm.
Beauty and the Beast musical[]
Although none of the Featherdusters besides Babette were actually seen, they were indirectly alluded to during an argument between Lumiere and Babette, where she points out some women Lumiere romanced behind her back.
Trivia[]
- Although the maids (aside from Fifi) are never actually given names, various sources such as the musical imply their names, namely Veronique (who was implied to be a bad date as Lumiere literally lights up when Babette mentioned her).
- In addition, the number of of the featherdusters Lumiere was seen with in Issue 7 of the Marvel Comics serial may carry the implication that the names "Fifi", "Babette", and "Marie" were actually given to three different maids than to the same one.
