PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 Lafayette’s Modernity A MY S. W YNGAARD S YRACUSE U NIVERSITY In the past decade the importance of Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves (1678) has been the subject of debate in both academic and public arenas. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy notoriously lambasted the novel more than once during his presidency, calling the person who decided to include the book on the public functionary exam “un sadique ou un imbécile” and (in)famously stating, “j’avais beaucoup souffert sur elle [La Princesse]” (Riché). The resultant outcry and demonstrations of support for the novel— public readings, calls for French citizens to send copies to Elysée palace, the production of two films and the publication of a postmodern remake— prompted New Yorker writer Elisabeth Zerofsky to assert that Sarkozy’s “impertinence toward much of what French culture and tradition hold dear played no small role in his defeat” in the May 2012 national election. 1 Concurrently, in his 2011 Before Fiction: The Ancien Régime of the Novel, Nicholas Paige argued against designating the work as the first modern novel in France, writing “this novel did not change the shape of the novel [. . .]. Lafayette [. . .] did not invent modern fiction because La Princesse de Clèves becomes ‘fiction’ only in the rearview mirror of literary history. Instead, the novel was an isolated manipulation of longstanding conventions and local practices that changed precisely nothing” (36; emphasis in original). For those familiar with the groundbreaking work of feminist scholars such as Joan DeJean that placed Lafayette squarely at the origins of 1 Christophe Honoré’s 2008 film, La Belle personne, is a modern adaptation of the novel. Régis Sauder’s 2011 documentary, Nous, Princesses de Clèves, follows students at the Lycée Diderot in Marseille as they read the novel in preparation for the baccalauréat exam. Marie Darrieussecq’s Clèves (2011) recounts an adolescent girl’s sexual awakening in a provincial town. See also Paula Cohen’s account of the controversy in The Yale Review; Lyons, “Madame de Lafayette,” 113, 128-29. Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 8 the modern novel, Paige’s assertions may have appeared iconoclastic indeed (DeJean 106). Certainly, Paige is correct when he states that Lafayette’s work didn’t immediately prompt dramatic or sweeping changes to literature. However, there is no question that the novel marked a number of innovations and firsts, which have been amply explored by critics: the novel (a nouvelle historique) was short and realistic, unlike contemporary romances and heroic novels; it focused on characters’ psychology and included passages of first-person narration of characters’ thoughts and emotions; it proposed a new vision of marriage in which husband and wife shared feelings of esteem and friendship—affective bonds that historians recognize as the basis of “modern” marriage; and it was the subject of a large-scale publicity campaign (orchestrated by Jean Donneau de Visé, editor of Le Mercure galant) that helped condition the public for the scène de l’aveu and invited readers to reflect on whether the princess should have confessed her love for another man to her husband. The novel, which boldly mixed history and fiction, also provoked debate among contemporary French critics as to its verisimilitude and plausibility—not surprisingly, especially given Lafayette’s repeated emphasis of her protagonist’s extraordinary and inimitable character. 2 The novel clearly had an impact: echoes of Lafayette’s remarkable heroine and her story can be found in later novels such as the abbé Prévost’s Histoire d’une Grecque moderne (1740), Françoise de Graffigny’s Lettres d’une Péruvienne (1747), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (1761), to cite just a few examples. My intention in this essay is not to rehearse the stances of previous critics or to refute arguments concerning La Princesse de Clèves’s literary status. Instead, I would like to redirect the discussion to the issue of narrative in Lafayette’s fiction and how it can inform our understanding of her work’s relation to the “modern”: more precisely, what Lafayette does with women’s stories that is foundational and how this influenced the novel’s development. This approach has garnered little critical attention, perhaps because it hinges on reading her fictional works together—not only La Princesse de Clèves and La Princesse de Montpensier (1662), but also 2 I am referring in particular to the debate between Jean-Baptiste Trousset de Valincour and the abbé de Charnes, documented at length in Laugaa 42-111; see also Genette. For discussions of the novel’s “modernity” and the context of its publication, see Beasley and Jensen 1-8; DeJean 94-126; Lyons, “Madame de Lafayette”; Paige, Before Fiction 35-61. John Campbell’s “La ‘modernité’ de La Princesse de Clèves” queries the novel’s “modernity” in several aspects, including issues of feminine voice and identity, concluding with the uncertainty of its status (72). Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 9 La Comtesse de Tende (first published in 1718), which appeared under Lafayette’s name in 1724 but whose attribution, for some, may appear uncertain. I am following scholars such as Roger Duchêne and Émile Magne in considering this work as Lafayette’s—a position supported by the thematic and stylistic consonances among the three works, which I will explore further below. 3 I am also following scholarly convention in assigning principal authorship of all three works—which were likely the product of a collaborative creative process that has been termed “salon writing”—to Lafayette (DeJean 95). 4 DeJean has asserted that, in placing Lafayette at the origins of the modern novel, “the modern novel is thereby defined as the novel of adultery” (106). While adultery is a central feature of all three works, it is not their primary focus; instead, I would argue, Lafayette is concerned more generally with the issue of woman’s choice. Each of her heroines (the Comtesse de Tende and the Princesse de Montpensier based on historical figures, the Princesse de Clèves a fictional character) is married to a man not of her choosing, according to the social and political conventions of the time. Each woman falls in love with a man who is not her husband and is confronted with the decision of whether to commit adultery, and each woman’s decision ultimately leads to a different outcome. In these three works Lafayette offers three possible plots and destinies for women; she proposes the novel as a vehicle to tell the stories of women’s lives from beginning (marriage) to end (death), the choices they make (or do not make) and the consequences for their personal histories. Lafayette’s explorations of feminine desire, agency, and self-determination within the strict confines of Ancien Régime mores pushed the limits of realism and propriety, proposing new avenues and frontiers for fiction. Importantly, it is only in considering La Comtesse de Tende—the most somber and least examined of Lafayette’s texts—that Lafayette’s fictional project can fully be understood within the context of contemporary literary production and society. According to Anne Green, the manuscript of La Comtesse de Tende was found in the papers of Lafayette’s son, Louis de Lafayette, after his death (31). It was first printed, without attribution and with the generic title “Histoire,” in the Nouveau Mercure in September 1718; it then appeared, with some changes and variations, as “La Comtesse de Tende, nouvelle 3 See Duchêne 481; Magne XXIX. 4 See Campbell, “Madame de Lafayette,” for a summary of the debates surrounding questions of collaboration and attribution, particularly pp. 225-26. See also Mouligneau, Madame de la Fayette, romancière? , which explores questions of authorship surrounding Lafayette’s fictional works. Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 10 historique. Par Madame de Lafayette” in the Mercure de France in June 1724 (Plazenet, “Note” 48-49). The text is short, comprising just 24 pages in the modern paperback edition, and has been described as “austere,” “harsh,” “brutal,” and “cruel” due to its spare style and pessimistic content (Green 31; Cuénin, “La Terreur” 499; Haig 312; Scott 18). The work tells the story of Mademoiselle de Strozzi, who marries the Comte de Tende and loves him passionately at the outset, feelings which the Comte does not immediately reciprocate. The Comtesse soon falls for the Chevalier de Navarre, who is pursuing and eventually marries her friend the Princesse de Neuchâtel for reasons of ambition rather than love. Remorseful for causing the jealousy of her friend, who suspects that Navarre has a mistress, and tormented by her husband’s newfound passion for her, she discovers she is pregnant by Navarre, whom she then learns has died in battle. After contemplating suicide, she admits her pregnancy to her husband and asks him to kill her instead. Her husband’s pride—his fear that the truth about his wife’s pregnancy would become known if he were to kill her—keeps him from pursuing vengeance. The Comtesse dies a few days after she gives birth to a premature infant who also perishes. The story concludes with the description of the Comte’s reaction to her death: “[Il] reçut cette nouvelle sans inhumanité et même avec quelques sentiments de pitié, mais néanmoins avec joie. Quoiqu’il fût fort jeune, il ne voulut jamais se remarier, les femmes lui faisant horreur, et il a vécu jusqu’à un âge très avancé” (141). The daring, even raw, aspects of Lafayette’s tale have led scholars to believe that she may have been influenced by Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron (1558)—a work known for its bawdy and scandalous depictions of marital infidelity (Cuénin “La Terreur” 489-92; Lyons, “La Présence” 726-32). While a variety of dates have been suggested for the composition of La Comtesse de Tende, it is tempting—as Laurence Plazenet suggests—to consider the story as the first of the three (Haig 311; Plazenet, Preface 11). In addition to the basic plot, the work has many narrative elements in common with La Princesse de Montpensier and La Princesse de Clèves in less complex form: the lover’s secretive visit to the protagonist’s cabinet (in this instance interrupted by the Comte, whom Navarre convinces that he was seeking the Comtesse’s help in covering up his infidelity with another woman from his own wife); the focus on characters’ emotions, described here using terms such as “amour,” “passion,” “jalousie,” “amour-propre,” and “remords” without much development; and the wife’s confession to the husband, undertaken in this version in a letter to which the Comte responds in three terse sentences. Indeed, as Green has stated, the work has been considered by critics as a “trial run” for La Princesse de Clèves and as “an Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 11 inferior and abbreviated attempt to explore the same questions of passion versus duty, marital infidelity, and the problem of confession” (31). In his overview of the criticism surrounding La Comtesse de Tende, J. W. Scott points out that the text was “summarily dismissed” as “moral” and as “a thesis” from the eighteenth century on—seen as a “didactic” tale that was “the more emphatic confirmation of the ‘moral’ of La Princesse de Clèves” (15). Importantly, this lack of critical interest responds to Lafayette’s own apparent neglect of the text—a sparse and concise tale that she ostensibly chose neither to expand nor to publish. La Comtesse de Tende delivers harsh lessons about women and adultery. To this effect, Lafayette pushes seventeenth-century notions of bienséance, or propriety, in her narrative. The author not only portrays the varying emotions (passion, jealousy) of the lovers, but she goes so far as to stage their conversation prior to Navarre’s marriage in which the Comtesse exhorts him to go through with the union while declaring outright her love for him—a gesture surely surprising to contemporary (noble) readers versed in the social importance of keeping up appearances (le paraître) and hiding truths: “Allez à la grandeur qui vous est destinée: vous aurez mon cœur en même temps” (123). The tale also confronts readers with its straightforward depiction of the consequences of the protagonist’s affair. It provides a blunt description of her pregnancy—“elle s’aperçut qu’elle était grosse” (133)— and confession to her husband: “Je suis grosse” (137). It details the protagonist’s despair at discovering her state—“accablement,” “douleur” (133)—that turns extreme when she learns of Navarre’s death—“cet excès de malheurs,” “ces violentes douleurs” (134, 135)—and is further exacerbated by her husband’s arrival: “Il la trouva comme une personne hors d’elle-même et comme une personne égarée et elle ne put retenir ses cris et ses larmes” (135). Perhaps most shockingly, it describes her repeated thoughts of suicide—“elle fut pressée plusieurs fois d’attenter à sa vie” (133)—that she ultimately abandons because of her instinct for selfpreservation and her Christian faith. Significantly, of the three works, Christianity comes into play only in La Comtesse de Tende, pointing to the particular weightiness of this tale. The moral of the story is clear. As the Comtesse predicts in a conversation with Navarre, “une passion aussi déraisonnable que celle que vous me témoignez [. . .] nous conduira peutêtre à d’horribles malheurs”: adultery leads to tragedy (124). La Comtesse de Tende offers one version of woman’s story with little equivocation or subtlety. Characters are more or less types, with their personalities clearly drawn in the first two pages of the tale: the young and jealous wife (“fort jeune,” “vive et d’une race italienne”); the wealthy and indifferent husband (“riche, bien fait,” “le seigneur de la Cour qui vivait Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 12 avec le plus d’éclat”); the beautiful, sought-after widow (“jeune, belle et veuve,” “le parti de la Cour le plus élevé et le plus brilliant”); the handsome and ambitious lover (“jeune, beau, plein d’esprit et d’élévation, mais la fortune ne lui avait donné d’autre bien que la naissance” [117-18]). The story’s trajectory and its outcome are predictable, unlike the more layered and evocative portrayals offered in La Princesse de Montpensier and La Princesse de Clèves, which feature more psychologically complex characters, various plot twists, and less evident conclusions. The notable differences between La Comtesse de Tende and the other works in terms of character development and storyline seem to point to Lafayette’s (evolving) vision of the novelistic form—one based in the salon culture in which she worked, where literature was viewed as a collective and participatory endeavor. For Lafayette and her collaborators—who included François, duc de la Rochefoucauld, author of the Maximes (1664) and Pierre-Daniel Huet, whose Traité de l’origine des romans appeared as a preface to Lafayette’s Zayde (1670)—literature was a means to explore human nature and matters of the heart in particular; above all, it was both born from conversation and conceived as a means to elicit it. 5 Indeed, in his treatise, Huet identifies conversation as the basis and the hallmark of the French novel—the verbal art of “politesse” that developed between men and women and infused literary style, rendering the reading of French novels “si délicieuse” (121, 124). 6 To be sure, the novel was not simply meant to amuse—it was also meant to instruct, and the developing seventeenth-century genre was seen as giving lessons primarily about love. In a form of apology that would later become a commonplace of authors’ prefaces, Huet defends the portrayal of “dissolute” and “dangerous” passion in the novel because of its moral value: “Il est même en quelque sorte nécessaire que les jeunes personnes du monde connaissent cette passion, pour fermer les oreilles à celle qui est criminelle, et pouvoir se démêler de ses artifices et pour savoir se conduire dans celle qui a une fin honnête et sainte”; “Ajoutez à cela que, rien ne dérouille tant l’esprit, ne sert tant à le façonner et à le rendre propre au monde, que la lecture des bons romans. Ce sont des précepteurs muets, qui succèdent à ceux du collège, et qui apprennent à parler et à vivre d'une méthode bien plus instructive et bien plus persuasive que la leur” (125-27). 7 In this, the novel was superior; if the fable and history were useful (“utiles”), the novel, 5 Other collaborators include Gilles Ménage and Jean Regnault de Segrais. Paige provides a synopsis of the working relationships between Lafayette and her various collaborators in the introduction to his translation of Zayde, pp. 9-10. 6 See also DeJean’s discussion of Huet’s treatise, p. 174. 7 I have modernized the French in all quotations. Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 13 a civilizing genre, “enseigne la morale plus fortement et mieux que les philosophes les plus habiles” (123, 127). Within this (idealized) literary economy, La Comtesse de Tende falls short: the storyline is linear and terse, and the end leaves little, if anything, to be said—simply put, it is more fable than novel. The text offers a fatalistic viewpoint whereby woman is punished by death for her transgressions—her sinfulness being underscored by her request to her confessor to announce her death to her husband, “de lui demander pardon de sa part et de le supplier d’oublier sa mémoire, qui ne lui pouvait être qu’odieuse”—whereas her husband is vindicated by living to a ripe old age freed from the shackles and disappointments of marriage (141). La Comtesse de Tende could be viewed as a failed literary experiment—a plot that demanded to be charted (an illegitimate pregnancy being the logical consequence of an adulterous affair), but whose necessarily strict moral framework limited opportunities for more imaginative explorations of female emotions and experiences in alignment with the expectations of salon culture. Indeed, Micheline Cuénin suggests that Lafayette was disappointed in the tale, which she ultimately judged as inferior and not worth revisiting. 8 In comparison, the storyline of La Princesse de Montpensier is more compelling—as demonstrated by its enduring success reflected in the 2010 film starring Mélanie Thierry. The work features a complex plot with a larger cast of characters set against the symbolic backdrop of the French Wars of Religion. The wealthy and beautiful Mlle de Mezières is destined to marry the Duc du Maine but is in love with his older brother, the Duc de Guise, who shares her feelings. Due to the machinations of the Bourbons, she is married instead to the Prince de Montpensier, who leaves her in the care of his friend, the Comte de Chabannes, in Champigny while he goes off to war. During a break in the fighting a travelling party including the Duc de Guise and the Duc d’Anjou happens upon the Princess—giving rise to Anjou’s amorous interest in the Princess and reawakening the Prince’s jealous hatred of Guise. The Prince then takes his wife to the court where she mistakes Anjou for Guise at a masked ball, prompting Anjou’s attempts to cause a rift between Guise and the Princess. The Montpensiers return to Champigny, where Chabannes agrees to facilitate a meeting between the Princess and Guise and offers himself as a scapegoat when the couple is 8 Cuénin cites André Beaunier in quoting Lafayette’s 1663 letter to Ménage which seemingly refers to La Contesse de Tende: “‘Je ne vous envoie point cette petite histoire qui ne vaut pas la peine que vous la récriviez.’” Cuénin adds: “Il est donc probable que Mme de Lafayette a condamné la Comtesse de Tende, finalement jugée inférieure [à La Princesse de Montpensier] et destinée à rester inédite” (Introduction 10). Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 14 almost caught by the Prince. Chabannes leaves in disgrace and is killed in the St. Barthélemy massacre; Guise falls for another woman, striking a mortal blow to the Princess. The story concludes with the Princess’s death: “Elle ne put résister à la douleur d’avoir perdu l’estime de son mari, le cœur de son amant et le plus parfait ami qui fut jamais. Elle mourut en peu de jours, dans la fleur de son âge, une des plus belles princesses du monde et qui aurait été la plus heureuse si la vertu et la prudence eussent conduit toutes ses actions” (113). Significantly, Lafayette uses the term “roman” twice in the short novel. The first usage occurs when the traveling party happens upon the Princess— “fort belle, habillée magnifiquement”—in a boat on a river (“Cette aventure donna une nouvelle joie à ces jeunes princes et à tous ceux de leur suite. Elle leur parut une chose de roman”) (69). A few pages later, the term appears again in referring to Chabannes’ feeling of foreboding in seeing the Princess and Guise together: “Ce que le hasard avait fait pour rassembler ces deux personnes lui semblait de si mauvais augure qu’il pronostiquait aisément que ce commencement de roman ne serait pas sans suite” (73). Lafayette’s employment of the word serves to highlight the differences between her work and earlier forms of the novel, such as the romances of authors like Honoré d’Urfé whose enormous, multi-volume Astrée (1607-27) was filled with implausible adventures and exaggerated passions; it also signals her consciousness of breaking new ground. 9 Indeed, La Princesse de Montpensier marks a deliberate step in the development of Lafayette’s œuvre. If the subject is still love—as announced in the first sentence, “Pendant que la guerre civile déchirait la France sous le règne de Charles IX, l’amour ne laissait pas de trouver sa place parmi tant de désordres et d’en causer beaucoup dans son empire”—the style is marked by acute observations about human emotions and behaviors that can resemble maxims (“l’on est bien faible quand on est amoureux”) (57, 98). In this text, Lafayette’s focus is less on writing a pointedly moral tale than a realistic story that explores various human relationships—friendship, marriage, adultery—with woman at the center. The concluding sentences reveal the balance struck by the author: while the story delivers lessons, notably about feminine “vertu” and “prudence,” the main emphasis is on the internal (female) landscape—the consequences the Princess brings upon herself by her affective choices and conduct (113). 9 The word also appears in the avertissement, “Le Libraire au lecteur,” to distinguish the text from other novelistic prose of the period: “L’auteur ayant voulu, pour son divertissement, écrire des aventures inventées à plaisir a jugé plus à propos de prendre des noms connus dans nos histoires que de se servir de ceux que l’on trouve dans les romans” (56). Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 15 While Lafayette offers canny portraits of the feelings and motivations of each of her main characters, her portrayal of the Princess is most compelling within the context of her corpus and contemporary literary production. The author offers moments that border on interiority in depicting the Princess’s emotions, allowing glimpses of her psychological processes when confronted with various dilemmas. For instance, Lafayette describes the Princess’s reflections after a conversation with Guise, ending with an emphatic punctuation mark that indicates the tenor of her thoughts: “Quand elle fut dans son cabinet, quelques réflexions ne fit-elle point sur la honte de s’être laissée fléchir si aisément aux excuses du Duc de Guise, sur l’embarras où elle s’allait plonger en s’engageant dans une chose qu’elle avait regardée avec tant d’horreur et sur les effroyables malheurs où la jalousie de son mari la pouvait jeter! ” (84) Later, when presented with the possibility of meeting with Guise, the Princess anguishes over her decision: “Quand elle pensa combien cette action était contraire à sa vertu et qu’elle ne pouvait voir son amant qu’en le faisant entrer la nuit chez elle, à l’insu de son mari, elle se trouva dans une extrémité épouvanable” (101). Lafayette’s depiction of the Princess’s adulterous passion is dictated by the rules of propriety: the author sidesteps the issue of the Princess’s consent to the meeting by having Chabannes make the decision for her; after the Princess instructs one of her ladies to do everything necessary to facilitate Guise’s entry into her room (“elle ne put résister à l’envie de voir un amant qu’elle croyait si digne d’elle”), she reverses course and feels shame (“quelque honte”) at meeting with him alone, pressing Chabannes repeatedly to enter and prompting his angry response that draws the Prince to the scene and sets in motion the events leading to the tragic conclusion (102, 104). The end offers a poignant twist on the theme of fidelity, with the Princess dying from the pain caused by being suspected of being unfaithful by her husband; by Guise being unfaithful to her; and by losing her faithful friend, Chabannes— this last loss perhaps felt most acutely of all: “L’ingratitude du Duc de Guise lui fit sentir plus vivement la perte d’un homme [Chabannes] dont elle connaissait si bien la fidélité” (112). At least one contemporary critic of La Princesse de Montpensier expressed appreciation for Lafayette’s focus on inner psychology. In his 1671 De la délicatesse, the abbé de Villars presents a dialogue between “Paschase” and “Aliton” where Paschase praises the book, which he calls “un petit chefd’œuvre,” after criticizing earlier novels for their failure to reflect reality in matters of love and marriage. According to Paschase, contemporary readers sought to relate to characters particularly in regard to matters of the heart: “Ce n’est pas la raison qui fait le succès des livres, mais c’est l’adresse avec laquelle nous savons mettre le cœur de notre côté” (qtd. in Laugaa 12). Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 16 Lafayette’s work excels by presenting readers with characters who reflect their own faults and weaknesses: “La pente à la galanterie en la Princesse de Montpensier, toutes les dames qui ont cette pente trouvent là leur conte”; “Le Duc de Guise autorise l’ingratitude de ceux qui quittent là leurs maîtresses après les avoir perdues de réputation et mises en danger de perdre la vie”; “La clémence du Prince de Montpensier pour Chabannes qu’il trouve avec sa femme, et la prudence avec laquelle il dissimule la disgrâce qui lui est arrivée, sont au gré des maris qui dissimulent la sottise de leurs femmes, et au goût de ceux qui ont intérêt que les maris en usent ainsi” (qtd. in Laugaa 11-12). Paschase predicts the continued success of Lafayette’s model on this basis: “On le lira toujours avec plaisir, parce qu’une grande partie des faiblesses du cœur y sont excellemment ménagées” (qtd. in Laugaa 11). What is most striking in this critique is the assertion that readers were more interested in expositions of emotional truths—even distasteful ones—than idealized portraits or moralistic lessons. This critical endorsement of Lafayette’s brand of fiction may well have served as encouragement: La Princesse de Clèves expands the focus on character psychology by exploring issues of love and friendship within marriage—and in so doing also probes the limits of realism through plot developments that tested notions of believability surrounding woman’s thoughts and conduct. In many ways La Princesse de Clèves represents the culmination of Lafayette’s literary experimentation. Here again we have a personal story— or what John Lyons has termed a “secret history”—set against an historical backdrop, in this text with more elaboration of the historical elements and with the addition of several intercalcated tales (Lyons, Afterword). The book again presents a protagonist who enters into a marriage influenced by court politics and who falls in love with another man—here, however, the situation is complicated further by a husband who is passionately in love with his wife. Again the protagonist struggles with her adulterous desire— here explicitly guided by her mother’s teachings on the importance of feminine virtue, duty, and reputation. Similarities aside, the differences between La Princesse de Clèves and the two other texts are important in serving to underscore its novelty, both its “newness” and its “novel-ness”: the introduction of the scène de l’aveu, in which the Princess avows her love for the Duc de Nemours to her husband in an attempt to get him to allow her to stay in the country and away from the court; and the conclusion in which the widowed Princess decides not to marry Nemours and instead privilege “son devoir et son repos,” choosing to live out her days between a convent and her home, “dans une retraite et dans des occupations plus saintes que celles des couvents les plus austères” (239). Significantly, both textual moments, which drew the attention of contemporary readers and Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 17 critics, revolve around the issue of woman’s choice and ultimately her control of her destiny. As I have suggested, these advances in the (female) storyline—which go hand in hand with Lafayette’s formal innovations regarding realism in the novel—merit further analysis as the most “modern” and enduring aspects of the author’s work. By all indications, Lafayette was aware that she was pushing the limits of verisimilitude and plausibility with her protagonist. In this text, the author’s focus on the Princess’s thoughts and feelings functions to explain the character’s unusual choices and conduct; the depictions regarding her inner state are striking in their detail as well as in their use of the firstperson pronoun, inviting greater understanding of the character. For example, just prior to the scène de l’aveu, Lafayette portrays at length the Princess’s inner turmoil—reflected in a series of opposing questions she poses to herself—that prompts her eventual confession to her husband: Elle fut étonnée de n’avoir point encore pensé combien il était peu vraisemblable qu’un homme comme Monsieur de Nemours, qui avait toujours fait paraître tant de légèreté parmi les femmes, fût capable d’un attachement sincère et durable. Elle trouva qu’il était presque impossible qu’elle pût être contente de sa passion. Mais quand je le pourrais être, disait-elle, qu’en veux-je faire? Veux-je la souffrir? Veux-je y répondre? Veux-je m’engager dans une galanterie? Veux-je manquer à Monsieur de Clèves? Veux-je me manquer à moi-même? Et veux-je enfin m’exposer aux cruels repentirs et aux mortelles douleurs que donne l’amour? Je suis vaincue et surmontée par une inclination qui m’entraîne malgré moi. Toutes mes résolutions sont inutiles; je pensais hier tout ce que je pense aujourd’hui et je fais aujourd’hui tout le contraire de ce que je résolus hier. Il faut m’arracher de la présence de Monsieur de Nemours; il faut m’en aller à la campagne, quelque bizarre que puisse paraître mon voyage; et si Monsieur de Clèves s’opiniâtre à l’empêcher ou à en vouloir savoir les raisons, peut-être lui ferai-je mal, et à moi-même aussi, de les lui apprendre. (167-68) In a similar fashion, near the end of the book, a page-length paragraph elaborates the Princess’s decision not to see Nemours, made after contemplating a multitude of painful and contradictory thoughts: “Il y avait des moments où elle avait de la peine à comprendre qu’elle pût être malheureuse en l’épousant. [. . .] La raison et son devoir lui montraient, dans d’autres moments, des choses toutes opposées [. . .]. Mais elle résolut de demeurer ferme à n’avoir aucun commerce avec Monsieur de Nemours” Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 18 (235). 10 This passage announces the conclusion when, after refusing to receive Nemours at the convent and resisting his attempts to change her mind, the Princess dies: “et sa vie, qui fut assez courte, laissa des exemples de vertu inimitables” (239). By ending with the word “inimitable,” Lafayette doubles down on the explanatory strategy seen throughout the novel in presenting her character as thinking and doing unlikely and extraordinary things—most notably her confession to her husband, which the Princess introduces as “un aveu que l’on n’a jamais fait à son mari” and dismisses as “[une] histoire [. . .] guère vraisemblable” when the story of her act circulates at court (171, 183). The Princess’s decision to take her husband as a confidant—and his subsequent death resulting from a broken heart—confronted contemporary readers with an unexpected scenario that raised questions about feelings within marriage. As critics such as Maurice Laugaa have documented, Lafayette ostensibly worked with Donneau de Visé to precondition the public for the scene by publishing in the January 1678 Mercure galant a story entitled “La Vertu malheureuse” that featured a similar avowal (Laugaa 25-26). This was followed by the “question galante” posed after the publication of La Princesse de Clèves in April, which evoked the differences in opinion caused by the scène de l’aveu (“les uns prétendent qu’elle ne devait point faire une confidence si dangereuse, et les autres admirent la vertu qui la fait aller jusque-là”) and asked readers to share their opinions on whether or not “une femme de vertu” “fait mieux de faire confidence de sa passion à ce mari, que de la taire au péril des combats qu’elle sera continuellement obligée de rendre par les indispensables occasions de voir cet amant, dont elle n’a aucun autre moyen de s’éloigner que celui de la confidence dont il s’agit” (qtd. in Laugaa 27). Significantly, the responses published in the Mercure accept the parameters of the Princess’s situation as valid—if unusual—and weigh the ramifications of her choice. Readers were divided: “Il valait mieux éternellement combattre, et mourir même dans les combats, que d’aller faire une confidence si dangereuse à une personne dont elle devait toujours dépendre”; “une femme [. . .] doit préférer la conservation de sa vertu et de la tranquilité de son cœur qui est son premier bien et son premier devoir aux égards qu’elle pourrait avoir pour la conservation du repos et de la confiance de son mari” (qtd. in Laugaa 33, 34). One respondent went so far as to provide a chart listing the pros and cons of either speaking or remaining silent while admitting that “peu de 10 Maria Mäkelä has termed such narrative moments “‘immature’ forms of free indirect discourse” which she sees as “emergent modern techniques of representing consciousness” in the novel (17). Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 19 femmes se rencontreront dans l’embarras où Madame de Clèves s’est trouvée” (qtd. in Laugaa 38). Indeed, Lafayette asked her readers to conceive of what may have seemed inconceivable: a woman so virtuous, and who holds her husband in such esteem, that she confesses her passion for another in order to get his help in resisting it. That most responses to the “question galante” remark on the inimitable and extraordinary nature of the Princess and her avowal demonstrate that the question effectively pushed readers to do what Lafayette, through her focus on the inner workings of her characters, had invited them to do all along: to consider for themselves the Princess’s situation, to bring their own lives and experiences to bear, in short, to (try to) identify with the scenario. The responses suggest that some readers did identify in part. Mme de Grammont, for example, admits that “il n’est pas toujours en notre pouvoir de vaincre” in matters of passion, while “L’Insensible de Beauvais” recounts the reaction of a group of women who sympathized with the Princess: “Elles plaignirent toutes le malheur de cette femme qui se voyait exposée à la vue d’un amant pour qui elle sentait en secret une passion violente qu’elle voulait étouffer” (qtd. in Laugaa 35, 32). 11 Readers appear to have had a harder time, however, relating to the Princess’s decision to reject Nemours, as Jean-Baptiste Trousset de Valincour’s critique of the novel indicates; his discussion explores other possibilities for the ending, including having the Princess go off with Nemours to her property near the Pyrenees, “pour y passer le reste de ses jours, et tirer auparavant parole qu’il ne la presserait point de l’épouser”—a suggestion that strikingly prefigures Zilia’s proposal to live in friendship with Déterville at the conclusion of Lettres d’une Péruvienne (qtd. in Laugaa 100). Like the avowal scene, this unconventional ending prompted groundbreaking imaginative work from readers: to envision an (aristocratic) woman choosing not marriage, but herself. 11 In his article challenging the critical consensus about the novel’s original reception, Geoffrey Turnovsky provides a more categorical interpretation of readers’ responses in the Mercure galant, emphasizing their lack of identification with the (Princess’s) avowal (as well as the likelihood that they had not read the book). While Turnovsky’s reassessment is important in nuancing overstatements about contemporary reactions to the novel, I believe that the invitation for readers to identify—through the book’s psychological realism and the Mercure galant forum— designates a significant step in the development of the novelistic form. Turnovsky suggests similarly, stating that “Mercure galant readers might have been at or near the beginnings of this longer tradition [of connecting with fictional characters]; they might indeed have been the agents of its coming triumph in the eighteenth century” (445). Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 20 Already in the early eighteenth century, literary critics recognized Lafayette’s work as revolutionary. La Princesse de Clèves, along with La Princesse de Montpensier and Zayde, was seen as inaugurating “le roman sérieux” and turning the public away from the exaggerated and frivolous imaginings of heroic and romance novels. 12 Eighteenth-century authors looked to La Princesse de Clèves in particular for inspiration—not only for its pared-down style, but most importantly for its detailed exploration of human emotions and behaviors. In his Essai sur les romans (1787), Jean- François Marmontel argued that the novel “a servi de modèle à tant d’autres” in its realistic depiction of the combats between love and virtue, passion and duty, and attributed to it the same danger—of potentially leading young women to the edge of the (moral) precipice—that was ascribed to novels countless times in eighteenth-century criticism (qtd. in Laugaa 143). Prévost similarly commented on the novel’s capacity to invite reader identification and sympathy, writing in his 1739 Mémoires du marquis de xxx: “On s’émeut, on se passionne, on éprouve tous les mouvements de haine et d’amour, de pitié et de vengeance, dont on voit qu’un feint personnage est animé, et l’on tomberait infailliblement dans les mêmes faiblesses, si l’on en trouvait les mêmes occasions” (qtd. in Laugaa 149). Significantly, the novel served as an intertext of Prévost’s Histoire d’une Grecque moderne, in which the protagonist considers presenting a copy of La Princesse de Clèves to Théophé who, much like the Princess, chooses not to marry at the end of the novel based on considerations of “vertu,” “devoir,” and “repos” (Prévost 234). 13 Rousseau also recognized the impact of Lafayette’s work on his own, writing in his Confessions (1782) that La Princesse de Clèves and Julie contained the same “finesses de cœur” and “traits vifs, mais voilés,” ostensibly referring to the portrayal of the battles between adulterous passion and domestic virtue experienced by both protagonists (qtd. in Laugaa 150). The ample praise of and references to La Princesse de Clèves throughout the eighteenth century indicate the extent to which Lafayette’s work shaped the development of the novel, particularly in 12 See, for example, the comments of the abbé de Bellegarde (1702) and the abbé Desfontaines (1737) in Laugaa, p. 137. The Marquis de Sade would fully develop these ideas in his Idée sur les romans (1799): “Après d’Urfé et ses imitateurs, après les Ariane, les Cléopâtre, les Pharamond, les Polixandre, tous ces ouvrages enfin où le héros, soupirant neuf volumes, était bien heureux de se marier au dixième; après, dis-je, tout ce fatras, inintelligible aujourd’hui, parut Mme de La Fayette, qui, quoique séduite par le langoureux ton qu’elle trouve établi dans ceux qui la précédaient, abrégea néanmoins beaucoup; et en devenant plus concise, elle se rendit plus intéressante” (qtd. in Laugaa 154). 13 See also Wyngaard 104-5. Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 21 regard to women’s stories. Lafayette’s Princess—her emotional states, circumstances, possibilities, constraints, and evolution as a character—unquestionably prefigures some of the best-known Enlightenment female protagonists and their stories: Prévost’s Théophé, Graffigny’s Zilia, Rousseau’s Julie. Lafayette’s work established the links between women and the novel—as authors, readers, and protagonists—that were concretized throughout the eighteenth century. During this time, the novel became a privileged vehicle of Enlightenment thought—and, as Lynn Hunt has argued, an effective generator of democratic and egalitarian sentiment, with its emphasis on cultivating readers’ feelings of identification and empathy toward characters across lines of gender, class, and nationality. According to Hunt, the portrayal of female characters was of key importance in elaborating ideas of individual autonomy and freedom, principal tenets of Enlightenment philosophy: Female heroines were so compelling because their quest for autonomy could never fully succeed. Women had few legal rights separate from their fathers or husbands. Readers found the heroine’s search for independence especially poignant because they immediately understood the constraints such a woman inevitably faced. [. . .] Male and female readers alike identified with these characters because the women displayed so much will, so much personality. [. . .] Almost all of the action [. . .] turns on expressions of female will, usually a will that has to chafe against parental or societal restrictions. [. . .] Readers empathizing with the heroines learned that all people—even women—aspired to greater autonomy, and they imaginatively experienced the psychological effort that struggle entailed. (59-60) Strikingly, Hunt’s description is equally evocative of the Princess’s struggle, with seventeenth-century readers’ resistance to the credibility of her choice to live life according to her principles, on her own terms, only underscoring the unsurmountable barriers to woman’s independence—legal, societal, conceptual—prevalent at the time. 14 That woman’s plight to assert her agency and determine her future became a central preoccupation of the novel is perhaps the most compelling demonstration of Lafayette’s foundational influence on the modern genre. 15 14 Along the same lines, Katharine Jensen argues that the princess’s final refusal “defies patriarchal norms according to which women act in men’s interest, not on behalf of their own desires” (74). Jensen’s reading of the ending similarly emphasizes the importance Lafayette places on her protagonist’s autonomy, subjectivity, and self-affirmation. 15 Thomas Pavel has also recently written about the impact of La Princesse de Clèves on the development of the novel, linking Lafayette’s book to later works such as Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 22 In the eighteenth century and beyond, the promise of Lafayette’s novel comes to fruition: her impossible heroine becomes possible and her heroine’s inimitableness becomes exemplary, a potential model—following Hunt—for the human rights of freedom and autonomy that are at the basis of modern Western democratic thought (Hunt 67-68). Similarly, La Princesse de Clèves can be conceived as a model for la littérature engagée, this hallmark of the modern French literary tradition extending from the Enlightenment through Existentialism to the present day, by engaging social and ethical issues surrounding women’s lives and inviting public debate. When interpreted in this light—as a work of originary importance for the novel in terms of its narrative and its cultural significance—Lafayette’s text begs a reconsideration of its ending as well. Whereas some critics have seen in the Princess’s death the confirmation of a pessimistic viewpoint concerning female destiny—“masochism or martyrdom”—it can also be viewed as a manifestation of Lafayette’s desire to portray woman’s life in its integrity, that is, in its wholeness and in its principles that guide to the end (Hunt 59). Works Cited Beasley, Faith E., and Katharine Ann Jensen. Introduction. Approaches to Teaching Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves, edited by Beasley and Jensen, MLA, 1998, pp. 1-8. La Belle Personne. Directed by Christophe Honoré, Arte, 2008. Campbell, John. “Madame de Lafayette,” French Studies, vol. 65, no. 2, April 2011, pp. 225-32. -----. “La ‘modernité’ de La Princesse de Clèves,” Seventeenth-Century French Studies, vol. 29, no .1, 2007, pp. 63-72. Cohen, Paula Marantz. “The Princess of Clèves and Nicolas Sarkozy,” The Yale Review, vol. 101, no. 4, Oct. 2013, pp. 67-76. Cuénin, Micheline. Introduction. Histoire de la Princess de Montpensier. Histoire de la Comtesse de Tende, by Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette, edited by Cuénin, Droz, 1979, pp. 7-30. -----. “La Terreur sans la pitié: “La Comtesse de Tende,” Revue d’histoire littéraire de la France, vol. 77, no. 3-4, May-August 1977, pp. 478-99. Darrieussecq, Marie. Clèves. POL, 2011. DeJean, Joan. Tender Geographies: Women and the Origins of the Novel in France. Columbia UP, 1991. Duchêne, Roger. Madame de La Fayette: La Romancière aux cent bras. Fayard, 1988. Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le noir (1830), Honoré de Balzac’s Le Lys dans la vallée (1835), and Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-27); his emphasis, however, is on stylistic traits (length, simplicity of action) and themes (virtue, loyalty, prudence, etc.). Lafayette’s Modernity PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 23 Genette, Gérard. “Vraisemblance et motivation.” Figures II, Seuil, 1969, pp. 71-99. Green, Anne. Privileged Anonymity: The Writings of Madame de Lafayette. Legenda, 1996. Haig, Stirling. “La Comtesse de Tende: A Singular Heroine,” Romance Notes, vol. 10, no. 2, Spring 1969, pp. 311-16. Huet, Pierre Daniel. Traité de l’origine des romans. 1798-99. Hunt, Lynn. Inventing Human Rights: A History. W. W. Norton, 2007. Jensen, Katharine Ann. “Making Sense of the Ending: Passion, Virtue, and Female Subjectivity.” Approaches to Teaching Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves, edited by Faith Beasley and Jensen, MLA, 1998, pp. 68-75. Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de. La Princesse de Clèves, edited by Jean Mesnard, Flammarion, 1996. -----. La Princesse de Montpensier suivi de La Comtesse de Tende, edited by Laurence Plazenet, LGF, 2017. Laugaa, Maurice. Lectures de Mme de Lafayette. Armand Colin, 1971. Lyons, John D. Afterword. The Princess of Clèves, by Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette, edited and translated by Lyons, Norton, 1994, pp. 109-17. -----. “Madame de Lafayette and La Princesse de Clèves as Landmark.” The Cambridge History of the Novel in French, edited by Adam Watt, Cambridge UP, 2021, pp. 113-30. -----. “La Présence d’esprit et l’histoire secrète: Une Lecture de La Comtesse de Tende,” Dix-Septième siècle, no. 181, Oct.-Dec. 1993, pp. 717-32. Magne, Emile. Introduction. Romans et nouvelles, by Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette, edited by Magne, Tardy, 1958, pp. I-XXXVI. Mäkelä, Maria. “Exceptionality or Exemplarity? : The Emergence of the Schematized Mind in the Seventeenthand Eighteenth-Century Novel,” Poetics Today, vol. 39, no. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 17-39. Mouligneau, Geneviève. Madame de la Fayette, romancière? Université de Bruxelles, 1980. Nous, Princesses de Clèves. Directed by Régis Sauder, Nord/ Ouest, 2011. Paige, Nicholas. Before Fiction: The Ancien Régime of the Novel. U of Pennsylvania P, 2011. -----. Introduction. Zayde, A Spanish Romance, by Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Comtesse de Lafayette, edited and translated by Paige, U of Chicago P, 2006, pp. 1-22. Pavel, Thomas. “La Princesse de Clèves: Histoire et singularité,” Romanic Review, vol. 108, nos.1-4, Jan.-Nov. 2017, pp. 181-93. Plazenet, Laurence. “Note sur le texte.” La Princesse de Montpensier suivi de La Comtesse de Tende, by Madame de Lafayette, LGF, 2017, pp. 45-51. -----. Preface. La Princesse de Montpensier suivi de La Comtesse de Tende, by Madame de Lafayette, LGF, 2017, pp. 7-43. Prévost, abbé. Histoire d’une Grecque moderne, edited by Alan J. Singerman, GF- Flammarion, 1990. La Princesse de Montpensier. Directed by Bertrand Tavernier, Studio Canal, 2010. Amy S. Wyngaard PFSCL L, 98 DOI 10. / PFSCL-2023-0001 24 Riché, Pascal. “Nicolas Sarkozy kärcherise encore La Princesse de Clèves.” Le Nouvel Observateur, 24 January 2017, nouvelobs.com/ rue89/ rue89-monoeil/ 20080725.RUE6464/ nicolas-sarkozy-karcherise-encore-la-princesse-decleves.html Scott, J. W. “Criticism and ‘La Comtesse de Tende,’” The Modern Language Review, vol. 50, no. 1, Jan. 1955, pp. 15-24. Turnovsky, Geoffrey. “Literary History Meets the History of Reading: The Case of La Princesse de Clèves and Its (Non)readers,” French Historical Studies, vol. 41, no. 3, Aug. 2018, pp. 427-47. Wyngaard, Amy S. “Reconsidering the French Enlightenment Heroine, Again: Prévost’s Histoire d’une Grecque moderne.” How to Do Things with Style: Essays in Honor of Joan DeJean, edited by Wyngaard and Roland Racevskis, American Association of Teachers of French, 2021, pp. 99-118. Zerofsky, Elisabeth. “Of Presidents and Princesses.” The New Yorker, 8 November 2012, newyorker.com/ books/ page-turner/ of-presidents-and-princesses