PFSCL XLI, 81 (2014) The Princess and the Death of Clèves J OHN P HILLIPS In the well-known plot of Mme de Lafayette’s Princesse de Clèves a beautiful young princess comes to the court, is married to a man, the Prince de Clèves, whom she does not love, but then falls passionately in love with the most attractive, seductive noble at court, M. de Nemours. She struggles mightily and dutifully against this overwhelming passion, but as the love becomes more and more powerful, she decides that her only protection against it is to confess this love to her husband, which she thinks is a reasonable course of action because she has never acted on these feelings, that is, has not had an affair with Nemours. Her confession has the opposite effect from that which she needed and expected, and her husband’s jealousy grows to the point where he soon despairs and dies, accusing her in their last talk of having caused his death because of the adultery he believes she committed with Nemours. After her shock and deep grief at his death, she ultimately decides, though she is now a widow, to reject Nemours’ love and to withdraw from the court. Much has been written about her rejection of Nemours but without any critical consensus having been reached. This paper focuses on two passages, immediately before and after Clèves’ death, in order to see if these passages provide some help in understanding her final decisions. 1 As one critic has noted: The heroine’s reasons for doing what she does at the end of the novel are another source of openness - that is, readers have come up with many different explanations of her action. In this way, Lafayette remains true to the idea that the “secret” side of history is more important; she gives us the public account of what becomes of the Princess and thus stimulates our analysis of the motives and our assessment of the justification of what she has done. 2 1 This paper would not have been possible without the help of Georgette S. Kagan. 2 Lyons, 115, “Editor’s Afterword”, The Princess of Clèves. John Phillips 344 The emphasis in this paper is not so much on why she rejects Nemours as it is on how she thinks about Clèves’ death as part of this rejection. The method followed recalls an observation made by Cuénin: “pour une approche objective, interrogeons attentivement le texte”, 3 though here there is no claim to any more or less “objectivity” than others have attained. When the Princess 4 finally realizes that Clèves, in their last talk (162- 163 5 ), just before he dies, is accusing her of being the cause (“cause") of his death because of crimes (“crimes”) (i.e. adultery) she committed, she, shocked and indignant, objects in the strongest possible way. Shortly thereafter (164 6 ) however, once he has died, she accepts that she did cause his death, though she knows full well (as do the reader and Nemours) that she did not commit adultery, the basis of his accusation. To attempt to understand this change, this paper will examine what one learns about her thinking right before and right after his death, as this is apparently when she changes her mind. It will consider (A 162-163) whether her indignant objection (“Moi, des crimes...”) is accurate, whether she is correct about the relationship between her conduct and la vertu la plus austère, and about whether she is likely to have wanted Clèves as a témoin (“witness") of her actions as a way to prove his accusation false. It will then consider (B 164) her attitude toward and evaluation of her mari (“spouse") Clèves, and how this may be related to her change of mind, for after his death this is the factor emphasized when one learns that she has accepted that she is the cause of his death. Her acceptance of being the cause is crucial for the remainder of the work as it will be a prime element in her rejection of Nemours. Not much 3 Campbell, 8, quoting M. Cuénin “La mort dans l’œuvre de Mme de Lafayette", PFSCL, 10 (1978-1979), 89-119 (p.107). 4 All references are to the text of Adam. 5 “Moi, des crimes! s’écria-t-elle; la pensée même m’en est inconnue. La vertu la plus austère ne peut inspirer d’autre conduite que celle que j’ai eue; et je n’ai jamais fait d’action dont je n’eusse souhaité que vous eussiez été témoin” (162-163). 6 “Il languit néanmoins encore quelques jours et mourut enfin avec une constance admirable. Mme de Clèves demeura dans une affliction si violente qu’elle perdit quasi l’usage de la raison. La reine la vint voir avec soin et la mena dans un couvent sans qu’elle sût où on la conduisait. Ses belles-sœurs la ramenèrent à Paris, qu’elle n’était pas encore en état de sentir distinctement sa douleur. Quand elle commença d’avoir la force de l’envisager et qu’elle vit quel mari elle avait perdu, qu’elle considéra qu’elle était la cause de sa mort et que c’était par la passion qu’elle avait eue pour un autre qu’elle en était cause, l’horreur qu’elle eut pour elle-même et pour M. de Nemours ne se peut représenter.” (164) The Princess and the Death of Clèves 345 critical attention 7 has been given to why she here agrees that she is the cause, nor does the narrator here clarify this. Before proceeding, certain objections as to whether this matter deserves attention perhaps should be anticipated. One might object that there is no contradiction between (a) the Princess first adamantly insisting to Clèves that she did not commit any crimes and (b) soon accepting that she has been the cause of his death. One then would need to explain why she takes his accusation so seriously, vehemently denies it in detail, yet shortly thereafter simply and fully accepts being the cause without explaining why she has changed her mind. One also might object that the inconsistencies in her defense are simply examples of her faiblesse (“weakness") and have no other importance. To support this, one would have to account for the significant fact that these many “mis-remembered” weaknesses are implicit in her self-justification to a dying husband who is accusing her of causing his death by her deception and adultery. It seems she is asking (if not insisting) that Clèves (and the reader) review her past actions because she is certain they prove her innocence and that they support the claims she makes about them to Clèves. When one does so (and if Clèves had done so) it seems that they do not support what she thinks they do. Elements in one common critical interpretation of her situation might at first seem to help explain her initial rejection of his accusation and how this rejection relates to her accepting being the cause of his death. In this interpretation she experiences alternating periods of lucidity and blindness, and at times is deluded by passion into thinking that what she is doing is morally correct, though subsequently she realizes this was not so. Because she has a false sense of her own virtuousness, she can become self-satisfied and aveuglée (Raitt 93) about her actions. She at times creates a brume 7 Rendall examines some of the same material covered in this paper but from a different perspective and with a different goal. He is concerned with how vraisemblance functions in romance and in the novel and how the fact that these overlap in this work leads to the probems the Princess and Clèves have. In effect they are trying to tell a story governed by vraisemblance but the material they have to work with belongs to the genre of the romance. This is all part of the difficulty which is encountered in trying to answer what, we are told, is the question posed by the novel, namely, whether we can be held morally responsible for the consequences of other people’s perception of our behavior. Thus the proximate cause of Clèves’s death is “his perception, based on a plausible but false extrapolation from the available evidence, that the Princesse betrayed him”, and so the “prince is the victim of an epistemological error”. Rendall then goes on to consider how the Princess can accuse Nemours of Clèves’ death and the justifications for this that she uses. John Phillips 346 mentale to hide her thoughts from herself (Doubrovsky 43) because her lucidity often s’ignore, and as a result she surrounds herself with mensonges honnêtes and with prétextes bienséants (Pingaud 95). She often surprises herself with all kinds of menues complaisances plus ou moins nettement consenties but when passion surges up, it causes a désordre which produces actions she later does not recognize as her own (Mesnard 48). When therefore she rejects Clèves’ accusation and alleges her past conduct as proof of her innocence, this interpretation might suggest that, since she is not transparent to herself, conceals things from herself, and so does not “know” things about herself, etc., she therefore can cite as proof of innocence these (incorrectly remembered) past actions. Even if, however, one agrees that the reason for her “mis-remembering” is the brume mentale which allows for the menues complaisances etc. and which might also allow for a tacit change of mind on her part, something is still missing. The fact that Clèves dies is one of the decisive events in the novel and so how she understands it is crucial for how we understand her and the novel. We do not learn, for example, that at some point during Clèves’ dying or after his death she somehow reached a greater self-awareness, or a different view of these past actions, or that she changed in some other way, and therefore has come to accept that she was the cause of his death, as he claims she is. Even though she did not commit adultery and even though her claims to Clèves concerning her innocence, her virtue, and her control over her emotions may be inaccurate, we still do not learn why, or how, or even if, this is what leads her to accept being the cause of Clèves’ death here. Some abbreviated comment at the end of this paper will be given to two things she seems to have added in regard to the cause of Clèves’s death and to his last words. She several times insists to Nemours that he too was the cause of Clèves death, equally as much as she was, and explicitly says Clèves accused him of this. She also claims several times that Clèves specifically asked her not to marry Nemours, but the reader has Clèves last words, and he did not make the statement she says he did. These two claims therefore appear to be things she added or inferred or imagined. In a preliminary look at the first (A 161-163) passage, it is not immediately evident why she accepts Clèves’s accusation. 8 He thinks that she has committed adultery with Nemours, falls sick as a result, and dies. But the reader knows he was mistaken; the gentleman spy was not certain what happened when Nemours entered the grounds and he made this clear. 8 Brady, 524-525, claims that her seeing herself as the cause fits into the original “no love script” of Transactional Analysis, which will soon be battling the “counterscript”. The Princess and the Death of Clèves 347 Clèves misinterpreted the spy’s countenance before the spy reported anything, and drew the wrong conclusion. Clèves accuses her in their last talk but she does not comprehend what he is saying until he utters the word crimes, which upsets her and compels her to try to explain and to justify herself. Before he dies he says he wants to believe her, but he dies believing she was the cause, since he never says that she convinced him (Haig 129, Judovitz 1049-1050, Shaw 227). She, of course, also knows that she did not commit adultery, which is one reason she does not react to what he is saying until she hears the word crimes. And yet she soon (164) accepts that she was the cause, and, significantly, decides that Nemours was the cause as well, though Clèves did not say this. To connect this denial to her acceptance of being the cause, the reader might suppose 9 that though she did not actually commit adultery, she somehow believed that she had done so in fantasy or in thought if not in reality, and so perhaps felt fear, guilt, shame, etc. As plausible as this may seem, nowhere here is it explicitly pointed to as a motive, either by the Princess or by the narrator. 10 She is passionate about Nemours and he about her, and many critics are persuaded that the scene with the canne (“cane") clearly showed the erotic character of her thoughts. 11 Nemours’ invisible presence 12 in that scene makes clear that the elements of that scene are highly erotic, that he and Clèves are, and have been, rivals. The artistic necessity for Nemours’ presence there is that it allows the reader to know that, just before their last talk, (160) Nemours experiences (157) transports as he anticipates the nouvelles expériences, the bonheur, the plaisirs he imagines he and she will share because of the liberté they will enjoy once 9 See the above-mentioned common interpretation. 10 Francillon, 176-177, thinks she is culpable morally for his death even though she always resisted the temptation to adultery, since from a Jansenist perspective you are responsible for all your acts, conscious or not, and he cites Pascal Provinciales IV. But he fails to show where in the text it is stated or implied that she thinks this way, and of course Lafayette never says this is a Jansenist work. 11 See for example Francillon 168, Malandin 93, Valincour 121, Mesnard 43-44, and Niderst 93. And contra see Kaps 51-52. 12 One could argue that one of the reasons (i.e., one of Lafayette’s literary purposes) Lafayette intentionally has Nemours secretly witness both this scene with his canne, his portrait, etc., as well as the scene of the confession, is precisely to impress upon the reader, to not let the reader forget, that these scenes are not innocent and empty of sexual content, which the reader might more easily be inclined to do if these scenes were only described by the “neutral” narrator. See Francillon 111, and Rousset 26-27. John Phillips 348 Clèves dies, all of which highlight the sexual character of their passion. 13 She cannot acknowledge clearly to herself, let alone publicly manifest, any such pleasures as Nemours shows, but she has shown plenty of wavering and clearly has passionate sexual feelings for him which terrify her and threaten her sense of self-control. Nemours’ “invisible" presence importantly allows Lafayette to keep prominent, right before the Clèves last conversation, what the Princess knows but has difficulty acknowledging, i.e., the sexual nature of the feelings she and Nemours have for one another. 14 This perhaps is meant to suggest the guilt etc. which might have been the basis for her accepting that she is the cause though this is not explicitly presented here in the text as the reason for her change of mind. In a preliminary look at the second (B 164) passage, where the reader first learns she accepts being the cause, the narrator does not reveal what the she was thinking in her affliction while at the convent. She must have come to the realization that she was the cause, otherwise she would not have accepted his claim, but the only change the reader is aware of is that Clèves is now dead. The explanation we are told she herself gives here of why she is the cause does not match Clèves’s understanding. Her train of thought was: what suffering she feels, what a spouse she has lost, she is the cause of his death, it was the passion she felt for another which made her the cause. Clèves’s train of thought however (161-162) was different: although he is her spouse, he loves her like a lover, he is heart-broken because she never loved him, and yet she does love another and has confessed it to him, but then she committed a crime, adultery, so she is the 13 Nemours’ anticipations here might be thought to contribute to a negative view of him, as he would be wishing for the death of his rival, her husband. So, too, earlier (134-135) Nemours had tried to harm Clèves by suggesting to the Princess that, contrary to her claim, a jealous husband would indeed have a reason to publicize an confession such as hers, though Nemours knew very well that Clèves, on that occasion, had done no such thing, and Nemours only suggested Clèves did so in order to strengthen his own position. 14 And the reader’s view of Nemours is perhaps not only negative. In general he is often seen by others (the mother, the Reine-Dauphine) as incapable of changing his attitudes and behavior as regards women, but at the very end, he ultimately is more faithful (at least comparatively speaking) than might have been expected and does not look for someone else to love, as happens for example at the end of the Princesse de Montpensier. And the final image the reader has of Nemours is quite ironic and perhaps touching: this marvelous and virtually irresistible lover man, whom even Queens (Elizabeth) can not help but love, sight unseen, is firmly rejected by an anonymous, undescribed female friend of the Princess in the maison religieuse as he begs desperately but to no avail to have his mere presence announced. The Princess and the Death of Clèves 349 cause of his death because he cannot go on living under these conditions. It is as if she were thinking that although she knows she did not, as he claims, commit adultery, her passion alone for Nemours killed Clèves. This however is not what so upset Clèves and not what he said was causing his dying. It is never clear that she realizes quel mari she had. She very often fails 15 to comprehend or even register the nature of his experiences, even after he makes quite clear several times how painful their situation is for him, and so it remains unclear how her evaluation of her spouse, as somehow special, factors into her accepting culpability. To attempt to understand why she changed, it is helpful to examine in detail her initial, spontaneous reaction to his accusation of crimes (A 162- 163). Here though she knows that she did not commit adultery she claims that, not only did she never have such thoughts, she actually had a conduct equal to that inspired by la vertu la plus austère, so that she never performed any action of which she would not wish Clèves to have been a witness. At the moment of his accusation 16 this is how she understands herself and her actions, or how she would like to understand them and to have Clèves understand them, perhaps in part because she thinks this will remove his doubts. Comparing in detail these claims to her previous claims, actions, thoughts, provides a useful background against which to explore the possible relation between her actions and claims and her acceptance of being the cause of his death. 17 Surprisingly Clèves goes on for forty-two lines (161-162) and makes harsh, critical judgments of her, yet she only responds when she hears the word crimes. At first he is not sure it is worthwhile to speak to her since he cannot tell whether her concern for him is genuine or the sign of (161) dissimulation and perfidie. She caused his death, he finally says, so she cannot be suffering as much as she seems to be 18 ; she caused the déplaisir from which he is dying; her vertu brought her only as far as her aveu (“confession") but was unable to allow her to resist her passion for 15 This begins as early as right after her mother’s death (69) when she decides to have Clèves défendrait her against Nemours. 16 Niderst, 106, points out that vertu for a married woman would be to live as if always under the eyes of her epoux. Sweetser, 220 thinks that she is able to convince Clèves of her innocence and fidelity. 17 Campbell, 48, agrees that she exaggerates when she speaks of the virtue which inspires her conduct. She only has some measure of control over her actions and only rarely does her behavior live up to her resolution to resist passion. The most obvious examples are not going to the ball when Nemours would not be there, letting him steal the portrait, and writing the letter with him 18 He is implying she is a liar or a hypocrite. John Phillips 350 Nemours 19 ; he, Clèves, was so in love, he would have preferred to have remained a cuckold and trompé though it is a source of honte to admit this; she makes dying agréable since she took away his estime and tendresse for her and he now has a horreur for his own life; he admits he actually hid from her the extent of his own love for fear of being punished by her 20 ; now he dies without regret as he can no longer desire her love though worthy of it; he thinks she will regretter his passion véritable and learn the différence between it and the passion that is a séduction undertaken for the honneur gained from public recognition of that séduction (i.e. Nemours’ love) when he, Clèves, is dead and she has the liberté 21 to make Nemours heureux without committing crimes. It seems clear here that he is not suggesting that he thinks she and Nemours are considering marriage. Clèves pointedly contrasts Nemours’ interest in seduction and the honor he will derive from this and his own true and legitimate love. He has just described the conventional understanding of the impossibility of one person being able to combine in marriage the roles of spouse and lover, and there has been no indication that he (or anyone else in the novel for that matter) sees Nemours in the role of spouse. The happiness he thinks she will grant Nemours once she will have the liberty they will enjoy after Clèves’ death is one that will not entail her having to commit any crimes, and a very plausible interpretation of this here is that once she will be a widow there will be no question of adultery. We are told she did not react because she did not understand what he was talking about 22 and thought he only meant her inclination for Nemours. Why she thinks he would say so many harsh things and say he would prefer to be dead, solely because of an inclination, is not commented on. She does not seem to register what he says about himself, no matter how painful his situation. It is possible that she is still preoccupied with her thoughts about Nemours and their recent encounter, but the result is that another explanation by Clèves of his situation, perhaps his most touching, certainly his last, seems to not really be “heard” by her. Almost immediately parts of her indignant rejection of his claims seem inaccurate. Keeping in mind the difference between actions and thoughts, and that she never committed adultery, could she mean, for example, she would have wished Clèves to be a witness to the scene with the cane? No 19 And he mentions Nemours three times, by name. 20 This because he realised he was loving her in a way unsuitable for a spouse. 21 This is also Nemours’ word (161). 22 And she of course has no idea he suspected her of adultery. The Princess and the Death of Clèves 351 adulterous activity took place, but Nemours 23 seemed to be in little doubt as to what she expressed by her actions with the cane, the portrait, etc. It takes several lines (163) of their final conversation before she realizes Clèves is speaking of adultery. Even if she had not realized this, she now understands (“Si c’est là mon crime…”) and tells him, in direct speech, that she can justifier herself in regard to that night. He can confirm with her women that she had not gone into the garden the second night and that she had left from it early the first night. She thinks it is imperative that she respond to his accusation, but significantly, the rest of her explanation for her activity that night is not given to him in direct speech by her but is given in five lines reported by the narrator. 24 Here it is admitted that she thought someone was in the garden, that she thought it was Nemours, but, as the narrator says, she was very persuasive and “elle lui parla avec tant d’assurance, et la vérité se persuade si aisément lors même qu’elle n’est pas vraisemblable” that Clèves was “presque convaincu de son innocence”. If however one goes back to the original scene (156) one sees, in the material Lafayette omitted from the narrator’s five-line report, that the Princess turned at the noise Nemours made, thought she might have seen him and immediately left to join her women. She had shown “tant de trouble” that to hide this from them she lied and said she felt ill, but “elle le dit aussi pour occuper tous ces gens et pour donner le temps à M. de Nemours de se retirer”. If this is meant to be understood as a conscious thought of hers at that time, she could not have reported to Clèves that she delayed her women to give time to Nemours to withdraw. The narrator says (156) that after some réflexion, the Princess thought she might be wrong, that it was her imagination which made her think she had seen Nemours. 25 She wishes several times to return to the cabinet to look into the garden to see if “anyone” was there, and the narrator adds “peut-être souhaitait-elle, autant qu’elle le craignait, d’y trouver M. de Nemours”, but she decides not to return because “il valait mieux demeurer dans le doute”. 26 The Princess is often presented as not knowing or not being sure of her own motives or feelings, even when others think they are clear or when she 23 And this is true for the reader, precisely because of Nemours’ presence there. 24 See Phillips, 2003, where there is discussion of a significant change from direct to indirect speech. 25 But in the scene (158-159) the next day, when Nemours shows up at her house with Mme de Mercœur, the conversation between her and Nemours and her blushing prove that she knew for certain that it was Nemours. 26 Campbell, 51, may be correct that here, her uncertainty as to what to do is an example of her having a divided self, but because she omits part of this in her report to Clèves, she in effect makes the self she is showing Nemours undivided. John Phillips 352 on subsequent reflection recognizes them. Here she keeps her domestiques busy to give Nemours time to withdraw. The narrator says enough to create sufficient ambiguity to allow for this to not be seen as the Princess’ conscious thought. Whatever uncertainly however there may have been at that time, she took no chances that Nemours might be observed, and so aided his withdrawal. That Lafayette does not have her relate this part of that night to the dying Clèves prevents the Princess from committing an outright deception, but it is not clear that her thoughts and actions in the cane scene could fit her statement (“Moi, des crimes…”) and have it remain true. There are other occasions which do not fit her description (162-163) of her past behavior, for example in the scene of the confession (122-125). 27 As Clèves becomes more frightened about what he is soon to hear from her, she tells him that to make her unprecedented confession, she gets the necessary (122) force from “l’innocence de ma conduite et de mes intentions”, and further assures him that “je n’ai jamais donné nulle marque de faiblesse”. 28 Her claim about nulle marque de faiblesse can only be true if the expression excludes the marques that show that she loves Nemours, for there have been a number of instances of this. Much earlier Guise (61) had seen enough to realize she loved Nemours, as had her mother, who even talked to her about this. Nemours (84-85) is able to speak to her about his love in part because, as she admits, she had no longer been maîtresse (85) of her emotions because of her inclination for him and so had given him that opportunity. Though it might seem understandable if she lies to, or considers lying to, Clèves to protect herself (86-87), it is perhaps quite another thing when she is unwilling to stop Nemours from stealing her portrait (92). She does not then speak to Nemours because she cannot decide whether speaking or silence is more dangerous for her. One is told that “elle fut bien aise de lui accorder une faveur qu’elle lui pouvait faire sans qu’il sût même qu’elle lui faisait”. But when he immediately lets her know he saw her watch him steal it, he makes clear that he knows she has done him a faveur (92). His words 27 Campbell, 148, points out that as soon as she is away from Clèves she describes her confession not as the courageous act she portrayed to him but as something not done intentionally: “...Elle ...engagée sans en avoir...dessein” (124). 28 At this point the idea of adultery has not occurred to Clèves at all, and has had nothing to do with her conduite or intentions. But her use of the word innocence, viewed retrospectively from her exclamation (“Moi, des crimes…”) catches one’s attention. Campbell, 146, thinks that the reader would be skeptical of this claim since the confession is so far from being a full confession (i.e. a willed desire to speak the truth) that it is hardly a confession at all and is just another example of her weakness. The Princess and the Death of Clèves 353 should prevent her “forgetting” what she has done, or imagining that she has done him this faveur but not, as she thought, “sans qu’il sût même qu’elle lui faisait”. Clèves himself unwittingly keeps the matter before her attention when, having searched for his portrait of her without success, he says to her (93), though not seriously 29 that “elle avait sans doute quelque amant caché à qui elle avait donné ce portrait”. When Nemours (95-96) is knocked off his horse, she is very worried lest her face show her feelings for him; he and Guise do clearly see what she is feeling, and Guise, who still loves her, says he will seek to die because, after what he has just seen, he has been deprived of his only consolation, namely, the thought that though she did not love him, at least she could not and did not love any other. She knows exactly what he meant because at any other time she would have been offensée that he spoke to her of his sentiments. When soon after (97) Nemours says that he too has seen the marques of her feelings, she is very upset 30 and feels douleur. She has given marques de faiblesse, has clearly shown how she feels about Nemours to Nemours, to Guise and to others, she acknowledges this herself, and is encouraged if not forced by others to acknowledge it (Dedeyan 224). After her shock at the letter alleged to concern Nemours (99), she again acknowledges she allowed him to see marques of her feelings “…qu’elle l’aimait”. She realizes how terrible her situation is and resolves to regain control. But once Nemours explains himself, she forgives him and they recreate the letter, during which time she experiences a “joie pure et sans mélange” (117). Once he leaves she is shocked at her feelings and behavior, and the reader is told she had reproached herself just the day before for having shown him marques de sensibilité, because had seemed to her like a crime, 31 especially as it had all happened “en présence même de son mari”. 32 29 We are told he does so “en riant.” 30 We are told that she “n’était plus maîtresse de cacher ses sentiments et de les avoir laissés paraître au chevalier de Guise. Elle en avait aussi beaucoup que M. de Nemours les connût”. 31 Again her use of the word crime in this context, viewed retrospectively, suggests that Clèves’ later use of it might have served as something of a reminder to her of the fact that she herself had had a similar thought and used the same word about her own (of course non-adulterous) behavior. 32 Yet another instance where she has shown her feelings occurs when (139) Nemours reflects on what he had said to her in front of the Reine-Dauphine in the scene where she learns her confession has become known (135). Nemours (139) fears he has made a considerable imprudence confiding in the Vidame, because of the difficulties it caused the Princess. He is inconsolable to have spoken to her John Phillips 354 A further instance of the discrepancy between her claims about her behavior and what it actually was, appears near the end of the confession scene (124). 33 As Clèves tries to have her reveal the name, she, exasperated, attempts to stop him by saying he should be satisfied with her sincérité and accept “l’assurance que je vous donne encore, qu’aucune de mes actions n’a fait paraître mes sentiments et que l’on ne m’a jamais rien dit dont j’aie pu m’offenser”. At one of his most despairing moments, she insists on her sincérité, but her claim to have concealed her feelings is just as inaccurate as her earlier claim at the beginning of the scene to have concealed any marques de faiblesse. 34 His response not only shows his anguish (“Vous avez donné, madame, vous avez donné…”) but further demonstrates the inaccuracy of her claim, as he cites the embarras he himself witnessed in her on the day her portrait 35 was not lost as she claims but given away by her. He even says (124) “vous n’avez pu cacher vos sentiments”, and he has not seen all the reader has seen. He has no way of knowing that he is correct about the theft, but the reader knows (and the Princess “knows”). Her response is to further insist that he should trust her (“Fiez-vous à mes paroles…”) and when, as proof of her sincerity, she admits she saw it stolen, she tells the truth but again (see the similar incident mentioned above) Lafayette has her omit what is in the original description, namely, her willingness to allow Nemours to take it as a faveur to him. 36 about cette aventure because although the things he said were galantes, they might seem to her to be grossières et peu polies. His words made clear to her that “il n’ignorait pas qu’elle était cette femme qui avait une passion violente et qu’il était celui pour qui elle l’avait”. One of her greatest fears is to lose control, and here Nemours confirms that she has in fact done so. This is also Clèves’s worst nightmare. 33 Campbell, 128, disagrees with Garapon, La Pointe and others, that the Princess is an exemplar of transparency and sincerity, as he thinks that her claims made to Clèves here are “self-evidently false,” and that some of her attempts at concealment verge on the hypocritical. 34 And in a way, she actually partially resolves some of the doubts expressed by the concealed Nemours in the passage which is placed in the middle here, where Nemours wonders to himself about the effect he has had on her, and so this again suggests why it important for Nemours to be present unseen. 35 He tellingly and perhaps touchingly describes this as “qui m’appartenait légitimement”. 36 So too right after Clèves (129) surprises her with the lie that Nemours will be going on the embassy, she is so upset that when Nemours enters, he sees she is upset and asks what is wrong. She snaps at him and so gives him the chance to speak of his love to her, which she acknowledges she has allowed him to do (she was “…bien fachée d’avoir donné lieu à M. de Nemours….s’expliquer plus clairement qu’il n’ait fait en toute sa vie”) thus immediately doing what she has The Princess and the Death of Clèves 355 In examining her statements in this first passage ( her response to his accusation before he dies), one sees that her claims about her innocence, the virtue of her conduct and her control of her emotions are not at all what she said or thought they were, nor do they constitute the assurance to Clèves she claims they provide just before he dies. 37 The question arises as to whether the reader is meant to infer that some reflection by her on Clèves’ death leads her to a new understanding of the significance of these discrepancies and as a result to an acceptance of responsibility for his death. Plausible as this question may be we are not given any indication that she has made such a reflection. The common critical interpretation referred to above might support this idea of a new understanding by suggesting that her passion and its désordre created in her fear, guilt, remorse, etc., such that, although complete knowledge of her feelings and behavior were kept out of her consciousness, nevertheless the shocking event of his death led her to a new understanding of her actions and to a recognition that she was the cause of his death, but we learn of no such change here. These repeated weaknesses, when urged upon a dying husband as proof of her innocence etc., seem to take on a new importance, to no longer simply be isolated examples of weakness such as they might have seemed to be prior to his death. Clèves’ death, which is due in part to these weaknesses, underlines this new importance, as does perhaps her accepting being the cause of his death, yet we are not told how these things are related to her change of mind. The second passage (B 164) which one might examine to understand her change of mind is where one learns of the significance she assigns to her relationship to her spouse. The first thing mentioned about her douleur once she can “l’envisager”, is “quel mari elle avait perdu.” This seems somewhat unexpected, as despite how often Clèves has directly in detail spoken to her just promised to Clèves she never does or did (124) and which he was to take as a proof of her trustworthiness. And when she shows her emotion after Clèves’s lie about Nemours, the trouble she experiences which she can not hide is twice described by Clèves as chagrin, the same word used of her appearance by Nemours after she scolds him; that both Clèves and Nemours use the same word chagrin to describe what they see in her suggests they see the same thing. Then when she leaves him and arrives home, Clèves recognizes this increase in her embarras, but thinking it is due to his having surprised her with the name of Nemours, he asks her forgiveness for having troubled her, says he will say nothing which might déplaire her and that he recognizes the péril she is in; that is, he tries as usual to be the “good” spouse. 37 Campbell, 147, thinks that the Princess’ “most subtle disguise is her rewriting of history.” John Phillips 356 about his sufferings (Haig 119, Malandin 96), she never understands what he says such that she modifies her attitude and actions toward him because of what she learns from him. Whatever her reasons for emphasizing “quel mari elle avait perdu”, they do not seems to be the reasons the reader develops from witnessing Clèves’ suffering, as it is not clear she “sees” that person. In fact she never specifies what she means by quel mari. Part of the difficulty may be that Clèves, as he himself points out several times, is caught in the mari-amant “trap”, the convention that one is either a spouse or a lover, only one or only the other, never both. 38 From the beginning Clèves, painfully aware of this, tells her that somehow he is both her spouse and her lover. He is often presented as facing the difficulties of having the feelings of both a lover and a spouse (52); he not infrequently explains his situation, beginning even before they were officially married (50-51). He tells her he had a passion for her as soon as he saw her but he knows he never produced amour for himself; when he sees that she is afraid she feels this love for another, he demands to know, what this other man did to make her love him, since he, Clèves, now (122) has the jalousie of both an lover and of a spouse. 39 He tells her later (127) that he is affligé because she has the sentiments for another he could not produce in her for himself. She understands him because she says it gives her honte to hear him speak of it, yet she asks him to control her behavior as if he were a neutral party in the matter, i.e., as if he were just a typical spouse. She tries to force him to be this kind of neutral helper and he even tries and in explaining why he will no longer ask her about it, says (129) “j’en suis assez puni par ce que j’ai appris. M. de Nemours était de tous les hommes celui que je craignais le plus”. He tells her he asks not as a spouse but as an homme whose bonheur depends on her and who has a better passion than the person her cœur prefers (i.e. he is a lover). When she accused him of having revealed the confession his disbelief was such he asked whether she thought it possible to have a friend he would trust enough to share what he would hide from himself. She later (138-141) spends much time, even after learning how upset Clèves is, searching for a way to “justifier” Nemours. 40 38 See Phillips, 2008, and the references there, especially those to Biet. 39 Campbell, 80, is correct to point point out that Clèves’ “self-destructive” jealousy arises from his sense of the total opposition between the status of witness and that of lover, and his inability to accept this, but since jealousy is “self-destructive” for everyone and anyone in this work, these are just Clèves’ particular circumstances, and so he is no more "responsible" for this than she is for her faiblesses. 40 She states that the greatest of all the maux (138) she faced was that she found “aucun moyen de le justifier” after learning that he had told the story to the Vidame. The Princess and the Death of Clèves 357 She thinks she would be able to tolerate it all 41 if she could just be “satisfaite de Nemours” (139). The reader sees (149-150) “[que] la jalousie s’alluma” in Clèves when he learns from her returning visitors that Nemours was at the house. Arriving home and seeing no sign of Nemours, he even wonders whether it was Nemours of whom he was jealous (150). His later tirade (when she does not mention Nemours’ “visit” 42 ) and the entire emotional scene are clear signs of his intense jealousy. He again explains the problem to her (151): he is le plus malheureux of all men, she is his femme but he loves her like a maîtresse but, he touchingly tells her: “je vous en vois aimer un autre” ; he has lost his raison; he asks her if she has forgotten that he loves her éperdument even though he is married to her; he explains that being one of these (spouse or lover) would be hard enough but being both is impossible; he describes in detail his emotional state. This incompatibility of roles is an apparently insoluble problem, and he makes his situation especially dangerous after he relates to her his unexplained, inexplicable boast to Sancerre that he, Clèves, could if necessary (76) “[quitter] le personnage d’amant ou de mari pour la (his maîtresse or his femme) conseiller et pour la plaindre” (Phillips 2003). He will not be able to change in this way, and although she says nothing, she understands what he is offering because she blushes, and several times afterwards (93, 100, 119) wants to act on what he said and avouer all to him, though only doing so later (119-125). One sees that despite Clèves’ repeated attempts to explain his paradoxically complex situation, she can see him only as a conventional spouse. 43 One confirmation of this occurs when the Reine-Dauphine (131f.) tells her the story the Vidame had passed on about Nemours’ anonymous beloved (the Princess) confessing her love to her husband (Clèves) because she was unable to control her own emotions. This ambiguous conversation full of double references gives Nemours an opportunity to indirectly hurt his rival, Clèves 44 (134) and he takes it. When the Princess asserts that in such a hypothetical situation the spouse of a such a woman (herself), capable of such an action (her confession), would never make such a confession, Nemours remarks (135) that “la jalousie…et la curiosité d’en savoir peutêtre davantage…peuvent faire faire bien des imprudences à un mari”. She is 41 As it happens, she begins to find Nemours less coupable (141) even without his having done anything to justifier himself. 42 And he uses the word pourquoi six times in twelve lines. 43 In part perhaps because she has already has what could be described as a lover in Nemours. 44 This is the person whom Nemours refers to as “le plus redoubtable rival qu’il eût a detruire” (134). John Phillips 358 sufficiently struck by what he says about the possible motives for a spouse to reveal such things (“faire bien des imprudences”) that of the key words he uses together (jalousie, curiosité, and imprudences), she makes significant use of one, curiosité, but not the other, jalousie, to explain Clèves’ alleged imprudence. She does this first when she (135) reproaches Clèves, and then does so again when (137), alone, she reflects back on the argument they had. Despite the fact that Nemours’ statement connects the idea of a spouse’s imprudence with perfectly plausible motives (jalousie, curiosite), she chooses not to allow that jalousie could have caused the imprudence committed by her spouse, and is only willing to allow curiosité to be the motive for his divulging her aveu. 45 That she does not allow jalousie to be Clèves’s motive reinforces the idea that she has not understood the desperation, pain and suffering in Clèves’s situation despite both his attempts to explain and her own experiences of love and of jealousy. 46 She cannot see Clèves as anything other than a spouse; since a spouse by convention should not experience jalousie, which is reserved for a lover, he should not, and apparently therefore could not, have committed his imprudences for this reason, so he must have done so from curiosité. 47 This limitation perhaps makes it easier for her to see him less as a suffering person with intense needs (as she herself is) and more (in her most distressed moments) as something of an obstacle (119, 149). Another confirmation of her limited view of him is her use of the word intérêt (interest). Shocked by the letter alleged to be to Nemours, devastated by its implications for his love for her, and suffering from (99) “la jalousie avec toutes les horreurs dont elle peut être accompagnée”, she considers (100) that to protect herself she could “avouer l’inclination” to Clèves because he was a spouse “qui aurait eu intérêt à la cacher”. But Clèves is not a typical spouse with a typical interest regarding his wife’s love-life and her inclinations, as he has often tried to explain, and the reader at least has seen enough to understand this even if she does not. After their quarrel about who revealed her confession (135), she angrily asks Clèves whether or not his propre intérêt would not have made him conceal her confession. He is shocked and horrified that it is known, and even more so that she could accuse him of revealing it. His reaction fits the character of the Clèves 45 On page 137 we are told that she thinks that what Nemours said (that curiosité could make a witness commit imprudences) applies to Clèves, but she has even here misremembered that he also included jalousie. 46 She has already been jealous, of the Reine Daiuphine twice, and of Queen Elizabeth. 47 Compare the role of Chabanes in the Princesse de Montpensier. The Princess and the Death of Clèves 359 the reader has seen develop, not the character of the typical spouse whose interest insures the appropriate public behavior in such circumstances. So too during her confession (122 f.) she may be expecting Clèves as spouse to have a different reaction to her admission from the one he has, since she claims that “il faut avoir plus d’amitié et d’estime pour un mari que l’on a jamais eu” to do what she has done, which is to say, she thinks she has done as much as any spouse might expect, and so Clèves should be satisfied. The night after the confession, reflecting on what she did, she finally finds some calme (125) and “même de la douceur à avoir donné ce témoignage à un mari”, again perhaps anticipating that she has done what will be enough for him as a spouse. These considerations seem to indicate that, whatever she meant when she emphasized, in accepting that she caused his death, quel mari she had lost, she does not seem to have meant the Clèves whom Lafayette has shown the reader, and so it is not clear how this relates to her change of mind. In seeking to understand the Princess’ change of mind as she accepts being the cause of Clèves’s death, two passages that show her thinking at the point where the change takes place have been examined. The claims (A 162-163) she made just before Clèves’ death about the nature of her actions and the assurances she claims the dying Clèves can draw from them do not seem to be what she said they were. It is not clear that her acts can be understood to be what la plus austère vertu would have inspired, nor is it clear that, if Clèves had witnessed them, they would have had the effect she claims; but the reader also is not told that some re-evaluation of her claims led her to change her mind. After Clèves’ death (B 164), she emphasizes his exceptional nature (the characteristics of which she never clarifies) as a spouse, but looking back at the numerous occasions when she did not seem to have understood the difficulties of his situation (in particular the suffering caused by being trapped in the impossible mari-amant situation) it is not clear how this is related to her change of mind. Though it is true that she herself does not state that either of the two passages here examined were essential to her change of mind, it is also true that neither she nor the narrator “explains” why the change takes place here. And it is important to briefly note that, subsequent to this section of the text, the reader learns that she concluded two things from her experience of his death and its cause, though how she arrived at these is not directly stated in the text. At least nine times in the last fifteen pages 48 she asserts that she cannot marry Nemours because it would go against Clèves’ specific request not to marry him. She mentions the “crainte Clèves lui avait 48 See 165, 167, 174, 177 (four times), 178, and 179. John Phillips 360 témoignée en mourant qu’elle ne l’épousât”. Since the reader has Clèves’ last words and since he said no such thing (en mourant or otherwise) 49 this appears to be something she added or inferred or imagined. Even when she is not referring to this specific motive it can be easily understood as one of the implicit reasons she claims marriage is not possible in other situations. Twice (178, 179) she mentions the inhibiting effect of the mémoire of the dead Clèves, and once she mentions the imaginary return of a reproaching Clèves. But in his last discussion, Clèves actually said that his death would give her the liberté to make Nemours heureux without it involving her in crimes, and he even said “qu’importe... ce qui arrivera quand je ne serai plus”. Clevès’ last thoughts on this need not imply marriage; since he accused of her adultery he may not even be thinking of any possible future marriages. She also claims at least six times in the last fifteen pages 50 that Nemours was the cause of Clèves’ death (though Clèves made no mention of this) sometimes and sometimes not in connection with the idea of the dying Clèves having asked her not to marry him. Perhaps the most interesting instance of this occurs (171-172) when she tells Nemours that her confession to him will have no future because her devoir will prevent it for raisons inconnues to Nemours. He counters that these are not véritables raisons because Clèves thought that he, Nemours, was “plus heureux” than he was. She cuts him off (“ne parlons point de cette aventure”) and insists that Nemours was “cause de la mort de M. de Clèves”, since the soupçons which he caused Clèves were the same as if Nemours had taken Clèves life with his propres mains. 51 Presumably Nemours when interrupted was about 49 She does however twice correctly use this expression (80, 93) in recalling advice her dying mother gave her. 50 See 165, 167, 172, 174, 175, 177. 51 Kaps, 20-21, thinks that this passage explains, from the Princess’ perspective, how marrying him after Clèves’ death would be as contrary to her virtue as it would be marrying Clèves’ assassin. Marrying a husband's murderer, Kaps says, would be personally repugnant and also forbidden by Church law, which law would be “before the minds of the aristocracy of the seventeenth century" when duelling was so common, and she quotes John F. Donahue The Impediment of Crime (Washington, 1931) as well as Jean Gerbais Traite du pouvoir de l’Eglise sur les empeschemns du mariage... (Paris, 1698). But in fact Nemours is not Clèves’ assassin, he is only so in the Princess' mind, and Clèves never says he is the cause. She decides this herself and when Nemours tries to explain Clèves' misunderstanding she does not want to listen. In addition Kaps cites no authority from the seventeenth (or any other) century who says that this specific claim by the Princess that Nemours actually murdered her husband would be understood as Kaps understands it. As her quote from Gerbais shows (“Le premier est lorsqu’un The Princess and the Death of Clèves 361 to say that Clèves was wrong, that Nemours was in fact not heureux, because no adultery took place. This is a claim with which she would have had to agree, but since she has already apparently devised another interpretation of Clèves’ death and its cause, and how and why it occurred and her part in it, she must stop Nemours from continuing. 52 It is noteworthy that shortly after (174) she again insists that Nemours was a cause of Clèves’ death, claiming that she would “voi[r] toujours M. de Clèves vous accuser de sa mort and me reprocher de vous avoir épousé” and thereby Clèves would make her “sentir la différence de son attachment au vôtre”. Her use of the word différence suggests she may be recalling, admittedly unintentionally, Clèves last conversation, but if so she is doing so incorrectly. He had reproachfully said (162) she would learn “la différence d’être aimée comme je vous aimais” and the love of those like Nemours who only seek “l’honneur de vous séduire”. He makes no mention of her marrying Nemours and probably is not thinking of it at all, as he suspects adultery. In fact he is contrasting (to her detriment as well as to Nemours’) marriage (himself) and seduction (Nemours). And of course he never said that Nemours was the cause. She could never “see” Clèves returning to reproach her with the difference between his love and Nemours’ except by misunderstanding what Clèves said so that it suited her interpretation. One can see how these two claims introduced by the Princess are significant parts of her motivation for rejecting Nemours, and how they, along with her earlier acceptance of being the cause of Clèves’ death, contribute to the recognized ambiguities in understanding her actions between the time of Clèves’ death and the end of the novel. And in the hope of clarifying how her acceptance of being the cause of his death does so, an analysis has been undertaken of certain elements which heretofore seem not to have been discussed together, namely: the Princess’ words and thoughts right before and after Clèves’ death; the significance of Clèves’ emphasis on adultery; the important material the Princess omits in reporting to Clèves that she saw Nemours in the garden; her false claim that Clèves forbid epoux, par exemple, conspire la mort de son epouse, de concert avec une autre creature afin de pouvoir l’epouser; si cett epoux et cette creature executent leur pernicieux projet, ils ne peuvent plus des lors se marier ensemble; et si ils se marient leur mariage est nul...”) nothing like this has happened except in the Princess’ mind. 52 Her version of the death and its cause, even if not seen as being potentially undermined here, clearly omits much, since, for example, Clèves is explicit that the doubts she in part caused him played a large role in his death, and the reader knows that Clèves’ own predisposition to conclude adultery occured leads him to misinterpret the gentleman's report. 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