Journal

[153]

Dreams, an aspect of human life, exist outside reality, but at the same time are part of it. This domain, to which Freud dedicated most of his life, still remains as problematic and polemical a topic as that of God's existence. As with interpretations of the dream world, the existence of God and his form are ontological questions to which philosophers have found many different responses. By linking these two subjects in a study about Pascal, the affective ambience which Pascal tried to create in order to convert the "libertin", becomes clear. In his fragment 'Contrariétés', he, himself, alludes to this mysterious domain:

Ne se peut-il faire que cette moitié de la vie n'est elle-même qu'un songe, sur lequel les autres sont entés, dont nous nous éveillons à la mort, pendant laquelle nous avons aussi peu les principes du vrai et du bien que pendant le sommeil naturel..... Qui sait si cette autre moitié de la vie ou nous pensons veiller n'est pas un autre sommeil un peu différent du premier (131).

Life perceived as a dream illusion is not unique to Pascal and can be traced throughout the works of his contemporary, Descartes. A quotation similar to Pascal's appears in Descartes' dialogue De la vérité when Eudoxe asks: "Comment pouvez-vous être certain que votre vie n'est pas un songe continuel, et que tout ce que vous pensez apprendre par vos sens n'est pas faux, aussi bien maintenant comme lorsque vous dormez? (511). Unlike Pascal, Descartes uses the deception of the dream illusion to appeal to man's reason. He opens his Méditations revealing that it is in the state of dreaming that our senses deceive us and are thus unreliable because we mistake oneiric illusions for realities. In the sixth and final meditation, Descartes concludes that the mind and memory do not function in this dubious state of dreaming because oneiric scenes remain fragmentary whereas in reality, events are sequentially connected to form a whole. Although Pascal may have borrowed from Descartes, a historical inspiration which probably influenced Pascal more comes from Saint Augustine's Confessions. Saint Augustine was also concerned with the deceptions of dreams: "And to such an extent prevails the illusion of the image, both in my soul and in my flesh, that the false persuade me, when sleeping, to that which the true are not able when awaking" (168). In a present-day study on the paradox of Pascal, McBride examines why man's faculties, especially the power of reason and of imagination, are faulty according to Pascal.² He concludes that: "Since the sources of all our judgments are influenced by factors which are constant only in their variability, all our reasoning about ourselves and the external world can have no necessary correspondance to reality. The result is that man is removed from any claim to establish truth and enclosed in a dream-like world of subjective circularity" (116). In this study, the oneiric world of Pascal's Pensées will be explored by underlining certain characteristics common to the Pensées and to the dream world: obscurity, time, and fragmentation.

In his "Divertissement," Pascal claims that "tout le malheur des hommes vient d'une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre" (136). Somewhat misrepresented in his prose poem 'La solitude,' Baudelaire remembers this same fragment and juxtaposes it to La Bruyere's statement: "Ce grand malheur de ne pouvoir être seul!" (314). The spatial dimension, indicated by Pascal, immediately leads us to a place where we spend nearly half of our lives—'la chambre' which according to Bachelard, "donne au reveur l'impression d'un 'chez soi'" (153). It is here that we often find ourselves plunged into obscurity inside a room associated entirely with the night. This obscurity resembles the 'gouffre infini' which Pascal describes in his famous passage concerning the two infinites. This 'gouffre infini', like the cave in Plato's Republic, does not allow much light to penetrate; thus, a contrast between 'clair/obscur' is foregrounded. Obscurity, often associated with 'ténèbre' or the 'cachot' in the Pensees, reveals the distance separating man from God. Darkness signifies man's state without God, whereas a luminous image represents the knowledge of God and of a true religion. Obscurity functions affectively by encouraging sleep, which in turn induces dreams to occur. An emotion associated with obscurity is that of fear, as Pascal himself acknowledges: "le silence éternel de ces espaces infinis m'effraie" (201). 'La chambre' represents an intermediary domain where one is neither awake nor asleep, living nor dead, but simply existing between the two, much like Pascal's description of man's life on earth which represents an intermediary moment of fluctuation between the 'néant' (the state of nothingness) and the 'tout' (the state of all knowing). He believes himself to be superior to animals and inanimate objects but at the same time inferior to the omniscient supreme being. Dreams and their significance are seemingly as incomprehensible for man as God's nature. Our inability to understand the meaning of the dream or to grasp the idea of the infinite is comparable to our incapability of understanding a supreme being who by definition is unknowable. Steinmann links these two ideas together in a clear manner by explaining that: "A look at the infinite is a look at the signature of God in the universe, a look at what with the exception of thought most closely resembles the divine greatness and the divine obscurity. It is the necessary prelude to the examination of faith" (257). Both the mysterious abyss of dreams and the infinity of reality trouble humanity, which still continues and insists on finding some sort of certitude in these domains.

Another oneiric characteristic present in the Pensées is that of time. Freud maintains that all dreams are caused by the residues of the preceding day. Upon analysis of his own dreams and those of his patients, he affirmed that the events "of the previous day provided its starting point" (140). According to Freud, the past is the main source of the dream which in return can evoke other past experiences or even future anticipations since the moment one dreams, an act of wish fulfillment by the dreamer is taking place, which reveals a projection into the future. Thus, the past, the present, and the future can become rather vague, intertwined, and confused in the drea world. Like the dreamer, the 'libertin' also remains unaware of his temporal environment. The Pascalian being is always preparing for the future, while looking back into his past. He avoids or rather forgets to live for the present moment while thinking and hoping for a better life in the future. He runs blindly towards his death, refusing vainly to see it. "Le present n'est jamais notre fin" writes Pascal (47). In reality as in a dream, the 'libertin' fails to recognize temporal divisions and confuses past, present, and future. In reality man manipulates time, whereas in the dream state, time controls man; however, whether awake or asleep, man can not avoid being constantly subjected to a temporal framework.

The fragmentary structure of Pascal's Pensées appears to be intended to resemble the structure of the human condition. Pascal's ideas, as revealed in the Pensées, suggests that man is incomplete in order to make the 'mondain' aware of his intellectual incapacity and of the partial vision that he possesses of reality. Since man is capable of reasoning, he understands that he is different from nature; however, he knows that he is incapable of answering all the questions that he ponders. Since he understands neither his destiny nor his origin, he knows that he is intellectually limited. Here Pascal wants the 'mondain' to become intoxicated by the conflict between his greatness—due to his intelligence, inseparable with his inevitable misery—due to his preordained death. Thus, man's perception of himself is not in harmony with his expectations or goals. The human being becomes a displaced and/or distorted image, as those found in the dream world.

Man's fragmentation and distortion underline his fragile existence, also a characteristic of the dream world. A dream can be interrupted and even halted by another dream or by the act of waking; it is a non-sequential series of events which, as already seen, Descartes does not hesitate to differentiate from reality. Unlike Descartes, Bergson approaches more Pascal's mode of thinking by stating: "Elle [la vie] ne procède pas par association et addition d'élements mais par dissociation et dédoublement" (90). The dream state is easily and rapidly destroyed like man: "L'homme n'est qu'un roseau, le plus faible de la nature, mais c'est un roseau pensant" (200). Pulled in opposite directions, man is full of contradictions. His natural state does not permit him to live among the extremities of this world. Extremes of heat or cold are intolerable; his vision is limited if he is too far from or too near an object; he detests too much noise, while at the same time, he avoids absolute silence; and as already mentioned, he does not possess all knowledge of the universe, but refuses to be content with knowing nothing or only partial facts. The Pascalian being evolves in a "continual state of flux" (Steinmann 254); he lacks entire control over his destiny and remains "toujours incertain[s] et flottant, pousse d'un bout vers l'autre" (199). This aquatic metaphor not only reinforces the image of movement, but according to Le Guern, also suggests the importance of time.

The force or reason behind man's existence, as that of a dream, is not clear. The dreamer does not know what caused the dream, the libertin does not know what created the world. The dream, tied to other dreams becomes a confused entity.³ In Pascal's description of this confusion: "II me semble que je rêve; car la vie est un songe un peu moins inconstant" (803); reality, like the dream, exemplifies a state where man exercises no control; he is a slave to unforeseen actions. The following fragment describes man's situation on earth which can be transferred to the dream state or the moment of awakening; "je me trouve attache a un coin de cette vaste etendue, sans que je sache pourquoi je suis plutôt place en ce lieu qu'en un autre ..." (427). The reason for man's existence in this particular time period or in this particular world remains an enigma to him, as do the content and the precise meaning of his dreams.

By extracting oneiric aspects, common but yet unique elements of man's everyday life, the Pensées reveal that man's reason is not capable of understanding intellectually the idea of a Supreme Being, just as he is not capable of controlling or directing his dream. In Furetiere's dictionary the dream "signifie aussi quelquefois une vision céleste et surnaturelle" (np). Thus, in the 17th century, many believed in a mysterious link between God and dreams through which he sent messages. Pascal writes: "II en est de meme des proprieties, des miracles, des divinations par les songes ... (734). The dream world was treated as a mysterious, inexplicable, non-rational, and rurreal domain, very much like pascal's description of God's existence. As shown in this study, neither the dream world, nor man's origin, nor his destiny, nor even God can be understood or interpreted by the intellectual faculties of the human being. Freud claims that the best interpreter of a dream is not the psychoanalyst, but the dreamer who has had the unique experience. The union with God is also inexplicable and very personal for each individual and, according to Pascal, is felt only by the heart. For Pascal, it is God who is real and man who represents a phantom, as those found in dreams: "Quelle chimère est done l'homme?" (131). In Pascal's eyes, without God, man is only an oneiric chaos, but with faith, all the fragments, become a part of a true and divine whole. Like Saint Augustine, who stated "upon waking we return to peace of conscience", Pascal persuades the 'libertin' that in the pursuit of God or in belief in God, he not only finds happiness but his 'repos'.

Purdue University

¹

All quotations from Pascal's Pensées will be indicated according to Lafuma's numerical arrangement with the text. All other quotations will be indicated by page number within the text. ²With Pascal, McBride also includes Montaigne. ³In his dictionary, Furetiere defined the dream as: "Pensées confuses qui viennent en dormant par l'action et de l'imagination" (np).

Adam, Charles and Paul Tannery. OEuvres de Descartes. Vol. 10. (Paris: Librairie philosophique, 1908).

Bachelard, Gaston, la Poétique de la rêverie. (Paris: PUF, 1961).

Bergson, Henri. L'Evolution créatrice. (Paris: PUF, 1969).

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams.Translation by James Strachey. (New York: Avon Books, 1965).

Gouhier, Henri and Louis Lafuma, eds. Pascal: OEuvres complètes. (Paris: Gallimard, 1975).

Le Guern, Michel. L'image dans I'oeuvre de Pascal. (Paris: Colin, 1969).

McBride, Robert. Aspects of Seventeenth-Century French Drama and Thought. (London: Macmillan, 1979. 112-46).

Oates, Whitney J. Editor. Basic Writings of Saint Augustine. Vol. 1. (New York: Random House, 1948).

Pichois, Claude. Baudelaire: Oeuvres complètes. Vol. 1. (Paris: Gallimard, 1975).

Rey, Alain, Editor. Dictionnaire Universel d'Antoine Furetière. (Paris: Le Robert, 1978).

Steinmann, Jean. Pascal. (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1962).

[171]

However obscene and burlesque some early ballets de cour may have been, by the time Molière incorporated ballet into his comedies, that art, with the help of Beauchamps and his peers, had reached such a level of sophisticated metaphoric expression that it is easy to see in it the evolutionary pattern which was to lead to what we know as ballet today. In my brief monograph on the structure of Molière's comédies-ballets's structure I endeavored to show how the genre developed from a purely comedic entity to one integrating comedy, ballet and music into a coherent whole. I also tried to show how the carnaval into which the more successful of these plays dissolve is the result of that very fusion. In what might be considered a belated postscript, I would like to focus today on a very specifie aspect of that fusion, that of two seemingly opposite elements, dance and slapstick, and to facilitate this exposition, I would like to draw ail my examples from the best known of these plays, Le bourgeois gentilhomme.

Dance is one of the most elemental, if not the most elemental mode of expression, common in the animal world as such. It "takes on a new function with the ascent of human beings—that of expressing abstract ideas" (Lange 54). Dance thus takes on an additional function, that of implying more than what it mimes or mimics, becoming a vehicle for a metaphor without the clutter and artifice of words and their externalised codes. What man also adds to this primeval and biological ritual is flow, or at least the understanding of flow as a tool of representation in and of itself. As Roderyk Lange says, the phenomenon of dance is evoked by its continuity. "Without respecting the continuity, without stressing the element of 'flow' in movement, there is no dancing action; the flow of movement is the warp of dance. Therefore a dance only exists as long as the dancer is actually dancing. This does not mean that he has to travel constantly--even when holding a pose the dancer is able to maintain the attitude of continuity—but if this is dropped he will immediately be eliminated from the context of dance" (57). Dance, and specifically that most stylized of dances, ballet--the development of which was given special care by the King and his favorite choreographer, Beauchamps, in the Royal Academy of Music—thus becomes a fitting complement to ail the arts "useful" in the task of glorifying the State and its royal incarnation. Whatever allegorical tales and figures are evoked, they, like their counterparts in marble or on canvas, are representations of the elements of an entire social order, but here it is a flowing representation, one which uses time as well as space to better manifest the relationships governing that order. There is no doubt that Louis XIV loved ballet—indeed ail forms of dance--and that this love contributed to his including that art in those which were to be codified by and taught in the Royal Academy of Music, but I am convinced that the main reason for this inclusion—and for the very creation of this academy and its sisters—was the King's vision, and his understanding of the potential of these arts as representations and surrogations of the power and the glory of the State.

So defined in its conception and its role, ballet could easily be seen as the very antithesis of slapstick which, after ail, is violently boisterous horseplay detrimental to flow and to decorum. And yet, it is precisely these two elements, ballet and slapstick, which Mollière amalgamates so felicitously in his later comédies-ballets to produce a comic tension which gives us some of the funniest moments in thèse plays, and it is this amalgamation and the ensuing merriment which makes the balletic representation of the social question so effective. In Le bourgeois gentilhomme, for instance, there is no question that dances such as Jourdain's massacre of the minuet or the entire "turquerie" represent social functions or relationships. A far more important question, however, and one more akin to the action and plot of the play, deals with the divergence between the dancer or dancers and the world the dance purports to represent. Dance, as Lange says, provides not only aesthetic satisfaction, but satisfaction by binding people to life, the life represented in and by the dance (58). Why should this be funny? Why is Jourdain's dancing funny? Is it simply because he dances badly? This is certainly true in the early case, that of the minuet; but not in the later ones, which are nonetheless equally funny. The answer is more complex. Jourdain may prefer a non-aristocratic song to a courtly one, but he would not think of rejecting or tampering with a courtly dance or any aristocratic ceremony—and indeed, every dance, even one as simple as a bow, is a ceremony as awesome to the burger as the ethos it represents. Were Jourdain to sing an air de cour, he would be as funny as when he performs a courtly step, and the resulting hilarity would depend less on the quality of the performance than on its incongruity. These dances, like ail dances, are meant to tie the dancer to life, or to a life, and in this case, we immediately sense that the dancer and the life in question are not compatible.

But here again, it is dangerous to oversimplify: are there not fundamental though subtle differences between, for instance, the minuet of the beginning of the second act and the ballet which ends the fourth? Why, in the first, do we laugh at Jourdain while in the second one we laugh with him? The answer lies in two apparent but deceptive sets of contradictions. First, since the ballets of Le bourgeois gentilhomme represent social incongruities their very flow—or the nature of that flow—makes us aware of a static Weltansicht. Second, while it is the nature of comedy to be iconoclastic, to destroy, and while by definition a comic monomaniac is incapable of transcending the contingencies of his surroundings, this play deals with a transformation, a ludicrous transcendance of social order which, however perverse, is an affirmation. In my monograph on the comédies-ballets I endeavored to show that carnaval, fête, prédominâtes in Molière's last masterpieces. In Le bourgeois gentilhomme, we witness the creation of just such a new reality, one which Jourdain finds to his liking and in which he intends to live happily ever after, happiness to be shared by ail those who helped in the establishment of that carnavalesque world.

In comedy, an aspect or member of society is isolated in order to be destroyed through laughter. In carnaval, on the other hand, society offers itself as a spectacle to itself without isolating any of its members or elements to destroy them (Duvignaud 53-56). Rather than destruction we have a generation, or rather a regeneration: an old world is destroyed to give birth to a new one. "In this game, there is a protagonist and a laughing chorus. The protagonist is the representative of a world which is aging, yet pregnant and generating. He is beaten and mocked, but the blows are gay, melodious and festive" (Bakhtin, 207). It would be easy to see in this a theory drawn from the turquerie of Le bourgeois gentilhomme, but a word of caution is in order. If one compares L'amour médecin with Le bourgeois, the obvious difference insofar as carnaval is concerned is the ending, the people who participate in the final fête. In the first play, society is not altered, the world retains its old codes, and the monomaniac, the protagonist, is thus excluded in spite of the concerted efforts of Music, Ballet, and Comedy. The beating and mockery may be as gay, melodious and festive as Bakhtin says, but not for Sganarelle, who refuses to enter—who cannot enter—into the dance. In the second play, on the contrary, Jourdain can be said to be pregnant, to carry in him the embryonic Mamamouchi, and the laughing chorus of Bakhtin is of course the one led by Covielle and composed of everyone with the possible exception of Mme Jourdain. The new world is not the work of Covielle for Jourdain, but a collaborative endeavor for universal merriment and happiness. It could even be said that in this new world, it will be Mme Jourdain who is the protagonist, and her senseless intransigeance indeed makes her the target of laughter ... until her reluctant capitulation which allows a truly general fête.

This collective participation is of paramount importance, for it generates the "collective responsibility" (Lange 83) so essential to the stabilisation of society. Note that when Jourdain dances alone, society (those around him, as well as the audience) can mock him; he will not dance again until drawn into a dance by a socially recognizable group, and that dance will then be a rite of entry rather than an exclusionary ordeal. Thus, Jourdain is "dissolved into the whole group's doings. This allows an intensity of action to build up to a far greater height than could ever be attained by one individual alone (Lange 83).

As Jourdain/mamamouchi and his court enter into this new world of their creation, we become aware of another characteristic of carnaval which, in the words of Jean Duvignaud, "provoque un dynamisme interne et un mouvement d'innovation qui échappent l'un et l'autre au langage ou qui ne prennent qu'accidentellement le chemin ou le détour du langage" (56). What this means is that carnaval cannot be engendered by comedy, verbal or physical, without the help of dance. Molière worked very hard--and successfully—to amalgamate the balletic and comedie elements of his plays, but this does not mean that these elements lost their respective properties or functions. Blocking, however thoroughly it may be "choreographed," movement supporting speech. It is thus an accretion to what is already an external code. Ballet is, of course, not added to a text, but a more direct method of communication. The minuet with which Jourdain begins the second act is nothing more nor less than an metaphoric yet direct restatement of what had been—and will be again--expounded at great length in words and gestures. Blocking adjusts movement to the text, making for a better representation. But it cannot go beyond that. For the sort of creation required of carnaval, representation is not enough: we also need creation, and for that, the flow of dance is best.

Looking at the comédies-ballets chronologically, it is easy to see how Molière learned from his mistakes, how he improved on the joining of the arts involved in this new and short-lived genre, how, in short, he managed better and better to make us believe in the carnavalesque world created before our eyes, and how he centered the play around this creation to make it a coherent entity. What is less readily perceived, but no less important, is the contribution to the play's aura made by the interplay of the balletic and the comedie modes.

In the opening scene of the play, we learn much about the shorteomings of the master of the house. As he enters, he vindicates his distractors somewhat by his inability to cope with the vocabulary of the arts he is trying to master, arts and vocabulary necessary for his invasion of a society totally foreign to him. However, charity may allow us to entertain some doubt in his favor: his poor taste and limited vocabulary may not be entirely debilitating. It is not until he demonstrates his skills that such doubt is removed once and for ail. Though Jourdain readily admits his ignorance in most matters, he is genuinely and thoroughly convinced of his ability to learn quickly and competently—"les menuets sont ma danse"—an ability we doubt mainly because of the ineptitude of his demonstrations. In the first of these, the song he opposes to the pastoral air, he is mainly laughable because of the incongruity of his musical offering. Unable to grasp the essence of the aristocratie ethos, he of course cannot understand the raison d'être of a song which is a metaphorie statement of an aspect of that ethos. Though we will later learn that Jourdain is enamored of the ritual of the class he is trying to enter, at this point, we only see a rejection of a ritual because it has not been identified as such. In his second attempt to show off, the comic element is no longer the same, though it betrays the same ludicrous estrangement. At the very onset of the second act, Jourdain declares that he has mastered the minuet, and proceeds to demonstrate that mastery. What we see—and what a reader knows from the dancing master's corrections—is pure slapstick, funny in itself, but ail the funnier because it is grafted onto the earlier awareness of Jourdain's inadaptability to aristocratic mores. These two elements are eventually going to be combined in the famous "révérence pour saluer une marquise" which Jourdain asks about immediately after he has shown himself quite satisfied with his minuet. The révérence is, of course, an obvious metaphor for a most complex social relationship between two people of gentility, one courting the other with a mixture of daring and deference. It is a courting dance, as elemental as that of animals, yet highly sophisticated in that it betrays an awareness of concepts of relationship completely beyond the grasp of any animal— or of any Jourdain. This is why it has so many stages with subtle differences. And this is why Jourdain is so funny when he perverts that exact dance with giant steps. To be sure, we laugh at the clumsiness of the man, and even more at his embarrassment when, having taken two giant steps, he finds himself face to bosom with his marquise. But that is not ail: is not our merriment enhanced by the discovery that Jourdain has once more, while trying to demonstrate his gentility, massacred the very ritual which is so essential to that demonstration?

Jourdain's major participation in a dance is in the famous "turquerie," a preparation of sorts for the final ballet, without which it cannot be fully understood. Covielle, in his embassy which immediately precedes this ail-important fourth intermède, shows that he has understood not merely Jourdain's mania, but even more the hindrances to the fulfillment of that mania. He sees that Jourdain's concept of a given class is predicated not on a set of rites, but on the very notion of ritual. As I have said elsewhere, "for him, the ritual is the proof of the thing. That is what Covielle has understood from the outset. If his mission to Jourdain is to have any chance of success, it must be endowed with a ritual" (Structure, 67). What he makes us understand through the ritual, is that one of the major themes of the play—indeed, one underlying both plot and action—is that of incommunicability. Jourdain wishes to enter a world of which he neither speaks nor understands the language, verbal or other. In ail his attempts, so far, he has only been able to give a barely recognizable caricature of the modes of expression familiar to those he wishes to emulate and to join. Much of the laughter which Covielle now elicits is due to his use of analogous caricatures and of Jourdain's inability to see them as such. Covielle systematically warps ail norms of communication because he senses that this is the only way to communicate with such a maniac. "The extent of this demolition of communicative norms is made particularly obvious in Covielle's translations: a brief banality in French gives rise to a veritable torrent of senseless syllables," while "Bel-men" is rendered by a seemingly interminable French sentence. By using gobbledegook, Covielle manages to communicate with Jourdain and makes possible the creation of another reality, another world, that into which the naïve burgher wishes to be transported. In short, by destroying linguistic norms, Covielle has prepared the way for the realization--and the assimilation by Jourdain—of something which, by normal means, was completely beyond that man's conceptual capabilities.

But of course, that is just a preliminary. The transformation, indeed Jordain's social transcendance, occurs in the intermède itself, where that destruction of language is coupled with the demolition of every other norm. This is not an attack on aristocratic values; on the contrary: Jourdain can never become an aristocrat because he can never hope to live and act like one. For him to dance in a real ballet, the ultimate aristocratic dance, is therefore out of the question. The mountain and Mohammed: if Jourdain can not change to meet the requirements of ballet, then ballet will have to be brought to Jourdain's level. Ballet become farce begets laughter ail the more when it is perceived as another manifestation of social incongruity and jordanesque incommunicability. As I said earlier, the beatings in the "turquerie" are an intrinsic part of Jourdain's rebirth (at another level); so are ail the other aspects of this balleto-farcical ritual which, of course, cannot be described or explained to the uninitiated, since it is to them what ballet is to Jourdain. This is why he cannot explain it to his wife with mere words and must try to do so with songs and dances from the ceremony which, as can be expected, are totally beyond her comprehension.

Thanks to this intermède, and no less to Jourdain's efforts to perpetuate it, ballet (or its farcical travestissement) now invades the comedy, becomes an integral part of it. With ever escalating Aristophanesque buffoonery, this farcical play-within-a-play becomes the overruling reality which leads, in spite of Mme Jourdain's recalcitrance, to the euphorie conclusion which is its balletic recapitulation, the "Ballet des Nations." Now, everything that has been said about the warping of social values by people who do not understand them, about incommunicability between people who wish to consort with others without bothering to understand them, is restated in song, but even more directly, and with less ambiguity, in the dances of this farcical yet highly metaphoric ballet. If ballet is controlled movement, and farce dis-control, then the "Ballet des Nations" is the perfect amalgam, true quickening of fête in which a birth is celebrated, the birth of Jourd&m-mamamouchi and no less that of his disjointed yet euphorie world in which the only tension is a comic one. Jourdain's clumsy attempts to recreate a minuet or a simple reverence demonstrated his basic alienation from the ethos these rituals represent. If the final "ballet" is considered the logical culmination of Le bourgeois gentilhomme, it is less because of the plot of either the ballet or the comedy than because it is such a marvelous metaphoric recapitulation of the central themes of the comedy made apparent by the juxtaposition of farce and ballet.

University of California, Davis

Abraham, Claude. On the Structure of Molière's Comédies-ballets. (Paris/ Seattle/Tûbingen: Biblio-17, 1984).

Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Trans. Hélène Iswolsky. (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1968).

Duvignaud, Jean. Le théâtre et après. (Paris: Casterman, 1971).

Lange, Roderky. (The Nature of Dances. London: MacDonald & Evans, 1975).

[161]

Le Roman bourgeois is a text which focuses on the act of storytelling even as the narrator, who is the central organizing force of the narrative, claims to present the lives and loves of the novel's "bourgeois" characters. The central interest of the narrative is less on the characters themselves than on the narrative devices and strategies in the text, which are emphasized, exaggerated, and commented upon by the narrator. The focus on the fictional framework of the text, as well as on the fiction-making process itself, would link le Roman bourgeois with what has been referred to as the "reflexive novel" or "metafiction."¹

One of the strategies typical in le Roman bourgeois, as well as in the reflexive novel in general, is to question the representation of "reality" within the text. This is to say that the representation of physical "reality", literary codes, and even subjectivity are made problematic. The point of disruption is one way or another associated with the narrator, who systematically subverts accepted narrative strategies as he underscores the essential fictional nature of the work. The effect of this process is that the reader's willing suspension of disbelief can no longer be operative, since the focus of the narrative is not on the story told, but on the storytelling process itself (Boyd 7). The latter depends on the narrator who is both a fiction -maker and fictional construct, a force of cohesion and a voice of subversion.

As examples of the narrator's subversive strategy within Furetière's novel, we can examine the relationship between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, as well as the relationship between male and female characters within the bourgeoisie. From the very beginning of the work the qualifier "bourgeois" relegates a character to an inferior position, as he is seen to possess negative attributes; and thus he is distanced from the (implied) aristocratic model. This study, however, aims to demonstrate that the distinction between aristocracy and bourgeoisie is ultimately erased, as the subversive play of the narrator effectively collapses of the codes and signs which define the bourgeoisie. This same process of destabilization through subversion is mirrored in the relationship between male and female characters in the text. At the outset the bourgeois society appears to be strictly patriarchal. Yet as will be seen further on in this study, the principal female characters successfully manipulate and subvert the patriarchy and, in the end, essentially become the writers of their own story.

A study of the patriarchy of Book One of Le Roman bourgeois can begin with the narrator's description of the principal male characters. One salient feature is that virtually they ail are affiliated with the legal profession. Morally, they are disgraceful, presented by the narrator as deceitful, self-serving, avaricious sorts whose chief aim is to subvert the légal System, which they are supposed to uphold, for personal gain.² Vollichon, for instance, is presented as "un petit homme trapu, grisonnant, et qui était de même âge que sa calotte ... la chicane s'était emparée du corps de ce petit homme, de la manière que le démon se saisit du corps d'un possédé." His physical ugliness is mirrored by his moral standards: "Il avait une antipathie naturelle contre la vérité...." (Le roman bourgeois 41)

Another bourgeois is Bedout, suitor of Javotte and eventual husband of Lucrèce, who is totally devoid of personality and moral fiber: "Il était fils d'un marchand bonnetier qui était devenu fort riche à force d'épargner sa barbe." (85) "Il avait pourtant quelques bonnes qualités: car la chasteté et la sobriété étaient en lui en un souverain degré, et généralement toutes les vertus épargnantes." (86) This awkward character, educated in avarice, continues in the tradition of his father. Avarice with Bedout is just as important an attribute as it is with Vollichon, both being obsessed as they are with acquiring and holding on to wealth at whatever cost.

When a character is not obsessed with money in Le Roman bourgeois, he directs his efforts to transcending his social status through aping the aristocracy. Such a character is Nicodème, Javotte's first suitor: "C'était un de ces jeunes bourgeois qui, malgré leur naissance et leur éducation, veulent passer pour des gens du bel air, et qui croient, quand ils sont vêtus à la mode et qu'ils méprisent ou raillent leur parenté, qu'ils ont acquis un grand degré d'élévation au dessus de leurs semblables. . . ." (34-35)³

The bourgeois characters' desire to acquire always more social prominence and wealth serves to distance them from their past condition and experience. Thus being bourgeois often means striving to become an aristocrat. According to the narrator, to rise above their situation requires that they try to break with their past. Denying their origin or their social conditioning, they attempt to model their behavior after "des gens de bel air." They want to imitate aristocracy by appearing as aristocrats, thus as different as possible from the bourgeoisie. An ideal situation for the bourgeois would then be to imitate the aristocracy effectively by, among other things, dressing "à la mode", and scorning one's past, therby linking appearance and essence so closely that one could pass for noblemen.⁴ The signifier would be then the determinate of social standing.

Strangely, as the book unfolds, the distance separating the bourgeoisie from the aristocracy diminishes. When an aristocrat can be viewed as a model, he is presented as devoid of any trace of noble or positive traits. The Marquis is the only aristocrat in Book One who enjoys a primary role. He is considered ". . . un gentilhomme des mieux faits en France et un des plus spirituels." (66) His title, however, reflects more his wealth than his birthright: "Mais c'est peu de dire marquis, si on n'ajoute de quarante, de cinquante ou soixante mille livres de rente: car il y en a tant d'innconnus ... de la nouvelle fabrique. . . ." (51) There are so many marquis that the aristocracy reverts to what the novel originally presents as a bourgeois practice, that of classifying an individual according to the amount of wealth he possesses. Thus, with the novel presenting evidence of what the two classes have in common, the aristocracy is seen as essentially like the bourgeoisie.

The Marquis' nobility of character is ambivalent. On one hand, he can be viewed as marking the superior position of the aristocracy in the novel. For example, being an aristocrat, the Marquis easily woos Lucrèce, who stands to profit much from such a union. However, the Marquis shows the same concern with appearances as does the bourgeoisie, taking great pains and going to great expense to be dressed in the latest fashion. He seems to uphold the idea that "clothes make the man," as the exterior trappings of his class, wealth and social position, do not represent the "interior" nobility of character, heart, or mind. Since he is motivated by lust, he takes full advantage of his wealth and class and seduces Lucrèce. In fact he appears to be one of the most subversive characters in the novel: not only does he seduce Lucrèce with a marriage contract, but he gives her an exquisite ebony cabinet in which to store it, ail the while keeping an extra key for himself; which allows him to steal back the contract and leave her, although she is pregnant. Having enjoyed Lucrèce, he quickly falls out of love with her, as he realizes what this relationship could cost him both socially and monetarily (Wood, q.v.). The speed at which the Marquis falls out of love with Lucrèce equals the speed at which Nicodème loses interest in Javotte once their engagement is officially terminated, as the narrator states: "... son amour . . .s'évanouit peu de temps après, car l'amour n'est pas opiniâtre dans une tête bourgeoise comme il l'est dans un coeur héroïque; l'attachement et la rupture se font communément et avec une grande facilité. . . ." (147) Thus, the class distinction between the Marquis and Nicodème disappears in this instance, as neither seem capable of a truly noble love. A "coeur héroïque" is conspicuously absent in the novel.

However, the Marquis can be viewed ironically as a model upon which the bourgeois social code relies, since as the narrator explains the bourgeois could only imitate the aristocrats in their faults and ridiculous ways. Thus it becomes evident by the end of Book One that the bourgeois characters are indeed capable of modeling themselves after the aristocracy, as both classes are motivated by an overriding concern for appearances, which therefore represent in and of themselves standards in society.

It is in Book Two that a total merging of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie takes place, in the form of the lawyer Belastre who on one hand claims to be an aristocrat, while on the other playing the rôle of a blundering, ridiculous character, something which would seem to identify him with the bourgeoisie. The narrator présents him thus: "Et pour vous faire connaître sa capacité, sachez qu'il était né en Perigord, cadet d'une maison qui était noble, à ce qu'il disait. . . ." (192) Belastre can be viewed then as a paradigm for the problem of social class differentiation which has totally collapsed as this single character functions both as aristocrat and bourgeois.

A similar blurring of social distinctions occurs in the relationship between male and female characters in the novel. The role and function of women depends on the class structure which places men in a position of power over women, since men control the legal System, the family unit, and the distribution of wealth. Men are therefore in a position to manipulate and dominate women.

However, although officially women are relegated to a submissive role, they themselves effectively manipulate and subvert their social status so that by the end of the novel the three principle female characters have transcended their original situation. In Book One this is accomplished by Javotte and Lucrèce using their beauty as a means of escaping their initial condition. The following passage, a reference to Lucrèce, serves to demonstrate the point: "Toute sa fortune était fondée sur les conquêtes de ses yeux et de ses charmes ...." (46) Although women are relegated to the rôle of objects by men, their séduction of men motivâtes économie exchange as illustrated most clearly by the dowry. Once again society functions according to the signifier, as women's physical beauty is the major determinant of their place in society.

In Book One women are first presented in their role as objects, which coincides with the role of signifiers. The early scene in the Eglise des Carmes depicts the quêteuses who collect money from men for the church. However, the amount of money that a quêteuse collects does not reflect generosity to the church on the part of the man making the donation. Instead, it measures the beauty of the quêteuse herself. Thus, women are initially presented as a commodity whose worth is decided by men who control the wealth in society.

A woman's beauty also determines whom she may marry. For example Nicodème, is immediately overwhelmed by Javotte's beauty, fails in love and wants to marry her. The strict Tarif des mariages, which lists the acceptable pairing of couples in marriage based on the dowry of the woman and the profession of the man, contains one loophole for women possessing extraordinary beauty (Alcover, q. v.). They are allowed to marry above their lot.

As expected the institution of marriage perpetuates the of women. In the novel, control subordination is passed from father to husband, who himself is chosen by the father. This occurs once again because women function as a commodity, an object of exchange. Vollichon, responsible for his daughter's dowry, finds Nicodème and later Bedout acceptable suitors because they are rich. They, in turn through their role of husband will control their families' fortune. Javotte, however, has no voice in the matter as she has been raised in a state of total ignorance of which her parents are proud. This makes her exceptionally pleasing to Bedout who wants a wife to be "... une fille fort jeune, car on la forme comme l'on veut avant qu'elle ait pris son pli." (90) As a bourgeoise daughter, Javotte's role is essentially to be silent in the face of parental authority since within the légal code silence represents agreement: "...nos lois portent en termes formels que qui ne dit mot semble consentir." (90)

However, as we have seen, social and legal Systems, far from being absolute, are constantly subverted. The freedom allowed Javotte by her parents after her marriage contract is secured makes it possible for her ultimate escape from the confines of bourgeois society. Before a marriage contract is drawn up a daughter represents a liability for her father, who is responsible for maintaining her "virtue." After the marriage contract is signed, a father's responsibility is eased. Because of Javotte's beauty, she is allowed entry into a salon referred to as the Académie bourgeoise, where she becomes educated in literature and in love, a situation which parallels Agnès's education in L'Ecole des femmes. Her parents lose control of her as her education in the Académie grows and she consequently rebels. They react by confining her to a convent. but as the narrator states, "Elle tomba, comme on dit, de fièvre en chaud mal...." (154) Convents are presented as harboring numerous types of rebellious pensioners. There Javotte is able to spend time with her lover, Pancrace, something which would have been impossible if she were living with her parents. The convent ultimately allows for Javotte's final escape from bourgeois society, as she is kidnapped by Pancrace and vanishes from the novel. The reader is left with the impression that she could no longer be contained by the limits which bourgeois society would impose on her.

The other principal female character of Book One, Lucrèce, also gains freedom through subverting the official purpose of the marriage contract. From the beginning she is unlike Javotte in that she has no parents, being cared for by an aunt and uncle. She therefore has fewer restrictions at home and consequently has developed a stronger sense of her power as a woman. She scorns her bourgeois condition and actively attempts to rise above it through marriage. This is ironic since the very strategy is itself seen as bourgeois. She effectuates her means of escape by becoming involved with the Marquis since "...elle ne voulait point engager son coeur qu'en établissant sa fortune." (66) She does not limit herself, however, to one suitor as she arranges to hâve two separate marriage contracts drawn up, one by the Marquis and the other by Nicodème, supposedly as a joke. The marriage contracts become interdependent, since Nicodème's contract, which was thought to be non-binding, becomes binding after the Marquis breaches his own. Lucrèce, who finds herself pregnant by the Marquis, ends by profiting greatly from Nicodème's handsome settlement.

Lucrèce continues to subvert the System as she, like Javotte, profits from her stay in convents. Her pregnancy is not discovered due to her changing convents at the appropriate time; since her move is to a supposedly nunnery, she appears ironically ail the more pious and God-fearing. Lucrèce's hypocrisy is so hidden that she is totally convincing in her role as exemplary Christian. From first being a victim of the Marquis' ruse, she succeeds in profiting greatly from manipulating the very institutions which would have ruined her. By her class's social undermining and religious standards she ultimately gains prestige in the eyes of society, as ultimately religious life serves her as a vehicle for finding a husband. Ironically she marries Bedout, who claims to want a young, innocent wife whom he could totally control. Lucrèce is totally separated from her past as she completely enters her new role as wife.

In the same way that Belastre represents a synthesis of the aristocratic and bourgeois character, another principal character of Book Two, Collantine, appears androgynous as she possesses both maie and female traits. From the start she is naturally strong-willed, and, as opposed to Javotte, she successfully manipulates language. She is however guilty of vanity, which according to the narrator is a trademark of women in generai. Unlike Javotte and Lucrèce, she is not deprived of an éducation; this, coupled with her physical, moral, and psychological make-up, leads her directly to becoming a plaideuse. Whereas Javotte and Lucrèce manifest their power of subversion covertly, Collantine makes a career out of it. She takes on clients, just as Vollichon does, with no consideration for ethics or the cause of justice. She acts under the compulsion to argue for arguments sake, and as such presents a legal System which functions through pure rhetoric, and is devoid of any other relevance.

In her relationship with her two suitors, Belastre and the frustrated author Charroselles, Collantine manifests the same compulsion for arguing. She states: "...le seul moyen de me plaire est de se défendre contre moi jusqu'à l'extrémité." (206) Just as Collantine insists on having the last spoken word, she shows herself to be a master of the written word which she enjoys flaunting: "Quand il (Charroselles) vit qu'il était impossible qu'il fût écouté, il tira un livret imprimé de sa poche, contenant une petite nouvelle, qu'il lui donna, à la charge qu'elle la lirait le soir. Elle ne parut point ingrate, et aussitôt elle lui donna un gros factum à pareille condition." (182) Charroselles shows himself as adept as Collantine at rhetorical play, which provides for their eventual marriage. Their relationship is fundamentally dialectical as the two opposing forces are essentially equal, thus perpetually locked in verbal combat. The novel ends on this note: "(Collantine et Charroselles) ont toujours plaidé et plaident encore, et plaideront tant qu'il plaira à Dieu de les laisser vivre." (255)

Thus the reader is left with the idea that the novel could go on forever effectively saying nothing. The Roman bourgeois puts in question the whole idea of what constitutes a novel as it offers no positive models. Social and legal Systems are bound by the common thread of subversion which in turn deconstructs the Systems themselves. In the same manner that subversion deconstructs social and legal Systems, it also deconstructs language itself. Ail that is left by the end of the novel is rhetorical play gone berserk; language's "meaning," which is to say the signified, has no place. Thus the Roman bourgeois can be understood as an example of the "arbitraire du signe" in that it presents a universe in which the signifier ultimately enjoys primacy.

Albion College

¹

Several critics explore this concept, in recent works notably Robert Alter, Michael Boyd, and Linda Hutcheon (Q.v.) ²See Harriet Stone's perceptive study on the subject of subversion in her article entitled "Breach of Contract: Flight from Imitation in Book One of the Roman bourgeois" North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature Actes de Banff 1986, pp. 389-399. ³Ulrich Dônng that the bourgeoisie becomes a stranger to itself, and consequently, appears ridiculous. ⁴Catherine Belsey's concept of ideology appears pertinent because it posits ideology in both a real and imaginary relation to the world, "real in that it is the way in which people really live their relationships to the social relations which govern their conditions of existence, but imaginary in that it discourages a full understanding of these conditions of existence...."

Alcover, Madeleine. "Furetière et la stratification sociale: le 'tarif des mariages'". Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, Vol. VIII. No. 15 (Spring 1979): 75-93.

Alter, Robert. Partial Magic: The Novel as Self-Conscious Genre. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975).

Belsey, Catherine. Critical Practice. (London: Methuen, 1985).

Boyd, Michael. The Reflexive Novel: Fiction as Critic. (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1983).

Dôring, Ulrich. "De l'autorité à l'autonomie: Le roman bourgeois." Actes de Banff (Paris/Seattle/Tûbingen: Biblio 17, 1987): 401-424.

Furetière, Antoine, Abbé de Chalivoy. Le roman bourgeois (Paris: Foli, 1981).

Hutcheon, Linda. The Narcissistic Narrative: The Metafictional Paradox (Ontario: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1980).

Stone, Harriet. "Breach of Contract: Flight From Imitation in Book One of Le roman bourgeois." Actes de Banff .(Paris/Seattle/Tûbingen, 1987): 361-371.

[143]

Les Femmes coquettes, Poisson's only five-act play, appeared in 1671 and enjoyed a successful run at the Hôtel de Bourgogne. Written sometime in 1670, it was first performed at Versailles, but never outside of the greater Parisi region. The genesis of the title itself points toward the author's intent Les Pipeurs, then changed to Les Pipeurs ou les Femmes coquettes, and, finally to Les Femmes coquettes ou les Pipeurs. As Poisson thought his play through, he decided or realized that it treated the domestic and social behavior of the coquette to a greater degree than the cheating of the gamblers.

Gambling is, of course, an important theme in the work, one which we have studied elsewhere in great detail. But our present intention is to look at the characters, especially the female characters and to analyze how they are portrayed by the author. It is this portrait that gives the play its intrinsic sociological value as a document, if not of Parisian society in the latter third of the seventeenth century, at least of the way in which the poet saw that society.

The picture we see is not too pretty, for although a comedy, the situations hâve become a bit more serious than in the Précieuses ridicules. Since coquetterie and préciosité are no longer fashionable, those manifestations of behavior seem like vices, complicated by avarice, envy and cheating in general. Lack of honesty prevails, extending from the gambling table to human relations. Egotism, self-interest and deceit control the actions of most of the characters. Love no longer exists and the characters even read Boccaccio!

One wonders whether Poisson meant to divide his characters into such neat behavioral groups. The women in the play have no redeeming qualities. Indeed, the title, Les Femmes coquettes covers them ail with a generic description. As we look at the cast, Flavie, Ste-Hermine, Ste-Hélène and Aminthe, the names are followed by the word "coquette." We continue to search for more manifestations of feminine behavior and meet Aymée, the maid, a spy, therefore dishonest, only interested in monetary gain. Our perusal leaves Dame Anne, the cook, in a traditional female role, too busy in the kitchen to have any awareness of life. The one time she ventures into the living quarters (IV) Flavio sends her back with an "Est-ce ici ta cuisine?" So much for the women.

The men, on the other hand, enjoy much more varied portrayals. True, Docile is too credulous and Colin too innocent, but Poisson also gives us the funny and cunning Crispin, the two cheats (dishonest, but good at it) Du Manoir and Du Bocage, and Flavio, the only sensitive one in the lot, much maligned, but who finally designs and executes a worthy revenge, or punishment. The main theme of the play is precisely this revenge or punishment, and how we look at it, for revenge might be justified by the abuse Flavio has suffered, but punishment would imply that he has the right as husband to expect and demand certain obedience from his wife.

A quick glance at the plot reveals its simplicity. Flavie, a bourgeoise with aspirations of nobility, wants to live a splendid life, surrounded by riches and luxury. Her expensive tastes are funded by Flavio, a very patient husband (one wonders why he has let her behave this way for so long) and Docile, a gullible uncle who gives her money for her many "charitable" projects. As the play unfolds, we learn how Flavio slowly unmasks his wife's real character and englightens Docile. The selfish Flavie, her shallow friends (the other coquettes) and the greedy Aymée are punished at the end in a way that only lovers of Paris could understand: they are banished to Italy! Once far from the corrupting influence of the capital, the husband supposedly will be able to re-assume control of the household.

The play becomes a window through which we watch some aspects of bourgeois life under Louis XIV. We question the accuracy in gênerai terms: were ail bourgeoises shallow and unhappy, ail bourgeois easily duped and pushed around, ail servants opportunists at that time? One can easily understand the desire to be better off financially, to be able to enjoy a better life, to be à la mode. One can sympathize with the temptations which the aristocratie Paris offered the lesser Parisians. As the eighteenth century approached, and money and finances became more and more important in everyday life, people found faster, more effective ways to strike it rich, not ail legal or honest. These are the qualities that make the play quasi historical, in the sense of general accuracy of observations.

Let us now look at the domestic side of society, at the behavior within the microcosm of Flavio's family, paying particular attention to the author's comments on love, marriage and the sexes. Flavio and Flavie has a mixed marriage, for he is Italian and she French, and to them, their different nationalities present a problem. She says "quoique Italien, il s'est fait à la mode" (1,1), indicating that Italy remains far from France culturally. He, on the other hand, cries "Je suis Italien, et me marie en France,/ Je prends femme à Paris, O la haute imprudence!" (1,5). We never really learn what is so bad about French women, other than the fact that they are not Italian.

But the couple's problems go deeper than national boundaries. As a coquette, Flavie does not, cannot lover her husband. Her "code of conduct" instructs her to despise ail men, but husbands in particular. From the beginning of the play, this fact is emphasized, even in her reading taste. Flavie and Aymée have been reading the Decameron, a book, as most people know, where husbands do not fare well. Flavie believes that they deserve the treatment they get and enjoys the stories. She dénies that Flavio loves her, although she hints that he once did: "Ce n'est plus le lien de l'amour qui le lie" (1,1), and to Aymée's suggestion that he still loves her for he suffers in silence, Flavie answers curtly, "Moi, je ne l'aime pas... Une femme peut-elle aimer son mari?" She refuses to speak further of her husband, but will gladly speak of her uncle because he represents a generous and limitless source of funds.

Poisson portrays Flavie as cunning and resourceful. She has told her uncle that her husband is a terrible being, suspicious, and cruel. Docile has been easily duped by her and thinks of her as a female St-Martin. He offers to speak to Flavio, to help straighten out the young man. Flavie cannot allow that conversation, so she explains that if Docile were to talk to Flavio, "Il vous dirait que j'ai tous les vices qu'il a/ Que je mange son bien, que je suis trop joueuse,/ Que je suis trop coquette, et trop impérieuse..."

Flavio, too, likes the uncle, and tries unsuccessfully to explain the marital situation: "j'aimais votre nièce, et l'ai trop bien traitée/ Mon trop d'amour pour elle est ce qui l'a gâtée" (1,6). In his explanation, he uses the very same words as Flavie: "elle est trop coquette, et trop impérieuse,/ Donne de grands cadeaux, fait la grande joueuse." The uncle has been warned and does not believe him. It worries Flavio that others could take advantage of her inexperience as a gambler. Nevertheless, he has not changed his kind ways toward her: "L'air dont elle me traite, et sa grande dépense/ N'ont point encore pu lasser ma patience." When left alone, however, he says "Je pourrai me venger de ma femme aisément." The question returns: does Flavio want revenge or punishment? Does he have the right to either or both?

The reader realizes that Flavie has deceived her uncle and, for a while had deceived the husband. One feels sorry for the uncle and the husband, without stopping to analyze their weaknesses. Poisson has succeeded in making us judge Flavie as deceitful, dishonest and avaricious. Poisson has portrayed her that way and give evidence to support his portrait. We must now look at the reasons, so that we can at least justify her behavior in terms of her society. None of her actions results in injuries, death or serious offense. Her honor and that of her family has never been endangered. She is just trying to survive.

Flavie, Ste-Hermine, Ste-Hélène and Aminthe are trapped in a society that tempts them, but offers them nothing. They have married dull, middle-class men and are, therefore, caught between the freedom of the aristocracy and the freedom of the poor. They are close enough to see and hear the good life, but not touch it. Paris surrounds them with the luxury of the théâtre, carriages, gambling, etc., while their husbands surround them with routine, predictable lives. Ail they want is a chance to experience what they think is the Parisian lifestyle.

They say they hate men because men control their source of funds. For Flavie it is either her husband or her uncle, both men, who can give her the money she needs to have some freedom. The women are not gamblers, but they give gambling parties because that is one way in which they can invite people for get-togethers. Gambling to them is a social activity, not a means to power or riches. Money interests them only insofar as it can buy them what they need to belong in society, but they do not long to amass great fortunes. Without anyone to guide them as to proper social behavior, since their husbands do not show interest in this society, they are content to imitate what they perceive to be evidence of the "right life," e.g., the color of the horses or the style of the carriage. But these details cost money, and, since their husbands do not share their interests, the least they can do is pay for them. Fournell mentions that these coquettes "voient dans leurs maris les animaux les plus fâcheux de la création" (251).

Once husbands become simply a source of money, their importance emotionally is reduced considerably and love disappears in the world of the coquette. If husbands cannot provide what is needed to be à la mode (at the time of the play, it is gray horses, gambling parties, plays, dances and outdoor festivities), they are obsolete and ought to be replaced with young unattached favoris. The key word here is unattached, for that is the attraction of these men; were they attached, they would be husbands and the magic would be lost. These favoris will eventually become the infamous chevaliers d'industrie, idle, handsome young men without a sou to their name, members of the petite noblesse who prey on bored wives, especially if they are wealthy. Since they hold no job, they have lots of time to spend with the women who have lots of money to spend on them. The coquettes like these men because they do not depend on them financially; the husbands supply the money which the wives give to their companions.

Flavie and her three friends realize that social respect can be bought by entertaining the right people the right way. Their very reason for being is to eat, drink and live the right way. The "accepted" roles that society allows them as middle-class wives give them no satisfaction as human beings, for they remain totally dependent on their husbands. The women are looking for something to do, for an identity. They might be cruel at times, but they are not malicious. They lie to survive, so they have no remorse. They remain completely unaware of the consequences of their actions. Call it selfishness if one will, they do not consider themselves selfish at ail. They honestly believe that it is their husbands who are selfishly unable to comprehend the social pressures of the times. The men take no interest in their wives' concerns or worries. For the most part, they do not initialte action, but are content to react to their wives' behavior. Antoine Adame suggests that Poisson presents:

non pas des types éternels d'humanité, mais les formes particulières que la vie contemporaine, que la réalité sociale de l'époque donnaient aux caractères traditionnels de la comédie. Fia vie était froide, coquette, égoiste. Mais cette droideur, cette coquetterie, cet égoïsme offraient des traits particuliers qui la rattachait de façon précise à la société française de l'époque. (V, 279).

Poisson's picture portrays a kind of morality tainted lightly by immorality, as he does not try to hide the unpleasant traits of a cold society. In general, however, corruption confines itself to financial matters. Bourgeois values prevail, as Flavie's behavior never puts her honor in jeopardy. Marital infidelity is suspected many times, mostly as a ploy for quick humor by means of double-entendre. When reporting on how Flavie spent a typical day with the two gamblers, Colin says "Deux Monsieurs ont joué sur son lit tout le jour" (11,1). He eventually mumbles the name of the word game they were playing. And, of course, a detailed description of a lavement is de rigueur. In spite of Crispin's insistence to doubt Flavie's marital honesty, the husband is not too worried: "Ma femme est coquette, et... c'est tout" (111,1). Later he says: "Elle est impertinente, et coquette, et joueuse:/ Avec tous ces défauts, je la crois vertueuse" (111,7). Although Flavie lies to get the funds she needs, she does not for a moment consider compromising her réputation and takes offense when her virtue is questioned. Her virtue does give the husband the assurance that ail he has to worry about is a depleted purse. Adam again comments on this portrait:

On y voit, sur une intrigue qui pourrait être celle d'une farce, une peinture très poussée de la Parisienne à la mode, sans coeur, sans scrupules, intéressée, vaniteuse, mais prudente et froide, et qui ne fera pas la sottise d'avoir une aventure. (V, 416).

Their faithfulness must afford the husbands small consolation for the attacks to which they are subjected. They laugh because a friend has admitted being in love with her husband for a full month; that is strange behavior, even if the man is handsome. Flavie explains: "Fût-ce un Ange/ Un Narcisse en beauté, je soutiendrai toujours/ Qu'on ne peut pas aimer son mari quinze jours." Ste Hermine adds "Quinze jours! que je me meure/ Si j'ai jamais aimé mon mari plus d'une heure" (111,3).

If Flavie excels at deceit, Flavio has mastered the art of spying unobserved. His last attempt in Act V has particular interest:

Je veux voir ce qu'on voit rarement; Des femmes en débauche, et qui fort librement Se disent leurs secrets, et qui n'ont nulle honte De dire de bons mots, et de faire un bon conte. (V,1).

Why is Flavio, and therefore Poisson, so fascinated by féminine behavior? Why don't the men talk to the women if they want to know more about them and their intentions? Had there been any communication in the play, the hiding and the spying would not hâve been necessary. Let us not forget that poor uncle Docile went into hiding back in Act I, scène 5, and has just come out in Act V, scène 2, just in time to hide again!

When the précieuses get together alone (or so they thing), they talk about their husbands, how they do not need them, how they can manipulate them. Obviously, they do care about the men in their lives, but they resent the dependence that Society créâtes for them. They envy the relative freedom enjoyed by their maie relations, the fact that they can work, and earn a living, while ail the women can do is amuse themselves and while away the time. Their comments bear repeating:

Quand on prend un mari ce n'est pas pour l'aimer.

Vraiment non, l'on le prend pour se faire estimer Dessous ce nom de femme, et faire nos affaires; Pour nous fournir enfin cent choses nécessaires, Et nous donner l'argent dont nous avons besoin. (V,l).

Poisson shares this view of women and marriage with his audience. There is no love in these marriages, at least not very mature. The arrangement benefits the social status of the woman, who can call herself a wife, with whatever freedom that title grants. Husbands are a financial necessity, a necessary nuisance in order to enjoy a life of leisure. But perhaps there is some psychological insight in this farcical behavior, for when Ste Hélène adds: "Le plus méchant régal du monde est un mari," Flavie explains:

C'est que loin de chercher les moyens de nous plaire Par quelques petits soins, ils sont tout le contraire. Faites à la traverse un ami là-dessus, Ils deviennent si sots qu'on ne les aimes plus. (V,5).

For a brief moment, we have a view into the soul of the coquettes. The problem lies with the husbands' lack of awareness of their wives' trapped condition within the social rules and their own domestic traditions.

Unfortunately, this light does not shine for long. Flavio will get the revenge he longs for, or is it punishment? For, after ail, the husband can and will control his wife's destiny, taking her out of Paris as punishment for her actions, which he could have controlled at any time had he wished. The punishment seems to far exceed the crime and there is no guarantee of recovery or improvement, only forced obedience.

Poisson seems to tell us that women cannot be trusted, that they are shallow and selfish, that one can easily take advantage of them and that, therefore, they must be closely watched in order to protect them. Nowhere do the male characters really listen to the women or attempt to understand the reasons for their actions. Communication is not an issue because it was not relevant to their behavior at the time. To Poisson, his public and his reader, the women must be frozen in the immature, brittle world of the coquette, who is a descendent of these caricatures of précieuses immortalized by Molière.

Allentown College of St. Francis de Sales

1. Primary Source Material.

Poisson, Raymond. Les Femmes coquettes, in The Gambling Mania On and Off the Stage in Pre-Revolutionary France. Ed. Tamara Alvarez-Detrell and Michael G. Paulson. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1982.

2. Secondary Source Material.

Adam, Antoine. Histoire de la littérature française au XVII^e siècle. 5 vols. Paris: Del Duca, 1949-1956.

Beaurepaire, Edmond. "Les Maisons de jeu au Grand Siècle." Mercure de France, 83 (1910), 440-448.

Curtis, A. Rose. Crispin I^er: la vie et l'eouvre de Raymond Poisson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1972.

Fournel, François Victor. Les Contemporains de Molière. Paris: Firmin-Didot, 1876.

Gouvernet, Gérard. Le Type du valet chez Molière et ses contemporains Regnard, Dufresny, Dancourt et Lesage. New York: Peter Lang, 1985.

Lancaster, Henry Carrington. A History of French Dramatic Literature in the Seventeenth Century. 9 vols. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1936-1940.

Marquiset, Alfred. Jeux et joueurs d'autrefois. paris: Emile-Paul Frères, 1759.

Mongrédien, Georges. La Vie de société aux 17^e et 18^e siècles. Paris: Hachette, 1950.

Steinmetz, Andrew. The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims. 2 vols. New Jersey: Patterson Smith, 1969.

Tilley, Arthur. The Décline of the Age of Louis XIV. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1968.

[133]

Depuis trois siècles, le célèbre roman de Madame de Lafayette n'a cessé de jouir du plus grand succès de même qu'il n'a cessé de nous intriguer. De par son ambiguïté, l'oeuvre s'offre à de multiples interprétations et c'est là, en fin de compte, la marque d'un chef d'oeuvre. Le sujet de la religion dans La Princesse de Clèves se prête d'autant plus à la controverse que, pour certains, il y serait absent. Dans notre étude, nous nous proposons de réexaminer la question à la lumière de certains commentaires qui mettent son existence en évidence.

La plupart des critiques jusqu'ici s'accordaient avec Antoine Adam pour dire qu'aucune considération religieuse n'inspirait la conduite de la Princesse de Clèves, "pas un instant elle ne songe à céder à son amour, mais elle n'invoque pas non plus la loi divine." (Adam 24) En cela, Adam ne faisait que réitérer le point de vue d'Anatole France; celui-ci, en effet, soutenait que les soucis de la Princesse étaient "sans idéal d'aucune sorte, ... la sagesse et la raison, qui sont des vertus temporelles, dirigent sa vie et règlent ses sentiments." (La Princesse de Clèves de Madame de Lafayette LPDC 156-157) Plus récemment (relativement parlant car il y a déjà vingt-cinq ans de cela, Marie-Jeanne Durry remarque qu'on avait "trop dit que Dieu était absent de ce livre." (Roussel 51) Il fallut une dizaine d'années pour que cette opinion trouvât du renfort en la persone d'Alain Niderst dans deux livres sur La Princesse de Clèves. Dans le premier, paru en 1973, sous-titré "Le Roman paradoxal", Alain Niderst, après avoir fait une analyse serrée de la conduite de la Princesse puis noté la mort édifiante de Mme de Chartres qu'il qualifie de "sainte", remarque très justement que Mme de Clèves fera durant le reste de son existence ce que Mme de Chartres fit les deux derniers jours de sa vie. Niderst cite l'ultime message de la Princesse à Nemours où, d'après lui, se trouve "le secret du roman":

...ayant trouvé que son devoir et son repos s'opposaient au penchant qu'elle avait d'être à lui, les autres choses du monde lui avaient par si indifférentes qu'elle y avait renoncé pour jamais; qu'elle ne pensait plus qu'à celles de l'autre vie et qu'il ne lui restait aucun sentiment que le désir de le voir dans les mêmes dispositions où elle était {Roman paradoxal 111).

Niderst ajoute que l'on voit ici l'héroïne "passer des motifs humains aux motifs religieux"; nous serions tout à fait d'accord avec lui si ce n'était que pour nous la Princesse a toujours eu des motifs religieux. Alain Niderst pose alors une question que nous jugeons cruciale: "Mme de Lafayette veut-elle donc nous montrer l'itinéraire d'une âme vers Dieu?" à laquelle il répond plutôt évasivement par un simple "peut-être". {Roman paradoxal 113)

Quatre ans plus tard, dans ou deuxième ouvrage, Niderst reprend la question en la traitant plus en profondeur, évitant toujours soigneusement de prendre une position trop nette. Il se contente d'affirmer que "la religion joue un rôle fort discret dans cette oeuvre". {LPDC 158) Cependant, plus loin, il fait une remarque fort judicieuse que nous citons en entier à cause de son importance:

...la décence classique déconseillait de recourir trop souvent au nom de Dieu dans un roman. De tels ouvrages paraissent trop frivoles pour que la religion ne fût pas quelque peu souillée en y entrant. D'ailleurs, le christianisme était si général et si prenant qu'il était inutile de l'évoquer de façon trop précise. Les lecteurs ne pouvaient imaginer que les héros fussent affranchis de cette morale et de ces dogmes universels... {LPDC 158-159)

Il convient de faire ici une distinction fondamentale entre la religion à l'extérieur, d'un côté, et à l'intérieur, de l'autre; si l'on considère l'aspect visible de la religion, il faut admettre qu'elle y est absente: nulle mention de sacrement, ni de prêtre ni même de directeur de conscience n'y est faite. Cette absence de religion formelle, rituelle et sacramentelle nous paraît voulue de la part de l'auteur pour souligner son peu d'importance; par contre, l'intériorité d'une religion très personnelle n'en ressort que davantage. Relisons, à l'appui de cela, le passage sur la mort de Mme de Chartres

Lorsqu'on commença à désespérer de sa vie, Mme de Chartres reçut ce que les médecins lui dirent du péril où elle était avec un courage digne de sa vertu et de sa piété. {La Princesse de Clèves 67)

D'abord, nous soulignons le mot "piété" qui aurait peu de sens en dehors d'un contexte religieux, sa définition étant dans le dictionnaire "dévotion, affection et respect pour les choses de la religion." Puis, dans son dernier entretien avec sa fille, deux jours avant sa mort, Mme de Chartres lui parle de ce "bonheur qu'[elle] espère en sortant de ce monde." Après quoi elle "ne songea plus qu'à se préparer à la mort." Notons que, si Mme de Lafayette n'étale point l'appareil religieux (ni confesseur ni extrême-onction) elle ne laisse cependant aucun doute sur l'existence de l'âme et la croyance en la vie éternelle chez Mme de Chartres; elle ne manque pas, par ailleurs, de souligner le rôle de di­recteur de conscience joué par Mme de Chartres dans la vie de sa fille. Or, nous croyons que les avertissements donnés par la mère sur son lit de mort vont continuer de gouverner la Princesse jusqu'à la fin de sa vie... Ecoutons avec soin ces dernières paroles, bien terribles en vérité, que prononce la mère:

Si d'autres raisons que celles de la vertu et de votre devoir vous pouvaient obliger à ce que je souhaite, je vous dirais que, si quelque chose était capable de troubler le bonheur que j'espère en sortant de ce monde, ce serait de vous voir tomber comme les autres femmes; mais, si ce malheur vous doit ar­river je reçois la mort avec joie, pour n'en être pas le témoin. (68)

Le dernier souhait de la mère à sa fille est donc de donner une autre raison que celles de la vertu et du devoir pour sa conduite ultérieure; cette raison est de ne point troubler le bonheur de sa mère en l'autre monde! L'affliction "extrême" dans laquelle se trouve la Princesse à la mort de sa mère est dorénavant d'autant plus compréhensible que, non seulement elle perd l'affection d'une mère directrice de ses actions, mais de plus maintenant elle doit craindre de la perdre aussi dans l'autre vie. Nous présumons que ces derniers avertissements de la mère ne cesseront jamais de retentir dans l'esprit de la Princesse et que Mme de Chartres, morte, continue d'exercer son influence sur sa fille.

Nous remarquons aussi dans ce passage que Mme de Lafayette évite l'emploi du mot "repos" qu'elle réserve pour la conclusion; ce mot est, selon nous, une des clés du roman. Il commence à paraître au début de la scène de l'aveu, c'est-à-dire aux deux tiers du roman, après quoi il revient à plusieurs reprises dans les paroles de la Princesse, surtout à la fin où le mot prend les résonances du "Requiem" de l'office des morts. Jusqu'ici le mot "repos" a été interprété dans le sens temporel de la tranquillité et de la paix des sens, c'est-à-dire la cessation des tourments de la passion. Quant à nous, notre impression est que ce mot évoqué la prière des morts: "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine", ce repos de l'âme que Dieu accorde au sortir de ce monde, les épreuves terrestres une fois surmontées. Or, on le trouve dans une parole de la Princesse à un moment- charnière où culminent la passion des trois personnages et le pathétisme. Il apparaît dans un cri poussé par la Princesse en même temps que le nom de Dieu, prononcé deux fois seulement dans tout le roman; c'est à Nemours qu'il s'adresse: "Au nom de Dieu, laissez-moi en repos!" (129) C'est le cri d'angoisse d'un coeur déchiré et d'une âme inquiète de sa destinée. Il ne faudrait pas se méprendre sur le sens de cette exclamation: "Au nom de Dieu" n'est pas un juron mais une prière; la Princesse n'invoquerait pas Dieu en vain. Rappelons que ce moment pathétique est celui de la minute de vérité qui va déclencher le dénouement tragique: le Prince de Clèves vient d'identifier l'homme aimé de sa femme.

Dans les dernières pages du roman le mot "repos" ac­compagne celui de "devoir" à plusieurs reprises et toujours tous deux sont renforcés de l'adjectif possessif... Nous ne saurions trop insister sur l'importance de ce mot "repos" constamment associé à celui de "devoir"; si nous l'interprétions uniquement dans son sens traditionnel de "repos des sens", la Princesse nous apparaîtrait soit comme une timide qui aurait peur de vivre et de s'engager, soit comme une personne fière et inflexible qui ferait étalage d'une vertu excessive—toutes caractéristiques plus ou moins fâcheuses qui seraient en contradiction totale avec le caractère admirable que veut nous dépeindre Mme de Lafayette. Il n'en va plus de même lorsqu'on interprète le mot "repos" dans un sens religieux de repos de l'âme dans une conscience tranquille; alors, l'association des deux mots "devoir" et "repos" devient pleinement intelligible; tous deux vont dans le sens de la spiritualisation de la Princesse: dans son devoir, elle trouve le repos de sa conscience ici-bas, ce qui assure le repos de son âme dans l'au-delà.

Relisons maintenant encore une fois l'ultime message de la Princesse qu'elle fait parvenir à Nemours par l'intermédiaire d'une personne de mérite:

ayant trouvé que son devoir et son repos s'opposaient au penchant qu'elle avait d'être à lui, les autres choses du monde lui avaient paru si in­différentes qu'elle y avait renoncé pour jamais; qu'elle ne pensait plus qu'à celles de l'autre vie et qu'il ne lui restait aucun sentiment que le désir de le voir dans les mêmes dispositions où elle était. (135)

La Princesse y manifeste son détachement total des choses terrestres en affirmant "qu'elle ne pensait plus qu'à celles de l'autre vie"; en d'autres mots, cela signifie que son es­prit ne s'occupe plus que des choses spirituelles et qu'elle se prépare à la vie après la mort. De plus, le seul senti­ment qui lui reste pour Nemours est le sentiment chrétien de le voir en faire de même; ce qui revient à dire qu'elle voudrait le voir se retirer du monde pour se préparer à bien mourir. Pour reprendre les paroles d'Alain Niderst, nous constatons que la Princesse "fera durant le reste de son existence" ce que sa mère avait fait "les deux derniers jours de sa vie." Niderst pense que "dans les dernières pages du roman, Mme de Clèves retrouve les valeurs re­ligieuses, qu'elle n'avait sans doute pas oubliées, mais qu'elle n'avait jamais osé invoquer aussi nettement." (Roman Paradoxal 112) Nous croyons de notre côté que la Princesse n'a jamais oublié ni les dernières paroles de sa mère ni l'exemple de sa vertu et de sa piété qu'elle ne cesse de vouloir imiter jusqu'à la fin de sa vie; nous irions même jusqu'à dire que, par sa façon de mourir, Mme de Chartres eut peut-être, morte, plus d'influence sur sa fille qu'elle n'en eut vivante.

L'intériorité et l'austérité de cette religion très person­nelle que nous présente Mme de Layfayette nous font penser au jansénisme; Alain Niderst, lui aussi, ne manque pas de faire ce rapprochement, notamment dans sa dernière étude sur La Princesse de Clèves où il remarque judi­cieusement que Mme de Lafayette y est "fidèle à la philosophie de Port-Royal." A l'agitation empoisonnée du monde emplie de passions décevantes, de mensonges faits à soi-même et aux autres, doit succéder la solitude vouée à "des occupations plus saintes que celles des couvents les plus austères". (LPDC 156) Il est indubitable que cette maison de retraite où se retire la Princesse pour se consacrer à "des occupations plus saintes que celles des couvents les plus austères" suggère à notre esprit l'image de Port-Royal où se retira Pascal lui aussi après une vie mondaine, pour y pratiquer un ascétisme rigoureux et réfléchir sur l'importance de l'immortalité de l'âme et de la vie après la mort.

Il y a de nombreux rapports entre Mme de Lafayette et le jansénisme, de même que pour ses amis les plus intimes, La Rochefoucauld et mme de Sévigné. Rappelons-les brièvement en citant le passage à ce sujet dans Mme de Lafayette par elle-même de Bernard Pingaud:

Elle fréquente l'hôtel de Nevers où, comme dit l'abbé Rapin "on enseigne l'évangile janséniste". Lors de la publication des Provinciales, Mme du Plessis Guénégaud a défendu Pascal contre les Jé­suites et les Arnauld comptent parmi ses intimes. Par son intermédiaire, Mme de Lafayette reçoit les publications de ces Messieurs. Elle les lit avec ad­miration, et quand paraissent les Pensées de Pascal, elle écrit: "c'est un méchant signe pour ceux qui ne goûteront pas ce livre" (43)

Plus loin, il souligne l'importance de Pascal dans l'oeuvre de Mme de Lafayette:

Pascal, qu'elle admire, La Rochefoucauld, qu'elle voit tous les jours, sont précisément les maîtres à penser de Mme de Lafayette....plus encore que celle des Maximes, l'influence des Pensées, qui paraissent au moment où elle commence à songer à La princesse de Clèves, est sensible dans son oeuvre et je m'étonne qu'on ne l'ait pas davantage soulignée. (62)

Dans ces rapports, ce qui nous frappe le plus, c'est le fait qu'elle commence à écrire La Princesse de Clèves après la parution des Pensées de Pascal ainsi que sa remarque après les avoir lues. Nous avons relevé cette influence de Pascal dans le passage de la mort de Mme de Chartres notamment où le refus de l'attendrissement rappelle très nettement celui des Jansénistes: Mme de Chartres, après avoir fait ses dernières recommendations à sa fille, refusa de la revoir par la suite, de peur de s'attendrir. A ce propos, il con­vient de rappeler la vie de Pascal qui refusait à ses soeurs toute démonstration d'affection envers lui et même défendait aux enfants de Gilberte d'embrasser leur mère. Pour illustrer cela, nous citons la méditation de Pascal in­titulée "Le Mystère de Jésus":

Jésus s'arrache d'avec ses disciples pour entrer dans l'agonie; il faut s'arracher de ses plus proches, et des plus intimes, pour l'imiter.

Nous trouvons un autre rapport avec le jansénisme dans le thème de la prédestination, joué en sourdine tout au long du roman; il y est, à vrai dire, beaucoup plus suggéré que traité. Il se trouve brièvement énoncé dans l'exclamation que fait la Princesse à Nemours au cours de leur dernier entretien, "avec des yeux un peu grossis par les larmes":

Pourquoi faut-il que je vous puisse accuser de la mort de M. de Clèves? Que n'ai-je commencé à vous connaître depuis que je suis libre, ou pourquoi ne vous ai-je pas connu devant que d'être engagée? Pourquoi la destinée nous sépare-t-elle par un ob­stacle si invincible? (175)

En somme, la Destinée est accusée par la Princesse d'être intervenue dans sa vie comme une déesse de la rétribution; notion qui implique la croyance en la prédestination: cette séparation sur terre aurait été voulue par Dieu comme une épreuve que l'âme de la Princesse doit subir dans son it­inéraire vers lui.

Cette croyance en la prédestination se trouve aussi sug­gérée dans le parallèle qu'on peut établir entre les deux couples de maîtresse-suivante que forment, à un siècle d'intervalle, Marie Stuart et Mme de Clèves d'un côté, Henriette d'Angleterre et Mme de Lafayette de l'autre; or, fait notoire, Henriette d'Angleterre était l'arrière petite-fille de Marie Stuart et, de plus, elle lui ressemblait par son intelligence, ses manières et sa mauvaise fortune. En effet, toutes deux furent marquées par des aventures galantes, poursuivies par des maris jaloux et eurent une fin tragique.

La Princesse de Clèves nous est présentée par son au­teur comme une personne marquée par la destinée tout comme sa maîtresse et confidente, Marie Stuart, dont l'histoire, tragique entre toutes, est si bien connue de tous qu'elle n'a plus besoin d'être contée; il suffit à l'auteur de mettre l'héroïne dans son ombre pour la placer sous le signe du Fatum antique. L'histoire de Marie Stuart, ré­cente dans l'esprit des lecteurs de l'époque grâce à la bi­ographie de Boisguillebert sert de toile de fond tragique à tout le roman; l'amour fatidique de ses trois personnages est voué à un tragique dénouement aussi sûrement qu'Oedipe l'était de tuer son père et d'épouser sa mère. Cela nous paraît d'autant plus évident que c'est Marie Stu­art qui, la première, introduit le thème de la prédestination dans le roman: après avoir raconté à la Princesse l'histoire tragique de Marie de Guise, sa mère, elle lui fait part des tristes pressentiments qu'elle éprouve à l'égard de son avenir:

On dit que je lui ressemble; je crains de lui ressembler aussi par sa malheureuse destinée et, quelque bonheur qui semble se préparer pour moi, je ne saurais croire que j'en jouisse. (49)

Evidemment, tous les lecteurs de Mme de Lafayette savaient très bien que les pressentiments de la Reine Dauphine étaient bien fondés. Ces paroles de Marie Stu­art, selon toute vraisemblance de l'invention de l'auteur, auraient pu être prononcées par Henriette d'Angleterre elle-même en parlant de son illustre arrière grand-mère avec Mme de Lafayette (dans ce cas-là, elles seraient his­toriques et l'aluteur les aurait mises là pour suggérer le parallèle entre ces deux destinées).

En conclusion, nous espérons avoir suffisamment mon­tré l'existence de la religion dans le roman de Mme de Lafayette pour que dorénavant il devienne impossible de dire qu'elle y est absente. Par ailleurs, nous pensons avoir donné une dimension plus profondément humaine au per­sonnage de la Princesse en la montrant victime d'une des­tinée tragique. Son refus de la vie et de l'amour devient plus compréhensible et son caractère moins énigmatique.

The College of Charleston

¹

C'est le sens que lui trouve aussi Patrick Henry dans son article "La Princesse de Clèves and L'Introduction à la vie dévote" paru dans: French Studies in Honor of Philip A. Wadsworth, par Tappan, Donald W. and Mould, William A. (Summa, Birmingham, Ala., 1985) L'existence de cet article nous a été signalée par William Marceau, spécialiste de Saint François de Sales. ²La Princesse, une page plus haut, avait ainsi prié son mari: "Au nom de Dieu, trouvez bon que... je ne voie personne".

Adam, Antoine. Préface de La princesse de Clèves (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966).

Lafayette, Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, comtesse de Lafayette, dite madame de. La princesse de Clèves (Paris: Garnier-Flammarion, 1966 et Bordas, 1974).

Niderst, Alain. La princesse de Clèves: le roman para­doxal. (Paris: Larousse, 1973- Roman paradoxal).

_______________ La princesse de Clèves de Madame de Lafayette (Paris: Nizet, 1977 - LPDC)

Pinguaud, Bernard. Madame de Lafayette par elle-même (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1968).

[123]

I wish to discuss today the function of Magdelon's monologue in orgainizing Moliere's 1659 comedy, Les Précieuse ridicules. This monologue is usually not given much attention, but in fact much of the comedy, and much of the play's theoretical interest, lies in its contrast to the rest of the text.

In scene 4, Magdelon attempts to explain to her father how a courtship should proceed in the form of a chronological narrative:

Mon père, voilà ma cousine qui vous dira, aussi bien que moi, que le mariage ne doit jamais arriver qu'après les autres aventures. II faut qu'un amant, pour être agréable, sache débiter les beaux sentiments, pousser le doux, le tendre et le passionné, et que sa recherche soit dans les formes. Premièrement, il doit voir au temple, ou à la promenade, ou dans quelque cérémonie publique, la personne dont il devient amoureux; ou bien être conduit fatalement chez elle par un parent ou un ami, et sortir de là tout rêveur et melancolique. II cache un temps sa passion a 1'objet aimé, et cependant lui rend plusieurs visites, où l'on ne manque jamais de mettre sur le tapis une question galante qui exerce les esprits de l'assemblée. Le jour de la déclaration arrive, qui se doit faire ordinairement dans une allée de quelque jardin, tandis que la compagnie s'est un peu éloignée; et cette déclaration est suivie d'un prompt courroux, qui paroit à notre rougeur, et qui, pour un temps, bannit l'amant de notre présence. Ensuite il trouve moyen de nous apaiser, de nous accoutumer insensiblement au discours de sa passion, et de tirer de nous cet aveu qui fait tant de peine. Après cela viennent les aventures, les rivaux qui se jettent à la traverse d'une inclination établie, les persécutions des pères, les jalousies congues sur de fausses apparences, les plain tes, les désespoirs, les enlèvements, et ce qui s'ensuit. Voila comme les choses se traitent dans les belles manières et ce sont des règles dont, en bonne galanterie, on ne sauroit se dispenser. Mais en venir de but en blanc à l'union conjugale, ne faire l'amour qu'en faisant le contrat du mariage, et prendre justement le roman par la queue! encore un coup, mon père, il ne se peut rien de plus marchand que ce procédé; et j'ai mal au coeur de la seule vision que cela me fait (1:268-269).

The reader will no doubt have recognized the "plot": it matches the structure of Mile de Scudery's long novels Clélie and Le Grand Cyrus; but also that of her shorter Celinte and Mme de Lafayette's La Princesse de Cleves (both in the courtship of the Prince de Clèves and in that of the due de Nemours). This narrative blueprint for a courtship is dismissed by Gorgibus, Magdelon's father, who responds, "Quel diable de jargon entends-je ici? Voici bien du haut style." Magdelon's cousin Cathos continues with a critique of the appearance and behavior of their two suitors, La Grange and Du Croisy, to which Gorgibus responds "Je pense qu'elles sont folles toutes deux, et je ne puis rien comprendre à ce baragouin" (scene 4).

Les Précieuses ridicules provides an early example of a tradition addressing the corruptive force of the emerging novel, a force which inspires the plot of two later novels, Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Zola's Le Rêve. (It will be recalled that in this lesser-known novel by Zola, the heroine, who dreams of marrying the man who is inspired by her romantic visions, indeed succeeds, but dies at the moment of the first kiss on the church steps.) Attacks on the unsuitability and danger of novels to the female (and to children) before the nineteenth century however were common. Nicole in the first Imaginaire of 1665 made perhaps the most famous of these earlier references: "Un faiseur de romans et un poete de theatre est un empoisonneur public, non des corps, mais des âmes des fidèles." Certainly Nicole's allegation of poisoning of souls applies in Les Precieuses ridicules: in the play's last scene, Gorgibus berates his daughter and niece and condemns them to a convent with his "Allez vous cacher, vilaines; allez vous cacher pour jamais," followed by an indictment of novels and verses, "et vous, qui êtes cause de leur folie, sottes billevesées, pernicieux amusements des esprits oisifs, romans, vers, chansons, sonnets et sonnettes, puissiez-vous être à tous les diables!" (scene 17).

In 1728 the Marquise de Lambert, in her Avis d'une mère a sa fille, also states that,

La lecture des romans est plus dangereuse [que les tragédies de Corneille]: je ne voudrais pas que Ton en fit un grand usage; ils mettent du faux dans l'esprit. Le roman ne s'étant jamais pris sur le vrai, allume l'imagination, affaiblit la pudeur, met le désordre dans le coeur; et pour peu qu'une jeune personne ait de la disposition à la tendresse, hate et précipite son penchant (in May, 2455).¹

The Marquise de Lambert could also have been writing about Magdelon and Cathos: the phrase "le roman ne se prend jamais sur le vrai" contrasts their wishes with the perception of the suitors and father; "le roman allume l'imagination" points to the ideas they have about how things should go, despite their inexperience; "le roman affaiblit la pudeur" recalls how they threw themselves on the valets; and "le roman met le désordre dans le coeur" refers to their inability to listen to or understand Gorgibus, the voice of authority and right reason, and to their cringing at the idea of marriage at its most basic ("Comment est-ce qu'on peut souffrir la pensée de coucher contre un homme vraiment nu?" [scene 4]).

But let us take a closer look at the implications of the courtship model—central as it is to my reading of the play and of the point of view of the two women—and its role in the comedy. The plot of the appropriate courtship, according to Magdelon and Cathos, should follow a precise set of rules, all set by women as it happens: by Scudery, by the cousins, by the nous of the narrative. In that world, there would be no jouissance (a notable absence from the Carte de Tendre, as opposed to Tristan L'Hermite's contemporary Le Royaume d'amour, where Jouissance is the capital), no marriage. Life would be a romantic novel and not the business-like world where commodities such as women are bought and sold, by the marchand-father (Magdelon claims that, "il ne se peut rien de plus marchand que ce procédé [scene 4]). In the play, the suitors' valets are the only ones who attempt to plat out the desire of Magdelon and Cathos--it is their desire also: Mascarille, La Grange's valet, is an "extravagant, qui s'est mis dans la tête de vouloir faire Fhomme de condition. II se pique ordinairement de galanterie et de vers, et dédaigne les autres valets, jusqu'a les appeler brutaux" (scene 1). The implication in this situation is clear: the sort of relationships the two cousins seek to develop is the stuff of domestic servants, as is the précieuses' project of developing a sensitivity to love. The cousins are clearly shown to prefer and cavort with a lower-class mentality. The result of this topsy-turvy world is that the valets will be better received than their masters.

The interest of the précieuses in creating new words and expressions, names, and novels, was a way of carving out a world, existence, or reality which would be of women (Stanton 107-134). So it is important not to miss that these women need masters of all kinds to regulate their lives for them; for example, Gorgibus's only recourse in view of his daughter's and niece's insubordination is to proclaim himself "maitre absolu" of their destiny, which is, "ou vous serez mariées toutes deux avant peu, ou, ma foi! vous serez religieuses: j'en fais un bon serment" (scene 4). But the women have other masters: the prospective husbands, their valets, even their own servants, who do not understand their mistresses' linguistic affectations—"je n'entends point le latin," and "il faut parler Chretien, si vous voulez que je vous entende" (scene 6). The world represented by the courtship model is that far from real life.

Odette de Mourgues discounts accusations of anti-feminism on the part of Molière with "Molière anti-feministe? etrange reproche si Ton prend la peine de remarquer que dans le theatre de Molière les rares personnages intelligents sont des femmes (404)." Certainly, the project of rethinking literary of cultural history in terms of feminist issued is fraught with difficulties, and may yield little that is definitive. Molière's play however raises many interesting theoretical issues which can be discussed without broaching the issues of whether Molière is a "feminist" or an "antifeminist." Nancy K. Miller's work is of particular interest here (46). Miller focuses on objections to feminine plots—specifically to La Princesse de Clèves—which assume that women writers cannot or will not obey the rules of fiction and more particularly of vraisemblance, which she translates as "plausibility." She points out that, "the fictions of desire behind the desiderata are masculine and not universal constructs," just as Magdelon's vision is not universal with a change in context, "... the maxims that pass for the truth of human experience, and the encoding of that experience in literature, are organizations, when they are not fantasies, of the dominant culture."²

Clearly in Les Précieuses ridicules Moliere critiques women's (specifically Scudery's) fiction. The word roman appears several times, all in the context of that courtship model presented by Magdelon: 1) she tells her father that, "si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un roman serait bientôt fini!" 2) she also states that arranged marriages turn novels upside down, "prendre justement le roman par la queue!"; and 3) finally Magdelon begs her father to allow her and her cousin Cathos to "faire à loisir le tissu de notre roman" implying her goal to live life as a novel, "et n'en pressez pas tant la conclusion" (scene 4, emphasis added)—a humorous reference no doubt to Scudery's 10,000-page novels.

Women's fiction--as represented by the direct allusions to Scudéry throughout scene 4—has no ties to reality as defined by the context as we have seen above and is, in a word, ridiculous. Whereas La Princesse de Clèves was said to be implausible, specifically with reference to the scene of the aveu, though feasible as a true story, the courtship model of Scudéry's novel in Molière's play is attacked by Gorgibus, the suitors, and the servants as being inapplicable to life, as defined by the context of the play. In both cases, women's fiction is problematized. Let us return to Odette de Mourgues's article for a moment. She presents a reading of Les Précieuses ridicules which is convincing: as préciosité depends on a group, the salon, the comedy of Moliere's play and characters stems from the absence of such a structure--Cathos and Magdelon do not yet belong to a salon, and the two male protagonists are themselves disguised valets (404). I would add to this convincing hypothesis that the comedy of Magdelon's monologue lies in its having been divorced from its usual frame, the roman d'aventures, and placed in a bourgeois milieu. Boileau enforces this notion of the genre as acting as frame or context with "Dans un roman frivole aisément tout s'excuse; / C'est assez qu'en courant la fiction amuse; / Trop de rigueur alors serait hors de saison: / Mais la scene demande une exacte raison, / L'etroite bienséance y veut être gardée" {Art poetique, III, 119-123). Also apparent in these verses is the seeming lack or order in novels compared with the involved rules which control the stage.

The romance, or roman, was commonly held to be an inferior genre, largely written and read by women, for one because it posited a fiction (so close to "lie") which seems to have no place in reality. Selma Zebouni distinguishes between the vrai and vraisemblanceas analogous to one between "truth" and knowledge of reality, or shared experience.³ The play Les Précieuses ridicules provides a framework of reality, or vraisemblance (as system of knowledge) incompatible with the plot that Magdelon presents. Its structure is such that plot or vision is completely excluded as a feasible scenario. Marriage, to Gorgibus and the suitors, is a sort of business transaction. But marriage, according to Magdelon and Cathos, is a pursuit between two people which has been coded and institutionalized by Scudéry's novels. The epistemological bases for the two are incompatible. That, of course, informs the humor of the play, as Odette de Mourgues points out, but the definition of the dominating frame also determines the measure of vraisemblance: the theatrical frame provides the criteria for validation and the internal courtship plot the aberration.

I would like to dwell for a moment on Gorgibus's last qualification of Magdelon and Cathos. Before sending novels and verses to the devil in the last scene, he says, "Nous allons servir de fable et de risée à tout le monde, et voilà ce que vous vous êtes attiré par vos extravagances" (emphasis added). Let the use of the word, "extravagance," be noted. It occurs once earlier in reference to La Grange's valet, Mascarille: he is an "extravagant, qui s'est mis dans la tete de vouloir faire l'homme de condition" (scene 1). In both cases, the word is used to express deviation—from common sense perhaps, embodied in the values of marriage and social rank as defined by Gorgibus, Du Croisy, and La Grange. Descartes uses the word in his Discours de la methode to designate deviation from reason, straying from "le.droit chemin." Pascal also uses the word in Les Provinciates, to object to Jesuitic opinions, propositions, and arguments, in addition to other words like it, as in the example below:

II me fit voir ensuite, dans ses auteurs, des choses de cette nature si infames, que je n'oserais les rapporter, et dont il aurait eu horreur lui-même ... sans le respect qu'il a pour ses Peres .... Je me taisais cependant, moins par le dessein de l'engager a continuer cette matière, que par la surprise de voir des livres de religion pleins de décisions si horribles, si injustes et si extravagantes tout ensemble. II poursuivit done en liberté son discours.... (406)⁴

Finally, theorists of art poetique such as Boileau, Rapin, d'Aubignac, and La Mesnardière use it to emphasize the importance of vraisemblance or plausibility in fictional works. The same word (among others such as etrange, fantastique, horrible, and so on) expresses therefore transgression of reason and common sense, morality, father and doctrine, and literary conventions.

Molière therefore frames his portrayal of Magdelon and Cathos with the term extravagances in the first and last scenes, which serves as a critique of their bad fiction (the courtship plot), their violation of common sense and class, and their questioning of the eminently moral and profitable institution of marriage. Miller herself states that, "sensibility, sensitivity, 'extravagance'—so many code words for feminine in our culture that the attack is in fact tautological—are taken to be not merely inferior modalities of production but deviations from some obvious truth" (p. 46). I would go further and say that it is by looking at Les Précieuses ridicules as an attack on certain novels (written, as it happens, by women), that we find "deviations from some obvious truth"—a truth which moral, sanctioned by the church, the docteurs de Sorbonne, and the state, but also by the Académic. But Molière is never simple. His own plots, on the stage, follow Magdelon's and Cathos's rule that one does not begin with marriage, but rather ends with it after many adventures, of course.

The College of William and Mary in Virigina

¹

Rousseau makes a similar remark, that "jamais fille chaste n'a lu de romans." ²For another reading of desire and fiction in La Princesse de Clèves see Kamuf (67-96). ³Selma Zebouni, "Classical Episteme: or "Le Vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable," paper delivered at the Southeast Society for Seventeenth-Century French Studies (Athens, Georgia, September 1987). ⁴Philip Wolfe addresses a similar question but without the emphasis I place here on the use of poetic terms to judge moral issues, "Langage et vérité dans les Provinciales XI a XVI," Actes de Tucson (Tubingen: Biblio 17, 1984) 79-88.

Boileau-Despréaux, Nicolas. L'art poétique. In OEuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard-Bibliotheque de la Pléiade, 1966).

Kamuf, Peggy. Fictions of Feminine Desire. Disclosures of Heloise (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982).

May, Georges. Le Dilemme du roman au XVIIIème siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963).

Molière. Les précieuses ridicules in OEuvres complètes (Paris: Gallimard-Bibliotheque de la Pléiade, 1961).

Pascal, Blaise. Les Provinciales, in Oeuvres complètes (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1965) Lettre VIII.

Stanton, Domna. "The Fiction of Preciosité and the Fear of Woman," Yale French Studies 62 (1981).

Miller, Nancy K. "Emphasis Added: Plots and Plausibilities in Women's Fiction," Publications of the Modern Language Association 96 (1981).

Mourgues, Odette de. "Molière et le comique de la préciosité," Mélanges de littérature et d'histoire offerts à Georges Couton (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1981).

Wolfe, Phillip. "Langage et vérité dans les Provinciales XI a XVI." Actes de Tucson (Paris/Seattle/Tiibingen: Biblio 17, 1984): 79-88.