A NOVEL AND A CLASSIC
LA PRINCESS DE CLÈVES
The first novelist in the world as we know it (I say nothing of the Greeks and Romans) was, I believe, a Pope—Pius II. It is not what we have come to expect from the Vatican; but his novel, I ought to add, was “only a little one.” The second, if I don’t mistake, was Mademoiselle de Scudéry, who did the thing on a large scale. Artamène, ou Le Grand Cyrus is in twenty volumes; and though men be so strong (some of them) as to have read it, it is not unkind to say that, for the general, it is as dead as King Pandion. “Works,” then, won’t secure more for an author than his name in a dictionary. You must have quality to do that. The little Princesse de Clèves, written by a contemporary of Mademoiselle’s, all compact in a small octavo of 170 pp., has quality. First published in 1678, at this hour, says Mr. Ashton, in his study of its author,[2] “there are preparing simultaneously an art edition, a critical edition, and an édition de luxe, to say nothing of the popular edition, which has just appeared.” Here is “that eternity of fame,” or something like it, hoped for by the poet. I suppose the nearest we can approach to that would be Robinson Crusoe.
The authoress of the little classic was Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, who was born in 1634. She was of petite noblesse on both sides, but her mother’s remarriage to the Chevalier Renaud de Sévigné lifted her into high society, and brought her acquainted with the incomparable Marquise. If it had done nothing else for her, in doing that it served two delightful women, and the world ever after. But it did more. It procured for Mlle. de La Vergne her entry to the Hôtel de Rambouillet; it gave her the wits for her masters; it gave her the companionship of La Rochefoucauld; and it gave us the Princesse de Clèves. She married, or was married to, a provincial seigneur of so little importance that everybody thought he was separated from his wife some twenty years before he was. When separation did come, it was only that insisted on by death; and through Mr. Ashton’s diligence we now know when he died. Nothing about him, however, seems to matter much, except the bare possibility that the relations between him, his wife, and La Rochefoucauld, which may have been difficult and must have been delicate, may also have given Madame de Lafayette the theme of her novels.
She wrote three novels altogether, and it is a curious thing about them that they all deal with the same subject—namely, jealousy. Love, of course, the everlasting French triangular love, is at the bottom of them: inclination and duty contend for the heroine. But the jealousy which consumes husband and lover alike is the real theme. Only in the Princesse de Clèves is the treatment fresh, the subject deeply plumbed, the dénoument original and unexpected. Those valuable considerations, and the eloquence with which they are brought to bear, may account for its instant popularity. It has another quality which recommends it to readers of to-day—psychology. To a surprising extent, considering its epoch, it does consider of men and women from within outwards—not as clothes-props to be decked with rhetoric, but as reasonable souls in human bodies, and sometimes as unreasonable souls.
Here’s the story. Mademoiselle de Chartres, a high-born young beauty of the Court of Henri II—is there any other novel in the world the name of whose heroine is never revealed?—is married by her mother in the opening pages to the Prince de Clèves, without inclination of her own, or any marked distaste. The prince, we are told, is “parfaitement bien fait,” brave, splendid, “with a prudence which is not at all consistent with youth.” I do not learn that he was, in fact, a youth. All goes well, nevertheless, until the return to Court of a certain Duc de Nemours, a renowned breaker of hearts, more brave, more splendid, more “bien fait,” and much less prudent, certainly, than the Prince de Clèves. He arrives during a ball at the Louvre; Madame de Clèves nearly steps into his arms by accident; their eyes meet; his are dazzled, hers troubled, and the seed is sown. For a space of time she does not know that she loves, or guess that he does: the necessary discoveries are provided for by some very good inventions. An accident to Nemours in a tournament, in the trouble which it causes her, reveals him the truth; his stealing of her picture, which she happens to witness, reveals it to her.
Discovery of the state of affairs, naturally, spurs the young man; but it terrifies the lady. Greatly agitated, she prevails upon her unsuspecting lord to take her into the country. Nemours follows them, as she presently learns. Then, when her husband insists on her return with him to Paris and the daily intercourse with the person she dreads, driven into a corner, she confesses that she dare not obey him, since her heart is not her own. Nothing will induce her to say more; and the prince, disturbed as he is, is greatly touched by the nobility and candour of her avowal. Unfortunately, he is not the only one to be touched; for Nemours, who had been on the point of paying a visit to his enchantress, stands in the ante-room and overhears the whole conversation. He knew it all before, no doubt—but wait a moment. He is so exalted by the sense of his mistress’s virtue that, on his way back to Paris, he casts the whole story into a tale of “a friend” of his, but with such a spirit of conviction thrilling in his tones, that it is quite easy for him who receives it to be certain that “the friend” was Nemours himself. That is really excellent invention, quite unforced, and as simple as kissing. Naturally the tale is repeated, and puts husband and wife at cross-purposes, since it makes either suspect the other of having betrayed the secret. More, it tells the husband the name of his wife’s lover. Further misunderstandings ensue, and last of all, the husband dies of it. I confess that that seems to me rather stiff. Men have died and worms have eaten them—but not the worms of jealousy.
The end of the book is perfectly original. When her grief and remorse have worn themselves out, what is to prevent the lovers coming together? A curious blend in her of piety and prudence, which again seems to me very reasonable. Madame de Clèves feels that, practically, Nemours was the death of her husband. He had not meant to be, did not suspect that he was: she knows that, and allows that time might work in his favour. “M. de Clèves,” she admits, “has only just expired, and the melancholy object is too close at hand to allow me to take a clear view of things.” Leave all that to time, then, by all means. But, says she, at this moment “I am happy in the certainty of your love; and though I know that my own will last for ever, can I be so sure of yours? Do men keep their passion alight in these lifelong unions? Have I the right to expect a miracle in my favour? Dare I put myself in the position of seeing the certain end of that passion which constitutes the whole of my happiness?” M. de Clèves, she goes on, was remarkable for constancy—a lover throughout his married life. Was it not probable that that was precisely because she did not at all respond? “You,” she tells the young man, “have had many affairs of the heart, and will no doubt have more. I shall not always be your happiness. I shall see you kneel to some other woman as now you kneel to me.” No—she prefers him to dangle, “always to be blest!” “I believe,” she owns, with remarkable frankness, “that as the memory of M. de Clèves would be weakened were it not kept awake by the interests of my peace of mind, so also those interests themselves have need to be kept alive in me by the remembrance of my duty.” This lady would rather be loved than love, it is clear; but how long M. de Nemours would continue to sigh, being given so unmistakably to understand that there would be nothing to sigh for, is not so well established.
He was very much distressed, but she would not budge. “The reasons that she had for not marrying again appeared to her strong on the score of duty, insurmountable on that of repose.” So she retired to a convent, “and her life, which was not a long one, left behind her an example of inimitable virtues.”
So far as we are concerned to-day, the Princesse de Clèves lives upon its psychological insight. But for that I don’t see how it could possibly have survived. It is a recital, in solid blocks of narrative interspersed with harangues. It is extremely well-written in a terse, measured style of the best tradition; Love is its only affair; nobody under the rank of a Duke is referred to; as Horace Walpole said of Vauxhall in its glory, the floor seems to be of beaten princes. None of these excellencies are in its favour to-day. Why then does it exist? Because it exhibits mental process logically and amusingly; and because it offers a fresh and striking aspect of a situation as old as Abraham.