47 pages • 1 hour read
Abbe PrevostManon Lescaut
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1731A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 124-146Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 124-132 Summary
Des Grieux’s plan to attack those guarding Manon fails miserably, as most of his hired help quickly abandons him. Those who remain advise him to return to Paris, hire different men, and try again the next day, but Des Grieux refuses. Instead, he asks those guarding Manon and the other sex workers to allow him to speak to Manon. They take advantage of his love for Manon and “became so inflexible in their dealings that, continually doubling the price they made [him] pay for the least of their favours, they soon reduced [him] to total penury” (131). It is at this point that Renoncour first encounters Manon and Des Grieux.
Des Grieux writes to Tiberge for money but does not hear back from him; he sells his horse instead. He then boards the ship on which Manon and the other women are being sent to America. He has “no difficulty in being taken on board ship. At that time they were looking for young men who were disposed to join the colony voluntarily” (132). Des Grieux tells the captain his story, lying only about being married to Manon, and the captain treats them both very well on the long journey. Together again, Manon and Des Grieux are as happy as they can be.
Pages 133-140 Summary
After two months they arrive in America, specifically the French colony of New Orleans, in what is now Louisiana. They are welcomed with open arms in New Orleans, which far from being “a fine town was nothing but a collection of a few mean cabins” (132). After conferring with the captain, the governor distributed all the women, except Manon, to various male settlers as brides. The governor believes that Manon and Des Grieux are married and is delighted to have the company of people “well acquainted with society” (133).
The living conditions horrify Manon, but Des Grieux realizes that she is not concerned for her own comfort but for his. He reassures her that he has “everything [his] heart desires” (134) as long as he has her love. Manon apologizes for her previous behavior and vows that she has changed, telling him that since they left France, she has never “stop[ped] reproaching [her]self for [her] inconstancy, nor contemplating, with emotion and wonder, what love has made [Des Grieux] capable of doing for a miserable wretch who is not worthy of it” (134). From this point on, Des Grieux and Manon are deliriously happy, and Des Grieux takes a position with the governor that provides them with enough to live on. Their “willingness to oblige, and [their] mild-mannered ways won [them] the trust and affection of the entire colony” (135). They “were soon so well regarded that [they] were considered the foremost people in the town, after the Governor himself” (135).
Their happiness brings them “thoughts of religion” (135), and they decide they need to have their relationship truly “approved by Heaven” through marriage (136). However, once Des Grieux confesses to the governor that he and Manon are not actually married, the governor treats him coldly and tells him that he plans to give Manon to his nephew, Synnelet, who “had been struck by Manon’s beauty from the first day of [their] arrival” (136) and “was wasting away for her in secret” (137). Des Grieux leaves Manon at their cabin to try to change the governor’s mind, but he refuses. On his way back, Des Grieux encounters Synnelet, and they duel. Des Grieux “wounded him and, at almost the same moment, disarmed him ” (139). Synnelet is “so enraged at his ill-luck that he refused either to beg for his life or renounce Manon” (139). Des Grieux is tempted to kill him despite being unarmed, but “noble blood never demeans itself” so he gives Synnelet back his sword (139). They duel again, and this time Des Grieux kills him. Des Grieux and Manon take some provisions and flee the colony, hoping to convince some of the indigenous people to guide them to an English settlement.
Pages 141-146 Summary
Manon and Des Grieux walk about five miles before resting for the night. The next morning, Manon dies. Rendered almost speechless, Des Grieux implores the listener:
Do not ask me to describe my feelings, nor to repeat to you the last words that she spoke. I lost her; I received tokens of her love at the very moment she died; that is all I have the strength to say about this fatal and most lamentable event (142).
At first, Des Grieux simply lies “there for more than twenty-four hours, [his] lips pressed to the face and hands of [his] beloved Manon” (142). He then buries her, lays atop the grave, and loses consciousness.
The colonists soon find him, and he is “accused of having done away with [Manon] in a fit of jealousy and rage” (144). He is granted leniency based on the testimony of Synnelet, who is not dead, as Des Grieux had thought. Once Des Grieux recovers, he decides to return to France on the next available ship. When the ship arrives, he is astonished to see Tiberge and is overcome by the depth of Tiberge’s friendship and love for him. He vows to resume the life he led before meeting Manon, and together they sail to France. It is in the process of returning to his family that Des Grieux encounters Renoncour for the second time and shares this story with him.
Pages 124-146 Analysis
Des Grieux’s charm and Manon’s beauty rescue them once again, and although they’re dismayed by the primitive accommodations, America nevertheless symbolizes freedom for them. Here they find acceptance, a place where they can be together without any social or familial condemnation. Indeed, things go so well for Manon and Des Grieux that they begin to consider the state of their souls. Although their prior bad acts were rarely punished, they’re now concerned that they are not legally married though they live together as husband and wife. Such relationships, quite common now, were truly scandalous in the 18th century, and were punished through social ostracism and considered sinful by the Catholic church.
Des Grieux and Manon are concerned with this latter entity. However, when they try to rectify the situation, they are faced with separation once again. Des Grieux blames God, asking who could condemn him for “complain[ing] of Heaven’s harshness” not just for “rejecting [their] plan” but for punishing them for it (). Indeed, Des Grieux claims that as long he “trod the path of vice, Heaven bore with [him] in patience; its cruellest persecutions were reserved for when [he] began to return to that of virtue” (136). However, Des Grieux refuses to see that his position in the colony is based on a lie, as is Manon’s, or to acknowledge his own part in his constant misfortune. Instead, Des Grieux also blames God as well as Manon, though he does not make this claim outright. However, he makes clear that it is Manon’s beauty that attracts the governor’s nephew; otherwise the governor may not have cared that they were unmarried. In fact, Des Grieux notes that the “Governor heard [him] with his usual kindness” (137), and it is not, presumably, until the governor speaks with his nephew that he decides to award Manon to him.
Just as Manon and Des Grieux have faced increasingly harsher punishments at each point they seem on the cusp of true happiness, this occasion brings about the cruelest punishment of all—Manon’s death. Much like her beauty, her death leaves Des Grieux almost speechless; he notes that although her death “is for ever present in [his] memory, [his] soul recoils in horror every time [he] tr[ies] to put it into words” (141). Again, however, this is less about Manon and more about Des Grieux. He describes his grief, his discomfort, and his desire for death, but tells the reader only that Manon sighed frequently and held his hand (141). She gets no last words; the reader is not even told what killed her.
Manon’s death was inevitable, however. In Prévost’s culture, it would have been unthinkable to allow her or Des Grieux a happy ending. Indeed, the text was banned because it did not sufficiently punish their bad behavior. Nonetheless, only Manon’s death is required; Des Grieux, as a man of good breeding, is capable of rehabilitation and is in the process of just that at the story’s end, after which he will return to his family. Tiberge has already welcomed him back with open arms. Indeed, Manon’s death seems to free Des Grieux, who tells Tiberge that “the seeds of virtue he had long ago sown in [Des Grieux’s] heart were beginning to bear fruit” (145). This rebirth is only possible because Manon is no longer there to tempt him to stray from the path of virtue.
