29 pages • 58 minutes read
Madame de La FayetteThe Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves)
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1678A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Book 3Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Book 3 Summary
The Vidame concludes his story and informs M. de Nemours that the Dauphine believes the letter was addressed to Nemours. The Vidame then asks Nemours to keep up the ruse by locating the letter and returning it before more eyes see it and recognize the handwriting. Nemours worries that the object of his own affection will be alienated, and so the Vidame reveals a second letter, signed and addressed, clarifying the truth of the affair. “I am entrusting this note to you and I give you leave to show it your mistress to justify yourself,” the Vidame implores (102).
Nemours goes to M. and Mme de Clèves and convinces them to surrender the letter for the Vidame’s sake, asking for their discretion. Mme de Clèves is secretly overjoyed to learn of Nemours’s innocence in this affair. Nemours returns the letter to the Vidame. In the meantime, the Queen has heard about the letter, and the Dauphine desperately wants it back. Admonishing the princess for having given it so freely to her husband (and thus to Nemours), the Dauphine requests a duplicate of the letter “written out in an unrecognizable hand” (107). Having no such letter, M. de Nemours and Mme de Clèves while away many hours attempting to recreate the lost letter from memory. They are so distracted by one another that they do a poor job, and the Vidame falls in the Queen’s estimation.
Guilty over having conspired with Nemours, Mme de Clèves requests another trip to the country. While there, she admits her feelings to M. de Clèves, and while she does not name the object of her affection, she does identify him as the one who stole the miniature portrait. Through sheer circumstance, Nemours happens to be eavesdropping on this conversation and is delighted to learn that he is the man so named. When he returns to Paris, he disguises his minor conquest to the Vidame as second-party gossip, but his excitement reveals him to be the subject of the story.
M. de Clèves entreats his wife to tell him the name of her beloved, but she refuses, and so he determines to learn it by other means. Through close observation of his wife while she’s out in public, he confirms his long-held suspicion that M. de Nemours is the man he seeks. Though she tries to avoid society, Mme de Clèves finds herself in Nemours’s company often, though she rebuffs his attempts to be alone with her and talk more openly about his feelings. Soon, gossip reaches the Dauphine’s ears that an unnamed, married woman of the court is in love with M. de Nemours, and she passes it on to the princess herself. Mme de Clèves believes her husband is the source of this gossip and confronts him. In turn, M. de Clèves denies his role and becomes further distressed about his reputation. They leave the matter with more doubts than answers.
The wedding of the King’s daughter to Philip II (who has sent the Duc d’Elbe as his proxy) is accompanied by great feasting and ceremony. Throughout, M. de Clèves treats his wife distantly. Despite herself, Mme de Clèves secretly thrills at M. de Nemours’s conquests at the jousting tournament.
Toward the end of the tournament, Henri II participates in a joust that leaves him badly injured. He dies of his wounds within a week, as predicted by the soothsayer, thus upsetting the court’s power dynamic.
Book 3 Analysis
Readers who first encountered The Princesse de Clèves in the 17th century debated one question above all: Was the Princess de Clèves right to tell her husband about her deepest feelings? Throughout the novel, Lafayette lays the foundation for this decision by detailing the external pressures the princess faces in the form of court gossip and by describing the insistence of men in gaining her attention and trust. In Book 3, these narrative threads culminate in the princess’s confession to her husband, at which point the author makes the then-novel choice to move her omniscient point of view—usually used to explain historical facts and multiple characters’ perspectives—into Mme de Clèves’s very thought process:
Do I wish to become involved in an affair? To fail M. de Clèves? To fail myself? And so I wish, finally, to lay myself open to the bitter regrets and mortal agonies of love? I have been brought down and overcome by an impulse that is carrying me away in spite of myself. Every resolution on my part is useless: my thoughts were the same yesterday as they are today, yet I am doing today precisely the opposite of what yesterday I resolved (110).
M. de Clèves, for his part, makes it clear that the princess has little choice but to confess to a crime she barely understands. He is the one who demands a confession in the first place. “Mme de Clèves said nothing and her silence confirmed what her husband was thinking” (113) is just the first of several jealous and irrational traps the husband sets for his wife. At no point are we encouraged to think that the husband would be happier with his wife’s confession; to the contrary, we know it is likely to make him less happy. If there is a rule about keeping up appearances, it is the husband who first violates it.
Worse still, M. de Nemours interjects himself more insistently in Mme de Clèves’s life. His theft of her portrait and his half-hearted rejection of the Queen of England leave some doubt that he is willing to break the bounds of courtly appearance in his pursuit of the princess. However, his willingness to spy on her—and then brag about his behavior—dispels that doubt, drawing himself and Mme de Clèves into a spiral of destruction.
Finally, there is the issue of history, which Lafayette imbues with fate. The King receives a visit from a soothsayer, who warns him that he will die in a duel. Despite his advisors’ vehement warnings, the King engages in a duel anyway. He loses an eye in the ceremonial battle, and his life soon after, thus upending the court and the main characters’ positions in it. In this way, the actions and behaviors of those at court are proscribed, passed down from generation to generation, and contain within them dire portents as to the right and wrong ways of doing things. Kings are not at their leisure to ignore fate and engage in trifling duels; lords and ladies of court are not allowed to follow their hearts in matters of love. Lafayette stresses the importance of appearance in this episode and lays out the possibility that death could be the consequence of straying from appearances.
