The Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves)

“But Nemours was nature’s masterpiece: his least striking attribute was to be the most handsome and comely of men. Where he excelled above all others was in his incomparable valor and a distinction of mind, features and manners that belonged only to him.”

M. de Nemours is contrasted to the other men at court as objectively, or naturally, superior. “Nature” plays a silent role in this story as a complication to the smooth operation of courtly appearance.

“He had such gentleness and such a gallant nature that he was unable to deny some consideration to those who sought his regard. Consequently, he had many mistresses, but it was hard to discern which of them he truly loved.”

It is important to note the separation of “mistress” and “lover” to “wife” throughout the book. Mistresses inspire creative passion; wives inspire duty.

“[B]ut those whom the royal favor or the affairs of state brought close to the King might only remain there by deferring to the Duchess de Valentinois. Though she was no longer possessed of youth or beauty, she ruled him with an authority so absolute that she might be said to be mistress at once of his person and of the State.”

This forceful introduction to the Duchess de Valentinois is among the first indications that appearance is an unreliable guide to what happens behind the scenes. If mistresses inspire passion, then the Duchess represents the beating heart of the state and the King’s creative passion for his country.

“There then appeared at court a beauty who attracted every eye; and it must be supposed that she exhibited true perfection, since she inspired awe in a place where people were so much accustomed to the sight of beauty.”

The title character is introduced only after many secondary characters. Her rank, like ours, is lower than the first-met characters. However, unlike readers, her potential to rise in this setting is enormous in part because of her great beauty. Yet for a moment she is like us, someone ordinary lost in a crowd of great names.

“Most mothers believe that, to protect young people, it is enough to refrain from speaking about matters of the heart in front of them. Mme de Chartres held the opposite view. She often described love to her daughter, showing her all its attractions, the more easily to persuade her of its dangers; she told her of men’s lack of sincerity, their deceit and their unfaithfulness; and of the domestic misfortunes occasioned by liaisons.”

Mme de Chartres plays a very important role in Book 1, adding much-needed perspective on the court and its behaviors. She is also described here as an exceptional guide, different from other mothers because she respects her daughter enough to be honest with her.

“There were so many different factions and parties, and the women played so great a role in them, that love was always allied to politics and politics to love.”

This line at once elevates the power of women in the court while severely delimiting their range of action. Women take the lead role in arranging the nuptial mergers upon which war and peace are settled. Yet this is not the wild, romantic love of individual liberty celebrated in novels and poems of a later age. If politics are softened by their entanglement with love, then love is consequently hardened by politics.

“From then on, no one dared consider Mlle de Chartres, for fear of displeasing the King or thinking that they might not succeed with somebody who had aspired to marry a prince of the blood.”

This unassuming sentence foreshadows the central character’s fate. Due to her mother’s failed match with the Duc de Montpensier, a man “of marriageable age, and the highest in rank at court” (36), the beautiful Mlle de Chartres becomes spoiled goods. This opens the way for the mismatch with the mediocre M. de Clèves, which causes much confusion and unhappiness.

“‘Is it possible,’ [M. de Clèves] inquired, ‘that I can be anything but happy in our engagement? Yet the truth is that I am not. You show me only a kind of courtesy, and I cannot be contented with that. You betray none of impatience, anxiety or turmoil of love and are no more moved by my passion than you would be by an attachment founded, not on the allurements of your person, but merely on those of your wealth.’”

The estrangement of M. de Clèves and his wife-to-be is evident even before they are married. So ironclad is the law of such arrangements that they do not even briefly consider calling off the wedding.

“She turned and saw a man whom she thought from the first could only be M. de Nemours, climbing over some seats to get to the dance floor. He was so handsome that it was hard not to be impressed by the first sight of him, especially on that evening, when the care he had taken with his dress added to the natural brilliance of his appearance.”

This is the first meeting between M. de Nemours and the title character. It is notable for taking place well after the other introductions, and after the author established an estrangement between M. de Clèves and his bride-to-be. For a moment, they have a chance to act with relative freedom, yet their chance passes them by.

“‘It is true,’ her mother answered, ‘that the King’s passion was not inspired, and did not endure, either because of Mme de Valentois’s merits or because of her fidelity, and it is this that makes in inexcusable. For if that woman had had youth and beauty as well as birth, if she had been virtuous enough to love no one else, if she had loved the King with scrupulous fidelity, and if she had loved him for himself, without consideration of rank and fortune, using her power solely for ends that are worthy of pleasing the King, one must admit that it would have been hard to begrudge him praise for his great attachment to her.’”

In describing the relationship of the King to his mistress, Mme de Chartres makes an extraordinary and (to the modern reader) terrible admission; to her mind, fidelity and loyalty are wasted on anyone but the young and desirable. Lafayette’s purpose here was probably to underscore the difficulty of Mme de Clèves’s road ahead as a youthful and charming married woman in love with a man who is not her husband, yet Mme de Chartres’s words must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.

“If you judge by appearances in this place […] you will often be deceived, because what appears to be the case hardly ever is.”

Mme de Chartres establishes a theme for the novel, one that Robin Buss is quick to point out in her introduction: “What is true of the court is true of the novel. The historical background is neither purely decorative, nor a history lesson, but a morality, giving a social and political dimension to the story” (4).

“If any arguments other than those of virtue and duty could persuade you to do as I ask, I should tell you that, were there a single thing that might disturb the bliss to which I look forward on leaving this world, it would be to see you fall as other women have done. But, if this misfortune is to occur, I die happy, since I shall not have to witness it.”

These are Mme de Chartres’s dying words, and here she declares the price of keeping up the proverbial deceptive appearance. She cautions that suppression of feeling inevitably leads to dishonest behavior and is pleased to die before learning an unwanted truth. These words set the course for Mme de Clèves’s behavior.

“I am giving you the advice […] that I should follow for myself: for I set such high store by sincerity that I think if my mistress or even my wife were to tell me she was attracted to someone else, I should be upset, but not bitter. I should cease to behave as a lover or a husband, so that I could offer her my advice and sympathy.”

M. de Clèves gossips about Mme de Tournon, establishing early in the story the idea that a wife should remain true to her husband even in widowhood. With this quote, he sets a trap for his wife, asserting “truth” as an absolute good, in contrast to her mother’s advice.

“There are those to whom we dare give no sign of love that we feel for them, except in things that do not touch them directly; and, though one dares not show them that they are loved, one would at least like them to see that one does not wish to be loved by anyone else.”

M. de Nemours hides his feelings very carefully in this nest of words, pretending to speak abstractedly while fishing for some reaction on Mme de Clèves’s part. The fact that he gets no definitive reaction spurs M. de Nemours to more daring action, moving from the decorous to the nearly criminal.

“The most obscure discourse of an attractive man is more disturbing than an open declaration of love from one who is not.”

Mme de Chartres may have been correct in saying that appearances distract from the truth, but what happens when appearances shape the truth? What use is reason if the outward reflection of that reason distorts the communication of it? Though M. de Nemours may stammer and speak nonsense, Mme de Clèves cannot help but find herself attracted to him.

“After the misfortune that the King said had been predicted for him, those who supported astrology gave in and agreed that one should put no trust in it.”

After the soothsayer predicts his death, the King dismisses the warning. Of course, later in the novel the King participates in a duel and is killed, just as predicted.

“The peculiarity of her confession, for which she could see no precedent, made her realize how precarious it was.”

Mme de Clèves instantly recognizes her mistake in describing her most intimate desires to her husband, but she is powerless to reverse the decision. Such a thing may have happened thousands of times in the past, but she, in her youth and malleability, can see no precedent for it.

“Yet he felt a decided pleasure in having reduced her to this extremity. He considered there was a great merit in having gained the love of one so unlike others of her sex; and, in short, he was infinitely happy and unhappy at the same time.”

Lafayette concludes that love and agony are interrelated; so too does Nemours, who revels in both the pain and pleasure he feels. By contrast, Mme de Clèves sees no precedent for her situation and cannot reconcile the complexity of her emotions.

“‘So you were indisposed only for him,’ M. de Clèves continued. ‘Since you saw everybody, why make such a distinction for M. de Nemours?’”

Here M. de Clèves lays an impossible trap for his wife. She is guilty if she shows courtesy to M. de Nemours, but she is also guilty if she shows none.

“This was as terrible as has ever been seen, and few men of such great courage and such a passionate nature as M. de Clèves, have at one and the same time suffered the pain of a mistress’s infidelity and the shame of being betrayed by a wife.”

This juxtaposition of “mistress” and “wife” defines an essential difference between the passion of love and the duty toward fidelity. Here, Lafayette points out how unusual it is that a husband feels both ways toward the woman he has married.

“Why inform me of your passion for M. de Nemours, if your virtue was unable to withstand it? I admit to my shame that I loved you to the point where I was happy to be misled; I have longed to return to the false sense of security from which you have now driven me. Why did you not leave me in that untroubled blindness so many husbands enjoy?”

Here Lafayette asks whether marital fidelity is served through absolute adherence to the truth or if some things are better left internalized. This was a topic of interest which spurred sales of the novel upon its initial publication.

“She continually reviewed everything that she owed him and blamed herself for not having felt passionately towards him, as if this were something that had been in her power to do.”

After her husband’s death by grief, Mme de Clèves performs a new round of self-examination. The tragedy of her position is that, though the author and reader can see she was powerless to change the course of fate, she does not.

“I know you are free, as I am, and our situation is perhaps such that no public blame could be attached to you or to me, were we to commit ourselves to each other for ever. But does a man sustain love in such everlasting covenants? […] I even believe that the impediments to your love ensured its constancy.”

M. de Nemours’s desirability is an exact inverse of how likely he is to fulfill desire. The same is true of Mme de Clèves, who finally reveals one of the book’s underlying facets, which is that love and agony go together. At the same time, she points out another truth: In the eyes of public opinion, men are freer to commit affairs than women.