Read Online How the French Invented Love by Marilyn Yalom - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Marilyn Yalom
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“to love” in the future. In La Princesse de Clèves , we are at a key point in Western history when romantic love was beginning to make inroads into marital choices, even at the highest level.
After a short engagement, Mademoiselle de Chartres and the Prince de Clèves are wed in a ceremony that takes place at the Palais du Louvre, followed by a nuptial supper attended by the king and queen. We are barely twenty pages into the novel and already the marriage has taken place. What would constitute the happy ending of an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century English novel occurs near the beginning of this quintessentially French story.
Unfortunately, marriage does not change the nature of the princess’s feelings, and the prince is not satisfied with their union, though he has given her his name and has access to her bedchamber. (At this level of society, they would have had separate suites.) He wants her to love him with some measure of the passion he feels for her. But love and passion are still sentiments unknown to the princess. All she can feel for the prince is amitié , a form of affection closer to friendship than to sexual love. In this respect, the princess exemplifies the belief held by Marie de Champagne and her twelfth-century associates that true love cannot exist between spouses.
A twenty-first-century reader finding his or her way through La Princesse de Clèves will certainly notice its rich amatory vocabulary and the fine distinctions made between various shades of sentiment. Amour , passion , amitié , tendresse , attachement , inclination , trouble , agitation , ardeur , flamme , embarras —these are only some of the many terms that French characters use as they endlessly analyze their feelings. Let us not forget that Madame de La Fayette and other writers of her generation were influenced by the linguistic innovations introduced by a group of highly sophisticated ladies known as précieuses , who demanded purity in language, delicacy in thought, and a new psychological awareness. Les précieuses promoted an ultra-refined conversational tone that filtered into many important literary works. One of the first, Madeleine de Scudéry’s novel Clélie, histoire romaine (Clelie: A Roman Story) offered an allegorical journey to the land of love. Its “Map of the Land of Tenderness” was to become the most celebrated graphic document of its day, and one that has been reproduced countless times. I still have a copy bought on the banks of the Seine, which is reproduced at the beginning of this chapter. Note how the lovers’ path takes them through the many stages of love, from Nouvelle amitié (new friendship), Billets doux and Petits soins (love letters and minor attentions), upward toward the imaginary land of Tendresse (tenderness), with its surrounding communities of Obéissance (obedience), Bonté (goodness), and Respect . If the lovers wish to reach their goal, they must be especially careful to avoid the hamlets of Perfidie (perfidy), Médisance (slander), and Méchanceté (maliciousness), and not stray to the Lake of Indifference.
When we listen in on the conversations of the characters in La Princesse de Clèves , we hear echoes of les précieuses and their purified discourse. Gone are any blunt allusions to the flesh that often erupted in medieval and Renaissance literature. The prince speaks only of the greater privileges afforded him by the status of husband, without suggesting that they may have anything to do with the body. So too, Madame de Chartres speaks to her daughter about “love affairs” without any reference to their carnal nature. Does Mademoiselle de Chartres have any idea of what is in store for her on her wedding night? We shall never know. Whatever transpired that night does not seem to have affected her, for better or for worse. Her first experience of sexual intercourse (to revert to less elegant terminology) did not entail an assault upon her heart. Despite his best effort, the
After a short engagement, Mademoiselle de Chartres and the Prince de Clèves are wed in a ceremony that takes place at the Palais du Louvre, followed by a nuptial supper attended by the king and queen. We are barely twenty pages into the novel and already the marriage has taken place. What would constitute the happy ending of an eighteenth- or nineteenth-century English novel occurs near the beginning of this quintessentially French story.
Unfortunately, marriage does not change the nature of the princess’s feelings, and the prince is not satisfied with their union, though he has given her his name and has access to her bedchamber. (At this level of society, they would have had separate suites.) He wants her to love him with some measure of the passion he feels for her. But love and passion are still sentiments unknown to the princess. All she can feel for the prince is amitié , a form of affection closer to friendship than to sexual love. In this respect, the princess exemplifies the belief held by Marie de Champagne and her twelfth-century associates that true love cannot exist between spouses.
A twenty-first-century reader finding his or her way through La Princesse de Clèves will certainly notice its rich amatory vocabulary and the fine distinctions made between various shades of sentiment. Amour , passion , amitié , tendresse , attachement , inclination , trouble , agitation , ardeur , flamme , embarras —these are only some of the many terms that French characters use as they endlessly analyze their feelings. Let us not forget that Madame de La Fayette and other writers of her generation were influenced by the linguistic innovations introduced by a group of highly sophisticated ladies known as précieuses , who demanded purity in language, delicacy in thought, and a new psychological awareness. Les précieuses promoted an ultra-refined conversational tone that filtered into many important literary works. One of the first, Madeleine de Scudéry’s novel Clélie, histoire romaine (Clelie: A Roman Story) offered an allegorical journey to the land of love. Its “Map of the Land of Tenderness” was to become the most celebrated graphic document of its day, and one that has been reproduced countless times. I still have a copy bought on the banks of the Seine, which is reproduced at the beginning of this chapter. Note how the lovers’ path takes them through the many stages of love, from Nouvelle amitié (new friendship), Billets doux and Petits soins (love letters and minor attentions), upward toward the imaginary land of Tendresse (tenderness), with its surrounding communities of Obéissance (obedience), Bonté (goodness), and Respect . If the lovers wish to reach their goal, they must be especially careful to avoid the hamlets of Perfidie (perfidy), Médisance (slander), and Méchanceté (maliciousness), and not stray to the Lake of Indifference.
When we listen in on the conversations of the characters in La Princesse de Clèves , we hear echoes of les précieuses and their purified discourse. Gone are any blunt allusions to the flesh that often erupted in medieval and Renaissance literature. The prince speaks only of the greater privileges afforded him by the status of husband, without suggesting that they may have anything to do with the body. So too, Madame de Chartres speaks to her daughter about “love affairs” without any reference to their carnal nature. Does Mademoiselle de Chartres have any idea of what is in store for her on her wedding night? We shall never know. Whatever transpired that night does not seem to have affected her, for better or for worse. Her first experience of sexual intercourse (to revert to less elegant terminology) did not entail an assault upon her heart. Despite his best effort, the
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