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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2020
Jean-Jacques Rousseau developed the distinctive style of thought presented in La Nouvelle Héloïse in order to reconcile conflicting needs for erotic pleasure, innocence, and transparency. The cognitive style thus evolved and put forth as a moral imperative, emphasizing both the subject's ability to lose himself in an emotional fusion with others and the overwhelming power of the passions, found favor with the generation coming of age in 1761. Choderlos de Laclos, a member of that generation, although apparently much impressed by some aspects of Rousseau, presents in Les Liaisons dangereuses a cognitive style which is the antithesis and refutation of the one in La Nouvelle Héloïse. The “sentiment involontaire,” so frequently invoked in La Nouvelle Héloïse as an excuse for the inadmissible impulse or action, is subject to a scornful analysis by Laclos. Whereas Rousseau attempted to seduce the reader into accepting the morality of his novel, Laclos, on the contrary, sets up a trap by which the reader is made to recognize his own complicity, motivated by curiosity, in the maneuvers of the rapacious protagonists.
1 The influence of La Nouvelle Hildise during the twenty years following publication is discussed by Daniel Mornet in Les Origines intellectuelles de la Revolution francaise: 1715–1789 (Paris: Colin, 1933), Ch. iii; in J.-J. Rousseau, La Nouvelle Heldise (Paris: Hachette, 1925), Pt. iv; and by Gita May in De Jean-Jacques Rousseau a Madame Roland (Geneva: Droz, 1964).
2 1 have treated this topic in more detail: “La Nouvelle Heldise: An Act in the Life of J.-J. Rousseau,” VEsprit Createur, 9 (Winter 1969), 198–206.
3 He puts the time when “de sourds et tristes pressentimens me troublaient sans que je susse a propos de quoi” as “sur la fin de l'automne, 1761” ((Euvres completes, Paris: Plemde, 1964, i, 564). Also see n. 2 to p. 566 of this edition for a discussion of Rousseau's first suspicions that he was the victim of a conspiracy.
4 See the perceptive remarks about the reform by B. Gagnebin and M. Raymond (i, xxxlv).
5 1, 416. In this paper I have followed Rousseau's uncorrected orthography as it appears in the Pleiade editions.
6 “Ce changement commenga sitot que j'eus quitte Paris, et que le spectacle des vices de cette grande Ville cessa de nourrir l'indignation qu'il m'avoit inspiree” (i, 417).
7 In his Studies of Human Time Georges Poulet describes with great sensitivity this reorientation of Rousseau toward his own past as a source of imaginary happiness (New York: Harper, 1959), pp. 158–84.
8 Cited by Rene Pomeau, introd.toLa Nouvelle Heldise (Paris: Gamier, 1960), p. viii.
9 “Les femmes surtout s'enivrerent et du livre et de l'auteur, au point qu'il y en avait peu, meme dans les hauts rangs dont je n'eusse fait la conquete si je l'avois entrepris” (i, 545).
10 In his illuminating study, J.-J, Rousseau: La transparence et robstacle (Paris: Plon, 1958), he characterized Rousseau's desire to be totally transparent as the central motivation of his life.
11 Diderot voiced this criticism of La Nouvelle Heldise in the Essai sur les regnes de Claude et de Neron: “En prechant contre la licence des mceurs (Rousseau) composeun roman licentieux” ((Euvres completes, Paris: Gamier, 1875, iii, 98).
12 J.-J. Rousseau, La Nouvelle Heldise (Paris: Hachette, 1925), pp. 239–47.
13 Laclos quotes Le Contrat social respectfully in a speech (10 July 1791) to the Societe des Jacobins. In a review of Frances Burney's novel Cecilia he terms La Nouvelle Heldise “le plus beau des Ouvrages produit sous le titre de Roman” (QEuvres completes, I, 521). Laclos's novel is a running commentary on Rousseau's. He takes his epigraph from Rousseau's First Preface: “J'ai vu les moeurs de mon temps, & j'ai publie ces Lettres.” He refers to La Nouvelle Heloise- twice by name, once as a source of erotic inspiration for the Marquise (p. 30), and once as being the only exception to the rule that in general “l'Auteur se bat les flancs pour s'echauffer, et le lecteur reste froid” (p. 70). In both remarks Rousseau's work is characterized as sensually stimulating. .
The characters in Les Liaisons dangereuses mention Rousseau frequently. Valmont refers to Julie's tutor as “le tendre St. Preux,” quoting him in an ironical context (p. 260). Elsewhere he calls Rousseau “un sage,” quoting Emile, to which Laclos adds a footnote asking: “Madame de Tourvel avaitelle lu EmileT' (p. 121). Laclos footnotes another reference to La Nouvelle Heloise, in Valmont's letter cx to Mme de Merteuil with the following: ”M. de Valmont parait aimer a citer J.-J. Rousseau, et toujours en le profanant par l'abus qu'il en fait“ (p. 806). This note was deleted in the published edition. There are other explicit references to Rousseau in Laclos's novel, but perhaps of greater significance are the many parallels and repetitions of situations, ideas, and expressions. E.g., Julie and Claire are frequently called the ”inseparables“ and much is made of their mutual attachment. In Les Liaisons dangereuses Laclos inserts an anecdote about Prevan, the renowned rake defeated by Mme de Merteuil. He seduced a trio of women so fond of one another that their publicly recognized lovers were said to be only a smokescreen to conceal the intimacy among them. They were known as the ”inseparables.“
Laurent Versini, in his exhaustive study of literary influences on Laclos, Laclos et la tradition (Paris: Klincksieck, 1968), devotes three chapters to parallels between the two works. Among numerous examples of the profound influence he sees Rousseau exerting on Laclos he remarks that “les aventures de Danceny et de Cecile sont d'un bout a l'autre une parodie de l'idylle et des peines de Julie et de son amant” (p. 593). Versini's work also includes an extensive bibliography of Laclos scholarship and a list of epistolary novels from 1700 to 1800.
14 For a perceptive analysis of Mme de Merteuil's sexual “bipolarity” see Aram Vartanian's article, “The Marquise de Merteuil: A Case of Mistaken Identity,” VEsprit Createur, 3 (Winter 1963), 172–80.
15 John Pappas points out in his study “Le Moralisme desLiaisons dangereuses,” Cahiers de la Societe francaise d'Etude du XVllb siecle, 2 (1970), 256–96, that Mme de Merteuil made a bad bargain in sacrificing all pretense of virtue for an illusory equality with Valmont. “Sous ce point de vue elle est sa propre ennemie, car elle combat en elle ce qu'il y a de plus authentique, pour s'imposer un ‘moi’ contrefait” (p. 285).
16 Charles Duclos, e.g., in his “Lettre a 1'auteur de Madame de Luz” describes the genesis of the novel as follows: “Les hommes ont trouve l'histoire trop simple, trop peu interessante pour leur curiosite, encore moins interessante pour leurs passions, d'ou nait leur curiositd,” CEuvres completes: Recueillis pour la premiere fois [par L.-S. Auger] (Paris, 1807), vm, 336.