2. THE NOVEL: WOMEN IN FRENCH FICTION

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2. THE NOVEL: WOMEN IN FRENCH FICTION
The role of women in the French novel is naturally related to their position in
society. Demoris, inLe Roman a fa premiere personne, comments with regard
to the seventeenth century that
la modification de la situation de I'aristocratie n'est pas sans etTet sur la position de la
femme. La fonction politique etait une marque sexuelle secondaire. II reste la fonction
guerriere ... Aux fetes de Versailles, il convient, a I'un et l'autre sexe, de plaire. Se
dessine la possibilite d'une egalite que traduit peut-etre Ie nombre des traites sur
I'education des femmes, qui paraissent a partir de 1685.
And he adds that 'cette egalite est partiellement realisee en litterature, ou
Bayle evoque l'eventualite d'une concurrence'.' The classical model of good
taste, insisting on what is natural and excluding pedantry, encouraged women,
as a part of the aristocracy, to write well. It was in the genre of the novel that
women particularly exercised their talents and Demoris lists the increase in
number of feminine authors, especially from 1685, producing a similar number
of published novels as did their masculine counterparts.
Women were both the readers and the subject matter of these novels by
feminine authors. Bayle considered that the growth of realism in such works
was paid for by a lowering of moral standards on the part ofthe author because
she came to question those traditional standards which are masculine in
origin.2
In regard to the feminine memoir-novel particularly, Demoris remarks: 'que
l'auteur en so it une femme ou un homme, Ie fait essentiel est qu'une femme y
parle (ou y ecrive) d'elle-meme. Avant d'avoir affaire a des evenements, les
heroInes ant a atTronter leur propre statut.') This is clearly most relevant to the
eighteenth-century novel in France and will apply to those authors and
feminine characters of special concern to this study.
P. M. Hall quotes the eighteenth-century critics Lenglet-Dufresnoy, who
considered that the novel's superiority to history consisted in the greater
prominence it gave to women, and the Abbe J aquin, who held that woman was
the companion of man by the wish of God and novels made her into a tyrant
over man. The novel is bound up with the position of women in society. Both
critics attempt to relate this connection to the development of civilizations in
which the novel enjoys popularity and to the social status of women. Their
contrasting views of women and the novel stem not from a different
I
2
R. Demoris, Le Roman Ii fa premiere personne (Paris, Armand Colin, 1975), 263.
Ibid., 264.
J Ibid., 265.
19
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20
interpretation of the evidence but from the moral judgment they pass on
contemporary social developments. 4
It can be seen that for many of those who attacked the novel in the eighteenth
century, women - either as authors or characters within the novel - were
antipathetic because they had moved from their traditional position of
inferiority to claim equality to some degree with men and indeed might claim
superiority to men in certain cases.
It becomes clear, then, that the role of the feminine characters in the
eighteenth-century French novel can be seen as an illustration of their
contemporary social position, but our concern here is with the function of the
women in the structure of the novel. By this limitation, it is possible to
generalize and to be able to comment not only on the role of women but also on
the structure of the novel.
Before considering the function of women in a specific work, it should be
pointed out that women play an important part in the main novels from La
Pn'ncesse de Cl~ves (1678). It may be stated that novels reflect the
contemporary mores as well as the particular view of the novelist and it may be
tempting to devote much space to the feminine characters in a large number of
secondary works. However, it should be noted that in the eighteenth century
great importance is given to women in certain main novels, and while reference
is made here to the women in secondary works, most attention is given to
certain main novels, where exceptional writers have given primary importance
to the feminine characters and to their social background.
In the seventeenth century, the preciosity of the salon of Madame de
Rambouillet led to the novels C/e/ie (1654-60) and the Princesse de Cleves
(1678), with which certain critics have dealt at length. The salon society also
proauced the Lettres portugaises (1669), which is of special interest from the
standpoint of the eighteenth-century novel since it takes the form of an early
letter-novel. 'Les Lettres portugaises', writes DelofTre,
ne sont pas seulement une correspondance, elles sont ... une sorte de roman par lettres.
II est interessant de se demander quels etaient, en 1668, les romans par lettres dont
aurait pu s'inspirer Guilleragues. On ne peut en citer qu'un en France, Ie Roman des
Lettres de I' Abbe d'Aubignac (1667); il avaitete precede d'un ouvrage du memegenre
en Angleterre, Ie recueil de la duchesse de Newcastle (1664). Si aucun de ces deux
ouvrages n'a inspire Ie sujet des Lettres portugaises, ils montrent au moinsque Ie genre
etait alors dans I'air ... Plus generalement, Guilleragues a ete trop llIele a la societe
litteraire et mondaine de son temps pour n'en avoir pas subi I'influence. Dans des
cercles tels que ceux de Mme de Sable, de La Rochefoucauld, de la Marechale
4 P. M. Hall, 'Duclos's Histoire de Madame de Luz: Woman and history', in Jacobs et al.
(eds.), Woman and Society in Eighteenth-Century France, 139-40.
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d' AJbret, ou de la Duchesse de RicheJieu, Ie sujet qui est au centre des con versations est
l'anaJyse du 'sentiment'. 5
At this period, towards the end of the seventeenth century, La Rochefoucauld
is the moralist who dominates this whole society with his essentially
pessimistic view of love. 'N'aimer guere en amour est un moyen assure pour
etre aime', La Rochefoucauld wrote, thereby in effect exposing the hypocrisy
that is inherent in love. 6 Just as La Princesse de Cleves is imbued with this
pessimistic conception oflove, it is also the dominating feature pervading the
tone of the Lettres portugaises, especially as the novel comes to an end.
Robert Chasles, in writing the seven stories making up Les Illustres
Franr;oises, reveals himself as a man of the seventeenth century, even though
his work was published only in 1713. Its tone and attitudes are surely those of
the grand siecle and for Chasles the great problems are those of liberty, divine
grace, fatality and human responsibility. 7
It is as a precursor of certain eighteenth-century novelists that Chasles is of
interest here, but one may contrast the attitudes of Chasles and of Prevost:
'pour Prevost, Ie bien est une sagesse. Pour Chasles, c'est une activite de
l'individu travaillant a augmenter, suivant Ie cas, I'honneur de son nom ou Ie
bien de sa famille', wrote Deloffre. 8
Yet we find a new freedom of thought and behaviour on the part of the
feminine characters in Chasles' work. They have turned aside from hypocrisy
and prudery, for when they resist the advances of a man that they love, it is only
through concern for their reputation, in the eyes of the world, as in the case of
Angelique and Contamine, or in their own opinion, as with Madame de Lande
and Dupuis. The attitude of the widow in the final story shows how women
reject all other principles of conduct imposed on their sex by society.9 This
suggests a new conception of freedom in love and personal responsibility in
relationships that will develop in the eighteenth century. Five of the seven
stories are each told by their principal character, in every case the masculine
partner, and it is Leo Spitzer who suggests that 'Ia plus grande nouveaute de
Marivaux dans La Vie de Marianne est peut-etre de confier a une femme Ie
role d'ecrivain'.10
In the Histoire de Des Frans et de Silvie, it is the theme of illegitimacy that
is emphasized: the fatality attached to an illegitimate birth and the price
exacted from the children for a fault committed by the parents. This is relevant
'Guilleragues, Les LeI/res portugaises, 113-14.
• La Rochefoucauld, Sentences et maximes morales [G.E.F. edn), Maximes supprimees.
n° 36.
, Chasles, Les //lustres Francoises, I, I.
8 Ibid.
Ibid., xlvii.
I.
9
Ibid., I-Ii.
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also to Marianne, whose destiny is influenced by her not knowing her 'social
origins', but especially relevant to La Religieuse, in which Suzanne's destiny
is brought about entirely by the fact of her illegitimacy.
The emphasis on mesalliance, the relationship between two people
belonging to different social classes, may be found in the stories ofChasles. It
is also an essential element, although seen in a different light, in Marivaux's
novel, since Marianne does not know her social origins and the lack of these
social credentials leads to Valville's family kidnapping Marianne and bringing
her before a Court Minister to explain her social position before she marries
Valville. This scene will provide Marivaux with the opportunity to state his
belief, through Marianne, that qualities of the heart count for more than proof
of noble extraction.
Marivaux, inLa Vie de Marianne, writes an analytical study ofa particular
woman, a heroine not unlike the Silvia he admired in his plays and possibly in
real life. The story of Marianne is given in the first person and although
allegedly in letter-form is close to the memoir. Whether the form is memoir or
novel, much has been written on the structure. Perhaps, though, dealing with
an analytical work such as La Vie de Marianne, the term function is less
appropriate than in the later works of the century, where the role is subservient
to a central philosophical theme. I I
Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise (1761), with Les Confessions, provides
perhaps the earliest source of what has become known as the nineteenthcentury novel. The structure of La Nouvelle Heloise has been carefully
examined by all critics dealing with that novel and the function of Julie within it
has been studied in depth. \2 Of course, Rousseau has also dealt with many
themes besides the role of women and the portrait of Julie is very much
subordinated to the vindication of Rousseau's conception oflife and happiness
and to his own personal opinions. Moreover, whilst his characters belong to the
aristocracy, his ideal society - portrayed at Clarens and exemplified by
Monsieur de Wolmar's way of life - is essentially bourgeois in conception,
reflecting the ideal of Rousseau himself; he was of course of lowly status,
inferior to that of Diderot, whose family were of the relatively prosperous
artisan class. However, Rousseau's great work is of such importance in any
consideration of the French eighteenth-century novel that it is clearly
necessary to relate the role of Julie to my general conclusions, in connection
with my analysis of the role of women in other works.
This is discussed more fully in Chapter 10.
See M. B. Ellis, 'lulie' or 'La Nouvelle Hetofse'; A Synthesis of Rousseau's Thought,
1749-1759 (Toronto, University of Toronto Press, (949); J. Lemaitre,Jeall-Jacqlles Rousseau
(Paris, Calmann-Uvy, (907).
)I
12
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I have omitted the Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut
(1731) by the Abbe Prevost for detailed study because Manon is presented
only through the eyes of Des Grieux, and this feature, coupled with the
peculiar nature of the novel, seems to put it outside the purpose of this study.
King, in his Introduction to the text, states: 'since the narrative is all by the
Chevalier, everything is thereby related to his affective life'.13 'Morally and
psychologically,' King writes, 'Manon is as estompee as she is physically. But
the novel is not a psychological novel, and Manon is again true to her fI,mction,
which is to be the cause of feeling on the part of Des Grieux.' 14
However, one may question whether or not Manon is a psychological
novel. There is a social and philosophical interpretation to be seen in Manon,
and Proust - in his interesting structural analysis of the novel, which brings
out the fact that a veil has been placed over physical description· - has
suggested that Des Grieux reflects the Abbe Prevost's understandable
inhibitions. IS Moreover, the point needs to be made that Manon is aJemme
declassee, at any rate of no social status, showing that the conception of the
idealization of women and thatoftheJemmeJatale cut across social barriers. I
have occasion to refer to this work when it seems to be relevant in the course of
my analysis of female psychology.
Similarly, the Histoire d'une Grecque moderne (1740) tells the story of
Theophe through the eyes of the narrator. Mauzi, in his Introduction to the
work, has interestingly linked Theophe with Manon:
la 'Grecque' du roman sera, pour Ie lecteur, une enigme ... Celui-ci [Ie narrateurJ se
trouve alors devant Theophe dans Ie meme etat d'incomprehension anxieuse que Des
Grieux devantManon. Carc'est bien iI Manon ... que Theophe nousfaitsonger. Dans
les deux cas, les memes rapports s'etablissent entre Ie heros, qui est la conscience de
J'ceuvre, et Ie personnage enigmatique que ni I'auteur, ni Ie narrateur, ni Ie lecteur ne
voientjamais de I'interieur, mais dont ils doivent interpreter les sentiments et sonder Ie
mystere iI partir de signes desesperement ambigus. 16
Mauzi might have added that both Theophe and Manon share lowly origins. I
am more concerned with the position of the feminine characters in other
specific - and perhaps more relevant - works which, in addition to feminine
psychology, offer the reader a valid social or philosophical commentary.
In the case of La Religieuse, it is clear that Diderot is concerned not only
with the position of his heroine but with making generalizations on the position
Prevost, Histoire du Chevalier Des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut, xliv.
Ibid., liii.
Il J. Proust, 'Le corps de Manon', Litterlllure (1971), IV, 5-21.
16 Prevost, Histoire d'une Grecque modeme, v.
II
14
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ofthe nun in eighteenth-century society and the philosophical consideration of
the nature of women that he has introduced.
As Benac states in his Presentation:
il [Diderot] ne pousse pas I' amour de la verite jusqu 'il choisir un personnage mediocre,
comme on en voit tous les jours. L'aventure et Ie caractere de seeur Simonin gardent
quelque chose d'exceptionnel; elle est un symbole vivant, agrandi, des malheurs de
toutes les religieuses. Enfin, malgre I'habilete avec laque\le est dissimulee la these que
defend I'auteur, celle-ci n'en apparait pas moins derriere Ie recit. I7
What is particularly interesting is Diderot's method of psychological analysis
of the various women depicted in this work; for he does not attempt to enter
into the minds of his characters as an omniscient narrator and explain them to
the reader. Apart from Mademoiselle Simonin who is making a personal
confession, the other characters are seen by her from their exterior and their
psychology can be surmised only from appearances. If Diderot gives special
importance to physical appearance as an aid to understanding of personality,
the reader sees that physical appearance through the narrator only and she
may mislead him in her interpretation. IS
In both the case of Marivaux and that of Diderot we are faced with
analytical novels, but in the case of Diderot this analysis is subordinated to a
philosophical intention. The term 'function', therefore, becomes most appropriate in the latter case when considering the role of the many feminine
characters in the structure of Diderot's novel. The situation of these women
incarcerated by their society must affect the way they are presented in terms of
the structure. With Diderot, we are also concerned with the sufferings of the
woman of feeling as a victim of society and with the aim of the author to involve
the reader emotionally in the pain of her misfortunes and draw critical
conclusions.
If we tum to Crebillon fils, and in particular to Les Egarements du C(Eur el
de ['esprit, we note a somewhat different point of view. In the other works
referred to, the themes of paramount interest are the relationships of individual
men and women; the game of love with Marivaux; the frustration offeminine
nature as seen by Diderot; and, as portrayed by Rousseau in La Nouvelle
Heloise, the representation of an ideal moral relationship between men and
women, on Lockeian lines but established in the patriarchal society of
Monsieur de Wolmar. In contrast, the interest in Crebillon fils centres on the
relationship between men and women in certain circles at the aristocratic level
and it will be necessary to proceed to a consideration of the nature of
libertinage before evaluating the function of women in the works to be
17
18
Diderot, La Re/igieuse, xiii.
Ibid., xii.
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25
examined. Essentially, these works by Crebillon fils refer to an earlier period
of sQciety - the late seventeenth century and early eighteenth century
depicted among others by Grammont - in which the position of woman is that
of a victim, in spite of her growing importance in society. Her legal status is
virtually nil and the social restrictions from which she seeks to escape affiict
her greatly in her relations with men. However, a study of libertinage will show
it to be in the nature of a game played by members of a limited and privileged
society, and certain feminine characters in the novels of this genre are shown as
e·qual or superior to their masculine counterparts through sheer force of
intelligence and personality, while they als9 act as initiators without whom no
man can enter a specifically aristocratic society.
In the light of the theory of libertinage, it is possible to see the function of
women within certain novels as reflecting not so much the situation of the male
characters as heroes but the inter-relationship between men and women. With
this difference in subject matter comes a distancing on the part of the reader
from the characters we find in the roman libertin.
In Les Egarements du c(£ur et de /'esprit, a novel of initiation, there is more
than one woman character of significance and one is prompted to ask why three
important feminine characters have been presented and why this fact seems to
determine the structure of the novel. In fact, while the women are seen through
the eyes of the elder Meilcour writing his memoirs and through the eyes of the
adolescent Meilcour seeking an entree into society, the role of the women
remains central to an understanding of the society that Crebillon fils depicts. If
Madame de Lursay holds the central role as the mature woman with a past who
is willing to sacrifice her reputation - re-established with care over the years
- for a last liaison with this adolescent that attracts her, Hortense de Theville
represents for the young man the possibility of a romantic attachment that is
sacrificed for the reality of sensual experience and the libertinage which is
seen as more attractive; Madame de Senanges will inevitably be one of his
future conquests, or he will be one of hers, for she is uncaring for her reputation,
and his future reputation will be founded on an endless repetitive cycle of
conquests of such women.
In Duclos also we find the woman character ultimately dominant. However,
in other works of Crebillon fils to which I propose to refer this is not the case.
But the setting remains the same in all the ·works of Crebillon fils as in that of
Duclos. Although the title of the novel by Duclos is Confessions du Comte
de - , the work registers that the triumph is that of Madame de Selve. In
Duclos, the libertine eventually seeks rest and a peaceful life, whilst in
Crebillon fils the woman libertine is shown as more dangerous than the male
and characterizes a wave of libertinage that grows as the century progresses.
The masterpiece of the genre is acknowledged to be Les Liaisons
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26
dangereuses by Lados, the ultimate work in the literary depiction of feminine
domination by the use ofthe intelligence, outwitting the male predators at their
own game and being destroyed only by mischance in a contrived ending.
Lados has avoided giving the title Madame de M erteuil to his work, for he was
aware of the necessary dualism: Valmont-Madame de MerteuiI. This does not
prevent the reader from recognizing through the opening letters of the novel the
great superiority of Madame de Merteuil over her partner and, through her,
Lados brings out forcefully the thesis that he expresses elsewhere: the
capacity of a superior woman to overcome the restrictions and disadvantages
imposed on her sex to wreak vengeance on society.
Although outside the scope of this study, it is worth pointing out that an
analysis of Sade and Retifwould be of interest. In the case of the Justine and
the Juliette ofthe Marquis de Sade, evil breeds evil; and in that game women,
without political power and legal recognition, can wreak a terrible vengeance
on the males normally considered to be the only predators. As Carter
comments:
The life of Juliette exists in a dialectical relationship to that of her sister. The vision
of the inevitable prosperity of vice , as shown by her triumphant career, and the vision of
the inevitable misfortunes of virtue that Justine's life offers do not cancel one another
out; rather, they mutually reflect and complement one another, like a pair of mirrors.
Each story has the same moral, offered at many levels, which may be summed up as:
the comfort of one class depends on the misery of another class ... The life of Juliette
proposes a method of profane mastery of the instruments of power. She is a woman who
acts according to the precepts and also the practice of a man's world and so she does not
suffer. Instead, she causes suffering.
I.
Interestingly enough, Carter refers to a comment by Guillaume Apollinaire, in
which he suggests that it was no accident that the Marquis de Sade chose
heroines and not heroes, since he considered Justine to represent woman as
she had been until then - enslaved, miserable and less than human; while her
opposite, Juliette, represented the woman whose advent he anticipated - a
figure of whom minds had as yet no conception, who would have wings and
who would renew the world. Sade was, of course, concerned with France
under the ancien regime, and ApolIinaire with France before 1914. Paradoxically, the French Revolution and nineteenth-century materialism weakened the position of women in society.
Retif de la Bretonne, in his innumerable works, has captured the spirit of the
whole period and may indeed be considered the Zola of his time. However, his
concern is primarily with a lower stratum of society than the feminine
characters depicted by other novelists of importance in the period and his own
personality impinges so heavily on the works, whether it be through his
I·Carter, The Sadeian Woman, 78-9.
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Rousseauistic tendencies or his Encyclopaedic views, that only passing
mention can be made here; the world of women he presents is vast in scope, as
the many volumes of Les Contemporaines - forty-three volumes between
1780 and 1785 - demonstrate. My references will be to Les Fran~aises
(1786) in twenty-three volumes, and Les Parisiennes (1787-91) also in
twenty-three volumes; most of these women are middle-class and there are
data on two hundred crafts practised by women. Retifs liaison with the
perfidious Sara, whom he knew in 1781-2, is recounted in Monsieur Nicolas
(1794-7); Ingenue Saxancour (1789) is the story of his eldest daughter,
married to a sadistic maniac; L 'Anti-Justine (1798) is a work of perverted
fantasies.
There is a further group of writers of feminist persuasion who have dealt
with women characters, sometimes much influenced by translations from the
English novels of the period. Madame de Grafigny - who became interested
in novel-writing only at the age offorty-three after being received by Voltaire at
Cirey - forms part of this group. When she published her Lettres d'une
peruvienne in 1747, she was already fifty-two years of age. The latter work
was an immediate success and seems to have been inspired by such works as
the Lettres portugaises (1669), the Leltres persanes (1721) by Montesquieu
and Richardson's Pamela (1741). The Lettres d'une peruvienne, the first
roman de sensibilite in letter-form written in French, anticipates La Nouvelle
Heloise (1761) in its emotional outpourings and its belief in the consolations
of Nature providing a refuge from society and from the passions of the heart.
Madame Riccoboni gave up a successful career on the stage in 1761 and
devoted herself to novel-writing. Apart from the translation of Fielding's
novel Amelia (1762), many of Madame Riccoboni's own novels have English
titles and they are written in letter-form, a structure that was fashionable from
1761 for some thirty years. Barguillet comments on these 'voix de Fanny
Butlerd, Juliette Catesby, Elisabeth-Sophie de Valliere ou autres epistolieres
de Mme Riccoboni', who express vigorously their firmly held convictions:
'toutes accusent les hommes, leur inconstance, leurs emportements jaloux,
leur sensualite, d'etre it l'originede leurs soutTrances.'20 Interestingly enough,
Barguillet notes the way that these letter-writers move rapidly 'de la douleur
agressive it la mclancolie puis it l'indulgence navree propre aux creurs
meurtris', doubtless a reflection in the novel-form of the dramatic interpretations that Madame Riccoboni developed during the course of her theatrical
career. The nature of the realism of Madame Riccoboni clearly owes much to
both Rousseau and Richardson, 'it l'analyse lucide se me lent ici des appels
frcmissants it la sensibilitc du correspondant-lecteur', and this may well
20
Barguillet, Le Roman au XVIII' siec/e, 188.
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account for her popularity in both France and England. Her novel Histoire de
Monsieur Ie Marquis de Cressy (1758) depicts the Marquis de Cressy as a
hero with some resemblance to the Versac ofCrebillon fils and to Richardson's
Lovelace, developing a favourite theme in her work: that of an innocent woman
betrayed by an unscrupulous seducer. Madame Riccoboni described the
suffering of a woman in such a situation; but her characters have not the
passion of those of Prevost, nor is she capable of the sustained characterization
of a woman in love, such as Marivaux's Marianne, for which novel she
invented a somewhat discordant conclusion. Her correspondence with Laclos
on the publication of the Liaisons dangereuses shows her distaste for his female
character, Madame de Merteuil, in spite of Madame Riccoboni's own
feminist principles.
It may be said that both Madame de Grafigny and Madame Riccoboni - as
well as lesser women novelists - are too concerned with what we would call
feminist propaganda to devote the same care to the analysis of women in
general as do the major writers, and the function of their feminine characters is
perhaps too clearly didactic to be as effective as an author such as Madame
Riccoboni would have liked. It is true that, as Stewart comments in her
Introduction to the Lettres de Mistriss Fanni Butlerd (1757) by Madame
Riccoboni,
II [Ie roman] a sa place non seulement dans I'histoire du roman europeen, mais
egalement dans I'histoire du feminisme. C'est un eloquent requisitoire contre les
hommes, qui met en question tout un jeu social dont les uns profitent et les autres ne
peuvent, a la longue, que soutTrir. Texte ecrit par une femme auteur (et encore tres peu
auteur) ou eUe donne la parole aun so~ie plusjeune - une femme qui elle-meme ne fait
principalement qu'ecrire - et qui fut lu et apprecie par un public en grande partie
feminin. 21
This type of feminist tract of the period must be considered on its meri ts and is
of obvious interest, but perhaps tends to subordinate literary merit to a
feminist thesis that is given primary importance to the detriment of characterization. It forms part of the literary history of the novel and of the history of
feminism as a movement, rather than a significant element in the development
of the function of women in eighteenth-century French fiction. Whereas
literary merit is not at first sight a valid criterion in considering social issues, it
remains true that literary merit often adds significance to the presentation of
social conditions and will ultimately promote change more definitely than
lighter works that are quickly forgotten. An illustration of this fact is Diderot's
novel La Religieuse, which, while written in 1760, was not published until
1798 and had considerable influence in nineteenth-century France.
21
Riccoboni, Lettres de Mistriss Fanni Butlerd, xxv.
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In the case of Madame de Grafigny, the Lettres d'une peruvienne are used
to make social complaints and attack masculine prerogatives of the period.
Madame de Grafigny expresses resentment at the system of con vent education
of women. She states that 'Ie couvent est ecole d'artifice et de vanite: regler les
mouvements du corps, arranger ceux du visage, composer l'exterieur, ce'sorit
les points essentiels de l'education.'ll The major complaint, as with Madame
Riccoboni, is that of the inequality of the sexes; in Letter XXXIV again, we
learn that the husband 'est autorise it punir rigoureusement l'apparence d'une
legere infidelite en se livrant sans honte it toutes celles que Ie libertinage lui
suggere'Y
The works selected for particular study are presented under two headings:
the novels of sensibility and the novels of libertinage - although I am well
aware of the arbitrary nature of critical classifications, of which the authors
were not cognizant. In all cases, I intend to bring out the function of women in
the structure of the works, noting the changing structure of the novel in relation
to the purpose of the author and especially the presentation of female
characters under the ancien regime. In this way, and on the basis of my
conclusions, however tentative they may be, I have been able to draw
inferences about the status of a certain class of women in the century as a
whole, and at various times in the course of the century, with emphasis on its
concluding phases.
"Quoted by Fauchery, La Destint!eJeminine dans Ie roman europeen, 166,
Ibid" 365,
II