La princesa de Cleves

by Madame de La Fayette, Cristina Piña (translator)

Desde que foi publicado, em 1687, A princesa de Clèves jamais deixou o foco da polêmica. A intriga central era comum nos romances franceses - uma mulher que se casa por conveniência sem amar o marido (a quem, no entanto, respeita e é fiel) apaixona-se por um jovem fidalgo sedutor. Mas Madame de Lafayette acrescentou o tempero que provocou discussão. Tendo perdido a mãe, a princesa de Clèves, num momento de tensão existencial, coloca-se sob a proteção do marido, e confessa-lhe o amor nascente. Ela não tarda a lamentar a confissão. E a sinceridade da princesa se volta contra ela.

Todas as heroínas de Madame de Lafayette amam fora do casamento. Mas a confissão da princesa, cena culminante do romance, é tão surpreendente que o Mercure Galant fez uma enquete na época entre os leitores que a consideraram inconveniente. Escrito no século XVII, mas com a ação recuada em um século, A princesa de Clèves tem como pano de fundo os últimos anos do reinado de Henrique II. A moldura histórica é verdadeira, mas os personagens principais da trama são fictícios.

Primeiro romance moderno da literatura francesa, e é caracteristicamente um romance psicológico. Antes de Madame de Lafayette, os personagens cessavam de agir para se analisar. Com A princesa de Clèves a análise se torna meio de progressão e substância mesma da narrativa. Antes dela, os romancistas esbarravam no problema fundamental do "tempo romanesco". Ela trouxe ao problema do tempo sua primeira solução, tão engenhosa e forte que foi usada ainda muitos séculos depois. Sua análise anuncia a de Proust pelo lugar considerável atribuído ao ciúme, que não é um acidente do amor, mas surge com ele.

Cada um de seus romances, dos quais A princesa de Clèves é a obra-prima e um dos grandes clássicos da literatura universal, começa por um quadro de intrigas da corte, onde havia tantos interesses e tantas cabalas diferentes, e as mulheres tinham uma participação tão grande nela que "o amor sempre estava misturado aos negócios e os negócios ao amor". A princesa de Clèves tem ritmo de folhetim e sua moral, contrária aos folhetins que fizeram mais tarde as delícias dos leitores no século XIX, ensina que a mão que inflige o ferimento é também aquela que o cura.

Genres: Classics, France, Fiction, French Literature, Historical Fiction, Romance, School

240 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published March 17, 1678

About the author

Marie Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de la Fayette

Christened Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, she was born in Paris to a family of minor but wealthy nobility. At 16, de la Vergne became the maid of honor to Queen Anne of Austria and began also to acquire a literary education from Gilles Ménage, who gave her lessons in Italian and Latin. Ménage would lead her to join the fashionable salons of Madame de Rambouillet and Madeleine de Scudéry. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, had died a year before, and the same year her mother married Renaud de Sévigné, uncle of Madame de Sévigné, who would remain her lifelong intimate friend.
In 1655, de la Vergne married François Motier, comte de La Fayette, a widowed nobleman some eighteen years her senior, with whom she would have two sons. She accompanied him to country estates in Auvergne and Bourbonnais although she made frequent trips back to Paris, where she began to mix with court society and formed her own successful salon. Some of her acquaintances included Henrietta of England, future Duchess of Orleans, who asked La Fayette to write her biography; Antoine Arnauld; and the leading French writers Segrais and Huet. Earlier on, during the Fronde, La Fayette had also befriended the Cardinal de Retz.
Settling permanently in Paris in 1659, La Fayette published, anonymously, La Princesse de Montpensier in 1662. From 1665 onwards she formed a close relationship with François de La Rochefoucauld, author of Maximes, who introduced her to many literary luminaries of the time, including Racine and Boileau. 1669 saw the publication of the first volume of Zaïde, a Hispano-Moorish romance which was signed by Segrais but is almost certainly attributable to La Fayette. The second volume appeared in 1671. The title ran through reprints and translations mostly thanks to the preface Huet had offered.


Marie de LaFayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678)

La Fayette's most famous novel was La Princesse de Clèves, first published anonymously in March 1678. An immense success, the work is often taken to be the first true French novel and a prototype of the early psychological novel.
The death of La Rochefoucauld in 1680 and her husband in 1683 led La Fayette to lead a less active social life in her later years. Three works were published posthumously: La Comtesse de Tende (1718), Histoire d'Henriette d'Angleterre (1720), and Memoires de la Cour de France (1731).

Reviews

[MischaS_ · Rating 3 out of 5]

***Advance Review Copy generously provided through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


Well, I have to say the moment I saw this book I thought that it would be about Anne of Cleves a.k.a. the luckiest wife of Henry VIII.

I never heard about the book The Princess of Clèves before, so, I was in for a surprise.

As for this comics, it was very well done. I liked the art, the muted colours which I felt fitted it very well. The storyline was simple, but I was interested in seeing where it was going.

However, me being me, I have some issues with it. I suppose the story took several years, but the characters kept wearing the same clothing! (Okay, sometimes the main character changed the colour of her dress, but it still felt like the same dress. I'm here for the dresses!)
It may be because it was supposed to help you to tell the characters apart and I can get that because I kept confusing the husband and the uncle of the main character plus another guy was pretty similar but he disappeared pretty quickly from the story.
But the unchanged dresses were bugging me!
I'm not sure how much time has passed, it started in winter 1558, Henry II of France died in July 1559 which is like 2/3 into the story. So, it may be two years or so.
Then, some dialogues were a bit tedious, spreading over several pages, and I had to skip them cause I could not do with the pathos.

But overall, I did enjoy it, it was a fun evening reading this, and I think I may even have a look at the original book!

Overall, I would say 3,5 stars. 👗👗👗

[Luís · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given the list of noble characters, I had trouble getting into the book and got lost among them.
But once this introduction is over, the analysis of the upheavals of morality (I will not personally speak of reason) on feelings and emotions is of an uncommon finesse. An immense impression of déjà vu when thinking back to the obstacle courses or the impossible loves of great names in literature, and yet, Madame de Lafayette is before, she is the precursor, with the added fact that she is a woman, when, even well after, so many women will hide under male pseudonyms to be able to write.
So, it is a must-read in more ways than one. Even if the end leaves you wanting more for the rest of the book, hurry up if you haven't read it yet. It's never too late. The proof is right here.

[Jan-Maat]

I knew very little about this book. Only that it was written in the seventeenth century, while set in the mid sixteenth century, and that former President Sarkozy of France felt that it was by itself holding back France from becoming a World leading super-power-mega-empire simply by clogging up the literature curriculum in schools or something along those lines any how. This last point was plainly a good enough reason for reading, if a head of state disapproves of book - read it. A law of nature which obviously I have to ignore with regard to US Presidents or I would be drowning in reading about the blatantly obvious, but I digress.

The Princess de Cleves is, or at that is to say, well... having read it...perhaps the afore mentioned President had a kind of point...I mean it...ahem. Bother. It is a cultural monument. Equally the presidential person in his attitudes towards it exemplified the classic saying of well known Gallic commentator Obelix: "These Gauls are Crazy" (passem). That is to say the Princesse struck me as a cultural monument equivalent to the Effiel Tower, or Notre Dame, or Hunchbacks, or Versailles and appellation d'origine contrôlée wines (and other French stuff). I read with an inner shake of the head and internal commentary of My God, this is all so French.

Being French, and maybe this was the cause of the President's discomfort, it wasn't easy, the first ten pages felt like a forest of names, actually names would have been an improvement, each page was a dense thicket of titles, if any of those aristos had names I don't know, certainly they were not so déclassé as to allude to the possibility, except in the case of the king of course, who was Henri II.

The next ten pages were easier, then round about half way through this short book the author - who apparently may have been Madame de La Fayette, or a radical artistic collective working under the name of 'Madame de La Fayette'- without any warning grabbed my heart and wrung it out like a damp cloth. This effect, I believe, gives rise to the idea that Princess de Cleves is a psychological novel. That would be to go too far, in my opinion, although it has a psychological element - namely two confessions and it achieves a psychological consistency in it's title character which may lead to some not liking the ending. Eventually I remind myself that the literary style was rather like Oronooko or Daniel Defoe - less like a modern novel and more like sitting round a fire listening to someone telling you a story.

It is a book all about exposing the sense of cultural inferiority felt by a certain French politician social codes among a terribly refined elite, and so as alien to me as films about US teenagers. It's all so refined that at points it seems close to self parody, just a tiny touch here and there and this would be a comedy, equally it is so refined that it is like listening to Bach or Janacek ( say On an Overgrown Path) a single note suggests entire worlds, implies everything that is not said or done.

The French, I believe, invented the notion of love, it didn't exist at all before the French invented it, before that people just threw bricks at each other as there wasn't anything else to do (apart from make bricks), and this is the quintessential book about love (apart from The Art of Love by the well known French poet Publius Ovidius Naso) particularly since there is not so much as a hand held and characters may go to extreme lengths to avoid even the possibility of eyes meeting across a crowded room, forest, or tournament field.

An interesting feature is that there is not one code of social conduct but multiple codes on display, so for example Henri II famously has a mistress (Diane de Poitiers) in addition to his wife who we plebeians know as Catherine de Medici, but here of course simply the Queen (who in time is the Queen Mother not a spoiler, unless you don't know your history of mid-16th century France to distinguish her from her daughter-in-law, the Queen (alias Mary Queen of Scots, as we lowlives know her). The relationship of the King with both women, was fully physical, indeed as mentioned here the mistress had also been mistress to the King's father (among others, he didn't believe in exclusivity) and she had a husband (before she became a widow which I understand is not unusual), she makes political use of her position, indeed the whole royal court seems to play an intricate game wining marriages or preventing them among their children. She is not condemned for this although we sense the frustrations this causes in the royal marriage. However despite or because of all this gallic talk of love the eponymous Princesse follows a different code much to the frustrations of the man who would love her, and possibly her husband too (it is that kind of book). In this sense we might say it is a psychological novel and so a 'modern' book but also the apotheosis of the courtly love tradition (in which love and marriage are two irreconcilable opposites) and so a 'medieval' story, however we see that people have different codes and values, they co-exist, not altogether harmoniously, no way of being is condemned by the author (or the collective known as 'the author') they are simply presented to us. Indeed even more strongly psychological the Princesse understands the difference between herself and the man who loves her and the different nature of their feelings and attitudes towards the idea of love, and this understanding logically leads to the ending, at least for the Princesse, other characters who don't share this understanding are left only to shrug or be hurt depending on their proximity to the non-events.

If it sounds a bit stuffy, or intense, well it is, but equally it is only a few words away from Alexander Dumas and expansive adventure. At one moment a husband is in a bad mood as his wife does not have a certain piece of jewellery for a public occasion and both know, but obviously can't say, that this is because said item has been given to a certain man who is not the lady's husband, she has to send a gentleman to fetch it back - this is basically the plot of The Three Musketeers, in fairness Princesse features no épées nor peculiar Gascon horses, but it is all here, likewise the Prince of Cleves sends a gentleman to observe the man he thinks his wife is in love with as the man attempts to spy on the wife (who refuses to see the man but displays violent emotion when ever his title (no names remember) is mentioned. But for the absence of taverns and the Cardinal's Guard this is the world of D'artagnan.

That the psychological heart of the book is made up of two confessions pushes me towards a religious reading, or a religious context for the story. There is temptation and integrity. That there is a relationship between earthy love and spiritual love is unsaid but hangs in the background despite the complete absence of priests or explicit religious practise. Roughly at the centre of the novel is the death of Henri II I apologise if his death comes as a shock to you which was foretold by an astrologer, the warning naturally he did not take seriously, in Renaissance europe scientifically minded persons did believe that astronomy was a way of understanding God's will - the universe was for them meaningful and planned by God, the tricky bit was observing creation and drawing the correct interpretation of what God was saying. The ending does not do what it might have done by trumping carnal love with spiritual love, the Princesse true to her nature maybe does not make an unequivocal commitment.

[Fionnuala]

I like to skip back in time every now and again.

This time, I'm back in 1678 when Madame de Lafayette, who was part of the court of French King Louis XIV, published this novel anonymously. The fact that she initially didn't put her name to it might make us think she was writing about people she knew and events of her time but in fact she set her intrigue more than a century earlier, in the court of an earlier French king, Henri II.
That makes her book an historical novel, perhaps the first historical novel in French literature. And while most of the characters are real people of the mid-fifteen hundreds, the princess of the title and her husband, the prince of Clèves, are fictional. But the author gives the princess an uncle who was a real historic personage and an important figure in the court of Henri II thereby weaving her fictional characters into the history of the time very neatly.

The author also makes the princess one of the ladies in waiting to Mme la dauphine, the young girl who is married to the king's fifteen year-old son, Francis, the dauphin or heir to the throne. Many of us know Mme la dauphine better by her English title: Marie or Mary Stewart, Queen of Scots. She was reared at the French court because her mother, Marie de Guise, was related to the French royal family. In this novel la dauphine is never called Mary Stewart, she's simply Mme la dauphine throughout, though she eventually becomes Queen of France when Henri II is killed accidentally in a tournament and his young son succeeds him briefly (this is all taking place before she was to return to Scotland to claim that throne).

Mme la dauphine is a very interesting character and a perfect foil for the fictional princess of the title. Where the princess is quiet, discrete, never flirting with anyone, la dauphine is outgoing, fond of gossip, and always flirting with someone. The princess's story is greatly improved by la dauphine's presence whose fondness for gossip is a key element in the playing out of the plot.

The main part of the plot centres around the Duke de Nemours, another real figure in Henri II's court, who falls hopelessly in love with the princess de Clèves, and she, eventually with him. His love wouldn't be hopeless if he'd fallen for any other of the ladies-in-waiting or even for Mme la dauphine herself, but our princess is not like the ladies of the court and she doesn't permit herself to betray her husband, though she has never loved him.
In the meantime, la dauphine does everything she can to find out who Nemours has lost his heart to—since he doesn't flirt with her or with any of the other ladies anymore, it's clear to them all that he has a secret lover.

There wouldn't be much more to this story except that our princess decides to do the unthinkable: she confesses her love for Nemours to her husband, even though she has never betrayed him or even considered betraying him. The dilemma that results, and the contradiction at the heart of it—the 'confession' of a 'sin' that hasn't been committed—becomes the crux of the book, and a subject for much debate in Madame de La Fayette's circle when the novel was published: how much information is too much information to share. Things don't change that much, do they!

As a complement to that quandary, the author's writing style constantly plays with the idea of contradictory dilemmas. Sentences are often presented with paradoxes within them, but beautifully phrased for all that. Take the following passage, for example, concerning Nemours's feelings about what a man experiences when the woman he loves is getting ready for a ball. Whether his love is returned or not, he faces a range of dilemmas, which are often funny and ridiculous in spite of being utterly serious for the man concerned :
M. de Nemours trouve…que le bal est ce qu'il y a de plus insupportable pour les amants, soit qu'ils soient aimés, ou qu'ils ne le soient pas. Il dit que, s'ils sont aimés, ils ont le chagrin de l'être moins pendant plusieurs jours ; qu'il n'y a point de femme que le soin de sa parure n'empêche de songer à son amant ; qu'elles en sont entièrement occupées ; que ce soin de se parer est pour tout le monde, aussi bien que pour celui qu'elles aiment ; que lorsqu'elles sont au bal, elles veulent plaire à tous ceux qui les regardent ; que, quand elles sont contentes de leur beauté, elles en ont une joie dont leur amant ne fait pas la plus grande partie. Il dit aussi que, quand on n'est point aimé, on souffre encore davantage de voir sa maîtresse dans une assemblée ; que, plus elle est admirée du public, plus on se trouve malheureux de n'en être point aimé ; que l'on craint toujours que sa beauté ne fasse naître quelque amour plus heureux que le sien. Enfin il trouve qu'il n'y a point de souffrance pareille à celle de voir sa maîtresse au bal, si ce n'est de savoir qu'elle y est et de n'y être pas.
Summary translation: Nemours believes that balls are unbearable for (male) lovers, whether they are loved in return or not. If they are loved, there is the pain of being less attended to during the days before the event; that there is no woman whose concern for what she will wear doesn't prevent her from thinking about her lover while she's getting ready; that she is therefore completely occupied with preparing herself; that this preparation is aimed at everyone not only at the one who loves her; that when she is at the ball, she wants to be admired by all who see her; that when she is pleased with her own appearance, she experiences a pleasure that her lover can't be part of. He also believes that when a man isn't loved in return, he suffers even more from seeing the loved one at a ball; that the more she is admired, the more he suffers from not being loved; that in addition, he has the constant fear that her beauty will inspire a love in someone else that will be more acceptable to her than his own. Finally, he believes that there is no pain as unbearable as watching his lover at a ball except the pain of knowing she's there, and not being there himself.

Similarly the Princess is constantly beset by contradictory feelings: when she realises she has fallen in love with Nemours, she feels shame at entertaining feelings for another man that she can't feel for her own husband, but at the same time, she feels intense jealousy of any woman Nemours is seen talking to, and when a letter that seems to implicate him in an affair with someone else falls into her hands, she suffers torments.

There's another character whose mistress dies while he is away from Paris and who subsequently discovers she loved someone else in his absense. He expresses his wonderfully contradictory feelings as follows: "cependant j'ai la même affliction de sa mort que si elle m'était fidèle et je sens son infidélité comme si elle n'était point morte. Si j'avais appris son changement avant sa mort, la jalousie, la colère, la rage m'auraient rempli, et m'auraient endurci en quelque sorte contre la douleur de sa perte ; mais je suis dans un état où je ne puis ni m'en consoler, ni la haïr...Ainsi, j'éprouve à la fois la douleur de la mort et celle de l'infidélité ; ce sont deux maux que l'on a souvent comparés, mais qui n'ont jamais été sentis en même temps par la même personne."
Summary: He says he feels the same sorrow for his mistress's death as if she'd been faithful to him, but at the same time, he feels her infidelity as if she'd weren't dead. If he'd known of her change of feelings before her death, he'd have been beset by jealousy, anger and rage, and that would have protected him somewhat from the sorrow of her death, but he's left in a situation where he can neither find consolation for her death nor properly hate her. And so he feels both the sorrow of her death and the sorrow of her infidelity; two agonies that are often compared but are rarely felt at the same time by the same person.

I loved that Mme de La Fayette had a writing style that perfectly suited her material, and it was that aspect of this novel I enjoyed the most. But it was also interesting to see how many elements of modern romance novels and tv soaps are already in place in her text. Not only those already described but also such tropes as overhead conversations and people observed secretly, letters falling from people's pockets and things told in confidence that are then shared with others—and which become further distorted in the process.
It was all there in this novel from 1678 but written with such style and elegance that lifts it far above any soap opera I've ever seen. Bravo Mme de La Fayette.

[Emilio Berra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Il falò della passione

"La principessa di Cleves" viene giustamente considerato uno dei romanzi più belli da quando esiste la letteratura.
L'autrice, Madame de Lafayette, era una dama della corte di Luigi XIV, il Re Sole. Siamo quindi in pieno Seicento. L'opera, che riflette la vita cortigiana di quel tempo, è però ambientata un secolo prima, presumo per ovvi motivi di opportunità.
Il libro è frutto di approfondite ricerche storiche : collocato all'epoca di Enrico II, entrano in scena personaggi storici di primo piano come Diana di Poitier, Maria Stuarda, perfino Elisabetta I d'Inghilterra. Protagonisti sono però La Principessa di Cleves e il Duca di Nemour. Come sfondo, la vita di corte : all'apparenza scintillante e vivace ; in realtà "un luogo dove la virtù era tanto necessaria e dove fiorivano esempi tanto pericolosi. L'ambizione e la galanteria erano l'anima stessa di quella corte (...). Tale era il groviglio di interessi e di intrighi (...) che l'amore era sempre intrecciato alla politica e la politica all'amore". Lì Diana di Poitier, l'amante del sovrano, "dominava il re con tale assoluto dispotismo che si poteva dirla padrona della sua persona e dello Stato".

Lo stile, maturato nella 'civiltà della conversazione', è di grandissima efficacia letteraria, amabile e fiabesco : un giorno "fece la sua apparizione alla corte una bellezza che attrasse tutti gli sguardi" : la giovanissima principessa protagonista, la quale ebbe la fortuna di avere come madre una "donna straordinaria per onestà, virtù e saggezza" ; "tutte le sue cure erano state rivolte alla figlia" e a "cercare di renderla virtuosa e a farle amare questa virtù", che viene messa a dura prova quando conoscerà il Duca di Nemour, il quale si distingueva "per grazia della persona e per la nobiltà dello spirito".

Quest'opera, modernissima, di portata anticonformistica allora e ancor più oggi, si caratterizza per una profonda analisi della passione amorosa che, come tutti gli stati emotivi, tende a consumarsi, magari con un anticipo di sofferenze che i morsi della gelosia portano.
La Principessa di Cleves comprende a fondo le dinamiche della passione ed è consapevole dei rischi che comporta amare un uomo che piace a tutte e al quale molte sono disposte a cedere.
Opterà per una scelta di grande impatto : finale che una scrittrice grandissima ha saputo rendere così convincente.

[AiK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Мари Мадлен де Лафайет, жившая в семнадцатом веке, по праву считается родоначальницей психологического романа. "Принцесса Клевская" - роман с внешне простым сюжетом: юная мадемуазель же Шартр представлена ко двору и заключает брачный контракт с принцем Клевским. Типичный брак по расчету без любви, но нужно отметить, что мужа своего принцесса искренне уважает. На балу юная красавица встречает первого красавца двора герцога де Немура, влюбляется в него, и страшится своего чувства, которым не может управлять и не может скрыть. Не совсем классический (из-за не раскрытия чувств), но все же любовный треугольник. Но всё идёт не так, как в обычном любовном романе. Принцесса в бесплодной борьбе двух противоречий - чувства любви и чувства долга - в желании разрешить этот мучительный внутренний конфликт, оставаясь при этом честной, признается мужу в том, что любит другого, однако, отказывается назвать его имя. Она признает неординарность такого поступка, что она одна способна на такую смелость. Но разрешает ли это признание внутренний конфликт? В физическом и юридическом отношении да, поскольку муж, испытывая муки ревности, неизвестности, в конечном итоге заболевает и умирает. Но, если бы он не умер, вряд ли эта откровенность разрешила бы это столкновение чувств любви и добродетели, а лишь усугубила ее страдания. Со смертью принца дороги открылись, сердце ее уже было завоёвано с первого взгляда, и герцог де Немур делает ей предложение. Казалось бы, развязка ясна. Но здесь она делает ещё один экстраординарный поступок - отказывает ему. Говоря современным языком, сложный клубок комплексов, сложившийся из чувства вины, что ее признание фактически свело мужа в могилу, представления о чести и честности, долге и добродетели, внушенные матерью и обществом (под этими эвфемизмами можно понимать страх порицания обществом), предсмертная просьба мужа, чтобы она не выходила замуж за Немура, руководили ею. Но, пожалуй, истина заключается в ее словах: "И сейчас Вы так пылко и верно любите меня почему? Потому что Вы встречаете препятствия. Если я эти препятствия устраню, Ваша любовь станет тише. И могу ли я быть уверена, что она не заглохнет?" Это бегство, и движет этим процессом страх.
Принцесса Клевская и замуж вышла по расчету, и не вышла замуж за любимого, верно рассчитав "ставки" в любовной игре. Несмотря на кажущуюся раскрытой формулу любви, как преодоление препятствий или недостижимости объекта поклонения, де Лафайет тут же ее опровергает, показав быстро утешившегося де Немура, и в этом также заключается правда жизни.
Это, безусловно, морализаторский роман, но мораль вовсе не в добродетели.
В романе несколько вставных новелл, интересны исторические детали и герои, хотя супруги Клевские - выдуманные персонажи.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half is rough going--every sentence seems to namedrop at least two members of the French aristocracy, and it is impossible to keep track of who is being mentioned for the first time, and who has already been referred to six lines back. But there comes a point where the narrative suddenly clears and it becomes obvious how this rather tortured excursion through the labyrinthine French royal court not only serves to set the stage, but emphasizes the countless dangers and social traps the titular character must somehow navigate upon her introduction to it.

The story that subsequently unfolds is in and of itself extremely simple: a beautiful young woman (she's of the type that causes every man to gape in astonishment upon entering a room) manages to land an advantageous marriage with a kind and gentle titled man who adores her; unfortunately she doesn't love him, and falls for the most rakish bachelor at court (to further complicate things, the feeling is mutual). The Princess spends the rest of the novella trying to overcome her amorous feelings to love and serve her husband as a faithful wife should.

It might sound then that The Princess of Clèves serves as yet another testament to the historical systems of oppression against women; it is, but to regard it solely in those terms would mean missing a lot of fascinating layers to to the story. Despite the novel being devoid of "traditional" characterization (such conventions were not introduced for another century or two), the Princess somehow emerges as a remarkably nuanced character, as impossible for the reader to pin down as it is for the men in her life. Should her rigid moral beliefs be interpreted as yet another form of mental enslavement or the mark of an intellectually independent woman who refused to play the amorous games of the court? Is it piety or self-preservation that moves the actions of the Princess? The novel refuses to give an answer of any kind, and one way or the other, it is the Princess who ultimately decides her own fate--though whether it was the right one has been fiercely debated since the novel first appeared.

(I read this after seeing the recent film La belle personne, which adapts the story to a contemporary French high school. I recommend it, though it admittedly makes more sense in context with its source material.)

[Duane Parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

This classic of early French literature was published in 1678 anonymously, but was later attributed to Madame de LaFayette. It is set in 1558-59 France in the court of King Henry II. It's historical fiction and by most accounts it's fairly accurate in it's portrayal of the people and events of the era. It's the story of a young girl sent to court to find a husband, marries a prince then falls in love with a duke. The intrigues and little dramas that surround these events play out through the novel. It held my interest because I like historical fiction that relates to royal history. But 17th century literature can be tedious and this one starts slow but improves as the story developes. 3.5 stars.

[Piyangie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Princess of Cleves is a moralistic tale set in 16th-century France. Madame de La Fayette tells the story of a virtuous woman, a model of moral perfection, amid the Court intrigues and temptations.

The novel is considered a historically important novel for two reasons. One is because it paved the way for the new genre of "historical fiction", and two is because it also paved the way for the new tradition of the psychological portrayal of the characters. It's to her credit that Madame de La Fayette opened the way for two new writing traditions through his novel. Given the time period of its publication (1678), it must have been a daunting task for her. For her courage to experiment and deviate from an established trend, due appreciation must be given to her. And as one of the first examples of these two traditions, the novel has done well even with its faults.

However, the novel also suffers from being one of the first of its kind. Although this is a historical novel, the setting being a century earlier than its publication, Madam de La Fayette has taken care to keep the historical characters anonymous. Now, this can be easily understood; the author may not have wanted to run the risk of a greater censure. However, the allusion is detrimental to modern readers who don't have a thorough knowledge of French royal history. The mysterious nature of the historical characters makes it quite difficult to appreciate the historical significance of the setting. At least, that was the case for me. The psychological portrayal is done better in my view, even though it is not up to the scale of intensity that we have come to see in the 19th century.

While appreciating the novel for its historical significance, I have a few strong complaints against the novel itself. The story was not quite engaging as I hoped it would. The intrigue and temptations that would result in a married woman's passion for a man who isn't her husband, weren't developed enough to grab the reader's full attention. Then, our heroine was too tiresome a character. She was a paragon of virtue, a moral perfection, even though she entertains a passion that isn't seemly for a married woman. Her passion would have made her a human if Madame de La Fayette hadn't taken pain to portray her as a model woman making the character feel artificial and unrealistic. It may have been necessary for Madame de La Fayette to portray her heroine as such given the time it was written. But she completely failed to claim my sympathy. I had more sympathy for her unfortunate lover than for her, for his sincerity. And if I have had the recourse to the enjoyment of the historical subplots, perhaps, my overall take on the novel would have been different. But there too, because of the ambiguity of the characters, I was quite disappointed.

This is my personal take on the novel and I wouldn't want to discourage any prospective reader with my rating and review. Different tastes and appreciations lead you to differing enjoyments. Besides, I think its historical significance has a strong claim on the readers. So, by no means make my subjective view deter you from reading it.

More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/

[Emma Angeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I AM SO CROSS RIGHT NOW
like is she actually serious

[Roman Clodia · Rating 4 out of 5]

May 2025 - re-reading this in the original

This is still an enticing peek into the world of Henry II's French court but it raised many questions for me that the text itself seems to leave dangling: what's the relationship between the sixteenth century court and that of Louis XIV to which Mme de Lafayatte belonged? What does it mean to write a historical novel in the seventeenth century and what sources were available? To what extent was historical accuracy an aim or is the intention something different?

What is conveyed so well is the performative, voyeuristic nature of the court where gossip and intrigue rules in both the political and personal spheres. Alliances cross both so that the erotic connection between Henry II and Dianne de Poitiers is also one with a purchase on court power and factional supremacy.

Into this hothouse comes a beautiful innocent, soon to be married off to an honourable man in the customary arranged marriage for family alliance. And it's the Princesse who is the greatest mystery to me in this book: throughout, she shows adherence to tenets of duty and 'virtue' that are undefined and which are significantly at odds with the courtly world in which she lives. In some ways, then, this is a portrait of a person whose values are not those of her surrounding culture. What makes this position slippery is that we find other, perhaps more complicated, reasons for her behaviour: it seems that the Princesse's determination not to marry the man whom she loves and who loves her are not so much out of ill-defined 'duty' but because she fears he will inevitably fall out of love with her and so she'd rather lock herself away in a convent than confront the lack of guarantees of life.

At one level, then, the Princesse clearly adheres to conventional ideals of female virtue: chastity, silence, modesty - even if the court to which she belongs does not valorise these qualities and behaves in quite an oppositional manner: it's striking, for example, how prominent women are from Catherine de Medici and Dianne de Poitiers to the young Mary, Queen of Scots. But it's these very virtues which serve to bring about all the calamities of the text: the death of her husband whom she may not love but to whom she owes affection and gratitude; the abandonment of Nemours whom she does love; the waste of her own life as she puts herself into a convent and withdraws from the world. What is not clear to me is whether we are supposed to admire the Princesse and empathise with the tragedy of her life - or to question the values which lead to this end.

Thanks to Kalli, Fionnuala, Jeanne and David for your company on this read!

--------------Original review --------------------
Mme de Lafayette wrote this during the reign of Louis XIV but the novel is set in the court of Henri II when his queen is Catherine de Medici, the young Mary Queen of Scots is his daughter-in-law and Diana de Poitiers was his mistress. As a courtier herself, Mme de Lafayette knew intimately the intrigues and gossip that went on at court and she conveys that well.

The young and very beautiful Princesse comes to court, is married rapidly to a man whom she admires and respects but cannot love, and falls in love herself with the Duke de Nemours, who feels the same for her. But tied by her sense of morality and the stories she has been told by her mother and others about the insincerity of court love, she restrains her passions and turns away from love.

This is a vivid and sensitively written novel that turns on the small emotions of love, duty and passion lived out in a public court where everyone is watching everyone else, and no-one's secrets remain hidden.

[Ola Al-Najres · Rating 4 out of 5]

إنه الصراع الأزلي الذي إنكسر في احتدامه الكثيرون ، صراع العاطفة و المنطق ، القلب و العقل ، الأهواء و الفضيلة ، الرغبة و الواجب ، و حين يكون الموضوع عن المشاعر ، من أفضل من الفرنسيين في الكتابة عنها ! ، بأسلوبهم الذي تنساب فيها العاطفة - على عنفوانها و صخبها - نديّة رقراقة و عذبة ، تتألق مثل ماء في عرس الشمس .

القصة تقليدية ، و مادة خام لكثير من القصص و العلاقات ، شابة في علاقة زوجية بُنيت على الاحترام و الحكمة ، لا على الرغبة و العاطفة ، تلتقي أخيراّ بمن يقلب كل الموازين و يكشف لها عن أجزاء خفية من نفسها ، و مشاعر لم تختبرها من قبل ، تفرض عليها الفضيلة سلوكاّ صارماّ ، و قرارات عقلانية ، تمنعها من اعتناق السعادة حتى بعد أن حررتها الحياة من قيود الواجب .

ما ميّزها في نظري هي مواكبة الجانب النفسي وتحوّل الشخصيات من النقيض للنقيض ، و القدرة على التعبير عن ذلك بصدق و تروّي .

النهاية وخزتني كعادة النهايات الكلاسيكية ، خاصةً بما عللتْ به رفضها للسعادة ، و هو الخوف من الغيرة و انحراف الحب عن طريقه الهانئ ، برأيي أن هذا لم يكن ملائماّ لما صُورت به العلاقة من ثبات و نُبل على طول خط الرواية .





لا أملك سوى مشاعر عنيفة وغامضة ، وليس بمقدوري السيطرة عليها ، لم أعد أجدني جديراً بك ، و لم تعودي في نظري جديرة بي ، إني أعبدك و أكرهك في آن واحد ، أنا أهينك .. أطلب منك العفو ، فأنا معجب بك وأخجل من هذا الإعجاب ، و أخيراً لم أعد أملك لا الهدوء ولا العقل ...

وداعاّ سيدتي ،
ستعرفين الفرق بين أن تكوني محبوبة كما أحببتُك ، و أن يعشقك أشخاص لا يسعون إلا للحصول على شرف إغوائك .

[Paul Haspel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A princess is the main character of this novel, but The Princess of Cleves is no fairy tale. This innovative 1678 novel by Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, Madame de la Fayette, sets forth the intrigues, treacheries, and dangers of court life in royalist France with a stark and unflinching realism, even as it sympathetically sets forth the dilemma of an intelligent young woman who tries to do the right thing in a court where doing the right thing is decidedly the exception rather than the rule.

Madame de la Fayette (1634-93) came from a family of minor nobility, and her marriage to a widowed nobleman gave her court experience that she turned to good use in her writing. Her literary salon and her abilities as an author gained her the friendship and the respect of eminent French authors like the playwright Racine and the fabulist François de la Rochefoucauld; and when she published La Princesse de Clèves, she truly made history. It was France’s first historical novel; it was one of the first novels ever written anywhere, by anyone; and it still impresses in terms of its insights regarding human psychology generally and gender specifically.

The setting for The Princess of Cleves is the court of King Henry the Second of France, in its last years. The year is 1559, and therefore there is a great deal of talk at court about all that’s been going on in nearby England, including the recent accession to power of Princess- turned Queen Elizabeth.

Our introduction to the Princess of Cleves, upon her initial arrival at court emphasizes her ability to impress even the jaded aristocrats of Henry II’s inner circle:

There appeared at this time a lady at Court, who drew the eyes of the whole world; and one may imagine she was a perfect beauty, to gain admiration in a place where there were so many fine women. She was of the same family with the Viscount of Chartres, and one of the greatest heiresses of France. Her father died young, and left her to the guardianship of Madame de Chartres his wife, whose wealth, virtue, and merit were uncommon. (p. 5)

Madame de Chartres, long before bringing the princess to court, has been assiduous in trying to warn her beautiful young daughter about the dangers of court life, constantly telling the princess “what tranquillity attends the life of a virtuous woman”, and, “at the same time…how difficult it was to preserve this virtue, except by an extreme distrust of one’s self, and by a constant attachment to the only thing which constitutes a woman’s happiness – to love and be loved by her husband” (p. 5).

Madame de Chartres knows what a dangerous place court can be. The novel’s narrator points out that “Ambition and gallantry were the soul of the Court, and employed both sexes equally; there were so many different interests and so many cabals, and the ladies had so great a share in them, that love was always mixed with business, and business with love. Nobody was easy or indifferent; their business was to raise themselves…and intrigue and pleasure took up their whole time” (p. 8). It's rather like middle school or high school, except that in this instance the mean girls and the bully boys have a great deal of money and power.

The men at court wield most of the direct temporal power, and therefore the ladies at court are left to wield their power more indirectly, forming into rival power blocs of singular ruthlessness. “All these different cabals were full of emulation and envy towards one another; the ladies who composed them had their jealousies also among themselves, either as to favour or lovers; the interests of ambition were often blended with concerns of less importance…so that in this Court there was a sort of tumult without disorder, which made it very agreeable, but at the same time very dangerous for a young lady” (p. 8).

The princess eventually marries one Monsieur de Cleves – not as fine a prospect as once might have been hoped, as marital fortunes rise and fall at court with stock-market speed, but seemingly a safe and suitable marriage that secures one’s position at court. The princess seems to accept her lack of love for her husband as part of the nature of life at court. Only later, when she meets the Duke de Nemours, is the passion in her nature awakened. Madame de la Fayette’s description makes clear that, even in that court that fairly swarms with gallant men who excel at winning ladies’ hearts, the Duke de Nemours stands out:

The Duke de Nemours was a masterpiece of Nature; the beauty of his person, inimitable as it was, was his least perfection. What placed him above other men was a certain agreeableness in his discourse, his actions, his looks, which was observable in none besides himself: he had in his behaviour a gaiety that was equally pleasing to men and women; in his exercises he was very expert; and in dress he had a peculiar manner, which was followed by all the world, but could never be imitated. In fine, such was the air of his whole person, that it was impossible to fix one’s eye on anything else, wherever he was. (p. 2)

Madame de Chartres, the mother of Madame de Cleves, doesn’t miss much; she can see her daughter’s passion for the Duke, even if neither the princess nor the duke are acting upon those feelings. On her deathbed, the mother tries to warn her daughter that “the danger I leave you in, and the occasion you have for me, adds to the regret I have in leaving you. You have a passion for the Duke de Nemours…you are upon the brink of a precipice; great efforts must be used, and you must do great violence to your heart to save yourself” (p. 25).

There is considerable dramatic irony in the dialogue that follows between Madame de Cleves and her husband. Monsieur de Cleves says that “women are incomprehensible, and when I have seen them all, I think myself so happy in having you, that I cannot enough admire my good fortune” (p. 28). In response, Madame de Cleves states that “You esteem me more than I deserve,” and adds that “you have not had experience enough yet to pronounce me worthy of you” (p. 28).

Eventually, in an act of remarkable courage, Madame de Cleves tells her husband of her feelings for the Duke de Nemours, and that neither she nor the Duke have any intention of acting on said feelings! Monsieur de Cleves is understandably unhappy with what he is hearing, but seems impressed by his wife’s honesty.

Further intrigue centers around a lost letter that looms over the centre of the narrative like that lost handkerchief in Shakespeare’s Othello. Madame de Cleves believes that the letter is from the Duke de Nemours, and that it reveals his faithlessness: “[S]he saw only that the Duke de Nemours did not love her as she imagined, and that he loved others who were no less deceived by him than she. What a discovery this was for a person in her condition, who had a violent passion, who had just given marks of it to a man whom she judged unworthy of it, and to another whom she used ill for his sake! Never was affliction so cutting as hers” (p. 49). In fact, the letter is from the Viscount de Chartres, not the Duke, and it concerns another woman entirely; but the episode shows the depth of the pain that Madame de Cleves’ passion for the Duke de Nemours is causing her.

The Duke de Nemours confides in the Viscount de Chartres regarding his feelings for Madame de Cleves, and his “confidence” naturally becomes an open secret all over court, making Madame de Cleves’ situation even worse. We are told that “The concern and confusion Madame de Cleves was in was above all that can be imagined, and if death itself could have drawn her out of this condition, she would have gladly have embraced it” (p. 74). Monsieur and Madame de Cleves suspect each other of having violated the fragile marital confidence that they have established, and at the same time the Duke finds that his own prospects at court are much embarrassed by all the rumours that are floating round.

Where The Princess of Cleves achieves its greatest surprises is toward the novel’s end – when it seems, for a time, that there may be an “honourable” way in which Madame de Cleves and the Duke de Nemours may be able to be together after all. It is an ethical temptation for the princess, but she is having none of it, as she makes clear to the duke in a speech that shows a psychological and social awareness that places her light-years ahead of her contemporaries at court:

“I know that you are free, that I am so too, and that circumstances are such, that the public perhaps would have no reason to blame either you or me, should we unite ourselves forever; but do men continue to love, when under engagements for life? Ought I to expect a miracle in my favour? And shall I place myself in a condition of seeing, certainly, that passion come to an end, in which I should place all my felicity? Monsieur de Cleves was perhaps the only man in the world capable of continuing to love after marriage; it was my ill fate that I was not able to enjoy that happiness, and perhaps his passion had not lasted but that he found none in me. But I should not have the same way of preserving yours; I even think your constancy is owing to the obstacles you have met with. You have met with enough to animate you to conquer them; and my unguarded actions, or what you learned by chance, gave you hopes enough not to be discouraged.” (p. 104)

Perhaps only a woman could have written this; so many male writers, after all, have been conditioned to write the “happy ending” where the man and woman overcome obstacles to find one another and embark upon what will presumably be a lifetime of connubial bliss. The Princess, by contrast, realizes that her inaccessibility to the Duke has called forth from the Duke a romantic constancy that the Duke had never before demonstrated. If the Duke and the Princess marry, he will remain just as handsome, just as attractive to the many beautiful women at court who enjoy demonstrating their allure by tempting a married man to stray. Inevitably, the Princess will become jealous, and the Duke will become resentful, and the end product will be yet another bitter and loveless marriage at the French court. The Duke cannot see this truth, but the Princess can.

The Princess of Cleves is truly a landmark in world literature. Students of the novel, of French literature, and of literature by women authors, should seek out this important short novel that is so innovative in so many ways.

[laviestlivre · Rating 3 out of 5]

je sais d'où les dramas dans les anges ont été inspirés maintenant

[Debbie Zapata · Rating 1 out of 5]

The idea here was to read this and another short book by the same author for a Literary Birthday Challenge. This book sounded so interesting: the court of Henry The Second of France, with all the intrigue and goings-on that nobility do so well. Enter our young heroine, Mademoiselle de Chartres, whose mother wants to arrange a proper match for her.

Okay so far, but it took paragraphs and paragraphs of names and titles to get to this point. I thought about quitting after needing to go over this sentence half a dozen times:

"...he foresaw great obstructions on the part of the Duke of Nevers his father: the Duke was strictly attached to the Duchess of Valentinois, and the Viscount de Chartres was her enemy, which was a sufficient reason to hinder the Duke from consenting to the marriage of his son, with a niece of the Viscount's."

But I thought no, I am reading War And Peace and keeping everyone straight in my mind, surely I can manage this little book also. So I kept going and our heroine becomes the Princess Of Cleves, but she is not really in love with the Prince, and it sounds to me like they never had a true wedding night. Certainly the Prince is not perfectly happy, that is one clearly expressed fact.

Then our Princess's mother tells her the history of the King's mistress, Diane de Poitiers. But she tells it in paragraphs full of names and titles tossed together like a Caesar salad. Granted that this book was written in 1678, but I was prepared for an old-fashioned writing style; and can usually deal with such things as sentences that go on forever and other marks of past years. However, I could not deal with being served such a confusing, boring platter so I have to mark this one a DNF. I will look for a title about the era, because I am intrigued by the King himself and his times, but I have to put Madame de LaFayette on my never again list. Humble apologies, Madame.

[alittlelifeofmel · Rating 4 out of 5]

No one is more surprised than me at how much I liked this book because this is not my kind of book at all. But the writing was so addicting and the storyline was so interesting.

Around The Year in 52 Books Challenge #8 - A classic with less than 200 pages

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un véritable coup de coeur. La description du sentiment amoureux, les descriptions des personnes, les intrigues de la cour de France, j'ai adoré ! L'abnégation de la la princesse, la constance de son mari, et l'amour du duc forcent le respect :)

[Katya]

Século XVI, corte de Henrique II. Os esponsais e casamento de Isabel de Valois com Filipe II aproximam-se, mas antes que o duque de Alba chegue a Paris para fazer a vez do noivo, ainda há um mar de coisas por acontecer. Para já, Francisco I ainda vive; a duquesa de Valentinois continua a preferida do Delfim, dividindo a ribalta com a rainha Catarina de Médici a quem disputa marido, filhos, riqueza e protagonismo; os Guise pairam em redor como abutres à espera da presa e o rei de Navarra (Henrique de Bourbon, futuro Henrique IV de França), valoroso guerreiro admirado por muitos, nem sonha o futuro que o espera... Não se engane ninguém, nesta corte todas as liaisons são perigosas.

A ambição e a galantaria eram a alma daquela corte e ocupavam tanto os homens como as mulheres. Havia ali tantos interesses e tantos conluios diferentes, e as damas eram tão influentes, que o amor era sempre misturado com os negócios, e os negócios com o amor. Ninguém andava tranquilo, nem indiferente; aspirava-se a ascender, a agradar, a servir ou a prejudicar: ninguém conhecia o tédio nem a ociosidade, e sempre se ocupavam com intrigas ou com prazeres.

E é então que entra em cena a princesa de Clèves, ainda mademoiselle de Chartres.

Para a senhora de Chartres, que era extremamente presunçosa, não havia quase nada que fosse digno da sua filha: mas vendo-a no seu décimo sexto ano de vida, quis introduzi-la na corte.

Num cenário histórico em efervescência como aquele em que se desenrola o romance da Condessa de Lafayette há lugar para alguns paralelos entre ficção e realidade, autora e criação literária. Ela própria com uma vida amorosa (aliás, toda uma biografia) bastante semelhante à da princesa de Clèves, M. de Lafayette dedica a vida ao salão onde nascerão este e outros romances - feito não muito comum para uma mulher, sobretudo quando apostada em subverter todo o género do romance contemporâneo. Casada sem amor, e afastada do marido por vicissitudes várias, acaba por viver a relativa distância de emoções fortes, empregando o seu tempo na criação de obras literárias que, como A princesa de Clèves, são pejadas de sentimentos fortes e de uma carga ética que hoje impressiona.
Em estilo de confidência, num diz que disse narrado por várias personagens, vai discorrendo esta pequena novela barroca (chamem-lhe romance, se preferirem). A sua cadência lenta e hipnotizante leva o leitor pelos meandros da corte: faustos, festas, guerras, amor, artifício e convenções sociais, tudo habita este pequenino livro onde, à semelhança da realidade, nada é o que parece:

Se julga pelas aparências num sítio como este - respondeu a senhora de Chartres-, enganar-se-á muitas vezes: aquilo que parece quase nunca é verdade.

E depois, para agravar as coisas, surge a questão do amor. E ele traz consigo outras quimeras - fidelidade, honestidade, virtude...
Casada sem verdadeira paixão, a princesa de Clèves está, mais do que qualquer outra mulher na corte, exposta aos agravos de uma relação extra-conjugal. Prática habitual esta de manter amantes, era também uma prática de galanteria, vista como coisa descomprometida, divertida, quase obrigatória. Mas para a princesa, representa mais do que isso. Por isso a paixão a consome, originando arabescos literários que são um deleite de se ler:

Quando se lembrava de que o senhor de Nemours sabia que ela estava a par do amor que ele sentia por ela e de que ele se apercebia de que, apesar disso, ela não o tratava pior, mesmo na presença do marido, de que, pelo contrário, ela nunca o vira com tão bons olhos, de que fora por causa dela que o senhor de Clèves o mandara chamar e de que acabavam de passar um serão em privado, pensava que estava comprometida com o senhor de Nemours, que enganava o marido que menos merecia ser engana- do em todo o mundo, e envergonhava-se de ser tão pouco digna de estima até aos olhos do seu amante. Mas o que lhe era mais difícil de suportar era a recordação do estado em que passara a noite anterior e as dores lancinantes que lhe provocara a eventualidade de o senhor de Nemours amar outra e de ela estar enganada em relação a ele.

Daqui em diante, desenrolar-se-á a crise espiritual (amorosa ou psicológica, se quiserem) que é o núcleo do romance e que, embora ligada de forma muito particular ao amor marital, não deixa de ressoar no leitor com ecos de familiaridade:

(...)todas as minhas resoluções são inúteis, ontem pensava o mesmo que penso hoje, mas hoje faço o contrário do que ontem decidi fazer.

Lafayette acaba neste romance por expor algo pelo qual é Laclos que vem a ser conhecido - a duplicidade das classes nobres que ocultam aquilo que deveriam mostrar e escolhem revelar aquilo que deveria ficar oculto. E esse jogo de espelhos, tão evidente na corte, mais não é do que o reflexo dos artifícios que usamos connosco, num eterno jogo de toca e foge no qual evitamos assumir o que quer que nos seja penoso:

O senhor de Nemours ia de amarelo e preto. Em vão se procurou a razão daquela escolha. A senhora de Clèves não teve dificuldade em adivinhá-la: lembrou-se de ter dito diante dele que adorava o amarelo e que não podia usar essa cor por ser loura. O príncipe julgou poder aparecer com aquela cor sem indiscrição, pois, uma vez que a senhora de Clèves não a podia usar, ninguém iria imaginar que se tratava da cor dela.

Aquilo a que as convenções limitam a vida, porém, terá um peso muito significativo na vida da princesa. E, embora galante, o romance de Lafayette é trágico - as mulheres apenas são heroínas nestas condições, ainda hoje.
À distância de praticamente um século, Madame de Lafayette reconstrói os reinados de Francisco I e Henrique II com poucas palavras e grande mestria, deixando no leitor uma marca sensorial, muito em linha com a forma de estar típica destes tempos, daquilo que foi a transição renascentista para a sua época (herdeira do artifício que foi apanágio da dinastia Valois). Embora de desenvolvimento muito cadenciado, a princesa de Clèves é uma preciosidade da literatura (de mais do que uma forma) e pouco importa aqui o seu caráter moralista. Refinada, esta é uma obra que reflete as crises religiosas e a contrarreforma que moldam a Europa deste século, mas é, sobretudo, uma tentativa de encarar os sentimentos de forma científica e racional.
O longo desfilar de toda uma galeria de personalidades ilustres, o retrato da aristocracia, de uma corte de enganos e intrigas, e de uma forma de estar tão intensa (é importante não esquecer que se viviam tempos de grande incerteza onde vida e morte se degladiavam a céu aberto, levando a uma reação muito mais sensitiva à vida),
fazem destas 150 páginas espaço insuficiente para saborear as delícias da literatura barroca.
Se calhar gostei mais deste livro do que seria de esperar, e também não fez mal nenhum chegar até ele após a leitura da biografia de Catarina de Médici (sem ela andaria a patinar em mais de metade desta leitura), o certo é que estava há demasiado tempo longe de uma linguagem tão cuidada e de um livro que me dispusesse tão bem para, já no final de um longo dia, me pôr a ler.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

"The least problematic of all literary classics in French," Robin Buss calls this. I took it as a warning. She's thinking of Les Liaisons dangereuses, no doubt - a deeply problematic book that reads like a reverse censoring of Princess of Clèves, as though LaClos read Clèves and thought, I'm going to put the smut in this. He was right and Les Liaisons dangereuses is fuckin' great. Princess of Clèves is okay.

The action takes place in 1558, a hundred years before it was written in 1678, during the reign of Henri II. Boyd Tonkin calls it a “veiled portrait of the treacherous cockpit that the author knew as a super-observant insider at the court of Louis IV,” which, like, fine, I know zilch about either court so that does nothing for me. They seem complicated? These courts, I tell you. They're always portrayed as absolute snakepits: "a sort of ordered turbulence which made it delightful but very dangerous for a young person," in Madame de Lafayette's own words. The thing is that they're full of teenagers. Madame de Chartres, the Princess of Clèves herself, is sixteen! It's just castles full of extremely wealthy teenagers who do nothing but go to parties and fuck each other; the only difference between this and Mykonos is that they're also the law, and they can kill each other after they break up.


Madame de Lafayette, as drawn by someone who's never seen a human body

Take this minor character the Vidame de Chartres, who tells a long story about fucking Queen Catherine de Medici. She makes it clear that he’s to have no other affairs while he’s her boyfriend, but he’s super into some other girl so he lies to her about it, and then when she breaks up with him because of a third girl, he promptly falls in love with a wholly new fourth girl who he now has to keep secret from the Queen. Funny, right? But it doesn't work. It’s not in this book, but this is a real guy and he dies in prison.


literally all they do is put on wigs and die

Most of the characters here are real, in fact, which is one of de Lafayette's innovations: she's doing some sort of historical fiction, or anyway fan fic. The only invented character is Madame de Chartres herself, who - when the book finally gets started, after a deadly opening that's really just some sort of Old Testamentesque list of names - is nursing an emotional affair with the Duke de Nemours, the sort of creep who's prone to climbing fences to spy on girls. Chartres, already married to a super boring guy, is the sort of girl who's prone to giving speeches about virtue. And if you think you know how this ends, I wish you did. First the boring husband dies of sadness just from thinking she might have boned Nemours, which she didn't. Then Nemours comes to say can we bone now that he's dead, and she gives this wonderful batshit speech about how he’s too hot to marry:

Few are insensible to your charms, and my own experience would suggest that there are none to whom you might not appeal. I should think you always in love, and loved, and I should seldom be wrong.

So they still don't bone, and then she gets her to a nunnery just to make extra sure they don't bone, and then everyone dies virtuous and alone. Which is a bummer in at least two ways.

It's all fine. Its other innovation is that it’s the first proper French novel, and its prose is cleaner and more focused than, say, its contemporary protonovel Oroonoko. It's just that it's a little staid, you know? It comes down to people standing in rooms giving speeches about why they're not fucking. It's frustrating. I want to, like, pick them up like dolls and just mash 'em into each other, shut up and bone, you know you want it. Which, again, is Les Liaisons Dangereuses. That book might be problematic, but it's not boring.

[Siti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non si può percorrere la storia del romanzo moderno senza aver letto il Don Chisciotte di Cervantes che agli inizi del ‘600 inaugura il genere fungendo da cerniera tra i vecchi ideali cavallereschi - fonte di ironia - e i nuovi slanci individualistici, in una rinnovata lettura della realtà contemplante anche il piano inclinato della follia; a maggior ragione, non si può nemmeno ignorare la novità introdotta, sul finire dello stesso secolo, da questo romanzo che pare poggiare le sue basi esistenziali proprio sul rinnovamento del genere, anticipando anche i moduli del fortunatissimo filone psicologico, senza trascurare di invertire i valori dominanti della società rappresentata. La principessa di Clèves, opera matura di una dama della piccola nobiltà introdotta alla corte del Re Sole, poi divenuta la signora del più prestigioso salotto letterario dell’epoca, è infatti la storia di una giovane sedicenne che per volere materno sposa, con benevola accondiscendenza, il principe di Clèves, introducendosi così nell’intrigante e corrotto mondo di corte, quella di Enrico II, della regina consorte Caterina de’ Medici e della famigerata amante del re, Diana de Poitiers. Una giovane ragazza che non conosce l’amore fino a quando non si sente totalmente attratta e rapita dall’incontro, durante un ballo al Louvre, con il duca di Nemours che, pur essendo tra i più desiderabili uomini di corte, interessato persino al matrimonio con Elisabetta I, non disdegna affatto una parentesi romantica con questa giovanissima e bellissima ragazza, seppur già ammogliata. Inizia così la rappresentazione del tormento interiore della giovane che, finchè è in vita la madre, riesce a tenere testa alle insidie, non tanto dell’uomo quanto del meschino ambiente di corte che la circonda, per poi dover contare solo sul suo estremo senso di onestà che la porta a confessare al marito l’attrazione provata per un uomo del quale preferisce tacere l’identità. L'inverosimiglianza di questa condotta è proprio l’elemento sul quale fa perno la narrazione che, pur continuando ad avvalersi degli espedienti letterari che richiamano la tradizione del romanzo cortese, inizia il ribaltamento di prospettiva, facendo assurgere l’individuo - donna quale essere capace di farsi portatrice di valori morali diversi da quelli dell’ambiente nel quale vive e che non sono neanche i medesimi dei lettori ai quali l’opera che ne narra l’intimo dissidio è destinata: il romanzo nel ‘600 è ancora appannaggio delle sole classi sociali elevate, nobili, occorrerà la nascita della borghesia per farne un genere di più ampia fruizione. Uno stile impeccabile e la rappresentazione rigorosa del contesto storico, ampiamente poggiato su basi documentali inappuntabili, fanno di questo romanzo quindi non solo un archetipo del romanzo moderno psicologico ma anche un anticipatore delle tendenze romantiche da bildungsroman oltre che un gustoso romanzo storico. La trama non manca di colpi di scena e trionfa in un finale aperto che coincide con un respiro di donna eccezionale per intuizione e rigore; senza nulla rivelare, non esito nel dichiarare apertamente che l’analisi offerta dalla principessa è lucida e brillante e di una modernità che si sposa, incredibile dirlo a distanza di secoli, con il più illuminato pensiero di una donna contemporanea ma soprattutto libera.

[Markus · Rating 4 out of 5]

La Princesse de Clèves
Madame de La Fayette (1634 – 1693)

This is considered the first modern love story in the setting of the royal court of Henry II,
16th century.
Madame de La Fayette born in 1634, knows the history and the rules of the royal court of Louis XIV by personal experience and composes her novel in a style that is considered ‘classic’, simple, credible, conservative and what is called ‘precious’.
A noble language.
For me, the first thirty pages, were quite difficult to absorb, as the introduction to the court of King Henry II contains several dozen names, Nobel titles, Kings and Queens and Madame and Dauphine, all connected by political and social intrigues, of little interest to me,
until the actual romance comes to light.

Young Mlle de Chartres, at the age of 16 is introduced to court, as she is now at an age to be married. Beautiful and graceful, she was raised by her mother to be virtuous, modest, and deeply honest.
It is not long before Prince de Cleves falls in love with her, and as the future husband is of a noble family, the parents agree, and they soon get married.
The now Princess de Clevès, or Madame de Clèves, is happy to have a loving and virtuous husband, although she feels no deep attraction for him.
But soon after their marriage, at a dancing event, she meets Douc de Nemours and both fall in love instantly, thunderstruck.
The young lady soon realizes that she now knows what love means and that she will have to live with this passion, without ever being allowed to reveal anything of it in public, or even to the man she is attracted to, or in private to anybody.
And she will also find out that this is impossible.
Her mother, as a mother would, guesses and soon knows about the situation. Mother falls very ill and on her deathbed makes her daughter promise not to fall into the trap of unfaithfulness.
The Princess is passionately in love but is now trying to hide from the suitor, for she fears that everyone will soon find out.
Fatally, later in due course, the Prince de Clèves, her husband, observes some alarming signals, finds out the name of the suitor, has him followed by a spy and is incorrectly informed of a supposed nightly meeting of his wife with her lover.
The Prince had loved his wife passionately and faithfully.
He is now devastated by jealousy, falls seriously ill of grief and soon dies.
The Princess, on his deathbed, convinces him of her innocence, but too late.
Again, out of guilt and remembering her mother’s advice, she promises her husband never to marry as long as she lives.
And so it happened that the poor Princess, who had so brilliantly started her young life,
would never know happiness and be faithful to her promise, spending her last years in a distant and silent convent.

[Andy · Rating 3 out of 5]

(3🌟)

Ha sido un libro entretenido y corto (aunque yo haya tardado tres días en leérmelo) aunque no me ha gustado el final. Me ha parecido bastante tomadura de pelo, para qué mentir. Sin embargo, también puedo comprender que sea cosas de la época, ya que el libro data del siglo XVII (si no me equivoco).

Dejando de lado la trama "romántica", me ha gustado mucho la ambientación, sobre todo porque aparece un personaje histórico que a mí siempre me ha parecido interesante: Maria Estuardo. Sí que es cierto que había veces que la narración se me hacía algo liosa por la gran cantidad de personajes históricos que aparecen, pero una vez que le pillé el ritmo, pude conectar con el libro sin problema.

No voy a comentar nada sobre los personajes. Me voy a reservar mis opiniones, sobre todo en lo referente a la princesa de Cleves, porque menuda frustración con el final.

No es lo mejor que he leído, pero tampoco puedo calificarlo como lo peor. Diría más bien que ha sido un término medio, lo cual resulta interesante porque hace años no habría dudado en decir que este libro me ha parecido un bodrio (no me juzguéis, en el instituto solían mandar bastantes clásicos y acabé cogiéndoles tirria hasta hace muy poco😅).

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in French, and as a result of this missed a lot of the smaller details of this book because despite taking French for seven years now I still can't really read it. But I got the main idea, and what I understood I really liked. The book's actually pretty exciting - there's lots of court intrigue, tournaments, plot digressions involving the misplacement of a Very Important Letter (on that note, isn't it amazing how many older books like this have plot points that revolve around Very Important Letters being misplaced?), and court gossip. So much court gossip. Most of it isn't even plot-related, but I still found it entertaining.

My only main complaint is that even though Diane de Poitiers is a minor character (the story takes place at the end of Henri II's reign, so it wasn't like they could just leave her out), Madame de Lafayette refuses to let her do anything interesting. She just stays in the background and doesn't serve any real purpose in the novel, which is sad, because Diane de Poitiers was kind of awesome.

Something else we discussed in my class, which I'll share here because I found it really interesting: so in 2009, French president Nicolas Sarkozy did what he does best and put his foot firmly in his mouth when he said that people didn't need to study the book - especially if they were preparing for low-level public sector jobs. Since going into hysterics over art is practically a national sport in France, everyone proceeded to do just that and organize the best protest ever.

Essentially, a bunch of people (like, hundreds) got together in cities all over France and staged public readings of La Princesse de Cleves to show their support for the book.

You have to admit, that's pretty damn cool.

Read for: French Literature from the Middle Ages to 1800

[Lesle · Rating 3 out of 5]

La Princesse de Clèves (1678) is called the first modern novel. Kind of hard to digest that since the times of affairs has changed so much since than.

The Princess is a complex, problematic, relatable and realistic, but she is a fully human woman who falls passionately in love.

Much of the Princess of Cleves' troubles relate to her need to preserve reputation. Her temptations, her confession and tradedy are all part of it, but should she have confessed?
Would it have have made a difference for the Princess in her survival.

Love affairs are considered unwise, not ethical and are guaranteed for the reputation of oneself to be fround upon. Note, this pertains to women.... not men. This telling is not a torrid love affair. It is not a telling of revenge. It is a telling of her struggle.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

God, what a heartbreaking novel. Even while I suspected where it would go, I held on to the hope that maybe it wouldn't go there. Ultimately it did and my poor heart could not take it. Move over Romeo and Juliet, the Duke of Nemours and the Princess of Clèves are the patron saints of star-crossed lovers.

The beginning is a chore to get through. The name dropping of the everyone in the French Court is supposed to give you a sense of place along with a cast of characters but it just ended up confusing me even more. Nonetheless, I kept reading.

The Princess of Clèves and the Duke of Nemours are a delight to read about it, mostly because we get to see their character evolution. Their story is nothing short of gut-wrenching; their love so true and genuine. But, by all means, this novel isn't perfect. It suffers a lot from frequent visits of the Goddess of Exposition™ which I believe take away from the main story. Sure I want some backstory on the situation but not pages upon pages upon pages of it.

[Dorothea · Rating 5 out of 5]

N.B.: I have never studied French literature and in fact was completely unaware of this work's existence until a week and a half ago. So, although I am going to praise the work of Terence Cave in translating, introducing, and annotating La princesse de Clèves, please don't believe a word I say!

I'm going to come back and put in a paragraph here about how there was one sentence in Daniel Pennac's The Rights of the Reader that made me want to read this book right away. But I want to quote that sentence and I can't right now because I lent my copy of The Rights of the Reader to somebody.

New paragraph! When Daniel Pennac writes about high school students' reaction to The Princess de Clèves he begins, "This story of a love safeguarded from love..." That is nearly all he said about the book's content and that's what made me want to read it. And it's a good description.

First I tried to read the version of The Princesse de Clèves on the Gutenberg Project. I don't know what translation it was but I could barely get through the first very long paragraph, and I soon realized that I would require a lot of historical and literary context to get anything out of the reading.

I was very lucky to find this Oxford edition at the library. I read the Introduction right away and am so glad I did. Terence Cave says that "the general agreement that The Princesse de Clèves is the first work of prose fiction written in Europe which may unambiguously be assigned to the genre of the novel," which I had never known before.* He explains that its forerunners were romances, that is "the extraordinary adventures of heroes and heroic lovers." I've read a number of those -- for instance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is a story about battles but also about the courtly relationship between Sir Gawain and the Green Knight's wife, which always confused me but which I definitely recognize in the phrase "heroic lovers."

What I think was new about The Princesse de Clèves is, partly, how it is a story of fictional or fictionalized characters set in a specific historical moment. The titular Princess is completely made up, but she is said to marry the Prince of Clèves who was a real person, and most of the other characters were also historical entities living at approximately the correct time and having approximately the same relationship to one another and position in the French court that they are said to have in the novel. However, the central story is entirely made up: it occurs in the private, unrecorded lives of these historical figures, at the same time as the real treaties, battles, and marriages of state that are also mentioned.

The other new thing seems to be how psychological The Princesse de Clèves is. While the main plot is sometimes pushed forward by external, historical events, what really matters is the state of the characters' hearts and minds. This is the story of the Princess, her husband the Prince of Clèves, and the Duc de Nemours. The Prince loves the Princess, the Princess agrees to marry him although she has never loved anyone, and then she and the Duc de Nemours fall in love at first sight. The Princess is determined not to betray her husband, but can't help her feelings, and the real plot concerns her navigation between her inescapable passion and her determination to be virtuous, and the consequences of her choices.

I was already enjoying this edition because of how satisfying the Introduction was to me, but the story itself (mediated through Cave's explanations) surprised me by how appealing I found it.

I have read many modern romance novels and always like it when I get to read about the characters thinking very hard about their position, considering how to reconcile what they want with their own ethics and without hurting others. The Princesse de Clèves has this by the boatload, and it's brave enough to end the way a modern romance novel never will. [Spoilers, of course, to the end of this paragraph, although if you start by reading the Introduction as I did, you'll know what I'm about to say.] I'm sometimes annoyed in modern romances that the hero and heroine end up together! I know that the book wouldn't be a romance novel if that didn't happen, but frankly in some cases things happen during the course of the story that make me think that the couple would either benefit by going their separate ways temporarily and thinking about what they really want from life, or would find that they were really disappointed by living together without any obstacles to their love. Well, at the end of The Princesse de Clèves, the Prince dies and both the Princesse and the Duc de Nemours discuss the happy ending they can now achieve by marrying one another. But they don't. That's what M. de Nemours wants, but Mme. de Clèves says, regretfully, no. She retreats from society and never sees him again.

It doesn't seem to me that the narrator presents Mme. de Clèves' final choice as the absolutely right one, although the final sentence tells us that "Her life, which was quite short, left inimitable examples of virtue." Rather, I think we're meant to understand that it's entirely possible that the thwarted lovers could have been happy with one another, but that there was enough doubt of this, well-explained by Mme. de Clèves, that neither choice was clearly correct and her refusal was also legitimate.

I don't agree with some of the principles that led Mme. de Clèves to this decision (or by some of the principles that motivate all of the characters -- in fact I want to clonk all of them on the head with a copy of The Ethical Slut, even though the political nature of aristocratic marriage at that time would still have prevented them from taking its advice), but I was really happy to see that she was able to make that decision instead of being swept away in order to prove that romantic love conquers all and is more important than anything else.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the balance between hyperbole and reality. The main characters are described in the most extreme terms. The beginning of the story establishes that at the court of Henri II, everyone is very beautiful and very witty, but the main characters of the story are exceptional even in this place. "M. de Nemours was nature's masterpiece. He was the most handsome and the most nobly built man in the world; but these were the least remarkable of his qualities..." Then when Mlle. de Chartres (the future titular Princess) enters, she is "so beautiful that all eyes turned to gaze upon her. Peerless indeed her beauty must have been, since it aroused wonder and admiration in a place where the sight of beautiful women was commmonplace." These two are so extraordinarily wonderful that their romance must also be described with superlatives.

But, at the same time, the reader is shown that these characters are not unchangingly flawless all the way through. Mme. de Clèves has to figure out what she's feeling and what to do about it. Sometimes she deceives herself about her real motivations, and sometimes she doesn't have the willpower to carry out her intentions, and sometimes she finds herself reacting by impulse instead of according to a thoughtful plan. M. de Clèves is also very much humanized by his reaction to his wife's confession that she loves another man. Before his marriage, he had told a friend that if his wife were in love with someone else, he would rather she told him about it than kept the secret, and that he would want her to treat him as a friend to share confidences and advice with in this situation. This is such a sweet intention, and it seems that after M. de Clèves actually finds himself in this situation, he tries a little bit to keep this intention -- but finds everything more painful than he had imagined. And then, M. de Nemours also tries to hold to the ideal of thinking very carefully about the consequences of love-motivated actions, but fails. He knows that Mme. de Clèves would ask him to stay away from her (not because she really wants him to go away, but so that he doesn't tempt her resolve), but he follows her and (what's worse in the context of this story) he does so in less than absolute secrecy. He overhears the confession that Mme. de Clèves makes to her husband, carelessly repeats it to someone else, and then when the story spreads, allows Mme. de Clèves to believe that her husband had betrayed her confidence in hopes that it will destroy the trust between them. (Definitely not the behavior of an ethical slut.)

If I read the hyperbolic descriptions in a modern story, they would seem the mark of an immature writer -- someone who's trying to get the reader to care about the characters because they are the Best Ever, while failing to portray them in a genuinely interesting way. But in The Princesse de Clèves, I interpret these descriptions (perhaps incorrectly) as part of the trappings of the old tradition of courtly love. Then, to place these headings of The Most Beautiful Person Ever, With Astonishing Wit and Grace over such thoughtful and thorough explorations of human motivations, self-understanding, the tension between desire and duty -- Mme. de Lafayette, it seems to me, was creating something new indeed, with truly astonishing wit and grace.



* The Princesse de Clèves was published in 1678. I am not quite certain about Cave's statement, since I thought that El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (published 1605-1615) was also a novel. Perhaps Cave is defining "novel" as something that deals with changes in the characters' inner selves more than the outward adventures they have? Anyway, I regret not having taken The History of the Novel when I had the chance to in college!

[Sass · Rating 4 out of 5]

« Madame de Clèves acheva de danser et, pendant qu'elle cherchait des yeux quelqu'un qu'elle avait dessein de prendre, le Roi lui cria de prendre celui qui arrivait. Elle se tourna et vit un homme qu'elle crut d'abord ne pouvoir être que Monsieur de Nemours, qui passait par-dessus quelques sièges pour arriver où l'on dansait. Ce prince était fait d'une sorte qu'il parut difficile de n'être pas surprise de le voir quand on ne l'avait jamais vu, surtout ce soir-là, où le soin qu'il avait pris de se parer augmentait encore l'air brillant qui était dans sa personne ; mais il était difficile aussi de voir Madame de Clèves pour la première fois sans avoir un grand étonnement. »


J’avais un très bon souvenir de ma lecture de la Princesse de Montpensier de la même autrice, dont La Princesse de Clèves semble en être l’achèvement. En effet, c’est très -voire trop- ressemblant dans le style de l’autrice, mais également dans les mécanismes de l’histoire qui sont les mêmes, ainsi que dans les thèmes abordés : la vertu, la morale, l’amour impossible. Je me suis vite doutée de ce qui allait se passer à la fin. Même la relation entre M. de Nemours et Madame de Clèves est très ressemblante de celle de Madame de Montpensier et de De Guise. Néanmoins, La Fayette réussit toujours à nous happer dans l’histoire avec ses descriptions des sentiments amoureux qui sont, à mon sens, très fines et réussies. Ses descriptions nous donnent une idée de ce qu’a pu être la société aristocratique du XVIème siècle/XVIIème siècle.
A ce propos, Madame de Lafayette se veut historienne, elle fait donc plusieurs digressions historiques qui n’ont aucun rapport avec l’histoire. Ces digressions sont assez désagréables quand on connait très peu ces personnages historiques.
La scène de la première rencontre amoureuse est extrêmement bien écrite, on comprend pourquoi c’est l’une des scènes de rencontre amoureuse les plus étudiées et les plus appréciées. Elle est représentative des mœurs de l’époque avec ce non-dit, ce poids du devoir moral. J’aime beaucoup le personnage de Nemours également.
J’ai été un peu déçue après cette lecture, elle m’a laissé sur ma faim car peut être trop ressemblante avec la Princesse de Montpensier. Ça reste un roman extrêmement moderne pour la littérature, car précurseur dans le genre du roman d’analyse, mais aussi bien écrit. Une lecture qui sera peut-être oubliable malheureusement…

[Kansas · Rating 5 out of 5]

https://kansasbooks.blogspot.com/2025...

“Pero el mismo sentimiento que la impulsaba a la curiosidad, la obligaba a ocultarla…”

La princesa de Clèves es una novela que he disfrutado mucho y que sin embargo me ha durado más de lo que pensaba para lo corta que es porque, aunque aparentemente y si leemos de que va puede parecer una novela clásica escrita en el siglo XVII sobre personajes de la corte francesa que se enamoran y desenamoran, si me ha durado más es precisamente porque no es lo superficial y anodina que parece, todo lo contrario, es una novela donde la gracia está precisamente en su introspección: en la que la acción, mínima, transcurre precisamente en la mente de sus personajes. Me he acordado mucho leyéndola de Henry James y sobre todo de su novela "Las alas de la paloma" en la que prácticamente todo lo que ocurría estaba basado en los juegos mentales de sus protagonistas. Realmente, es lo que define la literatura de Henry James, la acción psicológica en la que todo lo que puede ocurrir en un entorno se desmenuza minuciosamente en la mente de sus personajes y sin embargo, lo que me maravilla es que la Princesa de Cléves se había escrito casi tres siglos antes. Los personajes aquí apenas actúan, mayormente silencian ya sea por pudor, por lo que marca la etiqueta o por las presiones sociales, pero lo que ocurren en sus cabecitas es un caldero hirviendo. Madame La Fayette escribio esta novela en 1678 y hasta entonces las novelas se habían centrado sobre todo en galanterías cortesanas y aventuras, todo pura acción externa, y lo que realmente impresiona es que con la llegada de esta novela, se rompe de alguna forma esta tradición y traslada esta acción externa al interior de sus personajes, de modo que se puede decir que la narración hasta ahora externa, se convierte en la narración de un mundo interior donde los personajes se exploran a sí mismos, sus decisiones, sus conciencias, sus deseos reprimidos. Madame La Fayette parece ser la primera que llega a la conclusión de que hay que bucear en el interior de unos personajes que no eran libres para actuar según les apeteciera y que era en el interior de sus conciencias donde se estaba librando el mundo real. Esto es lo que me ha encantado sobre todo de esta novela que cuando me dí cuenta de esto, la empecé a dosificar.


“En fin, que no hacía más que repasar todas aquellas cosas que más podían agravar su pena y su desesperación. ¡Como se analizaba su conducta!”


No me voy a detener en el apasionante ambiente político de la Europa del siglo XVI pero solo destacar que la mayoría de los personajes son reales, a excepción de la Princesa de Clèves y su marido, que son ficticios, el resto, personajes de la corte real francesa, están ahí y se narran unos hechos históricos reales de pasada, porque lo que de verdad le interesa a Madame La Fayette es colocar a su personaje femenino en el centro de esta corte y a partir de aquí, desentrañar su alma. La Princesa de Clèves está ambientada un siglo antes de que fuera escrita, en el siglo XVI y desde fuera se podría contemplar como un melodrama en torno precisamente a un personaje femenino, Mademoiselle de Chartres, que a los dieciséis años cuando llega a la corte francesa arrasa por su belleza. Poco después se casa con el Príncipe de Clèves, un hombre de lo más honorable, aunque ella no está enamorada de él. “Sentís por mi una especie de bondadosa amistad que no puede satisfacerme; no mostráis ni impaciencia ni inquietud, ni penas; mi pasión no os conmueve más de lo que lo haría un matrimonio de conveniencia fundado en vuestra fortuna y no en los encantos de vuestra persona”. En la corte conocerá al Duque de Nemours, y entre ambos surgirá lo que viene a ser un amor apasionado pero totalmente imposible precisamente por el rigor moral con el que vive la Princesa de Clèves, y aquí estará precisamente la clave de esta rotura de la tradición literaria que había existido hasta ahora: no hay apenas acción salvo los encuentros y desencuentros de una serie de nobles en una corte, la francesa, donde todo eran chismorreos y aparencias, y sin embargo, Madame La Fayette construye una enorme tensión emocional en torno al lenguaje y a los silencios: un lenguaje en el que el significado de lo que se dice estará precisamente en lo contrario de lo que se afirma, y unos silencios compuestos de miradas y ocultaciones de cara a que terceros pudieran interpretar significados ocultos.


“Las mujeres suelen valorar nuestra pasión por el cuidado que ponemos en agradarlas y en buscar su compañía. Pero eso no es difícil si son amables. Lo verdaderamente difícil es no abandonarse al placer de seguirlas; es evitar su compañía por miedo a declarar en publico y casi a ellas mismas, los sentimientos de nuestro corazón.”


A partir de que la Princesa de Clèves conozca al Duque de Nemours, su obsesión estará en la negación a sí misma de este amor, y para ello Madame La Fayette la hará pasar por varias fases ("Sintió remordimientos; reflexionó sobre el violento atractivo que sobre ella ejercía el señor de Nemours y le pareció que no ser ya dueña de sus palabras ni de la expresión de su rostro”), todas ellas, vividas en silencio con ella misma, con su conciencia, en la que continuamente estará teniendo un conflicto entre el deseo real y la culpa. Es un autoexamen permanente el de esta Princesa de Clèves y lo que marcará la tensión psicológica de toda la novela porque le resultará imposible vivir espontáneamente este amor, sino que la reflexión y la culpa marcarán su día a día. Los amores entre la Princesa de Clèves y Nemours no se desarrrollarán en el mundo exterior sino dentro sus mentes, así que a simple vista y de cara al exterior nunca ocurrirá nada, solo dentro de sus conciencias, entre dudas, silencios, miradas e incluso acoso por parte de Nemours a la hora de mantener vigilada a su presa. “Creía que debía hablar y creía que no debía decir nada. La conversación con el señor de Nemours le agradaba y la ofendía al mismo tiempo. Las palabras más herméticas que un hombre que nos gusta nos producen mayores inquietudes que las abiertas exclamaciones de un hombre que nos desagrada”. Para mi la gracia está en como construye Madame La Fayette esta historia de amores tan introspectivos porque a medida que la Princesa de Cléves va ahondando en sí misma también va adquiriendo autonomía propia. El ser humano cuando más se conoce a sí mismo es a través del dolor y del sufrimiento, no es hasta que somos infelices cuando seremos realmente conscientes de nuestro yo más intimo, y aquí en esta novela esto está perfectamente definido. Aunque Madame La Fayette esté narrando la historia de un amor apasionado, el hecho de que este amor no llegue prácticamente a verbalizarse por parte de ellos, ni a consumarse, quizás incluso le da más fuerza al peso de esta historia porque la autora lo ha trasladado a su esencia: el alma humana en continuo examen por ellos mismos


“Se asombró de lo que acababa de hacer; se arrepintió; sintio alegría; todos sus sentimientos estaban llenos de azoramiento y de pasión. Examinó una vez más las razones que su deber oponía a su felicidad...”


Hay varios momentos durante esta novela en los que la princesa de Clèves demuestra que es un personaje femenino sin precedentes en la literatura de hasta entonces: una mujer que se analiza a sí misma, en conflicto permanente con sus deseos, los posibles atisbos de felicidad desembocarán en dudas y en dilemas morales (“Todas mis resoluciones son inútiles; ayer pensaba lo mismo que hoy pienso, y hoy hago todo lo contrario a lo que decidi ayer”), y sin embargo se verá abocada a a estar cada vez más sola frente al mundo. En lugar de dejarse arrastrar por las convenciones del amor cortés, esta princesa de Clèves adquiere conciencia de sí misma a través de la reflexión, aunque este control sobre ella y su su entorno tiene un precio: la conciencia será el sustituto de la libertad, de modo que Madame La Fayette no solo está abordando lo que es la introspección psicológica, sino también la moral, que derivará en que la emoción deberá ser controlada a toda costa. Y volviendo al principio de esta crónica, de esto sabía mucho Henry James, de amores imposibles, porque sus conciencias lo analizaban todo privando a sus personajes de esa libertad personal, aunque en esa reflexión consciente estaba la toma de decisiones. Y Madame de La Fayette escribió sobre lo mismo casi tres siglos antes, que se dice pronto. “Es verdad que sacrifico mucho a un deber que solo subsiste en mi imaginación”. El combate interno entre razón y pasión, a través de la conciencia, el conocimiento de uno mismo y la honestidad emocional, aquí estará la clave de esta novela, así que para mí es esta princesa de Clèves uno de los personajes femeninos más revolucionarios de la literatura universal. Una novela que hay que leer lentamente para poder penetrar en el conflicto interior de esta mujer. No parece una novela de 1678.


“¿Qué es lo que pretendo hacer? ¿Voy a soportar que él me hable de su pasión? ¿Responderé a ella? ¿Acaso puedo comprometerme en un amorío? ¿Me faltaré a mí misma? ¿Acaso quiero exponerme a los crueles arrepentimientos y mortales padecimientos que da el amor? Hoy me vence y me supera una inclinación que me arrastra a pesar mío”.

♫♫♫ Cold - Chris Stapleton ♫♫♫

[Irena Pasvinter]

Une version audio de ce livre est gratuite sur audible.com avec un abonnement (jusqu’au 8 juillet 2025). Si j'avais le temps de l’écouter d’ici là,avrait le temp de le lire jusqu’à cette date c'est une autre question)... Je voudrais le lire, d’une manière ou d’une autre.

[Kalliope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my third reading of La princesse.

The previous times, I was centred mostly on the literary aspects, and on the role of Mme Lafayette in the literary circles of Préciosité The term Préciosité is somewhat modern (based on Molière, though), and at the time they would refer to this way of writing, to the circles where it was cultivated, as ‘Galant’ during the second half of the 17th Century in France, and although I knew the story was based on historical figures from the previous century, given also how convoluted were the relationships among the characters, I paid not too much attention to the unfolding of events. My interest centred on the psychological aspects, hailed as this novel is, as the first “psychological novel” in the Western tradition.

But this time, as I was preparing a visit to the Loire region, I had the Valois dynasty very much on my mind. I therefore paid more attention to the characters, to who was who, and to the historical events alluded to. And I certainly mean ‘alluded’ because precisely in this very gallant way of seeing the world, the violence of, for example, the Amboise conspiracy, would not be portrayed in all its colours.




These were tumultuous times, when Henri II died unexpectedly in a ‘friendly’ joust, and was succeeded by his still young son François II (target of the nasty conspiracy mentioned above), with his wife Cathérine de Medicis becoming Regent.



This change in the female power, from the Lover, the beautiful Diane de Poitiers, to the wife, the less graceful Florentine, is also something we trace in Lafayette’s elegant account. And the character that this third time baffled me was that “la Reine Dauphine” was of course the later Mary Queen of Scots. When her father-in-law died when the lance pierced his eye, she became queen. But of course, the writer, Lafayette, knew how Mary’s destiny unfolded later.

And this is what I kept wondering during this last read – how did the 17th Century court view the 16th Court, with its entanglements and highly complicated history.

But of course there had been a change in Dynasties: the Valois were no longer and this was the world of the Bourbons.