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Updated 10-20-08
Marie Catherine Desjardins /Madame
de Villedieu (1640?-1683)
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"LOVE IS THE FORCE BEHIND ALL THE OTHER HUMAN PASSIONS."
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We aren't sure when or where Marie Catherine Desjardins was born; we do know that her parents were of the minor provincial nobility. Her mother was an attendant of the Duchess of Montbazon, her father a lawyer. Around 1650 the family was in Normandy, where her father had received an appointment. In 1655 Desjardins' mother obtained a legal separation and returned with her two daughters to the Paris household of the Duchess. Through Montbazon, Marie Catherine was introduced to salon society, where she was admired for her wit. She met the nobleman Antoine de Villedieu and began a long and tumultuous affair with him. By 1659 she had begun to write: a pen-portrait of herself; and poems, including the sonnet "Jouissance" ("Pleasure," considered scandalous because a young unmarried girl wrote of erotic love). These were published in collections organized by the Duchess of Montpensier.
In the same year Desjardins wrote a prose summary of a Moliere play for friends who had not seen the play. Her summary was printed in a pirated edition, so she took the correct version to be printed by Claude Barbin, just starting to become popular as a society publisher. The association with Barbin would continue throughout Desjardins' career; Barbin's payment for her writing would allow her to become independent but never wealthy.
Over the next few years Desjardins wrote two collections of poetry, two long novels and a shorter one, all dedicated to noblewomen. She also wrote three plays that were staged with varying degrees of success; the last, Le Favori, was presented in 1665 for Louis XIV (accompanied by Moliere's verses and Jean-Baptiste Lully's music). Through all of this the ups and downs of the affair with Antoine continued: Desjardins claiming that they were in fact pledged to marry, he claiming that they were not. In 1667, a final break came. The next year Barbin published anonymously Lettres et billets galants, which included 83 letters that Desjardins had sent to Antoine over a period of seven years (she said that the letters had been sold to Barbin by Antoine and printed without her permission). In that same year Antoine was killed in battle; from then on, Desjardins signed her works as Madame de Villedieu.
By 1669 Villedieu had become well known as a writer, but money would remain a problem. Through friends at court she was promised a pension by Louis XIV, but it would be seven years before the pension was paid, and then she received only half of what had been promised. Villedieu continued to write; her works reflected the changing public taste: fewer long heroic novels and more short tales showing the characters --- whether ancient or contemporary --- as non-heroic and often foolish. An example is Amours des grand hommes, which pretends to show the ordinary lives of great men of ancient Greece and Rome. This and a verse collection, Fables ou historique allegorique, were dedicated to Louis XIV (perhaps reminders of that unpaid pension).
Between 1672 and 1674 Barbin published Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere; this was to affect how Villedieu would be perceived in the future. Memoires was fictional, but the picaresque tale was told in the first-person and set in present-day France. As a result, later literary critics often read it as autobiographical and wrote of Villedieu's scandalous life. Most of her contemporaries did not; some historians objected to her making fun of heroes, but in general they judged her work, not her life. That work would come to include over thirteen fictional narratives, as well as collections of poetry and letters and the three early plays. One of the fictional narratives was the epistolary novella Portefeuille, published in a 1674 collection of her works, Oeuvres melees.
In 1675 what may have been her final work was published, Desordres de d'amour (two more titles appeared after her death, but we don't know when they were written). In the following year, the truncated pension finally arrived; a year after that, Villedieu married Claude-Nicolas de Chaste, a member of the minor nobility. In 1678 a son was born, his baptism attended by the Dauphin and by the Duchess of Montpensier. When Chaste died a year later, mother and son left Paris; Villedieu apparently spent her last three years in the provinces.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Le Favori
Fables ou historique allegorique
Les Amours des grands hommes
Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere
Lettres et billets galants
Portefeuille
Les Desordres de l'amourInformation about secondary sources.
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1. In French:
(a) From the University of Lyon's "Madame de Villedieu" site, Desjardins' self-portrait published in Montpensier's 1659 Recueil des portraits et eloges en vers et en prose. At other pages of the site, links to excerpts from Villedieu's introductory material (dedicatory letters, addresses to the reader) of 23 works from 1660 to 1687; and a timeline of her life.
(b) The 1659 sonnet "Jouissance" (the name "Hortense" was mistakenly assigned to Villedieu in the 1700s; some older sources still use it).
(c) A sentence from Part 1 of the 1675 Desordres de d'amour, describing the political power of beauty (Madame de Sauve was a favorite of the French king Henry III).
(d) At the Wikipedia entry for Villedieu, links to PDF files of Recit en prose et en vers de la farce des Precieuses (1660), Manlius Torquatus, tragi-comedie (1662), Recueil des poesies de Mademoiselle Desjardins (1662), Le Favori, tragi-comedie (1666), Anaxandre (1667), Fables ou Histoires allegoriques dediees au roy (1670), and Le Portrait des faiblesses humaines (1685).
2. Essays, etc.:
(a) Click on "Traduction" for a translation of a biographical essay on Villedieu by Donna Kuizenga, followed by a 2004 bibliography of Villedieu's works (including the early writing found in the collections of others), as well as of secondary sources.
(b) A 1995 essay by Margaret Wise, "Cross-Dressing Capital: Villedieu's Memoires de la Vie de Henriette-Sylvie Moliere," which sees in the novel a portrayal of a capitalist system --- investments made by both the heroine and others.
(c) An abstract of a 2006 article by Russell J. Ganim, "Fact or Fable? Female Gender and Sexuality in Villedieu's Histoires allegoriques," on the 1670 collection of fables; you can download the 9-page article as a PDF file.
3. Reviews (for excerpts from the translations, see below, under "In print"; for information on the other books' treatment of Villedieu, see "Secondary sources"):
(a) C. E. Campbell on Roxanne Decker Lalande's 2005 translation, Love Notes and Letters; and, The Letter Case.
(b) Stephanie O'Hara on Kuizenga's 2004 translation, Memoirs of the life of Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere.
(c) Mitylene Myhr on the 2007 essay collection, The Cloister and the World: Early Modern Convent Voices.
(d) Katharine J. Hamerton on Faith Evelyn Beasley's 2006 study, Salons, History, and the Creation of Seventeenth-century France: Mastering Memory; and Beasley's response to Hamerton's review.
(e) Claire Carlin on Elizabeth C. Goldsmith's 2001 study, Publishing Women's Life Stories in France, 1647-1720: From Voice to Print.
4. The publisher's description and two brief reviews of Nancy Deighton Klein's 2000 translation, The Loves of Sundry Philosophers and Other Great Men (for excerpts, see "In print").
5. From a bookseller, the title page and table of contents of Villedieu's 1670 verse Fables ou historique allegorique (it includes the titles of the eight fables; for the moral of one, see "In print").
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[Perry Gethner's collection includes his translation of Le favori, here called The Favorite Minister. Gethner's introduction discusses the play and its performances by Moliere's players in 1665, including one given for Louis XIV at Versailles. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The lunatic lover: and other plays by French women of the
17th & 18th centuries / edited by Perry Gethner. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann, c1994. (xviii, 344 p.)
LC#: PQ1215 .L85 1994; ISBN: 0435086375
Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-344)
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"Let others pride themselves on integrity."
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[The chief minister of the king of Barcelona is unsure whether the woman he loves cares for his high position or for himself alone; the wise king will eventually solve his problem. But perhaps the play's strongest character is the "villain" Elvira, who describes her unorthodox views on life and love. When a friend tells her that love must be founded on esteem, she replies:]
Those are old errors and superfluous worries.
Such high esteem serves only when you cease to please;
When you've no charms left to appear attractive,
It's good to try to make oneself estimable;
For lack of better, you must charm the mind....
Let others pride themselves on integrity,
If they desire; I want no part of it.
And since I'm destined for it in due time,
I'll wait until my fiftieth year to get it. [ll.419-23,
431-35; pp.54-55]
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"Fie on your constancy! It's out of fashion."
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[And when the hero, whom Elvira has been wooing, loses favor with the king, she tell her friend:]
My heart loved him as long as he was lovable.
When being in favor made his love worth prizing,
When games and laughter followed him everywhere,
I, who love joy and gladness in all things,
Endeavored without ceasing to acquire him;
But in this great reversal,...
When he's an object less of pleasure than of tears,
Could I be right in seeing the same charms in him?
Where would my mind and my discernment be?...
Fie on your constancy! It's out of fashion.
It's just a silly fancy dressed as a virtue.
If our fathers once held to that lunacy,
Our generation's quite cured of that illness.
Believe me, Leonora, nowadays at court
They don't give chains to Cupid any more.
Since he's a child, they think him frolicsome.
What was a torment's treated like a game.
[ll.898-903, 905-07,912-18; p.71]
[Elvira, of course, eventually loses the hero, but she moves on to another conquest and has the play's last words:]
All this is not worth any conversation.
Don Lope's waiting; he's my consolation. [ll.1435-36;
p.88]
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Fables ou historique allegorique
[This anthology includes Norman R. Shapiro's translation of one
of eight fables that appeared in Villedieu's 1670 Fables
ou historique allegorique. Shapiro translates "Le Singe
Cupidon" as "The Monkey Who played Cupid," giving
the English and the French in parallel columns. He also gives
a brief biographical introduction:]
The Fabulists French: verse fables of nine centuries / translated,
with prologue and notes, by Norman R. Shapiro; woodcuts by David
Schorr. Urbana: University of Chicago Press, c1992. (xvi, 244
p.: ill.; 32 cm)
LC#: PQ1170.E6 F3 1991: ISBN: 0252017560
English and French. Includes bibliography and indexes
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"Love's blindness makes us less than circumspect."
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[In her 85-line poem, Villedieu tells the story of a monkey who steals Cupid's arrow and blindfold, and causes a nymph to fall in love with him. After Cupid exposes him to the nymph, the author gives the story's moral:]
Too often, in the blindness of the mind,
Gulled by appearance, we erect
God's altars to mere mortal kind:
Love's blindness makes us less than circumspect,
Transforming ugly cause to fair effect.
But when, in time, our reason, once again
Returns to grace our wit; or when
New love---of purer essence, therewithal---
Seizes and holds our hearts in thrall;
Then do we see how hateful was the prize
That once we longed for with adoring eyes. [p.40]
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[Nancy Deighton Klein has modernized a 1673 English translation of the 1671 Les Amours des grands hommes. The translation included four tales; the earliest complete edition of Villedieu's works included seven, but the attribution of two have since been disputed. Klein's introduction gives parts of the original dedicatory letter to Louis XIV (not used in the 1673 translation). The book includes a glossary and bibliographies. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The loves of sundry philosophers and other great men: a translation
of Madame de Villedieu's Les amours des grands hommes / Nancy
Deighton Klein (Studies in French literature; vol. 37). Lewiston,
N.Y.: E. Mellen Press, c2000. (v, 98 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 A6213 2000; ISBN: 0773478671
Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-98).
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"They stripped them of all natural feelings."
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[Villedieu tells the "true" stories of four classical figures, the stories that inquiring minds want to know. In four farcical tales, complete with eavesdropping and cross-dressing, the reader is told that the Athenian lawgiver Solon manipulated the law to win a woman from a rival; that the philosopher Socrates fell in love with a girl to whom he was teaching virtue; that the Roman generals Julius Caesar and Pompey fought not over politics but out of jealousy; and that the virtuous Cato the Younger shared his wife not out of friendship but for revenge. In her dedicatory letter to Louis XIV, Villedieu explains to the king why a new view of classical heroes is needed:]
Great men have only been translated for posterity as dreadful figures. The authors imagined themselves as raising them above humans when they stripped them of all natural feelings. [p.5]
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"Yet... the wise must clothe the truth in a disguise."
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[To report on the "natural feelings" of her grands hommes, Villedieu first tells of Solon, who wrote six "laws of love" for his mistress. This is the last:]
Sincerity in love, I much esteem
As of all laws, the most supreme;
Yet for their interest oft, the wise
Must clothe the truth in a disguise.
I like a dainty lover would know all,
Yet like a man of human frailty sure,
Would not my own disease procure,
Nor headlong on disquiet fall,
But rather ignorance than despair endure. [pp.27-28]
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"He had that confidence in his wisdom...."
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[The second hero, Socrates, has been teaching a beautiful young woman, Timandra. At first he insists, to himself and to others, that he has no feelings for her. But his friend Alcibiades finally forces Socrates to admit to himself that he has --- unphilosophically --- fallen in love; the narrator describes his reaction:]
It was most certain... that he did not believe he loved Timandra. He had that confidence in his wisdom gave him not leisure to examine himself on this point; but his friend's reproach forcing him to sudden review of himself, he found... strong jealousy, and examining the dreadful fears he had had, lest Timandra should love or be loved, he found out that nothing but love could create such violent apprehensions.
He let himself fall into a chair, more concerned with what he began to discover than a criminal at the reading of his sentence. [p.47]
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"Women should be chosen blindfold."
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[When he doubts his wife's fidelity, the third hero, Julius Caesar, is given this advice by Pompey (Pompey will later be given the same advice, and like Caesar, he will not take it):]
We should in discretion see as little as we can. What advantage gain you in taking away your wife's reputation? The wrong you will do her recoils upon yourself. And if you drive on the business to a divorce of her, 'tis an even lay you will take another less honest than she. Chance governs all marriages, and women should be chosen blindfold. [p.57]
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"Men are but men."
--------------------------
[The fourth hero, Cato, after describing to Pompey how his trusted wife had deceived him again and again, says:]
Ah, Pompey, 'tis in vain that love of ourselves makes us aspire to the philosophical insensibility which lifts up the wise man above all accidents. Men are but men, and whatever care they take to raise themselves above nature, the first movers will still keep their course. [p.76]
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Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere
[Donna Kuizenga has translated the letters that make up the epistolary novel, Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere: four letters published in 1672, two in 1674. Kuizenga's introduction discusses Villedieu's life and Memoires. The notes provide background information, and the bibliography lists all editions and translations of the works as well as studies in both French and English. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Villedieu, Madame de. Memoirs of the life of Henriette-Sylvie
de Moliere: a novel / Madame de Villedieu (Marie-Catherine Desjardins);
edited and translated by Donna Kuizenga (The other voice in early
modern Europe). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, c2004.
(xxxi, 194 p.: maps)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 A6813 2004; ISBN: 0226144194, 0226144208
Includes bibliographical references (p. 19-24)
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"You have to read them playfully in order to take pleasure."
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[From "a letter fragment" that prefaces the 1672 first four books of the novel. It's not clear whether the writer is intended to be Villedieu or her narrator, Sylvie. She addresses her publisher, Barbin:]
Your bookseller's request makes me quite uncomfortable; can't he do without what he asks for? What does he want me to say in a preface? I have nothing more to say to my readers; I have said everything I want to in giving them the wonderful story that you are printing. Furthermore, I don't think this book requires much justification....
I am very happy that you think the text needs to be corrected by skillful people; just make sure these skillful people are not too serious minded, otherwise they will find too many flaws. People say that you have to be of a playful temperament in order to read playful things, or at least that you have to read them playfully in order to take pleasure in them. [p.25]
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"I will not hide... even the most foolish adventures."
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[In the opening of the first letter, Sylvie, addresses the noblewoman who has asked her to write of her picaresque adventures and explains her purpose in telling her story:]
It is no small comfort to me, Madame, in the midst of all the evil stories by which my reputation is slandered everywhere, to see that Your Highness wishes me to justify myself. I feel all the gratitude that I should, and so as not to be ungrateful, I will willingly obey the command that you give me to entertain you with a faithful account of my innocent mistakes.
Not that I have any hope of being able to blot out of most people's minds the unjust images that slander has painted of my conduct. This age does not allow me to flatter myself which such a thought. But... a time will come when people will no longer be so liable to judge others to be as criminal as themselves, for their behavior will no longer be so corrupt or so criminal. Then people will perhaps give more credence to what I am going to write about the innocence of my actions than to what my enemies may have said about them.
I will not hide anything, not even the most foolish adventures in which I have had some role, so that Your Highness can laugh at them while at the same time having compassion on me in other regards. [p.26]
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"I am not a person who has an ordinary destiny."
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[The narrator begins with a description of her origins, or rather of her ignorance of her origins, and then of her appearance:]
In the first place, I have never known with certainty who I am. All I know is that I am not a person who has an ordinary destiny. My birth, my education, and my marriages have been the product of extraordinary adventures....
I was named Henriette-Sylvie by the order of my mother herself, according to what I have been told: Henriette, undoubtedly for some reason known to my mother alone, and Sylvie. apparently because I was born at the edge of a wood....
Beyond this, I am tall and of good appearance; I have brilliant dark eyes, wide and well-shaped, a sign of a good deal of wit. People can judge whether I have any. My mouth is large when I laugh, but quite small when I do not; unfortunately for my poor mouth, I laugh all the time. [pp.26-27]
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"...made me reluctant to commit a second murder."
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[It is her wit and her laughter that will get Sylvie in and out of trouble. When she is 12 years old she fatally shoots the man with whose family she has lived for seven years and who has tried to rape her. She is rescued by the Marquis de Birague, who immediately begins to woo her for himself:]
I understood all this at the first moment, but the necessity of finding someone to help me made me reluctant to commit a second murder to nip in the but the hopes he had perhaps conceived, which were not to my advantage. Far from that, I thanked him for his generosity and was as agreeable to him as I could honorably be. [p.33]
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"...destined to see and to cause extraordinary things."
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[Birague finds Sylvie a home with the mother of his friend, the Count of Englesac. Much to his mother's annoyance, the young Englesac and the penniless Sylvie fall in love. To avoid being sent away by his mother, Sylvie refuses to meet Englesac without a chaperone present. He, in turn, takes action:]
Well, Madame, what he did is incredible, but worthy of me who was destined to see and to cause extraordinary things. Not seeing any other way to get rid of all those who seemed to be paid to annoy me other that by obliging them to fear something worse than our conversations, he set fire to the chateau.
By reading this story, Madame d'Englesac will perhaps be surprised to learn the cause of this accident.... But in the end such was her son's passion for me, and she spoke more truly than she realized when, in accusing be of having brought trouble into the house, she said that I had "brought fire" into it. [p.37]
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"... a hundred tales of adventure, told... in carefully
chosen terms."
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[When, somewhat later, Englesac is forced to leave France after fighting a duel, Sylvie is sent off to a convent, with orders to either become a nun or marry an old man. She escapes (Birague again) and, after some adventures, meets the Marquise de Seville, who knows the story of her birth and whom Sylvie soon came to suspect was her mother, who had been forced to leave her infant with strangers:]
...[S]he showed a tenderness for me so intense that... I looked at her as though she was my real mother. But she did not want me to use that word because, although her heart acknowledged me, her face could not accept it.... Thus, I had to limit myself to calling her my sister, with which I said I was happy and very honored.
[Madame de Seville took Sylvie to Brussels, where she would stay for two years. There:]
I was the subject of a hundred tales of adventure, told by the lady [Seville] in carefully chosen terms, and this made all the accommodating people at court prize the reasons she gave for my adoption. Some of them even exaggerated our physical resemblance to provide an additional justification, but I do not know if this pleased her as much as the rest. [pp.49-50]
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"Marrying another lover seemed... to break the rules of
heroic adventure."
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[The second letter tells of Sylvie's marriage to the older, but wealthy, Marquis de Menez:]
I had not had any news at all of the Count of Englesac for three years.... In addition, while marrying another lover seemed to her to break the rules of heroic adventure, Madame de Seville backed away from this point of view and advised me not to let this old Spaniard get away.
What can I say? His fifty thousand pounds of income and his jewels helped persuade me that Englesac had completely forgotten me. [p.52]
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"His idea made me laugh."
----------------------------------
[Englesac, of course, soon returns, and in 1664, after three years of marriage, the 17-year-old Sylvie disguises herself as a man and runs off with him, for a series of further adventures. At one point, Sylvie, in men's clothes, was being wooed by an important woman. Englesac had generously offered to go to the woman's bed in her place:]
His idea made me laugh....
Perhaps people may accuse me... of lacking in refinement, but frankly I've never been able to accept some forms of jealousy: those that seem to me too centered on the physical. The assurance of an undivided heart has always been enough for me, and always will be. Everyone has his or her own way of loving; I believe myself to be more refined, by loving in such a way, than those who profess refinement. [p.69]
----------------------------------------------------
"My fate has more tricks than I do ruses."
----------------------------------------------------
[The "bed-trick" continued successfully for a few months but was eventually found out. Later, in Paris, Sylvie speaks to the sympathetic Duke of Guise, who had just told her that the queen is having her sent back to her husband, Menez:]
I said to him, ".... I tried to avoid a misfortune but couldn't. My fate has more tricks than I do ruses. Well, sir!" I added, "I must please the queen, and wait for my destiny to improve. It is not the most constant in the world as far as I am concerned, and, while it never bestows any lasting good on me, it does me no lasting evil either." [p.73]
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"...a story that must resemble a good work of fiction."
------------------------------------------------------------------
[Menez conveniently dies, and, in the third letter, Sylvie and Englesac make plans to marry. Englesac soon hears and believes false rumors about Sylvie, turns against her, and goes off to fight in Louis XIV's Dutch War in 1666. Later, Sylvie receives word that he has been killed. But Sylvie assures her correspondent that this is only temporary:]
...[I]t would be unjust and contrary to literary convention for the hero of a story that must resemble a good work of fiction if he were really to die before having completed all his adventures. We are going to resuscitate him, by your leave, at the appropriate time. [p.93]
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"...regrets that... did not fail at times to make me burst
out laughing."
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[At the start of the fourth letter, Englesac has indeed been resuscitated and the couple is married. But Englesac discovers that he is impotent:]
When this poor lover thought he was the happiest of men, when he thought that he had finally outwitted Fortune..., he discovered that he had (in his view) fallen into the most appalling disgrace that could befall him....
How foolish men are to think that they are contemptible on this score. I said a thousand things to him but to no avail.... My speeches did not persuade him; he had regrets that, while arousing in me much pity, did not fail at times to make me burst out laughing also. [p.99]
-----------------------------------------
"How little we know ourselves!"
-----------------------------------------
[Englesac goes off to get lifted the curse he assumes has been put on him. He is successful and Sylvie is soon pregnant. His mother, who has continued to try to separate the pair, tries to convince him that the child is not his:]
I do not know whether these false stories cooled off the Count of Englesac or if marriage alone caused this change, but he became tired of me, as is usual. As soon as I pleased him less, many other women began to please him more. [pp.106-107]
[During the next year, Englesac has affairs and joins his mother in attempting to persecute his wife. Sylvie, in the meantime, has --- always innocent --- flirtations. (The baby, we are told briefly, has died):]
I had pushed my love very far. There is no heart so constant that it cannot in the end be put off by persistent disdain and, to hide nothing from Your Highness, I was becoming quite indifferent to the Count of Englesac.
[Well, not " quite indifferent." A few lines later:]
...I would swear, Madame, that if the Count of Englesac had loved me again, I would have made him the most unhappy of all the people who have ever loved.
My God! How little we know ourselves! [p.117]
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"There is enough material for a long novel."
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[In the last two letters, published two years later, the tone changes. There is less laughter; Sylvie is becoming more thoughtful. Englesac, who had gone to fight the Turks in Crete at the end of the fourth letter, has really died. His heirs and the heirs of her first husband are suing Sylvie to prevent her gaining her inheritances. In 1670, threatened with arrest due to a false claim of theft, Sylvie meets an abbess from Cologne, who urges her to come to stay at her convent. The abbess says:]
"Retire with me to my solitude, and shelter yourself from the storms that threaten you. Reflect on all the events of your life, see how many difficulties you have had since you killed Monsieur de Moliere. There is enough material for a long novel. Do you not want finally to allow yourself a little repose, and to put yourself in a situation where Fortune and your enemies cannot injure you?"
[But Sylvie isn't yet ready to follow that advice:]
It seemed to me shameful to leave the world because I was unhappy in it. I wanted my retreat to be a choice dictated by my heart and not by necessity. [p.151]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I was not in the habit of according them so much attention."
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[In the opening of the sixth and last letter, Sylvie wonders at the change in herself:]
Madame, are you not tired of hearing my complaints against Fortune? I am tired of it myself, and it seems to me that I was not in the habit of according them so much attention. [p.152]
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"Should I continue in my present state of mind...."
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[Sylvie does go to stay at the Cologne convent, but only after Fortune changes her life once again by not only clearing her of the theft but arranging that she become very wealthy. At the end of her last letter, she speaks again to the noblewoman who has requested her story:]
...Madame de Seville's heir has kept all his promises to me so nobly that I find myself able to lead a quiet and rather comfortable life, in whatever circumstances I might choose.
But, Madame, should I continue in my present state of mind, I will never choose a condition other than my present one. I find it sweet.... [p.181]
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Lettres et billets galants; Portefeuille
[Roxanne Decker Lalande has edited and translated the 91 letters published by Barbin in 1668 as Lettres et billets galants (83 of which are addressed to Antoine de Villedieu) and the 1674 epistolary novella Portefeuille. Lalande's introduction focuses on the effect of the 1668 collection on Villedieu's later work and on the theatrical underpinnings of the epistolary novella. The bibliography and a chronology of Villedieu's life and work are useful. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Love notes and letters; and, The letter case / Marie-Catherine
Desjardins (Madame de Villedieu); translated and edited by Roxanne
Decker Lalande. Madison [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University
Press; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, c2005. (144
p.)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 A8313 2005; ISBN: 0838640702
Includes bibliographical references (p. 136-141) and index
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"...words used by so many others,... which portray my feelings
so poorly."
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[When Lettres et billets galants was published, Villedieu wrote to Barbin, "[D]o you believe that a letter that appears exquisite to the eyes of a lover would have a similar effect on disinterested parties?" (p.21) In general, the answer would appear to be "No," but in some passages of these personal letters, Villedieu reveals her views on writing:]
It is always with the greatest aversion that I employ words used by so many others, and which portray my feelings so poorly. The most delicate and the most powerful expressions certainly say nothing approaching the emotions you have engendered in my heart. It seems to me that with such an extraordinary love, I should dispose of words of the same kind. [Letter 4, pp. 56-57]
-------------------------------------------------
"This type of letter is quite new to me."
-------------------------------------------------
[And later:]
You will be quite astonished to discover that instead of writing you a passionate letter, I am writing you an indifferent one. But do not complain: this indifference is no less obliging that tenderness; I believe that you will welcome the variety and that you must be quite tired of always finding the same phrases in all my notes. To tell you the truth, however, I am at a loss, and I shall no doubt have quite a bit of trouble extricating myself from such an unusual undertaking. This type of letter is quite new to me.... [Letter 67, pp.83-84]
-----------------------------------------------------
"You are seeking merely wit, and not love."
-----------------------------------------------------
[We don't have Antoine's part of the correspondence, but some of Villedieu's comments suggest that his goal for the letters was"elegance" and "wit" (perhaps already with a view to future publication):]
You were quite right to ask me to correct it; for in truth, though it contains errors in elegance, there are may transgressions against love. I find in it none of the words I was hoping for....
I thought I would find bliss on every line and that the least engaging would read as follows: "My dear soul, I have more love than you could hope to desire; do not complain any longer, my heart, or only of being loved too much; rest assured, my dear child, that my heart will only cease being yours once it ceases to exist." [Letter 5, p.57]
I know that in my letters you are seeking merely wit, and not love, whose testimony you find boring and unbearable. Consequently, I only need to write you the silliest letter possible. [letter 15, p.61]
----------------------------------------------
"...the nature of the people involved."
----------------------------------------------
[Six years after the publication of Lettres et billets galants, a group of ten letters written in a male voice was published as Portefeuille. The author, who signed herself "Desjardins de Villedieu," sends to a woman friend the contents of a velvet letter case that she has found in a Paris park:]
I opened it up and discovered such enjoyable letters that I would believe myself remiss in my duties were I not to share them with you. I have reflected long and hard on the story they tell and since I am convinced that the names are fictitious, I did my best to guess the real ones. But I am unable to imagine anything plausible.
What is authentic is the manner of writing, which is quite fashionable, and the nature of the people involved, which is that of most of high society. [p.97]
-----------------------------------
"What land are you from?"
-----------------------------------
[In the ten letters that make up the tale, the Marquis de Naumanoir tells a count who is temporarily away from Paris about his unhappy love affairs. Finding himself betrayed by his current mistress, Mme de Montferrier, and one of his friends, the Chevalier de Virlai, Naumanoir seeks consolation with another woman, Mme de Vareville, only to discover that she has been the mistress of (and still cares for) Virlai. The action is farce (mislaid and misdelivered letters, a lover hiding in a closet); as is appropriate in farce, Naumanoir takes himself and his grievances very seriously. When he confronts Virlai about his initial betrayal:]
What did I not say to that false friend to chide him..., and how many times did I not call him ungrateful and my mistress deceitful.
He smiled at my tantrums and looking at me with pity: "Eh, tell me I pray, Monsieur de Marquis, did you count on a love affair to be eternal? Is Madame de Montferrier the only one of her kind or do you believe yourself to possess the secret of being loved your whole life long? Ultimately, what land are you from and where do you think you are to regard the inconstancy of a mistress as a prodigy?" [Letter 1, p.100]
---------------------------------------------------------
"They... had an additional positive side effect."
---------------------------------------------------------
[Naumanoir goes to Mme de Vareville to both receive and give consolation, but at first:]
...[S]he objected... that the chevalier de Virlai's infidelity had made her give up on adventures, that she did not want another love affair for the rest of her life, and she beseeched me to employ my feelings for her in a tender and solid friendship.
I was already too involved to be satisfied with this and, although she had certain principles about what types of entertainment are suitable for respectable ladies, I managed to get her to agree to a few distractions; they conveyed the reflections of my heart and had an additional positive side effect: they came to the attention of Madame de Montferrier and awakened her vanity. [Letter 2, p.102]
---------------------------------
"Would you believe me?"
---------------------------------
[The next several letters recount Naumanoir's efforts to injure the reputations of Mme de Montferrier and Virlai, while believing that he has found true love with Mme de Vareville. Eventually, though, he finds Virlai in Mme de Vareville's room, and she tells him that she has used Naumanoir only to make Virlai jealous. Mme de Vareville answers his angry accusations:]
"Was it in my power to stop you from loving me? she replied impassively. "And would you believe me when I earnestly counseled you to limit your feelings for me to esteem and friendship?....
"...[I]f you had asked me for an explanation of my communication with you, you would have found it quite different from what you had surmised. I know the chevalier de Virlai; I know that a rival stirs his passion, and that is why I was so afraid to see you reconciled with your previous mistress...." [Letter 7, p.123]
---------------------------
"I wish to hate him."
---------------------------
[Naumanoir briefly reconciles with Mme de Montferrier, only to find that she, like Mme de Vareville, still wants Virlai. Finally giving up, Naumanoir writes to his friend:]
It seems that I find only tenderness and indulgence in everyone's heart for that ungrateful wretch: women are convinced of his deceptions without having the strength to wish him ill; his personal charm has one overlook his bad faith; and take it from me, I believe that I could not defy the power of his lucky star had I not resorted to avoiding his encounter everywhere and to opposing him through flight. So never mention him to me, Monsieur le Comte, I wish to hate him and I entreat you to assist me in my endeavor rather than to dispute this resolution. [Letter 9, p.128]
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"One finds solace in the sheer numbers of people who have
shared in it."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[By the last letter Naumanoir has learned to accept the way of the world:]
I shall no longer speak of mistresses and rivals. I have just returned from a jaunt in the country, which has made me philosophical: my obligations and harmless pastimes will henceforth solely occupy my heart. It is a great folly to do otherwise: coquettes are treacherous, prudes drive one to despair; the love of clever women is suspect, and that of foolish women is insipid. [Letter 10, p.128]
[Naumanoir recounts a story he has heard in the country about a woman who successfully deceived the world about her lovers, and tells what he has learned from it:]
As for me, Monsieur le Comte, this story utterly entertained and consoled me. I no longer felt myself to be the object of misfortune that I had made myself out to be.... I viewed the misfortune of having been betrayed by the ladies as a common evil from which one finds solace in the sheer numbers of people who have shared in it. [p.134]
========================================================================
[Arthur Flannigan Saint-Aubin has translated the 1675 Les Desordres de l'amour. Saint-Aubin's introduction and notes are chiefly concerned with the historical accuracy of Villedieu's three stories, and so provide useful background information. Appendices provide family trees and a map:]
Villedieu, Madame de. The disorders of love; translated and
annotated by Arthur Flannigan Saint-Aubin. Birmingham, Ala.:
Summa Publications, 1995. (145 p.: geneal. tables, map)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 A6513 1995: ISBN: 1883479118
Includes bibliographical references): p. [143]-145
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"...the important, general truths to be extracted from History."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
[The three stories of Desordres... illustrate what Villedieu had come to see as the danger to the state of unbridled love. She continued to laugh at the folly of historical characters, but now she says that her purpose is more serious --- to teach her contemporaries. Villedieu believed that understanding the cause of the civil and religious wars of the late 1500s could help France now, almost a hundred years later. At the end of Part 1, speaking of the creation of the Catholic League, which had led to over five years of civil war:]
The domestic disorders of the royal household, those that disturbed the marriage between the King and Queen of Navarre, the misfortunes that plagued the Duke of Guise and the extreme positions to which they drove him---all of this, I affirm, was caused principally by love.
The diverse intrigues that comprise this story prove convincingly that love is the force behind all the other human passions. If one were to examine the secret motives behind the revolutions within monarchies, one would discover inevitably that this passion is the culprit or at least the accomplice of them all. [p.40]
[And preparing the reader for Part 2; for Villedieu, it was love that had turned one of the king's loyal followers against France:]
I shall try to prove that just as it is fatal in its conclusions, it is to be feared no less in its beginning stages.... The story of Marshal de Bellegarde is not only a famous lesson of the care that must be taken to combat the first impressions of love, but it also serves to complement these love stories with the important, general truths to be extracted from History. [p.41]
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Love.... obstructs the general peace of the country."
----------------------------------------------------------------
[At the end of Part 2:]
Thus, the same passion, love, which in the first part of this work produced the seeds that led to the League, in this part secretly obstructs the general peace of the country and costs us a stretch of land [a territory seized from France by Bellegarde] which could not be regained except at a bloody and costly price....
In the five or six years of the League's existence, nothing of importance happened in which love did not play just as significant role as it did in its origins. [p.70]
[And preparing for Parts 3 and 4, which will tell a single story:]
If, by the examples provided in the first and second volumes, I have proven, as I believe that I have, that love is the force behind all other passions and that it cannot be combatted too soon since its smallest sparks produce deadly fires. I hope to prove equally convincing evidence that not only does it activate our other passions but also that it often deserves the blame directed toward these passions. I hope to prove equally that it pushes us to the edge of despair and that the most beautiful works of nature and art depend often on a moment of its caprice and its fury. [pp.70-71]
-----------------------------------------------------
"I have not always spoken in this manner."
-----------------------------------------------------
[The only place in Desordres where Villedieu speaks about herself and her earlier works' lighthearted treatment of love:]
I am sure that at this point more than one reader is saying, somewhat ironically, that I have not always spoken in this manner. That is precisely why I am now justified in speaking so negatively. And, finally, it is because I have provided irrefutable proof that I am authorized to paint love with such dark colors. [p.71]
------------------------------------------------
"...the fate of anyone who succumbs."
------------------------------------------------
[The ending of the book. According to Villedieu, love caused the death of Givry d'Anglure, one of the nation's heroes on whom King Henry IV had relied to help keep a fragile peace:]
The examples that I have chosen to illustrate the malignity of love could not have ended with a story more capable of inspiring all of the trepidation that this passion merits. Givry was the most accomplished man of his time.... A disappointment in love aborted these accomplishments and deprived the kingdom of one of its most brilliant ornaments.....
Thus is the fate of anyone who succumbs unreservedly to this fatal mania. If, on the one hand, one experiences it only slightly, it is an inexhaustible source of perfidy and treason; and if, on the other hand, one embarks upon its path in good faith, it leads to the very depths of disorder and despair.
Love, cruel love, sorcerer of souls,
Alas! shall we never see
The deadly effects of your flames
Respect, in our hearts, the principles of wisdom and peace? [pp.120-21]
========================================================================
[All of the essays in this collection are of interest. Some summarize and quote from works not yet translated: Perry J. Gethner and Henriette Goldwin on the plays Manlius and Nitetis; Nancy D. Klein on Lisandre. Other essays deal with Le Favori, Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere, and Desordres de l'amour. The notes and the bibliography will lead you to earlier studies. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
A labor of love: critical reflections on the writings of Marie-Catherine
Desjardins (Mme de Villedieu) / edited by Roxanne Decker
Lalande. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press;
London: Associated University Presses, c2000. (222 p.)
LC#: PQ1794.D5Z8 L34 2000: ISBN: 0838638244
Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-209) and index
--------------------
[Klein's study analyzes five of Villedieu's short works (Lisandre, Anaxandre, Cleonice,"Solon" from Les Amours des Grand hommes, and Portefeuille). The French text of Anaxandre is given in an appendix. Passages quoted in French are not translated, but their meaning is frequently made clear in the discussion. Unfortunately, the book has no index. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Klein, Nancy Deighton. The female protagonist in the nouvelles
of Madame de Villedieu (Currents in comparative Romance languages
and literatures; v. 10). New York: P. Lang, c1992. (xxii, 221
p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 Z76 1992; ISBN: 0820419656
Includes bibliographical references (p. [215]-221)
---------------------
[Klein's later book is a French edition of six of Villedieu's works, but of value to the general reader are the individual English-language introductions to works not treated in Klein's 1992 study (above): the sonnet "Joissance," the play Manlius, and Fables ou historique allegorique:]
Selected writings of Madame de Villedieu / edited by Nancy
Deighton Klein (Writing about women; vol. 18). New York: P. Lang,
c1995. (xiv, 146 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 A6 1995; ISBN: 0820427144
Includes bibliographical references (p. [137]-146). Text in French,
with critical matter in English.
---------------------
[This collection includes Barbara Woshinsky's essay, "Convent Parleys: Listening to Women's Voices in Madame de Villedieu's Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Moliere," which analyzes the novel (both the narrator's story and the stories told to her by others) to illustrate the various ways women made use of the security provided by temporary or permanent seclusion. Quoted passages are not translated, but their meaning is usually made clear in the context. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The cloister and the world: early modern convent voices /
guest editor, Thomas M. Carr, Jr (EMF, studies in early modern
France; v.11). Charlottesville, [Va.] : Rookwood Press, c2007.
(267 p.)
LC#: PQ230 .E48 v.11; PQ241 .C56 2007; ISSN:1064-5020; ISBN:
1886365644
Includes bibliographical references
----------------------
[Elizabeth C. Goldsmith's study includes a chapter on Villedieu,
which discusses Memoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de
Moliere, the letters sent by Antoine de Villedieu to Barbin,
and Portefeuille. Goldsmith gives the French original
and her translation of all quotations. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Goldsmith, Elizabeth C. Publishing women's life stories in
France, 1647-1720: from voice to print (Women and gender in the
early modern world). Aldershot: Ashgate, c2001. (viii, 172 p.:
ill., ports.)
LC#: PQ 149 .G66 2001; ISBN: 0754603709
Includes bibliographical references and index
---------------------
[Faith Evelyn Beasley's study of the representation of 1600s salon culture over the centuries includes a discussion (pp. 147-66) of Villedieu's prefaces and dedications and of Desordres de d'amour. Beasley sees in those writings the creation of a dialogue between Villedieu and her reader. Quoted passages from the prefaces and dedications are given in Beasley's translation; the originals of all are also given. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Beasley, Faith Evelyn. Salons, history, and the creation of
seventeenth-century France: mastering memory (Women and gender
in the early modern world). Aldershot, England; Burlington, VT:
Ashgate, c2006. (xii, 345 p.)
LC#: DC121.7 .B43 2006; ISBN: 0754653544
Includes bibliographical references (p. [326]-336) and index
----------------------
[Beasley's earlier study includes a chapter, "An Injudicious Historian: Villedieu's Desordres," which looks at that work as a new kind of history-writing (the focus here is different than in Beasley's 2006 study above). Beasley's first chapter provides general background information on women's writing in France during the 1600s. The notes and bibliography are detailed, and the original is given for all translated passages:]
Beasley, Faith Evelyn. Revising memory: women's fiction and
memoirs in seventeenth-century France. New Brunswick: Rutgers
University Press, c1990. (x, 288 p.: ill.)
LC#: PQ637.A96 B43 1990; ISBN: 0813515858
Includes bibliographical references (p. [275]-282) and index
---------------------
[Katherine Anne Jensen's 9-page entry on Villedieu in this reference work looks at Villedieu's "heroic" and "historical" works and summarizes the views of critics. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
French women writers: a bio-bibliographical source book /
edited by Eva Martin Sartori and Dorothy Wynne Zimmerman. New
York: Greenwood Press, 1991.
(xxiii, 632 p.)
LC#: PQ149 .F73 1991; ISBN: 0313265488
Includes bibliographical references and indexes
----------------------
[Some of the information on Villedieu's life and attributed
works has been made outdated by later research, but Bruce Morrissette's
1947 study is still valuable, especially for his detailed summaries
of all the works, including those not yet translated:]
Morrissette, Bruce. The life and works of Marie-Catherine
Desjardins (Mme. de Villedieu): 1632-1683 (Washington University
Studies. New series. Language and literature, no. 17). Saint
Louis, 1947. (xi, 210 p., 2 l.)
LC#: PQ1794.D5 M6
Bibliographical foot-notes. Bibliography: p. [197]-200
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Updated 10-20-08