Novel
The Princesse de Clèves
La Princesse de Clèves
Madame de La Fayette · 1678
Opening lines
La magnificence et la galanterie n'ont jamais paru en France avec tant d'éclat que dans les dernières années du règne de Henri second.
Magnificence and gallantry never appeared in France with such brilliance as in the last years of the reign of Henry the Second.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
In 1558, at the court of Henri II, Mlle de Chartres, a sixteen-year-old heiress raised by her mother on strict principles, enters society and agrees to marry the prince de Clèves, who loves her passionately, without being in love with him herself. At the ball given for the wedding of the duc de Lorraine, she meets the duc de Nemours, and a mutual attraction arises between them. Her mother, who senses this passion, warns her against it insistently.
Context
The novel appeared without an author's name in 1678. The action, set between 1558 and 1559 at the court of King Henri II, also takes the reader to Coulommiers. From its publication, the book provoked a debate, taken up by the Mercure galant, which questioned its readers, and by Valincour's critical letters. More than three centuries later, in 2006 and then in 2008, Nicolas Sarkozy mocked its place on the syllabus of the civil service competitive examinations.
Who it is for
A short novel in four parts, in the language of the late seventeenth century, best read in an annotated edition.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first novel of analysis in French literature, and as one of the first psychological novels.
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