Listen to the AudioBook: La Princesse De Clèves par Mme de La Fayette by Madame de La Fayette

LA PRINCESSE DE CLÈVES

PAR

Mme de La FAYETTE

INTRODUCTION.

Mme. de la Fayette, whose maiden name was Marie-Magdeleine Pioche de La Vergne, was born at Paris in 1634. Her father belonged to the lesser nobility, and was for awhile governor of Pontoise, and later of Havre. Her mother was sprung from an ancient family of Provence, among whom, says Auger, literary talent had long been a heritage; but the mother herself--if we are to believe Mme. de La Fayette's biographers--possessed no talent save that of intrigue. This opinion of Mme. de La Vergne, however, rests mainly upon the testimony of Cardinal de Retz; and may it not be that Mme. de La Fayette has drawn for us the portrait of her mother in the person of Mme. de Chartres? If this be true, Mme. de La Vergne, vain and intriguing though she may have been, was not wholly unworthy of her daughter.

The early education of Mme. de La Fayette--for by this name we can best speak of her--was made the special care of her father, "un père en qui le mérite égaloit la tendresse." Later, she was put under Ménage, and possibly Rapin. Segrais, with his usual garrulousness, tells the following story:

"Trois mois après que Mme. de La Fayette eut commencé d'apprendre le latin, elle en savoit déjà plus que M. Ménage et que le Père Rapin, ses maîtres. En la faisant expliquer, ils eurent dispute ensemble touchant l'explication d'un passage, et ni l'un ni l'autre ne vouloit se rendre au sentiment de son compagnon; Mme. de La Fayette leur dit: Vous n'y entendez rien ni l'un ni l'autre.--En effet, elle leur dit la véritable explication de ce passage; ils tombèrent d'accord qu'elle avoit raison."

And Segrais goes on to say: "C'étoit un poëte qu'elle expliquoit, car elle n'aimoit pas la prose, et elle n'a pas lu Cicéron; mais comme elle se plaisoit fort à la poésie, elle lisoit particulièrement Virgile et Horace; et comme elle avoit l'esprit poétique et qu'elle savoit tout ce qui convenoit à cet art, elle pénétroit sans peine le sens de ces auteurs." Learned for a woman of her times Mme. de La Fayette indeed was; but of this learning she made no show,--"pour ne pas choquer les autres femmes," says Sainte-Beuve.

At the age of fifteen, Mme. de La Fayette lost her father; and her mother, after brief waiting, and--if Cardinal de Retz is to be believed--much intriguing, found a second husband in the Chevalier Renaud de Sévigné. This union was an important event in the life of Mme. de La Fayette, for it marks the beginning of her residence at Paris, and of her friendship with Mme. de Sévigné, who was a kinswoman of the Chevalier.

How close and lasting was this friendship is seen on almost every page of Mme. de Sévigné's correspondence. Indeed, so often does the name of Mme. de La Fayette occur in Mme. de Sévigné's letters to her daughter, that the latter may well have been jealous of her mother's friend. The companionship of Mme. de Sévigné was, after the death of La Rochefoucauld, the chief comfort of Mme. de La Fayette in her ill-health and seclusion; and it was from the sick-chamber of her friend that Mme. de Sévigné's letters would seem to have been written in those latter years. In 1693, soon after the death of Mme. de La Fayette, Mme. de Sévigné writes as follows of her dead friend: "Je me trouvois trop heureuse d'être aimée d'elle depuis un temps très-considérable; jamais nous n'avions eu le moindre nuage dans notre amitié. La longue habitude ne m'avoit point accoutumée à son mérite: ce goût étoit toujours vif et nouveau; je lui rendois beaucoup de soins, par le mouvement de mon coeur, sans que la bienséance, ou l'amitié nous engage, y eût aucune part; j'étois assurée aussi que je faisois sa plus tendre consolation, et depuis quarante ans c'étoit la même chose: cette date est violente mais elle fonde bien aussi la vérité de notre liaison." The whole story of friendship is told in these lines,--a friendship which during forty years had been undarkened by a cloud, and had remained unstaled by custom. The relation was equally sincere on the part of Mme. de La Fayette, though she was by nature more self-contained and reserved. But this reserve gives way to the strength of her feelings when in 1691, tormented by ill-health and knowing that her end is not far off, she writes to Mme. de Sévigné: "Croyez, ma très-chère, que vous êtes la personne du monde que j'ai le plus véritablement aimée."

Mme. de La Fayette was in her time a mild précieuse, having been introduced at an early age into the society of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. No one could pass through such a society with impunity, says Boissier; but Mme. de La Fayette seems to have escaped very lightly. For, although in her earlier works the précieuse influence is everywhere felt, yet all traces of such influence disappear in La Princesse de Clèves.

Auger tells us gravely that Mme. de La Fayette found the reading of the Latin poets a safeguard from the bad taste and extravagance of the Rambouillet coterie. But the same safeguard should have proved effectual in case of Ménage first of all, says Sainte-Beuve, who then gives the true relation of Mme de La Fayette to the Hôtel de Rambouillet: "Mme. de La Fayette, qui avait l'esprit solide et fin, s'en tira à la manière de Mme. de Sévigné, en n'en prenant que le meilleur."

After the breaking-up of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, there were formed various smaller coteries, among which that of Mme. de La Fayette was by no means the least important. From her little circle of précieuses, Mme. de La Fayette was drawn to the Court of Louis XIV. chiefly through the friendship of "Madame," the Princess Henrietta of England. This unfortunate princess had passed her exiled youth in the convent of Chaillot; and Mme. de La Fayette, going thither on frequent visits to a kinswoman, was drawn into intimacy with the young girl, who must even then have given evidence of those charms which later made her brief reign at Court as brilliant as i

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