Documentatieblad werkgroep Achttiende eeuw. Jaargang 1975

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‘Un enchaînement nécessaire de causes et d'effets’:
An aspect of Madame de Charrière's art

In this paper I should like to make some contribution towards the renewal of critical debate on Madame de Charrière the novelist. For, by the side of recent biographical and bibliographical discoveries and psychological speculation, discussion of the particular qualities and strengths of Madame de Charrière's novels and stories seems rather to have languished during this century.

14. Illustration des Trois Femmes par Legrand, (Bibl.Publ. de Neuchâtel)

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There are certain propositions I should like to make, some of which have been hinted at by Philippe Godet and Professor Jean Starobinsky, still, to my mind, among the most valuable and effective critical commentators on Madame de Charrière's work.^1.

My suggestions concern the structure of her novels and stories - here I take ‘structure’ in the usual untechnical sense of the word, as the inner arrangement of a novel in terms of its sequence of events, the development of its plot and the gradual revelation and interaction of its characters. I believe that study of the structure of Madame de Charrière's fiction, of what she herself took particular pains to bring about in the novel form, reveals something not only of how she viewed that particular medium but also of her concerns and interests as an artist. I further believe that scrutiny of this aspect of her work gives us a coherent picture of an agile, alert sensibility deeply engaged with human problems, with ‘moral’ problems in the widest sense, as concerning the way in which people behave towards each other and the responsibilities which flow from the interplay of character. Although the pattern of events, of cause and consequence, is laid down by Madame de Charrière with the exploration of such problems foremost in mind, she taxes the ingenuous reader by offering nothing in the way of solutions, however the story may be concluded. She is not an apologist, teacher or preacher. Her scepticism, to which Godet refers a good deal in his biography, passes into her fiction in the form of impartiality of judgement, a readiness to allow us to weigh evidence and make delicate discriminations on each side of a case. A fullness and breadth of appraisal is required of our critical faculties. (As an English reader I am put in mind of such novelists as Henry James, George Eliot, or, as Professor Starobinsky has remarked^2., Jane Austen.)

In the hitherto unpublished Suite des Trois Femmes we find a long excursus on the novel, which may be a reply to Madame de Staël's Essai sur les fictions (1795) with which there are some parallels. In this ‘Note de l'Editeur’ we read:

‘Vous qui descendant d'une sorte d'empirée et dédaignant toute vaine exageration, voulés dans une fiction attachante nous faire trouver des leçons vraiment utiles, aiés soin que les Caracteres de vos personnages, une fois tracés et leurs premiers pas faits, il ne leur arrive rien qui put ne leur pas arriver. Le grand merite de l'histoire de Clarisse consiste en ce qu'une fois qu'elle a consenti à la correspondance qu'un débauché homme de beaucoup d'esprit sollicite, elle ne peut plus retourner en arriere ni éviter son sort (...)

1. Philippe Godet, Madame de Charrière et ses amis ... (Geneva, 1906), 2 vols.; Jean Starobinsky, introduction to Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloise. Lettres écrites de Lausanne (Lausanne, 1970), vol.1, 43-66.

2. Starobinsky, ibid., 45: ‘ce “réalisme” limité, mais vif et sans illusion, est peut-être ce que la littérature française peut offrir de plus semblable à l'oeuvre de Jane Austen.’

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Dans mille autres Romans de ma connoissance l'Auteur dispose de ses personnages et de la nature entiere par des actes arbitraires de sa toute puissance sur l'oeuvre de son imagination (...) Ce n'est pas qu'il doive, qu'il puisse n'y avoir rien de fortuit dans tout le cours de votre Roman mais rien de fortuit n'y doit etre decisif. Un orage effraie Didon qui fuit dans une grotte mais deja elle avoit avoit écouté Enée, deja elle avoit caressé et pressé contre son sein l'amour qu'elle prenoit pour Ascagne. (...) Enfin pour que la leçon que vous voudrés donner soit peremptoire et qu'on ne puisse pas s'y soustraire il faut la pressante logique d'un enchainement necessaire de causes et d'effets.
Sans cela vous pourrés bien avoir le merite d'animer par une action interessante de sages conseils, ce sera tout. Vous avertires mais peu de gens profiteront de l'avertissement. Eh, après tout qu'esperer de la Fable?
Comment se flatter que la fiction la plus ingenieuse pourra instruire ou corriger le commun des hommes quand l'histoire instruit et corrige si peu ceux à qui elle adresse le plus directement ses severes et irrécusables leçons?(...)^3.

Madame de Charrière is here describing, it seems to me, her own characteristic procedure as a novelist, which is to offer us a situation, a relationship (generally with great economy), to develop that situation with a strong sense of logic, and in fact to leave no single, definable ‘lesson’ - the reason for this she gives us here where she smartly subtracts the didactic element, the ‘leçon’, by suggesting that even history books (and still more, novels) are unable to teach men wisdom in their actions.

The stress falls on ‘la pressante logique d'un enchaînement nécessaire de causes et d'effets’, and I should like to illustrate this by a close look at Trois Femmes and its Suite, the most ambitious working-out of such a pattern by Madame de Charrière.

In its general shape Trois Femmes has one very obvious antecedent, Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloise. As a novel it seems to imitate the development of Rousseau's work, all the ‘plot’ being placed in the first part, and in the second a leisurely exploration of what life is really like, rather as the Wolmar estate allows Rousseau to examine what happens after marriage and to look at the problems arising from the benevolence of Julie and her husband. In fact the whole novel, its Suite included, is concerned with testing the claims of principles and ideals when viewed in the light of everyday living. Madame de Charrière described Trois Femmes as ‘un petit traité du devoir, mis

3. Suite des Trois Femmes, Bibliothèque de la Ville de Neuchâtel (B.V.N.), Ms 1363, 12-14.

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en action’, but the work is far from abstract. Indeed it is directed against what she saw as the danger in Kant's ethical thought, the stress laid on motive in his notion of the categorical imperative, as opposed to the evaluation of courses of action according to the results of actions. Kant's thinking is notoriously complex, and I make no greater claim to philosophical expertise than did Madame de Charrière. But what seems clear is that her novel - and arguably the novel in general - hangs on consequences, and that consequences are where Kant's theory can be put to the test, though of course Kant himself would hardly have recognised the validity of such an empirical procedure. As we would expect, the novel opens with various positions being taken up along the spectrum of ‘principle’ or moral scruple, each of which will be tested by experience. The events of Trois Femmes take place against the distant background of Revolutionary France, and Madame de Charrière's treatment of principle is also coloured by scepticism about all dogmas, systems and ideologies - from the events of the Terror she knew that political ideals could be placed before the well-being of individuals, general abstractions about the many could be uttered while individuals suffered.^4.

Émilie, the ‘heroine’ of Trois Femmes - though perhaps not the most interesting character - is an orphan, brought up in France and now a refugee living in Westphalia. Proud attachment to principle, the elevated path of Right Conduct has been inculcated in her by her late parents and convent-school teachers. She has a devoted servant, Joséphine, whose only rule of behaviour is unreflecting instinct. One night Joséphine receives a man in her bedroom, and Émilie, though she overhears them together, is prevented by a sense of decorum from intervening and ending Joséphine's liaison. When Émilie later tells Joséphine that she knows about her nocturnal visitor, Joséphine, the champion of expediency, persuades Émilie to allow the relationship to continue, since the man, Henri, groom to Théobald son of the local squire, helps in the cultivation of their plot of land and thereby feeds Émilie and herself. It is Émilie's first capitulation, in fact her first experience of real moral options, and she lays aside her scruples. Is she right to do so in view of the risks involved for the less educated Joséphine? Is Émilie responsible for Joséphine's long-term welfare? This is the first stage in the development of the plot. Now the conte philosophique tone is dropped. The novelist now concentrates on the growing love between Émilie and Théobald. Théobald, in order to pursue his friendship with Émilie, neglects Sophie, his intended wife.

4. A fragment in the dossier of letters addressed to Henriette L'Hardy (B.V.N. Ms 1304, No. 159) emphasises the need for individual moral responsibility in response to the turmoil in France: ‘Le seul tribunal toujours responsable est celui de notre propre coeur’.

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But their relationship runs into other difficulties: their difference in nationality and temperament demands a great effort on the part of both Émilie and Théobald if they are ever to achieve mutual understanding. And Théobald, on the matter of moral beliefs, represents a dogged devotion to principle greater than Émilie's own.

Nevertheless his neglect of Sophie, whether justified or not, will have later repercussions. If Émilie's behaviour towards Joséphine sets off the primary chain of cause and effect in Trois Femmes, the secondary chain of consequences resulting from Théobald's change of allegiances - arousing bitterness and suspicion in Sophie - has its own dramatic importance. Now into the story comes a third element to provoke dramatic interest, and directly and indirectly, to affect the situations which Émilie's and Théobald's actions have already brought about. This is Constance de Vaucourt, an émigré widow from Paris, highly intelligent and perceptive, whose outlook is broadly one of enlightened self-interest. To gain Émilie's friendship - which in her plight she needs - Constance tells her of her own background, of how she is living on money which she suspects she ought to return to the family's creditors. Anticipating Émilie's shock, Constance says:

‘Votre éducation vous a donné des idées spéculatives extrêmement délicates sur quantité d'objets, que vous envisageriez un peu différemment si vous aviez plus vu le monde.’^5.

She then accuses Émilie of acting equally reprehensibly in stealing Théobald from Sophie. It is Émilie's second buffeting: her high opinion of herself has been brought down once again. We now learn that Joséphine is pregnant. She begs Émilie to find her a husband. Émilie knows that Joséphine is promiscuous, Joséphine admits as much, and Émilie is being asked to persuade Henri to marry Joséphine in full knowledge of the possible future unhappiness of the couple.

At this point Émilie really does dig her heels in, and protests that this would mean the final abandonment of every principle on which she bases her self-esteem. Joséphine replies that principles in Émilie's case are merely disguised self-centredness, an extension of Émilie's pride and sense of decorum. Joséphine hints that she may kill herself, and at this Émilie gives in to her demand.

Constance and Émilie go to persuade Henri to marry Joséphine, and he proves extremely reluctant. But Émilie applies the final turn of the screw by threatening to leave the village with Joséphine and not return. She knowingly strikes Henri where he is most vulnerable, in his devotion to his master, Théobald. Henri, realising the pain Théobald would suffer if Émilie were to leave, immediately gives in and agrees to marry Joséphine.

5. Lettres neuchâteloises suivi de Trois Femmes, postface de Charly Guyot (Lausanne, 1971), 131-2.

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Up to now we have seen a number of important decisions - decisions based not on a priori assumptions of what might be right or wrong in the absolute, but on the calculation of the possible future results of a course of action. In other words a form of utilitarianism has triumphed, Émilie has suppressed her sense of what is right out of either compassion for Joséphine or weakness in the face of circumstances. The events so far have developed logically out of what has gone before: each time, Émilie has stepped down, from first allowing Henri to stay on as helper to persuading him to marry Joséphine.

Now Madame de Charrière presents the consequences of Émilie's decisions for our assessment. Having replaced principle by the criterion of desirable results in making her decisions, Émilie must face the fact that consequences cannot be foreseen with certainty. In fact, Émilie has put her friendship with Théobald in danger, for he broods on her moral blackmailing of Henri and his passion is increased by her statement that she would have left the village with Joséphine if Henri did not give in. Even though he learns that Émilie loves him, Théobald hastens to declare himself, is overheard by Sophie, and Sophie brings her mother to the château to demand that the understanding between their two families that Sophie and Théobald will marry should be honoured. As a consequence of this, Théobald forces Émilie to elope with him, and disgrace and catastrophe for them both is only just averted by Constance, who follows them and brings them home. Émilie and Théobald are married and the second published part of Trois Femmes is a slow-moving series of philosophical and moral musings prompted by their life together at the château. But the chain of consequences is prolonged into the unpublished Suite des Trois Femmes - a measure of Madame de Charrière's interest in the ever-widening effects of Émilie's abandonment of rigid principle.

There we see the unhappiness she has brough to third parties. We see the sullenness of Henri and his distrust of Joséphine, his cynicism about her fidelity and his lack of interest in their child.

It would be impossible to convey adequately in a brief space the rigour with which Madame de Charrière generates and sustains this line of causation in Trois Femmes and its Suite.^6. In the course of the novel a priori rules and idealism are questioned and set against the claims of others and the need for imaginative sympathy. But the results of such sacrifice of principle, indeed the often surprising disproportion between intention and result, are also objectively illuminated from several sides so as to leave judgement and evaluation -and whether judgement and evaluation are possible -

6. Of great importance, too, are the stories told by Constance in the Suite des Trois Femmes which further explore the unpredictability of consequences. A discussion of these can be found in my Cambridge thesis, The Novels of Madame de Charrière (1740-1805).

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to the reader.

Several questions relating to Madame de Charrière's general view of the human condition are raised by a passage in a hitherto unpublished letter addressed to Henriette L'Hardy:

‘lorsque deux choses se présentent à nous avec un merite précisément égal & qu'il faut absolument agir, choisir, nous avons recours à toutes sortes de bisarres moyens pour nous déterminer. Le croix ou pile, le pain ou non décide quelquefois entre la robe bleue et la verte, entre le coeur et le trefle, & (...) on se resout (...) à se marier avec l'un ou l'autre de ses amans selon que le hazard en décidera. Voilà comment nous executons les decrets du destin ou remplissons les vues de la providence. Arrivés au monde avec telle ou telle organisation à laquelle nous n'avons contribué en rien, nous recevons telle ou telle éducation que nous ne dirigeons pas; après l'éducation proprement dite que nos parents nous donnent vient celle des événements, des circonstances. Tout cela nous modifie, nous instruits nous gate, nous perfectionne, puis nos déterminations qui sont l'effet tant de notre caractere que des objets extérieurs sur lesquels il s'agit de se déterminer, nous menent à droite, nous menent à gauche, & dans chacun des mouvemens que nous faisons nous entrainons celui-ci, celuilà sans même le vouloir ou y penser comme une roue de la montre en fait tourner une autre, & de cette sorte tous les evenements de l'univers se trouvent enchainés les uns aux autres.’^7.

Now one could justifiably ask whether something in Madame de Charrière's Calvinist upbringing instilled in her this sense of the infinite possible repercussions resulting from our actions and choices. One could also enquire whether her skill at reproducing the minor incidents of everyday life is a product of this view of man as a self-determining individual in whom heredity, background, and sheer chance influence decisions as much as present thoughts and circumstances. However this may be, it seems to me that the peculiarly tight gearing of events in Madame de Charrière's best work must be the result of such an attitude to experience. Mistriss Henley is an example of this, and brings us to an instance of a rather different use of the firm logic of cause and effect which we saw in Trois Femmes.

The end towards which Madame de Charrière is working seems to me to be the creation of a kind of dark irony or wit. In the structure, the unfolding and development of the plot of Mistriss Henley we do not find

7. B.V.N. Ms 1302, No.38, undated (November 1792).

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the same line of causality, of decisions and results, that we saw, for good reason, so prominently on the surface of Trois Femmes. In Mistriss Henley ‘l'enchaînement nécessaire de causes et d'effets’ is developed in a more intuitive way from the initial situation: the story has rather less of a dynamic than Trois Femmes, is more illustrative. Having given us the two personalities of Mrs Henley, a warm, highly emotional immature wife quite lacking in foresight or wisdom, and her unshakeably phlegmatic and opinionated prig of a husband, Madame de Charrière makes un unhurried examination of their predicament. The structure is episodic, incidents are less strongly linked to each other than to the revelation of Mrs. Henley's personality and her slowly worsening marital situation. Each episode shows a new aspect of Mrs Henley's problem, which constantly recurs: she can only see, as it were, one piece at a time and not the whole chessboard of her situation, and as a result whether she acts generously or selfishly whatever she does ends in failure. She is unable to think beyond the emotional impulse of the moment, and her misery at her constant discomfiture is compounded by the smugness of her coldly reasonable husband, who is in fact so often right. The repercussions of each wrong judgement are contained within each episode, and generally follow disastrously quickly - from Mrs Henley's mishandling of the delicate task of bringing up Mr Henley's daughter, from her attitude towards their servants or towards the furnishings of the house. And each episode radiates from and returns, with near-comic or darkly humorous inevitability, to the central problem, the character of Mrs Henley and the incompatibility of husband and wife.^8. In Mistriss Henley Madame de Charrière's pertness, the quality of her irony, and her detachment from the heroine (despite her underlying sympathy) would seem to place her half way between Voltaire and Stendhal.

You will remember that in her comments on plausability in the novel and on the task of gaining the reader's assent to a work of fiction Madame de Charrière said that ‘rien de fortuit n'y doit être décisif’. She gave the example of the storm in the Aeneid Book IV, 160-172, when Dido took shelter in a cave, and suggested that this was anything but adventitious or unprepared. One could say much the same of the storm and the events which occur during it at the end of Madame de Charrière's own Caliste. The whole novel relies on the interrelatedness of situations and the interaction of the two central characters, and from these produces that sense of inescapable calamity we associate with tragedy.

The anti-hero, William, seems to have something of Werther and Hamlet in him. He displays a tendency towards drift and indecisive-

8. Mrs Henley's near-bovarysme has not, to my knowledge, so far been remarked upon. There are some striking parallels between Mistriss Henley and Madame Bovary. The surroundings of both heroines take on an increasing sense of immurement - the flight of Mrs Henley's cat is a reminder of this, as is the escape of Emma Bovary's dog. Mrs Henley's attendance at the Guilford ball only serves to emphasise how far her husband has become her gaoler, just as Madame Bovary dreams of freedom at the ball at La Vaubyessard. We even glimpse Mrs Henley's face at the window, as separated from life and fulfilment as Flaubert's heroine. Did Flaubert ever read Mistriss Henley?

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ness and a hesitancy with regard towards purposeful action which destroys both his own happiness and the life of Caliste. His vacillation and belated decisions are the means by which the novel develops. We learn at the beginning of the story that William's loss of a dearly beloved twin brother has left him emotionally numbed, grateful for Caliste's kindness towards him but unable (or unwilling) to respond to her with the degree of intensity she needs. Caliste, for her part, has suffered moral degradation in the past, longs for the respectability of marriage, and is too proud to settle for anything less. She has an enormous capacity for devoted selfless love, William is unable to offer any such spontaneous affection. Caliste's strategy is to force a decision out of William as to whether he intends to marry her or not, and she employs threats and ultimatums. William remains enigmatic and non-committal while Caliste waits. This is the impasse. The pattern of events leading on to their final separation and Caliste's death is set with William's return to Caliste's house after her first ultimatum to him: in characteristic fashion he drifts back there, passively, apparently not knowing quite why and apparently^9. without having made any decision on the future of their relationship:

‘Le soir fort tard je me retrouvai à la porte de Caliste, sans que je puisse dire que j'eusse pris le parti d'y retourner.’^10.

This one action of weakness, almost a non-action, brings a train of misery in its wake. For, being the kind of person she is, Caliste misinterprets William's action as a positive one, imagines her hope can become a reality, and clings to the ideal of their future marriage. She misunderstands the kind of person William is. After his father has refused to give his blessing to their marriage, he is caught in a dilemma, and his weakness and emotional blankness show themselves in paralysis of his will. He lets slip opportunities to win his father over, appears to be content to let things stay as they are, and does nothing positive. Caliste's efforts at persuasion, even a threat to marry someone else, go without response. In desparation she goes through with the wedding, perhaps hoping for his last-minute intervention - which typically does not come in time - and the gulf is forever set between them. Their last moments together in St. James's Park could not be better prepared: Caliste characteristically is near to giving herself to William as his mistress but does not; William, supine as ever, does nothing. Though the storm's violence and the pleas of Caliste's servant cut short their meeting, could anyone expect it to end otherwise after all that has preceded it?

9. Alternative possibilities for William's motivation are conceivable. I cannot here go into the fascinating question whether William the narrator makes decisions and events appear more final, closed, inevitable, irreversible than they were, whether Madame de Charrière means us to glimpse an element of dishonesty or of intentional or unintentional covering-up in his account of his relationship with Caliste.

10. Lettres écrites de Lausanne. Histoire de Cécile. Caliste par Mme de Charrière avec une préface de Philippe Godet (Geneva, 1907), 138.

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The hitherto unpublished Suite de Caliste contains reflections on the seeming inevitability of events viewed with the wisdom of hindsight (Cécile's mother is addressing William):

‘Vous vous accusez beaucoup, & j'avoue que dans les premiers momens il m'auroit été difficile de vous excuser mais en relisant en meditant en comparant je trouve qu'il vous a manqué de prevoir ce que les evenements produiroient sur vous ou sur les autres & que vous n'avez point eu d'autre tort ou d'autre défaut. Je la comprens cette ignorance cette imprevoyance. Je comprens cette indolence de l'imagination. Tant d'heures passent indiferentes & ne produisant rien de marqué on a peine quelque fois à s'imaginer qu'un moment poura être si decisif & changer notre sort pour toujours non seulement par l'emploi que nous en pourions faire mais par notre inaction pendant qu'il s'ecoule par notre negligence à nous oposer à tous ses effets.’^11.

Madame de Charrière's characters, like the rest of humanity, cannot see into the future. Strict adherence to principle - even to one of self-interest - may in the long run be disastrous without imaginative sympathy, warm feeling destructive without imaginative understanding. They cannot know, and in showing this Madame de Charrière leaves us with a sense that the complexity of experience has been honestly drawn. All her characters learn us that in our dealings with others infinite caution, reflection and consideration are the least that is required of us.

Dennis WOOD

University of Birmingham.

11. Suite de Caliste, B.V.N. Ms 1356.