De Achttiende Eeuw. Jaargang 38

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Idolen in de achttiende eeuw
Cecil P. Courtney
Isabelle de Charrière and Voltaire
Trois femmes and Candide

Cecil Patrick Courtney, a Fellow of Christ's College, University of Cambridge, since 1962, has held visiting posts at other universities, including Utrecht (Belle de Zuylen Professor, 1995), Yale and Harvard. He is the author of a biography of Isabelle de Charrière (Oxford, 1993) and was one of the editors of the Van Oorschot edition of her OEuvres complètes (1979-1984, 10 vols). He is General Editor of the Correspondance générale of Benjamin Constant and a member of the committee publishing a new critical edition of Montesquieu.

Trois femmes is the first in a series of works of prose fiction which Isabelle de Charrière wrote in the 1790s and published under the pseudonym of Abbé de la Tour.¹ It is usually referred to as a philosophical novel or nouvelle, a description which is accurate enough, so long as we understand that it is not to be read as a philosophical treatise, but as a case history which uses the resources of fiction to test philosophical theories against concrete experience. Just as Voltaire's Candide is written to test the optimistic rationalism of Leibniz against what happens in the real world, so Isabelle de Charrière, in Trois femmes, sets out to test the moral philosophy of Kant against the experiences of the three women whose story she relates.

There is an obvious affinity between Candide and Trois femmes, insofar as both authors set out to demonstrate the difficulty of applying abstract systems to real life. In the present article this affinity will be analysed in some detail. At the same time, however, attention will be drawn to how the two works differ, in tone, in style and, most importantly, in their respective conclusions. In the interpretation offered below it will be argued that certain modern critics have underestimated the complexity of the novel by overlooking that it is in two parts and that in part II there is in operation a kind of deconstruction which implies a rejection of the conclusion of part I and a reassessment of the relevance of moral idealism to real life.

1 The novel first appeared in a German translation by Huber in 1795; the original French text was first published in London in 1796 in bowdlerised form; a further edition, unfortunately full of misprints, was published in Lausanne in 1797; finally, a more correct edition was published in Zurich by Orell Füssli (with the imprint ‘A Leipsic, chez Pierre Philippe Wolf’ and dated 1798-1799), as the first of the three-volume collection entitled L'abbé de la Tour ou recueil de nouvelles et autres écrits divers. See C.P. Courtney, A preliminary bibliography of Isabelle de Charrière (Belle de Zuylen), Oxford: Voltaire Fondation, 1980, pp. 97-105, 119-124. Quotations from Trois femmes and from other works by Isabelle de Charrière, including her correspondence, are from the following edition: Isabelle de Charrière/Belle de Zuylen, OEuvres complètes, Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1979-1984, 10 vols. For an important general study of Trois femmes see Dennis Wood, The Novels of Isabelle de Charrière (1740-1805), 1998, chapter VII: http://www.french.bham.ac.uk/staff/wood/thesis/dwthc7a.htm.

From Voltaire to Kant

Candide begins with an account of how the young, innocent hero is taught by the grotesque philosopher Pangloss to believe that we live in ‘le meilleur des mondes possibles’. Behind this is the metaphysics of Leibniz; however, Voltaire offers no analysis of this philosophy; he sim-

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This is an allegorical tableau celebrating Duty as beautiful and desirable but difficult to attain. At the bottom, under dark clouds, is a small town or village where presumably the criterion is Utility rather than Duty. Above this gloomy picture, the bright rays of the sun (representing Duty) are shining, illuminating five putti on the right while leaving four on the left in relative darkness. One of the putti on the right is flying upwards towards the light; one on the left has flown even higher, but a thick cloud comes between him and the sun. Standing out against the bright sunlight is the word DEVOIR, the first two letters of which are partly obscured by a cloud. Le Devoir, by Pierre-Nicolas Le Grand, engraved by Duplessis-Bertaux and P.-P. Choffard (frontispiece to L'Abbé de la Tour, vol. I [Trois Femmes], Leipzig, Pierre Philippe Wolf [Zurich, Orell-Füssli], 1798).

ply puts a vulgarised form of Leibniz into the mouth of Pangloss, who insists that the world we live in must correspond to his theory, that is to say, it must, by definition, be perfect.

The plot of Candide consists of a series of episodes, including an earthquake, wars, diseases and man's inhumanity to man, which, by their very existence, demonstrate the absurdity, not only of Pangloss's optimistic philosophy, but by implication, of any kind of abstract theory which fails to take account of the facts of experience. By the end of the tale Candide has learned to distrust those metaphysicians who have their heads in the clouds and spin out theories which have no relevance to the real world. The only solution is to re-establish contact with reality, to give up any hope of knowledge of the ultimate nature of things and accept the more modest philosophy of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’.

Isabelle de Charrière was, of course, familiar with the philosophical tales of Voltaire and, in fact, had shown a particular interest in Candide in the period immediately preceding the composition of Trois femmes. Between 1790 and 1792 she had conducted a lengthy correspondence with Benjamin Constant, in which she advised him to occupy himself with practical matters, instead of wasting time studying works of metaphysics. In one of these letters she actually quotes Candide:

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Comme Candide disait après toute sorte de raisonnements, il faut cultiver notre jardin, je vous aurais dit, il faut faire du bien quand nous pouvons, il faut tâcher de ne nuire à personne, il faut amuser notre esprit.²

We can see from this quotation that, for Isabelle de Charrière, the philosophy of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ is therapeutic: it represents essentially a turning away from the world of fantasy (whether the fantasy of abstract theories or of the imagination) and a coming to terms with reality, which includes activity and helping others.

She also refers to the importance of activity in a letter of December 1794 to her young friend Henriette L'Hardy, companion to the Countess of Dönhoff. Here she reproaches the two women with idleness and suggests that they should keep their minds active by, for example, reading and studying languages, and that they might usefully engage in charitable works to help the poor. She does not actually quote from Candide, but the affinity is obvious, especially when she writes, ‘Allons, Mlle Henriette L'Hardy! un peu d'activité’ (‘Come now, Mlle Henriette L'Hardy, let's have some activity!’). And she stresses, once again, the therapeutic effects of activity as a response to a pessimistic or negative view of life: ‘Jamais les destructeurs de la religion et de la morale, de nos devoirs ici-bas, de nos espérances pour un autre séjour, ne pourront venir à bout d'ôter à la bienfaisance son mérite et son charme’.³

Given this admiration for Candide, one may wonder why Isabelle de Charrière should have shown any interest in Kant; after all, was he not a metaphysician concerned, not with concrete facts, but with pure theory? This is true, but, as a result of conversations which took place in 1794 with Benjamin Constant and her friend Ludwig Ferdinand Huber, who was translating a work by Kant,⁴ she was convinced he had something to offer which was of particular interest. This was his theory of moral obligation, which, as she understood it, was that right moral conduct could not be reduced to the pursuit of happiness or to the principle of utility, nor could it be reduced to obedience to the command of the deity or to our conditioning by experience and education. What she found particularly interesting was the Kantian idea of duty as an autonomous universal rational principle, independent of all considerations of self-interest, so that to act ethically was to act, not only in conformity with duty, but from the motive of duty.⁵

This is more or less all she has to say directly about Kant's philosophy. She never made any claim to a full understanding of his ideas and, indeed, in a note to the prologue to Trois femmes, she is probably thinking of her own experience when she refers to Kant as ‘Philosophe alle-

2 OEuvres complètes, III, 362, 13 May 1792. (As Candide said, after all kinds of arguments, we must work in the garden, I would have said to you, we must do good when we can, we must try to harm no one, we must keep our minds occupied.)

3 OEuvres complètes, IV, 631, 8 November 1794. There is a further reference to Voltaire in a letter of December 1794 to the same correspondent, where we learn that Isabelle de Charrière is reading Candide to her maid Henriette Monachon (OEuvres complètes, IV, 657, 5-6 December 1794). (Those who destroy religion and morals, who destroy our duties on earth and our hopes for another life will never succeed in removing from bienfaisance (benevolence or altruism) its merit and its charm.)

4 This was Kant's Über den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie rechtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis (Berliner Monatschrift, 1793). See B. Munteano, ‘Episodes kantiens en Suisse et en France sous le Directoire’, Revue de littérature comparée, 15 (1935), 387-454.

5 Cf. her letter of 25 December 1794 to Huber: ‘M. Constant est ainsi que moi de l'avis de Kant qu'on ne saurait mêler à l'idée de devoir l'idée d'aucun avantage attaché à remplir un devoir qu'on ne détruise son essence’ (OEuvres complètes, IV, 681). See also her letter of 19 February 1795 to Constant: ‘par l'idée de devoir j'entends l'idée que quelque chose est dû, n'importe quoi, et indépendamment de tout calcul’ (OEuvres complètes, V, 49).

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mand, que l'on dit être un homme profond. Il est encore plus admiré qu'il n'est entendu, de ceux qui lisent ses ouvrages’.⁶

Kant is, however, a philosopher whom she treats with respect. Whereas Pangloss's theory of ‘le meilleur des mondes possibles’ is obviously absurd and invites ridicule, Kant's ethical theory is to be taken seriously, the more so since it adds dignity to our idea of human nature. However, the problem arises, as with all theory: is it relevant to the concrete situations of real life? Is this a theory which we can take as a guide to the ordinary business of living? It was to answer this kind of question that Isabelle de Charrière composed Trois femmes.⁷

6 OEuvres complètes, IX, 41 (a German philosopher who is said to be a profound thinker. He is more admired than understood by those who read his works)

7 Cf. the letter of 23 Decembre from Constant: ‘Mais une idée abstraite, isolée, indépendante, inflexible et immuable est-elle propre à être mise en usage et en circulation parmi les hommes?’ (OEuvres complètes, IV, 678).

An education in practical morality

In the prologue to the novel, the narrator, the abbé de la Tour, gives an account of a conversation which took place somewhere in Germany, in the salon of the baroness de Berghen. He informs her that the example of the lives of three women with whom he is acquainted has convinced him that to base one's conduct on some awareness of moral principles, even on an awareness that is confused and imperfect, is sufficient to save the individual from becoming immoral and depraved. This broad-minded attitude, which seems to accommodate more or less any moral theory, gives rise to a heated discussion among various interlocutors, including a disciple of Kant, a theologian, a utilitarian, a materialist and an admirer of Fénelon, each of whom puts forward his own views on the source of moral obligation. However, the abbé cuts short the discussion and goes off to write an account of the experiences of the three women; his narrative will bring the theoretical discussion down to earth.

The story opens in a way which has obvious affinities with Candide. Voltaire begins with an account of how the young and innocent Candide lives in Westphalia, in the best of all possible châteaux in the best of all possible worlds. Trois femmes opens similarly, with an account of how the young and innocent Emilie, accompanied by her servant Joséphine, leaves France as an émigrée and settles ‘dans la plus jolie maison du plus joli village de la Westphalie’ (in the prettiest house in the prettiest village in Westphalia). The village is called Altendorf, and nearby there is a château with an absurdly pretentious baron who reminds us of the baron in Candide.

Apart from this opening passage, there is no close imitation of Voltaire. In Candide the plot is a series of fantastic adventures, the characters are puppets and the tone throughout is one of sardonic irony. All this is appropriate, since the aim is to mock and satirise the ridiculous philosophy of Pangloss. In Trois femmes, on the other hand, the plot, although somewhat contrived, is within the bounds of credibility and the characters are portrayed in the tradition of the psychological novel with a variety of strategies to which there is nothing comparable in Candide. As for the tone, it is generally restrained and gently ironic, with nothing of the ferocious mockery we find in Voltaire.

Trois femmes is essentially a variation on the theme of Candide, not a slavish imitation. It begins where Voltaire's conte left off. At the end of Candide we are left with the exhortation that ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’, but we are never told precisely what this means, apart from the fact that it involves turning away from metaphysical speculation and directing our

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attention to the ordinary business of living. Isabelle de Charrière, on the other hand, sets out to explain what ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ might mean; she presents the story of her three women in a way which shows precisely, step by step, incident by incident, how they work in their particular garden, that is to say, how they come to terms with real life and make moral decisions in response to difficult situations.

How they make these decisions will, of course, depend on their principles, which, as in real life, are not necessarily clearly formulated. Dramatic interest is given to the story by the fact that the three women do not share the same principles. The first, Emilie, a penniless young émigrée who has been given a strict upbringing by her late parents and is innocent of the ways of the world, represents the kind of inflexible moral rules which dictate that one should pursue what is morally right for its own sake - the kind of rules which the author associates with Kant. The second, Joséphine, Emilie's servant, is a kind, good-natured Alsacian peasant, who is totally devoted to her mistress and whose standard of conduct is simply to follow intuition or instinct. The third woman, Constance, is a highly sophisticated lady, whose aim is to help others to achieve happiness and for whom the end justifies the means.

The story consists mainly of a series of episodes, the most obvious purpose of which is to illustrate Emilie's moral education; just as Candide learns little by little that the ideas instilled into him by Pangloss do not fit reality, so Emilie comes to realise that the lofty moral standards taught to her by her parents are not applicable, at least not in their purity and simplicity, to the various incidents with which she is confronted.

The first incident is her discovery, in her garden, of a beautiful new harp, a gift from an anonymous donor, but which obviously must have come from someone in the local château - in fact it came from Théobald, the baron's son, who had the idea put into his head by his servant Henri, who had received the suggestion from Joséphine, with whom he had struck up a close friendship and whom he had been helping with various domestic tasks such as sawing firewood and milking the goat. After some discussion with Joséphine and much casuistry, Emilie agrees it would not be improper to keep the harp, if she sent a letter of thanks and a little present to the baroness at the château. This is done, with unforeseen consequences, for Emilie is now given the entrée into the society of the château where she becomes a frequent guest and meets, among others, Théobald, who will shortly fall in love with her, although he is expected to marry his cousin, the boring young Countess de Stolzheim.

The next incident is more dramatic. Emilie, one night, hears a noise in Joséphine's room, and realises that a man is present. While she is horrified at the impropriety of her maid's behaviour, she is too embarrassed to take any action. However, the next morning she exchanges words with Joséphine. The maid admits that Henri had been in her room and that her behaviour is indeed immoral but, with some cunning, she makes the point that Emilie herself is not entirely blameless, for, in spite of her professed high moral standards, she has failed in her duty to keep Henri at a distance and to protect her poor maid from a seducer. Besides, by accepting that Henri has been helping with domestic tasks, has Emilie not realised that he might expect from Joséphine some little services in return? She also makes the point that her association with Henri is less reprehensible than her conduct in the recent past: her first lover was one of Emilie's uncles, an ecclesiastic, and the second another uncle, a married man. Her relationship with Henri, she argues, represents moral progress, since he is neither an ecclesiastic nor married and, if she continues to make this kind of progress, she will eventually become a saint. Emilie is taken aback at these revelations, the more so in that

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they are not only about Joséphine, but also about her uncles, whom she had never suspected of immoral conduct.⁸ Obviously Joséphine has the better of the argument and Emilie, feeling completely devastated, ashamed and guilty, has to accept there is no way in which she can persuade her maid to stop seeing Henri or re-establish order in her house.

At this point, as a result of a carriage accident, the third woman appears on the scene. This is Constance, a widow who uses a false name, Madame de Vaucourt, and is very secretive about her past. She decides to settle in Altendorf and, taking a particular liking to Emilie, gives her, in confidence, a few details about her life. The most important piece of information is that she is immensely rich but there is reason to think that this wealth has come to her in ways that would not stand up to close scrutiny. Emilie, needless to say, is shocked and suggests that restitution should be made to the rightful owners. Constance replies that this is not a practicable proposition since it is not really possible to locate those who allegedly have a claim on her wealth or to verify their credentials, nor would it make sense, in a period of revolution, to entrust it to some government authority, for example, who would entrust money to the government of Robespierre? In the circumstances, she argues, it is much better to keep the money and to put it to good use by helping those in need. Emilie protests, but is reduced to silence when Constance, delivering a little lecture, declares, ‘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.’⁹

Besides, Constance points out that Emilie is by no means averse to deviating from strict moral rules when it is in her own interest to do so: for example, although Théobald has obviously fallen in love with her, she has done nothing to discourage him, in spite of the fact that this has alarmed his fiancée and that his parents would certainly not welcome a marriage between their son and a young émigrée without financial resources. Emilie is stunned; once again she has been naïve and unobservant and is particularly struck by the similarity of Constance's remarks to those of Joséphine.

The next incident is something of a bombshell. Joséphine is expecting a child and panics because Henri, who is presumably the father, refuses to save her reputation by marrying her. He refuses because he is aware of her having become friendly with Constance's servant Lacroix. Joséphine pleads with Emilie to persuade Henri that he is wrong to suspect her of any improper relations with another man. However, since Emilie is not certain whether this is the truth, she refuses to make a statement which might involve telling a lie and betraying her high principles. At this point Joséphine loses her temper and threatens to commit suicide, outraged that Emilie attaches less importance to the life of her devoted servant than to grand-sounding, but empty words like ‘truth’ and ‘principles’. The outcome is that, once again, Emilie feels obliged to relax her principles and, extracting from her maid a promise to be faithful to Henri, she agrees to be economical with the truth and to support the marriage project.

Constance also contributes to finding a solution. In order to allay Henri's suspicions she bribes Lacroix to marry a girl from the village. Lacroix is happy to do so and, since he has to

8 There are also some other scandalous revelations, for example about an aunt, which Joséphine, garrulous and well-informed, begins to relate; but Emilie has heard more than enough about her family to be convinced that, to say the least, she has been naïve not to realise that not everyone practises those moral standards which she had been brought up to respect.

9 OEuvres complètes, IX, 64. (Your education has given you extremely delicate speculative ideas on many things, which you would see slightly differently if you had seen more of the world.)

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marry a German girl, all of whom, he supposes, must be the same, any one will do; so, to save time, he simply chooses the girl next door. In the meantime, Emilie resorts to moral blackmail by threatening to leave Altendorf for good unless Henri marries Joséphine. Henri, who cannot bear to think he might be the cause of Emilie's departure, which he knows would cause great distress to his master, Théobald, eventually agrees to marry Joséphine, though he no longer loves her.

The only remaining episode of importance concerns Théobald and Emilie. Théobald has always professed rigorous moral standards and he does not approve of the way Emilie has been taking liberties with the rules. However, these high standards are swept away by the passion of love: pressure being put on him by his family to marry his cousin, he rebels and persuades Emilie to do the unthinkable by consenting to an elopement. Fortunately, Constance is at hand; she pursues the runaway couple and brings them back to the château where she has already persuaded Théobald's parents to forgive them. Their honour having been saved, they shortly afterwards get married among great rejoicing in which everyone joins except the Countess de Stolzheim and members of her family.

Intimations of moral perfection

The narrative ends at this point; however, this is not the end of the novel: there is a second part consisting of a prologue and a series of letters to the abbé de la Tour, mostly from Constance, giving an account of life in Altendorf after the marriage of Emilie to Théobald and Joséphine to Henri.

In the prologue we return to the salon of Mme de Berghen, where the abbé de la Tour defends the conduct of the three women. He admits that they are far from perfect and that their actions are not in conformity with the highest moral standards; on the other hand they deserve our regard since they are each inherently generous and have done what, according to their lights, was best in the circumstances.

As for the letters from Altendorf, they cover a multitude of subjects. We hear of how, following the birth of Joséphine's baby and the baby of a certain countess de Horst, there was some confusion so that it was not clear which baby was the Countess's and which Joséphine's; however, it was agreed that both of them would be nursed and brought up by Joséphine and that this would be an interesting experiment to see whether, in the long run, there would appear any characteristics to distinguish the child of the aristocrat from that of the peasant. Constance also has plans for the education of a pair of twins, a boy and a girl, who had lost their mother; as an experiment by which she hoped to prove that there were no innate gender differences; they would be dressed in the same way and each of them named as a member of the opposite sex. Clearly Constance has not lost her taste for manipulation.

More relevant to the main theme of the novel is an account of how Théobald sets up a school for the education of village children and has idealistic plans for the abolition of feudal privileges. Constance, ever sceptical of the efficacy of abstract ideas, opposes these plans, which in her opinion, can only be considered a futile attempt to bring reality into line with unattainable ideals. To carry out reforms, she argues, using a nautical metaphor, one must not sail straight into the wind, but have recourse to tacking (louvoyer), that is to say, go at a slower pace from side to side. Théobald replies that, where there are flagrant abuses, they must be reformed immediately. Constance allows herself to be convinced, with little or no further argument.

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Further reflection on her conversation with Théobald leads to an extraordinary change in Constance. Abandoning her hard-headed pragmatism, she accepts the necessity of ideals:

Vous me demandez si l'extrême rectitude de Théobald ne cause point quelques disputes entre lui et moi. Aucune. Dans le fond, je suis de son avis, bien plus qu'il ne paraît. Trouvant fâcheux, pénible, et souverainement inutile, d'exiger la perfection tout haut et ostensiblement, je l'aime et la désire, et pour tout dire, je l'exige au-dedans de moi.¹⁰

This moral perfection she hopes also to find in those closest to her, Emilie and Joséphine, and she will be distressed if things turn out differently:

L'image d'Emilie dépravée m'épouvanterait encore plus que celle d'Emilie mourante. [...] Joséphine elle-même, quoique je ne compte pas absolument sur elle quant à ce qu'on appelle vertu chez les femmes, m'affligerait si je la voyais retomber dans le vice opposé.¹¹

At the same time she confesses she has a bad conscience about the source of her fortune: ‘quoique j'aime ma fortune, à cause de l'usage que j'en fais, j'en donnerais les trois quarts pour qu'il me restât de moins fâcheux souvenirs de ceux à qui je la dois’.¹²

Finally, Constance makes the following remarkable declaration:

Oh! la rectitude est bonne! Je n'aurai point de dispute avec Théobald. Je respecte tous les scrupules, les scrupules religieux, les scrupules de l'honneur, enfin tous, ceux même qui n'auraient point de nom, et jusqu'à la soumission à des lois que rien ne sanctionnerait. Mon esprit, si ennemi de tous les autres galimatias, respectera toujours celui-ci. J'aimerai toujours à voir l'extrême délicatesse se soumettre à des règles qu'elle ne peut définir, et dont elle ne sait pas d'où elles émanent.¹³

The novel, at least in its published version, terminates abruptly at this point. However, there is also a continuation in manuscript, the Suite des Trois femmes, which was published for the first time in 1981, in volume IX of the Van Oorschot edition.

10 OEuvres complètes, IX, 124. (You ask whether the extreme rectitude of Théobald does not cause some disputes between us. None. At bottom I agree with him, much more than it appears. Finding it tiresome, painful and totally useless to demand perfection aloud and openly, I love it and desire it and, to sum up, I require it in my inner being [in the depth of my heart].)

11 Ibid. (The idea of Emilie becoming depraved I would find even more frightful than the idea of Emilie dying. Joséphine herself, although I do not rely absolutely on her with regard to what is called female virtue, would distress me if I saw her relapsing into that vice which is its opposite.)

12 OEuvres complètes, IX, 125. (Although I love my fortune, because of the use I make of it, I would give back three quarters of it so that my mind would be more at peace regarding those to whom I owe it.)

13 Ibid. (Oh! rectitude is good! I shall have no quarrel with Théobald. I respect all scruples, religious scruples, those of honour, even those without a name and I even respect submission to laws which nothing would sanction. My mind, so opposed to all other forms of obscurity, will always respect this one. I shall always take pleasure in seeing extreme delicacy submit to rules which it cannot define and of which it does not know the source.)

The relevance of moral perfection

The reader, having put the book down, will probably feel rather puzzled. One's first reaction is to ask why the author should have felt compelled to add a second part and then a further continuation. Does the ending to part I not offer a logical and aesthetically satisfying conclusion to the novel? Emilie's moral education has been completed, she and Théobald have been married, Joséphine has acquired a husband and, as for Constance, she has fulfilled

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her mission of helping others and in contributing to bringing about a happy ending. Besides, we can see the point the novelist is making: in order to deal with the kind of incidents that arise in real life and which require moral decisions, one has to make allowances for human frailty and to relax strict moral rules. If these rules, the kind of rules associated with the philosophy of Kant, had been applied without regard to consequences, that is to say to the happiness or unhappiness of those concerned, Joséphine would have become a social outcast or committed suicide, Théobald would have been married to the dreadful Countess de Stolzheim, and Emilie, like Cécile in Isabelle de Charrière's earlier novel, Lettres écrites de Lausanne, would probably have remained a lonely spinster without a dowry, waiting in vain for a husband to turn up.

However, how well has the novelist made her point? The fact is, that many readers were not impressed and some even found the work immoral. When it was published in England in 1796 it was heavily expurgated. And, nearer home, one of Isabelle de Charrière's young friends, Camille de Malarmey de Roussillon, described Trois femmes as the story of ‘une catin, une friponne et une bégueule’,¹⁴ that is to say Joséphine is a whore, Emilie a narrow-minded prude and Constance a rogue and a thief. Indeed, one has to admit there is a certain amount of unedifying conduct in the novel, including lies, bribery, manipulation, moral blackmail, double-talk and dubious casuistry, as well as the condoning of sexual promiscuity and of shady financial acquisitions.

There is nothing to show that Isabelle de Charrière took the opinion of Malarmey de Roussillon very seriously; however, she was outraged at the prudishness of those who had bowdlerised the text of the English edition and in some of her comments on the novel is very much on the defensive, writing, for example, to a friend:

On n'a pas prétendu donner des modèles à suivre, mais montrer des vices et des faiblesses à excuser comme non incompatibles avec une idée ou un sentiment de devoir et une moralité dans la personne coupable ou accusable.¹⁵

Again, it is significant that, in the prologue to the second part, she attributes some reservations to Mme de Berghen, who says the conduct of the three women does not set a good example and to imitate them might lead to moral chaos. The abbé de la Tour, in his reply, argues that, if the women have departed from the highest principles of morality, it has not been as the result of any facile decision; indeed they have done so at the price of much suffering: Joséphine suffers because she knows she can never expect from her husband the respect she would have if she had been chaste and Constance is not without anxiety (he might have added that Emilie, too, has suffered by having to relax her cherished ideals and come to terms with difficult situations). Mme de Berghen is sufficiently intelligent to see through the abbé's casuistry, and is not entirely convinced; she asks him if he has any information about the earlier history of Constance and any recent news about whether his friends in Altendorf are happy.

The reservations expressed by Mme de Berghen and her request for recent information set the agenda for Part II and for the Suite. We are now given more precise information about

14 OEuvres complètes, V, 44 (letter of 10-14 February 1795 from Isabelle de Charrière to Henriette L'Hardy).

15 OEuvres complètes, V, 354 (letter of 13-14 October 1797 to Chambrier d'Oleyres). (There is no intention to set up models to follow, but to show vices and weaknesses to be excused as not incompatible with an idea or a sentiment of duty and morality in the person who is guilty or who could be accused.)

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what the abbé meant when he said that Joséphine had suffered by breaking the rules of strict morality. We see how Henri has become embittered and cynical; but we also learn that Joséphine is now a reformed character, having become a good mother and a faithful wife, rejecting advances from men eager to seduce her and, in short, acting in conformity with duty for its own sake. As for Constance, the concluding episode of part II shows that, after all, she is not simply an unscrupulous manipulator, that she has a conscience and respects the ideal of moral perfection. Perhaps it was this conscience that led her, in the first part of the novel, to reveal to Emilie the problem of the source of her wealth. We also learn that, although she had played an important role in arranging Joséphine's marriage, it had been necessary for her to make a considerable effort to hide the disgust she felt regarding the maid's promiscuity.¹⁶

We may feel that by introducing aspirations to moral perfection Isabelle de Charrière has turned her back on the down-to-earth philosophy of Candide. It is true that what we find in part II is no longer the philosophy of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’, but there is here an interesting parallel with Voltaire. In fact, after Candide, Voltaire turns away from the philosophy of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ to considerations of a different kind. Somewhat ironically, having demonstrated in Candide the uselessness of metaphysical speculation, he returns to metaphysical problems, not in the spirit of any dogmatism, but as a philosophe ignorant who knows that philosophical theories deal with probabilities rather than with certainties. In this spirit he attempts to answer atheists and materialists by finding a place in his philosophy for a Divine Intelligence and a higher moral law.¹⁷

Voltaire may have felt that in Candide he had overstated his case; indeed, Candide could even be pressed into service by atheists for, in the crazy world of the conte, one finds no convincing demonstration that there is a Divine Intelligence, and God, if not absent, would seem to behave in a way that mortals can only perceive as irrational and immoral. Again, the atheist might point out that Candide describes a world in which metaphysics and theology produce only empty verbiage and where all we can learn from the study of the real world of human beings is ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ which, whatever it may mean, does not offer any clear demonstration for belief in firm moral principles. In the last page of Candide we find the exhortation, ‘Travaillons sans raisonner, c'est le seul moyen de rendre la vie supportable. Toute la petite société entra dans ce louable dessein’ (Let us work without trying to explain things, it is the only way to make life tolerable. Everyone in the little society accepted this admirable plan). However, ‘travailler sans raisonner’ is an exhortation to escapism which no reasonable person can accept, and least of all a philosophical writer like Voltaire, who believes our conduct should be guided by rational principles and that a human being is, by definition, ‘un être raisonnable’.

Similarly, Isabelle de Charrière, like Voltaire, may have felt she had gone too far in presenting, in part I of her novel, a picture in which any form of idealism was irrelevant to real life. However, like Voltaire, the Voltaire of the later writings, in part II she recognizes the im-

16 She writes, with reference to Joséphine: ‘Malgré ce que je lui devais de reconnaissance, malgré ses excellentes qualités, malgré ce que sa jolie personnne avait d'attrait et de charmes, j'avais peine dans les commencements à vaincre le dégoût que m'inspirait son désordre’ (OEuvres complètes, IX, 124).

17 The desire to refute atheism and materialism was also felt by Isabelle de Charrière. As a companion-piece to Trois femmes she composed Honorine d'Userche, in which she demonstrates how a naturalistic ethical system can lead to moral chaos, even legitimising incest. See below, p. 90.

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portance of moral ideals. In fact, there is, ironically, already some recognition of the value of these ideals in a speech made in part I by Joséphine, which will be quoted below, but it is not until the end of part II that respect for autonomous moral principles is fully re-established.

In this matter there is an important difference between Voltaire and Isabelle de Charrière, for whereas, after Candide, Voltaire conducts his enquiry mainly in terms of a search for cosmic order, in the second part of Trois femmes it is conducted in terms of psychology and of the individual conscience. In fact, the real affinity here is not with Voltaire, but with Kant or, even more so, with Rousseau. The change that comes over Constance at the end of part II would seem to illustrate that voice of conscience which can never be silenced and which is a major theme, not in Voltaire, but in Rousseau.

In the final analysis there are two ethical systems in Trois femmes. Joséphine has a glimpse of this distinction and describes it in amusingly simple language, just before her marriage:

Il ne faut pas penser, Mademoiselle, que je ne respecte pas ces vertus dont j'ai mal parlé dans un moment de désespoir. [...] Chacun a une vertu à sa manière: la miennne est de tout faire pour vous. [...] Je ferais un faux serment pour vous épargner le moindre mal, comme je mourrais pour vous conserver la vie. [...] Mais j'aime votre candeur, et même sans trop savoir à quoi elle était bonne, je me suis surprise à la trouver fort belle. Aller tout droit son chemin dans ses actions et dans ses paroles sans s'embarrasser de ce qui peut en arriver, a je ne sais quoi que je respecte, et je crois que c'est la vertu des gens de qualité. Toutefois ils ne doivent pas la pousser trop loin. S'il leur plaît de ne rien craindre pour eux, à la bonne heure, c'est du courage; mais s'ils ne se mettent en peine de rien pour les autres, c'est dureté. Mon intention est de vous imiter à un certain point; d'abord pour vous plaire davantage et être plus digne de vivre avec vous, puis aussi parce que je trouve que c'est mieux, surtout dans l'état où je vais entrer.¹⁸

Thus, Joséphine, in her own way, already in part I, has grasped the difference between nonconsequentialist and consequentialist systems of ethics. The first of these systems, in Joséphine's words, is ‘To go straight to the point in word and deed without regard to the consequences’. This is Joséphine's version of the Kantian ideal of duty for the sake of duty; she says it is to be admired, but regrets it is too lofty to be practised by ordinary human beings. The other system, less perfect, but more readily available to ordinary people, is based on sentiment and inclination - in this case on Joséphine's love for her mistress and on her readiness to make any sacrifice when her happiness is at stake. Similarly, Constance's system of ethics, in part I, is based on altruism and particularly on her devotion to Emilie, a devotion which is expressed when she presents her, after her marriage to Théobald, with a ring engraved with the intertwined letters C and E.

In this devotion to one's friends and willingness to sacrifice, if necessary, everything for them, we have examples of what the abbé de la Tour, in the first prologue was referring to when he said that individuals could not be considered immoral or depraved if they acted

18 OEuvres complètes, IX, 72-73. Cf. Munteano, art. cit., p. 440. (You must not think, Mademoiselle, that I have no respect for those virtues about which I spoke hastily in a moment of despair. [...] We all have virtues in our own way: Mine is to do everything for you [...] I would perjure myself to spare you the least harm, just as I would die to save your life. But I like your simplicity [candeur], and while not quite understanding what use it was I found myself admiring it. To go straight to the point in word and deed without regard to the consequences, has something that I respect and I think it is the virtue of the gentry. However, it should not be taken to extremes. If those who practise it are happy to have no fear for themselves, that is all right, it is courage; but if they have no care for others, that is unkindness. My intention is to take you as my model up to a certain point; first of all to please you and to be more worthy to live with you, and also because it is better, especially in the state [marriage] which I am about to enter.)

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according to moral principles, even if these principles were confused or imperfect. Actions inspired by altruism and bienfaisance can be admired and they may actually be in conformity with duty; but, from a Kantian point of view, they are not the same as actions performed for the sake of duty and, indeed, can involve, as the story has illustrated, unedifying conduct which is contrary to duty.

Trois femmes, like Candide, is inspired by the gap between life and logic, the real and the ideal. In the best of all possible worlds one would model one's conduct on the stern moral principles of Kant, but in the real and imperfect world individuals who are by no means fundamentally dishonest or immoral are faced with difficult situations which lead them to take decisions which bend the rules, subordinating strict moral principles to the search for happiness or fulfilment. At least, this is the meaning of part I. In part II, on the other hand, moral idealism is rehabilitated, at least as an aspiration.

At this point, let us look at Voltaire and Isabelle de Charrière in a broader perspective and with particular reference to the intellectual itinerary of each. In the case of Voltaire this itinerary begins in the 1730s with the metaphysical optimism of the early writings; by the 1740s he expresses serious doubts regarding this philosophy, for example in Zadig, and shortly afterwards rejects it in Candide. This is followed by the search, already mentioned, by the philosophe ignorant of the later works, for rational principles, including moral principles, opposed to atheism and materialism. The intellectual itinerary of Belle de Zuylen/Isabelle de Charrière is along similar lines. Readers of her early correspondence will be struck by her affinities with the optimistic rationalism of the period: she speaks of the beautiful order of the cosmos and refers to reason and nature as if they were synonymous. But before long she rejects this optimism, which is replaced by a kind of resignation to which she sometimes refers as ‘fatalism’. By the 1790s she has come a long way and, as we have seen, recommends to her friends the philosophy of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’, though in fact she often recommends simultaneously that prudent idealism which is her final position in part II of Trois femmes.

After reading part I we are left with the impression that the only viable moral system is a form of utilitarianism. In part II, however, the door is opened to the possibility of a system based on aspiration to moral perfection. By the end of Trois femmes the philosophy of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’, if not totally rejected, seems a rather shabby alternative compared to the principles discovered by Constance in part II.

It was Constance who, in part I, had rejected Emilie's speculative ideas as inapplicable to real life and Joséphine, in her own way, as we have seen, thought them too lofty for use. But Constance no longer rejects an idealism which, by transcending the system of utility, adds a new and dignified dimension to life; nor does she consider it inapplicable to real situations; on the contrary, she hopes it will guide her own conduct and be exemplified, at least to some extent, in the conduct of Emilie and even in that of Joséphine. And indeed, in part II, the conduct of all the characters is, on the whole, irreproachable - provided we can forgive Constance for wanting to carry out dubious educational experiments on babies.

The philosophy of Kant has been tested and, unlike that of Pangloss, it has not been mocked.

Finally, let us return to Isabelle de Charrière's correspondence of the 1790s. In fact the advice she gives her young friends in terms consistent with the lesson of ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ is only half of the picture. Thus, that same Henriette L'Hardy, to whom she had recommended activity and bienfaisance, was also advised to study logic and philosophy and to sub-

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ject her conduct in society to careful scrutiny. In a letter of 23 August 1792, Isabelle de Charrière writes to her: ‘J'ai envie de vous voir parfaite; rien que cela, entendez-vous? parfaite’¹⁹

There is some irony in this, for Henriette L'Hardy had been appointed companion to the Countess of Dönhoff, mistress of the King of Prussia, an appointment which the good people of Neuchâtel considered scandalous and totally unsuitable for someone so young and innocent. However, even in an imperfect world, including the corrupt world of Potsdam, there is, in Isabelle de Charrière's view, a place for that aspiration towards perfection which she describes in part II of Trois femmes.

This desire for perfection, for higher principles, is also clearly expressed in her Eloge de Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1790), particularly in the following passage, which is remarkably similar to Constance's concluding speech:

Oui, les rêves de Rousseau sont aimables, sont précieux. Nous sommes si las de nous-mêmes et de toutes nos réalités, que nous avons besoin de choses idéales pour rajeunir nos imaginations affaissées et nos coeurs affadis. Oui, l'on nous fait un extrême plaisir de nous dire quelquefois que l'homme est naturellement bon; que l'homme de la nature est tout différent de celui que nous voyons partout²⁰

One might say, without simplifying matters too much, that part I of Trois femmes is a variation on a theme from Voltaire, whereas part II, with its idealistic conclusion and its interest in the education and the psychological development of children, draws its inspiration, at least in part, from Rousseau, from whom Isabelle de Charrière has learned that life is a poor thing without ideals.

19 OEuvres complètes, III, 411. (I want to see you perfect; nothing less, do you understand? perfect.)

20 OEuvres complètes, X, 205. (Yes, the dreams of Rousseau are attractive, are precious. We are so weary of ourselves and of reality that we need ideals to rejuvenate our exhausted imagination and jaded hearts. Yes, it gives us great pleasure when we are told sometimes that man is naturally good and natural man is completely different from the man we see everywhere round about us.)

Some recent interpretations

In conclusion I should like to refer briefly to a few aspects of recent interpretations of Trois femmes. First, there is the important study by Carla Hesse in her book The Other Enlightenment: how French women became modern, published in 2001²¹, where we find the view that the novel is not concerned primarily with the distinction between theory and practice, but that it is essentially a feminist work directed against ‘the sexist assumptions’²² of Kant and certain other moralists, who deny that women have the capacity for autonomous self-determination. ‘Rather than seeking to demonstrate that women are unlike men’, Hesse writes, ‘Charrière sets out to explore the deeper questions of what it would mean to act ethically without general rules to guide behaviour.’²³ Again:

In the end, Charrière's story becomes a story of how these three women constitute their ethical life beyond the laws of men. Trois femmes, as scandalized readers recognized at the time, was the story of a band of outlaws; a story of the ethical life of women beyond the laws of propertied men. Charrière's

21 Carla Hesse, The Other Enlightenment; how French women became modern, Princeton and Oxford, 2001, p. 119. Based on the same author's ‘Kant, Foucault, and Three women’, in Jan Goldstein (ed.), Foucault and the writing of history, Blackwell, Oxford, UK, & Cambridge, USA, 1994, pp. 81-98.

22 Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, p. 119.

23 Ibid., pp. 120-121.

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three women band together through self-election and form an outlaw community based upon the ethical principle of total sacrifice to one another, and a reservation of the right to bend rules that they had no part in creating.²⁴

What seems to have inspired this view of the three women as ‘a band of outlaws’ is the tight bond formed between them and their readiness, for the sake of mutual self-help, to behave in a way which breaks, or at least, bends traditional moral rules. However, to explain their behaviour, it is unnecessary to refer to an ethics allegedly designed only by men for men. The explanation for the unusually close bond between Emilie and Joséphine is that, being émigrées in a foreign country, where they do not even speak the language, they naturally rely on each other; besides, the affection which the servant already had for her mistress is intensified by their shared misfortune and isolation. As for Constance, she finds herself unexpectedly in a haven where she is no longer harassed by her creditors and where she has scope for her natural altruistic inclination.

With regard to the allegation that the three women are without general rules to guide their behaviour, one can reply that, in fact, their conduct is simply an example of the familiar eighteenth-century ideal of bienfaisance or altruism; there is no deliberate plan to act in defiance of accepted moral standards or to devise a new ethical system which legitimizes lying, bribery, sexual promiscuity and theft. If their behaviour is at times less than edifying, it is in response to unforeseen circumstances, particularly Josephine's pregnancy, which creates a situation where there is a genuine conflict between one's duty to obey strict moral principles on the one hand and, on the other, the desire to find a practical solution based on humanity, friendship and pity. If the women had been real ‘outlaws’ they would presumably have supported Joséphine as a single mother, just as Isabelle de Charrière, in 1792, did battle with the authorities in Neuchâtel to support her maid Henriette Monachon. In fact it never occurs to the three women to challenge the conventional view that an unmarried mother could only be treated as a social outcast. It should be noted that the women are not the only ones to transgress principles; Théobald does likewise in eloping with Emilie. It should also be noted that, by the time we reach part II, there are no further transgressions of moral principles.

Whether Kant's moral philosophy is anti-feminist is a problem not considered in the novel; nor in Isabelle de Charrière's correspondence is there anything to indicate that she had a problem in accepting this philosophy as relevant equally to men and women. However this may be, in the second part of the novel the Kantian ideal, or a quasi-Kantian ethical ideal, is accepted as the norm to be aspired to.

As for the notion of ‘moral outlaws’, we shall do well to read Isabelle de Charrière's next novel, Honorine d'Userche. Honorine, who has absorbed the lessons of materialism, believes that the conventional distinction between vice and virtue is meaningless. When she discovers the young man she loves is in fact her brother, she can see no reason not to have an incestuous relationship and is devastated when he refuses her advances. If we are looking for a female moral ‘outlaw’ in Isabelle de Charrière's novels, it is here, not in Trois femmes that we find her. Honorine's outlaw ethical principles are those of amoral naturalism; those of our three women are simply, as has been noted, utility, bienfaisance and altruism.

24 Carla Hesse, ‘Kant, Foucault, and Three women’, pp. 81-98 (p. 94). This argument is repeated in Jacqueline Letzter, Intellectual Tacking: questions of education in the works of Isabelle de Charrrière, Amsterdam: Atlanta, 1998, pp. 128-129. See also Hesse, The Other Enlightenment, pp. 111-125.

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Another modern interpretation is based on a special meaning attributed to ‘louvoyer’ or ‘tacking’, which has already been referred to.²⁵ Constance's exact thoughts on tacking were: ‘n'excitez pas ce grand mouvement dans les esprits; n'essayez d'arriver au mieux possible que par degrés; il faut se contenter de louvoyer’ (do not stir up people's minds; attempt to arrive at the best possible result only by degrees; you must be satisfied with tacking). These thoughts occurred in the context of a discussion on the desirability of general political reform; Constance's opinion is that sudden sweeping reforms can be dangerous and that it is better to proceed slowly and prudently. Théobald rejects the idea of tacking if there are scandalous abuses which call for immediate reform. On the other hand, he is not opposed to tacking if those in government can be certain they will be in power sufficiently long to carry out the required reforms.²⁶

There is nothing new in the idea that there are occasions when gradual or piecemeal reform is the best policy.²⁷ However, to proceed slowly or to defer certain reforms, in the hope that, if perfection is not obtainable today, it will be tomorrow, is not the same thing as a licence for the individual to flout accepted moral standards and it is a misunderstanding of ‘tacking’ to use it to explain how the three women find themselves in a position where they decide it is acceptable, in order to achieve an immediate end (happiness), to have recourse to lies and other dubious strategies. Constance's holding on to her ill-gotten wealth is hardly an example of tacking. As for the measures taken to save Joséphine's honour, this is not so much tacking as (to use another nautical metaphor) taking desperate measures to rescue someone from shipwreck.

Again, it is surely a mistake to agree with those readers²⁸ who accept uncritically, or as a justification for this so-called ‘tacking’, the comments of the abbé de la Tour, who is biased in favour of the three women and whose arguments are obviously those of a casuist. He stresses their good qualities, which no one will deny (loyalty to each other and kindness), but he glosses over the less edifying parts of their behaviour. Constance, when she speaks up at the end, is more honest - as has been seen, she condemns her retention of wealth that was not her own, expresses her disgust at Joséphine's promiscuity and places her faith in an ideal of perfection which she hopes her friends will not betray.

Finally, there is the question of the affinity of Trois femmes and Candide. The usual interpretation is that each of the two works demonstrates that abstract principles are inapplicable to real-life situations. This is an accurate interpretation of Candide, though, as has been mentioned, Voltaire moved beyond this situation in his later works. It is, however, in my opinion, an inaccurate interpretation of Trois femmes, part II of which is written to demonstrate the necessity of a certain ideal of moral perfection, which we must accept as the criterion of our conduct. This is the ideal represented by ‘Devoir’, an ideal to which we ought to strive and which adds dignity and meaning to life. That Isabelle de Charrière attached particular

25 See above, section 4 for Théobald's use of the term ‘tacking’ (louvoyer); for recent interpretations of this term see particularly Jacqueline Letzter, Intellectual Tacking: questions of education in the works of Isabelle de Charrière, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 1998, and Marie-Hélène Chabut, ‘Louvoyer pour innover: Trois femmes d'Isabelle de Charrière’, in Ecriture de la ruse, textes édités par Elzbieta Grodek, Amsterdam, Rodopi, 2000, pp. 241-251.

26 ‘Il ne faut louvoyer que quand on est assuré de gouverner assez longtemps le vaisseau, pour pouvoir changer à propos sa direction; autrement on risque de le faire aller à mille lieues du port, et peut-être ira-t-il échouer contre un roc ou se perdre dans des sables’ (OEuvres complètes, IX, 110).

27 We find this idea frequently expressed by Montesquieu, for example.

28 See particularly the article by Chabut cited above, note 25.

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importance to this ideal is confirmed by the engraving illustrating DEVOIR which she commissioned as a frontispiece to the revised edition.²⁹

The most interesting fact to emerge from a study of Candide and Trois femmes is that the intellectual itineraries of Voltaire and Isabelle de Charrière are remarkably similar and in three stages: from the idealistic optimistic rationalism of youth to the kind of acceptance of reality represented by ‘il faut cultiver notre jardin’ and then, finally, to a renewed interest in moral idealism. It is particularly this third stage, somewhat neglected by modern critics, that has been stressed in the present article.

29 My interpretation of the novel agrees broadly with that of at least one recent critic: Madeleine Dobie, in an article published in 1998 in the Canadian journal Eighteenth-century fiction. Referring to the ending of part II, Madeleine Dobie writes: ‘This ending suggests that Charrière's purpose was not simply to refute Kantian ethics, but rather to inscribe in an open dialogue some of the problems associated with his anti-consequentialism’. Most interestingly she draws our atttention to the importance of the statement made at the end of part II re-establishing firm moral principles, and stresses that support of ‘tacking’ is not Constance's final word. ‘Romantic psychology and Kantian ethics in the novels of Isabelle de Charrière’, Eighteenth-century fiction, X (1998), pp. 303-324, especially pp. 319-324.