Quoted passages are my own translations with the original French provided in endnotes.
The Abbé Prévost’s Manon Lescaut has
proven a popular favorite. Reprinted
hundreds of times, Manon is as well the subject of no less than six operas, three
of which (Auber, Puccini, Massenet) remain in the repertoire. Once sufficiently transgressive to be
censored, the text is now taught as an exemplar of classic prose style.
Surely the
principal appeal of the story is the emotional intensity of its
characters. The narrative’s energy
derives from the immoderate love of the Chevalier de Grieux, conceived at first
seeing his beloved and never thereafter
flagging and the attachment of Manon to a life of luxury which she pursues
constantly, only to die when it seems beyond her reach. Today readers are likely to interpret their
behavior as self-destructively addictive.
Yet such a reading is surely at least in part anachronistic. Though this sort of psychological analysis is
not directly derived from the text, several inconsistent interpretations of
their affair are suggested, leaving the question of the meaning of the sad
story of the Chevalier de Grieux and his beloved Manon at once overdetermined
(with multiple explanations) and underdetermined (with none clearly victorious
over the others). At different points in
the narration the action is variously described in terms of Christian morality,
a question of sensibility, a predetermined fate, and a matter of social class.
The author as
well as his main character being clerics, it is unsurprising that Christian
morality plays a role. To encourage
improvements in morals had been a standard justification for literature for centuries. The
frame narrator justifies his story in the “Avis de l’Auteur” as “a
terrifying example of the force of the passions” [1]. He hopes his work will serve for the purpose
of “moral instruction” [2]. Furthermore,
the narration ends with the Chevalier’s apparent reform and return to his
family and to a more regular life in less ethically perilous waters. After that, presumably, nothing happens
worthy of note. One might read all the
novel’s suffering as the consequence of moral lapses. Manon is consistently a loose woman, albeit
one with considerable good-natured charm and, apparently, a certain genuine
attachment to the Chevalier, while he, by cohabiting with her while unmarried, brings
disaster after disaster upon himself and falls into not only defying his father
and lying, but theft as well and even murder.
This didacticism,
though, is no stronger than either the Abbé’s or the Chevalier’s consistency
to their vows. In fact, Manon Lescaut
is a novel of sensibility, a genre that generally celebrates access to emotions
and the development of strong feelings. Though
fainting is more characteristic of women than men in late eighteenth century
life and literature, the Chevalier’s swoon when he hears of Manon’s
faithlessness from his father is testament to his emotional sensitivity. He thinks well of himself and even Manon,
with her thoroughly predictable disappearances and betrayals, seems more absurd
and childish than malicious. To her
sexuality is natural and its use inevitable.
For him reform, dull and eventless in
comparison to the wild swings of fortune during his affair with Manon,
is still possible, while she must die. The
author’s protestations of moral purpose resemble those of Defoe and Richardson
and even the medieval Pearl-poet who in Cleanness who provides a lurid
account of goings-on in Sodom likewise in the service of moral instruction.
An even broader,
though shallower, approach is suggested by the Chevalier himself when he
reflects on his problems and decides all is due to fate, to “those specific
blows of fate attached to the ruin of a wretch from which virtue cannot defend
a person and which wisdom cannot foresee.” [3]
The only response is then passivity.
“Let us leave our fortune in the care of heaven” [4]. This serves primarily as an excuse when the
Chevalier feels like dodging a sense of his own responsibility for his difficulties. It is as well the attitude Manon expresses
when she first enters the story and says of her plight, “It seems to have been
the will of Heaven, since there was no way to avoid it.” [5]
Quite often his
decision-making is governed neither by Christian dictates nor some irresistible
ἀνάγκη, but rather by the standards of aristocratic behavior, the prizing of
honor that results from good breeding. Class
is linked to morality at the outset when the frame narrator notes that he
addresses people “of a certain order of spirit and good breeding” [6]. Tiberge appeals to his honor in attempting to
reform him [7]. He sees Manon’s brother
as “a brutal man with no principles of honor” [7], and the Chevalier regularly evaluates
his own behavior by considering what is expected of members of his class.
Should one’s acts
be governed by Christian (or secular) moral dictates? Is extravagant love a sign of a noble
sensitivity? Is every event inevitable
and predetermined? Each of these options
is raised but not settled in the novel. This
shifting among interpretations of behavior arises not from sloppiness, however,
but from precision. Since the Chevalier himself (and some might suspect
also his creator) vacillated among the alternatives of simple resignation,
Christian ambitions, and the desire to act honorably, all the while drawn ever
further downstream by an overwhelming erotic passion, it is surely right to
include all these elements in his representation. There is no more certainty in the world of
the Chevalier de Grieux than in that of his author or one of his readers. Just like the fictional character, all people
respond to a variety of registers of value, acting now for an ethical reason,
then in an effort to impress, again with religious principles in mind, and
sometimes – not necessarily due to weakness or foolishness -- simply submitting
to experience. The Chevalier is no more
inconsistent than we are.
1. “Un exemple
terrible de la force des passions,” page 32, line 17 in the 2016 Flammarion
edition edited by Hélêne Bernard. Other
references to destiny are found on pages 18, 45, 82, 100, 221.
2. “Instruction des
mœrs” p. 32, ll. 30-31.
3. “Je la lui
représentai comme un de ces coups particuliers du destin qui s’attache a la
ruine d’un misérable, et dont il est aussi impossible a la vertu de se défendre
qu’il l’a été a la sagesse de les prévoir.” p. 82, ll. 1306-1309.
4. “Laissons au ciel
le soin de notre fortune.” P. 198, ll. 1912-1913.
5. “C’était
apparemment la volonté de Ciel, puisqu’il ne lui laissait nul moyen de
l’éviter” p. 44, ll. 244-245.
6. “Personnes d’un
certain ordre d’esprit et de politesse,” p. 32, ll. 37-38.
7. P. 86, l. 1427.
8. “C’était un homme
brutale et sans principes d’honneur,” p. 74, l. 1077.
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