Hoarders and Parasites in the Fables of La Fontaine 45 vision provides a moment of slapstick (vv. 21-33); and the event is recorded in the form of a farce (v. 28), the passive construction creating maximal distance between the reader and the hapless milkmaid. The invitation to compassion and a clearer definition of the milkmaid’s flaw appear in the remaining verses (30-43). The interrogative in itself recalls the famous chiding statement “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8: 7). The poet then insists on the universal character of the flaw (vv. 32-33), and avers that nothing is sweeter (v. 34) than to be carried away by a comforting error (v. 35). I have translated as “comforting” La Fontaine’s “flatteuse,” but that doesn’t quite capture it. The error makes us feel good by supporting our tendency to inflate the self. The poet encourages the reader to suspend his harsh judgment by a judicious use of subjects. The questions (vv. 30, 32), “tous” (v. 32), and “chacun” (v. 34) are all in third person, but give way to first person plural (nos âmes, v. 35; nous, v. 36) then finally to that most intimate because most confessional of pronouns, first person singular (vv. 38-43), which closes the poem. La Fontaine encourages the reader to be gentle here, but again, what is the misdeed? All of us, the poet asserts here, wish to step out of the stream in some way (vv. 36-38). He repeats the adjective tout three times, using a different form each time (nearly all the forms of tout, all): “tout le bien du monde” (v. 36), “tous les honneurs,” “toutes les femmes” (v. 37). We wish to arrive at that place where we possess everything and are freed from further effort. The total passivity of the parasitic enjoyment so devoutly to be wished La Fontaine expresses with a glorious image combining wealth and weather: “Les diadèmes vont sur ma tête pleuvant” (v. 42). The poet’s fall is no less brutal than the milkmaid’s (vv. 42-43). Indeed, one may hoard stories themselves, just as one may hoard information or wealth. This is the error of the hapless pigeon of Les deux pigeons (9, 2) but the tale also points to a possible solution: toleration of both need and boredom. A bored pigeon longs for adventure and leaves his companion in search of it. One suspects it is a matter of the “adventure” of infidelity, though the nature of their relationship remains unclear despite much debate (are they friends? are they mates? ) so one can’t assert this with any confidence. If his restlessness is of the latter kind, he must, of course, offer another, more legitimate explanation to the companion he is leaving. We see him casting about for some pretext, but perhaps he has managed, quite by chance, to discover his true underlying motive: to collect stories (vv. 23-29). This is, after all, one verbally sophisticated pigeon. In a handful of lines he makes four promises interspersed with a proverb (vv. 25- Bruce Edmunds 46 26). The last of the four evokes the pleasure of ekphrasis 10 and constitutes in itself an example of the figure, as we see the poignant tableau of this emotionally intense parting. The promised stories that result, paid for by great suffering, turn out to be unnecessary. One has no need to seek out then hoard stories as the minutiae of daily life provide ample material. This is the sense of the verses in which the poet offers his advice: “Amants, heureux amants, voulez-vous voyager? / Que ce soit aux rives prochaines; / Soyez-vous l’un à l’autre un monde toujours beau,/ Toujours divers, toujours nouveau; / Tenez-vous lieu de tout, comptez pour rien le reste” (vv. 65- 69). To establish true and workable suffisance is, paradoxically, to remain open to the parasite taken as the solicitation of the collectivity. Seeking to close oneself off leads to ugly distortions (the pedant), injury (the pigeon) and even death (the oak). As Serres points out, La Fontaine makes the point forcefully in both Le Rat de Ville et le Rat des Champs (1, 9) and Le Jardinier et son Seigneur (4, 4): trying to eradicate rats and rabbits can only bring about the utter devastation of house and garden (163). The various hoarders exhibit a flaw that threatens something much deeper than the shifting and contingent order of the Ancien Régime. Seeking to free themselves from the endless task of negotiating their place within the collectivity they threaten the continuing elaboration and very existence of the social order itself. Their crime corrodes more deeply than that of Molière’s Jourdain, more deeply even than that of Oedipus. Works Cited Albanese, Ralph Jr. Le Dynamisme de la Peur chez Molière: une Analyse Socioculturelle de Dom Juan, Tartuffe, et L’Ecole de Femmes. University, Mississippi : Romance Monographs Inc., 1976. Apostolides, Jean-Marie. “Le spectacle de l’abondance.” L’Esprit Createur (vol. XXI, no. 3): pp. 26-34. Brody, Jules. Lectures de La Fontaine. Charlottesville, Virginia: Rookwood Press, Inc., 1994. Dandrey, Patrick. “La Fontaine, Poète Arcadien.” Et in Arcadia Ego, Actes du XXVII e congrès annuel de la North American Society for Seventeenth-Century French Literature, 1977: 77-95. Descartes, René. Les Passions de l’Ame. Paris: Flammarion, 1996. Edmunds, Bruce. “Oisiveté and danger in La Fontaine’s Fables.” Papers on French Seventeenth-Century Literature, 2004; 31 (60): 139-50. 10 I use the term in the broader sense that does not limit it to representations of works of art. Hoarders and Parasites in the Fables of La Fontaine 47 Faret, Nicolas. L’honnête homme ou l’art de plaire à la cour. Edited by Maurice Magendie. Geneva: Slatkine Reprints, 1970. Fumaroli, Marc. Le Poète et le Roi. Paris: Éditions de Fallois, 1997. Genette, Gérard. Figures III. Paris: Aux Éditions du Seuil, 1972. La Fontaine, Jean de. Œuvres complètes, v. 1. Ed. René Groos and Jacques Schiffrin. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 1954. Molière, Jean Baptiste Poquelin de. Œuvres complètes. 2 vols. Paris: Garnier Frères, 1962. Montaigne, Michel de. Les Essais. Ed. Claude Pinganaud. Paris: arléa, 2005. Pascal, Blaise. Pensées. Ed. Lafuma. Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1962. — Les Provinciales. Paris: Éditions Garnier frères, 1965. Rabelais, François. Les Cinq Livres. Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1994. All references are to the Tiers livre, and indicate the chapter followed by the page number. Riggs, Larry W. Molière and Plurality: Decomposition of the Classicist Self. New York: Peter Lang, 1989. Robert, Paul. Dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française, 2 nd edition. Ed. Alain Rey. Paris: Le Robert, 1986. Serres, Michel. Le Parasite. Paris: Hachette Littératures, 1997. Originally published by Editions Grasset et Fasquelle, 1980. — Hermès ou la Communication. Paris : Éditions de Minuit, 1968. Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 8 th edition. Paris: Hachette, 1932. The New Oxford Annotated Bible, Revised Standard Edition. Ed. Herbert G. May and Bruce M. Metzger. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Ed. Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan. New York: MJF Books, 1993. PFSCL XL, 78 (2013) Obstinate Women and Sleeping Beauties in the Kingdom of Miracles: Conversion Stories in the Mercure galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda D EBORAH S TEINBERGER (U NIVERSITY OF D ELAWARE ) Le Mercure galant has recently been called a “revue féminine” because of its generally pro-woman stance, its coverage of subjects traditionally of interest to women, its promotion of literary works by women, and its overall “gallant” or respectful attitude toward the fair sex. 1 But with Louis XIV’s crackdown on French Protestants, culminating in his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, the periodical, a propaganda vehicle for the King’s policies, highlights a range of portraits of female behavior. Some of these are cast in a flattering light—for example, the admiring descriptions of Mme de Gourgues (Mercure galant December 1685, 227-228) and of Mme la Duchesse de Guise (January 1686, 224-225), tireless and goodhearted converters of souls to Catholicism. 2 However, when it comes to members of the Religion Prétendue Réformée, women are not the paragons of good sense and modesty that are the staples of the Mercure’s female portraiture, but rather, unreasonable creatures who pride themselves on their intransigence. In the many pages devoted to Louis’s anti-Protestant campaigns, we learn that women are the last holdouts when Calvinist strongholds convert to Catholicism: “On a remarqué presque dans toutes les villes, que les femmes ont toujours esté les dernières à recevoir les instructions qu’on a voulu leur 1 I am referring to Monique Vincent’s 2005 work, Le Mercure galant: Présentation de la première revue féminine d’information et de culture (Paris: Honoré Champion). A note on editorial policy in the September 1684 issue attests to the periodical’s sensitivity to its female readership: “On ne prend aucun argent pour les Memoires qu’on employe dans le Mercure. On mettra tous ceux qui ne désobligeront personne, et ne blesseront point la modestie des dames” (n.p.). 2 All quotations from the Mercure used in this article are drawn from the microfilm reproduction of the Paris original (BN côte 8 0 LC 2 33). Copies of the microfilm are held by a number of research libraries in the U.S. and worldwide. Deborah Steinberger 50 donner” (Mercure galant January 1686, 255). Though accounts of the conversion of men in the Mercure outnumber those dealing with women (and of course, the real “prizes” for converters were Calvinist ministers or other male elders), in many articles women seem symbolically linked to the wayward Protestant soul, as they are in this contemporary engraving (Fig. 1), La Religion pretenduë reformé au abois [sic], where a female figure who represents Protestantism is seen on her deathbed. In the period surrounding the Revocation, Donneau de Visé, founder and editor in chief of the Mercure galant, fills its pages with endorsements of the King’s handling of his Protestant subjects. 3 In January 1686, for example, the Mercure deplores the recalcitrance of Protestant women as it announces a new royal edict that punishes wives and widows who fail to convert to Catholicism: Elles s’appuient sur le préjugé de leur naissance, qui leur fait fermer l’oreille à tout ce qu’on peut leur dire pour les convaincre de la vérité, et il y en a quelques-unes qui voient leurs maris se convertir, sans que leur exemple les puisse obliger à renoncer à l’erreur. Comme l’obstination avec laquelle elles font gloire de se distinguer, met de la division dans les familles, et empêche ou retarde la conversion de leurs enfants, le Roy voulant y pourvoir, a déclaré par un Edit qui vient d’estre publié, qu’il veut que les femmes des nouveaux Catholiques qui refuseront de suivre l’exemple de leurs maris, ainsi que les veuves qui persisteront dans la Religion Prétendue Réformée un mois après l’enregistrement et la publication de cet édit, demeurent déchues du pouvoir de disposer de leurs biens, soit par testament, donation entre vifs, aliénation ou autrement. (Mercure galant January 1686, 255-256; emphasis mine) The stubborn refusal of these Protestant women to accept the truths of the Catholic faith is seen as dangerous because it unravels the fabric of society. The insubordination of these women to their husbands (“Elles refusent de suivre l’exemple de leurs maris”) causes discord in families, and prevents 3 Donneau de Visé (1638-1710), who founded the Mercure galant in 1672, shared the title of editor in chief with Thomas Corneille from 1682 until Corneille’s death in 1709. Attribution of most of the publication’s contents is difficult, since bylines were generally not used. For the purposes of this article, I attribute all of the periodical’s anonymous, apparently editorializing text, as well as any unattributed nouvelles, to Donneau de Visé. At the same time, I recognize that Corneille, his nephew Bernard de Fontenelle—another Mercure collaborator—and some as-yet unidentified writers may have had a hand in the texts I cite. For a complete account of the periodical’s history, see Monique Vincent, Le Mercure galant. On the question of anonymity and authorship in the Mercure, see Jennifer R. Perlmutter’s 2009 article, “Journalistic Intimacy and Le Mercure galant.” Conversion Stories in the Mercure galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda 51 children from becoming Catholics. The Mercure galant builds upon a family metaphor in its condemnation of the Huguenots as it contrasts these bad mothers, who deny their children salvation, with the good Mother, the Catholic Church. In March 1685, for example, the Mercure publishes a sonnet by Grammont de Richelieu, entitled “Sur les soins que le Roy prend de détruire l’hérésie”. In the poem’s last tercet, the author lauds Louis’s handling of his Protestant subjects: “Mais bien loin de les perdre, il fait comme un bon père, / Qui ne lève le fouet sur des enfants ingrats, / Que pour les engager d’obéir à leur Mère” (March 1685, 319). Here the “Mère” is, of course, “la sainte Mère église”. In June 1685, the Mercure again praises the King’s “truly paternal means” of dealing with Protestants: Ce qui a achevé de les persuader, c’est la différence qu’ils trouvent entre les moyens vraiment paternels et remplis de charité, dont sa Majesté se sert pour les rappeler à l’Eglise, et ceux que la Reyne Jeanne employa pour contraindre ses sujets Catholiques à embrasser la Religion Prétendue Réformée, qu’ils furent forcez de suivre, par la saisie de leurs biens, et par le massacre des prestres séculiers, et des religieux. (22-23) Louis XIV, the Good Father, sets an example that is the polar opposite of the one set in the previous century by a cruel and coercive Bad Mother, his own great-grandmother, Jeanne d’Albret. Were Protestant women in fact more stubbornly resistant to conversion than their male counterparts? I have thus far found no gender-specific statistics on conversion rates, only on imprisonment for failing to convert: while the gender ratio for Huguenots held at the Bastille under Louis XIV was 78.8% men to 21.2% women, of the 1,006 Protestants held in all Parisian penal institutions between 1685 and 1700, 56% were men and 44% women (Strayer, graph 4, n.p.; Strayer 228). These figures suggest at least that a substantial proportion of women were refusing to convert. Letters from the ministers Louvois and Seignelay to provincial officials who were enforcing Louis’s policies express concern about individual Calvinist women who clung with particular tenacity to their faith (Strayer 228, 236). Brian Strayer tells us that when, after the Revocation, many Religionnaires fled to the Cévennes, “often it was their women who led the way, walking by night and hiding by day. Illiterate though they were, these Miriams and Deborahs knew their Bibles well, stood uncompromisingly for their faith, and encouraged their men folk not to convert to Catholicism” (Strayer 294). He adds, …the strongest Reformed models were sisters, wives, and mothers who preserved the faith in the “little church,” the family. Through family worship and home schooling, mothers instilled in their children a firm Protestant foundation and a life-long fear of Catholicism. […] The bishop Deborah Steinberger 52 of Alais felt that these “new women” were the primary reason why their children resisted conversion. Forcing their offspring to memorize passages of scripture fortified them against Catholic indoctrination and made them capable of winning doctrinal disputes with local clergy. (Strayer 371-372) If women indeed resisted conversion more vigorously than men, it may have been because freedom of conscience was one of the few liberties they could enjoy. “Je sçay bien que la Foy ne souffre point de Maistre…”, writes Jean de Sabatier, member of the Royal Academy of Arles, in an epistle to a new convert that is cited in the Mercure galant (January 1685, “A Mr d’Arbaud, sur son abjuration de l’hérésie”, 241). Of course, this statement seems ironic in light of the forced conversions of the period. Sylvie Cadier suggests that if Protestant women were less fearful than their male counterparts of retribution by the authorities (for example, financial penalties, or loss of social status), it was because they had even less to lose than the men. 4 It goes without saying that Louis’s 1686 edict (quoted above), mandating punishment for women who refuse to convert, does not constitute chivalrous treatment of ladies in distress. In its desire to take up the matter, the Mercure galant is faced with the fact that the repression of Calvinists and their forced conversion are anything but gallant themes. This is problematic for a publication that seeks primarily to entertain polite society and that wishes to appeal to the fair sex. The 1685 engraving, “La Religion prétendue réformée aux abois” (Fig. 1)—which, while it did not appear in the Mercure, is consistent with and evocative of the publication’s anti-Protestant propaganda—seems by juxtaposition to emphasize the contrast between the secular and the religious realms, the gallant or worldly and the sacred, in its presentation of familiar images of the ruelle, such as the one portrayed in the well-known 1633 engraving by Abraham Bosse, “La visite à l’accouchée” (Fig. 2). The propaganda poster may be seen as a re-working of Bosse’s illustration depicting a happy new mother surrounded by her friends. In this macabre adaptation, the Protestant religion (as we have seen, depicted as a woman) lies on its deathbed, attended by an ineffectual doctor, a dejectedlooking Calvin, and a mournful Theodore de Bèze, whose treatises are about to be burned. 4 “De même que la résistance huguenote et la reconstruction de l’Église du Désert fut d’une manière générale le fait du peuple, de tous ceux qui n’avaient rien ou moins à perdre, nobles et bourgeois se contentant dans le secret de leurs maisons du seul culte domestique, de même les femmes, qui au fond vivaient dans une société d’hommes où elles n’avaient pas véritablement leur place, semblent avoir été moins sensibles à la déchéance sociale et à la perte de leurs biens, et par là moins timorées que leurs époux face aux autorités, et à l’ordre établi” (Cadier 277- 278). Conversion Stories in the Mercure galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda 53 In the Mercure galant of the 1680s, there is a similar tension between the religious and the secular, as themes and images of religious conflict are made to coexist with descriptions of worldly pleasures and diversions, with the ruelle and the salon. For instance, an account of the pious good works of Mme la Duchesse de Meckelbourg in Châtillon-sur-Loing recalls the opulent fêtes galantes described at length elsewhere in the Mercure: “Elle a chassé l’hérésie d’un lieu qui fut le refuge des Prétendus Réformés… Sa maison estoit le lieu de la magnificence, et en mesme temps de l’assemblée des fideles. Elle a tenu table ouverte pendant deux mois, sa charité la faisant estre tout à tous” (January 1685, 217-218). One might say that the Mercure specializes in adapting difficult or technical subjects and making them more attractive for its readership. As the editor declares in the July 1684 issue, any material can be crafted into something beautiful by an inspired writer. One example is a sonnet published that month, an unusual piece designed to help readers of battle accounts retain fortifications terminology, the better to appreciate the battle prowess of the King’s armies. In a preamble to this sonnet, the editor explains the author’s intention (“que la douceur de la Poësie rendist les termes de Fortification plus aisez à retenir”), and he remarks, “Il n’y a point de matiere si sauvage, qui n’ait dequoy fournir des beautez aux Muses” (July 1684, 5-6). 5 Likewise, in his quest for innovative literary means of encouraging the Mercure’s readers or their Calvinist friends to convert, as in his cheerleading for Louis’s repressive anti-Protestant campaigns, editor-in-chief Donneau de Visé creates or promotes hybrid texts, crosses between salon literature and propaganda, many of which are centered on the character of the stubborn woman. The conversion of women holds special challenges, for the fair sex, it is implied, is less likely to appreciate or understand the livres de controverse where religious doctrine is discussed. Taking this belief into account, the Mercure galant furnishes alternative, supposedly female-friendly means of reaching the recalcitrant souls who were refusing to abandon their Protestant faith. For example, the Mercure published two madrigals in February 1686 to serve this purpose. The first is said to have accompanied a painting of the Flight into Egypt given by M. Vignier, a frequent Mercure 5 He presents the sonnet in these terms: “Si la quantité des termes de Guerre que vous avez trouvez dans [la relation] du Siege de Luxembourg, a pû vous causer quelque surprise, elle augmentera quand vous les verrez réduits en vers d’une maniere agréable. L’Ouvrage qui suit, vous fera voir qu’il n’y a point de matiere si sauvage, qui n’ait dequoy fournir des beautez aux Muses. Il est de Mr de Tinelis, Sr de Castelet, Professeur aux Mathématiques, en la citadelle de Valenciennes, qui l’a composé exprés, afin que la douceur de la Poësie rendist les termes de Fortification plus aisez à retenir” (July 1684, 5-6). Deborah Steinberger 54 contributor, to a Protestant lady considering fleeing France. Vignier writes to the lady, Voici les fugitifs que vous me demandez[.] Leur fuite n’est pas un mystère Qui puisse autoriser ce que vous voulez faire, Ni vous faire espérer ce que vous attendez. De sortir du royaume, Iris, perdez l’envie, Tous trois fuyaient la mort, et vous fuiriez la vie. (February 1686 I: 262) We are told that the lady, inspired by these verses, decided to remain in France and to become a Catholic, and that she in turn has used this madrigal to convince other Protestants to follow her example: “J’ai su que la dame ne parle plus de se retirer, et que donnant tous ses soins à se faire instruire, elle se sert de ce madrigal, pour engager ceux qu’elle voit encore dans l’aveuglement où elle estoit, à imiter son exemple” (February 1686 I: 263). The Mercure then cites a second madrigal dealing with religious matters, “qu’on a tourné d’une manière galante” : La France sous Louis, prend des faces nouvelles, Plus de schisme, plus de Calvin; Il n’est plus d’hérétique [sic] enfin, Mais il est bien encore, Iris, des infidèles. (February 1686 I: 263) While these madrigals cater to women’s presumed affinity for poetry, a nouvelle published in January 1686 addresses the feminine desire to find a suitable husband, suggesting that conversion may lead to marital bliss. In this story, the ten-year courtship of a Protestant woman by a Catholic man, a relationship that seemed to be stagnating, is reinvigorated and ends in marriage when the woman converts after the Revocation. The King himself signs their marriage contract: “Sa Majesté loua fort cette action, qui fut approuvée de toute la Cour.” The author adds a remark that seems geared to husband-hunters of the Protestant persuasion: “Ce changement de religion a déjà donné des maris à plusieurs filles, et apparemment il en donnera encore à beaucoup d’autres” (January 1686, 112). Another nouvelle that blends the marriage plot typical of the genre with religious polemic appeared in the pages of the Mercure the following month: the Histoire singulière de deux amants calvinistes (February 1686 II). As he announces the story’s imminent publication, the editor emphasizes its singularity, as well as its entertainment value: …le sujet en est si nouveau, qu’on peut dire qu’elle est l’unique de ce caractère qu’on ait encore veue. Elle regarde aussi la religion; et quoi que tout s’y passe avec la galanterie ordinaire entre les amants, la diversité de leur religion, fait que les points de controverse les plus délicats, y sont Conversion Stories in the Mercure galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda 55 traitez d’une maniere si claire et si débarrassée des grands et longs raisonnements des livres qui ne traitent que de cette seule matière, que ceux qui ne l’aiment point, et n’en lisent jamais y peuvent prendre plaisir. (Mercure galant February 1686 I: 316-317). In prefatory remarks he again praises the story’s educational value, and its accessibility: “on [y] voit beaucoup de choses concernant la religion, traitées d’une manière aisée et intelligible à tout le monde. Cette histoire peut être utile en divertissant, et rendre habiles en matière de religion ceux même qui ne se sont jamais appliqués à lire des livres de controverse” (Vincent, Anthologie 352-353). 6 The nouvelle is set in the days immediately following the demolition of the temple at Charenton, an influential center of Protestant worship. The characters appear to be composites, their story a fictional adaptation of a number of news items about the regime’s conversion campaign that appear elsewhere in the Mercure. 7 In the story, a Calvinist couple who had planned to marry at the Charenton temple faces a second obstacle when the young man, encouraged by his father’s example, decides to convert to Catholicism. The young woman refuses to follow his lead, and the rest of this long nouvelle—the longest that Donneau de Visé ever published in the Mercure (Vincent, Anthologie 352)—deals with the young man’s attempts to convince his beloved to leave the Protestant faith. His impassioned plea in favor of what he now knows to be the true religion is bolstered by a series of intercalated texts, including a posthumous missive by Charles II of England explaining the reasons for his own conversion. When, as in this nouvelle, resolute Protestant women are described in the Mercure, they are almost always shown resisting patriarchal power (their father’s or husband’s example). Their insubordination is depicted as a scandal almost as grave as their heresy. We have seen in the 1686 edict 6 Unless otherwise noted, all citations from this story are taken from Monique Vincent’s Anthologie des nouvelles du Mercure galant (1672-1710). I have only cited the original text when the passage in question is not quoted in the anthology (this is the case for some of the editor’s prefatory remarks). 7 For example, this account: “Je ne dois pas oublier de vous marquer une chose singulière touchant les conversions. Mr Mahais, Ministre de l’église d’Orléans, s’estant converti il y a déjà quelque temps, Mr de la Busière, son père, Ancien de Charenton, ne le voulut point voir, ni permettre même qu’il entrast chez luy. Ce père obstiné ayant esté relegué à Bourges depuis la révocation de l’Edit de Nantes, Mr Mahais, dont il ne pouvoit souffir la présence, l’est allé trouver, et luy a fait voir si clairement les erreurs de sa religion, qu’il l’a obligé d’y renoncer. On peut dire que rien n’est plus sincère qu’une pareille conversion, puis qu’elle se fait entre des gens qui sçavent à fond de quoy il s’agit” (Mercure galant January 1686, 249- 250). Deborah Steinberger 56 Louis’s harsh treatment of “les femmes des nouveaux Catholiques qui refus[ent] de suivre l’exemple de leurs maris”. Such challenges to patriarchy could not be tolerated. In the Histoire singulière, the young Calvinist woman’s Catholic male cousin condescendingly tells her, “On souffre [l’obstination des enfants] à cause de leur jeunesse, comme on souffre celle des femmes à cause de leur sexe” (Vincent, Anthologie 379). But, he warns, there can be no such indulgence in matters of religion. In a letter the young fiancé writes to his stubborn beloved (upon whom the narrator bestows the trivializing epithet “la belle obstinée”), he cites an argument by which “un homme, généralement reconnu pour un des plus beaux esprits de France, trouva moyen de vaincre l’obstination de sa femme, qui ne voulait pas suivre son exemple en se convertissant” (368-369). He hopes this line of argument will work for him, too. But la belle obstinée will not be swayed. Although, she concedes, “Il est naturel que je me rende aux clartés d’un frère, de mon père, de mon amant” (377-378), she glories in her “unnatural,” “miraculous” independence from male authority figures: […] puisque vous attendez de moi un miracle, j’en veux faire un plus grand que vous ne le demandez et qui sera sans doute estimé tel. Ce miracle est que je ne quitterai jamais ma religion, que je ne suivrai point les sentiments de mon frère, que je ne me rendrai point aux volontés de mon père... mon amant n’obtiendra rien lorsque, pour acquérir ma personne, il peut consentir à perdre mon âme. (378) She feels she has expressed her views cogently, even eloquently, but her cousin criticizes her debating style, which he ascribes to the entire sex: “Les femmes, n’étant pas ordinairement savantes, n’approfondissent jamais une matière et… elles en changent sitôt que la réplique les embarrasse” (380). When her cousin reads to her one of the intercalated persuasive letters, which in his view offers solid proof of Catholicism’s superiority, and he asks for her reaction, she replies that she has no comment, because, not wishing to be persuaded, she had decided from the outset not to listen to him: “Aussitôt que j’ai connu la matière qui était traitée dans cette lettre, j’ai songé à autre chose et ne vous ai point du tout écouté.” The cousin laughs, “Voilà… pousser l’obstination jusqu’où elle peut aller” (388). This exchange is emblematic of the Mercure’s lighthearted approach to weighty subject matter. The cousin is careful to mitigate his anti-feminist criticism with gallant comebacks: “Si [les femmes] ont peu accoutumé de raisonner, poursuivit-il avec un air un plus enjoué et plus galant, c’est parce qu’on a accoutumé de leur céder en toutes choses et que, pour se faire obéir, elles n’ont besoin que d’un coup d’œil” (379). Taking things a step further, one could say that this young man’s playful remarks camouflage the misogyny and repressiveness that some historians and critics associate with the Conversion Stories in the Mercure galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda 57 Counter-Reformation (Farr 392; Duggan 210). The cousin makes a laughing matter out of the woman’s quest for independence, belittling her pursuit of self-determination. He embodies the clash between the pro-woman, gallant tone of the Mercure and the misogynistic tendencies of the Counter-Reformation. Louis XIV is ultimately responsible for la belle obstinée’s change of heart. In the nouvelle’s final pages, the lady reflects on a conversation she had had with her cousin and her fiancé, not about religious precepts and doctrine, but about the King’s excellence. Improbably, the Calvinist had joined her Catholic interlocutors in lauding Louis’s “zèle pour le salut de ses sujets” and had gone even further, adding “beaucoup de louanges” of the monarch (383). Sensing an opportunity, her fiancé sends her a follow-up letter in which he cites the King as proof that Catholicism is the one true religion: Dieu l’aurait-il fait naître si parfait, lui aurait-il donné de si vives clartés et un discernement si juste? L’aurait-il rendu les délices du monde et se seraitil servi de lui pour exécuter tant de merveilles et imposer la paix à l’Europe entière? L’aurait-il enfin rendu le plus grand des hommes, s’il ne lui avait pas donné la véritable religion et s’il était vrai qu’il ne l’eut pas possédée? (Vincent 390) The letter provokes deep reflection on the part of the young woman. Her attachment to the false faith suddenly melts away: “Elle sentit tout à coup diminuer la grande fermeté qu’elle avoit pour la religion protestante” (391), and she concludes: “La [religion] catholique est celle d’un Roi, qui ne se peut tromper” (392). Simultaneously, she submits completely to patriarchal rule: “Je me rends à mon devoir, à la nature et à l’amour, puisque j’obéis à mon Roi et à mon père, et je fais ce que mon amant souhaite... Mon Roi me commande, mon père me presse, mon époux me prie, et tous trois ont droit d’agir avec moi en maîtres” (392). 8 How should this dénouement be interpreted? On the one hand, it represents a nod to the nouvelle galante, the genre that launched Donneau de Visé’s literary career and with which he was perhaps more comfortable with (and more adept at) than propaganda. It may in fact be seen as a hybrid of these two genres. The lady’s final “surrender” is assimilated to amorous conquest: she writes to her fiancé, announcing her decision to convert: “Il n’est pas honteux à une place de se rendre, lorsqu’elle a souffert plusieurs 8 It is tempting to compare this heroine’s sudden illumination with that of Pierre Corneille’s Émilie, who at the end of Cinna realizes her error, renounces her rebelliousness, and vows submission to the absolute monarch, Auguste: “…je me rends, Seigneur, à ces hautes bontés; / Je recouvre la vue auprès de leurs clartés; / …/ Le ciel a résolu votre grandeur supreme…” (V, 3, 1715-1721). Deborah Steinberger 58 assauts et qu’elle est forcée par des vainqueurs à qui l’on peut céder avec gloire” (392). Despite the fact that patriarchy triumphs in the Charenton tale, I also think that this ending constitutes a subtly gallant gesture on the part of the writer, a tip of the hat to the fair sex, for the keys to the lady’s conversion are contained within her own judicious, sensible discourse, that is, her praise of the King, and not ultimately imposed upon her by male authority figures. Still, the ending doesn’t make sense: how could a Protestant facing dispossession and exile praise the King’s handling of religious dissent? The story seems as incoherent as its heroine’s debate arguments are said to be. In light of its implausibility, one wonders whether this blend of gallant literature and religious polemic could be effective as propaganda. I think not, despite the Mercure’s testimonials to the success of its madrigals and stories in fostering conversions. I believe rather that this conversion story falls short as propaganda or persuasion, but evokes, announces, and in some ways functions as another genre that would be popularized in the pages of this periodical in the following decade: the fairy tale. La Belle au bois dormant, the famous story attributed to Charles Perrault, was first published in the Mercure in 1696. At first glance, the stories may seem very different from one another. The Charenton story is inspired by current events, and it cites historical figures (Louis XIV, Charles II); La Belle au bois, on the other hand, like most fairy tales, takes place in a non-specific time and place (it begins with the classic phrase, “Il était une fois…”). But the sudden conversion of the Mercure’s belle obstinée to Catholicism—after this “heureux changement” (393), her name changes in the final pages to la belle convertie—seems akin to Cinderella’s miraculous metamorphosis from a poor servant girl into an elegant princess, or to the Sleeping Beauty’s magical awakening after a century’s rest. Furthermore, the 1697 frontispiece of La Belle au bois dormant was to be a bedside scene (Fig. 3); as such, it forms an interesting triptych with the Bosse ruelle (Fig. 2) and our example of “pure” propaganda, the anti-Protestant engraving, La Religion prétendue réformée aux abois (Fig. 1). Unlike the anti-Protestant image (but like La visite à l’accouchée), the fairy tale frontispiece represents not death, but bright new beginnings. Like the Bosse engraving, it evokes the ruelle, a space that represents the conversation and sociability at the heart of the Mercure’s mission. The fairy tale frontispiece captures the ethic of gallant sociability so important in salon society: as the prince kneels by Sleeping Beauty’s bed after awakening her, their first priority is to engage in hours of pleasant conversation: “Enfin il y avait quatre heures qu’ils se parlaient, et ils ne s’étaient pas dit la moitié des choses qu’ils avaient à se dire” (Perrault 103). In sum, the Mercure’s Histoire singulière de deux amants calvinistes Conversion Stories in the Mercure galant’s Anti-Protestant Propaganda 59 conversion story resembles more closely the fairy tale than the morbid propaganda engraving: Louis XIV plays the role of the charming prince who awakens the “sleeping beauty,” la belle convertie; she in turn represents all the nouveaux catholiques that the King was guiding back into the fold. Here the harsh historical realities of religious discord, the dragonnades and forced labor, are replaced by peace, harmony, and rosy-colored royal encomium. The Mercure follows the official line (which in turn follows a sort of fairytale logic): the Edict of Nantes was revoked simply because it was no longer relevant, since all the Protestants were converting of their free will. Protestants no longer required special protections, because Protestantism had vanished. Louis’s benevolent paternalism “broke the spell,” and freed his benighted subjects, bewitched by Calvin, from their long sleep in the false religion. For these reasons, the Mercure declares France a “kingdom of miracles”: Toutes ces conversions, et surtout celles qui se sont faites à Saint Jean d’Angely, doivent passer pour un miracle, si l’on considère que l’hérésie de Calvin y avoit étably son siege d’une maniere si absolue, qu’il n’y avoit aucune apparence qu’il pust être renversé en si peu de temps. L’endurcissement des coeurs y faisoit prendre plutôt le parti de vivre sans religion, que de rentrer dans l’Eglise. Parler de conversion à ces obstinez, c’estoit les aigrir […]. Cependant voilà ces peuples convertis sous l’heureux Règne des Miracles, de leur bon gré, sans la moindre violence, et après des conférences publiques sur tous les points dont ils ont souhaité d’estre éclaircis. (December 1685, 229-230) Similarly, in June 1684, the Mercure called Louis “un Monarque dont le regne n’est remply que de miracles” (“Au lecteur”, n.p.), and in November 1685 the publication cites a letter from Grenoble, penned by an official named Mr Allard, who celebrates the fact that the country has been unified under the one true religion, thanks to “the greatest King on earth” and his “Reign of Miracles” (295-309). Allard foresees a happily-ever-after future for his country: “Ce fameux changement devoit arriver sous le règne du plus grand Monarque de la terre, sous un règne tout rempli de miracles, et dont l’histoire étonnera la postérité la plus éloignée” (November 1685, 301). In the end, it seems, the imperative (and probably the impact) of the Histoire singulière de deux amants calvinistes, like that of the religion-themed light verse the Mercure published during the period of the Revocation, is not to convert readers. The Mercure galant seems ill-suited to this task, which is so out of tune with its entertainment mission and its anchorage in the secular world of the salon. In his preface, the editor had after all promised his readers above all that they would find the Histoire singulière enjoyable and that they would get pleasure (“prendre plaisir”) from the piece. The aim