PFSCL XLIV, 87 (2017) Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves T HOMAS P. F INN (O HIO N ORTHERN U NIVERSITY ) If Marie Madeleine de Lafayette’s La Princesse de Clèves demonstrates anything about networks of individuals sharing information, it may be that René Descartes was mistaken. To paraphrase the philosopher: Ce sont peutêtre les médisances qui sont les choses du monde les mieux partagées. 1 While much research has revealed the important role of evolving individual selfawareness and of the mother/ daughter dyad on specific characters, 2 a group dynamics focus shows individual and collective fortunes depend on the power of those targeted by the intricately connected networks that traffic in personal information. Nearly all the novel’s characters take prurient pleasure sharing others’ embarrassing news, thus constructing a web of voyeurs who enjoy both consuming humiliating stories and broadcasting gossip. More than a pastime, 3 their actions are simultaneously and paradoxically both an essen- 1 René Descartes, Discours de la méthode. éd. Alain Chauve. Paris: Bordas, 1988. 2 Most recently, see Margo Brink, “«No es trágico fin, sin el más felice que se pudo dar». Renuncia y amor en la novelas de María de Zayas y Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette,” in Irene Albers y Uta Felten (ed.), Escenas de transgresión: María de Zayas en su contexto literario-cultural. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2009 pp. 225-39; François-Ronan Dubois, “Le Secret et la constitution de l'individu dans La Princessse de Clèves de Marie-Madeleine de Lafayette,” Résonances, II, 142 (2013), pp. 255-266; Mathieu Francis, “Mme de Lafayette et la condition humaine: Lecture pascalienne de La Princesse de Clèves.” Cahiers du dix-septième: An Interdisciplinary Journal, XII, 1 (2008), pp. 61-85; Russell Ganim, “Male Models: Galanterie and Libertinage in La Fayette and Laclos,” The French Review, LXXXV, 6 (May 2012), pp. 1124-34; Nelly Grossman Kupper, “A Woman’s Choice: Duty and Desire in La Princesse de Clèves.” Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, LV, 2 (Summer 2001), pp. 95-105. 3 The fact they have time to indulge in such a practice reassures the court nobility of its “social superiority” and indicates it operates “within an ethics of leisure and Thomas P. Finn 294 tial component of the intense bond felt by the individual members of these strong information networks 4 and a major reason why they ultimately disintegrate. Although specific members of each network (with the exception of those concerning the vidame’s letter) are rarely identified, we may assume they float easily even among competing factions, 5 given the streams of information that flow unimpeded throughout the court. Interestingly, it is the gossip’s expanse and the ability of its subject to take revenge, or the sensitivity of the subject to said gossip, that influence the networks’ longevity or their potential for havoc. These criteria matter more than the gossip’s sources (usually letters, private conversations, or witnessing/ eavesdropping on said conversations), means of transmission (often spoken, textual, or some combination thereof), and even their veracity. While both truth and fiction provoke destructive consequences, it is the combination of rumor’s range and its victim's clout or vulnerability that determines whether these networks can bring about severe harm. A close study of these channels shows they can stand as veritable solid court institutions or, given the right conditions, quickly collapse on themselves leaving devastation in their wake. Early in the novel, a relatively harmless network with an oral source and means of distribution reveals, with unusual accuracy, the initially unsuccessful attempts of Mme de Chartres to marry her daughter first to M. de Clèves and then to the Dauphin Prince. Clèves’s father stops the first proposed union while the Duchess de Valentinois, the king’s mistress and an enemy of Mlle de Chartres’s uncle, convinces the monarch to disapprove the second. 6 As with most gossip in the novel, Mme de Chartres’s private embarrassment transforms into public shame as her story finds an audience eager to hear and spread the news especially because it involves the social humililuxury,” Ralph Albanese Jr., “Aristocratic Ethos and Ideological codes in La Princesse de Clèves.” in Patrick Henry (ed.), An Inimitable Example: The Case for the Princesse de Clèves. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1992 p. 100. 4 Although Nicola Parsons’s (34) and Patricia Spacks’s (22) definitions of gossip at times converge, for the purposes of this article, the term corresponds better to Parson’s definition of “scandal,” that is, usually sensationalistic news “designed to discredit its subjects,..to fix its speculations to a particular individual or event” (36). Nicola Parsons, Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009; Patricia Meyer Spacks, Gossip. University of Chicago Press, 1986, pp. 44-45. 5 Marie Madeleine de Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, éd. Antoine Adam. Paris: Flammarion, 1966. 6 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, 46-50. Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves 295 ation that accompanies two ambitious and failed attempts to reach a higher status. 7 Where “L’ambition et la galanterie étaient l’âme de la cour,” and everyone “songeait à s’élever, à plaire, à servir ou à nuire,” 8 those who attain a higher station are greeted with envy while those who fail suffer derision and laughter. Largely because she holds no great power, Mme de Chartres can do little damage to the networks that broadcast her discomfiture, reinforcing their dominance over those of inadequate influence. The accuracy of the gossip has little or no impact on mother and daughter (they would be equally humiliated were it false) and its widespread distribution does little to affect its essential truth. Writing of Mme de Thémines’s letter to the vidame (to be discussed later), Joan DeJean reminds us of the role bits of news play in constructing a network whose participants usually misrepresent the message. Since “readers…transform themselves into academies, interpreting bodies thirsty for half-told tales and elliptical stories that they can complete,” 9 circulating information often distorts it as gossips add various interpretations of the source material 10 to entertain listeners or to enhance their own reputations. While Lafayette’s text is silent on the matter of any exaggerated details of the mother’s attempted matchmaking that would sensationalize the nature and failure of her endeavor, it is certainly plausible to assume Mme de Chartres and her daughter hear examples of such hyperbole. But in this instance, the networks prove to be largely reliable conduits of communication, transmitting the true gist of her failure among the various rival cabals while accentuating her inability to stem the flow of embarrassing information. A more typical network of spoken gossip takes on added importance not because of the accuracy of its story, but rather for what its transmitters unwittingly disclose about themselves. M. d’Anville tells M. de Clèves of an argument between the king and his mistress. Clèves repeats the story to Sancerre and later to the princess. The next day, the prince discovers his sister-in-law, thanks to the recently widowed Mme de Tournon, knows of the quarrel, and he concludes Sancerre must have already communicated it to Tournon, thus deducing their liaison. 11 7 The marriage of Mlle de Chartres to M. de Clèves comes about later only because Clèves’s father dies. 8 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves. 44-45. 9 Joan DeJean, “Lafayette’s Ellipses: The Privileges of Anonymity,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, XCIX, 5 (October 1984), p. 895. 10 Hélène Merlin, Public et littérature en France au XVII e siècle. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994. p. 324. 11 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 7 3 - 7 4 . Thomas P. Finn 296 This episode illustrates gossip’s weakness when its scope is restrained and its means of transmission and source are exclusively oral. While news of royal discord is potentially embarrassing to a man of great power, the king could easily disperse the network spreading the rumor. However, several factors obviate the need for such drastic action. Since so few know of the king’s disagreement with his paramour, his humiliation is minimized. In addition, the gossip’s source and its method of circulation remain exclusively oral, thus providing the king’s protectors a more reasonable chance to deny or attenuate the facts, a written account of the squabble being harder to refute. Finally, as we shall see, the network loses a knowledgeable member leading to its collapse and halting the news it was transmitting while spawning yet a new, small web of gossips. As M. de Clèves continues his story, we see again how smaller networks, even with textual sources - but still spoken means of transmission - maintain accuracy while circumscribing gossip’s damage. Only upon Tournon’s death does Sancerre learn she had been postponing and concealing from the public their marriage plans because she was in love with Estouteville. When the latter shows Sancerre love letters from Tournon far more passionate than anything Sancerre had received, Estouteville cries so bitterly at losing his fiancée that Sancerre withholds news of her duplicity. 12 This episode foreshadows that of the vidame de Chartres’s letter in that Sancerre’s anguish also stems from a textual source subsequently discussed only among Sancerre and the Clèves. However, the reduced number of readers (Estouteville sees only the letters written to him, while Sancerre reads those written to both) and discussants curbs the damage the story produces and better assures its accuracy - while limiting its completeness - if only because fewer people can embellish or falsify it. As Parsons observes, printed texts that omit crucial information, like Tournon’s letters to Estouteville that of course exclude any mention of her affections for Sancerre, invite readers to fill the vacuum with alternative ideas and meanings. 13 Whatever their motivations, as we shall see, more readers correlate to an increased probability of fabrications and exacerbated suffering. In this case, the hurt caused by the revelations is limited to Sancerre. Because gossip’s group dynamics are difficult to control once initiated, 14 the pain and damage would likely have metastasized had Estouteville or Tournon’s enemies learned of her deceit. 12 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 7 4 - 7 9 . 13 Admittedly, Parsons studies gossip in a different context (eighteenth-century England), but her thesis is applicable to Lafayette’s novel as well. Parsons, Reading Gossip in Early Eighteenth-Century England, pp. 34-35. 14 Spacks, Gossip, p. 6. Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves 297 Indeed, the reader does not have to imagine such a scenario, as a wellpublicized and embarrassing fraud perpetrated on the queen affords her the unique opportunity to disperse the court and recast its network. To appreciate the intricate connections spawned by Mme de Thémines’s message to the vidame, let us briefly retrace the path of this written source. The vidame, engaged in an affair with the queen, receives a letter from Thémines, the second of three ladies he is seeing, in which Thémines announces the end of their relationship. Falling from the vidame’s pocket, the letter is picked up by one of the queen’s “gentilhommes,” who passes it to Chastelart, who gives it to the reine dauphine, 15 who, curiously, without even perusing it, conveys it to Mme de Clèves. The princess reads it carefully and leaves it with Nemours. By this time, all who have read and/ or heard of the letter are talking about it. The queen, thus aware of the letter’s existence, believes it to be in the dauphine’s possession, and asks her for it. In turn, the dauphine asks Mme de Clèves to return the missive to her, but Mme de Clèves lies, saying she has already given it to her husband to read and that he has given the letter to Nemours. The dauphine then tells her to construct a false letter for the dauphine to give to the queen. The princess returns home to find Nemours has returned the original missive to the vidame who has passed it to Mme d’Amboise, Thémine’s chosen intermediary, who will presumably return it to its author. Mme de Clèves and Nemours decide to reconstitute the letter from memory and send the false letter to the dauphine who provides it to the queen. As Richard Hodgson has indicated, this episode is the center point of not only the novel but the main plot as well. 16 It is from this moment, when the network garners its greatest number of readers, that it begins to self-destruct along two distinct but related lines - the revenge of the queen and the selfdiscovery of the princess. Not deceived by the false letter, the potentate discovers the vidame’s infidelity. Her ensuing vengeance cuts a wide swath of damage while Mme de Clèves’s growing awareness of her own affections 15 Chastelart is a confidant of M. d’Anville and is happy to act as intermediary between d’Anville and the dauphine before Chastelart, himself, falls in love with her, Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 47. 16 Richard. Hodgson “Mise en abyme and the Narrative System of La Princesse de Clèves: Mme de Thémines’ Letter to the Vidame de Chartres,” dans Claude Abraham (ed.), Actes de Davis (1998) Madame de Lafayette, La Bruyère, La femme et le théâtre au pouvoir. Paris, Seattle, Tübingen: Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, “Biblio 17”, 1988, pp. 55-56. Thomas P. Finn 298 incites excruciating personal turmoil for her and Nemours, two key court figures and indirect victims of the widespread news of the vidame’s letter. Their eventual withdrawals from the network expedite its downfall. To understand the extent of the queen’s wrath, it is helpful to examine the nature of the dynamic web of readers interested in the vidame’s letter. Demonstrating the power of what is originally a private communication, as the missive becomes public knowledge, it builds a network of voyeurs and gossips whose delight in sensationalism will ultimately dismantle that same network. Yet, the participants eagerly join the crowd because they are as much enthralled with the activity as they are blind to its consequences. Spacks sees voyeurism and gossip as “private forms of power,” 17 so it is little wonder that a court thriving on ambition would exploit the opportunity to spread harmful rumors about one so influential as the queen, for those who do so diminish her power and exercise their own. The story of the vidame’s letter, however, has a logical hole: it is unrealistic to believe the dauphine, an enemy of the queen, would not read a letter whose publicized content could embarrass the monarch. 18 As gossip allows one to “take possession of others’ experience,” 19 the dauphine would certainly seize information granting her leverage over the queen. Given the dauphine believes the letter is addressed to Nemours and her “curiosité pour ce que regardait ce prince [et]…extrême impatience de savoir ce qu’il y avait dans la lettre,” 20 her choice not to immediately devour the missive is implausible. Yet, the device is necessary, for had the dauphine read the letter, she would have identified Nemours’s and the princess’s message as a poor substitute and would not have passed it to the queen. Therefore, a certain degree of blindness to the consequences of one’s actions or inactions seems necessary for the development of such a network that delights in transmitting scandal. Had Lafayette’s characters been able to foresee the ultimate historic consequences of reading the letter and conveying it to others, the network of gossips would have never reached its zenith. As Michael Paulson shows, after the deaths of Henry II and his son Francis, the queen, thoroughly embarrassed by the vidame’s letter, banishes much of the court, and many of those who followed the wrong faction lose 17 Spacks, Gossip, p. 11. 18 The narrator implies Mme de Chartres tells her daughter of the jealousy among the various cabals headed by different ladies of the court, including the dauphine’s group, populated by younger women seeking “la joie et la galanterie,” and the queen’s partisans “d’une vertu plus austère,” Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 44-45. 19 Spacks, Gossip, p. 11. 20 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 95, 97. Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves 299 “royal favor.” 21 So due to the dauphine’s illogical choice not to read the vidame’s letter, the missive continues its circulation, augmenting its various audiences and thereby setting the stage for a soon-to-be, all-powerful regent. Prior to attaining that status, however, the queen must overcome her doubt about the vidame’s fidelity and the influence of the king’s mistress. Even before the letter’s revelation, as he explains to Nemours, the vidame tries to assuage the queen’s suspicions with lies about his promiscuity: “Je la rassurai enfin à force de soins, de soumissions et de faux serments.” 22 Nonetheless, once the queen recognizes the contrived letter of the princess and Nemours as nothing more than a poorly attempted ruse, all doubt disappears. She forces the vidame to live in disgrace, and, believing falsely the dauphine and the vidame are lovers and have conspired against her, “[…] la persécuta jusqu’à ce qu’elle l’êut fait sortir de France.” 23 Thus, two vital members, along with all their servants, are stripped from the network of gossips. The dauphine loses her entourage and is eventually exiled, and the vidame, formerly occupying the center of a scandal, is reduced to a spectator of his own demise. 24 Yet, there is at least one other court cabal, led by the Duchess de Valentinois, that the queen cannot defeat on her own. Only the king’s death in a jousting accident affords her the opportunity to dismantle Valentinois’s partisans who had so recently reveled in the queen’s public embarrassment. The narrator informs us: […] la reine ordonna au connétable de demeurer aux Tournelles auprès du corps du feu roi. […] Cette commission l’éloignait de tout et lui ôtait la liberté d’agir […]. La duchesse de Valentinois fut chassée de la cour […] on […] éloigna [le prince de Condé] de la cour sous le prétexte de l’envoyer en Flandre signer la ratification de la paix. On […] inspira [au roi de Navarre] le dessein de s’en aller en Béarn. 25 Enfin, la cour changea entièrement de face. 26 The queen’s fury finally unleashed, she dismembers a huge part of the voyeur network, leaving it scattered and powerless. 21 Paulson, Michael C. “Gender, Politics and Power in Madame de La Fayette’s La Princesse de Clèves.” Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, XV, 28 (1988), pp. 62-64. 22 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 109. 23 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 118. 24 Hammond notes that, in a court of gossipers, performers and observers become “interchangeable, ” Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France 1610-1715, p. 121. 25 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 147-48. 26 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 147. Thomas P. Finn 300 Though essentially ended by the queen’s takeover, the gossip network (textual and oral) concerning the vidame’s letter further weakens the court by taking two additional casualties - Mme de Clèves and Nemours. The novel mentions no dispute between the queen and the princess, but since the latter is allied with the dauphine, the queen probably would have expelled Mme de Clèves. In any case, the circulation of the vidame’s letter generates another spate of gossip, exclusively verbal in its source and network, that is the true force behind the retreat of Mme de Clèves and of Nemours who follows her. Learning Thémines’s letter is for her uncle and not Nemours, as much of the court suspects, the princess discovers both her overwhelming passion for the duke and the knowledge he is aware she loves him. 27 Convinced she can no longer be maîtresse de soi at court the princess attempts to cut herself off from the network by retreating to Coulommiers where she confesses her love for another man to her husband. 28 News of the admission is eventually circulated verbally by the vidame, who names Nemours as the object of the woman’s affection, throughout another web of gossips 29 who undoubtedly add scandalous details. All of this not only drives a wedge of distrust between the princess and her husband, 30 but also traps Mme de Clèves in a network she is desperate to leave. Her lack of clout as well as her emotional vulnerability at hearing her own story repeated - even though she remains unidentified - leaves her powerless in this milieu. Described by Mitchell Greenberg as an “omnivoyeur” environment, the court is a closed world 31 where all observe and are observed while living under the constant threat that embarrassing news - akin to “(social) death” - may be revealed about anyone at anytime. 32 With no possibility of defending herself without confirming she is the wife who makes the confession, Mme de Clèves occupies the untenable position of being the “gossipee” and is thus excluded from a group she would love to 27 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 118-19. 28 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 122. 29 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 126, 131-33. 30 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 135-37. 31 Ralph Albanese, “Aristocratic Ethos and Ideological codes in La Princesse de Clèves,” puts it more dramatically: “anything outside the parameters of the court is relegated to nothingness,” p. 88. 32 Mitchell Greenberg, Subjectivity and Subjugation in Seventeenth-Century Drama and Prose: The Family Romance of French Classicism. Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 181, 201. Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves 301 quit but cannot completely abandon. 33 Unable to express herself freely, she must leave the court but remain at Coulommiers. 34 The princess’s retreat is especially noteworthy because it marks the beginning of her refusal to absorb, generate, and diffuse information and thus her rejection of what John Lyons calls her “special function” in the novel: “to listen to stories and interpret them” supposedly “to guide her actions and to predict those of others.” 35 Mme de Clèves is forced to deal with the virtually instantaneous transmutation of readers into a network of editors and publicists who do not hesitate to add their own twist to a story before relaying it. While she seemingly learns little from these tales, 36 critics disagree as to how extensively she participates in their collection and distribution. Although Nicholas Hammond sees the error in Ross Chambers’s assertion that the princess never gossips, Hammond may be overreaching to say “she actively participates in it”. 37 Although Mme de Chartres, on her deathbed, knows her daughter loves Nemours, 38 it is not because Mme de Clèves tells her. While she may gossip to her mother about others, the princess carefully avoids the topic of the duke. 39 Any news about her own feelings for Nemours are broadcast involuntarily and passively via instinctual somatic acts her body simply cannot mask. 40 Whatever her 33 Ross Chambers, “Gossip and the Novel: Knowing Narrative and Narrative Knowing in Balzac, Mme de Lafayette and Proust,” Australian Journal of French Studies, XXIII, 2 (1986), pp. 213-14. 34 Her predicament resembles those described in some seventeenth-century conversation manuals geared toward the young female pupils of Saint-Cyr that reminded their readers their conversations would be under constant surveillance. Similar manuals written for courtiers advised them to dissimulate for most of the day, then let their guard down by unmasking themselves only among “honnêtes gens,” Elizabeth Goldsmith, «Exclusive Conversations» The Art of Interaction in Seventeenth- Century France. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988, pp. 70, 23. The princess, of course, cannot afford this luxury. 35 John Lyons, “Reading La Princesse de Clèves with the Heptaméron,” in Faith Beasley and Katharine Ann Jensen (ed.), Approaches to Teaching Lafayette’s The Princess of Clèves. New York: MLA, 1998, pp. 160-61. 36 John D. Lyons, “Narrative, Interpretation and Paradox: La Princesse de Clèves,” Romanic Review, LXXII, 4 (1981), p. 387. 37 Nicholas Hammond, Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France 1610-1715. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2011, p. 122; Chambers, “Gossip and the Novel: Knowing Narrative and Narrative Knowing in Balzac, Mme de Lafayette and Proust,” p. 222. 38 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 67-68. 39 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 45. 40 Leah Chang, “Blushing and Legibility in La Princesse de Clèves.” Romance Studies, XXX, 1 (January 2012), pp. 15-16; Joan DeJean, “Lafayette’s Ellipses: The Privileges of Anonymity,” p. 889; Louise Horowitz, Love and Language: A Study of the Thomas P. Finn 302 involvement in the network of narratives, she is unable to dominate her passion and eventually withdraws from the court, unwilling to participate any further in the rumor networks. With one action, she hopes to end her roles as font, receiver/ interpreter, and rebroadcaster of gossip. Her exodus results in a crucial blockage of the free flow of scandalous hearsay, since the princess can be an unfailingly reliable transmitter of any rumor she encounters. Although Mme de Clèves’s plans for self-imposed exile are temporarily blocked by her husband’s refusal to allow her to exit the court, 41 she remains determined to shut down communication both at home and while in the royal entourage. The couple is “si occupés l’un de l’autre de leurs pensées qu’ils furent longtemps sans parler […].” 42 After the king’s death, the court heads to Reims for the coronation of the new king, allowing Mme de Clèves to retreat to Coulommiers, hosting Mme de Martigues for a few days. 43 The women are friends “sans néanmoins se confier leurs sentiments,” so Martigues learns only that the princess is “dans une solitude entière,” spending “les soirs dans les jardins sans être accompagnée de ses domestiques.” 44 The text also offers several instances to show Mme de Clèves is severing any connection with Nemours. She rebuffs him at court and refuses a visit from him at Coulommiers. 45 In their final conversation, after the princess says goodbye to him forever, “Elle sortit […] sans que M. de Nemours pût la retenir.” 46 As we have said, Mme de Clèves’s steadfast determination to seek seclusion not only robs the court of one key player in the circulation of gossip, but also claims another as the much talked-about Nemours disengages from the web of gossips in order to pursue the princess. Greenberg’s work shows we should not underestimate the severity of the loss the princess and Nemours represent. If the court gratifies it inhabitants by reflecting their image back to them, then Mme de Clèves and Nemours stand as two of the most crucial mirrors necessary to sustain the illusion that is the court. The networks that operate in this “space of exhibition” 47 Classical French Moralist Writers. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1977, pp. 58, 61. 41 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 127-28. 42 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 137. 43 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 148. 44 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 152-53. 45 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 129, 135. 46 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 176. 47 Greenberg, Subjectivity and Subjugation in Seventeenth-Century Drama and Prose: The Family Romance of French Classicism. p. 180. Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves 303 require all their participants to constantly reflect this sparkling spectacle in order to continually recreate themselves and the networks. Nemours’s starring role at the court is apparent as the narrator highlights its “deux rois de coeur,” 48 the vidame and Nemours, accentuating the latter’s good looks, important connections, and numerous “liaisons.” 49 After the adventure of the vidame’s letter, however, the narration shifts, emphasizing the story of Mme de Clève’s gradual drift from the court and how Nemours’s attempts to pursue her distract him from his usual “galanteries.” Embarking on what is essentially his stalking campaign, Nemours undergoes a metamorphosis, abandoning his triple role as actor, gossip, and voyeur and electing to play only the latter, passive role. Hearing Mme de Martigues’s description of the princess’s habits at Coulommiers, Nemours “pensa qu’il n’était impossible qu’il y pût voir Mme de Clèves sans être vu que d’elle.” 50 This leads to a well-known scene that conjures yet another network of onlookers and informants, fomenting more miscommunication. M. de Clèves’s spy observes Nemours in the Coulommiers garden, contemplating the princess whose gaze is fixed upon a portrait of Nemours. Interrupting his spy’s report, M. de Clèves jumps to the conclusion his wife has been unfaithful. 51 This intriguing situation with its multiple visual sources contrasts with that of the network of textual and verbal voyeurs, that is, the readers of the vidame’s letter, those who talk about it, and Mme de Clèves and Nemours who rewrite it. The textual and verbal network, despite generating the falsehood of Nemours as the letter’s addressee, eventually communicates to the queen the correct intended recipient and his betrayal of her, whereas this network transmitting a visual source produces the false impression of an unfaithful wife, provoking her husband’s subsequent sickness and death. It would seem Lafayette is reinforcing Mme de Chartres’s message to trust very little of what we see not only because appearances deceive, 52 but also because they obfuscate the internal damage to the court community. Networks dependent on the embarrassment of others supply transitory delights for some 53 while creating long-term deleterious effects for many. This “agitation sans désordre” 54 is an external illusion masking a court 48 Pierre Masson, “Le pouvoir des lettres: Sur un épisode de La Princesse de Clèves.” Littératures, XXXIV (1996), p. 35. 49 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 37-38. 50 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 153. 51 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 154-55, 160. 52 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 56. 53 Hammond, Gossip, Sexuality and Scandal in France 1610-1715. p. 137. 54 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 45. Thomas P. Finn 304 rotting away at its core. Networks of individuals who prize “la grandeur, la magnifience et les plaisirs” as Lafayette describes the queen at the twilight of Henry II’s reign, 55 rely too heavily on the mercurial fortunes of leaders and quickly switch their allegiances according to who is up and who is down at any given moment. It is akin to a collective suffering from attention deficit disorder, ready to jump at the next distraction, thereby undermining the ostensibly solid and predictable social structure of gossiping networks. After M. de Clèves’s death, Nemours’s distraction - his continual pursuit of the princess - only intensifies, diminishing the duke’s usual gregarious court activities while infringing on the princess’s seclusion. The princess soon discovers Nemours observing her from a room in a silk merchant’s shop, following her on walks, and gazing at her in the mornings from her garden. 56 She knows the duke is a tempting link back to the court from which she is trying to extricate herself, but she is nonetheless unwilling to relinquish her erotic desire for him. Nancy Miller sees this as a rescripting of possession 57 that is only possible through daydreams like the one during which the princess winds ribbons of the duke’s colors around an Indian cane as she contemplates his portrait all the while observed by Nemours. 58 Only too aware that she will never be with Nemours in a life-long, monogamous union, she consoles herself by occasionally indulging in rêveries that actually keep her sexuality alive while simultaneously maintaining Nemours’s interest as long as he is aware she harbors such desires. Indeed he goes to great lengths to bring her back to the court (discussed later) precisely because he believes her passion for him might weaken her resolve to live disconnected from the rumor mill of the court - a source of unbearable anxiety that precipitates the princess’s retreat to Coulommiers in the first place. Recognizing that “love as she imagines it is not realizable” in the present environment, Mme de Clèves must come to terms with the fact that, for women, “a world outside of love proves to be out of the world altogether.” 59 It is the price she will pay in order to enact fully what Harriet Stone terms Mme de Clèves’s move “away from narrative and the public domain” via “a non-discursive event.” 60 In the end, to escape gossip’s web, 55 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 35. 56 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 166-68. 57 Miller, Nancy. “Emphasis Added: Plots and Plausibilities in Women’s Fiction,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, XCVI, 1 (January 1981), p. 42. 58 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves. pp. 154-55. 59 Miller, “Emphasis Added: Plots and Plausibilities in Women’s Fiction,” pp. 42, 47. 60 Harriet Stone, “Exemplary Teaching in La Princesse de Clèves.” The French Review, LXII, 2 (December 1988), p. 154. Creation and Destruction of Voyeur Networks in La Princesse de Clèves 305 she must abandon even Coulommiers for her private estate in southern France. Barely able to conceal his feelings for Mme de Clèves while she still lives at Coulommiers, 61 Nemours becomes virtually crippled by her move to the Pyrenees. That there is very little information on court activities during this time is testament to its paralysis upon losing one of its most interesting characters. His diminished influence is apparent near the end of the novel; it tells of his writing, in vain, to the vidame and even to the queen to enlist their help in bringing the princess back to Paris. 62 The networks of Henry II’s court do not so much collapse as they are replaced because one of them possesses the elements necessary to remake them all. Although Lafayette’s text allows the reader only a glimpse of the new webs of gossip rewoven and installed by the queen that will displace the old, 63 it is clear how the latter dismantle themselves, rendering them vulnerable to substitution. The gossips spreading news of the vidame’s infidelity have a written source, target a potentially powerful individual, and publicize her humiliation. Indeed, it is gossip’s range and the power of its target to retaliate, rather than its truth or falsehood, which dictate its impact. While the princess truly loves Nemours, the queen’s belief in an affair between Nemours and the dauphine is patently false. Yet, facts matter little, as both reality and fiction contribute to the banishment of a good portion of the court network, the exile of a woman who provided a source of gossip and facilitated its transmission, and the figurative execution of one of its “rois de coeur.” 64 Louise Horowitz’s description of the situation is most helpful. She observes that love, in Lafayette’s world, far from the “précieux code” that places love’s genesis in “mutual understanding and admiration,” is more akin to a volatile and unpredictable force, independent of any attempts to restrain it. A tinderbox of “passion” waiting to be set off, love resists reason’s boundaries and simply reacts viscerally and violently to betrayal. 65 Thus the gossip networks of the court resemble a cache of combustible accelerants needing only a spark, the king’s death, to ignite them. The resulting explosion leaves the court with little more than “exemples […] inimitables.” 66 61 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 176. 62 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, p. 179. 63 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves, pp. 147-48. 64 Masson, “Le pouvoir des lettres: Sur un épisode de La Princesse de Clèves,” p. 35. 65 Horowitz, Love and Language: A Study of the Classical French Moralist Writers, 1977, p. 52. 66 Lafayette, La Princesse de Clèves. p. 180. Thomas P. 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