“Allow me to reappear now and then in your memory like an old song we never truly erase from our mind."

The Princess de Montpensier REVIEW

What you learn from Madam de Lafayette’s novella, The Princess of Montpensier is that 355 years ago (when Mme de Lafayette was writing this novel) people’s romantic lives could be as complicated as they are today, though for different reasons. It would appear that neither our ancestors nor we have figured out how to create a social environment where romantic pairs can thrive easily.

The main character of this novel is a young woman who is promised to a young nobleman from the household of the Duc de Guise. Alas, she has a crush on his younger brother. Double alas, her father, for the sake of some properties, agrees to marry her off to the son of a rival family (There is a concern that if she is married to the older brother who she is betrothed to, she will just have an affair with the younger anyway). Her newly arranged husband seems like a willing enough partner but is called off to war almost immediately after the wedding (Protestants v. Catholics) so she barely knows who he is. They never get time to develop something one might call “mutual trust and affection). Mmme de Lafayette throws in a “triple alas” at this point by introducing us to a third gentleman, the dignified and principled Comte de Chabannes, who is delegated the task of educating her and preparing her for the French court in her husband’s absence. The lovely, charming, and precocious Marie (the name given to the Mme Montpesier in the film version of the novel) must then call upon her heart to sort out this romantic train-wreck even while a fourth suitor appears in the person of the powerful and suave Duke of Anjou, brother of the French king and son of the equally powerful Queen Catherine.

Will Marie’s heart settle on the person that her superiors have arranged for her and who she is obligated by the church to “love, honor, and cherish? Will her heart fling itself off a cliff such that she follows her old teenage heartthrob who still carries a burning torch for her? Will she fall for the morally principled and intelligent Compte de Chabannes who she has the most actual respect for and who is probably the most dependable and responsible of them all? Or, is it possible that she will have her eyes bedazzled by the powerful and wealthy Duke of Anjou who comes with an entire court and a life of excitement in Paris?

Marie reminds me somewhat of the mesmerizing Bathsheba Everdeen in Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Maddening Crowd. In Hardy’s novel, Bathsheba is the focus of multiple male attentions, Mr. Boldwood (the boring but smitten landowner), Frank Troy (the dashing, mercurial, and rakish soldier), and Gabriel Oak (the-status deprived but morally solid ranch hand). One would almost think that Hardy ripped of Mme Lafayette’s plot!

The Princess of Montpensier concludes with a moralization reminding the reader of the dangers of leaving the path of tradition. The author’s official position is that once society has put you in a place (like marriage), you should just follow out the trajectory it has put you in. But in the course of the novel, Mme Lafayette lets you hear plenty of debate that might lead you to conclude otherwise. Take this conversation between Marie and her “professor” the Comte de Chabannes as it unfolds in the film version of the novel:

Marie: Do you believe [the stars] influence our fate?
Chabannes: I have no certainty either way.
Marie: - But when you're at Court...
Chabannes: - Me?
Marie: You really believe it?
Chabannes: Don't forget Queen Catherine, her son the King and the Court believe in the influence of the stars. At least don't fight it. Let them talk. Listen. At Court, everyone imitates. So imitate.
Marie: But what do you think?
Chabannes: Me? I believe, like many great minds who sought to understand the heavenly, and thus divine mechanics, that the stars give us a wonderful example by which to govern society. Bound to immutable paths that obey the universal hierarchy of the weak kept in the orbit of the powerful, they teach us...
Marie: Resignation?
Chabannes: Not resignation. Simple obedience to the laws of equilibrium and modesty without which terrible collisions would occur, causing terrible calamities.
Marie: Terrible calamities...

Despite his conviction, his own heart veers off its course as he comes to appreciate her mind and personal qualities (as well as beauty) and eventually confesses his affection for her.   

“I thought age had released me from the grip of passion,” he says,

Marie: - Are you saying...
Chabannes: - Yes, Madame. I love you.
Marie: You quickly forget your own teachings. Isn't the world's equilibrium assured by small stars which keep their place in the celestial hierarchy? Your words are forgotten. They must have been due to the fatigue of reading and study.

No doubt, this conversation is being driven by the influence of Sun King himself (Louis XIV) and his assertion that God establishes the orbits of the lesser and greater planets of the social order and that peace and order depend on everyone playing the part they were born into (always a great argument if you find yourself born well). It appears that Mme Montpensier does her best to follow this sage advice. But, she is, after all human. And it is difficult for her not to respond to the man who seems to love her most fiercely (and not necessarily most consistently), the Duc de Guise. ”I tried to obliterate you,” she tells her old flame when he reappears into her life some years after they were forced to part, “I thought I had.”

In the novel, her truest love is probably the wise but smitten Chabannes, for he it is that sacrifices for her the most. In trying to help her make her marriage work, in eventually saving her from her irrationally jealous husband, and in making it possible for her to reconnect with her former lover, he demonstrates the greatest capacity for selflessness. The end result of his sacrifice is banishment and from that banishment he writes,

“Allow me to reappear now and then in your memory like an old song we never truly erase from our mind. … you will always have the perfect friendship of Franois,Count of Chabannes.” 

Here is how Mme de Lafayette describes Chabannes character in the novel:  

“He fell deeply in love with the Princess, in spite of the shame he felt at allowing himself to be overcome by this illicit passion. However although not master of his heart, he was master of his actions; the change in his emotions did not show at all in his behaviour, and no none suspected him. He took, for a whole year, scrupulous care to hide his feelings from the Princess and believed that he would always be able to do so.

Love, however, had the same effect on him as it does on everyone, he longed to speak of it, and after all the struggles which are usually made on such occasions, he dared to tell her of his devotion. He had been prepared to weather the storm of reproach which this might arouse, but he was greeted with a calm and a coolness which was a thousand times worse than the outburst which he had expected. She did not take the trouble to be angry. She pointed out in a few words the difference in their rank and ages, she reminded him of what she had previously said about her attitude to suitors and above all to the duty he owed to the confidence and friendship of the Prince her husband. The Comte was overwhelmed by shame and distress. She tried to console him by assuring him that she would forget entirely what he had just said to her and would always look on him as her best friend; assurances which were small consolation to the Comte as one might imagine. He felt the disdain which was implicit in all that the Princess had said, and seeing her the next day with her customary untroubled looks redoubled his misery.”

From then on in the novel, the Compte de Chabanne does everything he can to support Marie’s desire to make her marriage work.  

“The Comte's devotion led him to think of nothing but what would increase the happiness and well-being of the Princess and to forget without difficulty the interest which lovers usually have in stirring up trouble between the objects of their affection and their marital partners.”

I won’t ruin the ending for you. The way the novel ends and the way the movie ends are not the same. Neither of them will make a Disney movie.  

Question for Comment: When will we wise up and (start or stop) listening to our hearts?

Comments

[Skyler Crossman]

The problem is not listening to our hearts, but acting on what we hear. I've come to take my emotions as inputs, signals regarding what I want; I then let my mind figure out how to achieve those desires. This seems to work well for me, though others may find they have more inconsistent hearts than I.