Marrying a stranger:
configurations of a transcultural rendez-vous
On Leprince de Beaumont’s La nouvelle Clarice
Since the publication of Josephine Grieder’s monograph Anglomania in France in 1985[1], researchers have gained a more accurate insight in the field of 18th-century cultural (and literary) relations between France and England. Yet, Grieder’s book is mostly a general overview of the socio-cultural, literary and political aspects of this phenomenon, seeking to insert the individual features of the various sources in an evolutionary narration on national identity and stereotypes. As far as the novel is concerned, for instance, she argues that, by the last decades of the 18th century, and in spite of the national aspect of sentimental fiction, “the lesson taught by the novelists regarding national rivalry is […]: genuine acquaintance with the other will produce understanding, perhaps even admiration – and will thereby nullify prejudices”[2] . As probable as it may seem that, after several decades of contact – and rivalry – with the English Other, French novelists try to carry out a more accurate, less stereotypical image, not only regarding the culturally different other, but also on themselves, in depth-analyses indicate a more heterogeneous functioning of late-18th century prose fiction.
Still, within the wide range of sentimental prose fiction by, from and on the English, some types of discourse (or one could say genres) allegedly give way to particular topoï, which carry out, at least potentially, a platform for a more profound intercultural debate. In this article we will focus on a type of novel which presented itself as histoire anglaise, that is to say, quoting Grieder, “imitation [of] English fiction from avowedly French pens”[3]. Although written in French, by an (acknowledged) French author, these novels were set in England and adopted a particularly English point of view. Also, being published mostly in the last decades of the century, and thus taking part in a more mature stage of Anglomania, one could presume, following Grieder’s reasoning, that they promoted a more layered representation of national character.
However, as we will try to illustrate in the following, instead of being an occurring phenomenon, it is only in the hands of a few authors that the potential of mutual genuine appreciation, which lies in some topoï inherent to these novels, is actualized.
One of the topoï, which can function as a symbolic mise en scène of a more benevolent and profound contact between two nations, is that of marriage. Being in itself one of the fundamental péripéties on which sentimental fiction of that time was based, the love and (eventual) marriage between two protagonists can be turned into a socio-cultural argument when these stem from different nations. Then, the sentimental, private union between characters signifies, on a more public level, the blending of two different cultures, in acceptance of each other. One could also argue that, in many novels, the success (or failure) of this sentimental union depends on (or at least symbolizes) the characters’ (or the author’s) (in)ability to overcome their (his) own culturally restrained nature. In other words, even if, in several histoires anglaises, the marriage-topos carries a socio-cultural connotation implying both French and English national character, it does not always lead to a reassessment of cultural stereotypes.
In order to illustrate the different workings of the topos we will consequently compare the implications of a transcultural love story in two histoires anglaises, Le danger d’aimer un étranger, ou histoire de Mylady Chester et d’un duc Français written by Witart de Bezu in 1783 [4] and La nouvelle Clarice (1767) [5] by the hand of Mme Leprince de Beaumont. More particularly, it is the specificity of La nouvelle Clarice, underscored by the confrontation with Witart de Bezu’s novel, which will be examined.
The resemblance between the novels goes beyond the English setting and sentimental storyline; indeed, both authors set up a particularly enterprising and critical female protagonist, be it in a different way. In Witart de Bezu’s novel, Mylady Chester is depicted as an independent young widow who is determined against marriage, since she fears to lose her autonomy. She explicitly represents her relationship to her admirers, and to men in general, in terms of “domination”:
Il est amoureux, je ne suis point; et, malgré le penchant qu’ont tous les hommes à la domination, il faudra qu’il obéisse, au moins tant que j’aurai le pouvoir en main[,] » (86) so she states concerning one of her admirers.
Yet, when she eventually falls in love with a Frenchman, le duc de Durcé, she is rapidly worn down by anxiety about her lover’s faithfulness. These doubts are, at several times, explicitly put down to the duke’s Frenchness. Being raised with the idea that behind their irresistible charms, all Frenchmen hide an essentially unreliable and erratic nature, Mylady Chester finds it difficult to put faith in Durcé’s promises [6]. The duke’s nationality, with all the stereotypes it implies, is also the reason why lady Chester’s relatives reject the idea of an intercultural marriage. During the whole novel, the discourse on national character is set in terms of insuperable – and depreciative – otherness, still based on the stereotypical opposition between French légèreté and English sérieux. Therefore, a marriage between the two cultures, in both a literal and figurative sense, is strongly proscribed [7]. Finally, Durcé confirms the cultural clichés by putting into question his proposal after he has raped Mylady Chester and fled to France. When Lady Chester dies at the end of the novel, the independent woman she used to be, has been - emotionally - destroyed by her love for the duke and - socially – abandoned and disoriented.
After decades of contact between two people, in this novel, cultural differences are still represented as being insurmountable; the same clichés on national character are explicitly repeated. Therefore, instead of becoming a symbol for rapprochement, intercultural love and marriage seem to represent rather the destructiveness, if not the impossibility of it.
It is while taking into account these observations, which are not restricted to Witart de Bézu’s novel, that Le Prince de Beaumont’s – radically different - approach of the topos finds its relevance. Like the rest of the authoress’ oeuvre, La nouvelle Clarice has an explicitly moralistic and didactic character and pleads in favour of the feminist cause. While Clarice’s father plays the one-dimensional role of an egoistic tyrant, women undoubtedly play the better part [8]. And although Clarice seems somewhat naïve and idealistic, several passages of the novel illustrate how, contrary to contemporary conventions, she takes hold of the situation. This sense of initiative also sprouts up when, after having fled from her father, she meets a stranger in the wood. After having overcome her first reaction of terror, it is Clarice herself who wants to be informed about the stranger’s origins and religion – he is French and catholic – before she decides to trust him.
Like lady Chester, Clarice – and her French rescuer – reveal to be bilingual, which immediately creates some kind of mutual understanding, despite the difference of national identity. Also like the heroine of Witart de Bezu’s novel, Clarice is attracted by the othernes of the Baron de Lastic, which, as she later discovers, is the stranger’s real identity. While lady Chester falls for the duke’s charming and refined nature, which distinguishes him from English admirers, Clarice is seduced by the Baronet’s politeness and gentile approach, which contrasts with her father’s rude and violent behaviour. These qualities are also immediately linked to the Baronet’s French origins.
Yet, that is as far as the resemblance between both novels goes. Indeed, while lady Chester shows her weakness by falling for some charming stranger, Clarice sees a marriage with the Baronet, whom she sincerely loves, as an opportunity to take her own fate in hand. Instead of becoming weaker, she grows stronger. It is even Clarice herself who, after a long time of consideration and emotional struggle [9], “proposes” to the Baronet.
Clarice’s love for and marriage with the Baronet is to her a means of self-emancipation. Not only, it gives her, literally, the chance to escape from her father’s domination and to start a whole new life in France [10]. Likewise, this union reveals to be emancipating in a more ideological sense. Indeed, after crossing over to France, she is welcomed by a whole new family – that of her husband – and thereby immersed in a different culture, a nouvelle patrie (I, p. 327) without therefore putting aside her own nationality [11].
Although in La nouvelle Clarice too, intercultural discourse is one of difference, this is no longer insuperable and even has a constructive, emancipative character. While in Witart de Bézu’s novel, Durcé was feared and criticized for his – typically – French légèreté, in La nouvelle Clarice, the Baronet’s Frenchness stands in the first place for an explicitly positively connotated politeness and civility which remain quintessential throughout the novel. In general, stigmatizing stereotypes are put into perspective by both French and English characters and cultural assets are highlighted. Moreover, it is in La nouvelle Clarice that the relevance of the intercultural marriage between the heroine and her Baronet surpasses the purely emotional level of a love-story; instead, it’s intercultural aspect becomes functional, by the fact that the marriage makes it possible for Clarice – first – to cross borders and – second – to use her own cultural background to contribute to French society. This blending of the sentimental and the national discourse is already underscored at the very beginning of the marriage, since the two lovers do not consume it before their union is recognized in both countries [12].
Thus, when Clarice finds out that her mother-in-law has founded a community where several poor families live together peacefully by the work of their hands, she not only joins them, but also takes the initiative to expand the project at a national level. For that purpose, she works out a plan to inject the typically English interest in agriculture and trade in French society:
La France deviendrait le trésor, le magasin, le grenier de l’Europe ; on n’y trouveroit pas un pouce de terre sans culture ; […] l’aisance prendroit la place d’une pauvreté toujours affreuse quand elle est la suite de la paresse ; en un mot, nous deviendrions la première nation de l’Univers. [13]
Here also, Clarice is represented as an independent woman, who not only feels liberated by her marriage, but plays an active part in her own life and that of her new compatriots. While being charmed by the French people, she tries, in her turn, to emancipate them by importing some of the English mores and manners she knows so well:
Elle les [French people] surprit encore davantage en leur apprenant qu’en Angleterre on faisoit cas d’un homme pour ce qu’il faisoit; que le fils d’un Lord, d’un Ministre d’Etat n’étoit point déshonoré, en entrant dans le commerce. [14]
Of course, one could say that in Leprince de Beaumont’s case, the open mindedness towards English culture that shows through her novel justifies itself by her direct contact with it during her stay in England as a governess [15]. On the other hand, one cannot but observe that while several histoires anglaises simply aim at partaking in the success of Anglomania by endlessly using the same stereotypes as a familiar cultural background, Le Prince de Beaumont’s work clearly belongs to a different, more reflective than factual way of novel writing. And although – so it seems [16] – paradoxically interpreted by a virtuous, highly religious protagonist [17], one of the main values carried out by this discursive novel is that of emancipation. Be it at of a sexual, social or ideological nature.
Beatrijs Vanacker (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)
September 2007
Notes:
1 See Josephine Grieder, Anglomania in France 1740-1789: fact, fiction, and political discourse, Droz, Genève-Paris, 1985.
2 Ibid., p. 98.
3 Ibid., p. 74.
4 Witart de Bezu, 1783, Le danger d’aimer un étranger, ou histoire de Mylady Chester et d’un duc Français, 4 tomes, Londres, Thomas Hookham ; Paris, veuve Duchesne.
5 Mme Leprince de Beaumont, 1767, La nouvelle Clarice, histoire véritable, Lyon - Pierre Buyset - Ponthus, Paris - Desaint.
6 “Si la légèreté, l’inconstance, si naturelle à la Nation du Duc…! Ah ! ma chère ; dans quelle abyme votre amie se serait-elle précipitée ? […] N’est-il pas en France quelque caractère sûr, sensé, estimable… ? Etrange et charmante nation, avec tant d’amabilité, presque rien de solide ; s’il en faut croire, au moins, ceux de nous les plus éclairés qui croient la connaître le mieux. […] Je ne sais, ma chère, si je m’en fais une idée bien juste ; mais il me semble qu’avec cette mobilité, on ne peut avoir ni principes sûrs, ni sensibilité profonde ; […] il doit tout sacrifier à l’inquiétude de ses goûts, immoler aujourd’hui ce qui le charmoit hier, outrager l’amour, l’amitié & peut-être la nature ; quel sentiment peut donc inspirer un être de cette espèce ? » 64-67.
7 This critique is already put forward in the author’s preface: “Les risques auxquels s’expose une jeune personne qui s’attache à un Etranger, sont encore plus effrayans : elle peut en être trompée, abandonnée avant le mariage ; négligée, trahie, après une union dont le Mari ne tarde pas à se repentir, lorsqu’il emmène sa femme dans un pays, où elle se trouve isolée, sans Parentes qui la soutiennent, sans Amies qui la consolent, gauche aux usages, etc. » (no page-indication).
8 Even Cosby, the (former) mistress of Clarice’s father shows repentance by revealing in a letter the complot set up against Clarice.
9 See for instance the following quotations : “Je ne suis pas d’un âge à disposer de ma main sans l’aveu de mon père. Mais hélas ! puis-je me flatter d’en avoir un ? N’a-t-il pas vendu depuis bien des années, le droit que la nature lui avoit donné sur moi » (p. 211). In spite of her doubts, the decision she makes is sensible and well-considered : « Il falloit me résoudre à quitter mon asyle, à fuir au milieu de la nuit, sous la garde du Baron. […] Mais, étois-je bien sûre qu’un homme de qualité consentît à lier son sort à une fille accusée […]. Cette réflexion m’arrêta quelques-instants ; forcée d’offrir ma main, aurois-je le courage de supporter un refus, sans mourir ? Il falloit pourtant se déterminer » (p.223).
10 We mention that in Lady Chester’s case, on the contrary, the voyage to France gives way to a tragic ending.
11 This transnational attitude is expressed very eloquently by Clarice’s best friend and main correspondent, lady Hariote, who also resides in France: “Qu’on s’en prenne, si l’on veut, aux influences du climat, l’air qu’on y respire et affectionne, & déjà je me sens Françoise, sans oublier pourtant mon ancienne Patrie. Ah ! je le sens aux mouvements de mon cœur, je suis citoyenne de l’Univers, & tous les hommes, quels qu’ils soient, sont mes frères. Ne sommes-nous pas tous enfants du même père ? » (II, p. 195).
12 See Clarice’s explanations: “Quoiqu’il ne manque rien d’essentiel à notre union, M. Beker m’a fait entendre qu’il faudroit y suppléer quelques formalités en France, dont la plus essentielle est, selon moi, votre consentement [that of her mother, BV]: je n’ai pu me regarder comme véritablement mariée, jusqu’à ce que ces formalités fussent remplies, & il a consenti de vivre avec moi d’une manière conséquence à cette opinion » (I ; p. 319).
13 Le Prince de Beaumont, La nouvelle Clarice, partie II, p. 181, italics are mine.
14 Ibid., partie II, p. 239.
15 For more information on the authoress’ stay in London see a.o. « Avant-propos », Jeanne Marie Le Prince de Beaumont: contes et autres écrits, éd. présentée par Barbara Kaltz, Oxford, Voltaire foundation, 2000, p. 9-11.
16 See Barbara Kaltz: “A la vérité, l’oeuvre toute entière de Mme de Beaumont reflète un dilemme: comment accorder ses aspirations féministes – […] – et sa foi, inébranlable, qui exigeait l’acceptation inconditionnelle de la doctrine de l’Eglise sur l’infériorité de la femme ? Cette tension entre ses vues sur la femme et son adhésion totale à la doctrine catholique est présente tout au long de sa vie » (ibid., p. 6).
17 Although the discourse on religion is also predominant in this novel, by lack of time, we have chosen to focus on the – less studied – intercultural debate.
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