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COPYRIGHT 2002 Modern Humanities Research Association
There is no doubt that libertinage found in Jean-Jacques Rousseau its most biased observer, most fascinated critic and most ambivalent reader. It is this ambivalence that emerges from his description of Parisian life, in Julie ou La Nouvelle Heloise (1761): (1) 'Paris est plein d'aventuriers et de celibataires qui passent leur vie a courir de maison en maison; et les hommes semblent, comme les espaces, se multiplier par la circulation' (NH, p. 248). Like a consummate naturalist who has found there his most significant flora and fauna, Rousseau gives a picture of the dissoluteness of the city: 'La galanterie et les soins valent mieux que l'amour aupras [des femmes], et pourvu qu'il soit assidu, peu leur importe qu'on soit passionne. Les mots meme d'amour et d'amant sont bannis de l'intime societe des deux sexes, et relegues avec ceux de chaine et de flamme dans les romans qu'on ne lit plus' (NH, p. 248). His plan is clear: it will be a matter of rewriting these outmoded words by giving a new formulation to the outdated practices to which they refer. It is therefore against the book that assembles 'de jolis entretiens et de jolies lettres' (NH, p. 249) that the epistolary novel of Julie will be written, and against the 'liaison de galanterie' that the love relationship will be depicted. The love story thus reclaims its rights from the erotic tale: the lover, chain and flame are honoured once more.
The rearrangement and reformulation of the expressions of love will inevitably be accompanied by a renewal also of its means of expression. If Rousseau thus enters into rivalry with writings of the time, 'agreables si l'on veut, mais petits et froids', it is in order to take its place where it receives most attention: 'a leur tour ses oeuvres s'adressent aux femmes, mais si passionnement'. (2) These women, assiduous night-time readers, weep and wail over La Nouvelle Heloise. Thus one finds Mme de Francueil, receiving the author in her house, 'en robe de satin bleu et argent, aux longs cheveux deroules, poudres a blanc' (NH, p. xxiv), (3) and bursting into tears before him, while he, highly embarrassed, is at a loss to know what to say. Does not keeping women in bed with this book in their hand amount to so many petits-maitres dismissed, sent away by the true lover to the slight volume of their work? If women see Saint-Preux as the model of a sincere and passionate lover, men, on their side, come to identify with him: 'Gauffecourt ne peut lire que quelques pages de suite, tant il est emu. Roguin, a force de larmes, a gueri un gros rhume qu'il avait' (NH, p. xxiv). Progressing from being moved to being overwhelmed, baron Thiebault reaches the last letter of Saint-Preux 'ne pleurant plus, mais criant, hurlant comme une bete' (NH, p. xxiv). In this reaction, which makes no distinction between the sexes, can one not see the final conversion of the gallant gentleman into a sincere lover? At the same time, the woman reverts to her former image of the heloisian mystic. The author 'counts on the intimate persuasion of his work to convince the woman of her ecstasy' (Wald-Lasowski, p. 146). La Nouvelle Heloise, thus conceived as a single, infinitely varied letter, is all the woman could wish for, confirming her position as adored recipient. Every woman is a new Heloise who finally receives the promised letter, which is just like the one they all imagine, and which they await without having to fear being caught in a trap. Saint-Preux is no longer a mere variation on the private line linking Julie and Claire, nor does he symbolize a temporary communication disturbance within their exchange. A modification occurs in the epistolary cast of characters, so profound that it intimately affects the way the letter is received.
La Nouvelle Heloise is therefore much more than a perfect example of a novel in letter form, a literary masterpiece, a text that succeeds in showing a social or emotional utopia. It must be seen and read as the invention of a completely new technique, the development of an unprecedented configuration. What is there so new in La Nouvelle Heloise that the letter would be influenced by it? It is the expression of a totally original position, namely, the letter-writer as the male figure in the love relationship as depicted in the novel. It is not that the role of letter-writer historically had never been assumed by the male figure of a lover, but that this authorship had never before been supported by any discursive order, had not worked its way into the then prevailing representation of epistolary writing: the letter had hitherto remained a strictly feminine affair. Not until La Nouvelle Heloise do we see any modification of this imaginative arena, which had first formed round the letters of Heloise, new editions of which were still being brought out at the time of Rousseau. It is not, therefore, Abelard who is brought back to life for the sake of the cause: he, writes Saint-Preux, 'ne m'a jamais paru qu'un miserable digne de son sort, et connaissant aussi peu l'amour que la vertu' (NH, p. 60). If there is a new Heloise, there cannot be a new Abelard, so Rousseau replaces him with Saint-Preux, who knows about virtue as well as love. If Abelard is discredited, the old Heloise is not spared either. In the Lettre d'Alembert it is all writing by women that is suspect: 'Ce feu celeste qui echauffe et embrase l'ame, ce genie qui consume et devore, cette brulante eloquence, ces transports sublimes qui portent leurs ravissements jusqu'au coeur', quite simply, all the features typical of a love letter, 'manqueront toujours aux ecrits des femmes: ils sont froids etjolis comme elles; ils auront tant d'esprit que vous voudrez, jamais d'ame; ils seraient cent fois plutot senses que passionnes. Elles...
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