Alfred de Musset

Start Free Trial

The Mask of Language in Alfred de Musset's Proverbes

Download PDF PDF Page Citation Cite Share Link Share

SOURCE: Luce, Louise Fiber. “The Mask of Language in Alfred de Musset's Proverbes.Romance Notes 17, no. 3 (spring 1977): 272-80.

[In the following essay, Luce studies Musset's skilled application of language as a medium of disguise, deception, and equivocation in his short theatrical pieces, or proverbes.]

An appropriate arena to observe the problematic role of language in Musset's theater is with that group of plays belonging to the subgenre, the proverbe. According to its formal rules, dialogue itself holds center stage in the proverbe; language is the “main character.” The plot, what little there is, serves merely as a foil for a dazzling display of repartee, for discourse characterized by wit, refinement and elegance. Yet the dramatic tradition we find in Musset's proverbes, with their liberal dose of the précieux conventions, veils more serious considerations. The verbal dialectic between speaker and receiver, where words can serve as obstacle or mediator, casts language in a problematic and very contemporary light.

Three of Musset's proverbes, Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, Un Caprice, and On ne saurait penser à tout, ably demonstrate the thesis that language can play an essential role in man's search for self-realization. In these plays, words become an externalization of the self, or what Leo Spitzer calls “the psychological etymon of the soul.” Yet language is also a social act, a sharing of this moi profond, and one of means by which the hero strives to achieve integration with society. Unfortunately the moment the message (charged with personal significance) leaves the speaker, it takes on an autonomy of its own, for it must in turn be interpreted by a receiver whose own view of reality is as complex as that of the sender. Words then do mean more than they say. Co-substantial to the speaker, yet independent of him, to what degree can communication be established through language?

In Musset's Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, considered one of his finest proverbes, the verbal charade game is at its best. Here, language is a purely formal ritual where badinage has become part of the aristocratic code of two gens d'esprit. An important consequence of any sophistication, however, is that it breeds distance. In the case of Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, the distance is reinforced by the artificiality, or obstacle, of language. There is a real hindrance to effective communication in the play because language is so formalized that the message it transmits has lost all meaning. The Marquise realizes this, yet the greater the boredom caused by the ceremonies of her milieu, the more she clutches at words.

The Marquise is especially aware of the vacuity of the language of love. Just as she associates worldliness with the emptiness of her life, she equates the banalities of elegant conversation with the insincerity of love. From a general condemnation of courtship, “cette éternelle, insupportable cour, qui est une chose si inutile, si ridicule, si rebattue,” the Marquise then names its components: “Quelques phrases bien fades, un tour de valse et un bouquet, voilà pourtant ce qu'on appelle faire la cour.”1 She refers to the litany of empty compliments as “balivernes,” “niaiseries,” and “fadaises.” As for the gallants who proffer them, she categorically states: “Vous autres hommes à la mode, vous n'êtes que des confiseurs déguisés” (p. 162).

Although the Marquise is indeed attracted to the Count, the only tool at her disposal to test his sincerity is the same badinage she has just condemned. One realizes the paradox of her situation: in spite of the fact that she is “raisonnable,” or that the Count has “le sens commun,” they are both trapped in the vain platitudes which make up the language of love. So she will have to play the game, but this time en pleine connaissance de cause. As Pierre Moreau says, badinage supposes “un parti-pris de ne pas prendre au sérieux ce qui nous tient le plus au cœur. Il est une défense contre la souffrance du moi et contre la pompe du siècle. Le moi est indiscret; il n'est pas permis de le mettre en scène qu'à condition de le déguiser, et même de mentir.”2 This, certainly, explains the Marquise's use of verbal masking. With the caution of an avertie, she will continue her dialogue with the Count, covering her true feelings with the spirited banter so familiar to her.

One must see an extended exchange between the Marquise and the Count in this verbal sparring match to admire Musset's skill in maintaining rapidity and lightness on the one hand, and at the same time intimating only too well the Marquise's use of words as a weapon to parry any possible hypocrisy on the part of the Count:

LA Marquise:
—Ah! ciel! vous allez faire une phrase.
LE Comte:
—Pas du tout. Si vous ne voyez rien, c'est qu'apparement vous ne voulez rien voir.
LA Marquise:
—Voir quoi?
LE Comte:
—Cela s'entend du reste.
LA Marquise:
—Je n'entends que ce qu'on me dit, et encore pas des deux oreilles.
LE Comte:
—Vous riez de tout; mais, sincèrement, serait-il possible que depuis un an, vous voyant presque tous les jours, faite comme vous êtes, avec votre esprit, votre grâce et votre beauté …
LA Marquise:
—Mais, mon Dieu! c'est bien pis qu'une phrase, c'est une déclaration que vous me faites là. Avertissez au moins: est-ce une déclaration ou un compliment de bonne année?
LE Comte:
—Et si c'était une déclaration?
LA Marquise:
—Oh! c'est que je n'en veux pas ce matin. Je vous ai dit que j'allais au bal, je suis exposée à en entendre ce soir; ma santé ne me permet pas ces choses-là deux fois par jour.

(p. 161)

Even en fauteuil, the pleasure the spectator derives from this scene comes principally from its internal dynamics. Indeed, throughout the play, this sprightly cross-fire constantly enchants the listener. Moreover, in a genre like the proverbe, where there is so little plot, the risk of the play remaining static is always present. With his usual apparent ease, Musset has succeeded admirably in avoiding this inertia.

At the same time, however, Musset is also telling the spectator: “Look here! Look what we have done to ourselves. We are buried in words; gay, fanciful words, to be sure; but they have eventually blocked any true communication. They are hollow and counterfeit, and no longer say what we want them to say.” The Marquise and the Count never do put aside this level of language. The verbal mask is never dropped. Nevertheless, painfully and hesitatingly, they do manage to reach an understanding and let their true feelings be known. In the case of Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, communication has been achieved in spite of the obstacle, or mask, of language.

Un Caprice, a proverbe whose original title was Un jeune curé fait les meilleurs sermons, continues Musset's preoccupation with verbal masking.3 Now, however, a new dimension is added because of Madame de Léry's innate sense of l'esprit de finesse. Quite unlike Mathilde, the spokesman of the naïve who have not yet learned to parry with words, Madame de Léry moves unerringly through any compromising conversation.

Thus, l'esprit de finesse is a certain type of intelligence which applies to the problems of practical psychology. It could appropriately be called l'esprit d'à propos. The speaker has the ability to conform verbally to the demands of a given situation, to understand the conventions and needs of a given moment, and, more importantly, to understand his own motives as well as those of the persons involved. He is intuitively aware, in control, and consequently at ease. The ensuing self-confidence places him in a position of psychological authority which can be used to manipulate others—for their own good or not, as the case may be.

L'esprit de finesse, then, is one step above preciosity with its empty glitter for its own sake. To be sure, l'esprit de finesse is still a social game; yet more important considerations are involved. In the case of Un Caprice, the very happiness of Chavigny and Mathilde is at stake. At this point, language is no longer an innocent game. It still functions at the social level as a pattern of bienséances, frivolous and engaging; at the human level, however, language becomes an arm which protects or attacks.

The conflict of Un Caprice involves two categories of language: la langue du cœur and l'esprit de finesse. Mathilde, who uses only the former, lacks the experience to protect herself with l'esprit de finesse. She is frank and open, and almost loses her husband because of this. She makes no effort, uses no wiles to successfully control his potential philandering. Since she speaks her heart in unequivocal terms, there is no room for her to retreat, to advance, or to manipulate others. It is not only her lack of subtlety which troubles Chavigny, but also her utter vulnerability.

Left to her own resources, Mathilde would have been unable to save the situation. Madame de Léry, however, who immediately and intuitively understands the problem, functions as a deus ex machina to bring about a successful dénouement. Chavigny is quite correct when he says to Mathilde that “Madame de Léry est votre oracle” (p. 135).

Older than her young protégée, more experienced, Madame de Léry never falters in her conversation; the mot juste is always ready. Her caustic comparisons of certain grandes dames whom she knows to “une madone au bout d'un bâton,” “un grand balai pour épousseter les araignées,” or “une cigale, avec un gros corps et de petites pattes,” must have thoroughly delighted Henri Bergson. Her disabused comments on the change purse (“Je l'ai vue traîner depuis des siècles … c'est un vrai héritage que vous avez fait.”) always stop on the gracious side of impertinence. Her precious description of a cup of tea (“de l'eau chaude, avec un soupçon de thé et un nuage de lait”) is so much froth to hide more serious matters.

Chavigny is charmed with this double register of meaning, with the equivocal sentences where no direct answer would be fitting. He understands that “il peut arriver qu'un homme marié ait deux façons de parler, et, jusqu'à un certain point, deux façons d'agir” (p. 151). This comment is all the more interesting because it establishes a complicity between language and action (i.e., to act, to play a role). The same complicity of language and role playing can be heard in another observation by Chavigny: “Un homme marié n'en reste pas moins homme; la bénédiction ne le métamorphose pas, mais elle l'oblige quelquefois à prendre un rôle et à en donner les répliques” (p. 151). He knows that “il ne s'agit que de savoir, dans ce monde, à qui les gens s'adressent quand ils vous parlent, si c'est au réel ou au convenu, à la personne ou au personnage” (p. 151). Language is inextricably bound to disguise and can cover as effectively as the mask of carnival, role playing, or the multiple personality. Chavigny knows this, and like Madame de Léry he moves easily in the world of badinage.

L'esprit de finesse, therefore, is the key to a successful resolution of Un Caprice. Madame de Léry, because of her expertise, stays within the limits of badinage and adroitly leads Chavigny to a realization of his wife's worth. One understands her frequent appeals to Mathilde to “se fier à moi.” She is a mediator, and language itself, through l'esprit de finesse, is the touchstone of a harmonious integration with others. Yet, despite the reconciliation achieved in both Un Caprice and Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, certain distinctions must be made between the two proverbes. First, the Marquise, whose happiness depends on the outcome of her dialogue with the Count, is too personally involved to have the emotional self-confidence of Madame de Léry. Secondly, the Marquise saves only herself, while Madame de Léry has gone one step further. Like Fantasio, she has performed the altruistic act.

In the proverbe, On ne saurait penser à tout, another important aspect of verbal masking is encountered. It would be frankly difficult to decide which of the main characters of the play is the most madcap—the Marquis, the Baron, or the Countess. One thing is certain however. All three characters think incoherently, converse incoherently, and act incoherently.

Conversation, of course, is the mainstay of the action. The central question debated in the proverbe is whether the Countess will marry the Marquis. Yet the use of language in this play has taken on a surprising new dimension since the sleek badinage of Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée. Musset seems to have gone the last possible step and destroyed even the external logic of conversation. In On ne saurait penser à tout, although the message being transmitted may have its own inner logic, its meaning has been shattered and lost somewhere between the sender and the receiver. As two people speak, the signs become distorted and garbled. The result is a conversation where the words of each speaker ricochet off each other and never reach their intended target.

Perhaps the play Fantasio is a reasonable starting point to analyze the disintegration of words. Fantasio, too, wanders in his own verbal labyrinth of equivocal speech, allusions, and non sequiturs. Such disordered thought and speech are fitting for a person who feels alienated from others, as he does, and trapped by the emptiness of his existence. If his language is incoherent, it is because his existence is incoherent. …

It is the language of “non-sense” which prevails in On ne saurait penser à tout. Consider first of all the characters. The Marquis is subject to “les égarements déplorables.” He is continually in a world of his own, with its own rules and significance. The Marquis' valet, Germain, is quite generous in his explanation of the Marquis' actions: “Ce n'est pas qu'il oublie, c'est qu'il pense à autre chose” (p. 222). As for the Baron, he quickly labels his nephew's condition as “une maladie.” According to his standards, the young man is abnormal, unwell, not like others. The uncle seriously doubts the Marquis' ability to be an envoy for the King: “Crois-tu qu'un pareil extravagant est capable d'aller à Gotha?” (p. 224). He even pleads with his nephew to be attentive to conventions: “Il faut donc que vous me promettiez de tenter sur vous-même un effort salutaire, de vaincre ces petites distractions, ces faiblesses d'esprit parfois fâcheuses, afin de conduire sagement les choses” (p. 226). The Baron's advice falls on deaf ears, however.

The Countess herself is “une autre cervelle fêlée,” according to the Baron. Even the Marquis concedes that “quand vous lui parlez, elle semble vous écouter, et elle est à cent lieues de là.” As for the Marquis' residing so close to her estate, the Baron mockingly says that it is “un beau voisinage pour un fou” (p. 223).

In the above comments concerning both the Marquis and the Countess, the pattern of withdrawal becomes insistent: they are “ailleurs,” “à cent lieues d'ici,” “égarés.” Theirs is a world apart where they are not only physically isolated from Paris on their country estates, but also psychologically remote from the norms of society.

Moreover, one must also consider the role of the Baron in this proverbe. Although he is the one who has furnished the most devastating comments on the comportment of the Marquis and the Countess, is there a more pompous, absurd character than the Baron himself? He is another superb example of Musset's pantins, as mechanical as the clocks which guide his life. Yet he is also a representative of the norm, of the ordre établi. This, of course, is Musset's tour de force. … It is delightful to hear the Marquis with his “egarements” admit to the Countess with her “cervelle fèlée,” that his uncle “n'a pas la tête parfaitement saine; entre nous, il radote un peu!” (p. 246). Such a judgment from the Marquis, who is a master of incoherence, not only produces a comic effect, but it also forces us to ask who really are the unstable in society.

In On ne saurait penser à tout, therefore, two characters search for the reality of love. We have already seen the restraints that badinage has placed on expressing true emotion in Un Caprice and Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée. It would seem that verbal masking is not enough now, that the hero must go outside the conventions of badinage. Consequently a verbal carnival explodes in On ne saurait penser à tout, just as the literal event did in Fantasio … with the same disruption of the norm.

Among the variants which Musset develops to maintain an incoherent world are dialogues where one party either does not hear or does not remember what has already been said. Musset also uses the technique of two people talking on a bias, each one mistaking the other's point of reference. The Baron's comments, for example, will refer to a trip to Gotha for the King, while the Marquis, thinking his uncle is referring to a legal contract, develops the conversation from this point of view. We find as well that the normal association of objects (black/white, cream/sugar) has been destroyed. A lone sheet of music, rather than clothes, is packed in a trunk; tobacco is put on a dish of strawberries; a hostess is left a tip for serving her guest a cup of tea. The illogical climate of the Marquis' environment culminates in the final scene of the play where the Marquis and the Countess pack a trunk for their wedding trip. All of the preceding verbal “non-sense” is resumed in the incongruous assortment of objects placed in the trunk: “un cor de chasse, du thé, un violon, un fusil.” This is hardly the staple fare of orthodoxy.

Undoubtedly, On ne sauarit penser à tout offers an intriguing option in the verbal dialectic revealed in the proverbes. When it is joined with Un Caprice and Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée, three general categories of language emerge: la langue du coeur, badinage with its possible esprit de finesse, and finally, the collapse of speech into incoherence. As happens frequently in Musset's theater, there is no consistent guarantee in any of the three levels of language that the individual will integrate with society. Yet the proverbes, whose generic premise rests on language and communication, add immeasurably to the corpus of Musset's dramatic production. Considering the persistence of the mask metaphor in Musset's plays, where plot, characters, and setting coalesce under the aegis of the mask, it is not surprising to find that language will also integrate itself into this dominating metaphor.4 Although Henri Lefebvre discounts the proverbes as a genre apart and quite unrelated to the thesis found in Musset's major works, the three proverbes we have just examined seem to belie this critical assessment.5 From Lorenzaccio to Fantasio, the mask of language is always present, and the greater the hero's failure to integrate with others, the more intense the verbal mask becomes. Because of the problematic nature of language, the distance between Madame de Léry and Fantasio is not that great. Indeed, masking with words eventually imposes itself as a dynamic current in Musset's theater and part of its lifeblood.

Notes

  1. Alfred de Musset, Théâtre, II, ed. Maurice Rat (Paris, 1964), p. 162. All references in my article are to this edition and volume. Emphases are my own.

  2. “L'Ironie de Musset,” Revue des Sciences Humaines, Facs. 108 (October-December, 1962), p. 505.

  3. The question of whether to designate various Musset plays as proverbes will not be treated in this discussion. Those plays labeled as proverbes by Musset will be referred to in this manner in the article.

  4. For a discussion of the masked event, see my article in French Review, XLV (1972), Special Issue, 85-94.

  5. Henri Lefebvre, Alfred de Musset, dramaturge (Paris, 1955), pp. 39, 78.

Get Ahead with eNotes

Start your 48-hour free trial to access everything you need to rise to the top of the class. Enjoy expert answers and study guides ad-free and take your learning to the next level.

Get 48 Hours Free Access
Previous

Linguistic and Stylistic Clues to Characterization in Musset's Fantasio

Next

The Sword and the Flower: The Sexual Symbolism of Lorenzaccio

Loading...