[In the following introduction to a modern edition of Crébillon's novel, Grieder points out that the epistolary novel did not originate with Samuel Richardson in England, and explains how Crébillon's work uses the genre's strengths to build up sympathy for an amoral woman.]

The reader acquainted with the epistolary novel only through Pamela, Clarissa, or Sir Charles Grandison may be tempted to assume that the form sprang full blown like Athena from the brow of Samuel Richardson. Such is not the case, as Robert Adams Day thoroughly demonstrates in Told in Letters; and the Letters from the Marchioness de M*** to the Count de R*** (1735) by Crébillon fils is a good example of an earlier effort in the genre.¹ The title page, in its quotation from the Journal Littéraire, indicates the work's immediate antecedents, the Lettres portugaises (1669) and the Lettres galantes du Chevalier d'Her** by Fontenelle (1683 and 1687); but Crébillon creates a heroine more sentimental and worldly than the passionate Portuguese nun and focuses less on satirical portraits of the beau monde, Fontenelle's chief interest, than on the Marchioness' inner joys and torments.

The technical problems involved in the composition of an epistolary novel—how to present differing points of view; how to provide the characters with enough motivation, leisure, paper, and ink to write—are here reduced to the minimum. The sole correspondent is the Marchioness. The sole recipient is the Count, whose alternating assiduity and indifference to his mistress occasion her correspondence. Short billets, generally setting assignations, contrast with longer letters concerning her emotions; she enlivens her pages with gossip about friends, her husband, and other suitors. Sometimes she writes to request his help in an amorous affair; sometimes to assure him of her feelings; and very frequently to reproach him for his coldness or inconstancy.

But Crébillon, in employing the epistolary form, seized on its essential virtue: because the reader sees without an intermediary the feelings of the Marchioness, he is directly engaged emotionally with her. The translator, Samuel Humphreys, makes this clear in his preface.² He anticipates that those ladies “who pretend to be devoted to the severest Sanctity” will no doubt disapprove of the work, but “The amiable and generous Part of the Sex, will be soften'd into Compassion, for the Frailties of a Lady who was too lovely to be exempted from the Ensnarements that result from blooming Beauty, and shining Wit.” The Marchioness indeed deviates from virtue, but a consideration of circumstances “shall easily permit our Constructions of her Conduct to be moderated by the Sentiments of Humanity.” And particularly on reading of her death, “we intermix our Tears with hers; we intreat Heaven to be propitious to her … and wish to see her wafted, by Angels, to those blissful Regions where all Sorrows shall for ever cease, and where the Infirmities inseparable from the present State of human Nature, will no more be repeated” (no pp.). Such participation on the part of the reader is particularly necessary in a story where sentiment is the chief interest and morality depends rather on nuances of feeling than on rigid interpretation of actions.

The Marchioness is, as we first see her, a delightful, witty coquette, intrigued by the Count's passion. Men's “Follies contribute to my Amusement,” (p. 10), she declares; though she is not “insensible” to his charms, she suggests that he “endeavour to refine your Heart from this unavailing Passion” (p. 15) and try elsewhere. Besides, her idea of love as “a mutual Confidence, an untainted Friendship and a perpetual Sollicitude to please” does not correspond to the modern idea; “That Passion, as it is now conducted, is no more than a frail Intercourse formed by Caprice; cherished awhile, by a Cast of Mind, still more contemptible; and, at last, extinguished by both” (p. 22).

Nevertheless, little by little, passion makes inroads on this confidence. She finds in herself “something more lively than Friendship” (p. 27). In response to his reproaches on her sarcasm, she tergiversates: “How do you know but that the Vivacity you complain of, may be my only Expedient to conceal half your Happiness from you, and to preserve me from the Confusion of declaring that I love you?” (p. 37). She becomes seriously annoyed at his apparent infidelity and exclaims, “Good God! can I be weak enough to wish you may be able to justify yourself!” (p. 49). Finally, conscious of being led into “a dreadful Abyss … the fatal Gulph” (p. 51), she admits the force of her feelings: “O Heavens! whither shall I fly from such a Combination of fatal Foes! My Sighs and Tears, and even my strongest Oppositions, give new Vigour to my unhappy Passion” (p. 52).

Assured of her love, the Count urges her, as we learn indirectly, to grant the “last favours.” She is caught in the inextricable female dilemma: “How happy is your Sex, in their Prerogative to pursue their Inclinations without the Checks of Shame and Confusion! whilst we, who are under the Tyranny of injust Laws, are compell'd to conquer the Impulse of Nature, who has implanted, in our Hearts, the same Desires that predominate in yours, and are so much the more unfortunate as we are obliged to oppose your Sollicitations and our own Frailty” (p. 58). Nevertheless, she marshalls the usual prudent arguments against such a step. First, man's nature is inevitably inconstant; and she is “persuaded it would be better to lose a Lover who is dissatisfied with our Cruelty, than one who is satiated with our Favours” (p. 63). Second, she fears her conscience. The Count's discretion might be able to conceal their arrangement, “but alas! who would have the Power to screen me from the Remorse of my own Heart?” (p. 67). She temporarily concludes that “the Emotions of the Heart are not subordinate to the Judgment: But, surely, I have the Ability to be virtuous; and we never cease to be so, against our Inclinations” (p. 67).

Does the Marchioness actually capitulate? Her Letter XXVII informs the Count that “your impatient Ardours had almost surprized me into an absolute Insensibility of my Duty” (p. 106) when the arrival of her husband fortunately saved her virtue, and she swears never to have another such interview with him. But relenting, “You see the Perplexity in which I am involved,” she declares; “your Lordship in one Scale, and Virtue in the other: How difficult is it to adjust the Ballance! (109). Two quick billets follow, the second arranging an assignation; “Some Letters are here suppress'd” (p. 111), the editor informs us. And in the next letter, the Marchioness reproaches R*** for too warm a declaration of his affection in public. Crébillon originally wrote at this point, “Voulez-vous faire deviner à tout le monde que vous m'aimez, et qu'il ne manque rien à votre bonheur?” Mr. Humphreys chooses to translate this ambiguously: “Would you have all the World suspect your Passion for me; and are you desirous they should believe you want nothing to render your Happiness compleat …?” (p. 113).

Whatever the English reader may choose to decide, the Marchioness knows from this point on all the worries that a mistress is subject to. In order to keep him interested, she gives him frequent cause for jealousy because “I have observed that it is good to awaken your Passion” (p. 129); satirical portraits of amorous tax collectors, an old marquis, her philosophy professor, a fop, and a prince enliven her letters. She is concerned about her reputation—“From the first moment I lov'd you, every Instance of my Conduct has been a Deviation from my Duty” (p. 169)—but her husband troubles her less as a watchdog than as a person whose justifiable amorous solicitations prove troublesome to her passion. She is continually in dread of the Count's inconstancy and reproaches him for it, though she asks him to “Pity me, in some tender Moments; for I cannot presume to require, from you, any Sentiments that are more ardent” (p. 230). Hoping by her coldness to revive his interest, she declares to him that “I once lov'd you to Adoration, and my Passion was incapable of a Moment's Insincerity; but you have, at last, caus'd it to expire” (p. 258).

An unexpected event—her husband's promotion to a post abroad—triggers the denouement: the Marchioness' death from anguish at being obliged to part from the Count. All her guilty feelings now come forward to torment her: “I am constantly haunted by the most criminal Ideas, and find it impossible to chase them from my Remembrance” (p. 297). She is repentant—and yet she loves. “It is no longer the frail Person enslav'd by a fatal Passion, who writes to you now. It is an unfortunate Creature, who repents of all her Crimes; who reviews them with Horror; who is sensible of all their Weight, and who yet is unable to refuse you new Proofs of her Tenderness” (p. 302). She is, in fact, more concerned about the Count's despair at her death than about her own situation and urges him to be steadfast. At the end, she neither loses dignity nor recants her love. “I am now come to the last Period of my Days, and am preparing to end them with Fortitude. Adieu! Adieu! Adieu! for ever!” (p. 304).

The ordinary reader will see in these letters the progress of feminine sensibility from coquetry to a tender and sincere passion. The perspicacious reader will see as well a comment on woman's ambiguous position in contemporary society. The novel presents, in effect, a ménage à trois. But the husband is impossible: free to engage in the amours which please him; delighted to retail to her the history of his conquests; yet out of boredom capricious and demanding of his marital rights. The much-loved Count is scarcely less agreeable on close inspection. He parades his mistresses before the Marchioness; he brags to others of his inconstancy; he neglects her “with no other View than to satisfy your Curiosity whether the Loss of you will affect me” (p. 253); he neglects her for no reason whatever. But the Marchioness tacitly accepts the current code and lives as honorably as possible with it. Unlike later heroines who lament and repent at length their fall from virtue, she has no recriminations until the moment of her death. This perhaps makes her technically “immoral”; that she continues faithful and tender in such a situation makes her, however, extremely admirable and even lovable.

Notes

1. The complete title of Mr. Day's work is Told in Letters: Epistolary Fiction before Richardson (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966); a brief discussion of the Letters will be found in pages 107-109.

2. Humphreys (1698?-1738) was a poet and a respected, if minor, figure in the world of letters: he provided the texts to several of Handel's most celebrated oratorios; and he did translations from Italian and French, including Gueulette's Peruvian Letters (1734) and pieces from La Fontaine.