Entre Épicure et Vauvenargues: principes et formes de la pensée morale, and: La Morale des moralistes (review)

REVIEWS 113 a doting, duped, elderly husband (the Baron De Tortillée) and an equally duped dashing young hero (Beauclair); a predatory female rake (the Baroness De Tortill ée) and her brilliant, vile henchman (Du Lache); along with a virtuous ingenue (Montamour), who, when maligned by her enemies and deserted by her lover, first repairs to a convent and nextresorts to cross-dressing as a Chevalier. All the scenes one would expect in amatory fiction are here skilfully woven together: secret assignations in gardens, milliners' shops, and convents are full of all the pantings, languishments, and ecstasies that could be hoped for, while villainies—from the bribing of thugs to destroy Montamour's reputation to the poisoning and attempted murder of the credulous Baron—abound. Beneath all the charming froth, though, is a serious thread that ties disparate elements together: Haywood emphasizes female vulnerability, reminding her readers that "Reputation is so nice a thing, so finely wrought! so liable to break!...and down we sink in endless Infamy " (p. 89). Beasley focuses on the Baroness's ability to pervert the truth, as she ruins Montamour in order to supplant her with Beauclair: "because she [the Baroness De Tortillée] is so skillful her version ofthe truth threatens to supplant all other possible versions" (p. xxv). Yet it is not the Baroness, but her servantDu Lache and his hired men who manipulate others so successfully. These men swear to Beauclair that Montamour is unchaste and are believed: "between them both [Du Lache and Toncarr] it was no difficult matter to work on that good Nature ... of this deluded Gentleman [Beauclair]" (p. 35). IfMontamour's fame can be blasted by men even when she is completely innocent, how much more dramatic is the fall of the woman who truly is guilty. When ajealous loverobtains a billet-doux from theBaroness De Tortillée to a rival, he reads it aloud to a gathering of her suitors, who all then take "the Liberty of speaking what they knew. ... Never was Woman so expos 'd and ridicul'd-so despis'd and hated," and reviled within her own home (p. 62). The set pieces of Haywood's novel echo elements of eighteenth-century theatrical performance, and her villainess bears comparison with a Millwood or a Marquise de Merteuil. Whatever context we choose for them, these fine editions deserve to be studied and taught so that they may remain in print and accessible. Catherine Craft-Fairchild University of St Thomas, St Paul, Minnesota Jean Dagen, éd. Entre Epicure et Vauvenargues: principes etformes de la pensée morale. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999. 442pp. ISBN 2-74530026 -1. Jean Dagen, éd. La Morale des moralistes. Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999. 242pp. FFr290. ISBN 2-7453-0085-7. Jean Dagen inaugure par ces deux ouvrages, issus des travaux du Groupe d'étude des moralistes (GEM) de l'Université de Paris-iv, la collection Moralia qu'il 114 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY FICTION 13:1 dirige chez H. Champion. Le premier regroupe des contributions de professeurs et d'étudiants membres du Groupe créé en 1992, le second les Actes d'un colloque international tenu sous ses auspices à la Sorbonne les 9 et 10 novembre 1994; le délai de cinq années avec lequel sont publiés ces textes en a malheureusement défloré quelques-uns, parus depuis en d'autres lieux. Les onze articles d'Entre Epicure et Vauvenargues, de dimensions variables (de vingt à près de quatre-vingts pages), s'intéressent à divers aspects de la pensée morale des xvne et xvme siècles, excédant parfois les limites de la «moralistique» (ainsi une solide présentation de l'epistemologie gassendienne par J.-Ch. Darmon ). Cette ampleur d'un propos général, que soulignent d'ailleurs les titres de sections—Fondements, Intériorité, Formes, Théâtralité, Socialite—ne suffit pas cependant à résoudre l'impression de disparate qui vient à la lecture d'un recueil dont l'architecture paraît un peu factice, et la composition un peu hâtive. Certains textes sans doute auraient pu être rajeunis (celui de M. Rueff, version complète, très longue et sans notes, de son article «Mœurs/Morale» paru dans le...