Le Bonheur au féminin: Stratégies narratives des romancières des Lumières by Isabelle Tremblay (review)

For scholars and students familiar with women's novels of eighteenth-century France, the idea that feminine happiness is a dominant theme might strike us as unlikely or, at least, surprising. Feminist critics have long argued, after all, that many eighteenth-century French women novelists evaluate the costs their heroines pay in a society that privileges men at women's sexual, political, and cultural expense. These costs, whether to a heroine's physical or emotional well-being, might facilitate a woman's self-definition, but they often seem to preclude happiness. Thus, Isabelle Tremblay's argument that women writers and novelists of Enlightenment France depict feminine happiness in ways that are discernibly linked to individuality provides a new and promising critical perspective.

At the outset of her book, Tremblay defines feminine happiness as "un état de conscience procédant du recueillement, de l'introspection et de la connaissance de soi" (18). She bases this understanding of happiness on non-fictional texts by du Châtelet, Lambert, Puisieux, and d'Épinay, which themselves reflect the Enlightenment's increasing emphasis on individuality and interiority as positive values (17). Tremblay's project is, then, to illustrate the ways in which French women novelists depict their heroines' expressions of individuality—their sense of interiority and self-knowledge—as synonymous with happiness.

The degree to which Tremblay's readers find that her study provides a new and fresh understanding of how feminine happiness-as-interiority figures in novels by French women writers of the Enlightenment will depend, I think, on whether we read the book for depth or for breadth. The strength of this book is its broad sweep. Tremblay presents an impressive corpus of women's novels (well over fifty), extending over a capacious time frame (1699-1804), and ranging from the well known (for instance, Riccoboni's Lettres de Fanni Butlerd and Lettres de Juliette Catesby; Graffigny's Lettres d'une Péruvienne; Charrière's Lettres écrites de Lausanne and Lettres de Mistriss Henley) to the less read (for example, Beauharnais's L'Abailard supposé, ou Le sentiment à l'épreuve; Kéralio, Adélaïde, ou Les Mémoires de la marquise de M***; and Milly, Histoire du coeur par Mlle de M.). Tremblay's study is a bibliographical goldmine where primary texts are concerned and will certainly inspire other scholars to add to their reading lists. Although Tremblay also has an extensive bibliography of feminist critical works, she does not engage with this criticism in a sustained or rigorous way. I would have liked to see Tremblay locate her own analyses around more of the arguments that other feminist critics (such as Joan Stewart, Lesley Walker, and Carol Sherman) have advanced in relation to the same texts and themes.

Insofar as Tremblay covers a large corpus arranged thematically under categories such as marriage, motherhood, love, friendship, she does not analyze any specific text in depth. For me, this is a weakness because this thematic approach excludes some close readings with crucial implications for the notion of feminine self-knowledge, interiority, and happiness—the very foundation of Tremblay's argument. For instance, in her chapter on motherhood, Tremblay illustrates how the role of mother-educator provides a woman with the authority "qui lui permet de s'affirmer en tant que sujet" (72). Tremblay then interprets three novels featuring mothers educating daughters: "La veuve des Mémoires de Mme la baronne de Batteville (1756) ... est charmée de former sa fille à sa fantaisie précisément parce qu'en se prolongeant dans l'existence de celle-ci, qui porte son nom et qui épouse son amant, la baronne de Batteville se dédouble en quelque sorte. Ce duo féminin est fondé sur une ressemblance parfaite entre la mère et la fille. A son tour, la fille de l...