Fiction Triumphant: Illusions of History in La Princesse de Clèves

Fiction Triumphant: Illusions of History in La Princesse de Cléves M. J. Muratore I F WE LEND HEED to the voices of authority, Madame de La­ fayette’s La Princesse de Cléves is a perfect example of a seventeenthcentury historical novel, at once a document of the times, as well as a mimetic rendering of aristocratic society during the reign of Henry II.1 While it would be dismissive and simply inaccurate to refute traces of history within the narration’s weave, it is equally essential, indeed more so, to acknowledge the secondariness of such historicity, to relegate it to the peripheral status it is contextually assigned. Traditional interpreta­ tions suggest that the narrative discourse invokes its historical dimen­ sionality as a way of ensuring credibility. I would argue, however, that the function of the historical cadre is not to authenticate the fiction, but rather to valorize it.2 From this perspective, La Princesse de Cléves becomes a metatextual battle between competing forms of narrative dis­ course: that of the historical cadre which privileges imitation over inno­ vation, and that of the unconventional, non-conformist subtext.3As the novel progresses, historical discourse, cast as a mimetic representation of conventional and conformist behaviors, becomes increasingly less believ­ able and convincing. Correlatively, the non-conformist, imaginative dis­ course of the fictional subtext evolves into a dissenting commentary on the need to unite what were essentially antipodal methods of representa­ tion: history and fiction. More significantly for our purposes, however, in its textualization of the conflict between mimetic conformity and fic­ tional unicity, La Princesse de Cléves emerges as a significant meta­ textual narrative, that is to say, a text focused upon the internal prob­ lematic of narrative production and textual credibility. The novel is articulated around dueling scenarios both vying for nar­ rative control: the historical/mimetic primary text and an invented/nonmimetic subtext. The authoritative discourse (the historical frame) affirms its initial supremacy by grafting fictional events onto documentable facts. The fictional subtext (the Princess’ narrative) challenges the primacy of the historical backdrop by a stubborn resistance towards assimilation into the historical frame. The primary text endeavors to historicize (and thereby “ real-ize”) a scenario of invention; the fictional Vol. XXXI, No. 2 5 L ’E spr it C r éa te u r subtext in turn opposes such de-fictionalization and counters with an agenda of its own: the fictionalization of history.4The outcome of this intertextual battle provides revelatory insights into the author’s theory of the novel for by allowing the heroine of the subtext (the Princesse de Clèves) to outlast the hero of the historical narrative (Henry the Second), she empowers fictional discourse with the ability to subvert historical truth itself.5 In consequence, not only does the historical frame fail to provide the text with mimetic credulity, but in the end it is defeated by a discourse of invention that renders documentable fact subservient to the needs of the fictional narrative.6In short, the invented subtext ultimately proves powerful enough to confer fictional status on documentable fact. In La Princesse de Clèves, the textualization of history reveals one overriding characteristic: the confirmation of reader expectancies. The historical events of the novel were well-known to its readership, and con­ sequently allowed the author little room for plot manipulation or creative expertise. This sense of inevitability is paralleled within the nar­ rative by the subordination of historical events themselves to a higher law of fatalistic determinacy. The oracular prediction of the King’s death suggests a pre-textual model (a pre-diction) on which history is predi­ cated. This forecast takes on additional significance when viewed as a discursive imperative subordinating the narrated text to an authoritative pre-text. By suggesting a pre-textual model on which history is predi­ cated, the forecast and its subsequent confirmation places both history and its discursive representation within a narrative/mimetic context. History becomes but the enactment of a preordained eventuality (the prediction), and historical discourse (the novel itself) appears as the dis­ cursive recasting and reformulation of this enactment. The mimetic aspects of history (and by implication, historical dis­ course as well) are...