Falsehood Disguised: Unmasking the Truth in La Rochefoucauld

Notes

Notes Chapter One Introduction: Truth and Falsehood in La Rochefoucauld 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, in Werke 4.2: 371; English translation: Human, All Too Human: A Book/or Free Spir(ts, trans. R. J. Hollingdale 1: 634. Citation for this and all subsequent references to Nietzsche's Werke is by'volume, part, and page. 2. All references to La Rochefoucauld are to Maximes suivies des ,Reflexionsdiverses, ed. Jacques Trochet, unless otherwise specified. Maxims will be cited by source and number. Of the various versions of the text of the Maximes, the two to which I will be referring most often are the Liancourtmanuscript and the "definitive" edition of 1678, both included in the Truchet edition. Undoubtedly the most important "avanttexte " of the Maximes, the Liancourt manuscript provides a number of useful insights into the genesis ofLa Rochefoucauld's ideas. Selections from this manuscript are designated Liancourt and cited by number. Maxims from the 1678 edition are designated M. The so-called maximes' supprimees and maximes posthumes (designated, respectively, MS and MP and also included by Truchet), are also particularly important sources for this study. Passages from the Reflexions diverses will be cited by title, the designation RO, and page number. This edition also contains a number of related texts by other authors (letters, etc.), labeled Trochet ed. and cited by page number. 3. On Augustinian elements in La Rochefoucauld's work, see Jean Lafond, La Rochefoucauld: Augustinisme ei litterature, and Philippe' Sellier, "La Rochefoucauld, Pascal, Saint-Augustin." 4. See Louis Van Delft, "La Rochefoucauld, moraliste mondain" and "Pour une lecture mondaine de La Rochefoucauld." 5. One must not forget that in the avis au lecteur (preface) that accompanied the text of the Maximes from the second edition on, it is claimed that the author ofthe Maximes has only considered human beings "dans cet etat deplorable de la nature corrompue par Ie peche" (Truchet ed. 5) ("in this deplorable state ofnature corrupted by sin"), a disclaimer that supposedly exempts those who are to be touched by divine grace from the very negative image of humanity that the Maximes present. Whether this avis au lecteur, like most others, should be taken at face value or not is, of course, open to question. 6. "Voila notre etat veritable. C'est ce qui nous rend incapables de savoir certainement et d'ignorer absolument" (Pensee 230, Pascal 130) ("This is our true state. It is what makes us unable to know with certainty and to be completely ignorant"). 7. The information regarding word frequency in the Maximesused in this study was obtained from a computer-assisted lexical analysis of the 1678 edition. . '153 Notes to Pages 4-15 8. According to Vivien Thweatt, "... Du vrai is more than the opening chapter of the Reflexions. It is in many ways the unifying theme of La Rochefoucauld's work" (l41)~ 9. In his book La Rochefoucauld: The ArtofAbstraction, Philip Lewis talks briefly about "the inextricable interminglingoftl1;lth and falsehood" (39) that La Rochefoucauld sees as one of the main problems confronting human beings, both individually and collectively. 10. "SiLa Rochefoucauld d~plore en l'homme une essentiellefaussete, c'est qu'il a choisi d'etre unhomme sup~rieursans avoir aIe devenir: comme il redoute de n'apparaitre point assez grand, il ne lui reste plus qu'acontester toute apparence, en conservant pour lui Ie privilege de la v~rit~" (Jeanson 87) ("If La Rochefoucauld deplores an essential falsity in man, it is because he has chosen to be a superior being without having to become one: since he worries about not seeming great enough, it remains for him to contest every appearance, while keeping for himself the privilege of truth"). 11. Letter from Mme de Sabl~ to La Rochefoucauld, dated 18 February 1665, in La Rochefoucauld, Truchet ed; 582. This passage is quoted .by Sainte-Beuve 2: 1259. 12. Some two hundred years later, in notes he was preparing for an essay to be entitled "Der Philosoph" ("The Philosopher"), Friedrich Nietzsche also expresses concern about the far-ranging consequences' ot what he calls the "Unwahrheit des Menschen gegen sich selbst und gegen andere" (Werke 3A: 77) ("man's falsity toward himself and toward others") (Philosophy and Truth, trans. Breazeale 49). 13. Truchet, in the introduction to his edition of the Maximes lxvi. 14. Louis Kronenberger, in the introduction to his translation The Maxims ofLa Rochefoucauld 19. Kronenberger's work is the source of the translations ofthe La Rochefoucauld max;mes except where the designation CF appears...