Claire de Cintré in Henry James's The American and St. Clare of Assisi

Claire de Cintré in Henry James's The American and St. Clare of Assisi by Kathleen A. Sherfick, Albion College For most readers of Henry James's The American, Christopher Newman is the center of interest. We watch his rather Gary Cooper-like taking of Europe and selecting a wife, and we grow to Uke him, and even to root for him, despite our also being somewhat appaUed, as the de BeUegardes are, at his blindness and seeming indifference to his social offenses. We think that he has earned Claire de Cintré and should have her, though we are not as fascinated with her as Newman is because she is superficially drawn. We are forced to take James's word for it that Qaire can be frank, charming, and gay, for he never reaUy shows these aspects of her. She seems for the most part more an object than a person except for her one impassioned speech to Newman at Fleuriéres. Her final action of shutting herself up in the convent appears pointless, spiteful, and stupid. Yet this may be the most appropriate, happiest action that she could take since there is much in the novel that suggests that Qaire de Cintré is modeled on St. Qare of Assisi. Henry James's own religious upbringing was catholic but not Catholic. His father raised him to have no particular religion but to believe himself a part of aU religions. Nevertheless, James was fascinated by Catholicism. He probably knew the story of St. Qare, for he visited Assisi twice before writing The American. On December 28, 1869, he commented to his brother WiUiam from there: "I have been taking a deep delicious bath of mediaevaUsm" (HJL I, 165). In an 1874 essay, "A Chain of Italian Cities," he wrote of his second stay in Assisi and described the church of St. Francis, including "[t]he frescoes, which are admirable, represent[ing] certain events in the life of Saint Francis" (CIC 160). The stories of St. Francis and St. Qare are such an integral part of Assisi and are so closely related that it would be difficult to view the frescoes without learning of them. The Lady Qare was bom around 1193 to a wealthy and noble family. Her mother was a religious woman. Clare was drawn early to a spiritual life and was said to wear a hairshirt under her fine clothing. When her family wished her to marry, she equivocated and did not teU them of her plan to dedicate her virginity to God. In the meantime she had met Francis. On Palm Sunday, 1212, Qare secretly left her home and went to the community supervised by Francis, where he was waiting for her. Her family, outraged, tried to get her back through The Henry James Review 12 (1991): 117-119 ©1991 by The Johns Hopkins University Press 118 The Henry James Review argument and physical force. But Qare clung to the altar where "love wounded by iU-treatment gave her strength" (Thomas 10). FinaUy, Francis put her in a poor house of the church of San Damiano and made her the superior. She later wrote an austere rule of order for the Poor Clares, as they came to be called. Qaire de Cintré and St. Clare of Assisi are alike in many ways. The saint is usuaUy pictured as "taU and dignified, the forehead broad, the eyes almond, the chin smaU and firmly modeUed" (St. Clare 27). In addition, strict rules of abstinence kept her thin. Claire de Cintré, her counterpart, is also thin, and further, she is described as "taU and moulded in long lines ... a wide forehead.... In her whole person there was something both youthful and subdued, slender and yet ample, tranquil yet shy; a mixture of immaturity and repose, of innocence and dignity" (AM 6).1 Both women came from noble famiUes who wished to arrange marriages against their own inclinations. Qaire de Cintré did not escape the first time but her exacting a promise from her mother and older brother Urbaine after her husband's death that they would not force her to remarry showed her strength and resistance on this point. Both women...