Male Bonds and Female Ties: Duclos's Les Confessions du comte de *** and Mme Riccoboni's Histoire du marquis de Cressy

This essay considers a male libertine novel and a female novel of sensibility through the grid of "amitié" which structures both works. In Histoire du marquis de Cressy, Mme Riccoboni rewrites Duclos' Les Confessions du comte de ***. She replaces the asymetrical and hierarchical vertical friendship traditionally associated with men with a horizontal friendship between women linked through sameness and rapport. She makes his novel of seduction and conquest into a study of female relationships.