Remarriage and its Discontents: Young Widows in Mme Riccoboni's Fiction

Although victims of unhappy first marriages, the young widowed heroines of Mme Riccoboni's novels do not savor their new found liberty but choose to rewed. I consider here the social and psychological elements that determine the second marriage, and how similar it proves to be to the first, in three of Riccoboni's novels: L'Histoire du marquis de Cressy, Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby, and Lettres d'Adélaïde de Dammartin. While Riccoboni portrays an aristocratic and idealized society without the financial burdens and practical problems that would beset a real widow in the eighteenth century, her heroines have the same emotional needs and the same desire for happiness as actual widows and are also subject to social prejudices and constraints. They would like to reconcile their quest for independence and control over their own lives with their longing for emotional fulfillment and their romantic ideal, but often they cannot. Women are defined by marriage both in reality and in fiction, and it is society which prevails.