Embattled Eros: The Cultural Politics of Prévost’s Grecque moderne

Embattled Eros: The Cultural Politics of Prévost’s Grecque moderne Julia V. Douthwaite P RÉVOST PUT A NEW TWIST on the age-old conflicts between Occident and Orient in his Histoire d ’une Grecque moderne (1740). The narrator and protagonist of the Histoire is an unnamed French ambassador to Constantinople; the novel (his memoirs) recounts his illfated attempts to possess a young woman whom he has liberated from a Turkish harem. Announced as an effort to uncover the truth of this enig­ matic female, the Frenchman’s reliance on ethnic prejudices about the “ oriental character” casts a satiric light on the European’s supposed moral and intellectual superiority over the Orient. The narrator’s equivo­ cal distinction between occidental lumières and oriental ténèbres becomes increasingly evident in his efforts to control the elusive object of his desire: as when he figuratively remodels his country home along the lines of a harem, or translates his desire to protect the woman into coer­ cive measures of female subjugation. Through the tale of the ambassa­ dor’s obsessive passion for the oriental woman and the follies he com­ mits trying to dominate her, Prévost indicts the imperialist politics and misogyny of French attitudes toward the Orient. Critics have long interpreted Prévost’s novel as a veiled account of a scandalous event of Regency history, that is, the rumored incestuous relations between the French diplomat Ferriol and his Circassian protégée Mlle Aïssé.1Shifting the focus of inquiry from the particular to the paradigmatic, this essay interprets L ’Histoire d ’une Grecque moderne as an example of ancien régime cultural politics. My analysis highlights the conflict between the occidental narrator and his oriental object-of-desire by demonstrating the incongruities between those levels of fictional discourse that Gérard Genette has termed histoire, the story or lived experience, and récit, the narration or telling.2The level of his­ toire includes the fictional love story and its historical context; the level of récit encompasses the strategies used to relate the narrator’s thoughts and actions to his ideal imagined reader or narrataire. By concurrently analyzing these two layers of the text, I hope to show how Prévost insinu­ ates doubt into the very fabric of his novel and eventually undermines the Vol. XXXII, No. 3 87 L ’E sprit C réateur moral authority, narrative sincerity and cultural perspicacity of his fic­ tional author. On the level of histoire, the fictional ambassador’s conduct exempli­ fies the self-serving attitude of French diplomats and merchants in Turkey during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XV. His attempts at “ taming” his young charge and at reforming her as his lover represent an experiment in personal imperialism which duplicates official initiatives. French diplomatic policies in the early eighteenth century aimed solely to establish French sovereignty over the commerce and ideology of the foreign country. The French ambassador to Constantinople acted as a viceroy, privileged with a vast influence in political, military and social arenas.3With the weakened position of the Ottomans in the early 1700s (following defeats by Russia, Austria and Venice), the French position in the Levant became increasingly aggressive. France was the only Western power with the same enemies as the Ottomans and thus enjoyed signifi­ cant trade privileges in recompense for political support.4By the end of the eighteenth century, the French had penetrated the Ottoman market and expanded their control over trade by introducing tariffs and rules to the detriment of their British rivals. The spiritual influence exercised by the growing number of Catholic missionaries in the Ottoman states fur­ ther advanced the prestige of the French. As a guaranteed market for French goods, a receptive audience for Christianity, and a supplier of cheap products for French consumption, Turkey rendered France all the services of a colonial empire without the inconveniences of foreign occu­ pation (Vandal, 16). The mercantilist imperialism of French diplomatic policies condi­ tioned cultural attitudes toward that large, vaguely delineated area desig­ nated as the Orient. Whether Turk or Tartar, Muslim or idolater, the Oriental was believed to inhabit a lawless region consumed by the war...