Libertinage des Lumières et guerre des sexes by Michel Brix (review)

This is an erudite and thought-provoking study of libertin novels and autobiographies in the eighteenth century and their repercussions in the nineteenth and twentieth. Brix bases his study on the ideas of Rousseau in Book V of Émile, according to which women played a civilizing role in the development of human society. Respect for women, institutionalized in monogamous marriage, curbed the domineering, violent instincts of men that tended to reduce women to the status of sex slaves. Courtly love in the Middle Ages and galanterie in the seventeenth century reinforced this tradition. Brix's thesis is that the ideals of freedom and the pursuit of earthly pleasure promulgated by the philosophes of the Enlightenment were distorted by the members of a corrupt aristocracy. The attainment of pleasure became the latter's obsession and it was sought in a renewed subjugation of women. These libertins made a show of inviting women to join them in declaring their sexual independence and rejection of old-fashioned religious and social codes of conduct. Brix demonstrates that such enticements to persuade women to abandon their role as keepers of civilized values were a ruse to make it easier for them to exploit women. This sinister process was depicted in literature in the novels of Crébillon fils and Laclos. Their male protagonists derive a diabolical enjoyment from deceiving women. Their goal is conquest, and they compare their sexual triumphs to victories on the battlefield. Yet more evil is their ambition to destroy the reputations and even the lives of their victims once they get what they wanted. Brix views this behavior as a kind of revenge against women for all the centuries men's animalistic propensities were held in check by societal norms. He traces this hostility back to Molière's Dom Juan and Tartuffe. Brix devotes the two longest chapters to Casanova and Sade, and in both cases tries to dispel what he considers erroneous interpretations of their writings. Casanova has been celebrated by some as a joyous free spirit who proclaimed the individual's right to pursue pleasure. Using citations from Casanova's memoirs, Brix shows what a monster he really was. He had no respect or affection for any of the women he cajoled, or forced, to become his sexual instruments. He was a lifelong parasite and exhibitionist who thought only of himself. As for Sade, Brix rejects both the usual condemnations of his perversions and the Surrealists' favorable view of him as an apologist of free love. Although Sade was indeed a libertin in his early personal life, Brix thinks that the works he wrote during his many incarcerations were in fact an indictment of the immoral philosophy that inspired the libertins. By going to such extreme lengths to portray the evil side of human nature and the horrors wrought by unbridled sexual appetites, he was actually defending the traditional restraints of civilized society.