Did She Fall Or Was She Pushed? Dangerous Liaisons Readalong 2024

Aha so La Présidente is Mme de Tourvel? My translation doesn’t use LP and I was wondering who I’d missed!

She has most definitely been warned hasn’t she? I loved the part where she writes about how she lectures VdV with great severity and you can see exactly which buttons he’s pressed.

I'm reading it in French and listening to an audiobook on Spotify to catch up on what I miss. The Shmoop summaries are very useful too and of course our discussions.

I think that Mme de Volanges has been so forthright with La Présidente about Valmont that she has been well and truly warned! She has been told! I found it amusing that Volanges doesn't know the extent of Merteuil's conniving. She is like a snake in the grass. She is very cutting about La Présidente. Yes, the poor girl is only twenty-two and she is calling her old!

I'm gradually getting into the book and getting used to know who's who. The epistolary style is interesting. Straight into the action, no hanging about. It's odd not to have the frame of a traditional novel with scene-setting descriptions and the viewpoint of a narrator although there are interjections in the form of notes sometimes. Must go read letter 10!

Have been enjoying this so far, last time I read it was at uni so obviously it seems different now.

The epistolary format really plunges you into the action and the characters in an immediate way which makes me wonder why there aren't more books like it. Have only read Clarissa which is obviously a very similar book.

Am struck by how crap my french is, I can read and understand it easily enough but when I turn to the penguin classic translation there's lots of nuance I'm missing.

Hope everyone enjoying it as much!

Sorry, didnt realise this had been posted, my page must not have refreshed.

• Letter 5: The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de ValmontMerteuil mocks Valmont for his plot. She believes it isn't doable or worthwhile.
• She tells him that prudish women can never really give a man pleasure, and besides, she thinks Tourvel is pretty unattractive.
• She has a different task for Valmont that suits her own purposes for revenge against Gercourt.
• Good news for her own plot, Cécile already has an admirer: the Chevalier Danceny. He's her music teacher.
• Merteuil jokes about her own current lover, another chevalier, whom she might just decide to leave just to make him miserable. She enjoys seeing her lovers suffer.

https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/dangerous-liaisons/part-1-letters-1-5-summary.html

Letter 6: The Vicomte de Valmont to the Marquise de Merteuil

• Valmont defends his plot to seduce Madame de Tourvel.
• He says that since the weather's been very hot, he's been able to see her in her lounging clothes.
• He likes what he sees under the thin fabric.
• He's already been able to get his hands on her and he can't wait to tear her away from her husband and from God.
• He's gotten her attention by confessing all his faults and pretending to be remorseful.

Letter 5: The Marquise de Merteuil to the Vicomte de Valmont

• Merteuil mocks Valmont for his plot. She believes it isn't doable or worthwhile.
• She tells him that prudish women can never really give a man pleasure, and besides, she thinks Tourvel is pretty unattractive.
• She has a different task for Valmont that suits her own purposes for revenge against Gercourt.
• Good news for her own plot, Cécile already has an admirer: the Chevalier Danceny. He's her music teacher.
• Merteuil jokes about her own current lover, another chevalier, whom she might just decide to leave just to make him miserable. She enjoys seeing her lovers suffer.

What I notice about this letter is the way Valmont uses religious language to describe his and Merteuil's sexual escapades -- he says they split up from one another to be missionaries 'preaching the faith' of libertinage, and that she has made far more converts than he has, and that if the 'God of Love' judged them on their missionary activities, she'd be a great saint with a cathedral dedicated to her, while he would be only a small saint with a village church. Is he also saying she's put it about a good lot more than he has, and sniggering slightly, or is it just respect?

Presumably far more shocking to a contemporary audience? You do always wonder what their affair was like, how long it lasted, were they faithful, even briefly, to one another, did they recognise one another as kindred spirits before or during the affair, why they split, who initiated it...)

He is putting her down a bit, isn't he, by saying her plan to seduce Cecile isn't worthy of him because anyone could do it? And exciting her sexual jealousy by flattering her at the start with the idea he'd like to get back together, and then detailing his obsession with Madame de Tourvel?

I think all we can do is to recognise that it's a kind of cross-sex ventriloquism, of a particular era with that era's ideas about sex and gender roles at play (whether de Laclos is entering into them or subverting them, or a mixture, he can't exist outside them entirely), and bear it in mind as we think about the character of Merteuil (and all the other female characters, obviously). Is Merteuil just a male fantasy of a coolly manipulative woman who is nonetheless driven by her sexual desires? Or is she a male-authored figure of fear, given her power and ability to lead her sexual life like a man? Is Cecile just a male stereotype, the sexually-curious but totally ignorant convent girl dying for a man? Is Madame de Tourvel another male stereotype, the 'frigid', virtuous prude someone tries to seduce for a bet?

Something to think about at the end, maybe?

And men with the make-up, it just occurred to me! I suppose Cecile only notices the women, because she thinks of blushing as something women do when men look at them…

I don’t think the Vicomte is easily controlled by her — she’s part teasing him with the idea he’ll obey her wishes with alacrity, part flattering him into an undertaking she says will get both of them revenge on Gercourt, who dropped Merteuil for another woman (who left Valmont for him).

Poor Cecile, being discussed by her mother’s dinner guests like she’s a prize pig in an agricultural show, and the men perving over her ‘ripening’ (ugh!) and pathetically pleased that Merteuil is paying her some attention — little does she know…

And the contrast between her own unprompted physical responses (blushing when embarrassed and dropping off when bored) and the fake rouge of the unblushing other women.

Yes, we're off!

Two short letters in and we already have a fairly clear picture of Cecile's transactional mother, Cecile herself and her innocence/naivety as well as how easily she is shamed, the Marquise de Merteuil and her vengeful scheming and the Vicomte and how easily he is controlled by her ("all that is left is for you to thank me and obey") and his fondness for young and awkward women. Also quite a clear picture of Gerard, the much older betroved.

Really efficient use of words to get us to have a foundation of understanding for 5 key characters.

However, I feel like I am going to go mad if I have to keep typing some of these long names, so prepare yourselves for multiple abbreviations of MdM or VdV

I think it's the transactional nature of marriage that strikes me most here -- Cecile is just a 15 year old blonde worth 60 thousand to be handed off to whomever her mother chooses (I'm assuming Madame de Volanges is a widow, as I assume Cecile's father, were he alive, would be masterminding the marriage?).

You have to love the marquise — high-handed, imperious, fully in control of her world, combining flattery of Valmont (seducing Cecile will be a ‘heroic’ feat, worthy of his memoirs) with a cool determination that he will do her bidding. And compared to poor, ignorant, cloistered Cecile blushing and stumbling through her first steps into society, seeing every man, even the shoemaker, as The Potential Husband, this is an experienced, worldly woman for whom love is just a fascinating series of discreet sexual encounters, and marriages never involve fidelity. She thinks Gercourt is ridiculous to go to such lengths to try to ensure he’s not cuckolded.

And affairs still have to be well-managed — she wants revenge on Gercourt not because she loved him, but because the way he summarily ditched her for another woman was insulting.

I also love that she’s cool-headed enough to recognise that even her current favourite lover isn’t clever enough to be involved in the revenge plot.