The Princesse de Clèves (The Princess of Cleves)

After the King’s death, the Guise family is elevated in estimation while others have fallen. “In brief, the whole complexion of the court changed,” Lafayette writes (139). M. de Clèves is passed over for the honor of accompanying Elisabeth to Spain, but he can only think of his wife and removing her from court—and from temptation. This new configuration of the court travels en masse to Reims for the coronation, but Mme de Clèves feigns illness so she can avoid the traveling court and Nemours.

Nemours, upset to learn that the princess won’t come, heads directly to the Clèves’s house, passing a couple departing courtiers in the courtyard. The princess dispatches an attendant to send him away definitively, and he leaves dejected. Nevertheless, M. de Clèves hears of the visit and assumes the worst. He rushes to his wife and confronts her. She soon realizes she can do nothing right in her husband’s eyes; though she convinces her husband that she sent Nemours away with prejudice, this only proves to M. de Clèves that Nemours is being treated with special distinction compared to the courtiers who had visited earlier. “…why make such a distinction for M. de Nemours? Why is he different from all the rest?” asks the stricken husband (143). They part on bad terms.

Mme de Clèves goes to their country home, Coulommiers, to be alone. She sends for a large painting of the court featuring, among other facets, a lifelike image of M. de Nemours.

Nemours, traveling with the rest of the court, soon hears that Mme de Clèves is alone in Coulommiers and leaves for his nearby sister’s house at once. M. de Clèves sends his attendant to spy on Nemours. Nemours hides in the garden at Coulommiers and spies on the princess. She spies him very briefly, too, though she plays it off as a trick of the light. The next day, when Nemours returns to the garden, he finds the all the doors shut and Mme de Clèves hidden. On the third day, Nemours involves his sister, who unwittingly invites herself over to Coulommiers. Mme de Clèves, surprised by M. de Nemours’s presence, engages with the sister and ignores the intruder. Nemours returns to Paris soon after.

M. de Clèves hears all of this from his attendant-spy and rashly concludes that his wife has committed adultery. His grief is extreme: “The same night, he was taken with a fever, with such awful consequences that, from the start, his illness appeared very grave” (154). Mme de Clèves quickly returns to the city to attend her husband and finds him close to death. From his deathbed, he censures her for having an affair and for being candid, which he now views as a sort of cruelty. She does everything she can to assuage her dying husband to little effect, saying, “I beg you to give me also the consolation of thinking that you will cherish my memory and that, had it been within your power to do so, you would have felt for me what you felt for another” (157). Soon after, he falls silent and dies.

In the following months, the widowed princess experiences many doubts and retires in mourning. She discovers that M. de Nemours has taken a room across from her window under an assumed name. The Vidame de Chartres arranges a meeting between M. de Nemours and the widow, and they speak more openly than ever of their feelings for one another. He believes she made a mistake in confessing her feelings to her dead husband. She asserts her duty to her dead husband’s memory and concludes that M. de Nemours is far too eligible and untrustworthy: “You have already had many affairs and you will have many more; I should cease to bring you happiness; I should see you become for another what you had been for me” (168-69).

They leave things inconclusively. The years pass, and Mme de Clèves retires to a convent for a part of every year. She lives a “somewhat brief” life, always apart from M. de Nemours (176).