A Tale of Two Tactics: Laclos’s Novel Approach to Military Crisis and Reform

Abstract

Scholars have long recognized Les Liaisons Dangereuses as a document for social reform, declaring the need for more women’s education and exposing moral corruption among French nobles. Scholars have also recognized Laclos’s military background and his metaphoric language of war and alliances. This essay places Laclos’s novel in the context of French military reform in the late eighteenth century and, in doing so, reveals new layers of social critique. As an artillery officer and critic of Vauban, he was deeply affected by this thirty-year period of debate among officers on how to improve the French army after the loss of the Seven Years’ War. With this context in mind, the military language of Valmont and Merteuil, when interpreted literally, reveal Laclos’s take on the reform period. Merteuil’s methods of seduction bear an uncanny resemblance to the tactics of Frederick the Great, and Valmont’s conquest of la présidente de Tourvel echoes Vaubanian siege-craft. With this perspective, the “war” between the two leads not to an odd ending without resolution, but the expected conclusion for these military debates and reforms. In Les Liaisons Dangereuses , Laclos reveals his perception of the military debates of the time and argues that any meaningful military reform requires societal changes.