Educating Nélida and Valentia: Female Mentorship in Two Works by Marie d’Agoult

Abstract

The fact that Marie d’Agoult published her 1846 novel, Nelida —long dismissed as an act of vengeance against Franz Liszt—in a socialist periodical, La Revue independante , rather than the established Revue des deux mondes , suggests that she had other goals in mind. D’Agoult centers both Nelida and her 1847 nouvelle, Valentia , on the eponymous heroines’ education, paying particular attention to the role of the female mentor. In Elisabeth, Nelida’s mentor, d’Agoult gives us a socialist, feminist version of that quintessential male mentor, Vautrin, and an alternative to the male protagonist’s failed social ascent and illusions perdues : social intervention in collective life. The lessons of Valentia’s mentor, Rosane d’Ermeuil, a high society courtesan, are, in contrast to those of Elisabeth, primarily sexual in nature. Through these two original and strikingly different figures, d’Agoult offers a two-pronged “way out” for women, a plan for fulfilling them in both mind and body.