Keeping on the Mask: Madame de Villedieu’s Annales galantes and the Pleasures of Not Revealing History

Abstract

Madame de Villedieu’s Annales galantes (1670)—a collection of eighteen short narratives—helped to inaugurate a genre of fiction known as the nouvelle historique, a concise story that discloses the sentimental conflicts lying behind a specific event or person from French history. This “unmasking” of history often shows the importance of women to historical action, while rejecting the idealism and love discourse of the earlier novelistic tradition. With the Annales galantes, however, Villedieu is less interested in removing masks than in celebrating their use, especially as instruments of hypocrisy and marital infidelity. Drawing upon the cultural meanings of masks in Louis XIV’s France, Villedieu creates tales that demonstrate the power of keeping on the mask—that is, maintaining one’s autonomy by assuming a new persona. She also uses her anonymity to fashion an authorial mask that justifies her characters’ disguises and invites readers to imitate their deceptions. Villedieu ultimately employs the nouvelle historique with great creativity while avoiding historical determinism.