Réécrire l'histoire de la femme. Un roman de Mme de Puisieux

Abstract

In the middle of the 18th century, if novels are par excellence women's novels, they often expose their "misfortunes" ; apart from a few figures of libertines characterized by their ignominy, it is almost a platitude to say that women's liberty has no more place than their happiness. In this perspective L'Education du marquis de *** ou les Mémoires de la comtesse de Zurlac (1753) by Mme de Puisieux (1720-1798) can but attract one's attention. Judged to be a mediocre novel by Etienne Servais (Le Genre romanesque en France depuis cla Nouvelle Héloïse jusqu'aux approches de la Révolution, 1922), considered less severely by Robert Mauzi, it refuses to compel its heroine to choose between the only two ways apparently open to the virtuous woman in most 18th -century fiction : death or a sentimental retreat. Refusing the austere ethics of La Princesse de Clèves which is unsurprising in view of its author, a friend of Diderot, it offers a positive dimension to women's fate.