Book Around the Corner

The Morality of Senses by Vicomte de Mirabeau (1781) Original French title: La Morale des sens.

 The Morality of Senses is a libertine book by the Vicomte de Mirabeau (1754-1792) who is the younger brother of Mirabeau, a figure of the French Revolution. According to his bio on Wikipedia, I’m not sure I would have liked to meet the man. It is published by Libretto, a French independent publisher and this is my last contribution to Karen’s and Lizzy’s official #ReadIndies and to Marina Sofia’s unofficial French February.

In this novel published in London to avoid censorship, Mirabeau wrote a coming of age novel that relates the love escapades of an adolescent. My copy also includes the original illustration of the book, all of couples in various states of undress.

Basically, our narrator is horny all day long and chases after everything with a skirt. At the beginning of the book, he’s staying at a friend’s house. He’s pining after another guest, the young Eglé who is just out of convent but sleeps with the hostess of the house and has fun with the servant Julie.

One could say, as it is written on the back page of my copy, that his attitude shows some acquiescence to the ideas of equality between people promoted by this century of the Enlightenment. He doesn’t make any difference between a servant and her mistress. That’s one way to view it. I’m just seeing him as a shameless womanizer, which is fine by me as he doesn’t make any false promise to any of these ladies.

Some little piques here and there prove that he is a man of his century: Voltaire and Rousseau are mentioned, as well as the court and the power of literary salons.

What shocked me the most in this novel is the narrator’s attitude towards women. They are fortresses to be conquered and he uses military words for that. He explains that when they say no, it’s more to save appearances and tell themselves that they have resisted to temptation than anything else. It never comes to his mind that “no” might actually say “no”.

I know we mustn’t judge past behaviors according to today’s standards. I’m not judging the character or the author, I’m just pointing out where we come from and why we still have issues with women consent. He’s genuinely convinced that their protest is just for the sake of propriety and nothing else. This “no means yes” is a solid and old wall of belief that we are still fighting against. Not all the time, but often enough.

It’s a good reminder of our misogynistic roots and that we mustn’t give up the fight. Otherwise, La Morale des sens is an interesting testimony of the libertine world before the French Revolution.

I have no idea whether La Morale des sens has been translated into English or not. I imagine that, at some point, it must have been.