Clelia  

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The Map of Tendre (Carte du Tendre) is included in the novel sequence Clélie (1654-1660)

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Clélie, histoire romaine (English: Clelia) is a novel sequence published in ten volumes by Madeleine de Scudéry between 1654 and 1660.

It is in Clelia that the famous Carte du Tendre appeared, an engraving of an Arcadia, where the river of Inclination waters the villages of Billet Doux, Petits Soins and so forth. It is a "galant".

With classical or Oriental characters as nominal heroes and heroines, the whole language and action are taken from the fashionable ideas of the time, and the characters can be identified with Madeleine de Scudéry's contemporaries. In Clélie, Herminius represents Paul Pellisson; Scaurus and Lyriane were Paul Scarron and his wife (afterwards Mme de Maintenon).

Plot and analysis by Dunlop's History of Fiction

Clélie is a romance also written by Mile. Scudery, though it was originally published under the name of her brother, and began to appear a year before the completion of the preceding, It consists of ten volumes 8vo, of about eight hundred pages each, and was printed at Paris in 1656- 1660, and again in 1666 and 1731.

A fuller analysis of this romance will be found in Koerting, pp. 410-420. It is difficult in these times of ^Mife at high pressure*' to realize the favour which this long and tedious production enjoyed. Some explanation is, however, afforded by a passage in Mme. de Genlis De l'influence des femmes sur la littérature française (Paris, 1811, i. p. 126).

Women led a stereotyped and sedentary kind of life. Instead of singing, playing, and getting up concerts, they spent a great portion of the day at the embroidery frame, plying their needle in embroidery or tapestry, while one of the company read aloud. ... It was the most natural thing in the world for them to renew the upholstery of mansion or castle, and there was no desire to be short of reading during these lengthy tasks. Those eternal conversations in the works of Mademoiselle de Scudery which suspend the progress of the story and appear to us so unwarrantably irrevelant, were by no means unwelcome. — Koerting, p. 410, translated by John Davies, Lond. 1656-61, and 1678, folio.

This work enjoyed for some time considerable reputation, but has finally acquired, and perhaps has deserved, the character of being the most tiresome of all the tedious productions of its author. It comprehends fewer incidents than the others, and more detail relating to the heart, and is filled with those far-fetched sentiments so much in fashion in the early age of Lewis XIV.

But what has chiefly excited ridicule in this romance, is the Carte du pays de Tendre prefixed in the map of this imaginary land, there is laid down the river D'Inclination, on the right bank of which are situated the villages of Jolis vers, and Epitres Galantes; and on the left those of Complaisance, Petits soins and Assiduites. Farther in the country are the cottages of Légereté and Oubli, with the lake Indifference. By one route we are led to the district of Desertion and Perfidie, but by sailing down the stream, we arrive at the towns Tendre sur Estime, Tendre sur Inclination, etc.

The action of this romance is placed in the early ages of Roman history, and the heroine is that Clelia who escaped from the power of Porsenna, by swimming across the Tiber. Aronce, the son of that monarch, is the favoured lover of Clelia, and his rivals are a young Roman, called Horace, King Tarquin, and his son Sextus. A great part of the romance is occupied with an account of the expul-

This map was the idea of Cbapelain, and may hare been developed in the conTeraation of the Saturday reunions, ^ee Cousin, La Soci6t6, etc. ii. 280. There were several imitations of this map, e.g, the Histoire da Temps ou Kelation du Royaume de la Coqueterie, by the Abb^ d'Aubignac, Paris, 1654 ; Carte de la Poesie, in the Mercure Galante of Jan. 1672 ; Carte du Pays de la Bragnerie, in Bussy-Rabutin's Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules, Paris, 1665, and others mentioned in Ix>uandre*s *' Conteurs francais Contemporains de Lafontaine p. 65.

More interesting and of some historical worth is the account which occupies sixty pages or thereabouts of vol. x. of the Palace of Valterre, which is really, according to the Bibl. des Rom. a description of the sumptpous chateau of Vaux-Ia-Vicomte, near Melun, on the banks of the Seine, built by the Financier Fouquet ; the gardens and building were commenced in 1653. Lafontaine also describes this magnificent palace in his Songe de Yaux (1615-1680). Koerting, p. 440. Voltaire, too. notes in a letter to Madame Deffant of April 24, 1769, that ** le Chateau de Villars, qui appartient anjourd'hui k M. le due de Pralin, y est d^crit avec la plus grande exactitude."

sion of the royal house, and the siege of Rome undertaken by the exiled family and their allies. During the continuance of the siege, Clelia resided in a secure place in the vicinity of the town, along with other Boman ladies, whose society was greatly enliyened by the arrival of Anacreon, who was escorting two ladies on their way to consult the oracle of Praeneste: though upwards of sixty years of age, the Greek poet . was still gay and agreeable, and entertained the party as much by his conversation^ as his Jolts vers. The romance terminates with the conclusion of a separate peace between the Romans and Porsenna, and the union of Clelia with his son Aronce.

It is but a small part of the romance, however, which is occupied with what is meant as the principal subject ; the great proportion of these cumbrous volumes is filled with episodes, which are for the most part love-stories, tedious, uninteresting, and involved. It is well known, that in the characters introduced in these, Mad. de Scudéry has at- tempted to delineate many of her contemporaries. Accordingly Brutus has been represented as a spark, and Lucretia as a coquette. One of the earliest episodes is that of Brutus and Lucretia, who carry on a sentimental intrigue, in the course of which Brutus addresses many love verses to his mistress, among which are the following;

Should a history of conversation in France ever be written, observes Fournel (Litt. Indép. p. 171), Mile, de Scudery's romances would be entitled to the first place among the materials to be consulted for the seventeenth century ; merits and defects are there presented as from the life. Mile, de Scudéry was one of those whose sovereignty in this domain was incontestable. She possessed " la passion de la conversation/' and bad, says Victor Cousin, an extraordinary talent for carrying on dialogues replete with wit and taste. Her romances, indeed, may be regarded as spun out conversations, and the romantic incidents merely serve as points of connection or a framework for their production ; and V. Cousin considers, as the most meritorious work of the author, the Conversations, drawn from her novels, which she published separately, viz.: Conversations sur divers Sujets, Paris, 1680; Conversations nouvelles sur divers sujets, Paris, 1684, Amstenl. 1682; Conversatinns Morales, Paris, 1686 ; Nouvelles Conversations de Morale, Paris, 1688 ; Entretiens de Morale, Paris, 1 692. See Koerting, p. 402, etc. and supra, 267.

' A fuller analysis in Bibl. Univ. des Rom. 1777, Oct ii. p. 5, etc.; and Koerting, pp. 422.

Quand verrai Je ce que J'adore

Eclairer ces aimables lieux ;

O doux moraens — momens precieax,

Ne reviendrez vous point encore —

Helas ! de I'une a Pautre Aurore,

A peine ai Je ferm^ les yeux, etc.

But, if in this masquerade we cannot discover the age of Tarquin, we receive some knowledge concerning the man- ners and characters of that of Mad. de Scuderj. In the fraternity of wise Sjrracusans she has painted the gentlemen of Port Bojal, and particularly under the name of Tunanto, has exhibited M. Arnauld d'Andilly, one of the chief ornaments of that learned society. Alcandre is Louis XIV., then only about eighteen years of age, of whom she has drawn a flattering portrait. Scaiuns and Liriane, who come to consult the oracle of Prsaneste, are intended for the celebrated Monsieur, and still more cele- brated Madame Scarron, afterwards de Maintenon. In Damo, the daughter of Pythagoras, who undertook the education of Brutus, she has painted Ninon L'Enclos, who instructed in gallantry the young noblemen who fre- quented her brilliant society. Finally, she has described herself in the portrait ^ of Arricidie, who delighted more

Free from egotism or over-estimation. (Koerting.) In allusion to these disguised portraits of contemporaries, Boileau says in a letter to Brossette of January 7, 1703 : " It is alleged that there is not a single Roman, man or woman, in this book but is moulded upon the character of some townsman or townswoman of the author's quarter. A key was circulated at one time, but I never troubled to get it. All I know is that the generous Herminius was meant for Pellisson, the agreeable Scaurus for Scarron, the gallant Amilcar for Sarrazin, etc. The editor of the Bibliotheque Universelle des Romans also mentions (vol. ii. p. 196, Oct. 1777) la Clef manuscrite de Cl^lie que nous poss^ons. There are no fewer than three hundred and seventy fifl^res in the Romance, and there seems little doubt that all or nearly all were intended portraits, readily recognizable by contemporaries, a circumstance which doubtless gave these long-winded novels an interest which they cannot possess for us. In addition to those already mentioned CMlie is Mile, de Longueville, and Cl^nime, Fouquet. Notwithstanding the pedantic ridiculousness of it9 sentimental metaphysics, writes M. Godefroy, C161ie is worth study as a serious and curious book, dealing in a spirited and judicious way with all the questions concerning the condition of women in the world (see supra, p. 439), the rank allotted them by modem civilization, and the preservation of that rank entailed on them. The portraits and descriptions, which are objects of Boileau's mockery, have their value, by the beauties of her mind than by the charms of her person. This incon^uous plan of taking personages from ancient history, and attributing to them manners and sentiments of modern refinement, especially with regard to the passion of love, is repeatedly censured and ridiculed by Boileau in his Art Poetique: —

Gardez donc de donner ainsi que dans Clélie

L'air ni l'esprit français à l'antique Italie

Et, sous des noms romains faisant notre portrait

Peindre Caton galant et Brutus dameret

--History of Fiction

See also

• Love fiction