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Tag Archives: Casuistry

Molière: plots, jealousy & the dénouement

24 Sunday Feb 2019

Posted by michelinewalker in Comedy, Molière, Varia

≈ Comments Off on Molière: plots, jealousy & the dénouement

Tags

Casuistry, Comédie-Ballet, Dialogues, jealousy, Le Misanthrope, Plots, Tartuffe, the pharmakos

François_Boucher_-_Young_Country_Girl_Dancing_-_Google_Art_Project

Young Country Girl Dancing by François Boucher (Photo credit: Wiki2.org.)

I reread chapters of my thesis on Molière‘s (1622 – 1673), a study of the pharmakós in six of Molière‘ comedies, and my article on L’École des femmes.[1] The article is fine. As for my thesis, its chapter on Le Misanthrope requires a few quotations and should be linked to “Le Misanthrope, ou la comédie éclatée,”[2] a paper I read at an international conference on the Age of Theatre in France. It was held at the University of Toronto, on 14-16 May 1987.

Following are a few comments on the plot of comedies and farces, on jealousy and the dénouement.

The Plot

  • All’s well that ends well
  • Le Blondin berne le barbon
  • Le Trompeur trompé (the deceiver deceived)
  • Hoist with his own petard

All’s well that ends well is a play by Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616),  which describes comedy in general. The French use the following formula: Le blondin berne le barbon, or The Young Man fools the Old Man. However, there are times when Molière blends the two formulas. One could say that the School for Wives‘ Arnolphe is “hoisted with his own petard” (Shakespeare’s Hamlet) or that he is le trompeur trompé (the deceiver deceived). He raises his future wife, but she marries a young man.

By keeping Agnès inside his house, Arnoldphe believes he is raising a wife who will not be unfaithful. When Arnolphe learns Agnès loves Horace, he does not speak like a lover. He speaks like an accountant. He brought her up, so she owes him. The matter of her debt is discussed. Arnolphe, the blocking character or alazṓn, senex iratus, Miles gloriosus, etc. alienates Agnès. After meeting Horace, she tells Arnolphe that the young man she loves knows how say what pleases her, which is not the case with Arnolphe, the embodiment of jealousy. The School for Wives was first performed at the Palais Royal theatre on 26 December 1662. Comedies promote marriage and pleasure.

Front page of L’École des femmes—engraving from the 1719 edition (Wiki2.org.)

Jealousy

AGNÈS

Lui, mais à vous parler franchement entre nous,
Il est plus pour cela, selon mon goût, que vous ;
Chez vous le mariage est fâcheux et pénible,
Et vos discours en font une image terrible :
Mais las ! il le fait lui si rempli de plaisirs,
Que de se marier il donne des désirs.
(Agnès à Arnolphe, 5.iv)

[You did. But, to be frank with you, he is more to my taste for a husband than you. With you, marriage is a trouble and a pain, and your descriptions give a terrible picture of it; but there−he makes it seem so full of joy that I long to marry.]
(Agnès to Arnolphe, V.5, p. 26)

ARNOLPHE
But you ought to have driven away that amorous desire.
(Arnolphe to Agnès, V.5, p. 26)

AGNÈS
Le moyen de chasser ce qui fait du plaisir ?
(Agnès à Arnolphe, 5.iv)

[How can we drive away what gives us pleasure?]
(Agnès to Arnolphe, V.5, p. 26)

AGNÈS
Vraiment il en sait donc là-dessus plus que vous ;
Car à se faire aimer il n’a point eu de peine.
(Agnès à Arnolphe, 5.iv)

[Of a truth then he knows more about it than you; for he had no difficulty in making himself loved.]
(Agnès to Arnolphe, V.5, p. 26)

AGNÈS
Que ne vous êtes-vous comme lui fait aimer ?
(Agnès à Arnolphe, 5.iv)

[Heaven! you ought not to blame me. Why did you not make yourself loved, as he has done? I did not prevent you, I fancy.
(Agnès à Arnolphe, V.5, p. 26)

ALCESTE

Le Misanthrope’s Alceste is also jealous. Yet Célimène tells him that she loves him:

Mais, moi, que vous blâmez de trop de jalousie,
Qu’ai-je de plus qu’eux tous, Madame, je vous prie ?
(Alceste to Célimène, 2.iv)

[But, madam,
What have I more than all of them, I pray you?
—I, whom you blame for too much jealousy!]
(Alceste to Célimène, II.1)

Le bonheur de savoir que vous êtes aimé.
Célimène à Alceste, 2.i)
[The happiness of knowing you are loved.]
(Célimène to Alceste, II.1)

Célimène is ready to marry Alceste, but he refuses…  He hates what he loves. (5, scène dernière) (V .7)

Molière and Pierre Corneille (Getty images)

The Dénouement

The role Philinte plays has often been described as that of the raisonneur. When I studied Molière as an undergraduate, Philinte was the raisonneur. More recent scholarship opposes the alazṓn to the eirôn (as in ironic) in a form of contest called agôn (as in protagonist, antagonist, and agony). Normally, the alazṓn is defeated, but not necessarily ousted. In The Misanthrope (1665), no one is ousted, but all characters leave the stage. I am reading Gabriel Conesa’s Le Dialogue moliéresque, seeking information on the dialogue between Philinte and Alceste (1.i), in Le Misanthrope.[3]

We have a raisonneur[4] in The Misanthrope: Philinte. When Alceste reveals that civility does not allow him to know whether what praise he hears is mere flattery the truth, a mask falls. He is vain and not a raisonneur. The dialogue between Alceste and Philinte allows us to know the real Alceste (I.i.). As for his dialogue with Célimène, (II.1) it reveals insecurity, inquiétude. As we have seen in Portraits of the Misanthrope, Philinte’s flegme (his calmness) allows him to enjoy the world, however flawed. He is the eirôn, but also, a raisonneur. Alceste, as lover, is conflicted. The agôn, the contest opposing the alazṓn and the eirôn, takes place within him. How can there be a dénouement?

The plot of this comedy is circular. I have therefore suggested that although there is a dramatis personæ, comedic functions have been fused, blurring distribution: blocking character, alazṓn, senex iratus (crazy old man) the young lovers and the eirôn (Philinte as raisonneur). This would suggest the total absence in Molière’s Misanthrope of tragedy’s catharsis. No one can be removed.

However, Molière’s Tartuffe (1664-1669), features a pharmakós (as in pharmacy). Tartuffe, the hypocrite, is led to prison by an officer: l’Exempt. (Tartuffe.pdf) He is saved by “un Prince ennemi de la fraude.” (V, Scène dernière), (“Our prince is not a friend to double-dealing[.]” Tartuffe). Yet, Tartuffe was empowered by Orgon who was empowered by Tartuffe.[6] Orgon adopts Tartuffe so he, Orgon, can be a family tyrant with impunity or sin without sinning (casuistry).[7] The dénouement is not a genuine cleansing. Therefore, Tartuffe is a pharmakós, a scapegoat.

Comedies where the young lovers fool the blocking character and marry suggest a healthier society, the society of the play. Famous examples are The Would-be Genleman, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), and Le Malade imaginaire (1673), The Imaginary Invalid. These are classified as comédies-ballets. The music for The Imaginary Invalid was composed by Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

You may know that Le Malade imaginaire was first performed on 10 February 1673. Molière suffered from tuberculosis. He collapsed on the stage on 17 February 1673, during the fourth performance of Le Malade imaginaire. He fainted when he was removed from the stage. He was hemorraging. He died a few hours later.

However, let us return to Tartuffe where “all’s well that ends well.”  Mariane will marry Valère.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Molière and the raisonneur (themorganlea.com)
  • Portraits of the Misanthrope (20 February 2019)
  • Molière’s Tartuffe, a reading (17 May 2016)
  • Molière’s Tartuffe and Northrop Frye (21 July 2014)
  • Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning (5 March 2012)

Sources and Resources

  • Comédie-ballet FR
  • L’École des femmes is e-text (UK) EN
  • The Plays of Molière are Internet Archive publications EN
  • L’ École des femmes is a toutmolière.net publication FR
  • Le Misanthrope is a toutmolière.net publication FR
  • The Misanthrope is a Wikisource publication EN
  • Tartuffe is a toutmolière.net publication FR
  • Tartuffe is a Wikisource publication EN

_________________________
(Notes 1 & 2 refer to material that should be included in a longer text.)

[1] Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, “L’Échec d’Arnolphe: lois du genre, ou faille intérieure?,”Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, 11, nº 20 (1984), 79-92.
[2] Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, “Le Misanthrope ou la comédie éclatée,” in David Trott & Nicole Boursier, eds, L’Âge du théâtre en France/The Age of Theatre in France (Edmonton: Academic Printing and Publishing, 1988), 53-63. ISBN 0-920980-30-9
[3] Gabriel Conesa, Le Dialogue moliéresque (Paris: CEDES, 1992) (narratives)
[4] Harold Knutson, “Yet another last word on Molière raisonneur,” Theatre Survey, 22, nº1 (1981), 125-140.
[5] Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, “Le Misanthrope ou la comédie éclatée.”
[6] Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning (michelinewalker.com)

Love to everyone  💕

—ooo—

Claire Lefilliâtre chante Plaisir d’amour — Le Poème harmonique

Portrait of Molière by Pierre Mignard, ca. 1658 (Google Art Project)

© Micheline Walker
24 February 2019
WordPress

michelinewalker.com

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Molière’s “Tartuffe,” a reading

17 Tuesday May 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Comedy, French Literature, Molière

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

alazṓn, Casuistry, Doubling, Eirôn, Molière, pharmakos, symbiosis, Tartuffe

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Le Tartuffe by François Boucher (drawing) and Laurent Cars (engraving). (Photo credit: Google images)

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ:

MADAME PERNELLE, mother of Orgon
ORGON, husband of Elmire
ELMIRE, wife of Orgon
DAMIS, son of Orgon
MARIANE, daughter of Orgon, in love with Valère
CLÉANTE, brother-in-law (beau-frère) of Orgon
TARTUFFE, a hypocrite
DORINE, Mariane’s maid
M. LOYAL, a bailiff (l’huissier)
A Police Officer (l’Exempt)
FLIPOTTE, Madame Pernelle’s servant

Le Tartuffe is a five-act comedy in verse. It was first performed in 1664 and banned. It was rewritten and performed in 1667, but remained banned until 1669.

Le Tartuffe: structure

  • the eirôn vs the alazṓn
  • the doubling of the alazṓn

In the Misanthrope, Molière combines in one character, Alceste, the blondin and the barbon, or the young man who wishes to marry and the person(s) who oppose(s) the blondin‘s marriage. In other words, in Le Tartuffe, the eirôn and the alazṓn, or the blondin and the barbon, are separate characters, but Molière seems to have doubled his alazṓn, or barbon. Both Orgon and Tartuffe are blocking characters, or the alazṓn. They are so close to one another that one could suggest a symbiosis.

ORGON to CLÉANTE, Tartuffe (I, 5)
Dear brother, you’d be charmed to know him;
Your raptures over him would have no end.
He is a man … who … ah! … in fact … a man
Whoever does his will, knows perfect peace,
And counts the whole world else, as so much dung.
His converse has transformed me quite; he weans
My heart from every friendship, teaches me
To have no love for anything on earth;
And I could see my brother, children, mother,
And wife, all die, and never care—a snap.

CLÉANTE
Your feelings are humane, I must say, brother!

The Plot

This is how the plot unfolds. Orgon has taken into his home a man feigning devotion, Tartuffe. Tartuffe is also a casuiste, a person who can take sin out of sinning. Because Tartuffe is a deft casuiste, he allows Orgon to act as a tyrannical father, and to do so with impunity. Orgon is so delighted he cannot see that he is being fooled. Yet, without Tartuffe, Orgon could not be a tyrannical father. For instance, when Orgon’s daughter Mariane begs her father to be spared a marriage to Tartuffe, Orgon has to brace himself, because he is at heart a compassionate individual:  

MARIANE to ORGON, Tartuffe (IV, 3)
(…) 
I beg you
Upon my knees, oh, save me from the torment
Of being possessed by one whom I abhor!

ORGON to himself, Tartuffe (IV, 3)
Allons, ferme, mon cœur point de faiblesse humaine !

[Come, come, my heart, be firm! no human weakness!] 

Mariane then asks to be allowed to enter a convent

MARIANE, Tartuffe (IV, 3)
Oh, rather let a convent’s rigid rule
Wear out the wretched days that Heaven allots me.

But Orgon has a good directeur de conscience under whose guidance, he is learning to turn inhumanity into a virtue, which it is not. Knowing the role Tartuffe teaches, Orgon preaches mortification:

ORGON to MARIANE, Tartuffe (IV, 3)
So, mortify your senses by this marriage,
And don’t vex me about it anymore.

Orgon is therefore beguiled. With the exception of his mother, Madame Pernelle, Orgon is the only member of the society of the play not to see that Tartuffe is a faux dévot who does not mortify his senses. However, Orgon so needs Tartuffe, who fits him like a glove, that he cannot see what everyone sees, which is both a recipe for disaster (Orgon is blind) and a source of comic relief (everyone knows and laughs).

‘Gros et gras, le teint et la bouche vermeille’
[stout, fat, fair, rosy-lipped]

Gaston Hall writes that “‘Gros et gras, le teint et la bouche vermeille’ [stout, fat, fair, rosy-lipped], Tartuffe is quite unfitted to play the part of the saintly ascetic. No rascal with the slightest talent for hypocrisy would have dared sit down to dine upon ‘… deux perdrix  Avec une moitié de gigot en hachis’ [two partridges, As well as half a leg o’ mutton, deviled]” (Gaston Hall, p. 14).[1]

For instance, in Act 1, Scene 4, Orgon has just returned from a trip to the country and wants to know what has happened during his absence. However, he is so “tartuffié” that he cannot hear that his wife Elmire has been sick. He asks “Et Tartuffe” [And what about Tartuffe?] four times, and says “Le pauvre homme” [The poor man] four times, whatever he hears.

This scene also contains a second source of comic relief: the word “tartuffié” instead of possessed. Given the devastation visited upon Orgon’s family, the word “tartuffié” is incongruous but it minimizes the degree to which Tartuffe has seduced Orgon. In fact, Orgon is besotted and has begun to twist reality as did 17th-century casuists. Casuistry  constitutes a form of moral jurisprudence, a practice that led Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) to write his famous Lettres Provinciales (1656-57) and also exerted influence on Molière who mocked it in Tartuffe.

In short, in Molière’s Tartuffe, the character who opposes Mariane’s marriage to Valère is not Tartuffe, it is Orgon, the pater familias of most comedies.

buys_jacobus-zzz-scene_from_moliere_comedy_tartuffe

Tartuffe by Jacobus Buys (Wikimedia Commons)

The Cassette: Orgon threatened

  • the Fronde
  • the cassette

However, as Orgon enjoys threatening his daughter into a mésalliance, which is the normal plot of comedies, Tartuffe is coveting Orgon’s wife and appropriating all of Orgon’s belongings, including a cassette containing incriminating documents. Tartuffe knows about the cassette and urges Orgon not to keep it in his, Orgon’s, possession. If Orgon gives the cassette to Tartuffe, he will be able to deny having this cassette if asked about it, which frees him. He would not have to sin. One of the methods of casuistry is restriction mentale. One says: “I don’t have it.” It may be an incomplete statement, but it isn’t an outright lie. Orgon does not want to sin.

CLÉANTE to ORGON, Tartuffe (V, 1)
How could you trust them to another’s hands?

ORGON
By reason of a conscientious scruple.
I went straight to my traitor, to confide
In him; his sophistry made me believe
That I must give the box to him to keep,
So that, in case of search, I might deny
My having it at all, and still, by favour
Of this evasion, keep my conscience clear
Even in taking oath against the truth.

The above is information we are not given until late in the play, but Dorine mentions “late unpleasantness” at the very beginning of the play (I, 2). Dorine, Mariane’s maid, creates tension. Dorine is our zanni, the astute servant of the commedia dell’arte.

DORINE to CLÉANTE, Tartuffe (I, 2)
His conduct in our late unpleasantness
Had won him much esteem, and proved his courage
In service of his king; but now he’s like
A man besotted, since he’s been so taken
With this Tartuffe. He calls him brother, loves him
A hundred times as much as mother, son,
Daughter, and wife…

At any rate, it seems we have two alazṓn: a reticent pater familias and a man who can make arrangements with heaven.

Tartuffe’s Confession

The truth as lie

At this point, Act III, matters start to turn around. Molière however treats us to a confession that is a truth as lie.

Hidden in a closet (III, 3), Damis, Orgon’s son, has seen Tartuffe attempting to seduce Elmire, Orgon’s wife, and tells his father. Although he is “tartuffié,” Orgon nevertheless confronts Tartuffe, but no sooner does he address him than the faux dévot confesses. Il s’accuse pour s’excuser.

TARTUFFE to ORGON, Tartuffe (III, 6)
Oui mon frère, je suis un méchant, un coupable,
Un malheureux pécheur, tout pain d’iniquité,
Le plus grand scélérat qui jamais ait été.

[Yes, brother, I am wicked, I am guilty,
A miserable sinner, steeped in evil,
The greatest criminal that ever lived.]

Such defence is consistent with devotion and it is, therefore, very effective. In the Catholic Church, the devout confess. After confession, the sinner may have to make amends, but he or she is absolved. However, blind as he is, Orgon does not see a swindler in Tartuffe, but a genuinely devout man. In fact, Orgon  is the one who makes amends (penance). To show to what extent he believes him, Orgon asks Tartuffe to keep his wife company at all times (III, 7).

Consequences

However, the plot has thickened. Elmire had asked Damis not to tell Orgon (III, 5). This warming was prudent on her part as Tartuffe’s confession only serves to convince Orgon that Tartuffe is a holy man, which he isn’t. So the results are catastrophic. As quoted above (IV, 6), Orgon presses the marriage of Mariane to Tartuffe and he disinherits his son Damis.

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Elmire convinces Orgon, original painting by A. J. Mazerolle (theatrehistory.com)

 

Tartuffe, frontispiece by Pierre Brissard, 1682

Tartuffe, frontispice by Pierre Brissard, 1682

A Play-within-a-Play

All else having failed, members of Orgon’s family resort to a theatrical device: a-play-within-a-play. Elmire tells her husband to crouch underneath a table behind a tablecloth, a form of curtain (IV, 4). From an actor Orgon is transformed into a spectator. He will see and seeing is believing.

According to Molière scholar Georges Forestier, the play-within-a-play is not a mise en abyme (see Related Articles). It is part of the action dramatique, the plot.[2] In the present case, Professor Forestier is absolutely right. Orgon is a doubting Thomas and so tartuffié, possessed, that his family has little choice but to conceal him under a table, which may not be a play-within-a-play, but constitutes a theatrical recourse. Orgon is stunned and slow to come to Elmire’s rescue. She has coughed repeatedly, as arranged, without Orgon emerging from under the table.

Yet Tartuffe does not take from Orgon much more than Orgon gives him. However, there is a difference. Tartuffe is an extortionist and Orgon, a potential family tyrant, but un homme de bien (a good man) at heart. He has truly been besotted. Orgon so needs Tartuffe, a casuist, that not only does he give his daughter to Tartuffe, disinherit his son Damis, foolishly sign himself away to Tartuffe, but he also entrusts to Tartuffe a cassette that contains incriminating papers and which we do not hear about until Act V.

La Fronde: uprisings

We will not discuss la Fronde except to note that under Italian-born Cardinal Mazarin, Chief Minister of the French King from 1642 until his death, there were uprisings called La Fronde. These occurred between 1648 – 1653 and consisted in two campaigns: the Fronde of the parlements and the Fronde of the nobles. Absolutism gave no voice to France’s  parlements and it’s aristocrats, including princes of the blood, possible heirs to the Kingdom of France who played no role in governing France. Moreover, the nobles refused to pay a tax. The war against Spain was costing a fortune. In the end, peasants and members of the bourgeoisie had to foot the bill.

Both Orgon and Argas were involved in these uprisings. When finally, Orgon realizes that he’s been a fool, he tells Cléante, the raisonneur, and starts running upstairs in the hope of retrieving the cassette, but it’s too late. Monsieur Loyal, the bailiff, is already at the door to collect all of Orgon’s possessions. We soon learn from Valère, who must have friends in high places and is in love with Mariane, Orgon’s daughter, that Tartuffe has already used the cassette alleging, later, that his first duty is to serve the king: “Mais l’intérêt du Prince est mon premier devoir” (V, scène dernière).

ORGON to TARTUFFE, Tartuffe (V, scène dernière)
Ungrateful wretch, do you forget ’twas I
That rescued you from utter misery?

TARTUFFE
[I’ve not forgot some help you may have given;
But my first duty now is toward my prince.
The higher power of that most sacred claim
Must stifle in my heart all gratitude;
And to such puissant ties I’d sacrifice
My friend, my wife, my kindred, and myself.]

How ironic. However Valère has made arrangements for the family to flee (V, 6) because Orgon will be arrested, but in true comic fashion, Tartuffe is arrested.

The Final Society

Northrop Frye[3] writes that:

The tendency of comedy is to include as many people as possible in its final society: the blocking characters are form often reconciled or converted than simply repudiated. (Frye, p. 165)

In Act V, scene 3, Cléante remains optimistic. Tartuffe may prove more merciful than we expect.

CLÉANTE to ORGON, Tartuffe (V, 3)
Je voudrais de bon cœur, qu’on pût entre vous deux
De quelque ombre de paix raccommoder les nœuds.

[I wish with all my heart that some pretence
Of peace could be patched up between you two.]

Yet, in both Dom Juan and Tartuffe, salvation does not come from a ruse on the part of the society of the play. In Dom Juan a machine engulfs le méchant homme. In Tartuffe, un Prince ennemi de la fraude saves the family. Molière uses a deus ex machina. We have reached what Northrop Frye calls the “point of ritual death”  (p. 179). The eirôn cannot recover.

As noted above, Tartuffe takes little more than what he has been given by Orgon, but Orgon has given everything, which was foolish. Moreover, Tartuffe does not have to accept marrying Mariane. Nor does he have to take possession of what Orgon has handed over to him. Moreover, were Tartuffe humane, he would not run to the Prince carrying the incriminating cassette.

Doubling the alazṓn

Therefore, although Orgon is forcing Mariane to marry Tartuffe and gives all he has to Tartuffe, including the incriminating cassette, “[t]he pharmakós is neither innocent nor guilty,” writes Frye (p. 41). By doubling the alazṓn (the blocking character), Molière has allowed, on the one hand, greater vilification of Tartuffe, who becomes the pharmakós, and, on the other hand, he has facilitated Orgon’s rehabilitation, as comedy wills. Tartuffe is Molière’s most convincing pharmakós.

Moreover, Tartuffe is the classic alazṓn: a miles gloriosus (Plautus, c. 254–184 BCE; Latin comedy), in which he resembles Dom Juan. (See Alazṓn, Wikipedia.) Elmire resists Tartuffe’s advances by telling him that she may offend heaven: le Ciel. However, in Tartuffe’s eyes, the eyes of a casuist, it is possible to sin without sinning, which is preposterous and leads Tartuffe to hoist his own petard. There is a farcical element in Tartuffe, just as there is a farcical element in the Misanthrope. Let us hear Tartuffe impersonating God, which is casuistry. 

TARTUFFE à ELMIRE, Tartuffe (IV, 4)
Si ce n’est que le Ciel qu’à mes vœux on oppose,
Lever un tel obstacle est à moi peu de chose,
Et cela ne doit pas retenir votre cœur.

[If Heaven is all that stands now in my way,
I’ll easily remove that little hindrance;
Your heart need not hold back for such a trifle.]

Conclusion: the pharmakós and the alazṓn

Comedy is a forgiving. By virtue of comedy’s ancient laws, there will be a happy ending, which, in the case of Molière’s Tartuffe, is brought about by the timely intervention of “un Prince ennemi de la fraude,” a “deus ex machina.” At the end of the play, as we are sitting on the edge of our seats, expecting the Exempt (a police officer) to arrest Orgon, the Exempt arrests Tartuffe.

Tartuffe is made into the guilty and punished half, the scapegoat, or pharmakós, of a doubled alazṓn. Doubling the alazṓn benefits the play. Orgon is part of the play’s final society, which he must deserve, or Elmire would not be his wife and his family so loyal. Nor would a servant, Dorine, speak to Orgon so openly. Orgon cannot re-enter society without redeemable features. We are not in fairyland.

The Truth as Truth

As for Tartuffe, he is as he describes himself when Damis, Orgon’s son, tells his father that he saw Tartuffe trying to seduce Elmire. His confession “gets him off the hook:” il se tire d’affaire. As Will Moore writes, “Tartuffe is sure of Orgon, and Molière is sure of his public” (Will G. Moore, p. 64).[4] But the truth as lie is a reprieve. The truth as lie turns out to be the truth, which is comic irony.

TARTUFFE to ORGON, Tartuffe (III, 6)
Non, non, vous vous laissez tromper à l’apparence,
Et je ne suis rien moins, hélas, que ce qu’on pense.
Tout le monde me prend pour un homme de bien;
Mais la vérité pure est que je ne vaux rien.

[No, no; you let appearances deceive you;
I’m anything but what I’m thought to be,
Alas! and though all men believe me godly,
The simple truth is, I’m a worthless creature.]

As the curtain falls, all are on their way to the wedding of Valère and Mariane.

All’s well that ends well.
(Tout est bien qui finit bien.) 

Love to everyone ♥

Gouache (XVIIIe siècle) de Fesch et Whirsker. (Photo credit: Larousse)

Gouache (XVIIIe siècle) de Fesch et Whirsker. (Photo credit: Larousse)

I have already written that Tartuffe is the punished half of a blocking character. In this post, I have taken this thought further by suggesting a doubling of the alazṓn.

Micheline Bourbeau-Walker, “Tartuffe: masques, machines et machinations,” in Clive Thomson (ed), Proceedings of the 1981 Meeting of the Canadian Association of University and College Teachers of French (Kingston: Signum, 1981), p. 491-509.
ISSN 0700-1525

My PhD dissertation was a study of the pharmakós in Molière:

Micheline Walker, “L’Impossible Entreprise : une étude sur le pharmakós dans le théâtre de Molière,” DAI, 36 (1976) 8103A (Université de la Colombie britannique).

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Edmond Geffroy’s Molière (11 May 2016)
  • Farces and “Grandes Comédies” (8 May 2016)
  • Molière’s Enigmatic Comedies (6 May 2016)
  • Molière’s Tartuffe & Northrop Frye (21 July 2014)
  • The Arnolfini Portrait: mise en abyme (21 May 2014)

Jansenism & Casuistry

  • Jesuits and Jansenists (2 April 2015)
  • Jansenism: a Church Divided (24 March 2015)
  • Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning (5 March 2012)

Sources and Resources

  • Dom Juan is a Internet Archive publication EN
  • Tartuffe is a Wikisource publication FR
  • Tartuffe is an Internet Archive publication and a Gutenberg Project publication [EBook 2027] (translated by Curtis Hidden Page) EN
  • Northrop Frye’s Anatomy of Criticism, Four Essays are a PDF publication

____________________

[1] H. Gaston Hall, Tartuffe, Molière (W. G. Moore, General Editor, Barron’s Studies in French Literature: 1960).
[2] Georges Forestier, Le Théâtre dans le théâtre (Genève: Droz, 1996).
[3] Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism, Four Essays (Princeton University Press, 1973) (online)
[4] W. G. Moore, Molière, A New Criticism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949).

—ooo—

GEORG MATTHIAS MONN (1717-1750)
Concerto for cello, strings and basso continuo in G minor (2. Adagio)

Performed by the Freiburger Barockorchester
Featuring Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello
Conducted by Petra Mullejans

Elmire & Tartuffe

Elmire & Tartuffe

© Micheline Walker
17 May 2016
(revised: 18 May 2016)
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Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning

16 Monday May 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in France, Molière, Music, The Church

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, Casuistry, Escobar y Mendoza, Henri IV of France, Henry VIII of England, Huguenot, Pascal's Lettres provinciales

King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

King Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Casuistry

The Fragmentation of the Western Church

When Antonio Escobar y Mendoza (1589 – 4 July 1669) published his Summula casuum conscientiæ (1627), the handbook of casuistry, the Roman Church had been severely fragmented. Escobar y Mendoza and Francisco Suárez (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617), Jesuits, were therefore addressing an alarmed and vulnerable Western Church, a Church ready to use remedies it may not have otherwise contemplated. Casuistry all but took sinfulness out of sin.  Consequently, it was attacked by Blaise Pascal, in his Lettres provinciales (1658-1659), and ridiculed by Molière (Tartuffe) and La Fontaine. But it allowed the king to sin.

Let us assess the damage

  • Henry VIII of England (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547; king: 21 April 1509 until his death), who was not allowed to divorce, ended up making himself head of the Church of England.
  • Martin Luther (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546), had confronted indulgence “salesman” Johann Tetzel, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and opposed other practices, had also fragmented the Roman Catholic Church.
  • John Calvin (French, Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564) and French Huguenots, Calvinist Protestants, could easily point a guilty finger not at Jesus of Nazareth, but at the Church as a human institution.  Calvin is the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, published in 1536.

To the above, we could add the Edict of Nantes, promulgated in 1598, by Henri IV who was both king of France and king of Navarre. The Edict of Nantes offered protection to the formerly persecuted Huguenots, which seemed the correct remedy, but Huguenots were not loyal to the Roman Church and were therefore a potential obstacle to absolutism in the eyes of cardinal-duc de Richelieu.

Richelieu may have been right when he suggested to Louis XIII that the Huguenots’ right to have “places fortes” (fortified communities), such as La Rochelle, could imperil absolutism, i.e. one king, one language, one religion. These “places fortes” could be turned into genuine fortified places. (See Siege of La Rochelle, Wikipedia.) However, did he have to let twenty-two thousand Huguenots starve to death?

Casuistry: origins

Casuistry, a recipe for ethical laissez-faire, does not find its origins in seventeenth-century Spain, or Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other casuists. In dates back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael (6 or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520). Aristotle gestures to the earth, representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Form.

For example, casuistry has roots in ancient Rome and, especially, ancient Greece, and the Renaissance had given greater access to the knowledge of ancient Rome and Greece. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE)[i] proposes an examination of certain actions, not all, before judgment is passed with respect to their moral acceptability.

Casuistry and Jurisprudence

I should mention that casuistry has often been defined as jurisprudence applied to morality. For instance, the Ten Commandments do not permit the killing of a human being, but during a war that restriction is lifted. It is also lifted in the case of self-defence. As well, many countries have retained what other countries look upon as profoundly unethical: the death-penalty. This would suggest that the sinfulness of an action depends to a smaller or larger extent on circumstances and location. Jurisprudence is the study of cases (casuistry).

In other words, moral relativism is not new.

—ooo—

However, with casuistry, a sin could be rendered innocent using “methods” that manipulated reality, which Blaise Pascal could not accept, nor Molière, nor La Fontaine.

Casuistry: a general definition

There were great advantages to casuistry in that allowed the “grands” among the faithful to sin without sinning, which constitutes an unacceptable form of moral relativism and, by and large, benefits only the “grands” or the rich and powerful.  Casuistry proposed “methods” that could be used to make a wrong a right. The most important of these “methods” or doctrines were:

  1. la direction d’intention, or the end [l’intention] justifies the means (Machiavellian);
  2. mental restriction (saying part of the truth out loud, but saying the rest silently, within oneself);
  3. the doctrine des équivoques: using ambiguous or equivocal terms, to transform a message;
  4. probability (one theologian who said “no” could be overruled by a theologian who said “yes” as both were theologians.

I am leaving out: easy devotion (la dévotion aisée), and dispensation from loving God (la dispense d’aimer Dieu) and there may be other “methods” or doctrines, but for a detailed account of the methods put forth by casuistry, one needs to read Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other proponents of casuistique, a task best performed by theologians.

Among the four “methods” or doctrines I have listed, the most disputed was the fourth: probability, which pitted one authority against another.

Henry VIII & Henri IV

The Church of England separated from the Roman Church because Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was not allowed to divorce Catherine of Aragon and having separated from the Roman Church, Henry VIII went on to have wives decapitated.

But let us look a the life of Henri IV of France who was a good king, but a womanizer who did not honour his promise to marry Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, should Gabrielle d’Estrées (1573 – 10 April 1599), his official mistress, pass away.  Henri IV probably expected Gabrielle d’Estrées to live a long time, but she died of eclampsia on 10 April 1599, at the age of 26. A few months later, Henri married Marie de’ Medici, not Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, whom he had promised to marry.

Moreover, where was the Church, when Henri IV, a Protestant married Marguerite de Valois (14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615), a Catholic who did not want to marry him?Henri IV, king of Navarre, stood outside Notre-Dame de Paris while his wedding took place.

Henri IV abjured Protestantism on 25 July 1593, following the advice of his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, a Catholic, but he did so unconvincingly: “Paris vaut bien une messe.” (Paris [the crown] is well worth a mass.) He converted five years after his becoming king of France. I surmise he had to convert in order to be crowned, which meant he was seeking power.

Finally, in 1599, ten years after he became king of France (1589), Henri had his marriage to Marguerite de Valois annulled on the grounds that she could not bear him children, which may not have constituted valid grounds for an annulment had Henri IV not needed heirs and had he not been a “grand.” He had also had Gabrielle d’Estrées’ marriage annulled. So what happened to Henry VIII? Why was his marriage not annulled?

Henri IV, king of France and king of Navarre, was no choir boy. He loved women. But he may well have been the best king France ever had.

Adultery

In other words, what we see here is adultery which, according to Judaism’s Ten Commandments, is a sin. Unlike Henry VIII, Henri IV did not break with the Roman Church to marry another woman. Nor did he have wives decapitated. But he had an insatiable sexual appetite which he obviously felt free to indulge perhaps given his “divine rights of kings,” a notion he and Henry VIII had probably never heard of.

Moreover, it was not uncommon for monarchs whose marriages were arranged to keep an official mistress. Henri II of France, Marguerite de Valois’ father, was married to Catherine de’ Medici, but he had a mistress, the powerful Diane de Poitiers.

Opposition to Casuistry

In his Lettres provinciales (1656-1657), Blaise Pascal[ii] (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), using a pseudonym, Louis de Montalte, condemned casuistry.  Molière mocked it in Tartuffe (1664, 1666, 1669) a play he often revised to please “le parti des dévots” and escape the death penalty. As well, La Fontaine, bequeathed a long list of poems where the “grands” do with impunity what is not allowed of the “petits.”

—ooo—

In other words, the rapid breakdown of the Roman Church justified robust recourses, but did it justify taking sinfulness out of sin in aristocratic rather than plebeian circles.  There can no doubt that circumstances play a role in determining whether some actions are ethically permissible. But can taking all sinfulness out of sinful actions be acceptable?

Pascal was not heard in his lifetime, but in 1679, “Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suárez (Catholic Encyclopedia) and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.”[iii]

Ironically, if indeed casuistry was used to prevent further fragmentation of the Western Church, it was also an indictment of the Church, which can lead one to think that Pope Innocent XI perhaps saved the Western Church.
.

Love to everyone. ♥

 _________________________

[i] “Aristotle.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>

[ii] “Blaise Pascal.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2012.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445406/Blaise-Pascal>.

[iii] “Casuistry.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuistry>

Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623)

© Micheline Walker
5 March 2012
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Gabrielle d’Estrées
(Please click on the image to enlarge it.)
 
 

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Jesuits & Jansenists

02 Thursday Apr 2015

Posted by michelinewalker in France, Religion

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Augustinus, Casuistry, Cornelius Jansen, Cum Occasionum, Jansenism, Jean Duvergier, Pascal, Port-Royal, Provincial Letters, Unigenitus

Les Lettres provinciales
Les Lettres provinciales
Blaise Pascal

Blaise Pascal

In 1656-1657, Blaise Pascal (Louis de Montalte) wrote his eighteen Provincial Letters in defense of the Jansenists of the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs, located near Paris, and Port-Royal abbey in Paris. Jansenism had been brought to France by Jean Duvergier de Hauranne (1581 – 1643), afterwards the abbot of Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne. Duvergier had studied theology in Leuven /Louvain where he met and befriended Cornelius Jansen (28 October 1585 – 6 May 1638), the father of Jansenism. During his stay in Louvain, Duvergier and Jansen opposed the Jesuits to protect Belgian theologian Michael Baius or Michel de Bay (1513 – 16 September 1589) whom Jesuits suspected had been influenced by Calvinism.

The Jesuits or Society of Jesus was founded in 1540. Jesuits were therefore a new order that could have helped curb the spread of Protestantism. (See « La Querelle entre jansénistes et jésuites », Jésuites de la province de France. FR) Changes were needed, but not to the point of using moral irresponsibility to benefit Roman Catholicism. Extremes are extremes.  

In 1653, Pope Innocent X issued the bull Cum Occasionum condemning as heretical five propositions contained in Cornelius Jansen’s Augustinus. The Augustinus, a long work that is considered the Jansenists’ “book,” was published posthumously in 1640. It should be noted, however, that the Augustinus was the work of Cornelius Jansen and that it was published several years after he and Jean Duvergier de Hauranne were students in Leuven, Holland. In fact, by 1640, the two friends had long been separated. Cornelius Jansen had spent a few years in France after he and Jean Duvergier graduated with a degree in theology from the University of Leuven. Moreover, as noted above, the book was published two years after Cornelius Jansen’s death. Cornelius Jansen died in an epidemic.

It should also be noted that, after serving as abbot of Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne, Jean Duvergier, known as Saint-Cyran, had settled at the abbey of Port-Royal-des-champs, a Cistercian abbey. The Cistercian order was established in 1204 and its rule was more severe than the Rule of Benedict, precepts observed by Benedictine monks. In 1623, he had become the spiritual director of the nuns living and working at Port-Royal-des-champs, one of whom was the abbess Angélique Arnauld (8 September 1591 in Paris – 6 August 1661) who had also introduced certain reforms in her community. The Cistercians also owned the Port-Royal Abbey in Paris.

Port-Royal-des-Champs
Port-Royal-des-Champs
Engraving, Magdeleine Horthemels, c. 1710
Engraving, Magdeleine Horthemels, c. 1710
Petites Écoles
Petites Écoles
Port-Royal, Paris
Port-Royal, Paris

Les Petites Écoles de Port-Royal (1637 -1660)

Pascal as student and Educator

From 1637 until 1660, Cistercians operated a school at Port-Royal-des-Champs. Pascal had been a student at the Petites Écoles de Port-Royal, excellent schools because of the intellectual calibre of its teachers, messieurs, and its small classes. Jean Racine, the author of Phèdre (1778), had also studied at the Petites Écoles de Port-Royal. Later, Pascal himself would be an educator. He wrote a new method of teaching children to read.

As a former pupil of Port-Royal-des-Champs, Pascal, who sympathized with the Jansenists, defended the Port-Royal abbeys threatened by the bull Cum Occasionum. However, his motivation was, to a large extent, loyalty to his former teachers, the nuns of Port-Royal and to its messieurs or solitaires, teachers and men who retreated to one of the Port-Royal abbeys. More importantly, however, Pascal attacked the moral laxity of Jesuit casuistry.

However, in his Provincial Letters, Pascal did discuss the matter of grace, albeit briefly. According to the Jansenists, humans could not ensure their salvation. Jansenists believed in predestination. It had been and remains a Roman Catholic’s perception, that although humans are born stained with the original sin, baptism and grâce suffisante FR make it possible for them to be saved through good deeds, which is what I was taught. Jansenists differed. In order to be saved, humans had to be granted grâce efficace FR or efficacious grace and God chose those on whom he would bestow efficacious grace.

Saint Augustine and Pelagius

I suspect that initially St. Augustine, or Augustine or Hippo (13 November 354 – 28 August 430), believed humans could expiate the original sin, if granted grâce suffisante. French 17th-century Jansenists maintained, however, that grâce efficace or efficacious grace, was required to be saved. This was cause for despair as it negated free will.

The quarrel between Jansenists and Jesuits therefore echoed an earlier quarrel between St. Augustine and Pelagius (fl. c. 390 – 418). Pelagius had opposed predestination. In fact, according to Wikipedia’s entry on the Church Fathers, “early Church Fathers consistently [upheld] the freedom of human choice. They consistently upheld the freedom of human choice.” Initially, Augustine of Hippo may have  understood predestination as no more than foreknowledge. God as God knew how humans would live. This is what I was taught as a child. However, St. Augustine would grow to support predestination as a denial of free will, hence the title of Cornelius Jansen’s Augustinus, the Jansenists’ book.

Pascal’s Target: Casuistry

The Lettres provinciales did support the doctrines of Jansenism, but Pascal’s main target was the moral irresponsibility advocated by the Jesuits, or casuistry. Pascal also emphasized the Jesuit’s rejection of the teachings of the Church Fathers which, by extension, was a rejection of Roman Catholicism in its totality. This was not the intention of the Jesuits.

After speaking with a Jesuit, our naïve character, visits a neighbour who is known as an opponent of Jansenism, but who turns out to share the Jansenist’s view of grace and predestination.

“To ascertain the matter with certainty, I repaired to my neighbor, M. N-, doctor of Navarre, who, as you are aware, is one of the keenest opponents of the Jansenists, and, my curiosity having made me almost as keen as himself, I asked him if they would not formally decide at once that ‘grace is given to all men,’ and thus set the question at rest. But he gave me a sore rebuff and told me that that was not the point; that there were some of his party who held that grace was not given to all; that the examiners themselves had declared, in a full assembly of the Sorbonne, that that opinion was problematical; and that he himself held the same sentiment, which he confirmed by quoting to me what he called that celebrated passage of St. Augustine: ‘We know that grace is not given to all men.’” (Letter I/1)

—ooo—

In my post on Pascal’s Provincial Letters, I wrote that we would take a closer look at the methods used by Jesuit casuistry. We will. A few examples are needed, but what I would like to bring to the fore are:

  • the Jesuits’ rejection of the doctrines of the Church Fathers,
  • the fact that Jesuits tolerated duels and homicides, and
  • other precepts.
1024px-Fra_angelico_-_conversion_de_saint_augustin
Conversion of Saint Augustine Fra Angelico (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
640px-Sandro_Botticelli_050

Augustine of Hippo wrote that original sin is transmitted by concupiscence and enfeebles freedom of the will without destroying it. Sandro Botticelli (Caption and photo credit: Wikipedia)

Rejection of the Teachings of the Church Fathers

Provincial Letters pdf (complete text)
probabilism

“We leave the fathers [Church Fathers],” resumed the monk, “to those who deal with positive divinity. As for us, who are the directors of conscience, we read very little of them and quote only the modern casuists.” (p. 40) (Letter VI/6)

“For example, three popes have decided that monks who are bound by a particular vow to a Lenten life cannot be absolved from it even though they should become bishops. And yet Diana avers that notwithstanding this decision they are absolved. ‘And how does he reconcile that?’ said I. By the most subtle of all the modern methods, and by the nicest possible application of probability,” replied the monk. (p. 44) (Letter VI/6)

Here the monk being interviewed by a naïve character invokes “probability” and lists modern authorities. The new authorities and proponents of casuistry are Luis de Molina, Antonio Escobar y Mendoza, Gabriel Vasquez and Leonardus Lessius. Also linked to casuistry were Étienne Bauny of France and Antonino Diana, an Italian. Numerous “authorities” are also named as one reads the 18 letters. (See Casuistry, Wikipedia.)

However, if our narrator or candid character refers to an authority, he is trivialized and disapproves:

“When Diana [Antonino Diana] quotes with approbation the sentiments of Vasquez, when he finds them probable, and ‘very convenient for rich people,’ as he says in the same place, he is no slanderer, no falsifier, and we hear no complaints of misrepresenting his author; whereas, when I cite the same sentiments of Vasquez, though without holding him up as a phoenix, I am a slanderer, a fabricator, a corrupter of his maxims.” (p. 109) (Letter XII/12)

More on Probabilisme

‘A person may do what he considers allowable according to a probable opinion, though the contrary may be the safer one. The opinion of a single grave doctor is all that is requisite.’ (p. 39) (Letter VI/6)

“Can you doubt it?” he replied, ‘We have bound them, sir, to absolve their penitents who act according to probable opinions, under the pain of mortal sin, to secure their compliance ‘under the pain of mortal sin’”

‘When the penitent, says Father Bauny,’ follows a probable opinion, the confessor is bound to absolve him, though his opinion should differ from that of his penitent.’” (p. 40) (Letter VI/6)

Homicide

The justification of homicide is particularly surprising.

(naïve character, italics)

“Be this as it may, however, it seems that, according to Sanchez, a man may freely slay (I do not say treacherously, but only insidiously and behind his back) a calumniator, for example, who prosecutes us at law?” (p. 56) (Letter VII/7)

 “Certainly he may,” returned the monk, “always, however, in the way of giving a right direction to the intention: you constantly forget the main point. Molina supports the same doctrine; and what is more, our learned brother Reginald maintains that we may despatch the false witnesses whom he summons against us. And, to crown the whole, according to our great and famous fathers Tanner and Emanuel Sa, it is lawful to kill both the false witnesses and the judge himself, if he has had any collusion with them. Here are Tanner’s very words: ‘Sotus and Lessius think that it is not lawful to kill the false witnesses and the magistrate who conspire together to put an innocent person to death; but Emanuel Sa and other authors with good reason impugn that sentiment, at least so far as the conscience is concerned.’ And he goes on to show that it is quite lawful to kill both the witnesses and the judge.” (p. 56) (Letter VII/7)

“And, in point of fact, is it not certain that the man who has received a buffet on the ear is held to be under disgrace, until he has wiped off the insult with the blood of his enemy?” (p. 56) (Letter VII/7)

“Nay,” he continued, “it is allowable to prevent a buffet, by killing him that meant to give it, if there be no other way to escape the insult. This opinion is quite common with our fathers. (p. 56) (Letter VII/7)

“But, father, may not one be allowed to kill for something still less? Might not a person so direct his intention as lawfully to kill another for telling a lie, for example?” (p. 58) (Letter VII/7)

“He may,” returned the monk; “and according to Father Baldelle, quoted by Escobar, ‘you may lawfully take the life of another for saying, “You have told a lie”; if there is no other way of shutting his mouth.’ The same thing may be done in the case of slanders. (p. 58) (Letter VII/7) 

Stealing

(naïve character, italics)

“Lessius, among others, maintains that ‘it is lawful to steal, not only in a case of extreme necessity, but even where the necessity is grave, though not extreme.’”  (Letter VIII/8)

“For after all, now, is it not a violation of the law of charity, and of our duty to our neighbour, to deprive a man of his property in order to turn it to our own advantage? Such, at least, is the way I have been taught to think hitherto.” (Letter VIII/8)

“That will not always hold true,” replied the monk; “for our great Molina has taught us that ‘the rule of charity does not bind us to deprive ourselves of a profit, in order thereby to save our neighbour from a corresponding loss.’” (Letter VIII/8)

Homicide, again

In his letter XIII, Pascal repeats much of what he wrote in Letter VII/7. He fully realizes that he is repeating. As an educator, he emphasized the need to repeat, a need that is consistent with the modern theory of information. It is part of his “art de persuader,” the art of persuasion. One has to read Pascal’s Pensées, published posthumously, to grasp Pascal’s art de persuader.

Conclusion

There is so much to discuss, but a post is a post. However the book, Les Provinciales, is easy to read and short. The fate of Jansénisme resembles the fate of the Huguenots in France. Jansénisme was not a religion; it was a mere movement. But it was condemned by the papal bull Unigenitus, issued by Clement XI on 8 September 1713. Absolutism meant: one king, one language and one religion.

Pascal discusses numerous subjects, such as duels and usury, in his examination of the moral laxity of 17th-century French Jesuits.

In closing, I would like to point out that the quarrel between Jansenists and Jesuits in 17th-century France is one episode, just one, in the history of the Jesuits and that both Jesuit casuistry and Jansenism were condemned.

My best regards to all of you. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Pascal’s Provincial Letters (27 March 2015)
  • Jansenism, a Church Divided (24 March 2015)
  • Pascal & Leibniz: Details (19 March 2015)
  • Pascal’s “Roseau pensant” (19 April 2014)
  • Phèdre’s “Hidden God” (8 October 2012) (Jansenism)
  • Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning (5 March 2012)
  • Pascal & the Two Infinites (27 September 2011) (relativity)
  • Pascal on the Human Condition (25 August 2011) (the US)

 Sources and Resources

  • Provincial Letters pdf
  • Lettres provinciales ebooksgratuits.com FR
  • Lettres provinciales (Gallica, BnF) (National Library of France) FR
  • Pascal’s Pensées are Gutenberg [EBook #18269]
  • Port-Royal (Petites Écoles) FR
  • Divine grace
  • grâce suffisante FR
  • grâce efficace FR
  • original sin
  • casuistry
  • Jansenism
  • predestination

Philippe Jaroussky, countertenor, sings “Ombra mai fu” (Serse) G. F. Händel

imagesE7I9M79Y© Micheline Walker
2 April 2015
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Pascal, Jean Domat
French sanguine

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Americans in Paris: George Washington

20 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by michelinewalker in France, History, United States

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Americans in Paris, Beaumarchais' Figaro, Casuistry, Freemasonry, George Washington, La Fayette, Mental Assent and Casuistry, Pierre de Beaumarchais, the Edict of Versailles 1787, the Noble Savage

Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge

Washington and Lafayette at Valley Forge

La Fayette as a Lieutenant General, in 1791. Portrait by Joseph-Désiré Court

Lafayette as a Lieutenant General, by Joseph-Désiré Court, 1791

The French and the American Revolutionary War

A Desperate situation
Valley Forge
The Marquis de Lafayette
A hesitant Louis XVI

Lafayette[i] (6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834) arrived in Philadelphia in July 1777. Consequently, he was in the future United States a year after the American Declaration of Independence (14 July 1776) and a year before France’s Treaty of Alliance (1778) with Americans seeking independence from the motherland: Britain. In fact, when La Fayette  arrived in North America, the Founding Fathers needed substantial help to win the American War of Independence, also called the American Revolutionary War. No country was mightier than Britain, so the American dream seemed impossible to achieve. At Valley Forge, “[s]tarvation, disease, and exposure killed nearly 2,500 American soldiers by the end of February 1778.” (See Valley Forge, Wikipedia.)

In other words, when Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de Lafayette, Marquis de Lafayette[i] left France, both France and the future United States were in a desperate situation. Benjamin Franklin was in Paris seeking financial and military support for the Thirteen Colonies, but Louis XVI (23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was hesitant. The Seven Years’ War and Louis XV‘s extravagant and irresponsible reign had drained France. The French could not afford to enter into a war, but the future United States needed reliable allies.

Moreover, the French military was eager to support the Americans. The duc de Choiseuil  (28 June 1719 – 8 May 1785), the Chief Minister of the French King and Foreign Minister of France during the Seven Years’ War, had been deeply humiliated by the Treaty of Paris (1763), and so had French military. Therefore, such men as La Fayette hoped to serve in North America and regain the prestige France had lost in 1763. The French military had regrouped and replenished its supplies, so all it needed was an “opportunity.”

The Treaty of Alliance with France (1778)

At his wit’s end, de guerre lasse, but heartened by the American victory at the Battles of Saratoga, Louis XVI signed the above-mentioned Treaty of Alliance with France, on 6 February 1778, at the Hôtel de Crillon in Pairs, providing George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army (the American army), with men, ammunition and other army supplies. Other countries, for instance the Netherlands, also accepted to fight for the American cause.

Lafayette had distinguished himself from the start and had been named major-general. He distinguished himself at the Battle of Brandywine (11 September 1777), a British victory, but not altogether conclusive. He and American troops had also won the “Battle of Barren Hill” (28 May 1778). Lafayette then went to France to ask for greater support, a “6,000-man expeditionary army,” and proved convincing. On his return to America, in April 1780, Lafayette was named commander of the army in Virginia, “forced” Lord Charles Cornwallis to retreat across Virginia and “entrapped” him at Yorktown. He was then joined by a French fleet and several additional Americans, so General Cornwallis surrendered on 19 October 1781. According to Britannica, at this point the British cause was lost.”[ii]

However, France had recognised the independence of the United States after the Battles of Saratoga (19 September and 7 October 1777), three years before the Siege of Yorktown, which ended in 1781. (See Surrender of General Burgoyne, Wikipedia.) When it entered the American War of Independence, France transformed the war into a world war.

John Trumbull

The Surrender of Lord Cornwallis (19 October 1781), by John Trumbull, 1819-1820 (on the left side are the French and on the right, the Americans) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Surrender of General Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga, by John Trumbull, 1822

The Surrender of General Burgoyne (7 October 1777) at the Battle of Saratoga, by John Trumbull, 1822 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

George Washington in Paris

After the Siege of Yorktown, Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette was a hero. Upon his return to France, in 1782, he was therefore promoted to maréchal de camp (brigadier general). In 1784, he returned to the United States and became a citizen of several states. However, not only did Lafayette possess superior military acumen, but he had grown an exceptional and lasting friendship with George Washington, as he would later with Thomas Jefferson. Lafayette named his son Georges Washington. Moreover, although an aristocrat by birth, he became a Freemason. (See List of Freemasons, Wikipedia.) 

As I have noted in an earlier post, Freemasonry recognized a nobility of the mind. Haydn and Mozart were Freemasons. Viennese aristocracy would not have considered them “aristocrats.” Therefore, in the future United States, beginning with George Washington, the first President of the United States, a large number of American Presidents would be Freemasons. It was an aristocracy based on merit. 

The Enlightenment

Moreover, George Washington was a Protestant, yet a man of virtue and merit. The Age of Enlightenment advocated the separation of Church and State and, by the sametoken, it also promoted virtue without a formal adhesion to a religion: laïcité (secularism). 

George Washington was a good man in an age, the Age of Enlightenment, that advocated the separation of Church and State and, by extension, also promoted virtue per se rather than virtue rooted in a religion. During his stay in France as American Minister, Jefferson, the main author of the American Declaration of Independence, helped La Fayette, its principal author, draft the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (26 August 1789), a document that can be described as a product of the Enlightenment. Again a Protestant was working with a Catholic and vice versa. In fact, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, issued in late August 1789, resembles the American Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776), whose main author was Thomas Jefferson. Both declarations are products of the Enlightenment and John Locke‘s influence. (See Americans in Paris: Thomas Jefferson.)

1) The Enlightenment separated nobility (hereditary) and merit (earned nobility, or nobility in itself). George Washington was not an aristocrat, but he had a noble and superior mind, as did the untitled Thomas Jefferson, the main author of the American Declaration of Independence (4 July 1776). There would be a nobility of the mind.

2) Moreover, the Enlightenment separated virtue and religion. A Protestant could be virtuous and so could a Catholic. Adhesion to a religion was not the standard by which morality and virtue were to be measured. Lafayette discovered virtue in Protestant George Washington, and was therefore motivated to entrench tolerance of non-Catholics in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789). There would also be a nobility of the spirit, regardless of creed.

Article 10 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen reads as follows:

“No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.”  (See Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, Wikipedia.)

The Edict of Versailles (1787)

Furthermore, impressed by George Washington, Lafayette, who had become a Freemason, asked King Louis XVI to revoke the Edict of Fontainebleau, promulgated by Louis XIV on 22 October 1685. The Edict of Fontainebleau had revoked the Edict of Nantes (1598), an edict of religious tolerance between Catholics and French Calvinist Protestants, the Huguenots. The Edict of Nantes had been promulgated by Henri IV, king of Navarre and king of France, who had been a Huguenot but had converted to  Catholicism in order to be king of France. And now, in 1787, following La Fayette’s advice, Louis XVI promulgated the Edict of Versailles. Times had changed.

Conclusion 

George Washington in Paris
The Nobility of the spirit
Moral superiority
Lafayette
The Edict of Versailles
 

So I will conclude by saying, first, that Lafayette

  1. distinguished himself in America, as a soldier; 
  2. that he was the main author of Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen;  
  3. that, immensely impressed by a virtuous and good George Washington, a Protestant, he asked Louis XVI, king of France and Navarre, to promulgate the Edict of Versailles, an edict of tolerance of non-Catholics and Jews. Lafayette was again very convincing. Louis signed the Edict of Versailles on 7 November 1787, and it was registered in the parlement of the Ancien Régime, on 29 January 1788. On the advice of La Fayette, Louis XVI ended the persecution of French Calvinists, the Huguenots.
  4. and that, because he was influenced by George Washington, a good person, he led Lafayette to join Freemasonry, which advocated the recognition of superior talent and merit.

Second, I will suggest

  • that George Washington, a Protestant and a Freemason, can be looked upon as our third American in Paris, brought to the French capital by Lafayette;
  • that his legacy is one of the spirit, or moral superiority;
  • that, because of his friendship with Lafayette, George Washington earned support for the future United States;
  • and that, because George Washington was a Protestant, yet a man whose moral integrity could not be questioned, he led Lafayette to ask Louis XVI to end the persecution of French Protestant Calvinists.

The “alliance” between France and the United States was broken only once. France opposed the War in Iraq. Iraq was and is a sovereign nation and entering a sovereign nation is a violation of International Law, a law rooted, at least in part, in the American Declaration of Independence and in its French counterpart, the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which is very ironic. However, the United States’ ties with France have been reaffirmed by President Obama, the current President of the United States of America and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. These ties date back to Treaty of Alliance signed by Louis XVI, King of France, in 1778. In my opinion,  this is an excellent record.

—ooo—

Allow me to add a few words. Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, the author of The Marriage of Figaro (1784), a play transformed into an opera buffa (a comic opera) by  Mozart (1786), recruited soldiers wishing to fight in the American Revolutionary War.  Pierre Charles L’Enfant, an architect and civil engineer, was recruited by Beaumarchais.

After the war, L’Enfant settled in New York where he was initiated into Freemasonry. In 1791, he was appointed, by George Washington, to design the layout of the future capital of the United States. L’Enfant incorporated Masonic symbols into L’Enfant Plan. One of his supervisors was Thomas Jefferson, who had immersed himself in architecture and designed his home at Monticello, his primary plantation. Hence, my inserting into this post a portrait of Beaumarchais and music from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro.

My kindest regards to all of you.

Monticello, Jefferson's home designed by Jefferson

Monticello, Jefferson’s home designed by Jefferson

 

Portrait de Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, by Jean-Marc Nattier

Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, by Jean-Marc Nattier

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Americans in Paris: Thomas Jefferson (17 May 2014)
  • Americans in Paris: Benjamin Franklin (14 May 2014)
  • The Church of France during the French Revolution, cont’d (6 May 2014)
  • The Church of France during the French Revolution (4 May 2014)
  • Chateaubriand’s Atala (24 April 2014)
  • The Noble Savage: Lahontan’s Adario (26 October 2012)

Sources and Resources

  • Valley Forge in US History us.history

____________________

[i] “Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 19 May. 2014 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/327692/Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert-du Motier-marquis-de Lafayette> 

[ii] Ibid.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791
The Marriage of Figaro
Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Watercolour by Carmontelle, c. 1763–64

Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl, by Carmontelle, c. 1763–64

© Micheline Walker
19 May 2014
WordPress 

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Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning

05 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in France, History, Music, The Church

≈ 39 Comments

Tags

Aristotle, Casuistry, Escobar y Mendoza, Henri IV of France, Henry VIII of England, Huguenot, Pascal's Lettres provinciales

King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

King Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein the Younger, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Casuistry

The Fragmentation of the Western Church

When Antonio Escobar y Mendoza (1589 – July 4, 1669) published his Summula (1627),  the handbook of casuistry, the Roman Church had been severely fragmented.  Escobar y Mendoza and Francisco Suárez (5 January 1548 – 25 September 1617), Jesuits, were therefore addressing an alarmed and vulnerable Western Church, a Church ready to use remedies it may not have otherwise contemplated.  Casuistry all but took sinfulness out of sin.  Consequently, it was attacked by Blaise Pascal, in his Lettres provinciales  (1658-1659), and ridiculed by Molière (Tartuffe) and La Fontaine.  But it allowed the king to sin.

Let us assess the damage

  • Henry VIII of England (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547; king: 21 April 1509 until his death), who was not allowed to divorce, ended up making himself head of the Church of England.
  • Martin Luther (10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546), had confronted indulgence “salesman” Johann Tetzel, with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and opposed other practices, had also fragmented the Roman Catholic Church.
  • John Calvin (French, Jean Calvin, born Jehan Cauvin: 10 July 1509 – 27 May 1564)  and French Huguenots, Calvinist Protestants, could easily point a guilty finger not at Jesus of Nazareth, but at the Church as a human institution.  Calvin is the author of The Institutes of the Christian Religion, published  in 1536.

To the above, we could add the Edict of Nantes, promulgated in 1598, by Henri IV who was both king of France and king of Navarre.  The Edict of Nantes offered protection to the formerly persecuted Huguenots, which seemed the correct remedy, but Huguenots were not loyal to the Roman Church and were therefore a potential obstacle to absolutism in the eyes of cardinal-duc de Richelieu.

Richelieu may have been right when he suggested to Louis XIII that the Huguenots’ right to have “places fortes” (fortified communities), such as La Rochelle, could imperil absolutism, i.e. one king, one language, one religion.  These “places fortes” could be turned into genuine fortified places.  (See Siege of La Rochelle, Wikipedia.)  However, did he have to let twenty-two thousand Huguenots starve to death?

Casuistry: origins

Casuistry, a recipe for ethical laissez-faire, does not find its origins in seventeenth-century Spain, or Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other casuists. In dates back to ancient Rome and ancient Greece.

Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael (6 or 28 March 1483 – 6 April 1520). Aristotle gestures to the earth,representing his belief in knowledge through empirical observation and experience, while holding a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics in his hand, whilst Plato gestures to the heavens, representing his belief in The Form.

For example, casuistry has roots in ancient Rome and, especially, ancient Greece, and the Renaissance had given greater access to the knowledge of ancient Rome and Greece.  In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (384 BCE – 322 BCE)[i] proposes an examination of certain actions, not all, before judgment is passed with respect to their moral acceptability.

Casuistry and Jurisprudence

I should mention that casuistry has often been defined as jurisprudence applied to morality.  For instance, the Ten Commandments do not permit the killing of a human being, but during a war that restriction is lifted.  It is also lifted in the case of self-defence.  As well, many countries have retained what other countries look upon as profoundly unethical: the death-penalty.  This would suggest that the sinfulness of an action depends to a smaller or larger extent on circumstances and location.  Jurisprudence is the study of cases (casuistry).

In other words, moral relativism is not new.

—ooo—

However, with casuistry, a sin could be rendered innocent using “methods” that manipulated reality, which Blaise Pascal could not accept, nor Molière, nor La Fontaine.

Casuistry: a general definition

There were great advantages to casuistry in that allowed the “grands” among the faithful to sin without sinning, which constitutes an unacceptable form of moral relativism and, by and large, benefits only the “grands” or the rich and powerful.  Casuistry proposed “methods” that could be used to make a wrong a right.  The most important of these “methods” or doctrines were:

  1. la direction d’intention, or the end [l’intention] justifies the means (Machiavellian);
  2. mental restriction (saying part of the truth out loud, but saying the rest silently, within oneself);
  3. the doctrine des équivoques: using ambiguous or equivocal terms, to transform a message;
  4. probability (one theologian who said “no” could be overruled by a theologian who said “yes” as both were theologians.

I am leaving out: easy devotion (la dévotion aisée), and dispensation from loving God (la dispense d’aimer Dieu) and there may be other “methods” or doctrines, but for a detailed account of the methods put forth by casuistry, one needs to read Escobar y Mendoza, Francisco Suárez and other proponents of casuistique, a task best performed by theologians.

Among the four “methods” or doctrines I have listed, the most disputed was the fourth: probability, which pitted one authority against another.

Henry VIII & Henri IV

The Church of England separated from the Roman Church because Henry VIII (28 June 1491 – 28 January 1547) was not allowed to divorce Catherine of Aragon and having separated from the Roman Church, Henry VIII went on to have wives decapitated.

But let us look a the life of Henri IV of France who was a good king, but a womanizer who did not honour his promise to marry Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, should Gabrielle d’Estrées (1573 – 10 April 1599), his official mistress, pass away.  Henri IV probably expected Gabrielle d’Estrées to live a long time, but she died of eclampsia on 10 April 1599, at the age of 26.  A few months later, Henri married Marie de’ Medici, not Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, whom he had promised to marry.

Moreover, where was the Church, when Henri IV, a Protestant married Marguerite de Valois (14 May 1553 – 27 March 1615), a Catholic who did not want to marry him?  Henri IV, king of Navarre, stood outside Notre-Dame de Paris while his wedding took place.

Henri IV abjured Protestantism on 25 July 1593, following the advice of his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, a Catholic, but he did so unconvincingly: “Paris vaut bien une messe.” (Paris [the crown] is well worth a mass.)  He converted five years after his becoming king of France.  I surmise he had to convert in order to be crowned, which meant he was seeking power.

Finally, in 1599, ten years after he became king of France (1589), Henri had his marriage to Marguerite de Valois annulled on the grounds that she could not bear him children, which may not have constituted valid grounds for an annulment had Henri IV not needed heirs and had he not been a “grand.”  He had also had Gabrielle d’Estrées’ marriage annulled.  So what happened to Henry VIII?  Why was his marriage not annulled?

Henri IV, king of France and king of Navarre, was no choir boy.  He loved women.  But he may well have been the best king France ever had.

Adultery

In other words, what we see here is adultery which, according to the Ten Commandments, is a sin.  Unlike Henry VIII, Henri IV did not break with the Roman Church to marry another woman.  Nor did he have wives decapitated.  But he had an insatiable sexual appetite which he obviously felt free to indulge perhaps given his “divine rights of kings,” a notion he and Henry VIII had probably never heard of.

Moreover, it was not uncommon for monarchs whose marriages were arranged to keep an official mistress. Henri II of France, Marguerite de Valois’ father, was married to Catherine de’ Medici, but he had a mistress, the powerful Diane de Poitiers.

Opposition to Casuistry

In his Lettres provinciales (1656-1657), Blaise Pascal[ii] (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), using a pseudonym, Louis de Montalte, condemned casuistry.  Molière mocked it in Tartuffe (1664, 1666, 1669) a play he often revised to please “le parti des dévots” and escape the death penalty.  As well, La Fontaine, bequeathed a long list of poems where the “grands” do with impunity what is not allowed of the “petits.”

—ooo—

In other words, the rapid breakdown of the Roman Church justified robust recourses, but did it justify taking sinfulness out of sin in aristocratic rather than plebeian circles.  There can no doubt that circumstances play a role in determining whether some actions are ethically permissible.  But can taking all sinfulness out of sinful actions be acceptable?

Pascal was not heard in his lifetime, but in 1679, “Pope Innocent XI publicly condemned sixty-five of the more radical propositions (stricti mentalis), taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar, Suárez (Catholic Encyclopedia) and other casuists as propositiones laxorum moralistarum and forbade anyone to teach them under penalty of excommunication.”[iii]

Ironically, if indeed casuistry was used to prevent further fragmentation of the Western Church, it was also an indictment of the Church, which can lead one to think that Pope Innocent XI perhaps saved the Western Church.

 _________________________

[i] “Aristotle.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristotle>

[ii] “Blaise Pascal.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 04 Mar. 2012.<http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/445406/Blaise-Pascal>.

[iii] “Casuistry.” Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casuistry>

Thomas Weelkes (baptised 25 October 1576 – 30 November 1623)

Give Ear Oh Lord

© Micheline Walker
5 March 2012
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