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Romance Notes, Volume 49, Number 3, 2009, pp. 367-376 (Article)

P bl h d b Th D p rt nt f R n L n nd L t r t r ,Th n v r t f N rth r l n t h p l H llDOI: 10.1353/rmc.2009.0023

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YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYINVITO SPECTATORE: SCENES OF LOVE IN THELETTRE À D’ALEMBERT SUR LES SPECTACLES

ANGELA N. HUNTER

“QU’ON nous peigne l’amour comme on voudra: il séduit, ou ce n’estpas lui,” writes Rousseau in the Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles(V 51).1 This punchy phrase sums up the main argument of one sectionof the Letter: the representation of love on stage always has the effect ofseduction on the spectator. Rousseau further argues that theatrical seduc-tion is always harmful, even if the love represented is innocent, andeven if it is sacrificed to duty at the tragedy’s end (V 47-48), because“l’effet d’une tragedie est tout à fait indépendant de celui du dénoüe-ment” (V 50). In Rousseau’s depiction of this state of affairs, there is noway for love’s seduction to fail, and thus, no way for any other elementof the tragedy to succeed in altering love’s effect once it is in operation.As Elizabeth Wingrove notes, “in this theatricality is hardly distinguish-able from romantic interaction” (43). Love’s seduction seems as power-ful from stage to spectator as from lover to beloved.

The “romantic interaction” diagnosed in the Letter to d’Alembert,however, is not reserved solely for the stage: Rousseau’s own autobio-graphical relations enter into the scene of the letter in a powerful way.While the reference to Diderot in the preface – creating the definitiveand painful break of their friendship – is perhaps the most famousmoment of Rousseau’s personal interaction in the Letter, this break isonly one part of the drama swirling around and within the text. DarachSanfey and Ourida Mostefai have both written on the autobiographicalaspects of the Letter as well as the circumstances of its writing, such asRousseau’s problems with Mme d’Epinay and Grimm on the one hand,

1 All references to Rousseau’s writing are to Oeuvres complètes, noted by volume. I will use the designation Letter for the title henceforth.

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and his problematic love for Mme d’Houdetot on the other.2 To say thatthe drama at issue in the Letter is not solely that of stage or spectacle,then, is nothing new; both critics invoke Rousseau’s personal drama,with Mostefai calling it a veritable “drame bourgeois” (CG 76).

Yet there is a seductive relation between the argument about love’spower in the Letter and the narrative of the Letter’s writing in Confes-sions that deserves more detailed exploration. This relationship repre-sents more than aspects of Rousseau’s personal life motivating and per-meating his critical text; it brings love to the center of the stage. Theseare not simply scenes where love is in question; they are scenes wherelove is in action. An examination of the spectator’s relationship to lovein the Letter, particularly Rousseau’s example of the play Bérénice, willshow the creation of a private scene in the spectator’s heart. This will linkto another private scene of love in Rousseau’s description of his situa-tion during the writing of the Letter. Rousseau depicts writing the Letteras a kind of private theater of his own feelings and intimate relations.Through a close analysis of these two scenes of love, we will discoverthat what Rousseau claims love does to the spectator at the theater alsooccurs in the text warning us about what happens at the theater.

I. THE SCENE OF LOVE, OR WHY TITUS IS THE ONLY ROMAN IN THE THEATER

According to Rousseau, love has become the fundamental interest ofthe French stage (V 43). The effect of “la Scene uniquement fondé surl’amour” (V 47) is seduction, making the effect of tragedy synonymouswith that of love.3 Rousseau is particularly concerned with what lovedoes to the spectator even when it appears in legitimate circumstancesor is used to bolster the play’s putative moral lesson: “bientôt les cir-constances s’effacent de la mémoire, tandis que l’impression d’une pas-

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2 In looking back on the Letter from Confessions (and in writing its preface), Rousseaugrounds the text in the autobiographical. Fittingly, in a recent conference presentation,Mostefai called the Letter a kind of pre-confessions (EP). Sanfey explains Rousseau’sdescription of writing the letter as a “situation d’écriture autobiographique” (179), creatinga “discours autobiographique” found mainly in the margins of the text (183).

3 Love as the primary interest deforms the properly dramatic, Rousseau explains, sothat “on ne voit plus réussir au théatre que des Romans, sous le nom de piéces drama-tiques” (V: 43).

sion si douce reste gravée au fond du coeur” (V 48). Because he hasfailed at resisting love’s seduction, the spectator resists the tragic forceof the play. This passion inscribed in the spectator’s heart causes him tofeel and act independently of the play’s storyline: “. . . je vois que lesspectateurs sont toujours du parti de l’amant foible, et que souvent ilssont fâchés qu’il ne le soit pas davantage” (V 48). The spectator’s desirefor the triumph of love will be satisfied, even if the love represented onstage is ultimately thwarted or sacrificed. Rousseau’s most importantexample of this is Racine’s Bérénice.

Bérénice tells the story of the Roman emperor Titus, who is in lovewith the foreign Bérénice; the citizens are against this match, so after along struggle he sacrifices his love for the good of the empire. As theplay begins, Rousseau says that the spectator feels for Titus “un senti-ment de mépris pour la foiblesse d’un Empereur et d’un Romain, quibalance, comme le dernier des hommes, entre sa maitresse et sondevoir” (V 48). Yet once the effects of passion seize the spectator, in-stead of lauding Titus’s noble choice to sacrifice his love, the spectatorbegrudges it: “Il finit par plaindre cet homme sensible qu’il méprisoit;par s’intéresser à cette même passion dont il lui faisoit un crime; parmurmurer en secret du sacrifice qu’il est forcé d’en faire aux loix de lapatrie” (V 49).4 In the spectator’s heart, love has taken center stage andduty no longer holds the crowning role. The spectator feels the passionsthat Titus feels, and in this citation the spectator takes on the role ofTitus in more than just imagination: Rousseau’s ambiguous wordingelides him into this role. That is, the “he” who is forced to make a sacri-fice could be Titus or the spectator:5 the first “il” in the sentence namesthe spectator (and the “lui” Titus); since there is no clear antecedent tothe “il” in the second sentence, the reader looks back to the nearest sub-ject pronoun, which is the first “il” whose antecedent is “le spectateur.”This lexical slippage on Rousseau’s part demonstrates how easy it is forthe spectator to feel in Titus’s place.

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4 Interestingly, Rousseau appends to this citation an identification of both men as thespectator, “Voila ce que chacun de nous éprouvoit à la représentation” (V 49).

5 A similar “feeling in the place of” happens between the spectator and Bérénice, asRousseau notes that “les spectateurs, vivement touchés, commençoient à pleurer quandBerenice ne pleuroit plus” (V 49). This ambiguous role-playing is perhaps even moredangerous because it does not respect gender roles: love can put the male spectator intoBérénice’s role.

More than simply identifying with the role of Titus and feeling lovealong with him (already dangerous enough), the spectator also alters therole. That is, once the spectator is under the effect of love, he secretlyrefuses the sacrifice that would bring equilibrium back to Rome, to theplay, and to the audience. Rousseau invokes this by partially quoting thepassage from the historian Suetonius that Racine used to derive the sub-ject matter of Bérénice: “l’Empereur la renvoye invitus invitam [againsthis will and against hers], on peut ajouter invito spectatore [against thespectator’s will]” (V 49). Titus sends Bérénice out of the city againsthis own will (and against hers), thus bringing about the dénouement.Rousseau adds the “invito spectatore” to the phrase, but he suggestsnonetheless that this thwarted will of the spectator finds satisfaction:“Titus a beau rester Romain; il est seul de son parti; tous les spectateursont épousé Bérénice” (V 49). The effect of love causes the spectator torefuse Titus’s properly heroic choice of the state, instead satisfying hisdesire by marrying Bérénice. Titus is the only Roman in the theater, butthere is a French Titus re-cast in the heart of every spectator.

The representation of love’s passion seduces the spectator and cre-ates in him a will to love that finds satisfaction despite the outcome ofthe tragedy; hence, as Rousseau notes “[l]’e dénoüement n’efface pointl’effet de la piéce” (V 49). Furthermore, in altering the role and marry-ing Bérénice in his heart, the spectator refuses any moral lesson aboutduty and sacrifice to the public good. Although Titus sends Béréniceaway “invitus invitam,” this tells us only half the story; the “invito spec-tatore” added by Rousseau focuses our attention on what happens in-side the spectator to negate the effect of the heroic choice. In a certainsense, the spectator’s will to love sends away Titus the noble emperorand becomes in his place Titus the weak lover – thereby keeping Bérénice,which is to say, keeping love as both the principal interest of the pieceand the principal passion in his heart. In other words, the private scenein the spectator’s heart defeats the Roman empire on the public stage.

Not only does any spectator risk losing his proper identity and hisrelationship to the community while at the theater – concerns thatRousseau raises early in the Letter (V 15-16, 24) – in this example thespectator refuses to identify with the redeeming act and thus loses thenoble identity that Titus gains. The final effect of the tragedy shouldhave been a strengthened respect for virtue and for the power Titusexerted over himself, both qualities that show the importance of noble

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mores and the personal sacrifice they sometimes require. This would bea satisfaction in the public realm, given that Rome and the duties owedit would win out. Instead, the effect of love creates a satisfaction in theprivate realm. The fact of the actual dénouement does not alter the effectof love’s seduction in this private realm, as Rousseau points out:“L’événement dément ces voeux secrets, mais qu’importe?” (V 49).

Even if the spectator could refuse the effect of love and manage toignore his “voeux secrets” in favor of duty to the public good, and evenif the interest of the play were entirely Titus and duty rather thanBérénice and love (V 49), Rousseau makes clear that a secret seductionwould nonetheless occur, because “les sacrifices faits au devoir et à lavertu ont toujours un charme secret” (V 49). Whether through secretwishes of the will to love or the secret charm of seeing virtue rein,Rousseau’s spectator always manages to put the private effect of loveback onto center stage: “Mais cela n’empêche pas que [. . .] s’ils sontcontens de voir Titus vertueux et magnanime, ils ne le fussent encoreplus de le voir heureux et foible, ou du moins qu’ils ne consentissentvolontiers, à l’être à sa place” (V 49-50). In this case, all theater risksbecoming private theater, enacted in the heart of the spectator, who re-casts the conclusion to suit his will corrupted by love’s representation.

Rousseau continues to explore this spectatorial will to love by hypo-thetically re-writing the end of Bérénice to show that “l’effet d’unetragedie est tout à fait indépendant de celui du dénoüement” (V 50). Hedescribes a new ending where Titus cedes his place as Emperor to lead asimple, innocent, happy and retired life with Bérénice. Rousseau’s pointis that the first four acts could remain almost exactly the same and yetthis new dénouement would still fit. In fact, the play may be worse andless instructive because of it, but, Rousseau asks, “les spectateurs ensortiront-ils moins satisfaits?” (V 50). Clearly, the answer expected isno: “Tant il est vrai que les tableaux de l’amour font toujours plus d’im-pression que les maximes de la sagesse” (V 50).6

Further evidence of this will to love is offered by invoking the spec-tator’s reaction to the ending of Voltaire’s Zaïre, a play which ends withthe suicide of a jealous sultan who is devastated to discover that he

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6 Furthermore, Rousseau’s spectator ends up crying at both versions of Bérénice:whether the sacrifice of love or the sacrifice made for it, weeping is the proper responseto the charm of love.

killed his beloved for an infidelity she did not commit. Rousseau writes,“Pour moi, je crois entendre chaque Spectateur, dire en son coeur à lafin de la tragédie: Ah! qu’on me donne une Zaïre ; je ferai bien en sortede ne la pas tüer” (V 51). Here Rousseau provides the lines for the spec-tator’s innermost speech, creating a triumph of love on the private stageof the spectator’s heart once again. The interesting slippage between thedénouement of the tragedy and the private effect of love’s seduction is atits most intense in this passage, with Rousseau not only re-writing theend of the play to fit the spectator’s will, but also giving that will avoice: “je crois entendre chaque Spectateur, dire en son coeur.” In thisexample, the audience of the will to love seems limited to Rousseauhimself, who hears the tragedy being re-written all around him in thesighing hearts of his fellow spectators.

That Rousseau himself is a model for the spectator’s will to lovebecomes apparent if we return to the Bérénice example, which began byinscribing d’Alembert and Rousseau into the original spectator’s place:“Rappellez-vous, Monsieur, une piéce à laquelle je crois me souvenird’avoir assisté avec vous, il y a quelques années, et qui nous fit unplaisir auquel nous nous attendions peu . . .” (V 48). Both the victim oflove’s effects and the witness to those effects in others, Rousseau is thespectator par excellence of love’s seduction on the stage. In general, theLetter is addressed to the public, as Rousseau notes in the preface: “Il nes’agit plus de parler au petit nombre mais au public” (V 6).7 The Letteris, in some important respects, for and about the public of Geneva, butwhen love’s representation becomes the focal point of the text, the pri-vate scene of the spectator’s heart dominates the discourse. At this point,then, Rousseau inserts a reference to a shared, private memory as theground of his argument, calling d’Alembert as singular addressee to theforefront.8 The example developed from this address may be Racine’sBérénice, but the exemplary spectators are Rousseau and d’Alembert,not as philosophers and public figures but as spectators who were onceseduced by the spectacle of love; at the very least, Rousseau paintsd’Alembert into the same first-person experience he has been describ-ing. We had an unexpected pleasure watching Bérénice, Rousseau recalls,

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7 As Mostefai notes, there are two distinct publics addressed in the Letter – Paris andGeneva (TD 164) – as well as the general human community, and d’Alembert (TD 169).

8 Sanfey notes that d’Alembert is invoked typically when it is a question of a memo-ry for which he is being called on as witness (185).

and then he tells the story of the spectator’s will to love. This personalappeal, coupled with the private scene of love’s effects traced above,suggest that the public theater, public morality, and the republican goodof Geneva are intertwined with the seductions of Rousseau’s own pri-vate scene.

In fact, another love story has hidden effects in the Letter. Just as theprior effect of love’s seduction becomes the primary but hidden opera-tion in the spectator described by Rousseau in the Letter, the prioreffects of love’s seduction are the primary but hidden operation in thetext of the Letter. This creates a scene in which the text enacts the veryoperation it reveals and critiques in the theater. To follow this sceneclosely, we’ll need to pay attention to what Rousseau says about writingthe Letter in its preface and in Confessions.

II. THE OTHER SCENE OF LOVE, OR STAGING THE LETTER

The preface describes the public and practical importance of thiswork, while also apologizing for the poor quality of the writing. Thequality is blamed on the necessity of using a plain style due to the sub-ject and the audience, and to Rousseau’s ill health, including a fatiguedsoul: “J’étois malade et triste . . . J’ai cherché dans mon travail quelqueamusement qui me le fit supporter” (V 6). In Book X of Confessions,Rousseau provides a new understanding of these feelings, leading us toanother cause animating the writing of the Letter that is nonetheless hid-den within it: Rousseau’s unresolved love for Mme d’Houdetot.

Ce fut dans ce lieu, pour lors glacé, que sans abri contre le vent et la neige, et sans autrefeu que celui de mon coeur, je composai dans l’espace de trois semaines ma Lettre àd’Alembert sur les Spectacles. C’est ici, car la Julie n’étoit pas à moitié faite, le prémierde mes ecrits, où j’aye trouvé des charmes dans le travail. Jusqu’alors l’indignation de lavertu m’avoit tenu lieu d’Apollon, la tendresse et la douceur d’ame m’en tinrent lieu cettefois. . . . Plein de tout ce qui venoit de m’arriver, encore ému de tant de violens move-mens, le mien mêloit le sentiment de ces peines aux idées que la méditation de mon sujetm’avoit fait naitre ; mon travail se sentit de ce mélange. Sans m’en appercevoir j’ydécrivis ma situation actuelle ; j’y peignis Grimm, Made d’Epinay, Made d’Houdetot, St.Lambert, moi-même. En l’écrivant que je versai de délicieuses larmes. Helas! On y senttrop que l’amour, cet amour fatal dont je m’efforçois de guérir n’étoit pas encore sorti demon coeur. A tout cela se mêloit un certain attendrissment sur moi-même, qui me sentoismourant . . . Voila les secretes causes du ton singulier qui régne dans cet ouvrage. . . (I 495-496).

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Here we discover a scene deserving of its own dramatic representation:Rousseau, beset by misunderstanding and betrayal on all sides, nonethe-less finds pleasure in writing. In writing what exactly? Not simply areply to the proposed attack on the morals of his republican home, butthe private scene of his relationships, that is, of his own heart. Rousseauclaims to have represented this private drama of incurable passion andstormy friendships in the Letter. So the work decrying theatrical repre-sentation, and in particular the representation of love, holds at its veryheart a hidden drama of love; indeed this love is one of the “causessecretes” animating the text. Rousseau views the effects of this “amourfatal” as a kind of private theater inscribed throughout the Letter. Loveis thus doubly contaminating: it alters the scene of writing the very textthat warns against its effects at the scene of spectating. Both of thesescenes of love are public, yet the danger resides in the private effects: onone scene we have the spectator re-casting and re-writing the drama tosuit his will to love; on the other we have the incurable love for Mmed’Houdetot, the supposedly unusual tone of the Letter, and the imminentdeath of the author predicted within it.

We can re-cast the characters of Bérénice here, with Rousseau play-ing the weak-willed Titus and Mme d’Houdetot playing the alteredBérénice of the spectator’s will to love. Rousseau becomes the writerand spectator of his own love story, while his refusal of the tragic end-ing works through the writing of the Letter. As already noted, in Confes-sions he sees the effects of that refusal throughout the Letter: to repeat,“Hélas! On y sent trop que l’amour, cet amour fatal dont je m’efforcoisde guérir n’étoit pas encore sorti de mon coeur” (I 496). In writing thishidden scene, he feels all the charms of love, shedding “délicieuseslarmes.” The effect of the tragic love affair is the continued seduction bylove. Rousseau, of course, is well aware of the danger of seduction evenwith unhappy love – in the Letter he writes: “Loin que ses tristes effetsrebutent, il n’en devient que plus interessant par ses malheurs mêmes.On se dit malgré soi, qu’un sentiment si délicieux console de tout” (V51). Consolation comes in the form of delicious tears shed while writingunder the effect of love.

In Confessions, Rousseau describes the situation thus: “. . . cettetristesse sans fiel n’était que celle d’un coeur trop aimant, trop tendre,qui, trompé par ceux qu’il avoit cru de sa trempe, étoit forcé de se retirerau dedans de lui” (I 495). Rousseau is forced to send himself away from

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the private drama that he will nonetheless inscribe in writing; he pullshis heart back into himself against his will. This action recalls a differ-ent passage in which Rousseau lauds rather than laments the act ofpulling one’s heart firmly back into the self: early on in the Letter, hewrites, “[j]e n’aime point qu’on ait besoin d’attacher incessamment soncoeur sur la Scéne, comme s’il étoit mal à son aise au dedans de nous”(V 15). Here Rousseau recognizes what happens when the spectator isisolated, sitting in a darkened theater and following with his heart thecharacters on stage. The paradox is that, in writing the Letter, his ownheart is incessantly attached to the scene, albeit the private scene of hisdrama; so it remains firmly within him, but the pains and injustices itfeels are overwritten, as it were, by the charms of love.

No matter the public side of the Letter’s address, no matter the pub-lic scene of the spectacle that occupies much of the text, one cannotescape the hidden scene of love’s seduction which is written into it. In asense, Rousseau writes himself out of the Letter by writing himself toomuch into it: that is, he writes himself out of the ideal republic of repre-sentation envisioned in the Letter through the influence of love corrupt-ing its origin. D’Alembert may be the particular reader called into thescene of spectating Racine’s Bérénice from which we started, but eachreader is also thus addressed. The reader of the Letter is seduced despiteherself – “invito lectore,” we might say – by the concealed depiction oflove animating the text. As such, the Letter itself becomes perhaps themost secret example of the threat that passion poses.

The Letter may be therefore the best example of Rousseau’s maximon love: “il séduit, ou ce n’est pas lui.” In this reading, the Letterbecomes a secret scene of love that operates despite itself. While notexplicitly representing love, it is written nevertheless under love’seffects. In other words, it harbors a seduction that should make it a tar-get of its own critique. This other scene is Rousseau’s primal scene ofwriting; he never stops being seduced by this scene of love. The specta-tor may exit the theater but he never leaves the theater of his heart.

UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT LITTLE ROCK

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WORKS CITED

Mostefai, Ourida. “Ecriture parisienne et écriture genevoise dans la Lettre à d’Alembert.”Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Cen-tury Studies Conference, Portland, March 2008.

––––––. “La Lettre à d’Alembert, le troisième discours de Rousseau.” Rousseau on Artsand Politics: Autour de la Lettre à d’Alembert. Ed. Melissa Butler. Ottawa, ON: Pen-sée Libre/Association nord-américaine des études Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1997.

––––––. Le Citoyen de Genève et la République des Lettres: Etude de la controverseautour de La Lettre à d’Alembert de Jean-Jacques Rousseau. New York: Peter Lang,2003.

Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Confessions. Oeuvres complètes, v. I. Eds. Bernard Gagnebinand Marcel Raymond. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1959.

––––––. Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles. Oeuvres complètes, v. V. Eds. BernardGagnebin and Marcel Raymond. Bibliothèque de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, 1959.

Sanfey, Darach. “Le Discours autobiographique dans la Lettre à D’Alembert.” Travauxde littérature, 10.1 (1997): 175-194.

Wingrove, Elizabeth. Rousseau’s Republican Romance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP,2000.

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