Literary Research / Recherche littéraire, nos. 39-40, 2003

LR/RL

Literary Research/Recherche littéraire 20.39-40 (2003): 357-358

John Conley, The Suspicion of Virtue: Women philosophers in neoclassical France. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2002; 220 pp.; ISBN: 0801440203 (hbk.); LC call no.: B1815.C66; $39.95

Until now the work of women who participated in the philosophical debates of the early modern period have been either marginalised or erased, but J. Conley has generously opened for us a treasure chest by giving us a whole new way to read and examine the works of underappreciated intelligent and powerful women of the 17^th century. More particularly, he is showing us how the venue of the salons fostered a dimension, overlooked or ignored in a patriarchal milieu, that has to do with relatedness and connectedness and what comes from it, a connectedness which these women were well aware of and whose genres portrayed and examined. Clearly and elegantly written, The Suspicion of Virtue is divided in five main chapters that examine in turn the life and writings of five women whose theory of virtue followed one of the various religious movements of the period (Jansenism, Gallicanism, Quietism, Libertinism).

Both Madame de Sablé, a mitigated sceptic Jansenist, and Madame de la Sablière, a militant Augustinianist, sketch their precepts of moral philosophy using maxims, a genre invented by Madame de Sablé but transformed by Madame de la Sablière who theologized it. Thus if Madame de Sablé and Madame de la Sablière's maxims both address how vices camouflages themselves as virtue (for instance, humility is rarely humble but animated by pride), those of the latter concentrate on theological virtues such as faith, charity and hope asserting that they could only remain fecund in their pristine state, as gifts of God humbly received "in the order of redemption and sanctification." In the end, for Madame de la Sablière, the moral quality of every action has to do with the degree to which the moral agent has united himself or herself with God. Like Madame de la Sablière, Madame de Sablé's maxims pay attention to connectedness. Conley tells us that for her the experience of love was immune from deceit as revealed in maxim 80: "love has a character so particular that one can neither hide where it is nor pretend where it is not." Madame de Sablé position's on love thus contrasts with her friend's, La Rochefoucauld (much more famous for his maxims than the inventor herself), whose maxims suggest that all friendship are but a mask for egoistic interest. Conley convincingly shows that the difference between the two reflects a gender bias. For men, friendship relied upon military, political and economic interests; for women, barred from public power, non contingent friendship might flower. Connectedness is also the main moral philosophical concern of Madame Deshoulières, a well known [end page 357] and well recognised poetess of the 17^th century. In selected extracts of provocative poetry, Conley describes how Madame Deshoulières contrast animals to humans in order to reveal that there is more virtue in a mute animal "inscribed in the present" and conforming to its nature, than in the human guided by the illusion of their rationality. Arguing that Cartesian claims of reason are an illusion nurtured by pride, this Catholic philosopher challenges huMANity's refusal to recognise its connectedness to Nature. Against the pervading rationalism of the time, one can add the prayers of Mademoiselle de la Vallière, a Catholic Royal mistress who became a cloistered but celebrated nun. Conley rightly points out that by approaching virtue from a very personal stand, Mademoiselle de la Vallière developed a gendered moral philosophy, marking the transition from "the equally gendered role of salon philosopher to that of mystical theologian." It is only fitting to end the book with Madame de Maintenon who could only have been invented by a novelist, according to Conley. Indeed, if Madame de Maintenon, grand- daughter of the celebrated Protestant poet and soldier Aubigné, daughter of a criminal and born in a prison, had not exist, we would have insisted it was fiction that she became the unofficial and secret wife of Sun king. Conley insists that Madame de Maintenon, while stripping women's education of literary and scientific ambition, still maintained a moral philosophy of gendered connectedness, by reframing certain virtues. "Glory, once the unique possession of the warrior," became the virtue of "the zealous mother." Wit, formerly "the accessory of the honnête homme" became "the province of the industrious wife." On showing us how seventeenth-century women redefined gender specific experience, Conley throws further light upon an emerging feminist-feminine critique of modern historiography that does not take full account of women's contribution to culture, literature, history and the birth of the modern age. This scholarly book can be enjoyed by both specialists and non-specialists who will both delight in the intellectual rigour and in the lively and vivid description of some truly remarkable women. In an appendix, Conley provides the original texts as a cross check against his own careful and sensitive translations which he uses in his text. Perhaps, the main success of this book lies in the fact that after reading it, the reader will be impatient to revisit the texts of these forgotten philosophers.

Agnès Conacher

Queen's University