''Cécile'' is an historical novel by the British writer
F. L. Lucas
Frank Laurence Lucas (28 December 1894 – 1 June 1967) was an English Classics, classical scholar, literary critic, poet, novelist, playwright, political polemicist, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and intelligence officer at Bletchley Pa ...
. His second novel, first published in 1930, it is a story of love, society and politics in the France of 1775–1776, set largely in
Picardy
Picardy (; Picard language, Picard and , , ) is a historical and cultural territory and a former regions of France, administrative region located in northern France. The first mentions of this province date back to the Middle Ages: it gained it ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
, which locations form its two parts.
Plot summary
Cécile, 18, and Andrée, 23, are daughters of the Marquis de Maurepaire of Vraulx Saint-Mein in
Picardy
Picardy (; Picard language, Picard and , , ) is a historical and cultural territory and a former regions of France, administrative region located in northern France. The first mentions of this province date back to the Middle Ages: it gained it ...
. Cécile is a joyous may-fly of a girl, just out of her convent and at once married off by her father, for money, to serious Gabriel de Rieux, 25 ("my heavenly bridegroom" ), whom she does not love. Andrée is a young ''philosophe'', romantic about one thing (love), sceptical about all else. She is married to the dashing Gaston, Vicomte de Launay, 30, a proto-
Romantic, who makes her miserable by his affair with a fawn-like peasant-girl, whom he swept into his saddle one moonlit evening in the woods. (He is a disciple of
Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher ('' philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects ...
.) Andrée and Gaston quarrel about this, about their children's education, and about politics. A colleague of
Turgot, the reformist
Finance Minister
A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position .
A ministry of finance's portfoli ...
, Gaston is shocked by the condition of the rural poor and sets about reforming the estates of his father-in-law and those of his father, the bluff sensible old Comte de Launay – to the mockery and head-shaking of the ''noblesse'' and the gratitude of the ''paysans''. The unhappy Andrée is advised by her Parisian aunt, the worldly Madame de Lavaganne, that she must come to Paris and seek distraction. In Paris Andrée frequents her aunt's
salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon
A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...
. Cécile meanwhile longs for Paris and for "life". Gabriel, aware that she does not love him and fearing rivals, is reluctant to let her go to the capital. At the château she flirts with her husband's teenage brother, who falls in love with her. Gabriel takes Andrée's advice and gives way. In Paris Cécile takes a lover, the Abbé Maurice d'Ailly, "a pleasant little fox among the vines of Paris". Gaston takes a second mistress, Madame d'Aymery, whose only idea is "to look ravishing and to be ravished". Andrée soon finds out; the discovery kills her love. She learns, too, that Dick Elliot, a young English army officer on convalescent leave, has fallen in love with her:
:"I might be a bridge for you away from this unhappiness"
e tells her "A bridge may be short, my darling, yet save a whole world of weariness."
On a visit to
Saint-Cyr they become lovers. She informs Gaston, who knows he has deserved it. With Turgot fallen, he leaves for America as volunteer in
Washington
Washington most commonly refers to:
* George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States
* Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A ...
's forces. Months pass, gay with Parisian pleasures. Gabriel discovers Cécile's affair: when they are riding together in her carriage and the coachman is nodding, her horses stop unbidden outside her lover's front door. Stung by Cécile's hatred of him and his religion, he turns vindictive. He asks her father to apply for a ''
lettre de cachet
''Lettres de cachet'' (; ) were letters signed by the king of France, countersigned by one of his ministers, and closed with the royal seal. They contained orders directly from the king, often to enforce actions and judgments that could not b ...
''. One evening at a ball Cécile is arrested ''de la part du roi''
on behalf of the king Maurice deserts her and escapes. Andrée, frantic, knowing that such "disappearances" of women of good family are usually final, confronts Gabriel and asks him to relent. He wavers, looks out of the window, sees Dick waiting in her carriage – and rejects her appeal. She returns to the family château, noticing in passing that without Gaston the estates have gone to rack and ruin, and asks her father to use his influence – only to learn with horror that it was he who ordered the arrest. Telling her father he will never see her again, she rushes out of the château and into the night. Back in Paris Dick fights a duel with Gabriel. Both men are wounded. The authorities try to keep Cécile's identity and movements secret as they transfer her between prisons, but everywhere Madame de Rieux is taken, her looks and charm leave well-wishers, and her ingenuity clues. (She knows her sister will try to find and rescue her.) Andrée and Dick, with the help of their streetwise servants – one of many comic touches in the novel – trace Cécile across France to a convent beyond
Nancy. They plan a rescue. Gaston returns from America unexpectedly, disillusioned with the needless bloodshed. He learns that in his absence his father has been killed in a confrontation with poachers. He is just in time to take the wounded Dick's place in the attempt to rescue Cécile. He has at last learnt to value Andrée: but too late – she cannot give up Dick, though Dick has now been recalled to his Regiment in the American War. Gaston requests an audience with
the King, officially to give a first-hand account of events in America and to advise against French intervention, but privately to appeal for the release of Cécile. In a memorable scene,
Vergennes escorts Gaston to
Versailles
The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...
. The American information is welcomed by
Louis
Louis may refer to:
People
* Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name
* Louis (surname)
* Louis (singer), Serbian singer
Other uses
* Louis (coin), a French coin
* HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy
See also
...
, who had regretted the fall of Turgot; the private appeal falls on deaf ears. In her incarceration Cécile learns from the Mother Superior that it was ''her father'' who ordered her arrest. Stunned, she attempts to escape alone that night. She is fatally injured in a fall. Gaston and Andrée, unaware, arrive just hours too late. Getting no response from her window they break into the nunnery and find the community in mourning for Cécile, who has won the hearts of the nuns in her brief time with them. Brushing past a distraught Gabriel, also just arrived, they start back for Paris in the desolation of a grey dawn.
Background
The pain of marital break-up looms large in the novel, which was written in the aftermath of Lucas's failed marriage to
E. B. C. Jones, to which passages indirectly refer, as Lucas's friends noticed. "I can see that in writing ''Cécile'' you were, in a sense, clearing up your own history," wrote
T. E. Lawrence
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer known for his role during the Arab Revolt and Sinai and Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the First W ...
to Lucas in 1930.
:"You seemed intolerably dear to lose"
aston tells Andrée on his return from America "now that I had lost you; and in the shadow of that loss our differences seemed pitiful things, compared with all that we had in common. For, after all, we both cared for courage and freedom and generosity and pity... Why should our disagreements have mattered?"
The
French 18th century, its history and literature, its ''
philosophes
The were the intellectuals of the 18th-century European Enlightenment.Kishlansky, Mark, ''et al.'' ''A Brief History of Western Civilization: The Unfinished Legacy, volume II: Since 1555.'' (5th ed. 2007). Few were primarily philosophers; rathe ...
'' and ''
encyclopédistes
The Encyclopédistes () (also known in British English as Encyclopaedists, or in U.S. English as Encyclopedists) were members of the , a French writers' society, who contributed to the development of the ''Encyclopédie'' from June 1751 to Dece ...
'', its
salon
Salon may refer to:
Common meanings
* Beauty salon
A beauty salon or beauty parlor is an establishment that provides Cosmetics, cosmetic treatments for people. Other variations of this type of business include hair salons, spas, day spas, ...
hostesses and letter-writers, was one Lucas knew through and through. He shared the
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...
conviction that European civilisation had reached a high point (for all its shortcomings) in the
Siècle des Lumières, and in particular in the brilliant French women that had graced it. Lucas returned to the 18th century French setting in his short story 'Madame de Malitourn's Cold' (1936) about an estranged aristocratic couple, each unfaithful to the other, but brought together again by a comic misunderstanding. ''Cécile'' was the first of three novels and one novella Lucas set in the period 1775–1812.
Lucas entered the novel for Chatto & Windus's Historical Novel Competition, announced in the press in January 1928, with manuscripts to be submitted by June 1929. The judges were
E. M. Forster
Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...
,
George Gordon and
R. H. Mottram. That the conscientious Forster was a friend of Lucas's may have counted against ''Cécile'', which was bracketed for Second Prize, to the puzzlement of some reviewers who thought it finer than the winning novel,
Margaret Irwin's ''None So Pretty'' (1930).
Themes
As a novel about the ruling classes in the decade before the
Revolution
In political science, a revolution (, 'a turn around') is a rapid, fundamental transformation of a society's class, state, ethnic or religious structures. According to sociologist Jack Goldstone, all revolutions contain "a common set of elements ...
, ''Cécile'' is in part a work of social criticism, not unrelated to the 1920s, as some reviewers noted, with intimations of the coming deluge. In parallel, the
American Revolution
The American Revolution (1765–1783) was a colonial rebellion and war of independence in which the Thirteen Colonies broke from British America, British rule to form the United States of America. The revolution culminated in the American ...
reaches its climax in the months covered by the novel, touching the lives of a number of the characters and deeply impressing European onlookers. The struggle for freedom is thus explored on both individual and social levels. ''Cécile'', in addition, contrasts the attitudes of the generations, examines various views of love, and, like Lucas's later novels ''
Doctor Dido'' (1938) and ''The English Agent'' (1969), traces the tension between
18th-century rationalism and, in varying forms,
Romantic "enthusiasm" and unreason. Rousseau's ideas are presented unsympathetically, as they are in ''Doctor Dido''. Lucas saw Rousseau as a harmful influence, undermining the balance and good sense achieved in the
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment (also the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment) was a Europe, European Intellect, intellectual and Philosophy, philosophical movement active from the late 17th to early 19th century. Chiefly valuing knowledge gained th ...
.
Reception
''Cécile'' was the best received of Lucas's novels. The ''
New Statesman
''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...
'' described it as a "tenderly brilliant story". "For grace and style and insight into character," wrote Kathleen Tomlinson in ''
The Nation and Athenaeum
''The Nation and Athenaeum'', or simply ''The Nation'', was a United Kingdom political weekly newspaper with a Liberal/ Labour viewpoint. It was formed in 1921 from the merger of the '' Athenaeum'', a literary magazine published in London since ...
'', "''Cécile'' is reminiscent of
Gautier's ''Mademoiselle de Maupin''. Only reminiscent, for Mr Lucas has a more profound philosophy, or wisdom, and is not content with the challenge and interplay of the individual, but extends his psychological understanding to classes and nations." "His extraordinary gift for delightful persiflage," noted the New York
''Bookman'', "contributes not a little towards making this novel almost as ''dix-huitième'' in spirit as ''
Manon Lescaut'' is in fact."
Vita Sackville-West
Victoria Mary, Lady Nicolson, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (née Sackville-West; 9 March 1892 – 2 June 1962), usually known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and garden designer.
Sackville-West was a successful nov ...
also praised the novel: "It seemed to me to be full of the deepest and truest feeling," she wrote, "never sentimental, but always convincing and extremely moving. The relationship between Andrée and Gaston is admirably true to nature. No-one could fail to be moved by this picture of a woman struggling against her own love for a husband who disappoints and betrays her at every turn." Lucas dedicated ''Cécile'' to
T. E. Lawrence
Thomas Edward Lawrence (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935) was a British Army officer, archaeologist, diplomat and writer known for his role during the Arab Revolt and Sinai and Palestine campaign against the Ottoman Empire in the First W ...
, who admired his poetry and who had said encouraging things about his first novel,
''The River Flows'' (1926). Lawrence, in a letter to Lucas thanking him for the dedication, singled out "that picture of the King, and Vergennes and Gaston, near the end. That is magnificent. You got there as near to the reality of a royal audience as anyone could."
Some reviewers thought the novel "rather static",
Naomi Mitchison
Naomi Mary Margaret Mitchison, Baroness Mitchison (; 1 November 1897 – 11 January 1999) was a List of Scottish novelists, Scottish novelist and poet. Often called a doyenne of Scottish literature, she wrote more than 90 books of historical an ...
noting that, though "lucid and distinguished" as a work of art, there was not enough action to make the novel "a selling success". Opinion differed on the long ''salon'' scenes, ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...
'' considering that they "would of themselves be enough to stamp the book with distinction",
Basil Davenport in the
''Saturday Review of Literature'' that "though the talk is extraordinarily good, some readers will feel there is too much of it" and a distraction from the "excellent" plot.
[Basil Davenport in ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', 11 Oct. 1930]
Publishing history
The novel was published on 1 May 1930 by
Chatto & Windus
Chatto & Windus is an imprint of Penguin Random House that was formerly an independent book publishing company founded in London in 1855 by John Camden Hotten. Following Hotten's death, the firm would reorganize under the names of his busines ...
of London, and reprinted in Chatto's 'Centaur Library' in July of that year and again in November 1931. The first American edition, by
Henry Holt and Company
Henry Holt and Company is an American book-publishing company based in New York City. One of the oldest publishers in the United States, it was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt (publisher), Henry Holt and Frederick Leypoldt. The company publishes in ...
of New York, 1930, was, unusually for Lucas's US editions, re-set.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cécile (novel)
1930 British novels
British historical novels
Novels set in the 1770s
Fiction set in 1775
Fiction set in 1776
Novels set in Picardy
Novels set in Paris
Chatto & Windus books