Looking inside: The Ambiguous Interiors of "La Petite Maison"

South Atlantic Modern Language Association

Looking inside: The Ambiguous Interiors of "La Petite Maison"Author(s): Paul YoungSource: South Atlantic Review, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Winter, 2006), pp. 20-41Published by: South Atlantic Modern Language AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20064706 .

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Looking Inside: the Ambiguous Interiors of Lm Petite Maison

Paul Young Georgetown University

Can a house seduce? For certain eighteenth-century French writers,

and for a generation of eighteenth-century readers, it would seem that

the response to this question is surprisingly affirmative. A more inter

esting question, then, might ask what this sort of architectural seduc

tion could reveal to eighteenth-century readers. What cultural tensions

in eighteenth-century French literature does it illuminate? What kinds

of ideological debates are implied by the sway that a specific house (or the objects within it), holds over the one it seduces? What does an

architectural seduction tell readers about that peculiar period in eigh

teenth-century French literary history that has come to be known as

the Enlightenment, but which often seems to have little more than

seduction on its mind?

Eighteenth-century French literature abounds with a particular

vocabulary of architectural interiors, notably those spaces propitious to seduction. A kind of libertine topography reveals itself throughout these stories, in which the seducer and the object of seduction move

through a series of increasingly-familiar places. Indeed, to speak of

eighteenth-century French literature is to evoke these sites that, for the

most part, disappear with the end of the century: the cabinet, the

alcove, the niche, the boudoir, the secluded grove. In the present article, through a reading of Jean-Fran?ois de

2 Bastide's 1763 novella La petite maison, (The Little House), I will exam

ine a text that presents the confluence of two kinds of interiors; the

material spaces that constitute the interior of the petite maison, and the

psychological interiority of the subjects who spend the day in this



South Atlantic Review 21

space. Bastide's tale presents a familiar story of seduction, but one in

which a new importance is afforded to the role of objects, for in The

Little House, it is unclear whether it is the main character who seduces

the heroine, or his house. The text's surprising conflation of the psy

chological interior of its protagonists with the ornate material interior

of a libertine architectural space raises troubling questions about the

status of the subject in eighteenth-century French literature. I would

argue that Bastide's text asks: When the interiority of a subject is no

longer knowable, can interior decoration take its place? In the absence

of certainty about the other, can objects vouch for the subject? La petite maison offers the narration of a curious wager. Tr?micour,

a young man smitten by M?lite, is weary of her resistance. Everything leads him to believe that she is, as the narrator suggests, an easy mark

? she is comfortable in the company of men, uninhibited, and a flirt.

Frustrated by M?lite's lack of interest in his charms, Tr?micour bets

M?lite that she will be unable to resist him, if she should agree to visit

him in his petite maison (little house), located outside of Paris, on the

banks of the Seine. M?lite, unwilling to admit that she does not know

what ^petite maison is, but nevertheless sure of her virtue, immediately

accepts his challenge.

Although M?lite may be ignorant as to the wager she has foolishly thrown herself into, readers of the eighteenth-century French novel

would immediately understand the reference to this ultimate site of

seduction. In one of the century's most famous coming-of-age sto

ries, Cr?billon fils' 1736 Les Egarements du coeur et de l'esprit (The Wayward Heart and Mind), the prototypical libertine, Versac, invites two women

to enjoy an afternoon in his petite maison. The response from one of

them, Mme de Senanges, indicates that she clearly knows the dangers

(or the pleasures) that await her in this space. "A party in a petite mai

son} (she retorts) You can't be thinking about it! Those parties aren't

decent, and people are right to scorn them!" A play dating from the

early 1740's, attributed to H?nault, and entitled La Petite maison, offers a similar echo of this space's reputation. Amarinte has come to the

petite maison of Valere, in order to find her young niece, Julie. Upon

entering Val?re's little house for the first time, Amarinte exclaims: "I

feel overjoyed to be in a petite maison, and yet, I'm also afraid... They



22 Paul Young

4 say ...." Amarinte's recourse to ellipses indicates her desire for dis

cretion; she would rather not enunciate all that the petite maison sug

gests. Her reticence speaks of this site as a space of sensuality, priva

cy, and perhaps licentiousness.

The petite maison serves an important function in eighteenth-centu

ry French literature. On the one hand, these spaces reflect the needs

of a society for which privacy is increasingly important. A rendezvous

in a petite maison offers the possibility for interactions not constrained

by the penetrating gaze of "le monde" the social circle that, in the liter

ature of the time, often seems to perform an omnipresent surveillance

of the subject. In a society in which social status and reputation are

intimately intertwined, the petite maison promises a space for pleasures that will remain secret. As Erica-Marie Benabou notes: "One has a

freedom there, and one benefits from a discretion that would be

impossible to find in the city. The petite maison even offers the impres sion of avoiding police surveillance..." Historical records indicate

that in eighteenth-century France, these spaces devoted to pleasure flourished in what was then the outskirts of Paris, in neighborhoods such as Bercy, Passy, Clichy and Montrouge. These locations offered

the benefits of pastoral surroundings, and a proximity to the capital that allowed for easy access, while still providing the important veneer

of privacy. Far from just being a space devoted to private pleasures, the petite

maison is also coded as a space of luxury. Indeed, the level of privacy

(or the kinds of pleasures) made possible by ^petite maison were only available to the very wealthy. In this sense, the petite maison is the realm

of wealthy aristocrats, very successful members of the bourgeoisie, or

the Fermiers-G?n?raux. In a satirical text from the 1750's, the Abb?

Coyer remarks upon the expenses of maintaining a petite maison, and

proposes using them as a source of revenue for the cash-strapped French nation. Addressing their luxuriousness, he writes: "One only needs an income of 30,000 livres to maintain a large house; to maintain

^petite maison, one needs 100,000 livres, at the very minimum. They are 8

usually havens of pleasure and wealth."

In Bastide's text, the, petite maison is clearly a space of wealth and lux

ury. However, while this text devotes itself to the description of this




opulence, it displays a reticence towards the depiction of the kinds of

sexual pleasure often associated with the petite maison. Instead, the text

privileges the sensual delight brought about by the beauty of the inte

rior of this little house. In this sense, La petite maison differs greatly from the libertine tradition from which it derives; this text shuns the

pornographic to embrace ekphrasis. If there is an explicitness in

Bastide's tale, it is that of the attentive descriptions of the objects,

artists, and spaces that render the petite maison so seductive. On the

other hand, M?lite's eventual succumbing to Tr?micour, at the end of

the text, is written under the sign of the inexpressible, marked by a

series of unfinished sentences that offer the reader a stark contrast 9

with the encyclopedic thoroughness with which the house is rendered.

Since Bastide's text is devoted almost entirely to a detailed account of

the little house, I would like to offer a brief description of some of

this house's spaces, in order to demonstrate the aesthetic seduction

Tr?micour performs (through the intermediary of his house) to wear

away at M?lite's resistance.

M?lite's arrives at the petite maison in the early afternoon. Sensing the

gravity of the situation, she lingers in the outer courtyard and gardens before entering the house itself. Once inside, she finds herself bar

raged by spaces, objects, colors, smells, and sounds, each honed to pro duce a maximum voluptuous effect upon the visitor, in this space that

Bruno Pons has dubbed "a theater for the five senses." M?lite's visit

begins in the salon, in which: "lilac-covered paneling framed beautiful

ly crafted mirrors"(67), the whole rendered more beautiful by touches

of gold, and a masterfully painted domed ceiling. In the bedroom, M?lite's desire is awakened by a bed covered in jonquil-colored silk, "brocaded with resplendent hues"(74), in this room with mirrors in

the four corners. The woodwork in the bedroom is a sulfur yellow,

complemented by rich blue marble work, and the furniture "resonated

the ideas expressed everywhere in the little house, and coerced even

the coldest minds to sense something of the voluptuousness it pro

claimed"^). The next room M?lite visits is the boudoir, a smaller room, with

mirrored walls. The joinery of the mirrors is hidden by delicately made artificial trees with trunks, branches, and deceptively realistic



24 Paul Young

greenery. These trees are strewn with flowers, and laden with candles, which produce a filtered, sensual light, reflected infinitely in the rooms

mirrored surfaces. The narrator remarks that in this room, "[s]o mag ical was this optical effect that the boudoir could have been mistaken

12 for a natural woods, lit with the help of art"(75-76). Other marvels

that M?lite will experience in the petite maison include wooden paneling imbued with the perfume of violet, jasmine and rose (to match the

color of the wood), and a dining room table that magically appears and

disappears through the ceiling, so that the lovers can eat in complete

seclusion, far from the indecorous gaze of servants. A hidden orches

tra will entice M?lite with haunting melodies, and even a visit to the

water closet will seem both terribly modern, (it offers one of the few

such descriptions in eighteenth-century French literature) and

unequivocally sensual. The culmination of this sublime "shock and

awe," in which every sense finds its pleasure, will, of course, be

M?lite's defeat.

M?lite is not the only one conquered by Tr?micour's little house. As

Michel Delon points out, the elegant, sensual architecture that M?lite

experiences in Bastide's tale serves as a model for an architectural the

ory developed later in the century by Le Camus de M?zi?res. In his

1780 Le G?nie de l'architecture, Le Camus de M?zi?res proposes that

architecture, like painting or sculpture, interacts with the body, produc 14 ing an effect on the senses. For M?zi?res, architecture is "capable of

producing certain sensations"(2), brought about by the "analogy between the proportions in architecture, and our sensations"(l). M?zi?res suggests that the interior of a house must provoke a kind of

gradation of pleasure and that each room should have its own charac

ter. Moving through these rooms, one must have the sense of mov

ing from simplicity to elegance. Moreover, the rooms must both incite

desire, and offer fulfillment. M?zi?res notes: "each room must make

one desire the next; this agitation occupies the mind, and keeps it in

suspense. It is a kind of pleasure {jouissance) that satisfies"(45). For

M?zi?res, "this pleasure, this jouissance, [is] the goal" of architecture

(41-42).

According to M?zi?res, architecture can provoke pleasures that are

not solely intellectual. In his introduction, he specifically notes the pro




liferation o? petites maisons around Paris, writing: "Today in the outskirts

of the Capital, an infinity of new buildings seem to anticipate pleas ures (Jouissances) and voluptuousness (volupt?). What is the cause of

these sensations? It is the choice of proportions, the forms one uses,

and the situations to which they are adapted with taste and inten

tion..."(21). M?zi?res, who regarded the boudoir as the space where

volupt? "seems to contemplate its projects, or give itself over to its

penchants"(116), is so struck by Bastide's boudoir, that he faithfully

reproduces Bastide's text in his own treatise, describing the artificial

trees, the mirrors, and even the delicate, filtered lighting. In doing so,

M?zi?res engages in a kind of architectural intertextuality, for as I have

noted, Tr?micour's boudoir makes repeated appearances in eigh

teenth-century French culture and literature. One nineteenth-century writer has suggested that many of the petite maison's architectural details

were originally supplied by Blondel, a famous eighteenth-century architect with whom Bastide collaborated on a long novel, L'homme du

monde ?clair? par les arts.

M?zi?res proves to be an attentive reader of Bastide's text, and his

suggestion that architecture affects the body may lead readers to pon der the somatic transformations experienced by Bastide's characters

throughout their encounter in the little house. This examination of

architecture's effects upon the body illuminates a fundamental differ

ence between the two opponents in Bastide's wager. In The Little House, Melite's body, as it moves through the voluptuous interior of

Tr?micour's petite maison, expresses a series of somatic reactions that

she unsuccessfully attempts to master. In doing so, M?lite's exterior

belies her internal struggle, offering Tr?micour (and the reader), the

spectacle of a "readable" body. Indeed, the reader, in the process of

witnessing M?lite's eventual loss of the wager, and experiencing M?lite's body as it undergoes pleasure, awe, distress, sadness, and volup t?, cannot help but contrast this profusion of sensation with

Tr?micour's impassive exterior.

Even before entering Tr?micour's house, M?lite's encounter with

the main courtyard of the house elicits a "gasp at her first glimpse of

it"(66). The salon, the first room that M?lite visits, stirs up sensual feel

ings in her, and Tr?micour remarks that M?lite has been "touched" by



26 Paul Young

the salon. The narrator notes: "He trusted that she would be touched

even more by more touching objects, and thus hastened to her des

tiny" (73). By the time M?lite reaches the next room in the house, the

bedroom, she "no longer dared praise anything; she had begun to fear

her own emotions"(75).

During a visit to a dressing room, where M?lite encounters surfaces 19

painted by Huet, Boucher and Bachelier, blue and gold porcelain vases, and "tastefully upholstered furniture of aventurine wood"(83), M?lite's body offers every sign of succumbing, victim of a surfeit of

aesthetic pleasure. The house has made her physically weak, and she is

forced to admit to her seducer: "I can not take this any longer.. .This

house is too beautiful. There is nothing comparable on earth..."(83). A moment in the gardens outside of the petite maison causes M?lite's

condition to worsen. Overtaken by anxiety, she tries to flee

Tr?micour's house. Her emotions have deprived her of the one poten tial arm against Tr?micour's seduction: the use of speech. The narra

tor notes: "Her words were incoherent or simply monosyllabic"(93), and the reader may wonder whether the "nascent love"(93) she expe riences is for the petite maison, or for its owner. Later in the evening, at the supper she shares with Tr?micour, M?lite says little, and eats less,

offering the image of being "distracted, distant and wistful"(99). In

the last line of the text, which offers the discreet description of M?lite

losing the wager with Tr?micour, the narrator notes that her body

"shuddered, faltered, [and] sighed" before proving Tr?micour right. The uncontrollable somatic responses (gasps, sighs, shudders...) of

M?lite's body, provoked by the visit to the little house, form a bridge between her exterior and her interior. M?lite's external transformations

bear witness to the interior transformation she undergoes as her resist

ance falters, and the third-person narration of La petite maison renders

M?lite's interior struggle more explicit for the reader than it is for

Tr?micour. The narrator remarks the "secret distress"(83), and "secret

unrest"(89) M?lite experiences during her visit to the little house.

M?lite's transformation even causes her to become somewhat

unmoored during her visit, and the narrator writes that she "Forget[s] herself more and more..."(%), and that she ".. .truly forgot where she

was..."(97). As M?lite's seduction progresses, she vacillates between




"anguish"(99) and delight, as she reflects in turn upon her faltering

state, or upon the "beauty and the ornamentation of the place that was

offered for her admiration"(100). The intelligibility of M?lite's somatic responses offer a sharp con

trast with the impassivity that Tr?micour presents throughout the text,

and I would argue that Tr?micour, while orchestrating M?lite's fall, offers the spectacle of a different kind of body, indicating, to a certain

extent, that his character belongs to a different tradition than M?lite's.

Indeed, M?lite could be seen as offering an echo of a text from the

same era as The Little House, Condillac's sensualist Trait? des sensations 20

(1754). In this text, Condillac's statue, gifted with human senses,

reflects on the development of its understanding of the world through the use of its senses. Through a series of sensations that the statue

experiences, it begins to know pleasure and pain, and through these

impressions, consciousness arises. Astonished by the transformation it

is undergoing through the development of its nascent consciousness, the statue remarks: "At each moment I feel that I am no longer what

I was. It seems to me that I cease being myself, to become another me.

In turn, experiencing pleasure and suffering forms my existence"(311). Once the statue begins to make connections and to form new kinds of

ideas, it moves through the world in search of new pleasures, a move

ment that could be compared to M?lite's journey through the little

house. The statue remarks: ".. .soon I move though the world in the

hopes of encountering new pleasures; and becoming capable of

curiosity, I move continually from fear to hope, from movement to

rest: .. .eventually pleasure and pain, the only principles of my desires, teach me to navigate through space, and to experience new

ideas"(312). Tr?micour's body offers a different kind of spectacle, presenting

the reader with a somewhat ambiguous version of a character who

occupies a central place in eighteenth-century French literature, the

libertine. Tr?micour's character is ambiguous in that, on the one

hand, the methodical techniques of seduction he displays accord him

an affinity with libertines such as the Vicomte de Valmont, or the

Marquise de Merteuil, in Chodleros de Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses 22 (1782), while still allowing M?lite and the reader to entertain the idea



28 Paul Young

that his declarations of love may be sincere. Ultimately, it is

Tr?micour's relationship to his body that places him within a libertine

lineage, for Tr?micour demonstrates a mastery of his body that is a

hallmark of libertine thought. The libertine ideal of a mastery of the

body, a perverse consequence of the Cartesian mind-body split, might best be described through a letter that the Marquise de Merteuil writes

to Valmont, in which she describes herself as "a creation of pier] own 23

making"(170). Detailing the educational program that she created for

herself, she tells Valmont:

.. .1 tried to regulate even the various movements of my facial expressions. If I felt sadness, I studied myself to

take on an air of serenity, or even joy. I carried this

enthusiasm so for as to cause myself pain, to attempt, in

those moments, to assume an expression of pleasure. I

practiced with the same attention, and more effort, in

order to repress the signs of unexpected joy. Thus I was

able to assume this power over my physiognomy which, 24 as I have often remarked, surprises you so. (171).

Merteuil's mastery offers an image of the libertine ideal, wherein

even "involuntary" bodily reactions to joy, pain, or surprise are con

trolled by the subject; the libertine body becomes impenetrable,

unreadable, purposefully misleading. In this sense, the libertine mas

tery of the body is at the basis of a semiotic crisis, wherein the body is no longer: "an ensemble of phenomena or symptoms to be deci

25 phered and interpreted in a semiological perspective." The contrast

between Merteuil's control, and M?lite's unbridled somatic effusive

ness ? shunned from libertine praxis ? could not be more striking.

The libertine subject, through the mastery of the body, forges a mask

that allows him/her to maintain a distinction between a socially

acceptable exterior, and a perverse interior. This is notably the case for

libertine women, in an era where reputations must be carefully main

tained. Thus, the Marquise de Merteuil's prudish exterior allows her

entry into the most cautious social circles, affording her the possibili

ty of encountering new victims to seduce, as well as placing her above




the blame of her peers, who suspect nothing.

Mastery of the body also allows the seducer to play a role corre

sponding to the other's desires or wishes. The libertine anticipates the

words or gestures necessary for seduction, and appropriates the dis

course of the other, to better offer to the object of seduction a reflec

tion of her own desires. As Claude Reichler notes: "The greatest mas

tery consists in guessing the scenarios of the other, in order to adapt oneself to them, to play, in advance, the role the other has assigned

you.?26

Tr?micour's mastery of his body takes the form of a passivity, or

indeed impassivity, that he uses to further M?lite's seduction. This

passivity progresses by degrees; in the early stages of her visit, Tr?micour deploys his body to attract M?lite. As Tr?micour becomes

more certain that his house has swayed M?lite, he retreats, no longer

assuming an active role in M?lite's seduction. Thus, initially, Tr?micour

kisses M?lite's hand in the salon, leads her by the hand into the

boudoir, and while exiting the boudoir, squeezes her hand so passion

ately that: "... she complained and asked if he wanted to cripple

her"(79). Tr?micour also causes the house itself (its d?cors, and its exterior

spaces) to play an active role in M?lite's seduction, and he orchestrates

both sound and lighting to produce a maximal sensual effect.

Consequently, at two moments during M?lite's visit to the little house, hidden musicians, following Tr?micour's signals, play "touching"(85) melodies that seem to pursue M?lite and wear away her resistance.

During a visit to the garden, Tr?micour has arranged for a fireworks

display that "revealfs] in the reckless man's eyes a deep and submissive

love"(92). This initial activity contrasts sharply with the passive exterior that

Tr?micour assumes as the visit through the house progresses. No

longer concerned with perfecting the "mise en sc?ne" of the little

house's spaces, Tr?micour has turned his mastery towards the regula tion of his own exterior. Whereas M?lite's body affords Tr?micour

access to M?lite's thoughts and emotions, the opacity of Tr?micour's

body resists any effort M?lite might make towards "reading" it.

Tr?micour's performance removes the body from any coherent semi



30 Paul Young

otic system, offering instead an ambiguous and conflicting vision of

his interior. Indeed, as Tr?micour and M?lite advance through the lit

tle house, the narration will increasingly rely on the verb "feindre" (to

feign) to describe Tr?micour's interactions with M?lite. Throughout the short text, Tr?micour offers multiple examples of his ability to pre

tend, feigning "despair"(79), "earnestness"(84), and "noncha

lance"^).

Thus, in a scene in the garden, while M?lite's body is in the throes

of an irrepressible expressiveness ["during a quarter of an hour she

uttered nothing but cries of admiration"(88)], Tr?micour "wandered

aimlessly, feigning nonchalance and even disinterest"(89). When

M?lite, almost at the point of succumbing, resists Tr?micour, he feigns

losing interest in her. The narrator implies that this is the technique of

a veteran seducer, remarking that Tr?micour: "...did not doubt his

power to deceive her; he had succeeded a hundred times by yield

ing"(93). In a lacquered room overlooking the garden, M?lite forgets herself and reveals her interest in Tr?micour and his petite maison,

barraging him with questions. The narrator remarks Tr?micour's con

trast to M?lite's curiosity, noting: "Tr?micour responded [to M?lite's

questions] and apparently had none to make himself "(96). The con

trol that Tr?micour displays ultimately proves fruitful. M?lite would

have been wary of a more eager seducer, but in the little house:

"[w]hat seduced M?lite ... was Tr?micour's inaction in expressing such

tenderness"(102).

Ultimately the encounter of these two bodies leads to a crisis point, and a dilemma familiar to readers of eighteenth-century French litera

ture. Can M?lite believe Tr?micour? When Tr?micour protests that "if

M?lite loved me, ... only the excesses of my unwavering zeal would

remind her of my inconstant passions"(109), is he simply playing the

role of the seducer, or has his encounter with M?lite changed him?

Will M?lite end up seduced and abandoned, the victim of Tr?micour's

feigning, or will Tr?micour, seduced (and converted) by M?lite, expe rience love and constancy for the first time? It is M?lite who has the

most to lose in this wager, for more than just another one of

Tr?micour's conquests, she risks becoming the object of a story that

will circulate in society, a narrative that will do irreparable harm to




M?lite's social existence.

There is a dangerous disparity between the level of experience of

these two characters, as the narration demonstrates. Tr?micour's

doubts about M?lite's virtue may have prompted the invitation to his

little house, but the reader learns, early on in her visit, that: "[M?lite] had never played the coquette, and had yet to take a lover.. ."(70). She

had instead devoted her time to "instruction, acquiring true taste"(70).

Tr?micour, on the other hand, in inviting M?lite to his little house,

"had his mind set on her seduction, and felt assured of an easy suc

cess"(57). In the context of eighteenth-century French literature, the

very fact that Tr?micour possesses a petite maison is ample reason to

render him suspect. Moreover, M?lite is not the first woman he has

brought to his little house. Upon her arrival, the narrator remarks that:

"for the first time, the house meant less to him (Tr?micour) than the

object he had brought to it"(59), and Tr?micour makes reference to his

string of past victories to M?lite, telling her that: "All the other women

who found themselves there (in his garden) seemed unable to

leave"(95). If Tr?micour has his sights set on deceiving M?lite, she

seems to have few resources that would allow her to see beyond his

seductive mask.

I would like to suggest that through the depiction of M?lite's dilem

ma in the petite maison, Bastide is underscoring a fundamental prob lem in eighteenth-century French literature, and indeed, in eighteenth

century French culture. La Petite maison offers the staging of a crisis of

representation, in which M?lite struggles for proof of Tr?micour's

constancy, and in which even the sighs and tears (infallible external 29

manifestations of sentiment, or of sensibilit?) that Tr?micour proffers while she falters, can not necessarily be believed. The body, whose sur

face no longer serves to reveal something deeper, can no longer be

trusted; Tr?micour's words (the seducer's most malleable tool) certain

ly can not be taken at face value. In this tale that spends so much time

describing the inner spaces of a small, well-appointed house, Bastide

affords a glimpse of a much darker, and much more ambiguous inte

rior: Tr?micour's. When words mean little, and the body, once mas

tered, is no longer knowable, Bastide seems to ask whether things may offer a guarantor for sincerity. In this text, the (physical) interior that



32 Paul Young

Tr?micour has so carefully created offers itself as a tangible and com

prehensible manifestation of that inner space that remains ambiguous and inaccessible for both the reader, and M?lite. M?lite, forced to

invent new means to gauge her seducer's sincerity, turns towards these

objects, the fantastic collection of artifacts, decors, and spaces that

Tr?micour has amassed within his petite maison. Through M?lite's

investigation, Bastide has created an unusual correspondence between

two disparate interiors.

It is this movement towards Tr?micour's objects that also affords

the reader a deeper understanding of M?lite's interior. If Tr?micour's

petite maison seduces M?lite so entirely, it is because of her taste.

M?lite's education distinguishes her from Tr?micour's previous visitors

to the petite maison, and perhaps even from the readers of The Little

House. Whereas Bastide has included thorough notes in his original

text, explaining to his reader the importance of certain eighteenth-cen

tury French painters, sculptors, or even "varnishers"(83), M?lite needs

no such notes. The narrator explains:

She had learned to recognize the works of famous

artists at a glance. She looked on their masterpieces with

respect and awe... And so M?lite praised the light chis

el of Pineau, who had created the sculptures. She

admired the talents of Dandrillon, who had applied his

skills to convey the most imperceptible refinement in

the carvings of the woodwork (72).

M?lite's scrutiny of Tr?micour's objects demonstrates the unre

solved and dialectical relationship Tr?micour presents to the spaces and things around him. The text ? which will find its echo in

M?zi?res' ideas about architecture ? suggests on more than one occa

sion that the interior spaces of the little house serve both to reflect

and to incite desire. The interiors that envelop M?lite offer her the

reflection of her present feelings of nascent desire while also encour

aging her to experience, in her surroundings, a foretaste of a state her

body will come to echo. Therefore, in the boudoir, the furniture serves

this double function: "Elegant furniture of myriad forms resonated




the ideas expressed everywhere in the little house, and coerced even

the coldest minds to sense something of the voluptuousness it pro claimed" (74). In a similar way, the inner spaces of Tr?micour's house

perform a double function in relationship to Tr?micour. On the one

hand, Tr?micour suggests that they bear witness to his capacity for

deep feeling, while serving to reassure M?lite of the sincerity of this

feeling, and to inspire similar feelings in her. M?lite's visit to the

boudoir offers perhaps the most striking example of this complex

dynamic.

M?lite spends more than a quarter hour in this room, during which

time she can "scarcely contain her delight"(76). This interior clearly

sways her, although her heart will briefly caution her against "men who

orchestrate so many talents to express a sentiment that they are bare

ly capable of themselves"(78). M?lite barely listens to the warnings that rise up within her, and the narrator notes that she quickly relegates them to "the bottom of her heart," to be soon forgotten (78). Indeed, a few minutes later, under the spell of the beauty and elegance of the

boudoir, M?lite doubts her previous judgments of Tr?micour: "No

longer was she sure that he was a man that she could confidently

reproach for the monstrous disparity between his desires and his

deeds"(78).

Tr?micour, deflecting attention from himself, will encourage M?lite

to "read" the interiors of his house, and, to prevent any unfavorable

reflections, he will guide her analysis. Thus, in the dressing room, Tr?micour offers the d?cor around them as proof of his inner senti

ments, asking M?lite to explain "how one can possess an insensitive

heart and such tender ideas all at once"(84). Addressing the question of whether or not he is capable of love, he will again guide M?lite's

gaze to the interior he has created, arguing: "Although you have

reproached me for not feeling love, you will at least concede that so

many things here capable of inspiring it should honor my imagina

tion"^). In one of the text's most curious passages, Tr?micour tries to assure

M?lite of his constancy by telling her: "Believe me, we are not always taken by frivolity nor pleasure itself: there are objects made to arrest us

and bring us back to the true, and when we happen to encounter them,



34 Paul Young

we are more in love and more constant than others...,(85).

Tr?micour's words echo the strange dynamic of his seduction, for they offer an ambiguous double sense. Is Tr?micour suggesting that indeed, it is the objects he has collected in this little house that have brought him back to what was truest about himself? Or, in the language of

eighteenth-century French literature, is Tr?micour proposing that

M?lite, the "object" of his affections, has made him capable of reveal

ing his true feelings? I would argue that the ambiguity of Tr?micour's

confession is not arbitrary, but rather functions to highlight the dialec

tical relationship that this text offers between the enigma of

Tr?micour's deepest feelings, and the spaces around him that may serve to illuminate them. In the last lines of the text, this relationship is again highlighted when Tr?micour suggests that after M?lite's visit

to the petite maison, she has a deeper understanding of him. At M?lite's

feet, attempting to prove his sincerity to her, Tr?micour, in the final

stages of his seduction, pleads: "M?lite, you see me, you hear me, and

now you know my heart" (109). The implication is clear; Tr?micour's

body may present a passive mask, but his house reveals his heart.

However, at the end the text, the reader has no more certitude than

M?lite does about her fate. The story's final line ? "M?lite shuddered,

faltered, sighed and lost the wager"(110) ?

again places the attention

on M?lite's readable body, leaving any questions the reader may have

about Tr?micour unanswered. M?lite is as unsure as the reader

whether or not her story resembles any number of eighteenth-centu 31 ry tales of momentary seduction, of a love without a future. I would

like to argue that Bastide has also written this ambiguity into the text

of La Petite maison, in the form of one of the spaces in the little house.

In the course of M?lite's visit, she passes from the water closet,

through a wardrobe, towards the salon, from whence she will enter the

garden. Whereas the water closet and the salon are described in great

detail, as is the garden, Bastide's text becomes strangely silent as to the

d?cor of the wardrobe. This detail in itself might be unimportant, but

there is something about the wardrobe that merits closer attention, for

this wardrobe, the unexplored space in Bastide's little house, also has

a secret. The narrator notes: "M?lite and Tr?micour exited [the water

closet] and went through a wardrobe where a concealed stair led down




to a mysterious mezzanine"(88). The mysteries that belong to this

mezzanine are passed over, to remain unexplained, and in this sense

they offer another important confluence between interiors in Bastide's

tale, as they present a striking image of Tr?micour's unknowable inte

riority. Ultimately, I would like to suggest that Bastide's text does not

solely present an "architectural seduction". This text is as much con

cerned by the problem of interpretation as it is by the question of

seduction, and that in fact, beyond the text's glimmering exterior, there

is a suggestion of something every bit as dark as Tr?micour's mysteri ous mezzanine. Through this text Bastide is exploring the possibilities of different manifestations of the self in the person of Tr?micour, who exposes this new model of interiority to M?lite in a private space far from the public gaze. Bastide is also suggesting new forms of read

ing through a presentation of the notion that sites, or spaces may func

tion as comprehensible texts, capable of representing the subject. This movement away from the body, however, in which interiority is

projected on to things and spaces, seems to carry with it something

profoundly cynical, as it accepts the fact that the traditional modes of

knowing the other are no longer valid. In the last analysis, the text's

sudden ending positions the reader in M?lite's place, with unanswered

questions about the role of the subject and the objects that surround

him/her, trying to decipher the little house's many ambiguous interi

ors.

Notes

These spaces will survive in the early part of the nineteenth century in texts that derive from the libertine tradition, notably by Andr?a de

Nerciat, and the Marquis de Sade. 2 Bastide's text is initially published in the second volume of his longer

work, Le Nouveau Spectateur, in 1758. A new version, which offers,

notably, a new ending to the text, was published in 1763, in the second

volume of Bastide's Contes. All quotations are from Jean-Fran?ois de

Bastide, The Little House: An Architectural Seduction trans, and ed.

Rodolphe El-Khoury (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,

1996). El-Khoury's translation is of the 1763 version.



36 Paul Young

("Une F?te dans une Petite Maison, dit Madame de Senanges, vous

n'y pensez pas; voil? de ces parties qui ne sont pas d?centes, et qu'on a raison de bl?mer.") Cr?billon, Claude. Les Egarements du coeur et de l'e

sprit. Oeuvres completes, ed. Jean Sgard (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2000) 194. Translation mine. 4 "Je me sens d'une joie d'?tre dans une petite maison, et en m?me

temps j'ai une frayeur.. .on dit...". Quoted in Charles Jean-Fran?ois de

H?nault, Pi?ces de Th??tre, en vers et en prose, (n.p., 1770) 16. Translation

mine.

("On y a une libert?, on y jouit d'une discr?tion impossibles ? retrou

ver au coeur de la ville. On y a m?me l'impression d'?chapper ? la sur

veillance de la police...". ) Benabou notes that this idea of avoiding

police scrutiny was completely false, as the police Inspector Meusnier

kept an active file on the owners of, and activities within the petites maisons around the capital. Erica-Marie Benabou, La Prostitution et la

police des moeurs au XVIII? si?cle (Paris: Librairie Acad?mique Perrin,

1987) 206. Translation mine.

Noted in Bruno Pons, afterword (Le Th??tre des dnq sens), La petite

maison, by Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide (Paris: Editions Gallimard/Le

Promeneur, 1993) 74.

The fermiers-g?n?raux were well-to-do tax collectors who represent ostentatious wealth in the literature of the time. Rodolphe El-Khoury

suggests that a model for Tr?micour's petite maison may be found in

the "petite maison of the Fermier-G?n?ral Gaillard de la Boissiere",

which he notes was: "[cjonsidered one of the masterpieces of French

architecture among Bastide's contemporaries." Rodolphe El-Khoury,

introduction, The Little House, by Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide (New York:

Princeton Architectural Press, 1996) 24. In a description of the streets

of Paris, Balzac remarks on the influence of the fermiers-g?n?raux on the

architecture of the He Saint-Louis, writing: "Cette ?le, le cadavre des

fermiers-g?n?raux, est comme la Venise de Paris." Michel Lichtl?, ed.,

Histoire des Treize: Ferragus, La Fille aux yeux d'or, by Honor? de Balzac,

(1833; Paris: Flammarion, 1988) 77.

"Pour avoir une grande maison, il ne faut que 30,000 livres de rente;

mais pour en avoir une petite, il en faut 100,000 ? bon march? faire.

C'est ordinairement un azile de plaisir et d'abondance." Gabriel




Fran?ois Coyer, D?couverte de la Pierre Philosophale, L'ann?e merveilleuse avec

un suppl?ment (Pegu [Paris], 1748) 9. 9 The text's final dialogue between M?lite and Tr?micour is marked by

a series of ellipses:

"Marquis! What are you doing? "What I am doing..."

"Tr?micour, Leave me! I do not want..."

"Cruel woman! I shall die at your feet, or I

obtain..."(110)

Pons calls the petite maison & "th??tre des dnq sens", and notes that the

house must "surprise the sense of hearing when the eye has been

sated, then flatter the sense of smell, since the sense of taste has been

excited, in order to finally satisfy the sense of touch" (72), translation

mine.

Michel Delon notes that this soft lighting, often referred to as "demi

jour" in eighteenth-century libertine texts, represents a kind of libertine

ideal. He mentions the existence of a 1760 text, Trait? d'optique sur la

gradation de la lumi?re, in which the author attempts to "explain the dif

ferent colorings of shadows". Cited in Michel Delon, Le savoir-vivre lib

ertin (Paris: Hachette, 2000) 151, translation mine. 12 More than a decade later, the d?cor of this boudoir will find its echo

in another libertine text, Vivant Denon's 1777 Point de Lendemain. The

narrator of this text finds himself in a room he describes as resem

bling: "... un bosquet a?rien, qui, sans issue, semblait ne tenir et ne

porter sur rien; enfin je me trouvai comme dans une vaste cage enti?re

ment de glaces...." Dominique Vivant Denon, Point de Lendemain, ed.

Michel Delon (Paris: Gallimard, 1995) 94. Rodolphe El-Khoury notes

that a similar grove existed in the salon of the H?tel d'Evreux (48).

Delon, Point de Lendemain 24. 14 Nicholas Le Camus de M?zi?res, Le G?nie de l'Architecture, ou l'analo

gie de cet art avec nos sensations (Paris, 1780). Ail translations are my own.

This notion of gradation, or of varying the degrees of pleasure, is a

hallmark of eighteenth-century French literature. Michel Delon, in a

chapter devoted to "The Art of Gradation", notes Bastide's 1772



38 Paul Young

poem entitled Les Gradations de l'amour. Delon, Le savoir-vivre libertin, 87. 16 The word volupt? refers to both a sensual pleasure, and a vivid intel

lectual pleasure, and it is an emblematic part of the vocabulary of

eighteenth-century French literature. The Goncourt brothers, writing in the nineteenth century, noted: "Volupt?! This is the word of the

eighteenth century, it is its secret, its charm, its soul" ("Volupt?! C'est

le mot du dix-huiti?me si?cle, c'est son secret, son charme, son ?me."). Cited in Anne Deneys-Tunney, Ecritures du Corps de Descartes ? Laclos

(Paris: PUF, 1992) 6. Translation mine. I explore the distinction

between pleasure and volupt? in the libertine text in "When Pleasure

Isn't Enough: Volupt? in the Libertine Text," The Dalhousie Review 84.3

(2004) : 407-417. 17 Noted in Delon Lendemain 199, note 2. 18 Patrick Mauri?s cites Paul Lacroix, (aka Le bibliophile Jacob), who

writes in his preface to the 1879 edition of La petite maison: "It may be

possible that these (architectural) details were supplied to Bastide by the famous architect Blondel, who later became his collaborator on a

fastidious novel entitled L'homme du monde ?clair? par les arts". Cited in

Patrick Mauri?s, preface, La petite maison by Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide,

(Paris: Le Promeneur, 1993) 19. Translation mine. 19 Although most eighteenth-century readers would most likely be

familiar with Boucher, and perhaps Huet, Bastide's original text includ

ed notes for the reader that explain the importance of these artists in

eighteenth-century French culture. The ceiling of the dressing room

has been adorned by a "golden mosaic of flowers painted by

Bachelier"(83), and a footnote informs the reader that Bachelier is:

"One of the most skilled painters of our time in this particular genre. He subsequently gave it up to become a rival of Desportes and

d'Oudry, and perhaps even surpassed their excellence"(83, note). 20 Etienne Bonnot de Condillac, Le Trait? des sensations (Paris: PUF,

1947). Ail translations are my own. 21 Although this figure is omnipresent in eighteenth-century French lit

erature, and indeed, in eighteenth-century English literature as well,

seventeenth-century French literature also offers depictions of this

character, notably in Moli?re's Dom Juan. 22 Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, Les Liaisons dangereuses, Oeuvres Compl?tes,




ed. Laurent Versini (Paris: Gallimard, 1979). All translations are my own. 23

"...je puis dire que je suis mon propre ouvrage"(170). 24 ".. .je tachai de r?gler de m?me les divers mouvements de ma figure.

Ressentais-je quelque chagrin, je m'?tudiais ? prendre l'air de la

s?r?nit?, m?me celui de la joie; j'ai port? le z?le jusqu'? me causer des

douleurs volontaires, pour chercher pendant ce temps l'expression du

plaisir. Je me suis travaill?e avec le m?me soin et plus de peine, pour

reprimer les sympt?mes d'une joie inattendue. C'est ainsi que j'ai su

prendre sur ma physiognomie, cette puissance dont je vous ai vu

quelquefois si ?tonn?" (171). 25 Anne Coudreuse, Le Go?t des larmes au XVIII? si?cle (Paris: PUF,

1999)195. Translation mine. 26 Claude Reichler, L'Age libertin (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1987) 36.

Translation mine. 27 Christophe Martin, writing about the movement of the libertine and

the object of seduction through what he calls an "incitative space", remarks: "... the libertine occupies the role of 'director', that the nar

rator delegates, at least in part, to him." Christophe Martin, "Espaces

'incitatifs', de La Prison sans chagrin (1699) ? La Petite maison (1763): Gen?se et ambiguities d'un chronotope libertin," T/Esprit Cr?ateur

XLIII.4 (2003): 16. Translation mine. 28 Anne Deneys-Tunney remarks on the importance of circulation for

the libertine, arguing that there exists a "libertine economy of the

body". Clearly a central part of this economy is not only the circula

tion of women, but also the circulation of the narratives of their

seduction. In fact, one might interrogate the value, or indeed, the real

ity, in eighteenth-century French literature, of a seduction whose story does not circulate. 29 Anne Coudreuse remarks that in eighteenth-century French litera

ture, tears "serve as an infallible means of manifesting one's sensibil

ity, and thus proving the virtuous qualities of one's soul"(l). Translation mine.

Indeed, in Bastide's original text, there are twenty-two such notes, and some pages include four or more footnotes. See note 14, above.

Cr?billon fils penned the expression "point de lendemain in reference



40 Paul Young

to these love stories, from which Denon's tale takes its title. 32

In French, the text maintains this mystery: "Ils travers?rent ensuite

une garderobe o? l'on a pratiqu? un escalier d?rob? qui conduit ? des

entresols destin?es au myst?re." Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide, La petite mai

son, ed. Patrick Mauri?s (Paris: Editions Gallimard/Le Promeneur,

1993) 46. 33 I am citing El-Khoury's term.

Works Cited

Balzac, Honor? de. Histoire des Treize: Ferragus, La Fille aux yeux d'or.

Ed. Michel Licht?. Paris: Flammarion, 1988.

Bastide, Jean-Fran?ois de. The Little House: An Architectural Seduction.

Trans, and Ed. Rodolphe El-Khoury. New York: Princeton

Architectural Press, 1996.

?. La petite maison. Ed. Patrick Mauri?s. Paris: Editions Gallimard/Le

Promeneur, 1993. 21-68.

Benabou, Erica-Marie. La Prostitution et la police des moeurs au XVIII? si?

cle. Paris: Librairie Acad?mique Perrin, 1987.

Choderlos de Laclos, Pierre. Les Liaisons dangereuses. Oeuvres Compl?tes. Ed. Laurent Versini. Paris: Gallimard, 1979. 1-386.

Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de. Le Trait? des sensations. Paris: PUF, 1947.

Coudreuse, Anne. Le Go?t des larmes au XVIII? si?cle. Paris: PUF, 1999.

Coyer, Gabriel Fran?ois. D?couverte de la Pierre Philosophale, L'ann?e mer

veilleuse avec un suppl?ment. Pegu [Paris], 1748.

Cr?billon, Claude. Les Egarements du coeur et de l'esprit. Oeuvres compl?tes. Ed. Jean Sgard. Vol. 2. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2000. 64-247.

Deneys-Tunney, Anne. Ecritures du Corps de Descartes ? Laclos. Paris:

PUF, 1992.

Delon, Michel. Le savoir-vivre libertin. Paris: Hachette, 2000.

Delon, Michel, ed. Point de Lendemain suivi de La Petite Maison. By Vivant

Denon and Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide. 1777, 1763. Paris: Gallimard,

1995.

El-Khoury, Rodolphe. Introduction. The Utile House. By Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996. 19-54.

H?nault, Charles Jean-Fran?ois de. Pi?ces de Th??tre, en vers et en prose.



Sou th A tlantic Review 41

n.p.: 1770.

Le Camus de M?zi?res, Nicholas. Le G?nie de l'Architecture, ou l'analogie de cet art avec nos sensations. Paris, 1780.

Martin, Christophe. "Espaces 'incitatifs', de La Prison sans chagrin(1699) ? La Petite maison (1763): Gen?se et ambiguit?s d'un chronotope lib

ertin." L'esprit cr?ateur XLIII.4 (2003): 16-27.

Pons, Bruno. Le Th??tre des dnq sens (Afterword). La petite maison. By

Jean-Fran?ois de Bastide. Paris: Editions Gallimard/Le Promeneur, 1993. 71-97.

Reichler, Claude. L'Age libertin. Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1987.



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Looking inside: The Ambiguous Interiors of "La Petite Maison"

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