FLORENCE MAGNOT-OGILVY:
I really want
to thank Emmanuel and
Peter for inviting me here.
My contribution is
going to be very modest.
The title is a bit different.
I think I copied Emmanuel
reference to Shakespeare.
But, anyway, to pay
or not to pay one's
debt, the French parvenu
novel on the rhetoric of debt.
The relationship between
economy and fiction
is particularly interesting
in the 18th century,
as it is a period of
economic and social change.
As all of you know, which so
not only a progressive erosion
of the importance of the
land-owning aristocracy,
but also a transformation of
the traditional system of debt
centered around discussed.
It was during the
Enlightenment period
that one of the
framework principles
and even several
of the framework
principles of
economic liberalism
developed whereby
the multiplication
of economic exchanges
was seen as the basis
of collective prosperity.
Plus, this notion of
equilibrium and the compensation
through exchanges,
compensation of loss and gain
through exchanges.
In a book published in 2008
and translated into English
in 2014, the moral economy,
poverty, credit, and trust
in early modern Europe.
Historian [INAUDIBLE] shows
that the system of debt
changed considerably
during the 18th century.
She describes the shift
from traditional debt
with the somewhat vague
conditions and duration
to a precisely calculable debt.
The extract debt of the market
has opposed the personalized
debt within a given community.
When considering the debt
system in the 18th century,
we must therefore keep
in mind this moment
of transition, a transition that
is reflected among other things
historically in a sharp
increase in the phenomenon
of imprisonment for debt.
Of course, it's a
moment of coexistence
between several types of debt.
And so we see with the topology
that several kinds of debt
coexist at the same
moment in time.
For David Graeber,
too, the debt system
is an instrument of social
and moral enslavement.
Whatever the approach,
it seems clear
that the system of debt
in the 18th century
is transformed from a
traditional arrangement
to a precise market-based
system that would itself
become an instrument of power.
I would like to examine today
the way in which a novelist
invents, imagines, literary
means of extricating himself
and his characters
from the bonds of debt.
Due to time constraints,
I will in the end focus--
well, my previous plan
was much more ambitious.
So I will only focus on
one novelist and one novel,
so Marivaux, Le Paysan
Parvenu, by questioning
how the novelistic forms
explore the evolving conception
of the obligation to repay
debts in the society of France
[FRENCH].
Most of the first-person
novels of the period
employ the same device, which
places the notion of debt
at the heart of the novel.
The hero narrator is
a man without fortune.
In the case of
parvenu, as a noun,
the word means start
or social climber.
And it is used in
this meaning as a noun
from the 18th century parvenu.
So in the case of
parvenu novels,
the protagonist's social
status and financial capital
improve as the novels progress.
The parvenus are in a way
self-made men or women.
But the novel's
discourse on that
is far from being an unequivocal
hymn to individual merit.
Nothing is unequivocal in
the 18th century anyway.
We can identify several
levels of speech
in the first-person novel.
And by simplifying a little,
we can reduce this to two--
the character speech addressed
to other characters in the past
and reported and the narrator
speech addressed to the reader
in the present
via the narration.
Any debts contracted by the
character therefore passed
through one of
these two filters--
the debt in the
character's speech
and/or the debt in the narrative
and the narrator's commentary.
So my point will be
the structural feature
of the memoir novel meets
with the twofold nature
of the rhetoric debt.
Marivaux has written amongst
other literary genres, two
famous memoirs novels, one
with a female hero narrator
and the other with a male.
The sociological profile of
the two heroes is similar.
Marianne is an orphan
adopted as a baby
by a poor priest
and his sister who
provide her with a good
education and good manners.
When they die, she's cast into
the world-- that is Paris--
without a penny
and without a name.
She is on the point of
becoming a linen maid.
She is on the verge
of prostitution
and is finally adopted by
the noble and rich widow.
The memoirs are unfinished.
But we know that when
Marianne writes them,
she has become a countess.
Jacob, he's a peasant.
When he arrives in Paris,
he has a name but no money.
And he becomes a servant.
He then marries a
mature woman and becomes
a well-off Bourgeois.
Jacob's memoirs
remain unfinished.
But we do know that by
the time he writes them,
he has become a rich man and
belongs to the highest society.
A possible reading of these two
paradigmatic novels of parvenus
is to read them in the light of
the emergence of the Bourgeois
ideology.
This extraordinary
social ascent is
due to their personal
and innate qualities.
And it's quite an--
even today, a number of critics
see these novels this way.
The parvenu could be seen as the
epitome of the deathless man.
This is definitely true
of Marianne and Jacob.
They have not inherited
anything from their parents,
and they both accumulate
considerable wealth.
Marianne becomes a
wealthy countess.
Jacob becomes a tax
financier, [FRENCH]..
Some critics, though,
have pointed out
a darker side of these
apparently happy Bourgeois
success stories by pointing
out the fierce predatory
nature of these characters whose
success is based on strategies,
adaptability, lack
of moral scruples,
and, I will add, thanks to
a series of unpaid debts
and the forgotten creditors--
I would say even
sacrificed creditors.
Novel of debts and sacrifice.
The two texts are littered
with unpaid debts,
both moral and financial.
One possible reading
of the novels
is to conclude that
talent alone is not
sufficient for an individual
to succeed when starting from
and that an initial investment--
a form of seed capital--
is required.
So I will concentrate
on the treatment of debt
in Le Paysan Parvenu.
But the analysis would be
also interesting to make
[FRENCH],, although with
different gender issues.
In Le Paysan Parvenu, the new
novel, the references to debt
are so numerous that
it is even difficult
to catalog them fully.
I tried several times.
It's really difficult.
Topology is difficult.
Debts and the question of
whether or not to pay them
are leitmotif and
constant subject.
One important criterion
to take into account
is the level of enunciation
of this acknowledgment
or denial of debt.
So my first point will be to
show how the rhetoric of debt
is different in the
dialogues between characters
and in the narrator's discourse.
And then in the
third point, I will
examine how Marivaux
manages to play
in a meta-narrative
manner with the logic
and the rhetoric of debt.
So my first point, one
characteristic of the rhetoric
of debt in this novel
is the very denial--
1734, 1735 on Le
Paysan Parvenu--
is the very denial
of its existence.
The debt is almost never
evoked in the first person
in direct speech.
Indifference to the
rules of politeness,
the characters
maintain the pretense
in the reported dialogue
that they are not creditors.
And in doing so, they
construct a fable of gratuity.
The code of politeness
that govern life in society
dictate that one should downplay
one's own merit to avoid openly
undermining the
self-esteem and save
the face of one's interlocutor.
In Jacob's discourse where the
notion of debt is concerned,
this elementary civility
manifests itself
through the frequent adoption
of a default debtor position.
Should one's interlocutor
mention that he or she owes you
a debt, politeness dictates
that one should deny the debt
or reverse its direction.
Thus, Jacob's gallant
speech addressed
to the mature and
wealthy spinster
he had met on the
[FRENCH] and seduced
aims to demonstrate
his disinterest
and the total gratuity of the
gift of his love to the lady.
That's quote number one.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Oh, sorry.
I haven't put the translations,
the quotes in English.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So I won't read the second
one, but it's the same idea.
The inherent message of
this emphatic exclamations
is to suggest that the various
flows of goods and feelings
between characters
are not remunerated
and involve no debt
or money counterparty.
It aims, of course, to
eliminate from the dialogue
any suspicion of
prostitution, which
is flattering neither for the
buyer, the mature and rich
woman, nor for the seller,
the youthful and poor Jacob.
This manipulation of
words in the dialogue
is no more than an
artifice of discourse.
While this makes
the exchange more
acceptable to both
characters, it
has the paradoxical effect
of underlying to the reader
another way of interpreting
the flows that circulate
between the two characters.
There are many other examples
where a transaction is
camouflaged and where
the discourse contains
a rejection of money,
such as when Jacob resists
Madame de Ferval, who offers
to pay for his journeys
by coach to his
little house which
is some way from city center.
That's quote number three.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
In these examples,
Jacob's speech
highlights with
an irony that can
be attributed in part to
the narrator and in whole
to the novelist.
The contradiction
between what he says--
I prefer not to introduce money
into an emotional exchange--
and what he does--
I take the money anyway.
These assertions of gratuity
take the form of denial
but also contradiction
since in the very process
of claiming to be alien to the
logic of debt and compensatory
transaction, they both
draw on the lexicon
and precisely adopt a model of
what they purport to reject.
In both cases,
Marivaux accentuates
by all possible stylistic
means the contradiction
between the profusion of signs
that say gratuity, [FRENCH],,
and the reality of
the gesture always
summarized by the simple
verb take, [FRENCH]..
This contradiction is
further accentuated
by the absolute use
of the verb to take,
which underlines the disjunction
between profuse signs
and the single unambiguous
gesture that undermines
the words it accompanies.
To summarize, we could say
that the discourse on that
in the conversation between
two characters in direct speech
undergoes a two-stage
transformation.
In the first stage of
this transformation,
the transaction is
portrayed as a simple gift.
In the second stage, the meaning
of the underlying implicit debt
is subjected to a process
of oscillation, vacillation,
as the characters in
the back and forth
of their polite and
coded dialogue repeatedly
blur and distort
our understanding
of the exchanges of goods,
service, and sentiment
that flow between them.
The purpose of this
displacement is
to transform an exchange
that the narrative presents
as a transaction--
it is recognizable
as transaction--
into a gift at the superficial
level of the dialogue.
Were this transaction
visible and explicit,
it would be humiliating
for both parties
to the contract,
the one who sells
his body, the one who buys it.
The discourse on
that, therefore,
functions as a screen
discourse that masks and blurs
the balanced transaction
between body and money
or, if we want to
be more romantic,
between emotions and money.
Jacob uses the term
debt itself only once
in a particular context.
The word debt is used
when the narrator recounts
how he did not attempt to
marry a younger woman when
he had the opportunity
instead of the marriage
with the older woman.
Marivaux is obviously making
fun of the ethical dimension
of this assertion by
showing a character who
defines his sense of
honor with a precision
and the faithfulness
that are commercial.
Jacob, who could have
tried for a better marriage
with a woman as
wealthy but younger,
but he remains loyal
to the first lady
because he says he owes her
a debt of gratitude given
that she chose him
when he was just
an unemployed servant
in the street.
The irony towards this
way of perceiving loyalty
is further accentuated
by Marivaux
in the construction of
the text and the hierarchy
of reasons listed by Jacob for
staying with his first fiancee.
That's quote number four.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
The older lady is seen
by Jacob, first of all,
as a safer investment,
as she is an orphan
with no legal guardian
and is therefore
free to spend her
money as she wishes--
almost.
This means that there
is no risk of recourse
from a family who might
consider the marriage too
disproportionate.
The argument of a debt
of gratitude and loyalty
is clearly secondary.
Here, we can measure again
Marivaux's intense irony
with regard to his narrator
use of the word debt.
And it is the only
occurrence of the word.
The more debt is introduced as
a supplementary consideration
to a transaction
that has already
been carefully calculated.
Jacob's further
arguments, his assessment
of what best suits
his interests,
and makes no further mention
of any notion of moral debt.
We have seen
affirmations of debt
occur when the accounts are
actually already balanced
with a mixed bargain but
balanced, money and material
goods.
The rhetoric of debt
is this screen rhetoric
that masks what would
otherwise be a rather
brutal commercial discourse
ending in an equilibrium
but making money appear
as an optional element
of the exchange and often
by reversing the direction
of the debt flows.
That is both an
aporia and a screen
that blurs the nature and
meaning of the flows of goods
and emotion.
But that is also a
source of indifference
in the narrator's speech.
So that's the second point.
The discourse on that
is clearly excluded
from the narrative when a
debt is actually contracted
and it has not been repaid
by the hero narrator.
This is the case, for instance,
in the initial episode
in which Jacob finds himself
with a young chambermaid who's
in love with him.
The trio of the master,
Jacob, and the pretty maid
is based on an ancillary service
circuit close to prostitution.
The master buys
the love of a maid.
With the fortune thus
acquired, the maid has dowry,
and she can marry the poor,
young man she finds attractive.
Jacob understands
this transaction,
even if he pretends not to,
in his actions, rather than
his words or thoughts,
that place him
in a position of default
with a regard to this debt.
Despite not explicitly
promising anything
or signing any documents,
he takes the money
that Genevieve gives him.
The word take disappears
from Jacob's account
as if he wanted
to further reduce
his responsibility in this
three-party debt system.
When the verb disappear, it
means something, the verb take.
That's quote number five.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
So he doesn't use the word
[FRENCH] but the word accepted.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
The verb take appears later.
That's Genevieve who uses it.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
On the other end,
when the master
reminds Jacob in the reported
dialogue that the gift of money
accepted makes him
Genevieve's debtor,
it is expressed explicitly
in the master's speech.
That's quote number six.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
With perfect timing from
Jacob's point of view
but at a bad time for
Genevieve and for the master,
the latter who wanted to
make Jacob pay his debt
is dragged down
by a heart attack.
Marivaux is having fun
here, making God reappear
in the character's speeches
as an essential actor
in the system of debts and
remuneration between men.
And we come back to this
because it's not only
irony, this replacement of God.
Jacob flees.
Genevieve finds herself
a lost girl, stripped
by another servant
of the nest egg
that she had acquired
by prostituting herself
to her master.
She has also lost
her only capital
in the matrimonial market,
namely her virginity.
She thus becomes unmarriageable
with no reputation
and is no doubt condemned
to a life of prostitution.
For his part, Jacob, equipped
with new skills acquired
part in thanks to the money
given for nothing by Genevieve,
continues on his upward
trajectory in life.
When he rescues a mature
woman, Mademoiselle Halbert,
when he rescues this mature
woman who faints in front
of him on the [FRENCH].
His manners are
sufficiently polished
to gain her admiration because
he learned how to write
and he learned arithmetics.
And he learned how to read
with Genevieve's money.
She thanks him-- so the
old Mademoiselle Halbert,
she thanks him by praising
his moral righteousness
and good heart given by God.
That's quote number seven.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Jacob's story from
beginning to end
is therefore based on
this huge contradiction.
Jacob boasts from the very
beginning of his memoirs
that he's a man of honor who has
always honored his obligations.
Whereas an entire progression
is founded on an unpaid debt,
which creates a blind
spot in the narrative.
The discourse on
debt is therefore
undermined, constantly
contradicted,
and subjected to a powerful
irony by the novelist--
irony in the contradictions
between the gestures
and the speech, irony in the
use of divine retribution
to cover up a very
earthly trait.
Thus, while the
female characters
congratulate Jacob
for his good heart
and predict that
he will be rewarded
by God for his good
deeds and generosity,
they will in the next
narrative sequence
give him money in exchange
for the use of his body.
Marivaux's text
constantly undermines
and chips away at this
pretense of rectitude
in the honoring of debts,
be they monetary, moral,
or even narrative.
That's my third point.
The final way in which Marivaux
questions the logic of debt
is meta-narrative.
Marivaux finds a
literary response
to question the logic of debt--
the tyranny maybe of debt--
or rather to avoid
submitting to it.
The story of a life has an
obvious pragmatic dimension.
Retelling the story of his life
and retracing his parvenu's
journey from poverty to
success, from poverty to riches,
is a way for Jacob to
settle his unpaid debts.
He says this explicitly at
the beginning of his memoirs.
That's quote number eight.
[SPEAKING FRENCH]
Jacob as narrator clearly
expresses candor and gratitude
towards his creditors,
which he can't
trust but with the attitude
that the threshold of the text
of his nephews who do not
recognize the debt of life
that they owe to their
cabaret owner of a father.
As we know, Marivaux
follows this
with an introductory
episode to Jacob's adventure
in which an unpaid debt
has grave consequences
for the creditor,
Genevieve, who is
the clear loser in the
narrative's profit and loss
account.
Yet, much of the
novel through the plot
and the reported speech
in the narrative,
creates a certain confusion
around the question of debt.
Who owes who?
Is it wrong not
to pay one's debt?
Is Jacob a faithful debtor
or a disloyal lover?
Marivaux himself
composes a novel
that falls short of
readers' expectations.
The narrative debt that
Jacob intends to pay
remains unsettled
because Jacob will never
tell the end of his story.
The poetic debt
that Marivaux owes
to his readers, who had
bought the first five
installments of his story,
will remain forever unpaid.
At the end of the fifth
installment, the fifth part,
published in 1735, Marivaux
leaves the plot wide open.
In this fifth part, Jacob
has acted with bravery,
helping out a young
and rich aristocrat who
is attacked by murderers.
The novel definitely
comes to an end
when Jacob is in the
position of a creditor
thanks to this fortune
gesture of bravery
towards a man who
can make his fortune.
Le Paysan Parvenu was
first published in 1734
with the publication of the
first four parts in that year.
The last part is
published in 1735.
Between 1735 and 1742,
Marivaux continues
to write and publish
the part four through 11
to the life of Marianne.
But he will never go back
to the debt laid open
by Le Paysan Parvenu.
And he will never give the
end to Marianne either.
1737 happens to be the year
of the prescription of novels
in France.
The reason officially
given is that this system
of serializing novels and
publishing by installment
could be seen as a form
of [INAUDIBLE],, offering
poor value to the reader, given
that some novelists did not
fulfill their promise
to the consumer
and never provided
the end of the story.
Generally, critics
interpret this book
this prescription
as an assertion
of power, royal power,
over novels and novelists,
all the more so as
publication by installments
made censorship more
difficult to handle.
However, if we consider that
publication by installment
creates an ongoing debt
contracted by the novelist
and owed to the reader,
then Marivaux's failure
to complete memoir novels
can be seen rather or also
as a refusal to submit
the moral, commercial,
and artistic obligation
to settle the debt
and obligation that the
prescription reminded
to the public in 1737.
By deciding on two occasions
to interrupt his story,
leaving an outstanding
debt to his readers,
Marivaux asserts
among other things
his artistic independence
from commercial logic
and the moral obligation to
provide an end to the story.
I will conclude in two words.
The adventures of Jacob, of
Marianne, are like a voyage
into the depth of a [INAUDIBLE]
of debt and the signs of debt.
As in the strange
allegory of another
of Marivaux's texts, [FRENCH],,
it's in Marivaux's [FRENCH],,
the memoir novel
allows the reader
to see through the
different layers
debt, the different
point of view on debt,
on the situation of the debt.
Depending on your
perspective, the debt
can be reversed or
obliterated because everything
is subjective in
the realm of debt,
at least in the realm
of novelistic debt.
Every situation is subject
to several readings
and interpretations.
The narratives of
Jacob and Marianne
highlight the gap between
actions and speech related
to debt.
Debt is always used as a
screen discourse that conceals
hidden markets, other markets.
In the dialogues,
the speech exchange
with others in the
past, the free gift,
the gift that does
not create any debt,
appears as an ideal in
the surface discourse.
The discourse on
free gift is itself
something to give to the other
who receives it as a gift.
This could be
difficult to discern
in this maze of gift and debt.
But Marivaux himself may
have given us a clue.
By not paying his
narrative debt,
he chooses not to abide by
the moralistic logic of debt,
leaving the reader uncertain
of the meaning of monetary debt
in his novel and in his time.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
