Laclos' 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' Reissued in Pléiade: A Reassessment

A new Pléiade edition of Choderlos de Laclos' 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' prompts a radical re-reading of the novel, challenging centuries of moralistic French criticism. The article argues that the Marquise de Merteuil, not the virtuous Présidente de Tourvel, is the true revolutionary figure—a product of the Counter-Reformation whose vengeance is an art of pleasure. Laclos, an artillery captain and inventor of the hollow shell, aimed his novel at social truth: evil is social, not natural, and society is against nature. Baudelaire's 1866 commentary is cited: 'the energy of evil has diminished, and silliness has taken the place of wit.' Merteuil embodies a self-renewing desire, 'half reflection, half sentiment,' with no room for chance. The article dismisses the traditional ending (smallpox) as a 'makeshift denouement of novels of hypocrisy,' per Malraux. Laclos' work is called a 'treatise of moral anatomy' (Suarès), and readers are urged to serve themselves directly from this 'spicy dish that is eaten cold.'