euro history

Madame de Lafayette 's Historical Fiction

Madame de Lafayette wrote The Princess of Cleves ' as a comment upon society during the reign of King Louis XIV (though she masks her true intentions by veiling King Louis XIV as a fictional King Henry II . It is well-known that her cast of characters are based upon real people (except the heroine who is purely fictional ) and that the events told within are based , to an accurate degree , upon the events during the time . If anything , Lafayette 's work can be read as one of the first

br published works of historical fiction . With that said , a look will now be taken into the context of The Princess of Cleves ' to determine the realities of life that noblewomen faced while serving in the court of King Louis XIV

The true plot of the story begins with a young Mademoiselle de Chartres who has been brought , by her mother , to the court of King Henry II to find a suitable match . Indeed , this heiress was , at that time , one of the greatest matches in France , and though she was very young several marriages had been proposed to her mother but Madam de Chartres being ambitious , hardly thought anything worthy of her daughter (Lafayette Part I . And so the dance for the best marriage proposal was at hand And , it is in this plot device that the nature of the court , and the fate of women , is revealed by Lafayette . In introducing a purely fictional character...