Dangerous Liaisons · Chapter
Letter 50: The Presidente de Tourvel to the Viscount de Valmont explained
Madame de Tourvel rebukes Valmont for his passionate declarations, arguing that love leads only to misery and remorse.
What happens
Madame de Tourvel rebukes Valmont for his passionate declarations, arguing that love leads only to misery and remorse. She insists he cease writing about his sentiments, attributing his attachment to the boredom of country life and predicting his inconstancy once back in Paris.
Themes in this chapter
Love, Virtue, and Corruption
Tourvel argues that love threatens virtue and leads to regret and remorse, contrasting her moral stance with Valmont's libertine pursuit.
Seduction and Manipulation
Tourvel accuses Valmont of feigning passion and using seductive rhetoric, highlighting the manipulative dynamics of their correspondence.
Characters to notice
- Madame de Tourvel
Writes to Valmont, firmly rejecting his advances and pleading for silence on the subject of love.
- Viscount de Valmont
Addressee of the letter; his passionate letter is criticized and his motives questioned.
Key passages
“who would wish to purchase pleasure at the expense of reason? Pleasures so transitory, and that are always followed by regret, and often by remorse.”
No one would choose fleeting pleasure that brings lasting regret and guilt.
Tourvel articulates her belief that passion undermines reason and leads to suffering.
“You believe, or feign to believe, Sir, that love leads to happiness; but I am fully persuaded that it would make me so totally miserable, that I wish never to hear the word mentioned.”
You pretend love brings happiness, but I am certain it would only make me wretched.
Tourvel dismisses Valmont's romantic claims as either deluded or deceitful.