# Letter 50: The Presidente de Tourvel to the Viscount de Valmont explained — Dangerous Liaisons

> Chapter companion for Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos.

## 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.

## Character check-ins

### 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 lines

> 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._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/dangerous_liaisons_se/chapters/letter-50-the-presidente-de-tourvel-to-the-viscount-de-valmont
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/dangerous_liaisons_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/dangerous_liaisons_se/chapters