Review of Fiévée's "Le Divorce," etc.
author: Elizabeth Moody
source date: 1805

Elizabeth Moody Art. XII. Le Divorce, &c.; i.e. The Divorce, the False Revolutionist, and the Heroism of Women; Three Novels . By M. Fiévée . 12mo. 3s. Dulau and Co. London. [Review article appearing in the Foreign Appendix for The Monthly Review , second series, volume 46, Foreign Appendix, 1805, pages 539-41. Benjamin Nangle identifies Elizabeth Moody as the author of this review from an editor's marked copy of The Monthly Review . See Nangle, The Montly Review, Second Series, 1790-1815: Indexes of Contributors and Articles , Clarendon Press, 1955. This edition of the article is produced by Emma Wiley and Mary A. Waters.]

O f all the absurd and capricious institutions which France, under either her old or her new Régime, has dignified by the name of Law, the modern divorce claims the pre-eminence for cruelty and injustice;—at least, if Madame Dormeuil’s relation is to be accredited.—Mme. Dormeuil was a beautiful and accomplished young woman, and married to a handsome and well-informed young man. Six years of perfect happiness they enjoyed together, and perhaps Hymen thought this was as large a portion of felicity as he commonly allows; for after this period, a degree of languor and insipidity is too often found consequent on a state of uninterrupted tranquility. Mons. Dormeuil required variety, and sought it in the scenes of dissipation; and hence proceeded those vicious and libertine pursuits which never fail to undermine the conjugal affection. Among other depravities, the French Husband had a mistress whom he wished to marry; and, as the Legislature had so easily and so conveniently devised the means of breaking old chains, and forging new, he resolved on availing himself of so desirable a privilege, and being divorced from his amiable and most affectionate wife. Madame Dormeuil protests against the divorce, with an obstinacy as inflexible as was that of Catherine of Arragon:—she protested against all the formalities necessary to ascertain the separation, and she insisted on keeping the name and arms of Dormeuil, and on being the true and lawful wife of the old Régime:—she was, however, divorced against her consent, and Monsieur married his new Love.

Of this connection, also, the inconstant husband grew tired; and he felt the same inclination to be emancipated from the second captivity, which had induced him to break the first. The matter being so easily adjusted, and the remedy for matrimonial ennui so immediately at hand, Dormeuil is a second time divorced; and with his first wife he became once more desperately in love. Her affections were never alienated from him, but stood the brunt of all his cruelties with the most persevering affection:— but the same firmness, which had directed her conduct in opposing the divorce, now supported her in refusing to renew the ci-devant nuptial vow; since that act would have been acknowleging the legality of the divorce, which she had with so much pertinacity refused to sanction. The situation of Monsieur and Madame now becomes whimsically laughable; they love each other to distraction: but they must not live together, and renew the conjugal endearments, because she is not his wife, and would be liable to be considered as his mistress; and it would be a breach of good morality, which would necessarily implicate her reputation on the ground of decorum, were they again to inhabit the same house. We leave the reader to Mme. Dormeuil’s own description of the caprices of her destiny; which she details with refined and romantic sentiments of prudery, truly French, and extremely artificial and unnatural.

The author informs us that he suppressed the publication of the second of these novels for some time, because he dared not to print it, lest a resemblance might be discovered between the characters which he describes, and those which personally existed when it was written. We have only to observe on this head, that we give him credit for his prudence in taking care of his own. In this novel, as in most others, Love is the burden of the song; and the cabals of politics, the union of party, and the enthusiasm of patriotism, are all superseded by the irresistible control of the little deity. The lovely and innocent Adéle exchanged the horrors of a prison for the arms of an affectionate husband, and was without doubt very well pleased with the bargain: at the same time, the revolutionist most probably preserved himself from the guillotine by his amorous apostacy. Love was therefore the protector of both.

The third story exhibits those romantic and self-denying practices, which the writers of novels dignify with the name of heroism. Our days of romance, however, have been so long past, that we are utterly incapable of deciding on the merits or demerits of these sentimental heroines; who inflict so much misery on themselves, by erecting the standard of virtue on false principles.

M. Fiévée’s novels are agreeably written, in correct and elegant French; and, altogether, they are interesting and affecting.