SOURCE: "From Clarens to Hollow Park, Isabelle de Charrière's Quiet Revolution," in Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, Vol. XXI, 1991, pp. 219-43.

In the following essay, Bérenguier compares Mistriss Henley with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1761 work Julie; ou la Nouvelle Héloïse, contrasting Charrière 's narrative innovation with Roussea's more traditional approach.

"Love is more pleasant than marriage for the reason that novels are more amusing than history."¹ In this lapidary maxim, Chamfort effectively captures what characterizes the plots of eighteenth-century novels. By placing novels on the side of love, this observer of eighteenth-century mores reminds us of the age-old dichotomy between love and marriage and underlines that, unlike love and the novel, the novel and marriage do not make a good match. What happens, then, when such a golden rule is transgressed and the intruder, that is, marriage, becomes the major topic of a novel? What is...