SOURCE: Morgan, Janet. “A Reconsideration of La Rochefoucauld's Maximes.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 13, no. 1 (January 1977): 47-58.

In the essay that follows, Morgan argues that La Rochefoucauld used theological concepts to present his secular ideas because of the familiarity of those concepts.

Recent discussion on La Rochefoucauld has tended to rehabilitate the Maximes by taking seriously the moral analysis they contain instead of reading them simply as the expression of a personal disillusionment. More serious consideration of the text seems to have resulted primarily in disagreement as to how far La Rochefoucauld is “sceptical” of the validity of value judgments.¹ At the same time, however, the rediscovery of the theological overtones of the term amour-propre has led to a more systematic examination of the use of that key term and especially of the origins and rather enigmatic history of 563, which calls itself “la peinture de l'amour-propre”.² It has...