LA FAYETTE, MARIE MADELEINE P IOC liE DE LA VERGNE, Countess de (1634-93). A French novelist. She was the daughter of Aymar de la Vergne, Governor of Havre, and was a friend of La Roehefoueauld (q.v.). Her marriage with the Count de In Fayette was one of 'convenience' soon ended by his death. This luckless wedlock af forded the experience necessary for a similar situ ation in her most famous novel, La p•inecsse de Clercs. Her literary salon was the most aristo cratic in Paris. Only Madame de Maintenon's instinct served her truly in suspecting the duplic ity of Madame de In Fayette's nature, as ap pears in Perrero's Lettere ineditc di Madame dc Lafayette (1S80). The conclusively that the Countess played an important political role at the Court of Louis XIV. All the pub lished works of Madame de la Fayette show a supersensitive delicacy in matters of honor. They consist of a short story, Mlle. de Mcmtpensier (1660), a novel, Zayde (1670), La peineesse de Cleves (1677 or 1078), two volumes of 3I(moires, and a second short story, posthumously pub lished. La comtesse de Tende. Her novels ap peared under the name of her friend Segrais, who never claimed them. The Princess of Cleves tells
of a struggle between duty and passion in an aristocratic wife, who esteemed hut did not love her husband. The early part of the novel is dull and clumsy, but the climax has an intensity and power till then unapproached in French fiction. This was the first attempt. and for a long time the best, to transplant psychic conflict from the drama to the novel. It. did not, however. as is often asserted, open a new era, for it had no followers. The psychologic novel of later time had a wholly independent origin. Her work was rather a culmination, a blending of the realistic and idealistic efforts of the first three quarters of the century. Madame de In Fayette's Works are in five volumes (1882). The best edition of La princess(' de Cblves (Paris, 1881) has a criti cal study by Lescure. There is an American edi tion (lioston, 1898), containing, some critical material. The Ille'moires are best edited by Asse (Paris, 1890). Consult also Kiirting, Geschichte des fran,:osisehen Romans im XVII. Jahrhundert (Oppeln. 1891), and Haussonville, Madame de la Fayette (Paris, 1891).