No Trifling with Love by Alfred de Musset

First produced:On ne badine pac avec l’amour, 1861; first published, 1834 (English translation, 1890)

Type of work: Drama

Type of plot: Tragicomedy

Time of plot: Nineteenth century

Locale: France

Principal characters

• The Baron, a French nobleman
• Perdican, his son
• Camille, his niece
• Rosette, Camille’s foster sister
• Maître Blazius, Perdican’s tutor
• Maître Bridaine, a village priest

The Story:

Maître Blazius, with his three chins and round stomach, is proudly awaiting the arrival of Perdican, whom he tutored. Perdican recently received a doctorate at Paris, and Maître Blazius feels that the credit is due to his tutoring. Gulping a huge bowl of wine presented by the chorus of listening peasants, he announces that Camille, niece of the Baron, is also expected home from the convent. The Baron is anxious to see his son Perdican married to Camille; he knows they have been in love since childhood.

Dame Pluche, Camille’s chaperon, arrives out of breath. After drinking some vinegar and water, she announces that Camille is on her way. She tells of Camille’s education in the best convent in France and of the inheritance she is to get that day from her mother’s estate. She does not mention the projected marriage.

The Baron brings Maître Bridaine to the house. Since he expects the marriage to take place that day, he wants the priest to perform the ceremony. To impress Camille, he arranges with Maître Bridaine to speak some Latin to Perdican at dinner; no matter if neither one understands it. Maître Bridaine is agreeable to the plan, but he is hostile at once to Maître Blazius, for he smells wine on his breath.

When Perdican and Camille meet, something seems amiss. Perdican wants to embrace his pretty cousin, but Camille speaks formally to her childhood sweetheart and refuses a kiss. She is chiefly interested in looking at a portrait of her great-aunt, who was a nun. At dinner, the two priests, Maître Bridaine and Maître Blazius, vie jealously with each other. Both are gourmets as well as gourmands, and they are apprehensive that there is no place for two priests in the luxurious household. After dinner, Camille again refuses a friendly talk with Perdican and even excuses herself from walking in the garden. The Baron, upset at her coldness, grows even more indignant when Dame Pluche upholds Camille in her refusals. Perdican, with relief, renews his acquaintance with Rosette, a pretty peasant who was Camille’s foster sister.

Maître Blazius, attempting to discredit his rival, tells the Baron that Maître Bridaine drank three bottles of wine at dinner and is now walking about on unsteady feet. The Baron can scarcely listen because Maître Blazius’s breath is so strong. Maître Bridaine hurries up to tell the Baron that Perdican is walking with Rosette on his arm and throwing pebbles about wildly.

Perdican is puzzled by Camille’s coldness toward him. When Maître Blazius reminds him that the marriage is a project dear to the Baron’s heart, the young man is willing to try again, but Camille is resolute. She will not let him hold her hand and refuses to talk to him about their childhood. She came back only to receive her inheritance; the next day, she will return to the convent. After Perdican leaves her, Camille asks the scandalized Dame Pluche to take a note to him.

Maître Bridaine is very unhappy. His rival is seated next to the Baron at mealtime, and Maître Blazius takes all the choice morsels before he passes on the serving plate. In despair, Maître Bridaine feels that he will be forced to give up his frequent visits; although the prospect is repugnant, he will devote his time to parish work. On a friendly walk, Rosette complains to Perdican that women are kissed on the forehead or the cheek by their male relatives and on the lips by their lovers; everyone kisses her on the cheek. Perdican is happy to give her a lover’s kiss.

Dame Pluche is angry, but she takes the note to Perdican. On the way, she is spied on by Maître Blazius, who reports to the Baron that Camille undoubtedly has a secret correspondent. Since Perdican now is romancing a woman who watches the turkeys, surely Camille is looking for a more satisfactory husband.

Invited to meet Camille at the fountain, Perdican finds his cousin changed. She willingly kisses him and promises to remain a good friend. Then she frankly asks Perdican if he has mistresses. Embarrassed, he admits that he does. When she wants to know where his latest is, Perdican had to admit he does not know. Camille, acquainted with no men except Perdican, loved him until recently, when an older nun at the convent changed her inclinations.

The nun was rich and beautiful and much in love with her husband. After he took a mistress, she took a lover. At last, she retired to a convent. Her experience convinces Camille that men are always unfaithful. She forces Perdican to admit that if they were married both of them might be expected to take other lovers. Perdican valiantly defends earthly love, saying that it is worth all the trouble it causes, and that most of the two hundred nuns at the convent probably would be glad to go back to their husbands and lovers. At last, seeing the futility of his argument, he tells Camille to return to the nunnery.

Meanwhile, Maître Blazius is unhappy because the servants report that he is stealing bottles of wine. In addition, the Baron decides that he made up the story of Camille’s secret correspondent. Disgusted with his second priest, the Baron dismisses him. Not knowing that Maître Bridaine has fallen from favor, too, Maître Blazius asks him to intercede with the Baron. Maître Bridaine refuses; he thinks the Baron will now reinstate him to favor.

Maître Blazius thinks he sees a chance to regain lost ground when he meets Dame Pluche carrying a letter. While he is trying to take the missive from her by force, Perdican arrives on the scene, takes the letter, and reads it out of curiosity. It is from Camille to a nun at the convent. In it, Camille says she will soon be back; Perdican is hurt and his pride wounded, just as they foresaw. Perdican thinks the letter means that the whole affair with Camille was arranged in advance at the convent, and he resolves to spite her by courting Rosette seriously.

After writing a note to Camille to arrange a rendezvous, he brings Rosette to the fountain. Camille, hiding behind a tree, hears Perdican offer his heart to Rosette. As proof of his love, he gives her a chain to wear around her neck and throws a ring Camille gave him into the water. Camille retrieves the ring and tells Rosette to hide behind a curtain while she talks with Perdican. During the interview, he confesses that he loves Camille. Camille then throws aside the curtain; Rosette faints. Perdican decides to go ahead with his marriage to the peasant.

The Baron, told of his son’s intention to marry Rosette, is angry. In spite of his father’s displeasure, Perdican makes arrangements for the ceremony. Camille, in despair, throws herself down before an altar and prays for help. Perdican comes in unexpectedly, and, unnerved by her distress, clasps her in his arms while they confess their love for each other. Suddenly they hear a cry behind the altar. Investigating, they find Rosette dead. Camille is the first to realize their guilt in her death. To acknowledge that guilt, she says a final good-bye to Perdican.

Bibliography

Affron, Charles. A Stage for Poets: Studies in the Theater of Hugo and Musset. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971. Extensive analysis of No Trifling with Love is included in a volume of essays examining the works of two important French dramatists. Discusses the diction of the play and Musset’s handling of the problem of time.

Beus, Yifen Tsau. “Alfred de Musset’s Romantic Irony.” Nineteenth Century French Studies 31, no. 3 (Spring/Summer, 2003): 197-209. Focuses on the irony in Musset’s dramatic works, discussing their depictions of love and their juxtaposition of comic and sarcastic attitudes.

Brookner, Anita. “Alfred de Musset: Enfant du siècle.” In Romanticism and Its Discontents. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000. Examines the works of Musset and other French Romantic writers and artists. Argues that the Romantics created an imaginary world in order to attain fulfillment in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon I’s defeat at Waterloo.

Gochberg, Herbert S. Stage of Dreams: The Dramatic Art of Alfred de Musset (1828-1834). Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1967. Devotes a chapter to analysis of the play considered to be Musset’s “last theatrical forum for his obsession with dream and reality.” Discusses the playwright’s handling of the question of love.

Rees, Margaret A. Alfred de Musset. New York: Twayne, 1971. Concentrates on the characterization of heroes and heroines in No Trifling with Love, noting how the playwright contrasts the complex Camille with the admirable but befuddled Perdican to achieve his sober ending.

Sices, David. Theater of Solitude: The Drama of Alfred de Musset. Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1974. One chapter examines the weaknesses of No Trifling with Love, but concludes it is a successful endeavor. Sices maintains that this play best demonstrates “the author’s obsession with time and its treachery.”

Tilley, Arthur. Three French Dramatists: Racine, Marivaux, Musset. New York: Russell & Russell, 1967. Discusses the influence of Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux and William Shakespeare on No Trifling with Love and some of Musset’s other plays. Comments on Musset’s handling of the element of the fantastic.

Wakefield, David. The French Romantics: Literature and the Visual Arts, 1800-1840. London: Chaucer, 2007. Wakefield’s study of the French Romantic movement devotes a chapter to Musset, discussing his ideas about literature and art and his influence on painting.