A Catholic Novel (with Many Qualifications)
As I get closer this Saturday evening to Easter Vigil mass 2026—including by creating energy to go on account of having stated publicly in this very sentence that I will be going to Easter Vigil mass despite it going late into the evening, I am particularly intrigued by some scholarship about a novel I’m translating. Delon said this in a 1976 paper: “Dolbreuse est traditionnellement rangé parmi les œuvres de la réaction anti-philosophique et du renouveau catholique. P.-M. Masson ou A. Monglond le placent sous le signe du vicaire savoyard : Loaisel appartiendrait à cette génération pour laquelle le rousseauisme n'a été qu'une « étape vers le catholicisme ».” (Delon, 1976)
My translation: “Dolbreuse is traditionally classified as a work of antiphilosophical reaction and of a Catholic revival. P-M. Masson and A. Monglond place it under the sign of the Savoyard vicar [allusion to a dialogue inside Rousseau’s novel Émile]: this camp would have it that Loaisel belonged to that generation for which Rousseauism was but a ‘stage on the way to Catholicism.’”
Well, it is a Catholic novel. The narrator, if I can avoid spoiling the story, has become quite religious by the time he recounts the tale.
But this Catholic tag requires some qualifiers. It is first of all a highly sensuous novel. The sins therein are given star treatment for all the moralizing that happens. And, to put it more concretely, it would be unthinkable for a homily to quote any of the intimate connubial exploits of Dolbreuse and his spouse Ermance. Maybe privately a Catholic could talk about Ermance “yielding/surrendering” to her husband as he ravishes her, worships her body, sees in her a reflection of divine favor—in much the same way that Song of Solomon is essentially not talked about much around children.
(See this sentence: “Dans mes bras, elle se remplissoit moins des délices de l'hymen, qu'elle ne s'enivroit du charme de remplir sa destination sur la terre. Elle s'abandonnoit sans réserve au plus doux des penchans , parce qu'à ses yeux, c'étoit le comble du bonheur , le principe & la source de toute élévation, que de concourir aux grandes fins de la nature , qui nous demande une postérité ; & qu'elle étoit persuadée que remplir le devoir primitif de la création , dans les vues de donner le jour à des créatures immortelles, capables de s'élever jusqu'à l'auteur de l'univers, étoit le vrai moyen de l'honorer dignement.” My translation: “In my arms, she was less filled with connubial bliss than she was charmed by her destiny on earth. She was fully yielding to the sweetest habits, because in her eyes, it was the height of happiness, the principle and source of all loftiness, to contribute to the great ends of nature, which requires a legacy of us; and she was convinced that honouring the author of the universe in worthy fashion meant fulfilling the primitive duty of creation, with a view to giving birth to immortal creatures, capable of rising and reaching Him.”)
At the same time, this line from Delon is an interesting assessment of the scholarship on Dolbreuse because for all that Catholic teaching was opposed to the philosophes, Dolbreuse himself manages both to admire the Church and Rousseau. This requires appropriating and détourning Rousseau but it is possible. Consider this paragraph in two languages:
Bien différens des hommes de ce tems-là , nous avons de petites passions, de petites vertus, & ne sommes plus même capables que de crimes obscurs. Nos âmes rétrécies par le luxe, ,blasées par la mollesse ; nos âmes, petites & vaines, se manifestent jusques dans les étroites dimensions & le peu de solidité de nos demeures. L'art, pour vouloir tout donner au goût, ne laisse plus rien à l'admiration. Nos ancêtres bâtissoient pour eux & leur postérité. Aujourd'hui nous ne bâtissons que pour nous. Ce qui ne doit pas étonner dans le siecle de l'égoïsme. Nous voulons que nos édifices légers & brillans , périssables & passagers comme nous le sommes, ne fassent qu'effleurer la surface de la terre , & en disparoissent avec nous. Tout ce qui respire un air de force & de longue vie, tout ce qui porte l'empreinte du sublime & du grand, nous épouvante , & semble faire une impression pénible sur nos organes. Le joli seul est en droit de nous plaire, obtient tous nos suffrages.
Quite unlike the men of that time, we have minor passions—our virtues are slight—and we are no longer even capable of obscure crimes. Our souls, narrowed by luxury, jaded by softness; our souls, small and vain, reveal themselves all the way down to the narrow dimensions and flimsiness of our homes. Art, in wishing to make everything about taste, no longer leaves anything to be admired. Our ancestors used to build for themselves and posterity. Today we only build for ourselves. This should not be surprising in the century of selfishness. We want our buildings, lightweight and resplendent, perishable and temporary like us, only to touch the surface of the earth, and to escape with us. Everything that breathes strength and longevity, everything that bears the marks of the sublime and great, frightens us and seems to leave a painful impression on our organs. The pretty alone has the right to please us and wins all our approval.
This emphasis on the testament of the senses is in keeping with Rousseau and many other philosophes stretching back to Descartes; it would not be in this novel were it not for the philosophes. The emphasis on the fall of a people is also found in Rousseau. It is just that Loaisel de Tréogate’s narrator posits that something much more akin to the state of nature was found in the “anarchy” of vassals and castles centuries prior. This functions much like the state of nature described by Rousseau, who would have agreed that modern European society had been overtaken by artifice and concern for aesthetics by the eighteenth century.
A crucial hair to split about all this is that Rousseau is grasped as a genius by Dolbreuse and Ermance—as well as as a somewhat flawed if not hypocritical and self-dealing character. He is emblematic of the temptations of that era. And it is from a Catholic perspective that includes of course a beneficent judge father of a God that this judgment is made. Dolbreuse sees signs of God’s active hand in creation, which is to say that this is not at all a Deist novel.