I've no idea if France has ever had such an uncultured president as Sarkozy, but in Febrary 2006 the leader-to-be spouted out about Madame de Lafayette's La Princesse de Clèves (1678), ludicrously asking if people had ever thought to ask a guichetière (female ticket clerk) what they thought of the book. The underlying idea behind this was that La Princesse de Clèves belonged to a long gone era. Little did Sarko realise that his very odd remark would dog him for his whole rule, that the book would as a result of his vituperative remarks become a best seller, that groups would hold outside readings of it, or even wear badges announcing that they were reading it.
It even provoked director Chistophe Honoré to make a film based on it in the present day, showing just how relevant La Princesse de Clèves still is. The main characters, with Madame de Lafayette's names first, followed by their modern character names, then their real names: La princesse de Clèves is Junie de Chartres (Léa Seydoux), Le duc de Nemours is Jacques Nemours (Louis Garrel), Le prince de Clèves is Otto (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet) and Le vidame de Chartres is Matthias de Chartres (Esteban Carvajal Alegria). The main setting is in a lycée.
Junie's mother has died so she goes to live with her aunt and uncle and their offspring, Matthias being her cousin. At the new school she causes quite an attraction and soon bonds with Otto, who is madly in love with her. Also, though, the local Lothario, Jacques, the teacher of Italian, falls for her in such a way that he forsakes his other lovers. The problem: Junie feels the same about Jacques, although she is determined to remain faithful to Otto.
One very testing time is when Jacques is seen to let fall a letter which goes the rounds of the school and eventually ends up in Junie's hands: it's a love letter from a girl. Obviously Junie is heartbroken, although things are a little more complicated than they seem initially, and Honoré has of course changed the original book in a few places, including giving it a gay update. Matthias is concerned that the true story of the letter will come out as he, not Jacques, dropped it and it's from his boyfriend Martin: he reveals this information to Jacques, who passes it on to Junie.
Junie doesn't believe him, and although she's torn the letter up she suddenly remembers the final word in it is 'amoureux', not 'amoureuse': for some reason she's omitted to notice the sex of the writer. So Jacques is back in her good books, although she can't reciprocate his love because she can't break with Otto.
But Otto suspects she's two-timing him and in class sends out a spy to find out what Junie's doing, although the spy misconstrues her behaviour and believes Junie is secretly seeing Jacques. Of course the original Prince de Clèves wasted away, but the modern Otto throws himself from the school balcony into the courtyard. When a suitable time has elapsed after the suicide the ever-smitten Jacques continues trying to court Junie, but with no success. And Junie doesn't retreat to a convent as her seventeenth century counterpart did, but goes away on a ship, and by the appearance of the expanse of the sea she's going a very long way away.
Christophe Honoré has proved the relevance today of this very old novel, and also proved the stupidity of Sarko. Chapeau !
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