47 pages • 1 hour read
Abbe PrevostManon Lescaut
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1731A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pages 35-55Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 35-38 Summary
Manon and Des Grieux are very happy and come up with a plan to live frugally on Manon’s money, which should last them 10 years. By then, Des Grieux believes there will be “changes in [his] family,” as his “father is old and may die” (35), at which point Des Grieux will inherit something. However, Manon likes to spend money, and Des Grieux is powerless to resist her. He is “the first to procure her anything [he] believed likely to give her pleasure” (35), including a second apartment in Paris where they could rest if they stayed late at a party.
It is at this apartment that Des Grieux meets Manon’s brother, referred to only by his surname, Lescaut. He’s a member of the king’s guard, who are “notorious for their loose-living and violence” as well as their willingness to act “as hired men who would commit any crime for gain” (150). At first, Lescaut denounces Manon for her immorality, but he soon apologizes after hearing “favorable things” about Des Grieux (36). Lescaut becomes a permanent fixture in their household, one for whom Des Grieux becomes financially responsible. However, Des Grieux “closed [his] eyes to this tyranny so as not to displease Manon” (37) even as Des Grieux takes money from Manon to pay Lescaut’s gambling debts.
After a fire in which they lose their remaining money, Des Grieux appeals to Lescaut for help in securing some kind of income. Lescaut initially suggests that Manon take a wealthy lover but agrees to help Des Grieux become a card sharp, a professional gambler not above cheating when necessary. Des Grieux justifies this behavior by arguing that the “great and the wealthy are, for the most part, fools” who deserve to be relieved of their money by those who have the “wit,” the “[q]ualities of mind and body,” to “extricat[e] themselves from wretchedness and poverty” (38). Des Grieux will do anything for money because he knows that “however faithful and however fond” Manon was of him “in times of prosperity, there was no counting on her when times were bad. She was too fond pf pleasure and luxury to sacrifice them for” Des Grieux (37).
Pages 39-48 Summary
Although Lescaut promised to help him, Des Grieux is terrified that Lescaut will steal Manon away or convince “her to leave [Des Grieux] and attach herself to some richer and more fortunate lover” (40). Des Grieux reaches out to Tiberge for help. Tiberge is delighted to see Des Grieux, though “this tenderness was mingled with the keenest grief, such as we feel for someone dear to us whom, without being able to help, we see on the brink of perdition” (41). Des Grieux tries to explain his love for Manon. His description of it “as one of these special blows that fate delivers when it is bent upon the ruin of some poor wretch, and against which it is as impossible for virtue to defend itself as it was for wisdom to foresee” (41) does inspire Tiberge’s compassion and empathy. He agrees to lend Des Grieux some money, hoping that financial security might provide Des Grieux “a quiet mind” that can “savour truth and wisdom” (42). In return, he requests only the opportunity to visit Des Grieux and attempt “to try to at least to return [him] to the path of virtue” (43).
Next, Lescaut introduces Des Grieux to a member of the “League of Industry,” an association of card sharps who are delighted to have a person of quality among their ranks, since “no one would suspect [him] of guile” (44). Just as with his previous educational pursuits, Des Grieux excels at gambling and makes enough money to support himself, Manon, and Lescaut comfortably. However, he amuses himself at Tiberge’s expense during one of Tiberge’s lectures, forcing Tiberge to “break all connection with” (45) Des Grieux while predicting ruin for both Des Grieux and Manon. Although Tiberge’s harsh words upset Des Grieux, “Manon’s caresses soon dispelled the distress” (45).
Indeed, Des Grieux and Manon are gloriously happy, thanks to all the money Des Grieux is making. However, their servants conspire to rob them and leave them “in a position from which” they are “never able to recover” (46). While Des Grieux goes to the police, Lescaut convinces Manon to take a lover, “M. de G…M…, an ageing voluptuary who was ready to pay lavishly for his pleasures” (46). The very next day, Manon goes with Lescaut, leaving Des Grieux a letter in which she claims “that in the state [they] are reduced to, fidelity is a foolish virtue” (47). She insists that she is “working for” Des Grieux “to make him rich and happy” (48).
Pages 49-55 Summary
Manon’s departure infuriates Des Grieux, and he angrily confronts Lescaut. However, Lescaut claims the relationship with M. de G…M… was Manon’s idea and reveals they told him that Des Grieux is her younger brother, whom Manon is supporting. In fact, M. de G…M… will “rent a comfortable house for [Des Grieux] and Manon,” which will be “furnished nicely” and come with an allowance (49). Des Grieux wonders how he has “become so wicked” (50) before agreeing to pretend to be a poor, provincial college student to fool M. de G…M….
When Des Grieux next sees Manon, however, he cannot hide his despair over “the pain of her infidelity” (51). Manon decides to give up the plan to become G…M…’s mistress, claiming “he won’t be able to boast of any advantages [she’s] let him take” because she has “managed so far to put him off” (51). She asks only that Des Grieux keep up the charade for the time being because G…M… “had promised to bring her that very evening a beautiful necklace of pearls and other jewels, as well as half the annual allowance he had promised” (51). They decide that Manon, Lescaut, and Des Grieux will “stay to supper that night with M. de G…M…” to prevent him from going too far with Manon as well “as to enjoy the entertaining spectacle of [Des Grieux] passing [him]self off as Manon’s student brother” (52).
After the supper, Lescaut and Des Grieux leave, and Manon sneaks out to meet them. Their plan seems to go off without a hitch, but their duplicity enrages M. de G…M…, who manages to get “a letter de cachet, a letter, that is, under the king’s seal, authorizing the arrest and imprisonment” (151) of Manon and Des Grieux. They are quickly arrested. Des Grieux is taken to Saint-Lazare, “a reformatory for the sons of good family” (151), and Manon is taken to a similar facility for women, though Des Grieux does not know this until later.
Pages 35-55 Analysis
This section parallels Manon and Des Grieux’s first time living together in Paris. However, Des Grieux is now older and wiser, and he tempers his love of Manon with his knowledge of the necessity of money. Since Des Grieux measures Manon’s love by her physical fidelity to him, he believes he can maintain that fidelity and love with money. However, Manon has expensive taste, and she is “too fond of pleasure and luxury to sacrifice them for” Des Grieux (37). Thus, how to get money and how to keep it becomes one of the text’s central concerns. Des Grieux’s turn to gambling shows how far he will go to keep Manon. He justifies this through an eloquent, if flawed, philosophical argument, namely that “Divine Wisdom” gives wit to the poor rather than the wealthy, because if the wealthy “also had wit, they would be too fortunate and the rest of mankind too wretched” (38). The poor must use this wit either “by procuring [the] pleasures” the wealthy require or by educating them, “and, whichever way you look at it, the foolishness of the great and the wealthy is an excellent source of revenue for the humble” (38).
Des Grieux, however, cannot apply the same logic to Manon, who takes a wealthy lover after their servants steal all their money. In one of the few instances where Manon speaks directly, she writes to Des Grieux:
[C]an you not see, my poor dear soul, that in the state we are reduced to, fidelity is a foolish virtue? [….] I adore you, of that you may be sure. But leave the management of our fortune to me for a while. And woe betide anyone who gets caught in my net! It is my Chevalier I’m working for, to make him rich and happy (47).
Des Grieux cites his sensibility once again, as well as his “birth and [his] honour” (51), which prevents him from going along with Manon’s scheme. But neither his birth nor his honor prevent him from allowing Manon to squeeze M. de G…M… for as much as they can before they leave. Des Grieux’s hubris contributes to their downfall here; he cannot resist “the entertaining spectacle of […] of passing [him]self off as Manon’s student brother” (52). It is this same hubris (which stems from Des Grieux’s overall arrogance) that earlier turned Tiberge against him. Though he often describes in glowing terms his own achievements and the way others admire him, there is a vein of arrogance in Des Grieux’s character that presages his downfall.
