The Romance of the Forest

Volume III introduces a new tone into the novel. Once Adeline escapes the melodrama of the Marquis’s threat to her life, the narrative turns for a time to philosophy and travelogue. Travel writing was an increasingly popular literary genre for 18th-century English audiences. As the editor of the Oxford World Classics edition notes, Radcliffe’s depictions of the landscape draw on works by Hester Lynch Piozzi, Henry Swinburne, and Tobias Smollett. Adeline’s observations also allude to the aesthetic ideal of the picturesque as introduced in the travel writings of William Gilpin. The picturesque falls somewhere between Burke’s notions of the beautiful and sublime, as it described visual scenes that were not strictly calm or harmonious but had some element of ruggedness, rusticity, or irregularity to them. One example is the castle ruins that Adeline notes while the La Lucs are climbing the glacier. The scenery otherwise rouses a sense of the sublime, a blend of awe and terror at the vast grandeur of nature. Radcliffe does not merely introduce these aesthetic principles for their own sake. Rather, she uses them to comment on the sensibility of characters who can apprehend and appreciate them. In turning to philosophy and travelogue, Radcliffe continues to develop The Effect of Landscape on Emotion.

Plot-wise, the action of these chapters continues the sequence of displacements. Adeline is once again uprooted from the abbey, leaving the wild isolation of the forest of Fontanville for the orderly prosperity of Leloncourt and La Luc’s chateau, positioned against the backdrop of the Alps. The acquaintances she makes here and in her further removes along the Mediterranean coast seem random at this point in the narrative but will bear on the resolution at the end. Thus, they prove that these chapters, as much as they provide a pleasant interlude from the tension and horrors of the earlier volumes, are still connected to the whole.

There is also thematic symmetry that emphasizes how these characters fit together. While La Luc seeks remedy for his illness, which the narrative suggests is tuberculosis, Adeline seeks remedy for her distress at Theodore’s continued suffering. La Luc’s resignation to lifelong melancholy over the loss of his wife provides a parallel for Adeline’s mental state, as does Monsieur Armand with his ongoing grief. Notably, the order and prosperity of La Luc’s realm reflect his benign influence as a ruler. This contrasts with the other displacements of Adeline, Theodore, and La Motte, which are caused by the bad temper of the Marquis.

Another philosophical debate that Radcliffe introduces pertains to ideal systems of government. The Revolution in France, which began in 1789, was observed with great wariness by the British, who had long seen that country as a rival. At several points, Radcliffe suggests that the English are superior to the French in terms of poetry, philosophy, and governance. She suggests the same for the Duchy of Savoy. This territory, which lasted as an administrative entity from 1416 to 1867, was located in the Western Alps and included parts of present-day France, Italy, and Switzerland. At the time of Radcliffe’s writing, Savoy was ruled by Victor Amadeus III (1726-1796), also the King of Sardinia, who was a vassal of the Holy Roman Emperor. Radcliffe’s chief argument is that prosperity for all comes from a benevolent and potentially more democratic style of rule, like that embodied by La Luc, who takes a deep interest in the welfare of his parishioners. Again, this contrasts with men like the Marquis or La Motte, who are interested in their own enrichment.

The discussions of education in these chapters draw a great deal from the writings of Rousseau, especially those formulated in Emile. La Luc is depicted as a culmination of Rousseau’s brand of education, which combines natural influences with the cultivation of reason and self-control. Of La Luc, Radcliffe writes: “his was the philosophy of nature, directed by common sense” (243). Unlike the surgeon earlier, La Luc’s mind “was penetrating; his views extensive; and his systems, like his religion, were simple, rational, and sublime” (245). Clara’s education also reflects these ideals of education, while her struggle not to devote all her time to pleasure with her lute shows an inclination for discipline and industry that will become the guiding morals of the Victorian age.

Also pertinent is that La Luc’s religion would be Protestant. Radcliffe’s depiction of the Catholic religion, particularly in her description of convents not as holy places but sites of vice, replicates a prejudice against Catholics that was ingrained into British politics and educational systems. Notably, the impact of religious belief is one of the few beliefs that the novel doesn’t debate in its larger discussion on the grounds of moral character and behavior. One point does question is whether character can be revealed by countenance, another debate of interest to Radcliffe’s contemporaries. Madame La Luc’s belief that one cannot judge a person’s character by their face is countered by depictions elsewhere in the novel that manners and conversation generally reveal the state of a person’s mind, unless he, like the Marquis, presents an appearance of congeniality.

The plot slips back into romance mode near the end of this section, when a series of coincidences leads to the revelation that puts the machinery of the rest of the book in motion: Theodore is La Luc’s son, and he is destined to die for defending Adeline from the Marquis. The reappearance of Monsieur  Verneuil on the scene, as well as Louis, prepares the narrative return to its central mysteries and the fates of all the Marquis’s victims: Theodore, Adeline, and La Motte.