By Peirre Choderlos de Laclos
Love . . . intercourse . . . seduction. Of the 3, purely the final concerns. Love is a meaningless notice, and intercourse an ephemeral excitement, yet seduction is an fun online game during which victory capability strength and the power to humiliate one’s enemies and revel with one’s neighbors.
So it truly is for the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil, supremely bored aristocrats through the ultimate years sooner than the French Revolution. jointly they concoct a wildly depraved guess: If Valmont can effectively seduce the virtuous spouse of a central authority reliable, Madame de Tourvel, then Madame Merteuil will sleep with him back. yet Madame Merteuil additionally wishes Valmont to overcome the younger and blameless former convent schoolgirl, Cécile Volanges. Can he do both?
When Les Liaisons Dangereuses used to be first released in 1782, it either scandalized and titillated the aristocracy it used to be aimed opposed to, who publicly denounced it and privately wolfed it. at the present time we nonetheless realize its relevance, for what may be extra modern than its appalling picture of daily evil small, egocentric, manipulative, and mean.