René Maizeroy: Sad Estimates

Abstract

This article studies the weak presence of René Maizeroy in the collective enterprise of Catulle Mendès. In the four short stories he proposed for Le Nouveau Décaméron – “Nini Rosalin,” “La Tentation de Saint Antoine,” “Les Montefiore”, and “Don Juan” – it is not the provocative writer we are dealing with, but rather a René Maizeroy guided by tragic inspiration. Three of the four characters presented – the great don-juanesque lord, the acrobat, and the young girl raised in the convent – die at the end, and the fourth, the exhausted Hungarian aristocrat Count Zzavody, is hardly any better off. Female figures are also presented quite negatively, and often as heartless women. By remembering Laclos and Les Liaisons dangereuses, Maizeroy seems to have become a historian of morals and to have wanted to redeem himself from his bad reputation. Finally, it should be said that Le Nouveau Décaméron does not really do justice to Maizeroy’s intentions.