Dangerous Liaisons

What is Dangerous Liaisons about?

Dangerous Liaisons (Les Liaisons dangereuses, 1782) is Choderlos de Laclos’s masterpiece, one of the most psychologically penetrating and morally provocative novels in European literature. Told entirely through letters, the novel centers on two aristocratic libertines: the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, former lovers who now wage elaborate campaigns of seduction and manipulation against innocent targets. Valmont pursues the devoutly virtuous Présidente de Tourvel, while Merteuil orchestrates the corruption of the young Cécile de Volanges—each reporting to the other in letters that reveal the calculated cruelty beneath their charming surfaces. As their game escalates, the consequences become devastating, engulfing their victims and ultimately destroying the manipulators themselves. The epistolary form allows Laclos to show characters’ self-presentation and self-deception simultaneously, creating a novel of extraordinary psychological complexity. Published seven years before the French Revolution, the novel reads as both a portrait of aristocratic decadence and a prophecy of the class that would consume itself.