Manon Lescaut

“Born in northern France of respectable (in Des Grieux’s case, noble) stock, both of them lose their mothers before they reach maturity, have strained relations with strict and conventional fathers, are educated by the Jesuits, show early academic promise, and hesitate between careers in the Church and the military. They mix in Parisian society at all levels, enter into unwise emotional entanglements, come up against the law, run away from the monastery and into debt, are indeed continually on the run, disappearing, or fleeing into exile. And both show, when called to account, a marked talent for self-justification and, above all, a gift for storytelling.”

This quote from translator Angela Scholar highlights the similarities between Des Grieux and his creator, Abbé Antoine Prévost. Eighteenth-century audiences were eager to find parallels between Prévost and his most popular character, the Chevalier Des Grieux, and there were many similarities. Prévost had a romantic attachment to a woman who was strikingly like Manon, Lenki Eckhard, “who all but ruined him by her extravagance, and who shared several years of wandering and insecurity with him” (viii). Unfortunately for readers, Prévost met Eckhard months after completing the story’s manuscript. It is likely, however, that some of Prevost’s personality and experiences formed the basis of Des Grieux’s character and adventures.

“The sweetest moments of their lives are those they spend, either alone or with a friend, discoursing freely and openly upon the charms of virtue, the pleasures of friendship, the ways and means of reaching happiness, the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from achieving it, and the remedies by which these might be cured.”

Prévost, through Renoncour, makes the case for publishing Manon Lescaut as a lesson in morality. He argues that people enjoy contemplating, either on their own or in conversation with others, how humans can best achieve happiness, what human frailties might interfere with this happiness, and how to cure such frailties. Prévost/Renoncour insist that Manon and Des Grieux’s story provides readers with examples of such frailties so they might better recognize and remedy their own faults before they ruin their lives, like