Marie Arnoux

Louise Colet by Adele Grasset, 1842

We meet Madame Arnoux through the eyes of Frederic Moreau, the protagonist of The Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, first published in 1869. She appears to him as a vision, with her brown skin, pale dress and pink ribbons on her hat. She is doing embroidery with dainty fingers. Moreau wants to know everything about her, but she is soon claimed by her husband and daughter.

In Paris, Moreau finds the shop where Arnoux sells art prints and paintings. He manages to be invited to dinner at their home, which is exotic, bohemian, while at the same time being peaceful and homely. Madame Arnoux is wearing a black velvet dress and a red Algerian head-dress. After the meal she sings an Italian song. Moreau, a law student, becomes a friend of the family.

Recalled home, Moreau’s mother says there is no money, and he stays in the country for several years. When he returns to Paris with an inheritance, he finds the Arnoux family has a three-year-old son. Madame Arnoux occupies herself with teaching her little boy, presiding over her daughter’s piano lessons, and sewing. She asks Moreau what he plans to do. “You must have ambition.”

Moreau only wants to go into society. He finds that Arnoux has a mistress, which distresses Madam Arnoux, but her husband is also a family man, and loves his children. Among his many business interests he has begun a china factory. Moreau gets tangled in their finances, wants to help.

Moreau visits the china factory, finding Madame Arnoux there. When he tries to speak to her of love, she gives him no encouragement and gathers her children around her. But she knows her husband cannot be trusted. She takes a small house in the country and Moreau visits every day. “You are my ideal,” he says. They talk of their childhoods, tastes and opinions. “If only we had met earlier.” They imagine their life together. Moreau begs Madame Arnoux to meet him in Paris and prepares a place for them.

On the appointed day, Madame Arnoux’ son has a grave sickness. She does not send word to Moreau and he angrily forsakes her. She, however, is glad this crisis has stopped her from joining Moreau and offers her soul up to God.

With revolution stirring in the streets, Moreau prepares to stand for election. But no one listens to him. Moreau even participates in a duel, when he thinks Madame Arnoux’s name is being impugned, though the story, when told by others, bears little relation to what actually happened.

As the wife of an unreliable and philandering husband, Madame Arnoux does not have an easy time of it, and we sometimes see her own faltering feelings. But she remains dedicated and dutiful. When Moreau sees her finally, and she tells him why she didn’t meet him as arranged, they renew their love talk. But all of a sudden, there is Rosanette, the woman Moreau has been living with. She is pregnant.

When Moreau hears that the Arnoux’ finances are in such disarray that they must leave Paris, he collects money to try to help them stay. But the Arnoux family has already left. Moreau attends an auction of their things, numb as he watches the beloved objects sold.

Much later Madame Arnoux comes to Paris, to Moreau’s house to pay a debt. She and her family have been living in Brittany. They reminisce. “We have loved each other,” she says. When she takes off her hat, he can see that her hair is white. She looks at him, “loving, responsible, dazzlingly beautiful, and so kind.” Much later, after her husband’s death, Moreau hears that she has moved to Rome to live with her son.

The Sentimental Education recounts Moreau’s adventures in great detail. We are sure that many of them were Flaubert’s own. Madame Arnoux was inspired by Elisa Schlesinger, the wife of a music publisher, who remained an ideal love throughout Flaubert’s life. 

Flaubert thought badly of the rootless people he met in his quest to be a part of society in the 1840’s. In his telling, he was quite as venal as the next person! But he redeems himself in describing what he sees with great exactness. And he sets up Madame Arnoux as the moral compass in the life of his character Moreau. She remains virtuous, honorable and devoted to her children.

Reading The Sentimental Education, I am pleased to find myself in the grounded realism of one of the first writers to think that it was worth noting things as they actually are. The book is chock full of characters and stories of the revolution and of the society in which Flaubert moved, but the unwavering vision Moreau had of Madame Arnoux as the book opens remains its guiding light.