Edmond Rostand's Cyrano De Bergerac and Princess of Cleves: Passion Within Reason

The tragic lives of Cyrano de Bergerac and Princess of Cleves, though similar in their star-crossed predicaments, present different reasoning tactics. For Cyrano de Bergerac, he actively chooses to repress his love for Roxanne because he does not want to shatter Roxanne's heart, which holds dearly the image of her husband Christian. The Princess de Cleves, on the other hand, pushes the Duke de Nemours away in order to ensure her fidelity toward her husband.

However, Cyrano de Bergerac assumes the identity of a nobleman. Unlike Princess de Cleves, whose inexperience in trivial matters leads to unwise behaviors. Cyrano controls his passion for Roxanne not only out of respect for her memory of Christian but also to justify his morality. He even assists Christian in winning Roxanne's affections through a series of romantic and eloquent letters and a confession of his true feelings while in disguise as Christian. Cyrano's conscience would not let him interfere with this romance because he just wants Roxanne to be happy. Apparently, she is quite content to be in love with Christian.

Princess de Cleves only concerns herself with her duty. She does not follow the sinful trends of infidelity of court life while wanting to pursue the happiness associated with love. Unfortunately, she can't have both the stability of marriage and the satisfaction of love, since she does not have romantic interests in her husband while being completely passionate for the Duke de Nemours. Her flight to the countryside to avoid confrontation with the Duke reflects her reluctance to settle her conflicted feelings, most likely resulting from her inexperience in dealing with adverse situations.

Even though Cyrano's and the Princess' tragedies both demonstrate the devastating cost of using reason to modify passion, they utilize different methods to do so. Cyrano decides to aid the advancement of Christian into Roxanne's heart in order to vindicate that these two are destined to be together. Princess de Cleves chooses to remove herself from the situation to reassure her denial that Duke the Nemours is not truly the one she loves. Nevertheless, despite their efforts to avert the discovery of their repressed love, Cyrano de Bergerac and Princess de Cleves suffered emotional traumas in the end, one watching the woman he loves in the arms of another man while the other being the arms of someone she does not love. This denouement satisfies the Enlightenment's belief in the Intelligence Design and the shunning of mortals who aspire to change their fate.

Both Edmond Rostand and Marie de LaFayette intend to portray the inopportune circumstances of passionate love. In reality, love is in fact not magical or convenient; it is laced with politics, deceptions, lies and secrets. True love often occurs at the most troublesome instance, as in the one way love of Cyrano for Roxanne or the discovery of passion in another man from a married woman. However, Rostand applauds the keen determination of Cyrano to control his passion and La Fayette share her condolences with the Princess de Cleves for making such a difficult decision. The reality is that after all, love is a mixture of atrocity, passion and hope. In both cases, only acts from a higher power seem to withhold hope from the unfortunate lovers.