At home with Nicolaes Maes's Eavesdropper and La Princesse de Clèves

This chapter studies The Eavesdropper, a genre painting by Dutch artist Nicolaes Maes, to explore descriptive strategies in La Princesse de Cleves. The Dutch model, with its emphasis on realistic details, highlights description that is empirically accurate but that neverthe less encourages multiple meanings rather than privilege a unique interpretation. Applying this model to the aftermath of the princess's confession to her husband, Stone reveals how Lafayette opens the text to new spaces of knowledge, much as the painting opens the rooms of the house. Even as the Princesse de Cleves attempts to identity' the truth through an emphasis on probability, the various scenarios posited confound analysis. The princess's efforts to know the court involve both reason and imagination, accurate observation and ambiguous situations. While this approach has particular resonance for the novel's conclusion, it exposes how, throughout the novel, description functions as both a science and an art.