Despite their national and even international fame, some French authors remain fundamentally regional, writing about the milieu in which they grew up: Marcel Pagnol is to Provence what François Mauriac is to the Bordeaux region. And since I’m in the Arcachon pine forests, let’s talk about François Mauriac.
Throughout his novels, Mauriac never ceased to denounce the hypocrisy and antiquated mentality of a Bordeaux bourgeoisie that leaves no room for personal growth, whether spiritual or emotional.
In this vein, the character of Thérèse Desqueyroux haunts the novelist’s work, who dedicated to her a first draft “Consciousness, Divine Infinity” in 1927, a first eponymous novel in 1927, then two short stories – “Thérèse at the Doctor’s” and “Thérèse at the Hotel” in 1933 – followed by a final novel “The End of the Night” in 1935.
The eponymous 1927 novel follows the tragic fate of Thérèse Desqueyroux, who attempted to poison her husband to escape the confinement of marriage. She nevertheless leaves the courthouse free because even though everyone – be it her father, her lawyer, or her in-laws – knows she is guilty, her husband Bernard lied to the investigating judge to save the honor of a bourgeois family from the Bordeaux region. The novel follows Thérèse’s thoughts as she travels from the courthouse back to the family estate and her husband.
Thérèse was only happy as a child, during those free and wonderful Summers she spent in the pine forests with her best friend Anne – Bernard’s sister.
She is soon promised by her rich father to Bernard, the son of the neighboring landowners. Bernard is a landowner. Bernard lives only for wood pigeon hunting. Bernard has very average intelligence. Bernard has stinking bias. Bernard is the opposite of Thérèse, who has read a lot and, due to her strong character, is nothing like the docile little bride. But Thérèse doesn’t know that yet.
The hopes Thérèse harbors during her engagement are shattered by the horror that marital sexuality inspires in her. This horror is amplified by her friend Anne’s simultaneous discovery of a sensual and pleasurable sexuality in the arms of Jean, the son of a local landowner who has the misfortune to be Jewish. Thérèse’s in-laws reject the idea of such a misalliance and ask Thérèse, terribly jealous of Anne’s happiness, to nip in the bud any thoughts of marriage.
Thérèse meets Jean, who has no intention of marrying Anne but who bewitches Thérèse with his ideas of freedom and personal fulfillment.
Thérèse may be bewitched, but so is Jean, as Thérèse is intelligent and has nothing in common with young women her age or with Anne, who will likely soon accept the marital yoke lived without love.
Jean breaks up by letter with Anne, who wrongly blames Thérèse. The two childhood friends no longer speak to each other, even though they occasionally cross paths in the family mansion, as Thérèse lives with her in-laws.
Thérèse soon gives birth to a little girl, Marie, who leaves her completely indifferent, unlike Anne, who cares deeply for the child.
Ever since a child was breathing in the house, it was true that Anne had begun to live again. A cradle always attracts women; but Anne, more than any other, handled the child with profound joy. To enter the little girl’s home more freely, she had made peace with Thérèse, with nothing remaining of their old tenderness, beyond gestures and familiar names.”
Thérèse is trapped in a world she didn’t choose, and it is almost by chance, without really thinking about it, that Thérèse comes up with the idea of poisoning her husband Bernard. The crime, however, is not complete – the poisoner is discovered by her in-laws and by the doctor whose prescriptions were forged.
At the end of her journey from the courthouse to the family estate, Thérèse now stands before Bernard. She prepared her confession. What she doesn’t know is that the confinement she suffered before the discovery of her crime is in no way comparable to the annihilation she will soon experience. She will soon be denied as a person in the name of the family’s honor.
In writing “Thérèse Desqueyroux,” François Mauriac draws inspiration from these Bordeaux women who move “through the living bars of a family” and whose cage is marriage, family, or society – this cage “lined with ears and eyes.” The cage is also this horizon closed by pine trees that resemble the bars of a prison.
To write “Thérèse Desqueyroux,” François Mauriac also draws inspiration from a news story that fascinated him: the Canaby affair.
Henriette-Blanche Canaby is accused in 1905 of trying to poison her husband, Émile Canaby, a Bordeaux wine broker. Mauriac attends the trial.
During the trial, Henriette-Blanche Canaby is convicted of forgery (the false prescriptions used to obtain digitalis and arsenic from the pharmacist, which were used in the composition of Fowler’s liqueur, which she gave to her husband), despite the testimony in her favor of her husband, who wants to keep up appearances of a bourgeois couple who were nevertheless having a ménage à trois with a wealthy man, Pierre Rabot.
Despite Henriette-Blanche Canaby’s probable motive – collect the life insurance and rebuild her life with her lover – the charge of attempted poisoning is dismissed, and the wife is sentenced to a 100-franc fine and 15 months in prison, a sentence she partially serves.
Unlike the Canaby case, there is no apparent motive in “Thérèse Desqueyroux.” Thérèse has no lover and does not covet a fortune she already possesses. Moreover, there is no “reasonable” explanation for Thérèse’s actions in the novel. She poisoned her husband without hatred, without passion, without motive – and this is probably why she seems so dangerous in the eyes of the society in which she evolves. Her peers judge her dangerous because she seems cold and indifferent – the reality is that Thérèse is burning with an inner fire that her peers, in search of social standing and fortune, have no chance of understanding.
Thérèse first touched emotional fullness as a child, during her Summer holidays with Anne, and the reader could see in it the aborted blossoming of a latent homosexuality – which would echo François Mauriac’s supposedly repressed homosexuality. The discovery of a heteronormative and dull sexuality revolts her – at least, this is the explanation offered by the short story “Conscience, Divine Instinct” – the draft of “Thérèse Desqueyroux” published in 1927 which links and opposes Thérèse’s revulsion toward marital sexuality and the deep friendship that unites Thérèse and Anne.
I am pleased to acknowledge that he is the best, the most indulgent of friends, at least as long as the coming of the shadows does not transform him into this hideous, puffing beast.”
Conscience, Divine Instinct
Thérèse’s actions will never find a clear explanation.
Why did Thérèse Desqueyroux want to poison her husband?”
Mauriac in “The Novelist and His Works”
We will not have a clear answer, and the following novels and short stories, “Thérèse at the Doctor’s,” “Thérèse at the Hotel,” and “The End of the Night,” offer no further explanation. Thérèse seems afflicted by an evil spell that brings only misfortune and debacle, both for her and for those close to her, whether they are named Jean, Phili, George, Marie, Anne or… Bernard.
She is a dark angel to herself and to others, but we do not know the source of this darkness: is she cursed, sick, or simply so withdrawn into herself that she is unable to feel and communicate what troubles her?
The evil is within Thérèse, but we do not know whether it is of supernatural or stupidly human origin. The reality is that she will often be jealous, often in opposition to another female figure whom she considers a rival (Anne, Marie), and that she will often be the destructive angel of her own world and her own destiny.
There is also, in Thérèse, something vagabond (to paraphrase Colette, whom Mauriac read) and Thérèse is reminiscent of Annie who appears in “Claudine and Annie” and in “Retreat From Love”, who, freed from an authoritarian husband, leads a solitary and traveling life made up of sentimental adventures without a future.
Yet, to come back to Thérèse, the reminiscence of a woman driven by a thirst for freedom and personal fulfillment persists. And even if the reader isn’t sure to feel empathy for this cold anti-heroine, we can’t help but sympathize with the tragedy of a life that has been absolutely and completely ruined.
Chanel jumper and sunglasses – Vintage jeans – Repetto flat shoes – Longchamp bag – Authentic Panama hat
July 10, 2026
