Educating Nélida and Valentia: Female Mentorship in Two Works by Marie d’Agoult

The fact that Marie d’Agoult published her 1846 novel, Nélida—long dismissed as an act of vengeance against Franz Liszt—in a socialist periodical, La Revue indépendante, rather than the established Revue des deux mondes, suggests that she had other goals in mind. D’Agoult centers both Nélida and her 1847 nouvelle, Valentia, on the eponymous heroines’ education, paying particular attention to the role of the female mentor. In Élisabeth, Nélida’s mentor, d’Agoult gives us a socialist, feminist version of that quintessential male mentor, Vautrin, and an alternative to the male protagonist’s failed social ascent and illusions perdues: social intervention in collective life. The lessons of Valentia’s mentor, Rosane d’Ermeuil, a high society courtesan, are, in contrast to those of Élisabeth, primarily sexual in nature. Through these two original and strikingly different figures, d’Agoult offers a two-pronged “way out” for women, a plan for fulfilling them in both mind and body.