Found! The Last Faithful Husband in France.

A recent fiction of mine (Darkly, More is Seen, Spring Issue of Ambit 212) considers infidelity in lovers as an unstoppable force of nature, the opinion held by my passive-aggressive narrator who fails to revise her cynical view of French mores due to a tendency to glare at Gallic seduction rites through Anglo-Saxon-tinted spectacles.

As she confesses:

I could not dismiss our parting in the light, practical manner with which the French seem to deal with natural catastrophes of the heart. In France, I’m aware, no woman is expected to remain physically faithful for three years, let alone a decade.

Darkly, More is Seen.

 I am reminded of a truisme français, formulated over three centuries ago:  

The struggle we undergo to remain faithful to one we love is little better than infidelity.

François de la Rochefoucauld

But it was neither of these two attitudes that prompted this brief posting.

No. What set me off on these musings was a recent screening of that truly gripping thriller, L’Homme Qui Voulait Savoir (The Vanishing, 1988, Dir. George Sluizer), starring the beguiling Johanna ter Steege. 

Here are fervent protestations of fidelity from its sinister French antagonist, Raymond Lemorne (played by a Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), addressing his wife:

‘I am the last Frenchman who can be proud of having known only one woman in his life.’

 An admirable sentiment.

Except it’s a sentiment professed by a homicidal French sociopath.

●

Postscript 06.06.16

In response to this post, a correspondent has complained, ‘It’s all very well to condemn the customary dalliances of the French, but what is your true opinion of the English attitude to the institution of marriage?’

In answer, I drew her attention to the English film, The Thirty Nine Steps (1935), wherein the hero, masquerading as an adulterous lover leaving his mistress’s flat at dawn, enlists the aid of a milkman to evade pursuing enquiry agents.

                English Adulterer: You married?

                Cockney Milkman: Yes. But don’t rub it in. 

Footnote 28.07.20

I note the death of Parisienne Olivia de Havilland who wrote Every Frenchman Has One. I'm determined to read it.