Ecclesiastical Laurels

The title of this story, Ecclesiastical Laurels (originally Les Lauriers ecclésiastiques), foreshortens in two words the basic plot: a commendatory abbot, the Abbot de T***, wages war on the field of love. After several conquests, of varying degrees of success, with women at various levels of society and of various vocations, he progresses from a complete neophyte in the rules and etiquette of love-making and seduction, through a middle period of maturation and rage, to finally being fulgurated by the woman of his future happiness and "legitimate passion," who, as chance might have it, is a nun. His successes, or conquests, earn him his laurels, imaginary leafy crowns that are more like garter belts.

One subtitle of this story, the "Abbot de T***ʼs Campaigns," further emphasizes the libertine tendencies of the main character and plot. But if anything, it is soft-libertinage, where the main character could be described as a mélange between ambitious young lover Julien Sorel (of Stendhalʼs Le rouge et le noir, also a bildungsroman) and master seducer Valmont in Choderlos de Laclosʼ Les liaisons dangereuses.