ABSTRACT
The indulgence that Jean-Jacques Rousseau demonstrates in the narrative of behavior that seems to be even more compromising seems all the more surprising. Weakness and strength, timidity and courage, dissimulation and parrhesia: Rousseau is very conscious of the alloy of opposites that makes up his character, causes the incoherencies of his behavior, and provokes the incomprehension of those who intersected with it. The case is different in Cleveland: the character requires an increase of nobility, as if abandonment to the torrent of the passions made indispensable, as compensation, the display of greatness of soul and generosity. To read Cleveland with fury is to identify oneself with a character who is as dubious as can be, since Prevost’s hero is the bastard son of Cromwell, who in this novel plays the role of the absolute monster. Before the Rousseauian heroes, Cleveland is both generous and passionate at the same time.
