ABSTRACT
This article explores some diverging attitudes towards the character trait of complaisance—the inclination to please others—in the thought of Madeleine de Scudéry, Jeanne-Michelle de Pringy, and Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon. Complaisance raises questions relevant for the issue of personal autonomy, since striving for the esteem of others inevitably involves the acceptance of dependence on their preferences and judgments. Maintenon regards complaisance as necessary for the workings of a society and, therefore, wholeheartedly accepts dependence as a feature of the human condition, especially of the condition of women. By contrast, specifically female forms of complaisance such as coquetry—behavior calculated to trigger emotional responses without the wish to engage in serious love relations—could add an element of independence from the desires of men. Pringy takes a highly critical stance toward coquetry and brings to light some self-refuting consequences that it may involve. By contrast, Scudéry thinks through the liberating potential of a different kind of female complaisance—a kind that she calls “coquetry of friendship”—which may avoid the pitfalls of coquetry identified by Pringy.
