ABSTRACT
In L'Ingenu and Les Lettres d'Amabed Voltaire adapts devices or scenes from Clarissa to explore the themes of 'feminine' virtue and chastity. In his earliest contes, Voltaire attacks the idea that chastity is a virtue, and goes so far as to question whether rape is any kind of crime. It should be noted that the ambivalent tone of the tale is connected with Voltaire's portrayal of the difference between the sexes. Voltaire's Les Lettres d'Amabed also deals with the Samuel Richardsonian themes of rape and chastity. The problem, for Voltaire the deist, lies in the nihilism that lurks within his sixteenth-century Vatican, which can stand for any seat of unenlightened despotism. Although Voltaire mentions Pamela, it is significant that it is only once he has read Clarissa that he becomes markedly hostile towards Richardson. But Voltaire content has not finished assailing his fictional captives.
