Don Juan's Crowning Love-Affair, by Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly

Added: 2026-05-15

[00:00:00]Uh hello, my name is Matthew and excuse me, my hair is still wet. Um getting ready to go to uh work, but this morning I read a short story which I really wasn't planning on. It's from the French Deconite Tales, which I read a short story the other day, a dentist cruy punished. And I wasn't really planning on spending much more time with this book, but I was looking at the table of contents and I came across something uh really interesting and surprising to me.

[00:00:32]And the great thing about this table of contents uh for me is it has all these French writers um that I've never heard of or the first time uh that I encountered this book, I hadn't heard of these writers. And the first short story, I was looking at it the other day. And it's uh Jules Barbie de Orailli.

[00:00:56]I don't know how to say that. I'll show it and it'll be in the the title.

[00:01:02]And uh the first time I saw it, I just, you know, just another French writer. I don't know. But a year ago, um somebody recommended or I came across a book called u What Never Dies. and it's by this Jules Barbie.

[00:01:20]And what was what really sparked my interest then was that it said that it was translated by Oscar Wild. And I think I made a video about that. If I did, I'll try to remember to uh leave a link. Unfortunately, the book uh wasn't very good. I didn't think it was very well written. And I also don't believe that it was written by Oscar Wild. But my main takeaway of the book was that it was like the Frenchiest French book. It reminded me, it made me think uh it's the kind of book that people think I'm reading when I say I'm reading a French book. It's these characters that are in in silk robes and they're in a countryside and they're in u walking around a garden and they're walking with flowers in their hands and the characters uh speak poetry poetically flowery language to each other and it was to the point of uh ridiculousness but nonetheless I had read that book and then I opened this up. I'm looking at the table of contents and the first story is by the same author and I thought, well, I need to I need to read this again. And unfortunately, um the short story, I should say, is Don Juan's crowning love affair.

[00:02:52]And it has that uh flowery elaborate um exotic farflung uh heightened uh language that flowery ornate uh language throughout the whole story and I'll talk about it a little bit but it's so flowery and it reminded me of uh two two things. one the reaction that u Masant wrote about and you can see in the writings of Flobear and Masant which is um to not use the most obscure word or the strangest word or the most exotic word wrote use the right word and you can see that uh that influence from uh Flover's writing as Well, it also reminded me of um passages in Cridge in the biography biographia literaria by Craridge where he talks about his uh student days and his professor who would uh rail against the students uh these literature students. He would rail against them uh for using uh flowery elaborate language and would tell these students uh don't don't write about the fawns and the saters and uh the mountaintop of Parnaces.

[00:04:30]Write about your lived experience.

[00:04:35]Uh, it comes off as um artificial and and phony to try to uh re recreate um language from um ancient Greece or ancient Rome or the period of the homeriic uh period. Um to write about saters and fawns um to kind of sound poetic and to sound more profound. It kind of has the opposite effect. Um, this story is about Don Juan's um like last supper. He's having like a farewell dinner.

[00:05:21]And it's uh Don Juan, this kind of famous uh character, this lethario uh charismatic Casanova who's um a seducer and uh famously and proudly has uh um slept with women and had romantic conquests, that that kind of character.

[00:05:46]And um in this dinner party at the beginning it talks about how this is a person that uh never dies because every generation or every generation or so uh will have its Don Juan. I was also interested because Don Juan is one of my uh u favorite epic poems by uh Lord Byron.

[00:06:13]In any event, um the short story uh begins with um like a troop of upper class aristocratic um women with uh titles and they all have been uh conquested by Don Juan and they're having this um especially a grandiose, decadent dinner party for Dan Juan. And they're having it in the budois, which is a shocking and scandalous to have a dinner party in the bedroom.

[00:06:59]And everyone is titilated and uh acting um scandalous and and naughty. And finally, um, one of the dinner guests, not the hostess, but one of the dinner guests asks Don Juan, uh, what is your crowning achievement? And all of this is written in that kind of flowery poetic language. The uh the narrative, the the athereal voice and the characters, they all have the same style of speaking uh including Don Juan. And so they say uh what what what is your crowning achievement, your ultimate uh conquest?

[00:07:44]And so Don Juan now is going to tell the women uh his story.

[00:07:51]his uh crowning achievement. And as I'm reading it, I'm getting kind of fed up and frustrated with this um uh kind of confusing, confounding uh flowery ornate language like you're not really saying anything. And hilariously, Don Juan starts talking about um this woman and young beautiful woman and he he's talking about how beautiful she is and um going on and on and on. I'll read a little bit. Uh but I I think the exchange uh to me is just hilarious. Um she was a rare pearl. Rarely have I seen such genuine goodness, such tenderheartedness, such good instinctive feeling intact even in passion, which as you know is not always good. I have never encountered less calculation, less prudy and cocketishness.

[00:09:00]uh two things often to be found mingled in women like some material marked with a cat's claw and it goes on like this and uh what the one element that I I think really works in this story uh is that the listeners so that the the dinner guests are also getting frustrated uh like get to the point what where is this And so after all of this, uh, Duchess just says, "Was she a brunette?" Like, "Give me some actual description of the person that you're talking about."

[00:09:43]And, and he can't help himself.

[00:09:46]Uh, yes, she was a brunette. Brunette to the point of being black as jet. And it goes on and on and on. And then finally uh at the end of this he says she was a blonde with black hair and the dinner guest just like what on earth is this guy uh talking about? So there's this beautiful woman that he's talking about and uh she has a young uh daughter and he's uh explaining that their uh relationship was strained because uh the daughter knows that there's this man sleeping with his uh mother and she doesn't like him. And she uh will leave the room uh when he walks in. She'll stop playing the piano if he's if he is present.

[00:10:39]And so, uh, there's tension between, um, the this young daughter and the man, but he can't just say that. It it's, uh, a fog of wordiness.

[00:10:55]And finally, uh, again, uh, one of the, uesss, uh, says, where where is all this leading? So, they're getting sick of the story that he's telling. And in effect, they're getting the dinner guests are getting sick of the story that I'm reading, which I is not supposed to be the intent, but uh really great uh irony.

[00:11:24]And then uh the book has uh a shock. Um the daughter ends up pregnant and uh Don Juan is telling the story and says uh this was my crowning achievement and this goes over like a lead balloon.

[00:11:50]The daughter is pregnant. It's revealed by a confession. A priest reveals a confession that the daughter gave.

[00:11:58]And the dinner guests are just like silent and confused and befuddled.

[00:12:10]And it ends just as a really tackless, unamusing, overly long bad story. It's the story that he tells the guests and it's the story the writer is telling the reader.

[00:12:35]Um, so I don't know if I'm going to be going through this book, but uh I'm I'm glad that I read it again, especially in context uh with now having read um two things by this author. Um, the translation and the writing style in this I can remember was is significantly better than the uh novel What Never Dies purportedly translated by Oscar Wild. I don't believe that it was. I don't really have any evidence, just my own thinking. Um, but I I just wanted to share that I I just think it's interesting finding these little things.

[00:13:20]And um even if it's not a great uh even if it's not my favorite story, uh I I still find it um worth my time and I wanted to share that. Uh I still have to keep getting ready for work. Uh it's a beautiful day and uh thank you for watching. If you've read this author or this book, uh, I'd be interested. Uh, um, if you know if that book was actually translated by Oscar Wild, I'd be interested. Uh, but thank you for watching. Please leave a comment if you would like. And thank you and take care.

[00:13:53]Bye.