Appeals for pity in the Heptameron

Renascence, Spring 2001 by Baker, Mary J

In this connection, Geburon makes a relevant point in the discussion following tale 43. He opens the discussion with a commentary on the behavior of Jambicque, who initiated an affair with a gentleman at court, but hid her identity from him while continuing to condemn publicly illicit love. The devisant observes:

Et si ne peut estre excuse de simplicite, et amour naifve, de laquelle chascun doibt avoir pitie, mais, accusee d'avoir convert sa malice du double manteau d'honneur et de gloire, et se faire devant Dieu et les hommes aultre qu'elle n'estoit ....

[And she cannot be excused on the basis of naivete, which if it were so, would cause all of us to take pity on her, but she is guilty of hiding her mischief under the double mantle of honor and glory, and to present herself before God and men other than who she was .... ] (301)

Although Amadour does not accuse Floride of hypocrisy, he does appear to deny her pity because of her lack of "simplicite;" she is not an ignorant victim.

A blatant example of a manipulative and hypocritical appeal for pity occurs in tale 60. After her adultery with a cantor is discovered, a deceitful wife feigns a grievous terminal illness in order to evoke pity and to secure the freedom she needs in order to continue to conduct her affair: "[elle] feit semblant de plourer et de congnoistre son peche en some qu'elle faisoit pine a toute la compaignye, qui cuydoit fermement qu'elle parlast du fonds de son cueur [she pretended to weep and to be cognizant of her sin, with the result that those present pitied her, believing that she spoke from the bottom of her heart]" (366). The good women who are witnesses to this performance have (misplaced) compassion for her. They assure her that God "jamais ... ne luy refuseroit sa misericorde [would never deny her his mercy]" (366), and when the cure arrives to administer the sainct sacrement, they weep at. her devotion, "louans Dieu qui par sa bonte avoit eu pine de ceste pauvre creature [praising God who out of goodness had taken pity on this poor creature]" (367). The wife, presumed dead, is buried, only to be dug up and recovered alive by her lover soon afterwards. Her appeal for pity is an intentional deception, a sentimentalist fallacy, characterized by "the feigning of distress that is not real, in order to achieve some end" (Appeal to Pity 71). It represents a patent abuse of rhetorical "art."

In tale 15 a manipulative appeal for pity is supported by an appeal to reason. This appeal can, I believe, be aptly described as an argumentum ad misericordiam. The use of the term is appropriate for an analysis of the appeal in this story because the appeal made here has an explicit argumentative structure, and some external evidence is proferred. The main character makes an appeal to reason as well as to emotion. In this story, the intent to persuade or influence someone else is a recommendation against taking a certain course of action, specifically, against punishment.

The neglected wife in tale 15 consoles herself with conversational friendships with men other than her husband. After her husband discovers one friendship, he threatens to kill her if he finds her talking again in public or private with the man in question. But, as the narrator tells us, "pource que les choses out l'on a volume, plus elles sont defendues et plus elles sont desir&s [because when one wants something, the more it is forbidden, the more it is desired]" (120), the wife again sends for her latest gentleman friend. Her husband, who has been having her watched, learns of the proposed rendez-vous, and summons her. Fearing for her life, she launches an appeal for pity, beginning with this entreaty: "Monsieur, je vous supplie avoir pine de moy [Monsieur, I beg you to take pity on me]" (121). Her tactic is to argue for his pity by shifting the burden of proof to him.9 Basically, she reasons that he should feel sorry for her because he is really the one at fault. She opens by asserting that the law of God applies to men as well as women in the area of marital infidelity. Then, in an impassioned but reasoned discursive amplification, she proceeds to outline differences between herself and her husband: