Table of Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- I. Society and the Individual in the moralistes: Montaigne, Descartes, Retz -- II. Society and the Individual in the moralistes: Nicole, La Rochefoucauld -- III. The Seventeenth Century Novel: History and Romance as Social Symbols -- IV. The Social Compromise in the Princesse de Clèves: agitation sans désordre -- V. The Social Compromise in the Princesse de Clèves (cont.): Rewards, Constraints and Evasions -- VI. The Failure of the Social Compromise -- VII. Mme de Lafayette's Social Vision -- Selected Bibliography -- Index.