The Cid or the Conquests of the Count Geoffrey Barto L'Etat périra, s'il faut que je périsse. -Don Gomès, The Cid, Act II, Scene 1 Generally, studies of the Cid focus on the Cid, Rodrigue, and his fiancée, Chimène. Theirs' is a story of duty before desire, an opposition proposed by Corneille himself (Doubrovsky 101). Doubrovsky begins with this opposition and discovers within it the rejection of the conquest of others that Pascal so detested. The analysis serves nicely for explaining the actions of Rodrigue and Chimène. But the Cid is a larger story than that of Rodrigue and Chimène. The Cid is not only the story of young lovers who, torn apart by a family dispute, discover sadder but more noble existences. It is especially the story of how one man, the Count, Don Gomès, conquers all others by forcing them to conquer themselves. All others act seek to act properly within a Pascalian social structure; in liberating himself from that structure, the Count loses his life, to be sure, but he simultaneously imposes on all others the constraints which so troubled him. In his reading of the Cid, Doubrovsky elevates Corneille's own opposition of duty and desire, suggesting that refusing possession of the beloved does not amount to the loss of love but a higher mastery. Of Rodrigue, he says: [S]i l'on veut dominer en soi la Nature, au lieu d'en être dominé, la véritable possession doit être refus de la possession.... Rodrigue... sur fond du projet originel de Maîtrise, voit peu à peu se découvrir à lui l'impérieuse nécessité de commencer le sacrifice en lui-même et comprend que le vrai combat contre autrui se double d'un combat contre soi (104). With respect to Chimène, Doubrovsky says: Chimène, comme Rodrigue, s'élève, par un effort douloureux, à la Maîtrise active et transforme l'amour en haine amoureuse (107). In both these citations, Doubrovsky closely approaches Pascal, but the citation key to understanding him is found not in the rejection of the hateful Moi but in the pain-pleasure opposition in Pensée 160 (according to Brunschvicg's numbering). Pascal tells us: Il n'est pas honteux à l'homme de succomber sous la douleur, et il lui est honteux de succomber sous le plaisir.... C'est que ce n'est pas la douleur qui nous tente et nous attire; c'est nous-mêmes qui volontairement la choisissons... de sorte que nous sommes maîtres de la chose... mais, dans le plaisir, c'est l'homme qui succombe au plaisir (94-95). In other words, mastery of self is rejection of one's desires. Rodrigue and Chimène must choose not between love and duty, but between enslavement to passion and self-control. Not withstanding the seeming nobility of the choice of Rodrigue and Chimène for pain over pleasure, honor over duty, in their own circle, they are unremarkable. L'Infante also fits the duty-desire opposition of Corneille, and Doubrovsky himself confirms that in giving Rodrigue to Chimène in marriage she is attempting to possess him by refusing to possess him (88). This raises the question of why Rodrigue and Chimène are central to the action and l'Infante is peripheral. Doubrovsky tells us that "L'amour héroïque unit les amants dans l'étreinte et la réciprocité du meurtre" (105). This is true enough. But this strange union, seemingly special because both have rejected desire for duty becomes less remarkable when one sees that l'Infante has done the same thing as the two lovers manqués. In fact, the importance of l'Infante in the drama of the Cid is that she shows that the behavior of Rodrigue and Chimène is to be expected in this society based on honor. Therefore, though they are at the center of the action, it is as objects, not subjects. They are central to the story because theirs is the greatest suffering before the forces in play in this society. Indeed, in Doubrovsky's reading, the forces which come to bear on Rodrigue and Chimène have an anonymous quality: La quête de supériorité absolue, assouvie sur les champs de bataille au détriment du commun des hommes, pousse, à leur tour, les uns contre les autres, les vainqueurs (96). But within this piece, the presence of these forces is due to the choices made by one man. Rodrigue, Chimène and l'Infante renounce their conquests. Don Diègue, it is true, seeks his vengeance through his son, but only after Don Gomès has reduced him to the status of a slave. In truth, most of the characters are in a way enslaved, limited by circumstances and only able to react to the deliberate decision of the Count: Et l'on peut me réduire à vivre sans bonheur, Mais non pas me résoudre à vivre sans honneur (52). Don Gomès' sense of honor rests in his place above others. He has engaged in the conquest of others and has succeeded. He is killed, true enough, but even this is, as we shall see, due to his own will. Perhaps the weakest character in this piece is Rodrigue. Doubrovsky tells us that Rodrigue had to kill Don Gomès in order to dissolve the master-slave relationship: Meurs ou tue : commandement, au sens religieux. Pour un Maître, il n'y a pas d'alternative possible; seul l'Esclave, par craint de mourir, préfère la vie à la reconnaissance (95). In other words, killing Gomès was not a choice but a necessity. Rodrigue made his attempt at liberation from the master-servant relationship not as a matter of personal choice but because the count forced him to. Even worse, doing what was necessary did not constitute short-term pain toward a more positive resolution. Rodrigue tells us, "Je dois tout à mon père, avant qu'à ma maîtresse," (50) but this falsely implies that Rodrigue really could have chosen his mistress. Elsewhere, he neatly summarizes his plight: Allons, mon bras, sauvons du moins l'honneur, Puisqu'après tout il faut perdre Chimène (50). No matter what course Rodrigue chose, he would lose Chimène. Here, Rodrigue's directness is more accurate than the abstract musings of Doubrovsky. Doubrovsky tells us: Le sacrifice de la possession amoureuse n'est pas, pour Rodrigue, le sacrifice de l'amour.... [Il va] inventer l'amour à un niveau libérateur (104). But love is in fact lost. Rodrigue did not chose duty over love; he chose honor without love over dishonor without love. Hardly a master of his own fate, he salvaged what he could and rationalized it with the honor implied in the pain- pleasure choice. But as we have seen, he did not have the choice of pleasure; he could only select the quality and quantity of his pain. And far from making the noblest sacrifice, he chose the least pain possible. This is far from Doubrovsky's masterful hero. Rodrigue himself tells us: ...un homme sans honneur ne te méritait pas; Que, malgré cette part que j'avais en ton âme, Qui m'aima généreux me haïrait infâme; Qu'écouter ton amour, obéir à sa voix, C'était m'en rendre indigne et diffamer ton choix (73). Had Rodrigue refused to duel, he and his father would have known shame but Don Gomès's life would have been spared and Chimène could have renounced him as unworthy, rather than too worthy. Rodrigue would not make this noble sacrifice. Chimène's case is more nebulous than that of Rodrigue. With the blessing of the king, she could have married Rodrigue, seemingly choosing pleasure over pain. One could argue that she did the noble thing in refusing Rodrigue's hand. But when one considers the (at least claimed) devotion to honor of Rodrigue and l'Infante, it becomes more likely that she is simply bound up in the same social construct: ...cet affreux devoir, dont l'ordre m'assassine (74). Après mon père mort, je n'ai point à choisir (86). Ironically, the clash between desire and duty here leaves Chimène in roughly the same position with respect to Rodrigue that Don Gomès was with respect to Don Diègue. When Rodrigue comes to her with his sword, she declines to kill him. Though this is done from love, not perceived superiority, it denies Rodrigue the same resolution that his father sought in act one. Achève, et prends ma vie, après un tel affront, Le premier dont ma race ait vu rougir son front (44). C'est pour t'offrir mon sang qu'en ce lieu tu me vois J'ai fait ce que j'ai dû, je fais ce que je dois (74). Even as Chimène emulates her father in refusing to kill Rodrigue, when she ignores the king's pleas for reconciliation, she is taking the same stance as her father who refused to apologize to Don Diègue. Finally, Chimène's refusal to accept Rodrigue, even after he has conquered two Moorish kings, bears some relationship to her father's refusal to attribute merit to Don Diègue for his past conquests. In effect, Chimène's seemingly noble choice of duty puts her in the odd position of imperfectly replicating her father because she is not truly acting on her own but on the imperfectly exercised will of her father. In spite of his death, then, Don Gomès is victor in his duel with Don Diègue. When Diègue transformed the battle into one of race to compensate for his own weakness, Don Gomès met his joust in assuring that his race would reestablish the master-servant relationship by condemning Rodrigue to a perhaps unending effort to win either Chimène's acceptance or the right to die at her hand. Though titled a tragicomedy for its comic elements-Chimène waiting for the validation of her love, the king pleading that his absolute law be respected- this is truly a tragedy, for it transforms a once harmonious world into an unstable system where no reconciliation is possible. Now it must be admitted that if Doubrovsky's analysis gives undue credit to the will of Rodrigue and Chimène, this analysis gives undue credit to the cunning of Don Gomès. In truth, he was constrained as much as liberated by his sense of honor, as we have seen: Et l'on peut me réduire à vivre sans bonheur, Mais non pas me résoudre à vivre sans honneur (52). It is not our intention to claim that Don Gomès plotted his own murder to assure the perpetuation of the hostilities he began; that is merely the effect. What is clear, however, is that by defending his view of honor, he perpetuated that view. By asserting his superiority the Count established his mastery over others. What the Cid shows us then is not the tragedy of young lovers separated by their preference for honor over desire. Rather it shows us how one man, Don Gomès, destroyed the free will of others in a Pascalian universe by his solitary act of will. The damage was most acute for Rodrigue; for him, the Count negated the choice between submission and self-mastery by removing pleasure from the possibilities offered by the pleasure-pain dichotomy. But because choosing pleasure is choosing enslavement in any case, he also left Chimène with the false choice of enslavement to his will or to her desire. In the end, we could conclude that the Count is Pascal's hateful Moi. He has taken control of all others. Recognizing that this is a play not about Rodrigue and Chimène, but about the will of Don Gomès, we can see that what is at issue is not the rejection of the hateful Moi but the consequences of its acceptance. The ultimate consequence reflects the opening quotation: Tout l'Etat périra, s'il faut que je périsse (52). Perhaps the state itself did not literally perish, but it too was subjugated to the Count's will. His words were intended to show the extent to which the power of the state was bound up in his power in political terms. But the equivalency holds on a more personal level. In standing against the will of the king in this Pascalian universe, he denied the ability of the king to enforce order. And in binding his daughter in obligation to his honor and memory, he bound all others in a situation where their only choice was to follow him in breaking free of the Pascalian order or find themselves so firmly enslaved in it that even the king could not reestablish social harmony.