Dubourg Attempts to Force Himself on Justine

Dubourg Attempts to Force Himself on Justine is an early episode in which Justine’s effort to find help as a poor orphan becomes a confrontation with sexual coercion. Her resistance preserves her from the immediate assault, but the episode also shows how poverty and dependence leave her exposed to pressure from both the wealthy man she approaches and the landlady who sends her back to him.

Circumstances and First Refusal

Justine recounts this episode as part of her life story to Madame de Lorsange. Orphaned young and left with only a small inheritance, she explains that she gradually spent her remaining money in Paris while seeking a suitable position. As her resources dwindled, she was increasingly despised and found it harder to obtain support. Her landlady recommended Dubourg, a wealthy tradesman whose influence might improve her situation.

After waiting in his antechamber, Justine was admitted to Dubourg’s rooms. He was forty-eight and had just risen from bed. She pleaded that she was a poor orphan not yet fourteen, described her difficulties finding work, and asked him for compassion and help securing the means to live. Dubourg instead asked whether she had always been well-behaved, then argued that a girl of her age and appearance would not find the kind of position she sought. He urged her to give men pleasure in exchange for support and dismissed virtue as useless in a world governed by profit and power.

Pressure and Attempted Assault

When Justine rejected the bargain, Dubourg opened the door and told her to consent or leave. She wept, but her distress angered rather than softened him. He seized her by the shoulder and said he would take by force what she had refused to give voluntarily. Justine broke free and fled, condemning his conduct as heartless and calling upon Heaven to punish him.

Her landlady, Madame Desroches, responded not with sympathy but with reproaches. She insisted that Dubourg had expected payment for his aid, demanded that Justine return to appease him and bring back money, and threatened that otherwise Justine would have to pay her debt or go to jail. Desroches went to Dubourg herself and arranged another meeting, warning Justine that he would have her imprisoned if she resisted again.

The next morning, Dubourg was alone. He told Justine to undress and threatened that two men waiting in the next room would take her somewhere from which she would never return alive if she resisted. Justine clung to his knees and begged him to release her from the demand, saying she would rather die than violate the principles instilled in her childhood. Her pleading did not move him; he treated her distress as part of his own gratification and tried to force himself on her.

Outcome and Narrative Significance

Dubourg’s attempt failed before he could complete the assault. Justine attributes this outcome to his own excesses and to Heaven’s intervention: his weakness interrupted the attack and prevented her from becoming its victim. He blamed her for his failure and tried again through alternating tenderness and force, but neither his changing behavior nor her submission to his demands could revive his capacity to continue. He eventually gave up, required her to promise to return the next day, and refused to pay her anything beyond the sum she owed Desroches.

Humiliated, Justine resolved not to expose herself to him a third time. She paid Desroches and left, though her denunciations brought no visible punishment upon Dubourg. A week later, she learned that he had obtained a government trusteeship expected to increase his annual income by more than five hundred thousand pounds. The contrast between his attempted abuse and his new prosperity anticipates the novel’s repeated depiction of virtue suffering while powerful wrongdoers prosper.

The episode also establishes the material pressures shaping Justine’s predicament. Her orphanhood and dwindling inheritance force her to seek work and assistance; her landlady converts that vulnerability into leverage; and Dubourg presents exploitation as the price of aid. Justine’s refusal is therefore both a moral choice and an act made under threat, with immediate consequences for her security. The episode initiates the pattern of reversals that defines her subsequent life: she acts according to her principles, but neither those principles nor her appeal to justice reliably protects her from harm.