Madame de Merteuil contracts smallpox and is disfigured in the aftermath of a public humiliation, an illness that turns an already precarious legal and social crisis into a visible, lasting reversal. Reported by Madame de Volanges in a letter to Madame de Rosemonde, the episode does not kill her, as some observers expect; instead, it leaves her profoundly altered and precedes the loss of her lawsuit and her flight from Paris.

Circumstances and Report

Madame de Volanges’s account follows the scene in which Madame de Merteuil was publicly confronted by the reception accorded to M. de Prévan. He had entered the same salon, where the assembled company surrounded and applauded him; the crowd effectively brought him before Madame de Merteuil. Her composure was said to have remained unchanged, though Madame de Volanges suspects that this report exaggerated her self-command. The humiliation lasted until her carriage was announced, and the jeers grew louder as she left.

The same informant who described the scene told Madame de Volanges that Madame de Merteuil developed a severe fever the following night. At first, people attributed it to the violence of the encounter, but by the time of the letter the illness had been identified as confluent smallpox of a particularly dangerous kind. The report thus leaves the precise cause of the fever uncertain: the humiliation and the disease follow closely in time, but the initial explanation is presented as a belief, not a diagnosis.

Survival and Disfigurement

Madame de Volanges initially imagines that death might spare Madame de Merteuil the consequences of her condition. The next report overturns that expectation: Madame de Merteuil survives, but is left horribly disfigured and has lost one eye. Madame de Volanges has not seen her herself, and qualifies her description as hearsay; nevertheless, she says the accounts describe Madame de Merteuil as truly hideous.

The bodily aftermath becomes part of the episode’s social meaning. A marquis, known for making cruel remarks, reportedly claimed that the illness had turned Madame de Merteuil inside out, so that her soul now showed on her face. Madame de Volanges records that everyone present considered the comparison apt. The remark is not an objective account of character, but its broad acceptance shows how the illness is interpreted within a society already hostile to Madame de Merteuil: disfigurement is made to signify moral exposure.

Legal and Social Consequences

The illness coincides with the resolution of Madame de Merteuil’s lawsuit, which Madame de Volanges says was close to judgment. She had earlier presented the case confidently, saying that her lawyers assured her she was in the right and that the opposing parties were minors represented by an elderly guardian. After her illness, Madame de Volanges warns that the scandal may harm the case, in which Madame de Merteuil was thought to need considerable favor.

The following letter confirms a decisive legal defeat. The judgment is unanimous against Madame de Merteuil, and awards the minors costs, damages, and restitution of the proceeds. What remains of her fortune, beyond what was already at stake in the suit, is swallowed up and exceeded by the expenses. The disease does not itself decide the case, but the sequence binds bodily affliction to the loss of wealth and standing.

Aftermath and Significance

Still ill when she learns the verdict, Madame de Merteuil makes arrangements and leaves alone, setting out at night by post. Her servants say none of them would accompany her, and people believe she has taken the road to Holland. She carries off her diamonds, silver, jewelry, and whatever else she can, although these possessions were supposed to return to her husband’s estate; she leaves nearly 50,000 livres in debts. Madame de Volanges calls the result a true bankruptcy.

The episode therefore ends not with death but with survival under changed conditions: a lost eye, a face made the subject of public judgment, a failed lawsuit, depleted wealth, and departure without her household. Its force comes from the contrast between the illness’s first appearance as a private physical crisis and its rapid entanglement with public scandal and material ruin. The disease becomes one part of Madame de Merteuil’s downfall, while the letters’ changing reports—first the fever, then survival and disfigurement, then the verdict and flight—make that reversal unfold through rumor and correspondence.