Happiness and its destruction in the french literature of enlightement

In order to think about the idea of happiness in the french literature of Enlightment, I put these problematics in the context of the process of civilization accoridng to the definition of Norbert Elias. With this expression, Elias means the process in which the psychic habitus is thoroughly transformed by the human relationship getting more and more complicated, this complication being determined by the development of the market system. With this point of view, we have been able to give a new reading of the Discours sur l'origine de l'inegalite. At the same time, the notion of civilization has been very useful in order to analyze the novel of Rousseau : La Nouvelle Heloise. First, the form(letter) can not be separated from the process of civilization. Secondly, the thematic system and the narrative structures correspond to the main opposition between the town and the country. La Nouvelle Heloise is a novel which protects the self-suggicient world of the family. Finally, I tried to show how the Balzac's novel, La Femme de trente ans, is a negative response to La Nouvelle Heloise. The age of Balzac was already an age when people started not to believe in the family happiness.