La cacophonie des rires dans La Pucelle de Voltaire

The cacophony of laughter in Voltaire's La Pucelle. The gallant mockery in La Pucelle, so different from the burlesque parody hated by Voltaire for socio-aesthetic reasons, provides a good field for observing the different facets of Voltaire's laughter. This study, based on the internal representations of laughter (metapoetical as much as fictional) reveals contradictory postulates which border on cacophony. The outbursts that are staged in the work are mainly indicated as clearly pejorative, which reinforces the confusion as to the meaning of laughter. Some indirect light can be thrown on the question by the reflections in the article "Rire" in his Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, in which the lost fullness of harmonious laughter, associated with childhood, is contrasted with debased social manifestations, confusing laughter and barracking. La Pucelle, whose writing alternates between these two comic poles, is part of the quest for lost euphoria, which is crystallised in the effect of feminine smiles, linked to a hedonistic celebration of the pleasures of mind and body.