‘It has never been matter of wonder to me that human resolutions are liable to change; one passion gives them birth, another may destroy them.’
Des Grieux, a sentimental young man of noble birth, fell passionately in love with the beautiful Manon Lescaut after first setting eyes on her when she was on her way to a convent. They escape together but their happiness was short-lived when Manon’s taste for luxury cannot be satisfied by des Grieux. Despite this, des Grieux cannot stop loving her and starts taking more drastic actions to procure the means to satisfy her taste. Eventually, their obsessive love for each other causes them to enter into a destructive cycle.
Antoine François Prévost d’Exiles, commonly known as Abbé Prévost, was a French priest, author, and novelist. His fame today is entirely due to his novel Manon Lescaut. Manon Lescaut was also adapted into the operas Manon by Jules Massenet and as Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini.