That Night in Varennes (1982)

Hanna Schygulla: Countess Sophie de la Borde

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Quotes 

• Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : I won't discuss Mr. Casanova's literary talents, but as for his exploits in love, I have some reservations. First, he's too big. I told him: the best lovers are always of small stature. That's been proven.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Proven by whom?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : The influx of blood, which gives the virile member its power is all the greater and fiercer if the area to be irrigated is smaller.

• Countess Sophie de la Borde : I saw you when I was 15.

  Casanova : Really?

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Can you keep a secret?

  Casanova : Yes.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : You were my first love.

  Casanova : You met me too soon - and I met you too late. So it goes.

• Virginia Capacelli : Have you read them, madame?

  Madame Adélaïde Gagnon : That man's books, me? I wouldn't dream of it!

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : I would! And with the greatest pleasure. I found them uniquely inspired on the subject of man, of woman, of love amongst our good people.

• De Wendel : In Strasbourg, he was known as a gambler, as a man who ran lotteries, designed textiles, directed plays, dabbled in the occult.

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : As a seer too!

  De Wendel : But mostly for his boudoir escapades.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : When I used to go to Paris, I even heard Madame de Pompadour was mad for him. It seems no woman could resist your compatriot.

  Virginia Capacelli : Thank you, Madame!

  [to Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne] 

  Virginia Capacelli : Did you really travel with him?

  Nicolas Edmé Restif de la Bretonne : Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But, I assure you I resisted him.

• De Wendel : Your pasts are so eventful that you neglect the present. You haven't even noticed the three ladies here watching you. The looks they're giving you. Who knows, maybe I'll witness in this very coach, between two relays, the 1,000th conquest, Mr. de la Bretonne or Mr. Casanova.

  Casanova : What a pain in the ass.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Why not give Mr. Wendel that pleasure? True, the conditions aren't ideal, six people in a carriage, four more than necessary. But you've been in more desperate straits and come out ahead. I remember, Mr. Restif, reading some of your truly perilous adventures with a husband snoring in bed beside you.

  Virginia Capacelli : No.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : Yes! Or in a confessional within convent walls, on a river barge, up a tree, in a stable, with a girl holding yarn for her blind mother making a skein. You can't be defeated by a stagecoach.

• Casanova : Our traveling companions are waiting.

  Countess Sophie de la Borde : With a man like you, they could think we went off for a flirtatious interlude.

  Casanova : For me, it has been one, madame.

• Countess Sophie de la Borde : I was never so afraid in my life. Afraid. Not only of that madman who attacked us, afraid of the speeches of the people, of you - afraid of what I don't know, of what I am about to lose. The court is a cozy nest.

• Countess Sophie de la Borde : He was my king, my ideal, my religion.