Character Clues
Character Analysis
Thoughts and Opinions
In a novel comprised of the characters' letters to one another, you can be sure that the writers put down their thoughts and opinions. They don't generally tell us what their stated ideas say about themselves; that's for us to judge. They're all much more concerned with discussing other people. Occasionally, someone will reflect on his or her own character. Here's Valmont, for example:
P.S. By the way, has your poor Chevalier killed himself in despair? If the truth were know, you are a hundred times more depraved than I am: you would put me to shame if I had any pride. (1.6.5)
But the thoughts revealed in the letters tell us everything we need to know about them. We see Cecile's naiveté, The Marquise and Valmont's contempt for everyone, Madame de Tourvel's good heart, Madame de Rosemonde's wisdom and experience.
Social Status
How many impoverished people did you count in the novel? Zero, right? This is a novel about wealthy aristocrats and, to a small extent, their servants. They live in beautiful places, but these places can also be hives of scum and villainy, as they say on Tatooine. Social status isn't a marker for who's good and who's bad, but it provides the rotten rich folks better opportunity to manipulate those who have to work for a living.
When Valmont needs someone close to Madame de Tourvel to provide intel, he turns to one of her servants. Catching an unmarried chambermaid in bed with her man, Valmont has her livelihood to hold over her head. He writes,
Knowing that the more I could humiliate the wench the more tractable she would be, I forbade her to change either her position or her costume. (1.44.11)
Because this servant has no family wealth to keep her afloat, she has no choice but to agree to Valmont's demands.
The Marquise's position also allowed her to more or less blackmail her chambermaid and buy her loyalty. Social status may not indicate virtue, but it sure tells us who holds the power.
Dress
As the major characters in Les Liaisons Dangereuses are wealthy and aristocratic, they're fastidious about dress and obsessed with being fashionable. Unkempt attire is a screaming hint that something's amiss. Writing to Madame de Tourvel, Madame de Rosemonde comments on seeing Valmont in disarray:
He was not, it is true, fully dressed and his hair was unpowdered; but I found him looking pale and unkempt, his face in particular quite changed. (3.122.2)
You know how it is when you go out with unpowdered hair. People will talk. Valmont's someone always concerned with how appears to others, so for him to allow himself to be seen as he was indicates that's he wants to be seen as distressed.