I would like to know if others think Francois was informed by Blanche of Clarisse's affair. I'm not sure about that in my own mind.

I wondered about this, too. It seems (to me) unlikely that she had revealed anything to Francoise before Clarisse's death. If Clarisse was going to confront Blanche, then that implies that she wasn't discussing the matter with her husband. And if she wasn't discussing it with Francoise, then he probably didn't know.

But I can't believe that Blanche would not have revealed the secret after Clarisse died - possibly even during the discussion of her death (to explain why Clarisse was there, and why she was upset). The way that Francoise seems to have shut down after her death smacks of a man betrayed, not just a man in mourning. If he was just devastated by the death of his beloved, you'd expect him to reach out to his children (Antoine says he was happy & affectionate with them while their mother was alive, remember). But he lost his wife and found out she'd been betraying him, and loved someone else. That would be hard to swallow. His children would be reminders of her and her betrayal.

I tend to think that way too. His total change in his interaction with his children makes me think he knew of her affair. I think if he was just mourning her death he would have wanted to be very close to them as reminders of her.

I think one of the interesting aspects of this book was the number of "secrets kept" and how many unanswered questions there were. This is just another one.