away affected and therefore erroneous suppositions with regard to
morality, and particularly with regard to social motives. He had come
back to Paris, after his long and irksome exile, with a terrible
clear-sightedness, and he saw that society had gone to pieces and that
truth was essential to its rebuilding. He was convinced--and this must
be asserted in the face of his own apparent cynicism--he was convinced
of the existence of pure virtue, but he thought that _amour-propre_ in
the individual, and conventionality (what was then meant by _la
coutume_) in the social order, had made it almost as rare as the dodo.
He wished, by his stringent exposure of the arts of lying, to save
virtue before it was absolutely extinct. He had the instinct of
race-preservation.[6]
[Footnote 6: It is possible that the conversation of Mme de
Sablé concentrated his thoughts on self-love. A contemporary
MS. says of that lady, "Elle flatte fort l'amour propre
quand elle parle aux gens." But egotism was a new discovery
which fascinated everybody in the third quarter of the
century.]
Let us turn to the few, but profoundly beautiful reflections which
form the constructive element in La Rochefoucauld's teaching. His aim
in edification is to train us to dig through the crust of social sham
to the limpid truth which exists in the dark centre of our souls--
"If there is a pure love, he says, exempt from all admixture with
other passions, it is that which lies hidden at the bottom of the
heart, and of which we ourselves are ignorant."
Unlike Mandeville, our own great cynic of the eighteenth century, La
Rochefoucauld, while calling in question the reality of almost all
benevolent impulses, stopped short of denying the existence of virtue
itself. He would not have said, as the author of the "Fable of the
Bees" (1714) did, that the "hunting after this _pulchrum et honestum_
is not much better than a wild-goose chase." But he had a strong
contempt for the humbugs of the world, and among them he placed
unflinching optimists. One of the main forms of humbug in his day was
the legend that everybody acted nobly for the sake of other people.
This La Rochefoucauld stoutly denied, but he was not so excessive as
his commentators in his condemnation of that self-love which he
declares to be the source of all our moral actions. He insinuates the
possibility of an innocent and even a beneficial egotism. He says,
"The praise which is given us serves to fix us in the practice of
virtue," and if that is true, _amour-propre_ must be practically
useful. Helvétius, who made some very valuable comments on the
"Maximes" a hundred years later, pointed out that _amour-propre_ is
not in itself an evil thing, but is a sentiment implanted in us all by
nature, and that this sentiment is transformed in every human being
into either vice or virtue, so that although we are all egoists, some
are good and some are bad.
La Rochefoucauld, therefore, while he takes a very dark view of the
selfishness of the human race, softens the shades of his picture by
admitting that egotism may be, and often must be, advantageous not
merely to the individual but to the race. And here we find the key to
one of the oddest passages in his works, that in which he attributes
his inspiration to two saints, St. Augustine and St. Epicurus! He
says--
Everybody wishes to be happy; that is the aim of all the acts of
life. Spurious men of the world and spurious men of piety only seek
for the appearance of virtue, and I believe that in matters of
morality, Seneca was a hypocrite and Epicurus was a saint. I know of
nothing in the world so beautiful as nobility of heart and loftiness
of mind: from these proceeds that perfect integrity which I set above
all other qualities, and which seems to me, at my present stage of
life, to be of more price than a royal crown. But I am not sure
whether, in order to live happily and as a man of the highest sense of
honour, it is not better to be Alcibiades and Phaedo than to be
Aristides and Socrates.
It would take us too far out of our path to comment on the relation of
this epicureanism to the religion of La Rochefoucauld's day, but a few
words seem necessary on this subject. He says extremely little about
religion, although he makes the necessary and perhaps not wholly
perfunctory, statement that he was orthodox. But the position of a
votary of St. Epicurus had grown difficult. Since the Duke's exile,
the enmity between the church and the world had become violent, so
violent that a man of prominent social and intellectual position was
bound to take one side or another. We may note that the years during
which the "Maximes" were being composed were precisely those during
which Bossuet was thundering from the pulpit his anathemas against
worldly luxury and the pride of life. The period marked at one
extremity by "L'Amour des Passions" (1660) and at the other by the
"Grandeurs Humains" (1663) is precisely that in which the lapidary art
of La Rochefoucauld was most assiduous. The church was advocating
asceticism and humility with all its authority, and was leading up
towards the later phase of the fanatical despotism of Louis XIV.'s old
age, with all its attendant hypocrisy. For the moment, in the
struggle, La Rochefoucauld, though no _dévot_, would seem a friend of
the church rather than a foe, and in fact he retained the intimacy of
Bossuet, in whose arms he died. We may be sure that he guarded himself
with delicate care from the charge of being what was then called a
"libertine," that is a man openly at war with the theory and practice
of the theologians.
It is said that La Rochefoucauld invented[7] the word "vraie," "true,"
to describe the character of Mme de La Fayette. His intimacy with this
illustrious lady is one of the most beautiful episodes in the history
of literature, and perhaps its purest example of true friendship
between the sexes. The phrase we have already quoted shows that in
1663 the two great writers were acquainted but not yet intimate. Marie
de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette, was in her thirtieth year, La
Rochefoucauld had completed his fiftieth when some cause which remains
obscure drew them together with a tie which death alone, after
seventeen wonderful years of almost unbroken association, was to
sever. There was no scandal about it, even in that scandal-mongering
age. The astute Mile de Scudery, writing to her gossip Bussy Rabutin
(December 6, 1675), says, "Nothing could be happier for her, or more
dignified for him; the fear of God on either side, and perhaps
prudence as well, have clipped the wings of love." Twelve years
before, when Ménage had repeated to her some critical remarks about
her novel, "La Princesse de Montpensier," Mme de La Fayette had
replied, "I am greatly obliged to M. de la Rochefoucauld for his
expressions. They are the result of our similarity of experience, 'de
la belle sympathie qui est entre nous.'"
[Footnote 7: Mme de Sévigné seems not to have known this
when, in writing to her daughter (July 19, 1671), she claims
to have been the first to say _vraie_ when she meant
sincere, loyal. "Il y a longtemps que je dis que vous êtes
_vraie_"]
The famous friends were excluded by their physical conditions from the
activities of life. Mme de La Fayette, who was perhaps something of a
hypochondriac, tossed all day among the pillows of that golden bed
with the extravagance of which the austerity of Mme de Maintenon
upbraided her. La Rochefoucauld, tormented by the gout, lay stretched
at her side in his long chair, and the days went by in endless
discussion, endless balancing of right and wrong, much gossip, much
reading of books new and old, and not a little consultation of artist
with artist. They kept their secrets well, and no curiosity of
successive critics has been able to discover how much of La
Rochefoucauld is hidden in the pages of "La Princesse de Clèves", the
earliest of the modern novels of the world, nor how much of Mme de La
Fayette in the revised and re-revised text of the "Maximes." [8] But we
know that she was no less sagacious and no less an enemy to illusion
than he was, and those are probably not far wrong who have detected a
softening influence from her conversation on the late genius of La
Rochefoucauld.
In 1675 Mme de Thiange presented to the Duke du Maine a toy which has
long ago disappeared, and for the recovery of which I would gladly
exchange many a grand composition of painting and sculpture. It was a
sort of gilded doll's house, representing the interior of a _salon_.
Over the door was written, "Chambre des Sublimes." Inside were wax
portrait-figures of living celebrities, the Duke du Maine in one
arm-chair; in another La Rochefoucauld, who was handing him some
manuscript. By the arm-chairs were standing Bossuet, then Bishop of
Condom, and La Rochefoucauld's eldest son, M. de Marcillac. At the
other end of the alcove Mme de La Fayette and Mme de Thiange were
reading verses together. Outside the balustrade, Boileau with a
pitchfork was preventing seven or eight bad poets from entering, to
the amusement and approval of Racine, who was already inside, and of
La Fontaine, who was invited to come forward. The likeness of these
little waxen images is said to have been perfect, and there can hardly
be fancied a relic of that fine society which would be more valuable
to us in re-establishing its social character. We know not what became
of it in the next generation. No doubt, the wax grew dusty, and the
figures lost their heads and hands, and some petulant châtelaine
doomed the ruined treasure to the dustbin.
[Footnote 8: Bussy Rabutin writes to Mme de Sévigné that he
hears that La Rochefoucauld and Mme de La Fayette are
preparing "quelque chose de fort joli." This shows that
before "La Princess de Clèves" was finished the Duke's name
was identified with its composition.]
No mention of Mme de Sévigné is made in the inventory of the "Chambre
des Sublimes," and yet there is no one to whom we owe an exacter
portraiture of its inmates, nor one who was more worthy to animate its
golden recesses. For the last ten years of La Rochefoucauld's life she
was one of the closest observers of the famous sedentary friendship.
Unfortunately she tells us nothing about the original publication of
the "Maximes," for his name does not occur in her correspondence
before 1668, and does not abound there until 1670. Then we find her
for ever at the Duke's house, or meeting him at Mme de La Fayette's
bedside. He gratified her by warm and constant praise of Mme de
Grignan, whose letters were regularly read to the friends by her
infatuated mother. It is vexing that Mme de Sévigné, who might have
spared us two or three of her immortal pages, although she incessantly
mentions and even quotes La Rochefoucauld, generally refrains from
describing him. She and Mme de La Fayette were his guests in the
country on May 15, and the three wonderful companions walked in the
harmony of "nightingales, hawthorns, lilacs, fountains and fine
weather," or played with his pet white mouse. Such touches are rare,
and Paris seems best to suit what Mme de Sévigné admirably calls "the
grey-brown" thought of La Rochefoucauld.
In 1671 he had a terrible attack of the gout, accompanied by agonies
moral and physical which filled the ladies with alarm and pity. Better
in 1672, he was able to entertain company to hear Corneille read his
new tragedy of "Pulchérie" in January, and Molière his new comedy,
"Les Femmes Savantes," in March. He was now, in premature old age, the
venerable figure in the group, the benevolent Nestor of the salons.
Let his detractors remember that Mme de Sévigné, who knew what she was
talking about, wrote that "he is the most lovable man I have ever
known," His sufferings, his disenchantments and disappointments, only
seemed to accentuate his beautiful patience. Just before his fatal
illness (January 31, 1680) Mme de Sévigné writes again: "I have never
seen a man so obliging, nor more amiable in his wish to give pleasure
by what he says." [9] Her detailed and pathetic account of his last
hours, which closed on the night of March 16, 1680, testifies to her
deep attachment and to Mme de La Fayette's despair.
[Footnote 9: Two of La Fontaine's fables, "L'Homme et son
Image" and "Les Lapins," were dedicated to La Rochefoucauld
in 1668. In the former we read:--
_On voit bien où je veux venir.
Je parle a tous, et cette erreur extrême
Est un mal que chacun se plaît d'entretenir
Notre âme, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui-même;
Tant de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui,
Miroirs, de nos défauts les peintres légitimes;
Et quant au canal, c'est celui,
Que chacun sait: le livre des Maximes._]
When Mme de Sévigné, in 1675, received the third edition of the Duke's
book, which contained more than seventy new maxims, she wrote, "Some of
them are divine; some of them, I am ashamed to say, I don't understand."
Probably she would have partly agreed with some one's criticism of them,
"De l'esprit, encore de l'esprit, et toujours de l'esprit--trop
d'esprit!" [10] No doubt, La Rochefoucauld has done his own reputation
wrong by the bluster of his scepticism and also by the fact that he
sometimes wraps his thoughts up in such a blaze of epigram that we are
disconcerted to find, when we analyze them, that they are commonplaces.
Contemporaries seemed to have smiled at the excessive subtlety into
which their long conversations led Mme de La Fayette and her sublime
companion. Mme de Sévigné describes such talks with her delicate irony,
and says, "We plunged into subtleties which were beyond our
intelligence." An example is the dispute whether "Grace is to the body
what good sense is to the mind," or "Grace is to the body what delicacy
is to the mind" should be the ultimate form of a maxim. They sometimes
drew the spider's thread so fine that it became invisible.[11]
[Footnote 10: The practice of making "maxims," _axiomata_,
encouraged the enlivenment of conversation by the
introduction of topsy-turvy statements, such as "Constancy
is merely inconstancy arrested," in the manner of Oscar
Wilde and Mr. Chesterton.]
[Footnote 11: La Rochefoucauld was not without affectations. He
spoke airily about his _manière négligée_ of writing, whereas
no one ever took more pains. Segrais gives very interesting
information on this point: he says that the Duke
"sent me from time to time what he had been working
on, and he wished me to keep these note-books of his for
five or six weeks, so as to be able to give them my
closest attention, particularly with regard to the turn of
the thoughts and the arrangement of the words. Some of
his maxims he altered as many as thirty times." But
when he wrote to Esprit, in 1660, La Rochefoucauld
affected to regard his own writings as trifles thrown off
"au coin de mon feu" The great of the earth have these
amiable and amusing weaknesses.]
But his clearness of insight was immense, and he was too profoundly
intelligent to be a merely destructive or sterile force. He builded
better than he knew. For instance, courage, it has been alleged, he
denies, and indeed he is so savage in his exposure of braggadocio that
it might well be believed that he refused to admit that men could be
brave. Yet what does he say?--
"Intrepidity is an extraordinary force of the soul which lifts it
above those troubles, disorders and emotions which the aspect of great
peril would otherwise excite; it is by this force that heroes maintain
themselves in a state of equanimity, preserving the free use of their
reason through the most surprising and the most terrible accidents."
This must include the most moving of all accidents, those which call
forth moral and physical courage in the face of national danger, and
are rewarded by _gloire_, by public and lasting fame. And we are led
on to a consideration of the lengthy reflection on the spirit in which
the approach of death should be faced, with which he closed the latest
edition of the "Maximes," declaring that "the splendour of dying with
a firm spirit, the hope of being regretted, the desire to leave a fair
reputation behind us, the assurance of being released from the
drudgery of life and of depending no more on the caprices of fortune,"
are remedies which would medicine our pain in approaching the dreaded
goal of our existence.
We must read La Rochefoucauld closely to perceive why a book so
searching, and even so cruel as his, has exercised on the genius of
France a salutary and a lasting influence. His savage pessimism is not
useless, it is not a mere scorn of humanity and a sneer at its
weaknesses. It tends, by stripping off all the shams of conduct and
digging to the root of action, to make people upright, candid and
magnanimous on a new basis of truth. So we come at last to see the
significance of Voltaire's dark saying of the "Maximes": "This book is
one of those which have contributed most to form the taste of the
French nation, and to give it the spirit of accuracy and precision."
LA BRUYÈRE
La Bruyère was thirty-five years of age when La Rochefoucauld died,
and twenty when the "Maximes" were published. We have no evidence that
he ever met the former, but he certainly read the latter, and in spite
of his eager denial that Pascal or La Rochefoucauld suggested his
method to him--"I have followed neither of these paths," he says--it
is impossible to doubt that the example of the "Maximes" had a great
deal to do with the form of the "Caractères." His own disciple,
Brillon, tells us of La Bruyère that, "the author of the work which
this age has most admired was at least ten years writing it, and about
as long hesitating whether he would write it or not." The "Caractères"
was finished in 1687; Brillon's estimate takes us back to 1667 or
earlier, and the brilliant success of the "Maximes" dates from 1665.
Every author imagines that he loses some dignity by being supposed to
follow the lead of another author, although the entire history of
literature is before him to show that the lamp of genius has always
been handed on from hand to hand. La Bruyère, in particular, was not
exempt from this amiable weakness, but his ghost needs feel no
displeasure if we insist on connecting him with the effort of La
Rochefoucauld.
It is very amusing to see how anxious La Bruyère is not to seem to owe
anything to La Rochefoucauld. He speaks of his own writings as "less
delicate" than those of the Duke, and in his own opening words he
declares that he has had no wish to write maxims, "which are laws in
morals," as he has no legislative authority. I suppose that in
describing the tone of La Rochefoucauld as "delicate" La Bruyère
really meant supercilious, and deprecated any idea that he, the
typical bourgeois, should seem to lay down the law like the architype
of intellectual aristocracy. He scoffs at the Duke for making his
reflections "like oracles," so short are they and so concise; and he
is quite correct when he boasts of the extreme variety and versatility
of his own manner. He accuses La Rochefoucauld of browbeating his
readers into subjection to his thought; while, La Bruyère says, "for
my part I am quite willing that my reader should say sometimes that I
have not observed correctly, provided that he himself will observe
better." The reader, on the other hand, must not be taken in by all
this, which is very characteristic of La Bruyère's timid
self-confidence. His reputation loses nothing by our discovering that
he owes much to Montaigne and still more to La Rochefoucauld.
The link is clear, in spite of the foliage with which La Bruyère seeks
to conceal it. It could only be from La Rochefoucauld that the author
of "Les Caractères" derived that sad disillusionment, lighted up by
flashes of savage wit, with which he expresses his sense of the
defects of human character. It may often be noted that when La Bruyère
speaks of egotism, of the prevalence of _amour-propre_, his pungent
phrases have the very sound of those of his precursor. The truth is
that a strong new book is not read by a young man whose genius is
prepared for its teaching, without its image being stamped upon his
mind. La Bruyère's own experience had already offered to him a banquet
of the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil when he
met with the "Maximes" of 1665. His conscience and his memory were
prepared, and the truth is that a great deal of La Rochefoucauld's
teaching passed into his veins without his knowing it. This does not
in the least undermine the reputation which justly belongs to La
Bruyère as one of the most original writers of France, or even of
Europe, but it links him for our intelligence with the other great
moralist of his century.
The author of the "Maximes" was the head of one of the great princely
houses of France. The author of the "Caractères" was the type of the
plebeian citizen of Paris. If La Rochefoucauld offers us the
quintessence of aristocracy, La Bruyère is not less a specimen of the
middle class. His reputation as an honest man long suffered from his
own joke about his ancestry. He wrote, "I warn everybody whom it may
concern, in order that the world may be prepared and nobody be
surprised, that if ever it should happen that one of the mighty of the
earth should deem me worthy of his care, in other words if I should
ever come into an immense fortune, there is a Godefroi de La Bruyère
whom all the chroniclers place in the list of the greatest nobles of
France who followed Godefroi de Bouillon to the conquest of the Holy
Land. When that happens, I shall descend from him in the direct line."
One would think that a child could perceive this to be a satire at the
profiteers of the age, who invented ancestors, and so a child would
to-day, but in the seventeenth and even the eighteenth century it was
not safe to be funny. In particular, nonsense--the divine charm of
which we now admit--had not been acclimatized, and was looked upon
with grave displeasure. It wrings the heart that when Goldsmith, in a
purple coat, pretended to think himself more attractive than the
Jessamy Bride, his contemporaries severely censured this as an
instance of his "vanity."
So the fools and fops of La Bruyère's time thought or pretended to
think that he was seriously claiming to be of noble birth. Nothing was
further from his intention; no La Bruyère had taken part in the
Crusades, any more than any member of Charles Lamb's family had been
Pope of Rome. The moralist's father, Louis de La Bruyère, was
Comptroller-General of Rents of the Hôtel de Ville of Paris; his
mother was an attorney's daughter. The eldest of five, he was born on
August 17, 1645, in the centre of old Paris, close to the church of St.
Christopher. It is only of late years that this fact has been
discovered, and there are still immense blanks in the life of La
Bruyère during which he disappears from us altogether, engulfed in the
lanes of the Cité, not because of any adventurous mystery, but simply
because of his total lack of adventure. There has scarcely lived a
great man of letters in comparatively recent times about whose life
there is so little to relate as about that of La Bruyère. He is
believed to have gone to school to the Fathers of the Oratory, but
even that is not certain. His knowledge of Greek is thought to prove
it, but, though the Oratorians were admirable Hellenists, surely Greek
could be learned elsewhere.