CHAPTER II

I. Anne of Austria and Richelieu--Birth of Louis XIV.--II.

_L'Astrée_ and its Influence--III. Transformation of the Public

Manners--The Creation of the Salon--The Hôtel de Rambouillet and

Men of Letters.

I

But little information concerning the affairs of the day previous

to the last months of the reign of Louis XIII. can be gleaned from

the _Mémoires_ of La Grande Mademoiselle. It is hardly credible that

a young girl raised at the Court of France, not at all stupid, and

because of her birth so situated as to see and to hear everything,

could have gone through some of the most thrilling catastrophes of

that tragic time without seeing or hearing anything. At a later day

Mademoiselle was the first to wonder at it; she furnishes an example

surpassing imagination.

In 1637, before starting on her journey into the province, she went to

bid adieu to "their Majesties," who were at Chantilly. Mademoiselle

fell upon a drama. Richelieu had just disgraced the Queen of France,

who had been declared guilty of abusing her religious retreat at the

Convent of Val-de-Grâce by holding secret correspondence with Spain.

Val-de-Grâce had been ransacked, and one of Anne of Austria's servants

had been arrested. Anne herself had been questioned like a criminal,

and she had had a very bitter _tête-à-tête_ in her chamber with such a

Richelieu as she had never met before.

It was then ten years since Louis XIII., abruptly entering his wife's

private apartments, had interrupted a declaration of love made by his

Minister. After Marie de Médicis, Anne of Austria! Evidently it was

a system of policy in which pride of personal power played its part.

Possibly the heart also played some small rôle when Anne of Austria

was young and beautiful; but it was the heart of a Richelieu, and

unless we know what such a thing is like it is difficult to explain the

Minister's attitude at Chantilly. Historians have not taken the trouble

to tell us, because there were things more important to them and to

the history of Europe than the exploits of so high-flying a Cardinal.

Nevertheless, even an historian could have made an interesting chapter

out of the sentimental life of Richelieu. It was a violent and cruel

life; as violent and as pitiless as the passions that haunted his

harrowed soul. Michelet compared the Duke's life to "a lodging that had

been ransacked." In him love was a cloak thickly lined with hatred.

Mme. de Motteville, who witnessed Richelieu's courtship of the Queen,

was astonished by his way of making love. "The first marks of his

affection," she writes, "were his persecutions of her. They burst out

before everybody, and we shall see that this new way of loving will

last as long as the Cardinal lives."

Anne of Austria felt only his persecutions. Richelieu was not pleasing

to women. He was the earthly All-powerful. He possessed riches and

genius, but they knew that he was cruel--even pitiless--in anger; and

he could not persuade them to pretend to love him; all, even Marion

de Lorme, mocked and laughed at him, and Retz gave a reason for their

conduct:

Not being a pedant in anything else, he was a thorough pedant in

gallantry, and this is the fault that women never pardon. The

Queen detested Richelieu, and she made him feel it; but he took

his revenge at Val-de-Grâce. After the outburst--after the word

_treason_ had been spoken--it rested with him to have mercy, or

to send into shameless banishment the barren Queen. It gave him

pleasure to see her cowering before him, frightened and deprived of

all her pride. He exulted in disdaining her with an exaggerated and

insulting affectation of respect, and fearing lest the scene should

not be known to posterity, he painted it with all the zest of the

reaction of his wounded dignity.[27] He listened complacently while

she drove the nails into her coffin, rendering more proofs of her

docility "than he should have dared to expect"; incriminating

herself, as she explained in her own way, by palpable untruths,

all her treasonable letters to her brothers and to her friends in

Spain. When she had told a great deal more than she knew, Richelieu

put a few sharp questions, and the Queen completely lost her head.

Then [wrote Richelieu, in his chronicle] she confessed to

the Cardinal everything which is in the paper signed by her

afterwards. She confessed with much displeasure and confusion,

because she had taken oaths contrary to what she was confessing.

While she made the said confession to the Cardinal her shame was

such that she cried out several times, "Oh, how kind you must be,

Monsieur the Cardinal!" protesting that all her life she should

be grateful and recognise the obligation she was under to those

who drew her out of the affair. She had the honour to say to the

Cardinal: "Give me your hand," presenting her own as a mark of

the fidelity with which she should keep all her promises. Through

respect the Cardinal refused to give her his hand. From the same

motive he retired instead of approaching her.

Officially Louis XIII. pardoned the intrigue of Val-de-Grâce, but the

courtiers were not deceived, and they immediately deserted the Queen's

apartment. When they passed her windows they modestly lowered their

eyes. It was just at that time that Mademoiselle arrived. It was at the

end of August. She read her welcome in every face. Now that she had

come gayety became a duty and amusements an obligation. The feeling of

relief was general. Mademoiselle wrote:

I put all the Court in good humour. The King was in great grief

because of the suspicions they had awakened against the Queen, and

not long before that they had found the strong box that had made

all the trouble at Val-de-Grâce, about which too much has been said

already. I found the Queen in bed, sick. Any one would be sick

after such an affront as she had received.

Of all at Court, Anne of Austria was not the least happy to see

Mademoiselle. Now she could pour out her sorrow. Mme. de Saint Georges,

Mademoiselle's governess, was one of her familiar friends. The Queen

told her everything. Mademoiselle was permitted to sit with the two

ladies to avert suspicion. So the child found herself in possession of

secrets whose importance and danger must have been known to her. It may

be that she would have liked nothing better than to recount them in her

memoirs, but she was "forced to admit with sheepish reticence that to

her grief she had never remembered anything of it."

[Illustration: CARDINAL RICHELIEU]

Some months later she was entangled in the King's romance with Mlle. de

Hautefort, and "did not notice anything"--and this is to her credit--of

all the struggles made by the Cabals to turn the adventure to their

profit. In spite of her lack of memory she had opened wide both eyes

and ears. The schemes of lovers always interested her, as they interest

all little girls. To this instinct of her sex we owe a very pretty

picture of the transformation of man by love. And the man was no other

than the annoying and annoyed Louis XIII. Mademoiselle gives us the

picture in default of more serious proof of her observation. Hunting

was the King's chief pleasure.

In 1638, during the luminous springtime, he was seen in the forests

gay, at times actually happy--thanks to two great blue eyes. When he

followed his dogs he took his niece and other young people with him

that he might have an excuse for taking Mlle. de Hautefort.

We were all dressed in colours [recounts Mademoiselle]. We were

on fine, ambling horses, richly caparisoned, and to guarantee us

against the sun each of us had a hat trimmed with a quantity of

plumes. They always turned the hunt so that it should pass fine

and handsome houses where grand collations could be found, and,

coming home, the King placed himself in my coach, between Mme. de

Hautefort and me. When he was in good humour he conversed very

agreeably to us of everything. At that time he suffered us to speak

freely enough of the Cardinal de Richelieu, and the proof that it

did not displease him was that he spoke thus himself.

Immediately after the hunting party returned they went to the

Queen. I took pleasure in serving at her supper, and her maids

carried the dishes (viands). There was a regular programme. Three

times a week we had music, they of the King's chamber sang, and the

most of the airs sung by them were composed by the King. He wrote

the words, even; and the subject was never anything but Mme. de

Hautefort. The King was in humour so gallant that at the collations

that he gave us in the country he did not sit at table at all; and

he served us nearly everything himself, though his civility had

only one object. He ate after us, and did not seem to feel more

complaisance for Mme. de Hautefort than for the others, so afraid

was he that some one should perceive his gallantry.

Despite these precautions, the Court and the city, Paris, and the

province were informed of the least incidents of an affair of such

importance. The only person whom the King's passion left indifferent

was the Queen. Anne of Austria had never been jealous. She did not

consider Louis XIII. worth the pains of jealousy,--and now jealousy

would have been out of place. Anne, after twenty-three years of

marriage, was _enceinte_. The people who had loaded her with outrages

while she was bowed by shame now knelt at her feet, sincere in their

respectful demonstrations of devotion for the wife of the King who

might one day become Queen-mother, or even Regent of France. It was

like one of the fairy plays in a theatre. Nature had waved her wand,

and the disgraced victim of enchantment had arisen "clothed on with

majesty." It was an edifying and delightful transformation. After

all her shame, the novelty of being cared for and treated gently was

so great and so agreeable that when she saw her royal spouse sighing

before the virtuous and malignant de Hautefort--"whose chains" were

said to be heavy and hard to bear--she looked upon it very lightly.

Anne of Austria smiled at the benumbed attitudes of the King, at his

awkward ardour, and equally awkward prudery. The Queen learned with

amusement that when among her companions, the young girls of the Court,

Mlle. de Hautefort mocked the King, and boasted that he "dared not

approach her, though he maintained her," and that she was "bored to

death by his talk of dogs, and birds, and the hunt." Friends repeated

these criticisms. Louis XIII. heard of them and took offence "at the

ingrate," and the Court went into mourning. "If there should be some

serious quarrel between them," wrote Mademoiselle, "all the comedies

and the entertainments will be over. At that time, when the King came

to the Queen's apartments, he did not speak to anybody, and nobody

dared to speak to him. He sat in a corner, and very often he yawned and

went to sleep. It was a species of melancholy which chilled the whole

world, and during this grief he passed the most of the time writing

what he had said to Mme. de Hautefort, and what she had answered.

It is so true that after he died they found great bundles of papers

recounting all his differences with his mistresses--to the praise of

whom it must be said, and to his praise also, that he had never loved

any women who were not very virtuous."

Mademoiselle never seemed to realise the political importance of the

King's favourites. That subject, like all else serious, escaped her.

She writes:

"I listened to all that they told me--all that I was old enough to

hear."

We need not hope to learn from her what Richelieu thought of the

King's chaste affection; why, though he had encouraged it, he was

angered by it; why he looked with disfavour upon Mlle. de Lafayette,

and manipulated her affairs so well that he introduced her into the

cell of a convent, and ordered the King to take medicine whenever he

suspected that Louis aspired to contemplate her through the grating

of her prison; if Mademoiselle had ever known such things "they had

never presented themselves to her memory." Nor will it do us any good

to search her memoirs for reasons making it clear why Louis XIII.,

who worked incessantly against Richelieu, and "did not love him,"

sacrificed, for the Cardinal's pleasure, all his friends and near

relations. Throughout all the reverses of 1635 and 1636, when France

was trembling under the trampling feet of the invader, when the enemy's

skirmishers lay at the gates of Pontoise, the King was faithful to the

dictator, whose policy had drawn ruin on the nation. Mademoiselle had

never known these things. They had been far below her horizons. The

ungrateful years had buffeted her as they passed. She had been pretty

and sprightly in early childhood. At the age of eleven she was a buxom

girl, with swollen cheeks, thick lips, and a stupid mien,--in a word:

a frankly ill-favoured creature, too absorbed in the preoccupations

of animal life (the need to skip and jump, to be seen and heard) to

listen, to observe, or to reflect. The Queen's condition gave her one

more occasion to manifest the lengths to which she had carried her

innocence, though she had lived in a world where innocence was not

regarded as the most important item in an outfit. She rejoiced that

there was to be a Dauphin. Evidently she did not know that his advent

would strip her father of his rights as heir-presumptive to the throne.

In her own words, she "rejoiced without the least reflection." Anne of

Austria was touched by a simpleness of heart to which her life had not

accustomed her. "You shall be my daughter-in-law!" she cried repeatedly

to her young niece. For she could not bear the thought that the child's

later reflections might awake regret.

Mademoiselle embraced the idea only too ardently, and to it she owed

one of the bitterest hours of her existence.

The child who was to be Louis XIV. was born at the Château of Saint

Germain, 5th September, 1638. Mademoiselle made him her toy. She

writes: "The birth of Monsieur the Dauphin gave me a new occupation.

I went to see him every day and I called him _my little husband_.

The King was diverted by this and he thought that I did well." She

had counted without her godfather the Cardinal, who was more of a

Croquemitaine, and more of a spoil-sport than he had ever been. He

considered her childish talk very indecorous. Mademoiselle pursues:

Cardinal de Richelieu, who does not like me to accustom myself to

being there, nor to have them accustomed to seeing me there, had me

given orders to return to Paris. The Queen and Mme. de Hautefort

did all that was possible to keep me. They could not obtain their

wish,--which I regretted. It was all tears and cries when I left

there. Their Majesties gave many proofs of friendship, especially

the Queen, who made me aware of a particular tenderness on that

occasion. After this displeasure I had still another to endure.

They made me pass through Rueil to see the Cardinal, who usually

lived there when the King was at Saint Germain. He took it so to

heart that I had called the little Dauphin _my little husband_

that he gave me a great reprimand: he said that I was too large

to use such terms; that I had been ill-behaved to do so. He spoke

so seriously--just as if I had been a person of judgment--that,

without answering him, I began to weep. To pacify me he gave me

collation, but I did not pass it over. I came away from there very

angry at all he had said to me.

Richelieu meant that his orders should be obeyed. Mademoiselle adds:

"When I was in Paris I only went to Court once in two months; and

when I did go there I only dined with the Queen and then returned to

Paris to sleep." It must be said that if the Cardinal had submitted to

it for a night or two, she might have found it difficult to sleep at

the château. At that time our kings had strange and very inconvenient

arrangements for receiving guests; their household appointments

had brought them to such a pass that they had suppressed their

guest-chamber. When the royal family went to Saint Germain there was a

regular house-moving; they carried all their furniture with them, and

nothing was left in the Louvre,--not even enough for the King to sleep

on when business called him to the capital. Henry IV., a monarch who

did not stand on ceremony, invited himself to the house of some lord or

of some rich bourgeois, where he put himself at his ease, receiving the

Parliament, and also his fair friends, and bidding adieu to his hosts

only when he was ready to go home. He took leave of them in his own

time and at his own hour.

The timid Louis XIII. had never dared to do such things; he had never

thought of having two beds: one in the city, the other in the country.

When the Court came back to Paris they brought all their furniture;

not a mattress was left in the palace at Saint Germain. This singular

custom had evolved another, which appears to us to have lacked

hospitality. When the King of France invited distinguished guests, he

never furnished their rooms. He offered them the four walls, and let

them arrange themselves as best they could. From as far back as people

could remember, they had seen the great arrive at the château closely

followed by their beds, their curtains, and even their cooks and their

stew-pans. This was the case with Monsieur and his daughter; and so it

was with Mazarin, in the following reign. Mademoiselle was not ignorant

of the peculiar methods of the royal housekeeping. She knew that the

King's friends could not be made comfortable for the night, on the spur

of the moment, and she rested very well in Versailles, and thought of

nothing but her amusements.

The people saw a gratuitous malevolence in her exile from Court; but

the Fronde proved the justice of the Cardinal's action. La Grande

Mademoiselle made civil war to constrain Mazarin to marry her to Louis

XIV., who was eleven years her junior. Her godfather had guessed well:

the idea of being Queen had germinated rapidly in the little head in

which the influence of _Astrée_--still active despite its age--was

busily forming romantic visions far in advance of its generation.

D'Urfé died in 1620; to his glory be it said that we are obliged to go

back to him and to his work when we would explain the moral state of

the later days.

II

Few books in any country or in any time have equalled the fortune

of _Astrée_,[28] a pastoral romance in ten volumes, in which the

different effects of honest friendship are deduced from the lives

of shepherds and others, under a long title in the style of the

century. Honoré d'Urfé's work immediately became the "code of polite

society" and of all who aspired to appear polite. Everything was _à

l'Astrée_--fashions, sentiments, language, the games of society,

and the conversation of love. The infatuation extended to classes

of society who read but little. In a comedy familiar to the lesser

bourgeoisie,[29] some one reproached marriageable girls for permitting

themselves to be captured by the insipid flattery of the first coxcomb

who addresses them thus:

----Bien poli, bien frisé

Pourvu qu' il sache un mot des livres d'_Astrée_.

Success had crossed the frontiers of France. People in foreign lands

found material for their instruction in _Astrée_. The work was a novel

with a key; a story with a meaning. "Celadon" was the author; "Astrée"

was his wife (the beautiful Diane de Chateaumorand, with whom he had

not been happy). The Court of _le grand Enric_ was the Court of Henry

IV. "Galatée" was the Queen (Marguerite) and so on. "All the stories

in _Astrée_ were founded on truth," wrote Patru, who had gathered his

information from the lips of d'Urfé. But "the author has romanced

everything--if I dare use the word." The charm found in the scandalous

reality of the scenes and in the truth of the characters crowned

the work's success; the book was translated in most languages, and

devoured with the same avidity by all countries. In Germany there was

an _Académie des Vrais Amants_ copied from the "Academy" of Lignon. In

Poland, in the last half of the century, John Sobieski, who was not by

any means one of the be-musked knights of the carpet, played at Astrée

and Celadon, with Marie d'Arquien. "To grass with the matrimonial love

which turns to friendship at the end of three months! ... Celadon am I,

now as in the past; the ardent lover of those first glad days!"[30] he

wrote after marriage.

When the people's infatuation had passed, the book still remained the

standard of all delicate minds, and it continued to wield its literary

influence.

Through two centuries [said Montégut] _Astrée_ lost nothing of

its renown. The most diverse and the most opposite minds alike

loved the book; Pellisson and Huet the Bishop of Avranches were

enthusiastic admirers of its qualities. La Fontaine and Mme. de

Sévigné delighted in it. Racine, in his own silent and discreet

way, read it with fond pleasure and profit, but did not say so.

Marivaux had read it and drawn even more benefit from it than

Racine.... Last of all, Jean Jacques Rousseau admired it so much

that he avowed that he had re-read it once a year the greater part

of his life. Now as Jean Jacques exerted a dominant influence upon

the destinies of our modern imaginative literature, it follows

that the success of _Astrée_ has been indirectly prolonged even to

our own day. Madame George Sand, for example, derived some little

benefit from d'Urfé, though she was not too well aware of it.

Montégut had forgotten the Abbé Prévost; but M. Brunetière repairs the

omission, and adds: "One may say that _Astrée's_ success shaped the

channel for the chief current of our modern literature."

Its social influence was equal to its influence upon literature. And

yet, to-day, not one of all the books that had their time of glory and

of popularity is more neglected. No one reads _Astrée_ now, and no one

can read it; with the best will in the world, the most indulgent must

throw the book down, bored by its dulness. It has become impossible

to endure the five thousand pages of the amorous dissertations of the

shepherds of Lignon. At the best such a debauch of subtlety would be

only tolerable, even had it emanated from a writer of genius. And

d'Urfé had no genius; he had nothing but talent.

D'Urfé was a little gentleman of Forez, whom his epoch (he was born

in 1568) had permitted to examine the society of the Valois. We know

that no social body was ever more corrupt; nevertheless those who saw

it were dazzled by it; and because they had looked upon it they were

considered--in the time of Louis XIII.--exquisitely elegant and polite;

they were regarded as the survivors of a superior civilisation.

The ladies of the Court of Anne of Austria were proud of their power

to attract the notice of the elderly noblemen "thanks to whom," in the

words of a contemporary writer, "remnants of the polite manners brought

by Catherine de Médicis from Italy were still seen in France." The

homage of the antique gentlemen was insistent, of a kind which refuses

to be repelled. Even the Queen accepted it. Anne of Austria, whose

habitually correct attitude was notable, felt that she was constrained

to receive the attentions of the old Duc de Bellegarde, though the

Duke's character and customs were notorious. Duc de Bellegarde had been

one of the deplorable favourites of Henri III.

Anne of Austria was hypercritical in regard to forms of conversation;

her own language was fastidiously delicate; she exacted minute

attention to the superficial details of civility; yet the notorious de

Bellegarde sat at ease before the Court, displaying all the peculiar

gallantry of his epoch, "and," said the Queen's friend, Mme. de

Motteville, "it was the more noticeable and the fame of it was the

more scandalous because the Queen did not hesitate to accept from

him incense whose smoke might well blacken her reputation. The Queen

permitted the Duke to treat her as he had treated the women of his own

day, a day when gallantry and women reigned."

The civil wars swept away the splendid but rotten world, but the

prestige of the Valois still asserted its power.

In 1646, a posthumous romantic tale appeared in Paris, entitled

_Orasie_. It was generally attributed to the pen of Mlle. de Senterre,

a maid-of-honour of the Court of Catherine de Médicis. "This book,"

said the editorial preface, "is a true history, full of very choice

events; there is nothing fictitious in it but the names given to its

heroes and its heroines. _Orasie_ is a mirror reflecting the most

magnificent and the most pompous of kingly Courts, the Court where

reigned the truest civility and the purest politeness, where false

gallantry, like base action, was unknown."

The Court thus eulogised had been the centre of delicate mannerism

and the incubating cell of the refinement of vice. Though the civil

wars had annihilated the splendid rottenness of the Court, the memory

of the delicacy of the Valois survived. When peace was declared, when

men had leisure to look about them, they were confronted by the rude

Court of Henry IV. They felt the need of a re-establishment of polite

society, but where could they find the elements of such society?

Foreign influences had enervated the national imagination, Spanish

literature with its romances of cruel chivalry, its pastorals, and its

theatrical dramas had imbued the Romanticism of France with its poison,

and symptoms of moral debility were generally evident. A period of

fermentation and expectancy follows war. When the civil wars were over,

the men of France sat waiting; their need was pressing, but they could

form no idea of its nature. At such a time the eager watchmen on the

towers acclaim the bearer of tidings, be they tidings of good or of

evil.

Honoré d'Urfé's chief merit lay in the fact that he was the man of the

hour, he came when he was most needed, holding the mirror up to nature,

and clearly reflecting the common feeling. If I may use the term, he

presented his countrymen with an intelligent mirror reflecting their

confused and agitated aspirations. Nature and occasion had fitted him

for his work: he had all the accessories and all the requirements of

his art; best of all, he had the imperious vocation which is the first

and the essential qualification of authorship, without which no man

should have the hardihood to lay hold upon an inkstand. D'Urfé knew

that war demoralises a people; he comprehended the situation of his

country; he had been a member of the League, and one of the last to

surrender. He knew that the spirit of love was hovering over France,

waiting to find a resting-place. François de Sales and d'Urfé were

friends, and in such close communion of thought that, to quote the

words of Montégut, "there was not a simple analogy, there was almost

an identity of inspiration and of talent between _Astrée_ and the

_Introduction à la vie dévote_."

D'Urfé had only to remember the æstheticism which surrounded his

expanding youth to comprehend the general weariness caused by the lack

of intellectual symmetry and by the rusticity of the manners of the new

reign. He was a serious and thoughtful man; he had devoted long months,

even years, to meditation and to study before he had touched his pen,

and by repeated revisions he had ranged in his book the greater part of

the thoughts and the aspirations of his epoch. In a word, the obscure

provincial writer who had never entered the Louvre had composed a

quasi-universal work resuming all the intellectual and sentimental

life of an epoch. _Astrée_ was a powerful achievement; but one, or at

most but two, such books can be produced in a century.[31] D'Urfé's

laborious efforts attained a double result. While he extricated and

brought into the light the ideal for which he had searched years

together, he excited his contemporaries to strive to be natural and

real, and the first French novel, _Astrée_, was our first romance with

a thesis. The subject is commonplace: lovers whose theme is love, and

a lovers' quarrel; in the last volume of the book, love triumphs, the

quarrel is forgotten, and the lovers marry.

In the beginning of the work, the shepherdess _Astrée_, beside

herself with causeless jealousy, overwhelms the shepherd Celadon with

reproaches and Celadon, tired of life, throws himself into the Lignon.

Standing upon the bank of the river, he apostrophises a ring and the

riband left in his hand when his shepherdess escaped his grasp:

"Bear witness, O dear cord! that rather than break one knot of my

affections I will renounce my life, and then, when I am dead, and

my cruel love beholds thee in my hand, thou shalt speak for me,

thou shalt say that no one could be loved as I loved her.... Nor

lover wronged like me!" Then he appeals to the ring. "And thou,

emblem of eternal, faithful love, be glad to be with me in death,

the only token left me of her love!"

Hardly has he spoken when, turning his face toward _Astrée_, he springs

with folded arms into the water. The nymphs save him, and his romantic

adventures serve as the wire carrying the action of the romance.

But the system is inadequate to its strain. Dead cars bring about a

constantly recurring block, and more than an hundred personages of more

or less importance stop the way by their gallant intrigues. The romance

mirrors the passing loves and the fevered and passionate life of the

be-ribanded people who hung up their small arms in their panoplies,

twisted their lances into pruning-hooks, and replaced the pitiless

art of war by the political arts of peace. Honoré d'Urfé's heroes

appear to be more jealously careful of their fine sentiments than of

the sword-thrusts lavishly distributed by the lords and gentlemen of

their days. They are much more zealous in their search for elegant

expressions than in bestirring themselves to serious action. The

perfumed students of phraseology have changed since the night of Saint

Bartholomew, when more than one of them fought side by side with Henry

de Guise; but it is not difficult to recognise the precursors of the

Fronde in the druids, shepherds, and chevaliers of _Astrée_, and so

thought d'Urfé's first readers.

With extreme pleasure they contemplated themselves in the noble puppets

seen in the romance, basking in the sun of peace. Away with care! They

had nothing worse to fight than lovers' casuistries, and they lay in

the shadows of the trees, enjoying the riches of a country redeemed

by their own blood. With them were their ladies; lover and lass were

disguised as shepherd and shepherdess, or as mythological god and

goddess. Idle and elegant as they were, the happy lovers had been

tortured by wounds, racked by pride, stung by the fire of battle; to

sleep for ever had been the vision of many a bivouac, and now war was

over, and to lie in a day-dream fanned by the summer winds and watched

by the eye of woman,--this was the evolution of the hope of death! This

was the restorative desired by the provincial nobles when they stood

firm as rocks in ranks thinned and broken by thirty years of civil and

religious war. Such a rest the jaded knights had hoped for when they

accepted their one alternative, and, by their recognition of Henry IV.,

acknowledged submission to a principal superior to private interest and

personal ambition.

The high nobility had soon tired of order and obedience. Never was it

more turbulent or more undisciplined than under Louis XIII. and in the

minority of Louis XIV., but it must be noted as one of the signs of

the times that it no longer carried its jaunty ease of conscience into

its plots and its mutinies. Curious proofs of this fact are still in

existence; the revolting princes and lords stoutly denied that they

had taken arms against the King. If they had openly made war, and so

palpably that they could not deny it, they invariably asserted with

affirmations that they had done it "to render themselves useful to the

King's service." Gaston d'Orléans gave the same reason for his conduct

when he deserted France for a foreign country. All averred that they

had been impelled to act by a determination to force the King to accept

deliverance from humiliating tyranny, or from pernicious influences.

During the Fronde, when men changed parties as freely as they changed

their gloves, the rebels protested their fidelity to the King, and they

did it because the idea of infidelity was abhorrent to them.

No one in France would have admitted that it could be possible to hold

personal interests or personal caprice above the interests of the

State, and in the opinion of the French cavalier this would have been

reason enough for any action; but there was a more practical reason;

the descendants of the great barons were beginning to doubt their power

to maintain the assertion of their so-called rights. By suggesting

subjects for the meditations of all the people of France who could read

or write _Astrée_ had contributed a novelty in scruples. In our day

such a book as _Astrée_ would excite no interest; the reiteration of

the "torrents of tenderness" to which it owed its sentimental influence

would make it a doubtful investment for any publisher, and even the

thoughtful reader would find its best pages difficult reading; but when

all is said and done, it remains, and it shall remain, the book which

best divines our perpetually recurring and eternal necessities.

It treats of but one passion, love, and yet it gives the most subtle

study in existence. In it all the ways of loving are minutely analysed

in interminable conversations. All the reasons why man should love are

given, with all the reasons why he should not love. All the joys found

by the lover in his sufferings are set forth, with all the sufferings

that his joys reserve for him. All the reasons for fidelity and all the

reasons for inconstancy are openly dissected. A complete list is given

of all the intellectual sensations of love (and of some sensations

which are not intellectual). In short, _Astrée_ is a diagnosis of the

spiritual, mental, and moral condition of the love-sick. It contains

all the "cases of conscience" which may or might arise, under the same

or different circumstances, in the lives of people who live to love,

and who, thus loving, see but one reason for existence--people who

severally or individually, each in his own way and according to his

own light, exercise this faculty to love,--still loving and loving even

then, now, and always.

D'Urfé's conception was of the antique type. He regarded love as a

fatality against which it were vain to struggle. Toward the middle of

the book the sorrowful Celadon, crushed by the wrath of _Astrée_, is

hidden in a cavern where he "sustains life by eating grasses." The

druid Adamas knows that Celadon is perishing by inches, and he essays

to bring the lover to reason. Celadon answers him:

"If, as you say, God gave me full possession of power over myself,

why does He ask me to give an account of myself?--for just as He

gave me into my own hands and just as He gave me to myself, so have

I given myself to her to whom I am consigned for ever. First of

all! If He would have account of Celadon, let Him apply to her of

whom I am! Enough for me if I offend not her nor violate my sacred

gift to her. God willed my life, for by my destiny I love; and God

knows it, and has always known it, for since I first began to have

a will I gave myself to her, and still am hers. In brief, I should

not have been blest by love as I have been in all these years had

God not willed it.[32] If He has willed it would it be just to

punish me because I still remain as He ordained that I should be?

No! for I have not power to change my fate. So be it, if my parents

and my friends condemn me! They all should be content and glad,

when for my acts, I give my reason; _that I love her_."

"But," answered Adamas, "do you count on living long in such away?"

"Election," answered Celadon, "depends not on him who has neither

will nor understanding."

La Grande Mademoiselle and most of her contemporaries escaped

_Astrée's_ influence in this respect; they did not admit that man has

"neither will nor understanding" where his passions are concerned; or

that his feelings depend on "destiny." Corneille, who had confronted

the question, set forth the principle that the heart should defer to

the will. "The love of an honest man," he wrote in 1634,[33]--"The love

of an honest man should always be voluntary. One ought never to love to

the point where he cannot help loving, and if he carries love so far,

he is the slave of a tyranny whose yoke he should shake off."

In her youth Mademoiselle de Montpensier was one of the truest of

the Cornéliennes of her generation; she practised what others were

contented to restrict to preaching. Love's tyranny appeared to her

a shameful thing, and she was so convinced that it rested with the

lover whether he should be a slave or free himself "by shaking off

the yoke," that even the most honest attacks of moral faintness were,

in her eyes, occasions for judgment without mercy. One day--she

tells it herself--she turned a young _femme de chambre_ out of her

service simply "because the girl had married for love." The shame

then attendant upon love increased in proportion to the "condition"

of the slaves of the questionable passion. The lower orders were

insignificant, and their loves and their antipathies, like their

sufferings, were beneath the consideration of reason, but when men

were of a certain rank, sentiment was debarred from the conditions of

marriage. Mademoiselle followed all the precepts of high quality, and

throughout the first half of her life her line of action lay parallel

with the noble principles introduced by Corneille. Jansenism, which,

like Corneille, raised the veil of life for many of the humbler human

hearts, made no impression upon "tall Mademoiselle." Lauzun was needed

to break her pride.

Concerning moral questions, public sentiment was calm; the only

serious difference raised by d'Urfé's work during a period of half

a century was the conflict of opinions[34] on human liberty; on all

other subjects, notably the things of taste, d'Urfé was in harmony

with public feeling; at times _Astrée_ exceeded public feeling, but

it seldom conflicted with it. The sentiments of the book were far in

advance of the epoch.

But the nature with which d'Urfé communed and which he loved was the

nature viewed by Louis XIII., and fashioned according to the royal

taste, improved, repaired, decorated with artificial ornaments, and

confined within circumscribed landscapes composed of complicated

horticultural figures; a composite nature in which verdure was nothing

but a feature. The fashion of landscape-gardening--an invention of

the Renaissance--had arrived in France from Italy. In the land of its

birth very amusing specimens of the picturesque were maintained by

intelligent property-owners.

"There are fountains," [said M. Eugene Muntz,][35] "groves, verdant

bowers, trellises, vine-wreathed arbours, flowers cherished

for their beauty, and plants cultivated for their medicinal

properties; and under ground there are caves and grottoes. There

are bird-houses, hydraulic organs, single statues, groups of

statues, obelisks, vases, pavilions, covered walks, and bathhouses;

everything is brought together within a limited space to charm the

eye and to favour the imagination."

The landscape-gardening of France offered the same spectacle, and the

cultivated parks bore close resemblance to the shops of the venders

of _bric-à-brac_. "In those rare gardens," said an enthusiastic

historian, "he who promenades may pass from one surprise to another,

losing himself at every step in all sorts of labyrinths." ("Dedalus"

was the name in use, for in those days much was borrowed from mythology

and from other ancient sources.) The labyrinths were complicated by

ingenious devices intended to deceive the vision. Æstheticism of style

demanded such delusions. The most renowned landscape-gardens were

the royal parks, on which money had been freely lavished to perfect

and to elaborate nature. Among the "rarities" in the gardens of the

Gondis and at Saint Cloud, were fountains whose waters played invisible

instruments. At the Duke de Bellegarde's (rue de Grenelle Saint Honoré)

the most marvellous thing in the garden was an illuminated grotto of

arcades, ornamented with grotesques and with marine columns, and

covered with a vaulting encrusted with shells and with a quantity

of rock-work; and more than that, so full of water-spouts, canals,

water-jets, and invisible faucets[36] that even the King had no greater

number on his terraces at Saint Germain--nor had Cardinal de Richelieu

a greater number in his gardens at Rueil, though the first artificial

cascades ever seen in France[2] had been built in his garden.[37] At

the Château of Usson, the home of Queen Marguerite, who appears in

_Astrée_ under the name of _Galatée_, the garden was provided with

all the rarities the place would hold. Nothing that artifice could

add to it had been forgotten. The woods were embellished with divers

grottoes so well counterfeiting nature that the eye often deceived the

judgment.[38] The most remarkable grotto was

the cave of old Mandragora, a place so full of witcheries that

surprise followed surprise, and hour by hour, something continually

occurred to delight the vision. The vaulting of the entrance was

sustained by two sculptured figures very industriously arrayed

with minute stones of divers colours; the hair, the eyebrows, and

the beards of the statues, and the two sculptured horns of the

god Pan were composed of sea shells so neatly and so properly

set in that the cement could not be seen. The outer coping of

the door was formed like a rustic arch, and garlands of shells,

fastened at the four corners, ended close to the heads of the two

statues. The inside of the arch tapered to a rocky point, which,

in several places, seemed to drip saltpetre. The retaining walls

of the arch were set back in niches to form fountains, and all of

the fountains depicted some of the various effects of the power

of love. In the grotto arose a tomb-like monument ornamented with

images representing divers objects, all formed of coloured marble,

and trimmed with pictures; wherever such an effect was possible,

the trees were pruned to take the appearance of some other object

or objects.

Thus the laborious and unrestrained intervention of man evoked

a factitious type of nature as far from precious as the false

_Précieuses_. By the unreserved admiration of its florid descriptions

_Astrée_ had consecrated the artificial mode. Nature demanded

Lenôtre to strip her gardens of their ridiculous decorations, and

to redeem them by simplicity, but when Lenôtre accomplished the

work of regeneration the public taste was wounded; the people had

become accustomed to the sight of parks decorated like the stage of

the theatre, and the simplicity of nature shocked them. La Grande

Mademoiselle considered Chenonceaux incomplete; she complained that it

"looked unfinished"; her artificially nourished taste missed something,

because the owners of Chenonceaux had respected the work of God, and

left their park just as they had received it from the hand of its

Creator; she wondered why Provence was called beautiful--to her it

seemed "ugly enough." She lived at the gate of the Pyrenees thirty days

and never entered the country, yet she delighted in the pretentious

trinkets with which the landscape-gardeners of the Italian school

decorated French woods and gardens. Honoré d'Urfé was responsible for

her ignorance. Many of d'Urfé's tastes[39] were noble, and _Astrée_

was a work of excellent purpose--almost a great work; but it lacked the

one thing demanded by true art,--love of nature in its simplicity.

D'Urfé's artificial taste was more regrettable because his successors,

they who continued his work, accentuated his faults, as, generally

speaking, the disciples of all innovators accentuate the faults of

their masters. Few among the _Précieuses_ knew how to sift the chaff

from the wheat when the time came to take or to leave the varied gifts

of their inheritance. The true _Précieuses_ precipitated the revolution

of which d'Urfé had been the prophet; they alone consummated the moral

transformation which, according to his light, he had prepared.

During the changing years of half a century the _Précieuses_ "kept the

school" of manners and fine language, laying on the ferule whenever

they found pupils as recalcitrant as the damsel whose story I am

attempting to relate. They did not try--far from it!--to train the

public taste, to correct it, or to guide it aright; they urged France

into the tortuous by-paths of false ethics and superficial art; but,

taken all in all, their influence was good. La Grande Mademoiselle, the

abrupt cavalier-maiden, proved its virtue. To the Hôtel de Rambouillet

she owed it that she did not end as she began--a dragoon in petticoats,

and she recognised the fact, and was grateful for the benefits that she

had received.

[Illustration: THE ABBEY OF ST. GERMAIN DES-PRES IN THE 16TH CENTURY

FROM AN OLD PRINT]

It has been asked: Was the Society of the _Précieuses_ a result of

the influence of _Astrée_? With the exception noted, it is probable

that d'Urfé made no attempt to form new intellectual or sentimental

currents; he confined himself to the observation of the thoughts and

the feelings at work in the depths of human souls within his own view;

he was a close student of character, his book was a study, and his

influence reformed opinions and manners; but as the Society of the

_Précieuses_ was in process of incubation before _Astrée_ appeared,

it must have taken shape had d'Urfé never written his book. The world

of fashion had long deemed it witty to ridicule the _Précieuses_;

from too much handling, jests upon that subject had lost their

effervescence, and in time it was considered more original to find

virtue in the delicate mannerisms of the refined ladies than to adhere

to the old fashion of mocking them. Their exaggerations were numerous

and pronounced, but their civility was in pleasant contrast with the

abrupt indelicacies of the Béarnais; and even now, looking back to them

across the separating centuries, we can find few causes for reproach.

They subjected their literature to the yoke of the Spanish and Italian

schools, but they could hardly have done less at a time when the

Court was Italian, and when Spanish influences were entering by all

the frontiers. Aside from their submission to foreign influences, the

_Précieuses_ were sturdy champions of the right, and unless we are

prepared to falsify more than thirty years of our history of morals,

and of literature, we must admit that they rendered us services which

cannot be forgotten or misunderstood.

They were women of the world, important after the fashion of their day,

and by the power of their worldly influence they freed literature from

the pedantry with which Ronsard--and Montaigne, also, to a certain

extent--had entangled it. They forced the writers to brush the dust

from their bookshelves; they imposed upon them some of the exigencies

of their own sex, and by the bare fact of their influence literature

which had been almost wholly erudite acquired a quality assimilating it

to the usages of the world, and an air of decency and of civility which

it had always lacked. The _Précieuses_ compelled men to grant them

the respect due to all women under civilisation, and to count them as

members of the body politic; they exacted concessions to their modesty;

they purified language; they obliged "all honest men" to select their

topics of conversation; they habituated people to discern the delicate

shades of thought and to dissect ideas and find the hidden meanings of

words; they made demands for concessions to the rights of precocity,

and, as a result, propriety of verbal expression and closely attentive

analyses entered conversation hand in hand. Many and eminent were the

services rendered unto France by the amiable band of worldly reformers;

theirs was a mighty enterprise; we cannot measure the transformation

wrought by the influence of women in the indecent manners of that

day unless we make a minute examination of the subject. Before the

advent of the _Précieuses_, exterior elegance and a graceful bearing

had been a cloak covering the words and the conduct of barbarians.

Proofs of this fact abound in the records of that day. La Grande

Mademoiselle was of the second generation of the _Précieuses_; her

wit, her love of wit, and her intellect, gave her rank in the _Livré

d'Or_[40]; but the habits of youth are difficult to overcome, and when

she first visited the Hôtel de Rambouillet she used the words and the

gestures of a pandour, her squared shoulders and out-thrust chest bore

evidences of the natural investiture of the Cossack. Speaking of that

epoch, her most impartial critic tells us that she "voiced a thousand

imprecations."[41] In one of her attacks of indignation she threatened

the Maréchal de l'Hôpital: "I will tear your beard out with my own

hands!" she cried fiercely, and the marshal took fright and ran away.

Several ladies of Mademoiselle's society were known to possess brisk

and heavy hands, and feet of the same alert and virile character. Their

people and their lovers knew something of their "manuals and pedals,"

and bore visible tokens of the efficacy of those phenomenal members

on their own persons,--and in all the colours of the rainbow. Madame

de Vervins, who assisted with La Grande Mademoiselle at the fêtes

given in honour of Mademoiselle de Hautefort, "basted her lackeys and

other servants at will," and she did it with no slack hand. One of the

subjects on whom she plied her dexterity died under the operation,

and the people of Paris avenged his death by sacking her palace.[42]

Following is the record:

On brisa vitré, on rompit porte, ...

Bref: si fort s'accrut le tumulte

Que de peur de plus grande insulte,

Cette dame s'enfuit exprès,

Et se sauva par le marais.

But if the ladies were not lambs, the gentlemen were not sheep. They

were no laggards in war. When they turned the flank of the enemy they

did not mince matters, and upon occasion they drew the first blood.

Once upon a time, at a dance, Comte de Brégis, having received a

slap from his partner, turned upon her and pulled her hair down in

the midst of the banquet. At a supper, in the presence of a great

and joyous company, the Marquis de la Case snatched a leg of mutton

from a trencher and buffeted his neighbour in her face, smearing

her with gravy. As she was a lady of an even temper, she laughed

heartily,[43] and the incident was closed. Malherbe confessed to Madame

de Rambouillet that he had "cuffed the ears of the Viscountess d'Auchy

until she had cried for aid." As he was a jealous man, his action was

not without cause, and in that day to flog a woman was a thing that any

gentleman felt free to do.

The regenerating _Précieuses_ had not arrived too soon. Ignoble jests

and obscenities too foul to recount were accepted as conversation by

both sexes. The father of the great Condé, who was president of a

"social" club whose rules compelled members to imitate every movement

made by their leader, ate, and forced his fellow members (including the

ladies) to eat--I dare not say what; do not try to guess--you could

never do it!

The modest and timid Louis XIII. could--when he set about it--give his

Court very unappetising examples. In a book of _Edification_, bearing

date 1658, we read that "the late King, seeing a young woman among the

crowds admitted to his palace so that they might see the King eat, said

nothing, and gave no immediate evidence that he had seen her; but, as

he raised his glass for the last sup, before rising from the table, he

filled his mouth with wine, and having held it thus sanctuaried for an

instant, launched it forth into the uncovered chest of the watchful

lady," who had been too eager to witness the mastications of royalty.

Aristocratic traditions exacted that the nobles should flog their

inferiors, and the nobles conformed to the traditional exactions

freely. Men and women were flogged for "failures" of the least

importance, and knowing those antique customs as we do, we may be

permitted to wonder that we have so few records of the music of that

eventful day.

Richelieu "drubbed his people," he drubbed his officers, he drubbed

(so it was said) his ministers. The celebrated Duke d'Épernon, the

last of the great Seigniors after Saint Simon, was "as mild-mannered

a man as ever cut a throat or scuttled a ship"; one day when he was

discussing some official question with his Eminence, the Archbishop of

Bordeaux, he gave the exalted prelate "three clips of his fist full in

the archiepiscopal face and breast, supplementing them by several cuts

of the end of his cane in the pit of the stomach." We are not told how

the priest received his medicine, but history records that "this done,

Monsieur the Duke bore witness to his Lordship (the Archbishop) that

had it not been for the respect due to his character, he (the Duke)

should have tipped him over on the pavement." One day when the feelings

of the Maréchal de Mauny were outraged because a farmer had kept the de

Mauny servitors waiting for their butter and eggs, he (the Maréchal)

rushed from his palace like a madman, fell upon the first peasants

who crossed his path, and with sword-thrusts and with pistol-shots

wounded two of the "aggressors" mortally. This last event occurred in

Burgundy; it was merely an incident. In Anjou, Comte de Montsoreau

maintained a private money-coining establishment in the wood near, or

on, his property, halted the travellers on the highways, obliged them

to pay their ransom, and, at the head of a band of twenty men, all

being brigands of his own species, swept over the country, pillaging

in all directions. The daily occurring duels accustomed men to look

lightly upon death, and contempt for human life prevailed. When the

Chevalier d'Andrieux was thirty years old, he had killed seventy-two

men. In such cases edicts were worthless; the national need demanded a

radical change of morals. Nine years after the death of Louis XIII.,

Maréchal de Grammont said in one of his letters: "Since the beginning

of the Regency, according to the estimate made, nine hundred and forty

gentlemen have been killed in duels." That was an official estimate,

and it did not include the deaths which, though they were attributed

to other causes, were the direct and immediate results of honourable

encounters; the dead thus enumerated having been killed on the spot.[44]

At that time the duel was not attended by ceremonies; it was a

hand-to-hand encounter between barbarians. The contestants fought with

any weapons that came to hand, and in the way most convenient to their

needs. All means were considered proper for the killing of men, though

it was generally conceded that for killing well the different means

were, or might be made, more or less courteous. This being the case,

the duel was in more or less good or bad taste, according to the means

used in its execution, and according to the regularity, or the lack of

regularity, employed in their use.

In 1612, Balagny and Puymorin alighted from their horses and drew

swords in the rue des Petits Champs. While they were fighting, a valet

took a pitchfork and planted it in Balagny from the back. Balagny died

of the wound inflicted by the valet, and Puymorin also died; he had

been wounded when the valet interfered. Still another lackey killed

Villepreau in the duel between Beaupré and Villepreau. That duel also

was fought in the street (rue Saint Honoré.) When young Louvigny[45]

fought with d'Hocquincourt, he said: "Let us take our swords!" As

the other bent to comply with the suggestion, Louvigny gave a great

sword-thrust, which, running his adversary through and through, put him

to death. Tallemant des Reaux qualified the act as "appalling," but it

bore no consequences for Louvigny.

Maréchal de Marillac (who was beheaded in 1632) killed his adversary

before the latter had time to draw his sword. We should have called it

an assassination, but our forefathers saw no harm in such duelling.

They reserved their criticisms for the timidly peaceable who objected

to a fight.

The salon, with its ultra-refinement and its delicacy, followed

close upon the heels of these remnants of barbarity. The salon gave

form to the civility which forbade a man to pierce the fleshy part

of the back of an adversary with a pitchfork. Polite courtesy also

restrained gentlemen from forcing ladies to swallow all uncleanness

under the pretence of indulging in a merry jest. As good manners

make for morality, let us thank the _Précieuses_ for the reform they

accomplished when they moulded men for courteous intercourse with their

fellow-men; and to Madame de Rambouillet, among others, let thanks

be given, for she made the achievement possible by opening the way

and beginning at the beginning. Womanly tact, a decorous keeping of

her house, love of order and of beauty inspired her with the thought

that the arrangements made in the old hotels of Paris for the people

of ancient days were not fitted for the use of the enlightened age of

the _Précieuses_. There were no salons in the old hotels; the salon

was unknown; therefore there was no room in which to frame the society

then in formation. Tallemant tells us that the only houses known at

that time were built with a hall upon one side, a room upon the other

side, and a staircase in the middle. The _salle_ was a parade-room,

a place to pass through, a corridor where no one lingered. People

received visitors in the room in which they happened to be when the

visitors arrived; at different times they happened to be in different

rooms. Very naturally at eating-time they were in rooms where they

could sit at meat. There were no rooms devoted to the daily meals. The

table on which viands were served was placed in any room large enough

to contain the number of persons who were to be entertained. If there

were few guests, the table was placed in a small room; when the guests

were numerous, they were seated in a large room, or the table, ready

served, was carried into any room large enough to hold the company. It

was all a matter of chance. Banquets were given in the corridor, in

the _salle_, in the ante-room, or in the sleeping-room,[46] because

literary intuition was undeveloped. Madame de Rambouillet was the first

to realise that the spirit of conversation is too rare and too delicate

a plant to thrive under unfavourable conditions, and that in order to

establish conversational groups, a place must be provided in which they

who favour conversation may talk at ease. Every one recognises that

fact now, and every one ought to recognise it. No one--man or woman--is

justified in ignoring the influences of the localities that he or

she frequents. It should be generally known that sympathies will not

group, that the current of thought will not flow freely when a table is

unfavourably placed for the seating of society expected to converse.

Three hundred years ago the creator of the first French salon

discovered this fact, and her discovery marked a date in the history of

our social life.

Mme. de Rambouillet owned a dilapidated mansion standing between the

Tuileries and the courtyard of the Louvre, near the site of the now

existing Pavillon de Rohan.[47] She had determined to rebuild the

house, and no one could draw a plan suited to her ideas. Her mind was

incessantly busy with her architectural scheme, and one evening when

she had been sitting alone deep in meditation she cried out! "Quick!

A pencil! paper! I have found a way to build my house."[48] She drew

her plan at once, and the arrangement was so superior to all known

architectural designs that houses were built according to "the plans of

Mme. de Rambouillet all over France." Tallemant says:

They learned from Mme. de Rambouillet how to place stairways at the

sides of houses so that they might form great suites of rooms[49]

and they also learned from her how to raise floors and to make high

and broad windows, placed one opposite another so that the air

might circulate with freedom; this is all so true that when the

Queen-mother ordered the rebuilding of the Luxembourg she sent the

architects to glean ideas from the Hôtel de Rambouillet.

Until that time the interiors of houses had been painted red or tan

colour. Mme. de Rambouillet was the first to adopt another colour and

her innovation gave the "Blue Room" its name. The famous Blue Room in

which the seventeenth century acquired the even and correct tone of

conversation was disposed with a skilful and scientific tact which has

survived the rack of three hundred years of changes, and to-day it

stands as the perfect type of a temple fully adequate to the exigencies

of intellectual intercourse.

In it all spaces were measured and the seats were systematically

counted and distributed to the best advantage; there were eighteen

seats; neither more nor less. Screens shut off certain portions of the

room and facilitated the formation of intimately confidential groups;

flowers perfumed the air; objects of art caressed the vision, and,

taken all together, so perceptible a spirit of the sanctuary enshrining

thought was present that the habitués of the Salon de Rambouillet

always spoke of it as "the Temple." Even La Grande Mademoiselle, the

irrepressible, felt the subtle influences of that calm retreat of the

mind, and when she entered the Blue Room she repressed her Cossack

gestures and choked back her imprecations. She knew that she could

not evade the restraining influence of the hushed tranquillity which

pervaded "the Temple," and she drooped her sparkling eyes, and accepted

her discipline with the universally prevalent docility. In her own

words, Mme. de Rambouillet was "adorable."

I think [wrote Mademoiselle in 1659], that I can see her now in

that shadowy recess,--which the sun never entered, though the place

was never left in darkness,--surrounded by great crystal vases

full of beautiful spring flowers which were made to bloom at all

seasons in the gardens near her temple, so that she might look upon

the things that she loved. Around her were the pictures of her

friends, and the looks that she gave them called down blessings on

the absent. There were many books on the tables in her grotto and,

as one may imagine, they treated of nothing common. Only two, or at

most three persons were permitted to enter that place at the same

time, because confusion displeased her and noise was adverse to the

goddess whose voice was loud only in wrath. Our goddess was never

angry. She was gentleness itself.

According to the inscription on a stone preserved in the Musée Cluny

the Hôtel de Rambouillet was rebuilt in 1618. The mistress of the house

consumed ten industriously filled years constituting, installing, and

habituating the intellectual groups of her salon; but when she had

perfected her arrangements she maintained them in their splendour until

the Fronde put an end to all intellectual effort.

When the Hôtel de Rambouillet was in its apogee La Grande Mademoiselle

was in the flush of early youth. She was born in 1627. Mme. de Sévigné

was Mademoiselle's elder by one year.

When we consider the social and intellectual condition of the times

we must regard many features of the enterprise of "fair Arthénice" as

wonderful, but its most characteristic feature was the opportunity and

the advancement it accorded to men of letters. Whatever "literary" men

were elsewhere, they were received as the equals of the nobility in

the Salon de Rambouillet. Such a sight had never been seen! Superior

minds had always been regarded leniently. They had had their periods

of usefulness, when the quality had been forced to recognise their

existence, but the possessors of those minds had been treated--well,

to speak clearly, they had been treated as they had expected to be

treated; for how could the poor fellows have hoped for anything

better when they knew that they passed two thirds of their time with

spines humbly curved and with palms outstretched soliciting equivocal

complaisancies, or inviting écus, or struggling to secure a seat at the

lower end of dinner tables by means of heartrending dedications?

Alack! how many Sarrazins and Costars there were to one Balzac, or to

one d'Urfé! how numerous were the natural parasites, piteous leeches!

whose wit went begging for a discarded bone! How many were condemned

by their vocation to die of hunger;--and there was no help for them!

Had their talent been ten times greater than it was it would have been

equally impossible for them to introduce dignity into their existence.

There were no journals, no reviews where an author could present his

stuff or his stories for inspection; no one had ever heard of authors'

rights; and however successful a play, the end of the dramatist was the

same; he was allowed no literary property. How then could he live if

not by crooked ways and doubtful means? If a certain amount of respect,

not to say honour, were due to his profession, by what means could he

acquire his share of it? Any yeoman--the first country squire--could,

when so it pleased him, have a play stricken from the roll; if so it

pleased him could have the rod laid over the author's back, amidst

the plaudits of the contingent which we should call the _claque_. Was

it any wonder that authors were pedants to the marrow of their bones

when pedantry was the only paying thing in their profession? Writers

who chanted their own praises did good unto themselves and enjoyed

the reputation of the erudite. They were regarded as professors of

mentality, they reflected credit upon the men who lodged and nourished

them. For that reason,--and very logically,--when a man knew that

he was being lodged and nourished for the sake of his _bel esprit_

if there was any manhood in him he entered heart and soul into his

pretensions; and sleeping or waking, night or day, from head to foot,

and without one hour of respite, played the part of "man of letters";

he mouthed his words, went about with brows knit, talked from his

chest, and, in short, did everything to prove to the world that he was

wise beyond his generation; his every effort was bent to manifest his

ability; and his manners, his costumes, and his looks, all proved him

to be a student of books. And when this was proven his master--the

man who lodged and nourished him--was able to get his full money's

worth and to stand up before the world revealed in the character of

benefactor and protector of Belles Lettres. In our day things wear a

different aspect. The author has reached his pinnacle, and in some

cases it may even be possible that his merits are exaggerated.

Knowing this, it is difficult for us to appreciate the conditions

existing when the Salon of the Hôtel de Rambouillet was opened. We know

that there is nothing essentially admirable in putting black marks

on white paper, and we know that a good shoemaker is a more useful

citizen than can be made of an inferior writer, and knowing these

facts, and others of the same sort, we can hardly realise that only

three hundred years ago there were honest boys who entered upon the

career of Letters when they might have earned a living selling tallow.

The Hôtel de Rambouillet regulated the scale of social values and

diminished the distance between the position accorded to science,

intellect, and genius and the position accorded to birth. For the first

time within the memory of Frenchmen Men of Letters tasted the sweets

of consideration; their eloquence was not forced back, nor was it

drawn out by the imperious demands of hunger; authors were placed on a

footing with their fellow-men; they were still expected to discourse,

but as their wit was the result of normal conditions, it acquired the

quality of order and the flavour of nature. In the Blue Room the weary

writers were allowed to rest. They were not called upon to give proofs

of their intellect; they were led gently forward, placed at a distance

that made them appear genial, persuaded to discard their dogmatism,

and by inferences and subtle influences taught to be indulgent and

to distribute their wisdom with the philosophical civility which was

then called "the spirit of the Court,"--and the term was a just one; a

great gulf lay between the incisive rushing expression of the thought

of Condé, the pupil of Mme. de Rambouillet, and the laboured facitiæ

of Voiture and the Academician, Jacques Esprit, although Voiture and

Esprit were far in advance of their predecessors. Under the beneficent

treatment of the Hôtel de Rambouillet the Men of Letters gradually

lost their stilted and pedagogic airs. The fair reformers of "the

circle" found many a barrier in their path; the gratitude of the

pedants was not exhilarating, the leopards' spots long retained their

colour,--Trissotin proved that,--but by force of repeated "dippings"

the dye was eventually compelled to take and the stains that it left

upon the fingers of "fair Arthénice" were not disfiguring.

A glance at Racine or at Boileau shows us the long road traversed after

the Salon de Rambouillet instituted the recognition of merit regardless

of rank and fortune. Love of intellectual pleasures, courage, and

ambitious determination had ordered a march resumed after forced halts;

and at last, when the ardent innovators reached the port from which

they were to launch their endeavour, recognition of merit had become a

custom, and the first phase of democratic evolution was an accomplished

fact. Our own day shows further progress; the same evolution in its

untrammelled freedom tends to cast suspicion upon personal merit

because it unhinges the idea of equality.

* * * * *

"All Paris" of that day filed through the portals of the Hôtel de

Rambouillet and passed in review before the Blue Room. Malherbe was

one of the most faithful attendants of the Salon whose Laureate he

remained until he died (1628). Yet according to Tallemant and to many

others he was boorish and uncivil. He was abrupt in conversation, but

he wrote excellent poetry and never said a word that did not reach

its mark. When he visited the Salon he was very amiable; and his grey

beard made him a creditable dean for the circle of literary companions.

He wrote pretty verses in honour of Arthénice, he was diverting and

instructive--in a word, he made himself necessary to the Salon. But he

was too old to change either his character or his appearance, and his

attempts to conform to the fashions of the hour made him ridiculous. He

was "a toothless gallant, always spitting."

He had been in the pay of M. de Bellegarde, from whom he had received

a salary of one thousand livres, table and lodging, and board and

lodging for one lackey and one horse. He drew an income from a

pension of five hundred écus granted by Marie de Médicis; he was in

possession of numerous gratuities, perquisites, and "other species of

gifts" which he had secretly begged by the sweat of his brow. Huet,

Archbishop of Avranche, wrote: "Malherbe is trying his best to increase

his fortunes, and his poetry, noble though it be, is not always nobly

employed." M. d'Yveteaux said that Malherbe "demanded alms sonnet in

hand." The greedy poet had one rival at the Hôtel de Rambouillet; a

very brilliant Italian addicted to flattery, whom all the ladies

loved. Women were infatuated by him, as they are always infatuated by

any foreign author--be he good or bad! Marini--in Paris they called

him "Marin"--conversed in long sentences joined by antitheses. In his

hours of relaxation when his thoughts were supposed to be in literary

undress, he called the rose "the eye of the springtide."[50] At the

time of which I now speak he was labouring upon a poem of forty-five

thousand verses, entitled _Adonis_. Every word written or uttered

by him was calculated to produce its effect. "The Circle," to the

disgust of Malherbe, lay at the feet of the Italian pedant, swooning

with ecstasy. "Marin's" influence over the first Salon of France

was deplorable, and a contemporary chronicler recorded his progress

with evident dejection[51]; "In time he relieved the country of his

presence; but he had remained in it long enough to deposit in fruitful

soil the germs of his factitious preciosity."

Chapelain was of other metal. He began active life as a teacher. M.

de Longueville, who was the first to appreciate his merits, granted

him his first pension (two thousand livres). Chapelain was fond of

his work, a natural writer, industrious, and frugal. He went into

retirement, lived upon his little pension, and brought forth _La

Pucelle_. De Longueville was delighted by the zeal and the talent of

his protégé and he added one thousand livres to his pension. Richelieu

also granted Chapelain a pension (one thousand livres) and when Mazarin

came to power he supplemented the gift of his predecessor by a pension

of five hundred écus.

It was not a common thing for authors to make favourable arrangements

with a publisher, but Chapelain had made excellent terms for that

epoch. _La Pucelle_ had sold for three thousand livres. He (Chapelain)

was in easy circumstances, but his unique appearance excited unique

criticisms. He was described as "one of the shabbiest, dirtiest,

most shambling, and rumpled of gallows-birds, and one of the most

affectedly literary characters from head to heels who ever set foot

in the Blue Room." It was said he was "a complete caricature of his

idea." Though Mme. de Rambouillet was accustomed to the aspect of Men

of Letters, she was struck dumb when Chapelain first appeared. As his

mind was not visible, she saw nothing but an ugly little man in a

pigeon-breast satin habit of antique date, covered with different kinds

of ill-assorted gimp. His boots were not matched (each being eccentric

in its own peculiar way). On his head was an old wig and over the wig

hovered a faded hat. Mme. de Rambouillet regained her self-command

and decided to close her eyes to his exterior. His conversation

pleased her, and before he had left her presence he had impressed her

favourably. In truth Chapelain merited respect and friendship. He was

full of delicacy of feeling, extremely erudite, and impassioned in his

love for things of the mind. His keen, refined, critical instinct had

made him an authority on all subjects. His correspondence covered

all the literary and learned centres of Europe, and he was consulted

as an oracle by the savants of all countries. He was interested in

everything. His mind was singularly broad, modest, frank, and open to

conviction; and while his nature was essentially French, his mental

curiosity, with its innumerable outstretching and receptive channels,

made him a representative of cosmopolitan enlightenment.

Chapelain was one of the pillars of the Salon,--or, to speak better,

he was the pendentive of the Salon's literary architecture. After

a time repeated frequentation of the Salon amended his "exterior"

to some extent. He changed his fanciful attire for the plain black

costumes worn by Vadius and by Trissotin, but his transformation was

accomplished invisibly, and during the transition period he did not

cease to be shabby and of a suspiciously neglected aspect, even for

one hour. "I believe," said Tallemant, "that Chapelain has never had

anything absolutely new."

Ménage, another pillar of the Salon de Rambouillet, was one of the rare

literary exceptions to the rule of the solid provincial bourgeoisie.

He was the _rara avis_ of his country, and not only a pedant but the

pedant _par excellence_, the finished type of the "litterateur" who

"sucks ink and bursts with pride at his achievement." He was always

spreading his feathers and bristling like a turkeycock if he was not

appreciated according to his estimate of himself. From him descended

some of the "literary types" still in existence, who cross-question

a man in regard to what he knows of their literary "work." No matter

what people were talking about, Ménage would interrupt them with his

patronising smile and "Do you remember what I said upon that subject?"

he would ask. Naturally no one remembered anything that he had written,

and when they confessed that they had forgotten he would cry out all

sorts of piquancies and coarseness. Every one knew what he was. Molière

used him as a model for Vadius, and the likeness was striking. He was

dreaded, and people loved literature to madness and accepted all its

excrescences before they consented to endure his presence. "I have

seen him," said Tallemant, "in Mme. de Rambouillet's alcove cleaning

the insides of his teeth with a very dirty handkerchief, and that was

what he was doing during the whole visit." He considered his fine

manners irresistible. He pursued Mme. de Rambouillet, bombarding her

incessantly with declarations. A pernicious vanity was one of his chief

failings. It was his habit to give people to understand that he was on

intimate terms with women like Mme. de Lafayette and Mme. de Sévigné;

but Mme. de Sévigné did not permit him to carry his boasts to Paradise.

One day after she had heard of his reports she invited him to accompany

her alone in her carriage. She told him that she was "not afraid that

any one would gossip over it." Ménage, whose feelings were outraged by

her contempt, burst into a flood of reproaches. "_Get into my carriage

at once!_" she answered. "_If you anger me I will visit you in your own

house!_"[52]

People tolerated Ménage because he was extraordinarily wise, and

because his sense of justice impelled him to admirably generous deeds.

The Ministers, Mazarin and Colbert, always sent to him for the names

of the people who were worthy of recompence, and Ménage frequently

nominated the men who had most offended him. Justice was his passion.

Under the vulgar motley of the pedant lay many excellent qualities,

among them intense devotion to friends. Throughout his life he rendered

innumerable services and was kind and helpful to many people. Ménage

had a certain amount of money, nevertheless he gave himself into the

hands of Retz, and Retz lodged and nourished him as he lodged and

nourished his own lackey. Ménage lived with Retz, berating him as

he berated every one; and Retz cared for him, endured his fits of

anger, and listened to his scoldings ten years. Ménage "drew handsome

pecuniary benefits from some other source," saved money, set out

for himself, and founded a branch Blue Room in his own house. His

receptions, which were held weekly on Wednesday, were in high esteem.

The people who had free access to good society considered it an honour

to be named as his guests.

Quite another story was "little Voiture," a delicate pigmy who had

"passed forty years of his life at death's door." He was an invalid

even in early youth. When very young he wrote to Mme. de Rambouillet

from Nancy:

Since I have not had the honour of seeing you, madame, I have

endured ills which cannot be described. As I traversed Epernay I

visited Marechal Strozzi for your sake, and his tomb appeared so

magnificent, and the place so calculated to give repose, that as I

was in such condition and so fit for burial, I longed to be laid

beside him; but as they found that there was still some warmth in

me, they made difficulties about acceding to my wishes. Then I

resolved to have my body carried as far as Nancy, where, at last,

madame, it has arrived, so meagre and so wasted, that I do assure

you that there will be very little for them to lay in the ground.

Ten years later he drew the following sketch of himself:

"My head is handsome enough; I have many grey hairs. My eyes are

soft, but a little distraught.... My expression is stupid, but to

counterbalance this discrepancy, _I am the best boy in the world_."[53]

Voiture was called "the dwarf king." He was a charming

conversationalist; he was a precursor of the Parisian of the eighteenth

century, of whom his winged wit and foaming gayety made him a fair

antetype; he was "the life and the soul" of the Hôtel de Rambouillet,

and when the ponderous minds had left the Salon, after he had helped

the naturally gay ladies to lift the helmet of Minerva from their

heads--and the weights from their heels--he taught them the light

laughter which sits so well on "airy nothings." But he had his defects,

defects so grave that the critics said: "If Voiture were of our

condition it would be impossible to endure him!" He was a dangerous

little gossip, constantly taking liberties and forcing people to

recall him to his place. Though he was a child in size, he was a man

of mature years, and the parents and guardians of young girls were

forced to watch him, though it is probable that his intentions were

innocent enough. One day, when he was on a visit, he attempted to press

his lips to the arm of one of the daughters of the house. That time

he "caught it on his fingers"; he begged pardon for his sin; but he

did not correct his faults; vanity forbade him to do that, and vanity

made him very jealous and hot tempered. Mlle. de Scudéry (who was

not censorious) called him "untrustworthy." His literature was like

his person and his character. Everything that he wrote was delicate,

coquettish, and very graceful, but often puerile. His literary taste

was not keen; when the Circle sat wrapt in admiration just after

Corneille had read them _Polyeucte_, Voiture hurried to the author's

side and told him that he "would better go home and lock that drama up

in his bureau drawer."

Toward the end of his life Voiture dyed both hair and beard, and his

manner was just what it had been in his youth; he could not realise

that he was not a boy; it was said that he was "tiresome, because he

did not know how to grow old."

His irritable disposition made him a trying companion, but to his last

day he was the "spoiled child" of Madame de Rambouillet and all the

society of the Salon; he was gay, simple, boyish, and natural, and the

Circle loved him "because he had none of the affected gravity and the

importance of the other men of letters, and because his manners were

not precise." More than thirty years after his death Mme. de Sévigné

recalled "his free wit and his charming ways" with delight. ("So much

the worse," she said, "for them who do not understand such things!"[54])

Voiture might have lived independently and dispensed with the favours

and the benefits which he solicited. His father was a very successful

business man (he dealt in wines), but in those days it was customary

for literary men to depend upon other men, and "little Voiture,"

thinking that it was a part of his glory to take his share of the

general cake, profited by his social relations, and stretched his hands

out in all directions, receiving such pensions, benefits, and "offices"

as were bestowed upon all prominent men of letters. His income was

large, and as he was nourished and cared for by Madame de Rambouillet,

he had few expenses.

Valentin Conrart, the first perpetual Secretary of the _Académie

Française_, was the most useful, if not the most brilliant member of

the Salon; he was the common sense of the Blue Room: the wise and

discreet friend to whom the most delicate secrets were fearlessly

confided, the unfailing referee to whom the members of the Circle

applied for decisions of all kinds, from the question of a debated

signification to the pronunciation of a word; naturally he was somewhat

pedagogical; incessant correction of the works of others had impressed

him with the instincts and the manners of a teacher; to the younger

members of the Circle he was a most awe-inspiring wiseacre. Conrart

bore the mark of a deep-seated consciousness of Protestantism, and

whether he was speaking, walking, or engaged in his active duties

it was evident that he was absorbed in reflections concerning his

religious origin; people who had seen him when he was asleep affirmed

that he wore an alert air of cogitation when wrapt in slumber, and

when he was rhyming his little verses to _Alphise_ or to _Lycoris_ his

aspect was the same. His attitude was logical: he knew that he was a

Protestant; he knew that that fact was a thing that no man could be

expected to forget. In 1647 he wrote to a fellow coreligionist[55]:

"As the world regards it, what a disadvantage it is to be a Huguenot!"

The Académie Française emanated from social meetings held in Conrart's

house and the serious association could not have had a more suitable

cradle.

It is a pleasure to think of that easy and independent home, where

guests were met with outstretched hands, where wisdom was dispensed

without thought of recompense. Conrart was generous and just, a loyal

and indulgent friend who did good for the love of goodness. The wife of

Conrart was an excellent and worthy creature, who received dukes and

peers and the ladies of the Court as simply as she received the friends

of her youth; she was not a respecter of persons and she saw no reason

for embarrassment when the Marquise de Rambouillet wished to dine with

her. She took pride in "pastelles," cordials, and other household

delicacies, which she made and offered to her husband's friends with

her own hands.

Vaugelas was timid and innocent; misfortune was his habit; he had

always been unfortunate, and no one expected him to be anything else.

He was very poor; he had been stripped of everything (even to the

pension given him by the King) as punishment for following Gaston

d'Orléans. Everything that he did turned against him. One day when he

was in great need Mme. de Carignan told him that she would hire him as

tutor; she had two sons whom she aspired to educate according to the

methods of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Naturally the impecunious Vaugelas

thanked God for his rescue. When his pupils were presented to him he

found that one of them was deaf and dumb, the other was a phenomenal

stutterer, barely able to articulate his name. Vaugelas had been so

uniformly unfortunate that his woes had created a nervous tension in

the minds of the Circle, and every new report of his afflictions called

forth an outburst of hysterical laughter from his sympathisers. The

Hôtel de Rambouillet knew his intrinsic value. Fair Arthénice and her

company essayed to bring him forward, and failed; he was bashful, an

inveterate listener, obstinately silent; in the Salon he sat with

head drooping and with lips half open, eagerly listening to catch the

delicately turned phrases of the quality, or to surprise some noble

error; a grammatical _lapsus_ stung his keen perceptions, and he was

frequently seen writhing as if in agony, no one knew why. In a word

he was worthless in a salon,--and the same must be said of Corneille.

Corneille felt that he was not brilliant, and he never attended the

Salon unless he had written something new; he read his plays to "the

Circle" before he offered them to the publishers. Men of genius are

not always creditable adjuncts to a salon; Corneille was known in the

fine world as "that fellow Corneille." As far as his capacity for

furnishing the amount of amusement which all men individually owe it

to their fellows to provide is concerned, it is enough to say that he

was one of the churchwardens in his parochial district; this fact,

like the accident of birth, may pass as a circumstance extenuating his

involuntary evil. Speaking of the Salon la Bruyère wrote: "Corneille,

another one who is seen there, is simple, timid, and--when he talks--a

bore; he mistakes one word for another, and considers his plays good or

bad in proportion to the money he gains by them. He does not know how

to recite poetry, and he cannot read his own writing."

In a club of pretty women ten Corneilles would not have been worth

one Antoine Godeau. Godeau was as diminutive in his verse as in his

person; but he was a fiery fellow and a dashing gallant, always in

love. When he was studying philosophy the German students in his

boarding-house so attached themselves to his lively ways that they

could not live away from him. The gravest of the bookworms thought that

they could study better in his presence, and his chambers presented

the appearance of a class-room. He sat enthroned at his table, and the

Germans sat cross-legged around him blowing clouds from their china

pipes and roaring with laughter at his sallies. He sang, he rhymed, he

drank; he was always cracking his funny jokes. He was born to love,

and as he was naturally frivolous, his dulcineas were staked out all

over the country awaiting his good pleasure. Presented to the Circle

of the Hôtel de Rambouillet when he was very young, he paled the star

of "little Voiture." When Voiture was at a distance from Paris Mlle.

de Rambouillet wrote to him: "There is a man here now who is a head

shorter than you are, and who is, I swear to you, a thousand times more

gallant!"

Godeau was a conqueror; he had "entrapped all the successes." Every one

was amazed when it was discovered that he was a bishop, and they had

barely recovered from their amazement when it was learned that he was

not only a bishop but a good bishop. He had other titles to distinction

(of one kind or another), "and withal he still remained" (as Sainte

Beuve said) "the foppish spark of all that world." The only passport

required by the Hôtel de Rambouillet was intellect. The Circle caressed

Sarrazin, despite his baseness, his knavery, his ignoble marriages,

and his ridiculous appearance, because he was capable of a pleasant

repartee when in general conversation. George de Scudéry, a "species

of captain," was protected by the Circle because he was an author.

Scudéry was intolerable! his brain cells were clogged by vanity, he

was humming from morning till night with his head high in the clouds,

beating his ancestors about the ears of any one who would listen to

him, and prating of his "glory," his tragic comedies, and his epic

poem _Alaric_. He was on tiptoe with delight because he had eclipsed

Corneille. The Hôtel de Rambouillet smiled upon Colletet, the clever

drunkard who had taken his three servants to wife, one after the other,

and who had not talent enough to counterbalance his gipsy squalor.

But all passed who could hold a pen. Many a scruple and many a qualm

clamoured in vain for recognition when the fair creator of the Circle

organised the Salon. Nothing can be created--not even a salon--without

some sacrifice, and Mme. de Rambouillet laid a firm hand upon her

predilections and made literary merit the only title to membership in

the Salon. Every one knew the way to the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Every

one but Balzac was seen there. Balzac lived in a distant department (la

Charente), so it is probable that he knew Mme. de Rambouillet only by

letter, though he is named as an attendant of the Salon. Had the Salon

existed in this day it is possible that our moderns, who demand a finer

mortar, would have left the coarser pebbles in the screen, but Mme.

de Rambouillet closed her eyes, put forth her hand, and as blindly as

Justice drew authors out of their obscure corners and placed them on a

footing with the fine flower of the Court and the choice spirits of the

city, with all that was gay or witty, with all who were possessed of

curiosity concerning the things of the mind. She forced the frivolous

to habituate themselves to serious things, she compelled the pedants

to toss their caps to the thistles, to cast aside their pretensions

and their long-drawn-out phrases, and to stand forth as men. No one

carried the accoutrements of his authorship into the Blue Room, no one

was permitted to play the part of "pedant pedantising"; all was light,

rapid, ephemeral; the atmosphere was fine and clear, and to add to the

tranquil aspect of the scene, several very youthful ladies (the young

daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet and "la pucelle Priande" among others)

were permitted to pass like butterflies among the thoughtful groups;

their presence completed the illusion of pastoral festivity. Before

that time young girls had never mingled freely with their elders.

As mixed as the gatherings were, and as radical as was the social

revolution of the Salon, the presence of innocent youth imposed the

tone of careful propriety. I am not counting "La Belle Paulet" as an

innocent young girl, though she too was of the Salon. Paulet was called

"the lioness" because of the ardent blonde colour of her hair; she was

young enough, and amiable even to excess, but she had had too much

experience. She was "a bit of driftwood," one of several of her kind

whom Mme. de Rambouillet had fished from the vortex, dried, catechised,

absolved, and restored to regular conduct and consideration. Neither

do I class "the worthy Scudéry" among young girls. She could not

have been called "young" at any age. She was (to quote one of her

contemporaries) "a tall, black, meagre person, with a very long face,

prolix in discourse, with a tone of voice like a schoolmaster, which

is not at all agreeable." Although Tallemant drew this picture, its

lines are not exaggerated. It is impossible to regard Mlle. de Scudéry

as a young girl. When I say that there were young girls in the Salon,

I have in mind the daughters of the house, from whom emanated excess

of delicacy, precocity, and decadence, Julie d'Angennes, for whom was

created "the garland of Julie," who became Mme. Montausier, Angélique

de Rambouillet,--the first of de Grignan's three wives,--and Mlle.

de Bourbon, who married de Longueville, and at a later day was known

as the heroine of the Hôtel-de-Ville. We must not imagine that a

reception at the Hôtel de Rambouillet was a convocation like a seance

at the Institute of France. At such an assembly a de Sévigné, a Paulet,

a Lafayette would have been out of place, nor would they have consented

to sit like students in class discussing whether it were better to

say _avoine_ and _sarge_ (the pronunciation given by the Court) or

_aveine_ and _serge_ (the pronunciation used by the grain-handlers in

the hay-market). Neither would it have been worth while to collect such

spirits had the sole object been a discussion of the last new book, or

the last new play; but literary and grammatical questions were rocks in

the seas on which the brilliant explorer of the Blue Room had set sail

and on the rocks she had planted her buoys. She navigated sagaciously,

taking the sun, sounding and shaping her course to avoid danger.

"Assaults of eloquence," however important, were cut short before

they resembled the lessons of the schoolroom. Before the innovation

of the Salon, the critics had dealt out discipline with heavy hands.

We are confounded by the solemnity with which Conrart informed Balzac

of a "tournament" between Voiture and Chapelain on the subject of one

of Ariosto's comedies, when "decisions" were rendered with all the

precision of legal sentences by "the hermit of Angoumois."[56] So

manifest a waste of energy proved that it was time for the world's

people to interfere, to restrain the savants from taking to heart

things which were not worth their pains.

The authors produced their plays or their poems and carried their

manuscripts to the Hôtel de Rambouillet, where they read them in the

presence of the company, and the Circle listened, approved, criticised,

and exchanged opinions. All of Corneille's masterpieces cleared that

port in disguise; their creator presenting them as the works of a

strange author. When he read _Polyeucte_ the Salon supposed that the

drama was the work of a person unknown to them; all listened intently

and criticised freely. No one suspected the real author, and when

the last word was read, Voiture made haste to warn Corneille that

he "would better lock up the play." When the Circle first heard the

_Cid_ they acclaimed it, and declared that it was the work of genius.

Richelieu objected to it, and the Salon defended it against him.

Books and plays were not the only subjects of discussion; in the Blue

Room letters from the absent were read to the company, verses were

improvised and declaimed, plays were enacted, and delicately refined

expressions were sought with which to clothe the sentiment and the

passion of love. Great progress was made in the exercise of wit, and

at times the Circle, excited by the clash of mind with mind, exhibited

the effervescent joy of children at play when fun runs riot in the

last moment of recess, before the bell rings to recall them to the

schoolroom. At such a time the members of the Circle were marshalled

back to order and set down before the savants to contemplate the

"ologies." Such was the first period of the reign of the _Précieuses_,

a period whose history La Bruyère gathered from the recitals of the old

men of that day.

Voiture and Sarrazin were born for their century, and they appeared

just at the time when they might have been expected; had they come

forward with less precipitation they would have been too late; it is

probable that had they come in our day they would have been just what

they were at their own epoch. When they came upon the stage the light,

sparkling conversations, the "circles" of meditative and critical

groups convened to argue the literary and æsthetic questions of the

day, had vanished, with the finely marked differences, the spiritual

jests, the coquettish meanings hidden amidst the overshadowing gravity

of serious discussion.

The Circle no longer formed little parties admitting only the men who

had proved their title to intellect; but the fame of the first Salon de

Rambouillet--or, to speak better, the fame of the ideal Salon of the

world--still clung to its successor. As children listen to tales told

by their grandfathers, the delicate mind of Voiture listened to the

story of those first days; Sarrazin the Gross might scoff, but Voiture

gloried in the thought that it had all been true; the lights, the

music, the merry jests, the spring flowers growing in the autumn, the

flashing lances of the spirit, the gay letters from the absent.... And

well might he glory! there had, in truth, been one supreme moment in

the literary life of France, a moment as rapid, as fleeting as a smile,

lost even as it came, never to appear again until long after the pigmy

body which enshrined the winged soul that loved to dream of it had

turned to dust.

The memory of that first Salon was still so vivid that Saint Simon

wrote: "The Hôtel de Rambouillet was the trysting-place of all then

existent of knowledge and of wit; it was a redoubtable tribunal, where

the world and the Court were brought to judgment."

* * * * *

But the followers of Arthénice did not shrink from mundane pleasures.

In the gracious presence of their hostess the young people danced

from love of action, laughed from love of laughter, and, dressed to

represent the heroes and the heroines of _Astrée_, or to represent

the tradesmen of Paris, went into the country on picnics, and enacted

plays for the amusement of their guests, playing all the pranks of

collegians in vacation. One day when they were all at the Château de

Rambouillet the Comte de Guiche ate a great many mushrooms. In the

night one of the gay party stole into his room and "took in" all the

seams in his garments. In the morning it was impossible for de Guiche

to dress; everything was too narrow to be buttoned; in vain he tugged

at the edges of his garments,--nothing would come together; the Comte

was racked by anxiety. "Can it be," he asked anxiously, "because I

ate too many mushrooms? Can it be possible that I am bloated?" His

friends answered that it might well be possible. "You know," said they,

"that you ate till you were fit to burst." De Guiche hurried to his

mirror, and when he saw his apparently swollen body and the gaps in his

clothing, he trembled, and declared that he was dying; as he was livid

and about to swoon, his friends, thinking that the jest had gone far

enough, undeceived him. Mme. de Rambouillet was very fond of inventing

surprises for her friends, but her jests were of a more gallant

character. One day while they were at the Château de Rambouillet she

proposed to the Bishop de Lisieux, who was one of her guests, to walk

into the fields adjoining the château, where there was, as she said,

a circle of natural rocks set among great trees. The Bishop accepted

her invitation, and history tells us that "when he was so near the

rocks that he could distinguish them through the trees, he perceived

in various places, as if scattered about--[I hardly know how to tell

it]--objects fairly white and glistening! As he advanced it seemed to

him that he could discern figures of women in the guise of nymphs.

The Marquise insisted that she could not see anything but trees and

rocks, but on advancing to the spot they found--Mlle. de Rambouillet

and the other young ladies of the house arrayed, and very effectively,

as nymphs; they were seated upon the rocks, where they made the most

agreeable of pictures." The good fellow was so charmed with the

pleasantry that thereafter he never saw "fair Arthénice" without

speaking of "the Rocks of Rambouillet."[57] The Bishop de Lisieux was

an excellent priest; decorum did not oppose such surprises, even when

the one surprised was a bishop. One day when the ladies were disguised

to represent shepherdesses, de Richelieu's brother, the Archbishop of

Lyons, appeared among them in the dress of a shepherd.

One of the most agreeable of Voiture's letters (addressed to a

cardinal)[58] contains an account of a trip that he had made into the

country with the Demoiselles de Rambouillet and de Bourbon, chaperoned

by "Madame the Princess," mother of the great Condé; Mlle. Paulet (the

bit of driftwood) and several others were of the party.

We departed from Paris about six o'clock in the evening, [wrote

Voiture], to go to La Barre,[59] where Mme. de Vigean was to give

collation to Madame the Princess.... We arrived at La Barre and

entered an audience-room in which there was nothing but a carpet

of roses and of orange blossoms for us to walk upon. After having

admired this magnificence, Madame the Princess wished to visit

the promenade halls while we were waiting for supper. The sun was

setting in a cloud of gold and azure, and there was only enough of

it left to give a soft and misty light. The wind had gone down, it

was cool and pleasant, and it seemed to us that earth and heaven

had met to favour Mme. de Vigean's wish to feast the most beautiful

Princess in the world.

Having passed a large parterre, and great gardens, all full of

orange trees, we arrived at a wood which the sunlight had not

entered in more than an hundred years, until it entered there (in

the person of Madame). At the foot of an avenue so long that we

could not fathom its vista with our eyes until we had reached the

end of it, we found a fountain which threw out more water than was

ever thrown by all the fountains of Tivoli put together. Around the

fountain were ranged twenty-four violinists with their violins, and

their music was hardly able to cover the music of the fountain.

When we drew near them we discovered a niche in the palisado, and

in the niche was a Diana eleven or twelve years old, more beautiful

than any goddess of the forests of Greece or of Thessaly. She

bore her arrows in her eyes, and all the rays of the halo of her

brother surrounded her. In another niche was one of Diana's nymphs,

beautiful and sweet enough to attend Diana. They who doubt fables

said that the two visions were only Mlle. de Bourbon and la Pucelle

Priande; and, to tell the truth, there was some ground for their

belief, for even we who have always put faith in fables, we who

knew that we were looking upon a supernatural vision, recognised

a close resemblance. Every one was standing motionless and

speechless, with admiration for all the objects so astonishing both

to ear and to eye, when suddenly the goddess sprang from her niche

and with grace that cannot be described, began a dance around the

fountain which lasted some time, and in which every one joined.

(Here Voiture, who was under obligations to his correspondent, Cardinal

de La Valette, represents himself as having wept because the Cardinal

was not there. According to Voiture's account he communicated his grief

to all the company.)

... And I should have wept, and, in fact, we all should have

mourned too long, had not the violins quickly played a saraband so

gay that every one sprang up and danced as joyously as if there

had been no mourning; and thus, jumping, dancing, whirling,

pirouetting, and capering, we arrived at the house, where we found

a table dressed as delicately as if the faëries had served it. And

now, Monseigneur, I come to a part of the adventure which cannot be

described! Truly, there are no colours nor any figures of rhetoric

to represent the six kinds of luscious soups, all different, which

were first placed before us before anything else was served. And

among other things were twelve different kinds of meats, under

the most unimaginable disguises, such as no one had ever heard

of, and of which not one of us has learned the name to this day!

As we were leaving the table the music of the violins called us

quickly up the stairs, and when we reached the upper floor we found

an audience-room turned into a ball-room, so well lighted that it

seemed to us that the sun, which had entirely disappeared from

earth, had gone around in some unknown way and climbed up there to

shine upon us and to make it as bright as any daylight ever seen.

There the dance began anew, and even more perfectly than when we

had danced around the fountain; and more magnificent than all else,

Monseigneur, is this, that _I danced there!_ Mlle. de Bourbon said

that, truth to tell, I danced badly, but that doubtless I should

make an excellent swordsman, because, at the end of every cadence,

I straightened as if to fall back on guard.

The fête ended in a display of fireworks, after which the company

"took the road" for Paris by the light of twenty flambeaux, singing

with all the strength of their lungs. When they reached the village of

La Villette they caught up with the violinists, who had started for

the city as soon as the dance was ended and before the party left the

château. One of the gayest of the company insisted that the violinists

should play, and that they should dance right there in the street of

the village. It was between two and three o'clock in the morning and

Voiture was tired out; he "blessed Heaven" when it was discovered that

the violins had been left at La Barre.

At last [Voiture wrote to the Cardinal] we reached Paris....

Impenetrable darkness wrapped the city, silence and solitude lay on

every hand, the streets were deserted, and we saw no people, but

now and then small animals, frightened by the glaring flames of

our torches, fled before us, and we saw them hiding on the shadowy

corners.

We learn from this letter how the companions of the Hôtel de

Rambouillet passed their evenings.

In Paris and in the distant provinces there were many imitations of

the Salon; the germs of the enterprise had taken root all over France

with literary results, which became the subject of serious study.

The political consequences of the literary and social innovations

claimed less attention. The domestication of the nobility originated

in the Salon. When delicacy of manner was introduced as obligatory,

the nobleman was in full possession of the rights of power; he could

hunt and torture animals and inferior men, he could make war upon

his neighbours, he could live in egotistical isolation, enjoying the

luxuries bestowed by his seigniory, while the lower orders died of

hunger at his door, because his rank was manifested by his freedom

from rules which bound classes below his quality. The diversions

introduced at the Salon de Rambouillet exacted sacrifice of self to the

convenience of others. In the abstract this was an excellent thing, but

its reaction was felt by the aristocracy; from restraining their

selfishness the gallant courtiers passed on to the self-renunciation

of the ancient Crusaders, and when Louis XIV. saw fit (for his own

reasons) to turn his nobles into peaceful courtiers and grand barons

of the ante-chamber, he found that his work had all been done; it was

not possible to convert his warriors into courtiers, for he had no

warriors; all the warriors had turned to knights of the carpet; their

swords were wreathed with roses, and the ringing notes which had called

men to arms had changed to the sighing murmurs of Durandarte; every

man sat in a perfumed bower busily employed in making "sonnets to his

mistress's eyebrows." Louis XIV. fumed because his Court resembled a

salon; the incomparable Arthénice had given the restless cavaliers a

taste for fine conversation and innocent pleasures, and by doing so she

had minced the King's spoonmeat too fine; the absolute monarch could

only modify a transformation accomplished independent of his will.

[Illustration: LOUIS XIII., KING OF FRANCE AND OF NAVARRE

FROM AN OLD PRINT]

We have now to determine how much of their false exalted sentiment and

their false ambition the princes, the chevaliers of the Fronde, and all

the gallants of the quality owed to the dramatic theatre of their day;

that estimated, we shall have gained a fair idea of the chief elements

of the social body idealised by Corneille,--of all the elements save

one, the element of Religion; that was a thing apart, to be considered

especially and in its own time.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 27: _Relation de ce que c'est passé en l'affaire de la reyne

au mois d'août, 1637, sui le sujet de la Porte et de l'Abbesse du

Val-de-Grâce._ See document in the Bibliothèque National.]

[Footnote 28: The first part appeared in 1610, or perhaps [says M.

Brunetière], in 1618. The rest followed at long intervals. The four

last volumes bear date 1627 and consequently are posthumous. The part

written by d'Urfé cannot be distinguished from the part written by

Baro, who continued the work begun by d'Urfé.]

[Footnote 29: _Manuel de l'histoire de la littérature française_,

by M. Ferdinand Brunetière. Cf. _En Bourbonnais et en Forez_, by

Emile Montégut, and _Le roman_ (XVII. Century) by Paul Morillot in

_L'histoire de la langue et de la littérature française_, published

under the direction of M. Petit de Julleville. _Les vendanges de

Suresnes_, by Pierre du Ryer.]

[Footnote 30: Waliszeffski: _Marysienka_.]

[Footnote 31: Paul Morillot, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 32: In the Dedication of _Place Royale_.]

[Footnote 33: In the Dedication of _Place Royale_.]

[Footnote 34: M. Lemaître's address, delivered at Port Royal. (Racine's

Centennial.)]

[Footnote 35: _Histoire de l'art, pendant la renaissance._]

[Footnote 36: Sauval, _Les antiquités de Paris_.]

[Footnote 37: Dulaure, _Environs de Paris_.]

[Footnote 38: _Astrée._]

[Footnote 39: Montégut, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 40: Somaize's _Dictionnaire des Précieuses_.]

[Footnote 41: _Mémoires_, Conrart.]

[Footnote 42: _Gazette de Loret._ (Letter bearing date August 13,

1651.)]

[Footnote 43: Tallemant.]

[Footnote 44: _Mémoires_, de Richelieu.]

[Footnote 45: Young Louvigny was killed in a duel in 1629; he was

entering his twenty-first year.]

[Footnote 46: Vicomte d'Avenel, _Richelieu et la Monarchie absolue_.]

[Footnote 47: See Gamboust's map, _Paris en 1652_.]

[Footnote 48: Tallemant.]

[Footnote 49: In one of the angles at the end of the courtyard

(Tallemant).]

[Footnote 50: M. Bourciez _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 51: _Ibid._]

[Footnote 52: Bussy-Rabutin, _Histoire amoreuse des Gaules_.]

[Footnote 53: Oh, no! not such a good boy as all that!--Arvède Barine.]

[Footnote 54: Mme. de Sévigné.]

[Footnote 55: _Valentin Conrart_, Réné Kerviler and Ed. de Barthélemy.]

[Footnote 56: Mme. de Kerviler and Ed. de Barthélemy, _loc. cit._]

[Footnote 57: Tallemant.]

[Footnote 58: Cardinal La Valette.]

[Footnote 59: Near Enghien.]