Studying the seventeenth century in the histories is one thing, and
seeking to become acquainted with it by reading contemporary letters is
another and a far different thing. The two procedures give rise to
conflicting impressions. Historians, taking a bird's-eye view of their
subject, portray its most general characteristics; they bring out only
the prominent features, and sacrificing all the rest, draw pictures
whose precision and simplicity captivate our minds. We finally get into
the habit of seeing an epoch as they have painted it, and cannot imagine
there was anything in it besides the qualities they specify. But when we
read letters relating, without alteration or selection, events as they
took place, the opinions of men and things we have drawn from the
historians are greatly modified. We then perceive that good and evil are
at all times mingled, and even that the proportions of the mixture vary
less than one would think. Cousin says somewhere, "In a great age all is
great." It is just the contrary that is true: there is no age so great
that there is not much littleness about it; and if we undertake to study
history we should expect this, so as not to reckon without our host. No
epoch has been more celebrated, more admired, than the reign of Louis
XIV.; there is danger lest the correspondence of Madame de Sévigné may
much abate the warmth of our admiration. She is constantly telling
strange stories that compel us to pause and reflect. When, in a society
represented as so noble, so delicate, so regular, we meet with so many
shameful disorders, so many ill-assorted households, so many persons
whose fortunes are sustained only by dishonest expedients, with great
lords buying and not paying, promising and not keeping their word,
borrowing and never returning, kneeling before ministers and ministers'
mistresses, cheating at play like M. de Cessac, living like Caderousse
at the expense of a great lady, surrendering like Soubise a wife to the
king, or like Villarceaux a niece, or insisting with Bussy that "the
chariest of their honor should be delighted when such a good fortune
befalls their family,"--it seems to me we have a right to conclude that
people then were hardly our superiors; that perhaps in some points we
are better than they were; and that in any case it is not worth while to
set them up as models to the disparagement of our own times.
In one respect, however, they were unlike us. In those days there were
certain subjects on which people were generally agreed, and these were
precisely the subjects that now give rise to the greatest
divisions,--religion and politics. Not that all were pious then,--far
from it,--but almost all were believers, and almost none contested the
principle of royal authority. To-day, religious belief and belief in
monarchy are well-nigh extinct; and there are hardly any left of those
commonly received opinions, escaped by none, impregnating all, breathed
in like the air, and always found at the bottom of the heart on
occasions of grave need, despite all the inward changes that experience
has wrought. Is this a good or an evil? Should we rejoice at it or
regret it? Each one will answer according to his character and
inclinations. Daring minds that feel strong enough to form their own
convictions are glad to be delivered from prejudices interfering with
independence of opinion, glad to have free scope. But the rest, who form
the vast majority, who are without such high aims, and whose life is
moreover taken up with other cares, are troubled, uncertain, ill at
ease, when they have to settle these great problems independently. They
regret that they can no longer find the solutions all worked out, and
sadly repeat with Jocelyn:--
"Ah, why was I born in days stormy and dread,
When the pilgrim of life hath no rest for his head;
When the way disappears; when the spent human mind,
Groping, doubting, still strives some new pathway to find,
Unable to trust in the hopes of the Old
Or to strike out a New from its perishing mold!"
This sort of anguish of spirit was unknown in the seventeenth century,
as Madame de Sévigné's letters clearly show.