Ecclésiastique_, who succeeded La Bruyère as a member of the French
Academy, said of his predecessor in his opening speech: “Il savait les
langues mortes et les vivantes.”
[23] See the Chapter “Of Mankind,” page 289, note 2.
[24] See the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 242, § 53.
[25] Some of the passages of this “Prefatory Discourse” will be found
in the Introduction.
[26] In a lecture read before the Academy of Sciences and Literature
of Berlin, the 23d of August 1787, and printed in the memoirs of that
Academy, Formey told this story on the authority of M. de Maupertuis,
who is said to have heard it from the lady herself, the wife of the
financier, Charles Rémy de July, to whom she brought a dowry of more
than 100,000 _livres_.
[27] See note 3, page 4.
[28] See the Chapter “Of Society and Conversation,” page 122, § 66,
and note 1; about Fontenelle, see in the same Chapter the character of
Cydias, page 127, § 75.
[29] This he stated openly in the speech he delivered at his reception
at the Academy, the 15th of June 1693; his enemies would certainly have
contradicted him if it had not been the truth.
[30] See the Chapter “Of the Court,” page 201, note 2.
[31] In the Introduction are to be found some extracts from this
preface.
[32] La Bruyèreʼs bitter feelings appear in such paragraphs as § 43,
page 56; in the Chapter “Of the Town,” page 166, § 4; in that “Of the
Great,” pages 223 and 224, §§ 11 and 12; page 232, § 33; and in the
Chapter “Of Opinions,” page 334, § 19. Molière felt a somewhat similar
bitterness; at least in the dedication of _les Fâcheux_ he says to
Louis XIV.: “Those that are born in an elevated rank may propose to
themselves the honour of serving your Majesty in great employments;
but, for my part, all the glory I can aspire to, is to amuse you.”
Compare also Shakespeareʼs hundred and eleventh Sonnet beginning—“Oh!
for my sake do you with Fortune chide.”
[33] See the Chapter “Of Society and of Conversation,” page 120, §§ 56,
57.
[34] See in the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 230, § 26, which seems to
me to prove this fear.
[35] “We have wished to warn and not to bite; to be useful and not
to wound; to benefit the morals of men, and not to be detrimental to
them.” This quotation is taken from one of the letters of Erasmus to
Martin Dorpius, in which the former replies to some criticisms on
his “Praise of Folly.” The preface to the “Characters,” altered and
augmented several times by the author himself, is found for the first
time, in its present form, in the eighth edition of his work.
[36] The first edition of the “Characters,” published in 1688,
contained 420 characters, the fourth edition 771.
[37] This mark, a ((¶)) between double parentheses, as well as the
same mark between single parentheses, was first employed in the fifth
edition (1690) of the “Characters,” and in all the following ones.
But the mere ¶ without any parentheses was used by La Bruyère in all
editions to denote the beginning of a paragraph.
[38] This refers to the sixth (1691), seventh (1692), and eighth (1694)
editions. The fifth edition contained 923 characters, the sixth 997,
the seventh 1073, and the eighth 1120. The ninth edition (1696) was
published about a month after the death of La Bruyère.
[39] This seems to allude to La Rochefoucauldʼs “Maxims.”
[40] M. de La Bruyère adopts the chronology of Suidas, a Greek
lexicographer who flourished during the latter end of the eleventh
century; according to the Hebrew chronology the world had only existed
5692 years when the “Characters” were first published in 1688.
[41] _Abile_ in the original, in the sense of the English word “able,”
and used as a noun, was already then considered antiquated.
[42] _Sentiment_, in the original, was during the seventeenth century
not seldom employed in French for “opinion,” as “sentiments” are at
present in English.
[43] This magistrate is said to have been Pierre Poncet de la Rivière,
Count dʼAblys (1600-1681), a barrister, a councillor of state, and
member of the royal council of finances, whose absurd moral treatise,
_Considérations sur les avantages de la vieillesse dans la vie
chrétienne, politique, civile, économique et solitaire_, was published
under the pseudonym of the Baron de Prelle, in the month of August
1677, about one month before the death of the Lord Chancellor dʼAligre,
and more than three months before President Lamoignonʼs decease.
[44] At that time so-called collections of anecdotes, such as
_Boléana_, _Ménagiana_, and _Segraisiana_, were greatly in vogue.
[45] It is said that the great dramatic poet Pierre Corneille
(1606-1684) is alluded to as one of those poets.
[46] All the “Keys” pretend this is a hit at the “Dictionary of the
Academy,” and they may be right; for the Dictionary, only published
in 1694, six years after the “Characters” first saw the light, had
been expected for more than forty years. But most likely La Bruyère
was thinking of the tragedy-ballet of _Psyché_ (1671), words by Pierre
Corneille and Molière, music by Quinault and Lulli; of the opera which
in 1680 Racine and Boileau, joint _historiographes_ of Louis XIV.,
began, and which never saw the light; and of the newly-acted _Idylle
sur la Paix_ and the _Eglogue de Versailles_ (1685), written by
Quinault, Racine, and Molière.
[47] Even in La Bruyèreʼs lifetime doubts were already expressed about
the Iliad being written by Homer.
[48] This Roman orator was Cicero.
[49] La Bruyère adds in a footnote: “Even merely considered as an
author.”
[50] Almost every one felt during the seventeenth century a dislike for
Gothic architecture.
[51] Probably Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657-1757) is meant
here. This author had made excellent classical studies in a Jesuit
college, but attacked the ancients in his _Discours sur LʼEglogue_ and
in his _Digression sur les anciens et les modernes_, published together
with his _Poésies Pastorales_ in 1688. The paragraph beginning “A man
feeds” and ending “nurses” was only printed for the first time in the
fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689.
[52] It is generally thought that Charles Perrault (1628-1703), a
member of the French Academy, is alluded to, but this seems more than
doubtful.
[53] Those “able men” were the dramatist Jean Racine (1639-1699) and
the satirist Nicolas Boileau Despréaux (1636-1711).
[54] Zoilus, a Greek grammarian, flourished about 356-336 B.C.,
and assailed Homer, Plato, Isocrates, and other Greek authors with
merciless severity.
[55] According to all the “Keys,” this is said to be an allusion to
the Abbé de Dangeau (1643-1723), a member of the French Academy, and a
brother of the better known marquis. But why and wherefore this Abbé
has been singled out, has not reached posterity. Some say the President
Cousin, the editor of the _Journal des Savants_, was meant.
[56] Ζηλωτής means “envious.”
[57] In his _Recueil de divers ouvrages en prose et en vers_, 1676,
Charles Perrault defended the _Alceste_ of Quinault and attacked the
_Alcestis_ of Euripides. Unfortunately his criticism contained several
errors, which Racine noticed in the preface of _Iphigénie_, accusing
Perrault at the same time of having carelessly read the work he was
censuring.
[58] This was meant for Henri-Joseph de Peyre, Count de Troisvilles
(1642-1708), pronounced Tréville, a very intelligent and
highly-cultivated nobleman, brought up in his youth with Louis XIV.,
whose talents he rather undervalued. He was on intimate terms with
the Port-Royalists, and after several alternate fits of devotion and
dissipation, ended his days devoutly and penitently.
[59] The Abbé de Dangeau, a pedantical purist mentioned already, page
13, note.
[60] In the seventeenth century fireworks were in French _feu gréçois_,
literally “Greek fire.”
[61] The _Cid_, the dramatic masterpiece of Pierre Corneille, was first
performed in 1636. Cardinal Richelieu tried to get up a cabal to crush
it, but was unsuccessful; he also persuaded the Academy to publish
a severe criticism on it, which is too favourably spoken of by La
Bruyère. Boileau says in his ninth satire:—
“En vain contre le Cid un ministre se ligue,
Tout Paris pour Chimère a les yeux de Rodrigue.
LʼAcadémie en corps a beau le censurer,
Le public révolté sʼobstine à lʼadmirer.”
[62] _Courageux_ and _courage_ were not seldom used in the seventeenth
century for “heartfelt” and “heart,” whilst _main dʼouvrier_, “hand of
a workman,” was sometimes employed instead of _main de maître_, “hand
of a master.”
[63] The dramatist Edme Boursault (1638-1701) had had a literary
quarrel with Boileau, who attacked him in his ninth _Satire_, to which
Boursault replied by his comedy _La Satire des Satires_. But they had
been reconciled more than a year before the “Characters” were published.
[64] Father Bouhours (1628-1702), a literary Jesuit of some reputation
and talent, published in 1689 his _Pensées ingénieuses des anciens et
des modernes_, in which he several times praised the “Characters.” La
Bruyère, not to be behind-hand, inserted the learned fatherʼs name in
his fifth edition, published in 1690.
[65] Roger de Rabutin, Count de Bussy (1618-1693), a friend of our
author, enjoyed a certain literary reputation in the seventeenth
century, now completely lost. He is only remembered by his licentious
and satirical _Histoire amoureuse des Gaules_, for which he was
banished from the court for more than twenty years.
[66] Damis was meant for Boileau.
[67] There had been a whole family of printers of that name, though
only André was alive when the “Characters” appeared. At that time books
in France and in England were almost always sold bound.
[68] By “newsmonger” our author alludes to the manufacturers of
manuscript newspapers, containing all kinds of social and political
scandal, eagerly sought for, and who were severely punished when
caught. The English translator of 1702 gives for _nouvelliste_
“journalist,” and says in his “Key:” “The author of the Works of the
Learned of Paris,” etc. The _Histoire des Savants_, edited by H.
Basnage (1656-1710), was published in Holland. Mr. N. Rowe, in his
translation published in 1713, also uses the word “journalist,” and
says in the “Key:” “On the authors of Journals, or accounts of books
and News, published in France, Holland,” etc.
[69] La Bruyère speaks here of himself.
[70] In the seventeenth century, _bel esprit_, plural _beaux esprits_,
in the original, meant a man of intelligence, but began already in La
Bruyèreʼs time to have the meaning of “witling.”
[71] Jean Guez de Balzac (1594-1655), one of the first members of the
French Academy, wrote, besides his over-praised “Letters,” a _Socrate
Chrétien_, the _Prince_, a panegyric on Louis XIII., and _Entretiens ou
Dissertations littéraires_.
[72] Voiture (1598-1648), also a member of the French Academy, is
chiefly known by his “Letters” and some namby-pamby poetry, amongst
which is the well-known sonnet on “Uranie,” which was by many preferred
to the sonnet on “Job” by Benserade, and gave rise to a pretty literary
quarrel in the seventeenth century. Voiture and Balzac are now
deservedly buried in oblivion.
[73] The letters of Madame de Sévigné (1626-1696) were not published
until 1726, or thirty years after La Bruyèreʼs death, though perhaps he
might have seen some of them in manuscript. Among the ladies celebrated
for their epistolary style in the seventeenth century were Madame de
Maintenon, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Madame de Bussy-Lameth, and above
all Madame de Boislandry. See the Chapter “Of Opinions,” § 28, “A
Fragment.”
[74] Publius Terentius Afer (194-158 B.C.), a celebrated Latin comic
dramatist.
[75] Some commentators on La Bruyère think that the words “vulgar
tongue (_jargon_) and barbarisms” refer to Molière having put peasants
on the stage, and letting them speak their dialect. See § 52.
[76] Malherbe (1555-1628) was one of the greatest purists amongst
the authors of his time. Théophile de Viau (1591-1626), a writer of
tragedies and a poet, was by some of his contemporaries thought to be a
rival of Malherbe.
[77] In the original _il feint_, the Latin _fingit_, he shapes,
imagines.
[78] Ronsard (1524-1585), the chief of the “Pleiad” or constellation of
seven authors, was the most celebrated poet of his time, and the author
of the _Franciade_.
[79] Clément Marot (1495-1544), the favourite poet of Francis I., was
born twenty-nine years before Ronsard, who lived about forty years
longer than Marot.
[80] Rémy Belleau (1528-1577), Jodelle (1532-1573), and du Bartas
(1544-1590), were all poets of the school of Ronsard and belonging to
the “Pleiad.” Du Bartasʼs chief work has been translated into English
by “silver-tongued” Joshua Sylvester (1563-1618), under the title of
“The Divine Week and Works;” and Spenser speaks of “his heavenly muse,”
and of his filling “the world with never-dying fame.”
[81] Honorat de Bueil, Marquis de Racan (1589-1670), the favourite
pupil of Malherbe, is chiefly known by his pastoral dialogue, _Les
Bergeries_. La Bruyère praises Malherbe and Racan for their pure style,
but the fabulist Jean de la Fontaine says of them:—
“Malherbe avec Racan parmi le chœur des anges,
Là-haut de lʼEternel célébrant les louanges
Ont emporté leur lyre.”
[82] François Rabelais (1459-1553), author of the _Chroniques de
Gargantua et de Pantagruel_.
[83] La Bruyère writes “Montagne,” and so it is even now pronounced.
Montaigneʼs (1533-1592) “Essays” are known everywhere.
[84] The author who “thinks too little” is said to have been the
Port-Royalist, Pierre Nicole (1625-1695), though some imagine Balzac
was meant; the author who thought “with too much subtlety” seems to
have been Father Malebranche (1638-1715), who attacked Montaigne in his
_Recherche de la Vérité_ (1674).
[85] Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), the translator of Plutarch. Nicolas
Coëffeteau (1574-1623), bishop of Marseille, is best known by his
translation of the Roman historian, Florus.
[86] The letters H. G. stand for _Hermes Galant_, “Hermes” being the
Greek for Mercury, and there existing since 1672 a kind of monthly
review, called the _Mercure Galant_, edited by Donneau de Visé, Thomas
Corneille, and Fontenelle, and printing some news from the court and
the army, a few literary articles, and as many advertisements as
possible. Since 1677 its title changed to _Mercure de France_.
[87] Boileau, La Fontaine, and Saint Evremond were, like La Bruyère, no
lovers of the opera.
[88] The Abbé Perrin and his brother-in-law, the Marquis de Sourdéac,
the first regular directors of opera in France, ruined themselves
in less than three years through their expensive decorations and
machinery. In 1672 Lulli and his son-in-law Francine obtained
permission to manage another opera-house, but spent far less money on
decorations than their predecessors had done. Our author calls Lulli
“Amphion,” a Greek musician who is said to have built Thebes by the
music of his lute.
[89] At that time there was a regular theatre for puppet-shows, founded
by Pierre dʼAttelin, better known as Brioché.
[90] In 1670 Corneille and Racine had each a tragedy, _Bérénice_,
represented; _Pénélope_, a tragedy of the Abbé Genest, was played in
1684.
[91] One of those busybodies is said to have been a certain M. Manse,
engineer of the waterworks of Chantilly, the seat of the Condés; and he
pretended to have chiefly organised the festival given by the Prince
de Condé, a son of the great Condé and the father of La Bruyèreʼs
pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, to the Dauphin, the son of Louis XIV., at
Chantilly during the month of August 1688. This entertainment lasted
eight days; hence the necessity of a theatre.
[92] The “hunt on the water” took place on the sixth day of the
festival, when some living deer and other animals were thrown alive
into a large lake, which the ladies, in boats, tried to catch by means
of ropes, and which, when caught, were set at liberty.
[93] On the first day of the feast a splendid “collation” was given by
the Prince to the Dauphin, at the cross-way of “La Table,” amidst a
temple of verdure erected for the occasion. Any meal taken between the
dinner and supper hours, or any festive repast, was called in Louis
XIV.ʼs time a _collation_.
[94] “Another wonderful _collation_ given in the Labyrinth of
Chantilly,” says a note of La Bruyère. An engraving still exists of the
table, its decorations and ornaments.
[95] This compliment to the Prince de Condé only appeared for the first
time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689, when
the whole court was still talking about the entertainment.
[96] This is said to be a hit at the partisans of Quinault, who could
see no charms in anything except in his operas.
[97] In the original, _esprit fort_, which sometimes meant “a man
who does not care for the opinions of the world,” and sometimes “a
freethinker.”
[98] La Bruyère puts in a note: “A rebellion was the ordinary ending of
tragedies.”
[99] Some commentators think this is an allusion to the tragedies of
Quinault, but they were already buried in oblivion when he died in
1688: it seems rather to refer to those of Jean Galbert de Campistron
(1656-1713), who, during ten years, from 1683 to 1693, produced almost
yearly a tragedy, none of which have come down to posterity.
[100] Molière often put peasants on the stage; but he never made
of them, nor of intoxicated persons, his principal characters: the
“sick person” is said to be a hit at Argan in Molièreʼs _Le Malade
imaginaire_. See also page 21, § 38.
[101] This is an allusion to the actor Baronʼs _LʼHomme à bonnes
fortunes_ (1686) and the _Débauché_ (1690); this latter comedy, acted
before the court the very year the above paragraph first appeared, was
a complete failure, and has never been printed. Intoxicated people were
often represented on the stage in La Bruyèreʼs time.
[102] In the original _comédies_, a word employed for tragedies as well
as for comedies.
[103] Cinna in the tragedy of that name, Felix in _Polyeucte_, and
Rodogune in _Rodogune_ are examples of this.
[104] The original has _nombreux_, the Latin _numerosus_.
[105] Three tragedies by Corneille. Though he himself calls the last
tragedy by the name given above, its real title is _Horace_.
[106] Mithridates, the hero of Racineʼs tragedy of that name; Porus, a
character in the _Alexandre_, and Burrhus in the _Britannicus_ of the
same author.
[107] In the comparison between Corneille and Racine there are some
reminiscences of a _Parallèle de M. Corneille et de M. Racine_,
published in 1686 by a certain author, de Requeleyne, Baron de
Longepierre.
[108] Sophocles (495-406 B.C.), Euripides (480-406 B.C.)
[109] Cassius Longinus (213-273), a Greek orator, philosopher, and
author, is chiefly known by his “Treatise on the Sublime,” which is
generally attributed to him. In it he states that there are five
principal sources of the sublime, and that the third is nought but
the figures of speech turned about in a certain manner. Boileauʼs
translation of this “Treatise” appeared in 1674, and in his preface he
described but did not define the sublime, a definition also not found
in Longinus.
[110] The original has _capable_, in the sense of the Latin _capax_.
[111] According to Boileau, Longinus does not understand by “sublime” a
sublime style, but something extraordinary and marvellously striking,
which causes a work to enrapture, delight, and transport us. A sublime
style always requires grand, eloquent words; but the sublime may be
found in a single thought, a single figure of speech, a single phrase.
Longinus himself says that anything which leaves us food for thought,
which almost carries us away, and of which the remembrance is lasting,
is sublime.
[112] In rhetoric there is a difference between a metaphor and a
comparison.
[113] The above paragraph is said to refer to the polemical writings
interchanged between the Jesuits and Jansenists, and seems not quite
fair to Pascalʼs _Lettres Provinciales_.
[114] Some “Keys” mention the names of Bouhours and Bourdaloue, whilst
more modern commentators think that La Bruyère only wished to give a
paragraph on the French prose of his time.
[115] The original has _artisan_, which even in La Bruyèreʼs time meant
an artisan, when used without being qualified; our author employs it,
however, for “artist.”
[116] Some annotators say a certain Abbé Bourdelon (1653-1730), a
completely forgotten critic, was meant; others think it was a hit at
Ménage (1613-1692), who had the good sense not to recognise himself in
this portrait, and is said to have been also the original of Vadius in
Molièreʼs _Femmes Savantes_.
[117] This author was the Abbé de Villiers, who published in 1682 a
poem in four cantos, _LʼArt de Précher_, in which he tried to imitate
_LʼArt poétique_ of Boileau, and in 1690 _Réflexions sur les défauts
dʼautrui_, which were very successful; some suppose Father Bouhoursʼ
_Pensées ingénieuses des anciens et des modernes_ (1689) hinted at;
whilst M. G. Servois, the able editor of La Bruyère in the _Grands
Ecrivains de la France_ (1865-1878), thinks that possibly the “author”
was Jacques Brillon, a lawyer and indefatigable imitator, who in his
youth may have been presumptuous enough to have asked La Bruyèreʼs
advice on some of his literary works, the _Portraits sérieux_, etc.,
the _LʼOuvrage nouveau dans le goût des Caractères de Théophraste
et des Pensées de Pascal_, the _Théophraste moderne_, etc., which
three books appeared, however, after La Bruyèreʼs death, from 1696 to
1700. Adrien Baillet, an erudite scholar and fertile author, is also
mentioned by some “Keys.”
[118] It is now generally supposed that by the satirist described
Boileau is meant, for he sometimes commences grand subjects, as in his
satires _Sur lʼHomme_ or _Sur la Noblesse_, but he never enters deeply
into the matter, and treats of _Les Embarras de Paris_ or _Le Repas
ridicule_.
[119] Those names stand for Varillas (1624-1695) and Maimbourg
(1610-1686), two voluminous historians, the first of whom is known
for the inaccuracy of his facts, the second by his pretentious style,
though Madame de Sévigné and Voltaire do not entirely condemn the
latter, and Bayle, in his _Dictionnaire_, praises his knowledge and
accuracy. “Handburg” is the German for “Maimbourg.”
[120] _Glorieux_ in the original, which in La Bruyèreʼs time, and even
later, had the meaning “conceited.” One of N. Destouchesʼ (1680-1754)
best comedies is called _Le Glorieux_.
[121] The original has _un honnête homme_, which meant, in La Bruyèreʼs
time, “a gentleman, a well-mannered man,” but never “an honest man,”
which is in French _un homme de bien_.
[122] “The stammerer” was meant for the son of Achille de Harlay
(1639-1712), chief president of the parliament of Paris, and is said
not to have stammered, but to have been very idle, and without any
oratorical talents. Yet, in 1691, at the age of twenty-three, he was
appointed advocate-general, through the influence of his father. Hence
his appearance in the sixth edition of the “Characters,” also published
in 1691. Mdlle. de Harlay, a daughter of the first president, was sent
to a convent in 1686 on account of her affection for Dumesnil, a singer
at the Opera.
[123] Xanthus was M. de Courtenvaux, the eldest son of the Minister for
War, M. de Louvois, and is said not to have excelled either in good
looks or bravery.
[124] V ... stands for Claude François Vignon (1634-1703), a son of an
artist of the same name; C ... is Pascal Colasse, a pupil of Lulli,
whose opera, _Achille et Polyxène_, was played a short time before
the “Characters” were first published (1687); _Pyrame_, written by
Pradon (1632-1698), was acted in 1674; he had brought out several other
tragedies before the first appearance of La Bruyèreʼs book. At that
time Pierre Mignard (1635-1695), the celebrated artist, and Pierre
Corneille (1606-1694) were still alive, and Lulli (1633-1687), the
great musician, had only been dead a few months.