Xerxes I., 465 B.C., and died about 425 B. C.
[245] Cydias is Fontenelle (see page 11, note 1), who was only
thirty-seven years old when this paragraph was first printed in
the eighth edition of the “Characters,” in 1694, and who became La
Bruyèreʼs enemy ever since.
[246] Fontenelle had written for his uncle Thos. Corneille (1625-1709)
certain parts of two operas, _Psyché_ (1678) and _Bellérophon_ (1679);
for Beauval, in prose, an eulogy on Perrault (1688), and for a certain
Mdlle. Bernard, part of a tragedy of _Brutus_ (1691).
[247] Lucianus of Samosata, a satirist and a rhetorician (120-200 A.D.)
[248] The author adds “a philosopher and a tragic poet.” See page 124,
note 4.
[249] Plato, the well-known Greek philosopher (430-347 B.C.)
[250] Publius Virgilius Maro, the Roman epic and bucolic poet (70-19
B.C.)
[251] Theocritus, a Greek bucolic poet, who flourished about 272 B.C.
Fontenelle had written Dialogues of the dead, as Lucianus had done;
philosophical works and tragedies like Seneca, philosophical dialogues
in Platoʼs style, and pastoral poetry like Virgil and Theocritus.
[252] Perrault, La Motte (1672-1731), De Visé (1640-1710), and others.
[253] This friend is supposed to have been La Motte.
[254] The right of presentation to nearly all offices at court, or
official positions, was publicly bought and sold in Louis XIV.ʼs time.
[255] Commentators, who see allusions everywhere, suppose the “very
rich man” was Louvois, whose sons-in-law were the Dukes de la
Rocheguyon and de Villeneuve; or Colbert, who became the father-in-law
of the Dukes de Chevreuse, de Beauvilliers, and de Mortemart; or,
finally, Frémont, keeper of the royal treasury, who married his
daughter to the Duke de Lorges.
[256] This lady is said to have been Madame Fleurion dʼArmenonville,
daughter of a clothier, whose husband was keeper of the seals and
_directeur des finances_.
[257] Those men were the so-called “farmers of the revenue,” nearly all
of low birth, and who formerly had been in some trade or business. See
page 136, note 2, and page 137, § 15.
[258] Little, silly, ugly rich men were not more rare in our authorʼs
time than they are at present; but the commentators will have it that
the Marquis de Gouverney and the Duke de Ventadour were meant.
[259] M. de Saint-Pouange, a relative of the ministers Colbert, Le
Tellier, and Louvois, and the latterʼs principal secretary, is meant.
[260] Nearly all the great lords had Swiss doorkeepers. Petit-Jean,
in Racineʼs comedy _Les Plaideurs_, says also: “Il mʼavait fait venir
dʼAmiens pour être Suisse.”
[261] The “Keys” mention several people for Clitiphon, such as M. le
Camus, _lieutenant-civil_, or his brother the cardinal, or another
brother who was _maître des requêtes_.
[262] In the original there is a play on the word _rare_ which cannot
be rendered in English.
[263] This seems to refer to Platoʼs “Timæus” and his “Phædo.”
[264] Jupiter is the largest and Saturn the second largest planet of
our solar system. The celebrated Dutch natural philosopher Huyghens van
Zuylichem (1629-1695), who discovered the fourth satellite of Saturn
and proved the existence of its ring, lived in Paris from 1666 till
1681, and may have met La Bruyère.
[265] The original has _trivial_, from the Latin _trivialis_
and _trivium_, hence the meaning of exposed to the public gaze,
“perceptible.”
[266] By these initials are meant _partisans_, a name given to the
farmers-general of the revenue. Until 1726, these persons obtained
in France, for a fixed money payment, the right of collecting one or
more of the public taxes. This system was first inaugurated by Sully
(1560-1641), the able finance-minister of Henri IV., out of necessity,
in order to raise money; and was continued for more than two hundred
years, and the cause of many arbitrary measures and great oppression.
The number of these _fermiers-généraux_ was first forty and afterwards
sixty, but there were a goodly number of _sous-fermiers_ and many other
agents, who were all practically irresponsible. In 1726, a company
of capitalists undertook the collection of the greater part of the
kingʼs taxes, which was called the _fermes-générales_ or _unies_, and
lasted till the first French Revolution. The _ministre des finances_,
a name only first given in 1795, was, in the sixteenth and part of the
seventeenth century, called _surintendant des finances_, and from 1661
till 1791 _contrôleur-général des finances_.
[267] Sosia in Greek is generally used as the name of a servant or a
slave, and Molière gives that name to a servant in his _Amphitryon_; in
Latin a farmer of the public revenue was called _socius_, because he
was the associate of other similar farmers. It was not at all uncommon
in Louis XIV.ʼs time for footmen to rise to the rank of financiers, and
La Bazinière, de Gourville, and de Bourvalais, who were all three very
rich, as well as many others, might be quoted as examples of this. Two
_fermiers-généraux_, Révol and dʼApougny, became churchwardens.
[268] See page 43, note 2.
[269] The wives of a good many farmers of the revenue have been named
by various commentators and “Keys.”
[270] The _huitième denier_ was a tax imposed in 1672 during the war
with Holland on all purchasers of estates from the clergy.
[271] The “Keys” give several names of financiers, such as Aubert, who
at one time was worth more than three millions of francs, and who died
in a garret, Guénegaud, and Rémond. The _Chambre de Justice_, a name
given to certain committees which were appointed from time to time
to inquire into financial malversations and abuses condemned in 1661
the above-named three gentlemen to pay very heavy fines; hence their
comparative poverty.
[272] “Champagne” stands for Monnerot. (See page 110, note 2.) It was
not uncommon to give such names as _Poitevin_, _Lorrain_, _Basque_,
_Provençal_, etc., to footmen, after their supposed native provinces.
[273] Two still Champagne wines. Sparkling Champagne was not drunk till
the eighteenth century.
[274] All commentators agree that here the farmer-general George is
meant, who bought the Marquisate dʼEntragues and married a daughter of
the Marquis de Valençay.
[275] The _taille_ was a kingʼs tax levied every year only on the
people and the commoners.
[276] Who Dorus is has not been found out.
[277] The Appian Way, the oldest and best of all the Roman roads, leads
from the Porta Cappena at Rome to Capua.
[278] The Lictors at Rome, with the _fasces_, always walked before the
Consul or the Dictator.
[279] Some think that here a certain M. de Langlée, _maréchal des camps
et armées du roi_, was meant. Others think it was an uncle of the
minister Colbert, a M. Pussort, one of the kingʼs counsel of state; but
the first was unmarried and had a very wealthy father, and the second,
who was also unmarried, and a miser to boot, owed his influence wholly
to his position.
[280] The original has _pancartes_, which our author in a note states
were _billets dʼenterrement_.
[281] _Noble homme_ was a title which citizens of importance took
in all legal contracts, whilst men of less influence, tradesmen and
artisans, were styled _Honorable homme_, and _Messire_ was only
reserved for persons of rank.
[282] This youth was M. le Tellier, who became Archbishop of Rheims in
1671, when he was only twenty-nine years old, but who already, before
that time, received the revenues of six abbeys. (See also page 47, note
2.)
[283] Formerly _six vingts_, hundred and twenty—thus in the
original—was as commonly used as _quatre-vingt_.
[284] The first two editions contained a note of La Bruyère, to say
that by _médailles dʼor_ he meant _louis dʼor_. This he thought
no longer necessary in the other editions; he only wanted to draw
attention to the fact that the “youth” received his clerical dues in
golden coin, and not by a cheque on some _fermier-général_, who would
have taken a discount for cash payment.
[285] This paragraph seems to be a hit at the _fermier-général_
Langeois, whose daughter married the Marshal de Tourville,
and whose son was married to a niece of de Pontchartrain, the
_contrôleur-général_ of the finances.
[286] Although this remark seems to refer to the Baron de Beauvais,
_capitaine des chasses_, to whom the king had given the right of
selling the briars and brambles growing on the road to Versailles, the
portrait of Ergastus alludes to those men who were for ever advising
to tax articles not already imposed, and by whom France became finally
ruined.
[287] Berrier, one of the secretaries of Colbert, is said to have been
the original of Crito.
[288] This is generally believed to refer to de Pontchartrain,
mentioned before, who, for some time, was very pious.
[289] See page 136, note 2.
[290] The old English translations of the “Characters” say this is an
allusion to M. Fouquet (1615-1680), _surintendant des finances_, who,
kept in prison by Louis XIV. for more than twenty years, had a great
many friends and partisans when in prosperity, but they nearly all
turned against him in his adversity.
[291] The desire to make oneʼs fortune was so great, that at that
time, even at court, it was customary to take money from forgers and
scoundrels; thus the Count de Grammont drew about fifty thousand
_livres_ from a peculator, and the wife of the son of the king of
France received as a present from Louis XIV. the estate of a prisoner
who had committed suicide in the Bastile, which was thought to be worth
a great deal of money. A similar custom existed also at the courts of
Charles II. and James II.; and William Penn was even accused of having
become an agent for the maids-of-honour of the court, and of obtaining
pardons for a pecuniary consideration, but it is now generally admitted
it was another Penn who acted thus.
[292] The “Keys” think that either Nicholas dʼOrville, the confidant of
Louis XIV. and Mdlle. de la Vallière, and royal treasurer at Orléans,
or Boucherat, _chancelier de France_, and a perfect noodle, according
to St. Simonʼs _Mémoires_, were alluded to as the “weak-minded men.”
[293] See page 43, note 2.
[294] A few of the “Keys” give Racine the poet as the original of
such a man, but this is very unlikely, for Racine was a friend of our
author, and, moreover, had acquired more glory than riches.
[295] Some commentators think that the Marquis de Seignelay, the eldest
son of Colbert, is meant here; for after his death, which took place
when he was only thirty-nine years old, he is said to have left five
millions _livres_ debts; others pretend he left a capital large enough
to yield a yearly income of four hundred thousand francs.
[296] Boileau, in his fifth _Epître_, says also: “Qui vit content de
rien possède toute chose.”
[297] Jean Fauconnet, _fermier-général des domaines de France_, became
also receiver-general of two other taxes, which was very unusual. Our
author speaks of “Fauconnets,” to indicate farmers of the revenues in
general, though there was only one Fauconnet. In La Bruyèreʼs time
the financiers seem to have despised men of letters; but later on,
during the Regency and the reign of Louis XV. and Louis XVI., it became
the fashion to invite literary men on every festive occasion, and to
lionise them—a custom not unknown, even at the present time, and in
other countries than France.
[298] Our author had René Descartesʼ (1596-1650) name printed in small
capitals, to remind his readers of the persecutions this philosopher
had suffered.
[299] _Au denier dix_ in the original.
[300] In former times French Governments often suppressed certain
monies or diminished their legal value, and a law to this effect had
been passed by Louis XIV. as late as 1679.
[301] Orontes is supposed to be a certain M. Neyret de la Ravoye,
who became later _trésorier-général de la marine_, and who married a
Mademoiselle Valière.
[302] _En bon français_ in the original; just as we say “in plain
English.”
[303] A certain Count de Marsan seems to have made his fortune by
marrying first one rich widow and then another.
[304] These different degrees of legal dignity were formerly in French
_praticien_, _officier_, _magistrat_, _président_.
[305] Without any proof whatever, the “Keys” pretend that a certain
_intendant des finances_, M. du Buisson, was meant.
[306] The miser is supposed to have been a M. Morstein, formerly chief
treasurer of Poland, who went to reside in Paris, where he died in
1693; two years later his only son was killed at the siege of Namur.
[307] Thus M. Langlée, a “man sprung from nothing,” as St. Simon calls
him, but a first-rate gambler, played for several years every day with
the king. See also page 139, note 6. Gourville (see page 137, note 1)
gambled with noblemen of the highest rank; and a certain Morin, after
having lost large sums of money, was obliged to fly to London, where
he managed the gambling table of the Duchess de Mazarin, and is often
mentioned by St. Evremond.
[308] Our author says in a footnote: “See the narratives about the
kingdom of Siam.” The _zombay_ seems to have been a very profound
inclination and prostration of the body. In “A New Historical Relation
of Siam by M. de Loubère, envoy extraordinary from the French king to
the king of Siam in the years 1687 and 1688, done out of French,” and
printed in London in 1693, we find “they (the Siamese) kept themselves
prostrated on their knees and elbows, with their hands joined at the
top of their forehead, and their body seated on their heels; to the end
that they may lean less on their elbows, and that it may be possible
(without assisting themselves with their hands, but keeping them still
joined to the top of their forehead) to raise themselves on their
knees, and fall again upon their elbows, as they do thrice together, as
often as they would speak to their king.”
[309] In the French parliaments or courts, councillors were allowed
to plead, and justice was administered in the kingʼs name; but these
parliaments had no legislative power, and had only to register the
royal edicts before they became law.
[310] A game of chance played with cards.
[311] Those who made their fortune by gambling were, according to the
“Keys,” Courcillon, Marquis de Dangeau, who left behind him a very
valuable _Journal_ of the sayings and doings of the court of Louis
XIV., which has often been printed; but he did not owe his success in
life to gambling alone; and Morin, already mentioned, page 155, note 1.
[312] All the “Keys” give as the model of a perfect gambler a certain
Louis Robert, Seigneur de Fortille, who made his fortune as _intendant_
of different army-corps, and lost almost everything he possessed; but
as the passion for gambling was very common, and as the king was the
first to give the example of it, ruined gamblers were to be found in
plenty. Cheating at play was also not rare.
[313] Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, after the death of her husband
Odenathus, waged war for five years against the Romans, and was
vanquished by Aurelian in the year 273.
[314] _Ouvrier_, in the original, is sometimes used by our author for
“artist.”
[315] Phidias (490-432 B.C.) was a Greek sculptor of renown; Zeuxis
(424-400 B.C.), a Greek painter, who is said to have painted grapes so
well that some birds came and pecked at them.
[316] The “herdsman” alluded to in the above paragraph seems to have
been the financier La Touanne, _trésorier de lʼextraordinaire des
guerres_. He had a mansion near the park of Saint Maur, part of an
estate formerly belonging to Catherine de Medici (Zenobia), on which
he spent enormous sums, whilst the other part belonged to the Prince
de Condé, who in vain tried to induce the parvenu to sell him his
property. Hence the attack of our author on the man who dared to oppose
the wishes of his noble patron. However, when this paragraph appeared,
La Touanne did not yet live at Saint Maur.
[317] According to the commentators, this refers to Jacques Bordier,
_intendant des finances_, who, after having spent more than a million
on his estate at Raincy, was obliged to leave it; but his creditors did
not expel him, for it was sold by his heirs after his death.
[318] The Marquis de Seignelay is supposed by some to have been the
original of Eumolpus; he did not, however, enjoy a long life. (See page
149, note ?)
[319] _Libertin_, in the original, which first meant a man of
free-and-easy manners, came to be chiefly used in the second half of
the seventeenth century for a “freethinker.”
[320] _Superstitieux_ sometimes had the above meaning; Littré gives two
examples of it in his dictionary.
[321] Giton and Phædo do not apply to any one in particular, though
some commentators maintain that by the first the Marquis de Barbézieux,
the son of Louvois, was meant.
[322] Now we speak of town and country, but in La Bruyèreʼs time people
mentioned the town or city and the court, wholly different in customs
and manners. Boileau begins his _Satires_ with the two following lines—
“Damon, ce grand auteur dont la muse fertile,
Amusa si long-temps et la cour et la ville.”
Our author places his chapter “Of the Town” before that “Of the Court”
and “Of the Great,” and leads up to that “Of the Sovereign.”
[323] Le Cours la Reine, familiarly called Le Cours, was a part of the
Champs-Elysées, planted with trees by order of Maria de Medici, the
wife of Henri IV.; hence the name. The theatre finished then at seven
oʼclock, when it was not too late to take a walk in summer-time. See
also Molièreʼs _Les Fâcheux_, act i. scene 1.
[324] The favourite and fashionable walk, during the latter part of the
seventeenth century, was from Paris to Vincennes.
[325] That bank is now the quays Saint-Bernard and Austerlitz.
[326] Bourdaloue (1632-1704), a celebrated preacher, censures a similar
behaviour in his sermon on _Les Divertissements du Monde_.
[327] To the _grande robe_ belonged all magistrates; to the _petite
robe_ all _avoués_ and _procureurs_, somewhat like attorneys and
solicitors; the _avocats_ or barristers were between the two, and the
court of justice or _parlement_ above them all.
[328] The _avocats_ were generally not considered to belong to the
_grande robe_, and La Bruyère was one of them; the latter part of the
paragraph is a direct attack on the sale of legal offices.
[329] This applies, according to the “Keys,” to a certain M. de la
Briffe, a _maître des requêtes_, or to M. de Saint-Pouange. (See page
134, note 3.)
[330] Two celebrated barristers of La Bruyèreʼs time.
[331] J. H. de Mesmes, who became _président à mortier_ in 1688, when
he was only twenty-seven years old, is said to have been a constant
companion of profligate young noblemen. A _mortier_ was a round velvet
cap, worn by the Chancellor and Presidents of parliaments.
[332] See page 165, note 1.
[333] The original has _et qui a consigné_, a meaning which we have
still in the English word “consignment.” The explanation of this word
is given by the author himself.
[334] An allusion to the three fleurs de lis of the Bourbons.
[335] _Litre_, in the original, is a kind of mourning hangings, or,
rather, a broad velvet band on which the coats of arms of certain
nobles were painted, and which was placed around the church, inside
as well as outside. The right of using the _litre_ belonged only to
noblemen who had founded a church, or to those who had exercised a
certain jurisdiction in their domains.
[336] The commentators hint at several magistrates as the originals of
the Crispins, and imagine that the Sannions were the family of Leclerc
de Lesseville, the descendants of rich tanners, who became ennobled for
having lent 20,000 crowns to Henry IV. after the battle of Ivry.
[337] This “other man” was a certain President de Coigneux, who
neglected his legal duties to spend all his time in sport.
[338] _Laisse-courre_ in French; formerly _courre_ was used instead of
_courir_, as a sporting term.
[339] A. M. Jérôme de Nouveau, the head of the post-office, is said to
have asked his head huntsman a similar question.
[340] Hippolytus, son of Theseus, king of Athens, “a youth who never
knew a woman,” thrown from his chariot and killed, is the hero of
Racineʼs tragedy _Phèdre_.
[341] The Ile meant nearly always the Ile Saint-Louis; the Quartier du
Temple, formerly the _Marais_, is even sometimes now called by that
name.
[342] The commentators have given the names of several obscure people
for those “infatuated men,” and for André as well; but it is surely not
a rare thing for men to ruin themselves through vanity.
[343] The Abbé de Villars, who died in 1691, was a son of the Marquis
de Villars, French ambassador to the Court of Spain, and is said to
have been the original of Narcissus.
[344] The Convent of the Feuillants, a branch of the Cistercian monks,
was in the Rue Saint-Honoré; that of the Minims, an order founded by
St. Francis of Paula in 1453, was near the Place Royale.
[345] Ombre, a Spanish game of cards, often mentioned by English
authors of the eighteenth century; Pope has a poetical description of
it in his “Rape of the Lock.” Reversis is another game of cards, played
by four persons, and in which those who make the fewest tricks win the
game.
[346] A golden pistole was usually worth eleven _livres_.
[347] The _Gazette de Hollande_ was a newspaper published in Holland,
and in which everything was put that could not be printed or said in
France. For the _Mercure Galant_, see page 24, note 2.
[348] Cyrano de Bergerac (1620-1655) was the author of the _Histoires
Comiques des Etats et Empires de la Lune, etc._, of a tragedy,
_Agrippine_, and of a comedy, _Le Pédant Joué_, from which Molière
borrowed two scenes.
[349] Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (1596-1676), an author of various
plays, novels, and poems, and one of the first in France to attack the
authority of the ancients.
[350] Louis de Lesclache (1620-1661), a grammarian and a writer on
philosophy.
[351] Barbin, a well-known publisher at the time our author wrote.
[352] The Plaine was probably the Plaine des Sablons; for the Cours,
see page 164, note 2.
[353] The “Keys” are unanimous in saying that the Prince of
Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who had married a sister of the Maréchal de
Luxembourg, and who died at the Hague in 1692, is meant by “this man.”
[354] This was the boulevard of the Porte Saint-Antoine, sometimes
called the Nouveau Cours, on the road to Vincennes.
[355] A large garden in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was called thus,
after a financier of the same name who had laid it out.
[356] A sort of mock tilting-match on horseback.
[357] The alliance between France and Switzerland was always solemnly
sworn, and this was done for the last time in 1663 in Notre-Dame.
[358] Every year under Louis XIV.ʼs reign there were published large
engravings, in which the king, the princes, and the principal persons
of the court were represented, whilst lower down the citizens, the
people, etc., were looking on, and the real almanack was pasted quite
at the bottom.
[359] Saint Hubert was the patron saint of the chase, and on the 5th
of November, when his festival was held, the king and the greatest
personages of the court hunted at Versailles.
[360] Two small places near Versailles where often soldiers encamped
and reviews were held.
[361] Bernardi was the director of a celebrated gymnasium at that time,
and every year his pupils attacked and defended an artificial fort,
erected by his orders.
[362] The Marquis de Chamlay was a noted tactician; Jacquier had been
the head of the commissariate, and died in 1684; and Berbier du Metz,
lieutenant-general of the artillery, was killed at the battle of
Fleuras in 1690.
[363] Beaumavielle, a celebrated basso-singer at the opera, died about
1688.
[364] Marthe de Rochois sang at the opera from 1678 till 1697.
[365] The _Annales Galantes_ were published in 1670, and written by
Madame de Villedieu; no _Journal Amoureux_ ever saw the light.
[366] _Roland_, an opera by Quinault (see page 28, note 2) and Lulli
(see page 25, note 1, and page 46, note), was represented for the
first time at Versailles in the beginning of 1685, and Mademoiselle de
Rochois played the part of Angelica in it.
[367] See page 65, note 1.