A Life-long Friend—St Evrémond’s Courtly _Mot_—Rabelais _v._
Petronius—Society and the Salons—The Golden Days—The Man in
Black.
Scarcely was acquaintance renewed with her still quite youthful old
friend, Monsieur de la Rochefoucauld, than Ninon met for the first
time St Evrémond—Charles de St Denys, born 1613, at St Denys le
Guast near Coutances in Normandy—the man with whom her name is so
indissolubly connected, traversing nearly all the decades of the
seventeenth century into the early years of the eighteenth, his
span of life about equalling her own, and though for half of it
absent from her and from his country, maintaining the links of their
intimacy in their world-famed correspondence.
Like Ninon’s, his individuality was exceptional. A born wit, for even
in his childhood, the soubriquet of “_Esprit_” was bestowed upon him,
his three brothers being severally styled—“The Honest Man,” “The
Soldier,” and “The Abbé.” Charles de St Evrémond was distinguished
by a brilliant and singularly amiable intelligence. As a man of
letters he was rarely gifted; though he evaded, more than sought, the
celebrity attaching to the profession of literature, writing only, it
may be truly said of him—
“... in numbers
For the numbers came.”
He never put forward his own works for publication, and it was only
towards the close of his life that his consent was obtained for such
publication. During his lifetime, many of his pieces in prose and in
verse were printed and circulated in Paris and in London, where, at
the Courts of Charles II. and of William III., forty years of his
life were spent; but these were pirated productions, surreptitiously
issued by his “friends,” to whom he occasionally confided his
compositions, and they, for their own gain, sold them to the
booksellers, who eagerly sought them. These pieces were altogether
unfaithful to their originals, being altered to suit the particular
sentiments of readers, and added to, in order to increase the bulk of
the volumes. The style of St Evrémond’s writings has been the subject
of encomium and warm appreciation from numerous learned critics and
litterateurs, notably St Beuve and Dryden.
One contemporary editor, withholding his name, content with styling
himself merely “A Person of Honour,” has, at all events, yielded
due homage to St Evrémond’s character and genius. Commenting on the
essays which have come within his ken, he writes—
“Their fineness of expression, delicacy of thought are united with
the ease of a gentleman, the exactness of a scholar, and the good
sense of a man of business. It is certain,” he adds, “that the
author is thoroughly acquainted with the world, and has conversed
with the best sort of men to be found in it.”
To this may be added the praise of Dryden—
“There is not only a justness in his conceptions, which is the
foundation of good writing, but also a purity of language, and a
beautiful turn of words, so little understood by modern writers.”
Agreeable, witty, an excellent conversationalist, and of real
amiability of character and disposition, St Evrémond’s aim in life
was to enjoy it. Indolently inclined, he accepted the ills and
contrarieties of existence, finding even in them some soul of good.
Always fond of animals, he surrounded himself in later years with
cats and dogs, holding them eminently sympathetic and amusing; and
he was wont to say that in order to divert the uneasinesses of old
age, it was desirable to have before one’s eyes something alive and
animated.
He possessed enough money for comfortable maintenance from several
sources. Both Charles II. and William III. settled “gratifications”
on him. His creed was a formless one, but he was no atheist, for
all the charge of it laid to him. He was, on the contrary, quick to
rebuke the profanity and laxity of mockers. He himself sums up his
religion in these lines—
“Justice and Charity supply the place
Of rigid penance and a formal face.
His piety without inflicted pains
Flows easy, and austerity disdains.
God only is the object of his care,
Whose goodness leaves no room for black despair.
Within the bosom of His providence
He places his repose, his bliss and sure defence.”
His writings were voluminous, flowing from his pen as a labour he
delighted in. Their themes were varied, brought from the rich stores
of his mind, his most enduring and favourite subjects being classical
Latin lore, and the drama of his own day, lustrous with great names
in France, as in the country of his adoption.
Such, and much more, was St Evrémond the man of letters, and besides,
he was a skilful and gallant soldier, distinguished for his brilliant
sword-play, when he entered upon the exercises preparatory for his
military career. In that capacity he won the approval and friendship
of the Duke d’Enghien, fighting by the prince’s side at Rocroi and
Nordlingen; though later a breach occurred in their relations, when
St Evrémond indulged in some raillery at his expense. The great man
vastly enjoyed persiflage of the sort where the shafts were levelled
at others; but he brooked none of them aimed at himself, and St
Evrémond was deprived of his lieutenancy.
Sometimes the wit carried a more flattering note, and once when
disgrace shadowed him at Court for having appeared in the Sun-King’s
presence in a _pourpoint_ of a fashion not quite up to latest date,
he said to His Majesty—“Sire, away from you, one is not merely
unhappy: one also becomes ridiculous.” The conceit wiped away St
Evrémond’s disfavour. He was a friend of several of the other
renowned soldiers of his time, Turenne among them. It was one of
Condé’s great delights to be read to by St Evrémond. The duke took
pleasure in the lighter classics. Petronius had its attractions for
him, as it had for the society generally of the time; but he would
have none of Rabelais, finding the grossness of the Curé of Meudon
intensely distasteful, and refusing to listen to the adventures of
Gargantua and Pantagruel and Grandgousier, and all their tribe,
he insisted on the book being thrown aside. The merry romances of
Petronius, or, at least, attributed to that “_Elegantiæ Arbiter_” of
a pagan court, while ill adapted as milk for babes, as perhaps even
for the more advanced in years, were not soiled with the lowermost
grossness of the Christian man’s pen, and they were not without
appeal to the students of the classic literature opened up by the
Renaissance, even as the milder licence of Boccaccio charmed.
Truly, if the times were peculiar, it cannot be said of them that
they were stagnant; and in movement and activity, the present century
bears them some sort of comparison; though beyond this the parallel
fails, to the winning of the days of Ninon. _Autres temps, autres
mœurs_, and while there may be more veneer of morality in these
present years of grace than then, the question remains whether the
sense of it is deeper and more widely observed. It is one, however,
outside the limits of these pages. Only that the aroma and delicacy
of educated social intercourse do not permeate society as in that
time is undoubted. Of course the impression existing in some minds
of the widespread canker of profligacy and licentiousness then
openly prevailing, is perverting of facts, since punctilio and the
Court etiquette of the most punctilious of monarchs would not, and
could not, have countenanced it. Such licence was indulged in by,
and confined, as it is now, to a certain section of the “smart”
community, and this possibly no such narrow one; but at least it
was veiled then by certain elements of good taste, and some womanly
graces now far to seek. Not then, as now, the motor craze made
existence uglier; then as not now, the bold, inane stares and painted
faces of many of the gentler sex frequenting the highways and byways,
were mostly screened by masks, and an awkward gait was mantled. Some
cultivation of expression, and a little more sense, if not wit,
graced the tongues now devoted to slang and the misuse of words which
hang about the higher education; while the clamour of ill-advised
women without doors was unknown. The comments of a recent French
writer on the charm of life in those past days, are too valuable
to be laid aside unrecorded. “The keen intellects of the time,” he
writes, “caught a glimpse of everything, desired everything, and
grasped eagerly at every new idea. Only those,” he goes on to say,
quoting Talleyrand, “could realise the joy of being alive. The
childish present-day philosophy of optimism and effort fails to lend
life a charm it never knew before. The most insignificant gallant
of the Court of Louis experienced more varied sensations than any
rough-rider or industrial king has ever been able to procure for
himself.” Admittedly, the evils of the time cried aloud for redress
of wrongs which were all to be washed away later by the river of
blood; but these had been more ameliorated than aggravated by the
scholarship of thoughtful writers. Wit, and the sense of beauty
and delicacy of expression, carried, not unfrequently it is true,
to affectations and absurdity, was the order of the day, binding
men and women in links of an intellectual sympathy, whose pure gold
was unalloyed by baser metal. Those _réunions_ in the salons of
the great ladies, must have been delightful, thronged as they were
with distinguished men, and with women, many of them beautiful,
_spirituelle_, or both. But for the sparkle of true wit, the music
of sweet voices, the ripple of verse and epigram, the popularity
of those gatherings would not have been so long maintained. The
atmosphere of them was sweet with the lighter learning of old
Rome and Greece, and the gaiety of graceful modern rhymes, or the
sentiment of the latest sonnet. The passing of centuries had now
left far behind the barbaric clash of warfare, and widened the old
limitations of mediævalism and Scholasticism. From the hour the cruel
knife of Ravaillac stilled the noble heart of the great Henri, the
times had ripened to the harvest of a literature resplendent with
promise of illustrious names.
Ever zealous for the glory of France, Richelieu founded the Académie
Française; and later the college of the Sorbonne, where now he lies
magnificently entombed, was rebuilt by him, and devoted to its old
purpose of a centre of learning; and as of old, and as ever, men
thronged from near and from afar to Paris for the study of art and
learning, and to pay such homage to the modern Muses and enjoy their
smiles, as good fortune might allow.
Amid such environment it was, that Ninon embarked upon the stream
of the life she had elected to follow, hoping to pass, as indeed
she did, through the years serenely and in fair content. If now and
again some minor questions of spirit troubled her—conscience it
could scarcely be called, since by the lights she had chosen to guide
her, conscience could hardly be reproachful—it was but passingly.
Yet the tale goes of the visits of a Man in Black, a most mysterious
personage, who at his first interview, when she was about eighteen
years old, brought her a phial containing a rose-coloured liquid,
of which a little, a mere drop, went a very long way. It was the
recipe for prolonged youthfulness, and certainly must have been very
efficacious. It was, he said, to be mixed with a great deal of pure
water, quite as much as a good-sized bath would contain—and a bath
of pure water is, of course, in itself a very healthful sort of
thing. Many a year went by before the Man in Black—or one so like
him as to be his very double—came again, and Ninon was prone to
shrink at the remembrance of him. When he did come, it was to inform
her that some years of this life still lay before her; and then for
the third time that Man in Black presented himself, and—But the cry
is a far one to seventy years hence, and during that time, as far
as Ninon was concerned, he remained in his own place, wherever that
might be; and if, after all, he had been but a dream, in any case the
shadow of his sable garb does not appear to have been very constantly
cast upon the mirror of her existence. That was bright with love
and friendship, the love and friendship of both sexes, and truly if
in love she was frankly fickle _à merveille_, in friendship she was
constant and unchanging. Ever following the dying parental counsel,
she was fastidious in the choice of the aspirants to her favours. In
her relations with women and men alike, honest and honourable and
full of a kindly charm which made her exceptionally _bonne camarade_.
It was small wonder that the salon of Mademoiselle Ninon de L’Enclos
was a centre of foregathering greatly sought after.