Woman in Society and Literature
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, after the death of Henry
IV., there were three classes in France,—the nobility, clergy, and
third estate,—each with a distinct field of action: the nobility
dominated customs, morality, and the government; the clergy supervised
instruction and education; the third estate furnished the funds, that
is, its work made possible the operations of the other classes.
At court, various dialects and diverse pronunciations were in use by
the representatives of the different provinces; the written language,
though understood generally, was not used. Warriors were largely
in evidence among the members of the nobility and court; entirely
indifferent to decency of expression, purity of morals, and refinement
of manners, and even boasting of their scorn of all restrictions,
they took their boisterous rudeness into the drawing room where their
influence was unlimited. The king, being of the same class, knew no
better, or, if he did, had not the moral courage to compel a change;
thus, the institution of a reformatory movement fell to the lot of
woman.
Then, however, woman was but little better than man; to gain his
esteem, she would first have to make radical changes in her own
behavior and become self-respecting. The customs of the time placed
many disadvantages in the way of her social and moral reform. As
a rule, the young girl was confined to a convent until she reached
marriageable age; when that came and with it an undesired husband, she
was ready for almost any prank that would relieve the monotony of her
uncongenial marital relations. The convents themselves were so corrupt
or so easily corruptible, that, very frequently, young girls did not
leave them with unstained purity. To certain of these institutions,
women and men of standing often bought the privilege of access at any
time, to drink, dine, sleep, or attend sacred exercises with other
persons; thus, libertinage was not uncommon within the walls of those
so-called religious establishments.
Mme. de Rambouillet felt most keenly the degradation of woman and
resolved to act against it by combating everything that could offend
taste or delicacy. As in the beginning of every great age, all things
tended to greatness. A period of discipline and coördination set
in, and elegance, grace, and refinement became the most pronounced
characteristics of the time; rough, crude, robust, vigorous, and
energetic characteristics, combined with coarseness and brutality,
were eliminated during the seventeenth century. The women who caused
this general purification of morals and language were given the name
of _précieuses_ and the movement that of _préciosité_.
The extent to which the _précieuses_ went in inventing locutions by
which they were to be recognized as elegant, is generally exaggerated;
Livet says that out of six hundred women hardly thirty could be
accused of such fatuity. The wiser and more conservative women
did adopt a large number of expressions which were necessary for
refinement of language and these classicisms were exaggerated by some
of the provincial classes who received their expressions from books
and the theatre; such authors as Corneille, etc., were studied and
their poetic licenses introduced into spoken language. These follies,
pictured by Molière, naturally afforded much amusement in cultured
circles where every event of the day was discussed, from the vital
affairs of the government to the æsthetic interests of art and
literature.
The tremendous vogue of the seventeenth century salons or drawing
rooms naturally gave a stimulus to literature; but, as they were so
numerous and as each one claimed its large coterie of literary men,
they proved to be disastrous to some while helpful to others. Two
distinct classes of writers arose: the one, serious, elevated,
thoughtful, classical, and independent of the salon, is well
represented by Molière, Pascal, Boileau; the other, light, affected,
gallant, superficial, was composed of the innumerable unimportant
writers of the day.
The salon movement must not be confounded with two other social
movements or forces—those of court and society; while at the former
all was formality, the latter was still gross and brutish. The Marquis
de Caze, at a supper seized a leg of mutton and struck his neighbor
in the face with it, sprinkling her with gravy, whereupon she laughed
heartily; the Count of Brégis, slapped by the lady with whom he was
dancing, tore off her headdress before the whole company; Louis XIII.,
noticing in the crowd admitted to see him dine a lady dressed too
_décolleté_, filled his mouth with wine and squirted the liquid into
the bosom of the unfortunate girl; the Prince of Condé, indulging in
customary brutishness, ate dung and had the ladies follow his example;
these are fair illustrations of social _elegances_.
As will be seen, nothing of this nature occurred in the salon of Mme.
de Rambouillet, whose object was to charm her leisure hours, distract
and amuse the husband whom she adored, and be agreeable to her
friends. Her amusements were most original—concerts, mythological
representations, suppers, fireworks, comedies, readings, always
something new, often in the form of a surprise or a joke. Of the
latter, the best known is the one played on the Count of Guise whose
fondness for mushrooms had become proverbial; on one occasion when he
had consumed an immense number of them at table, his valet, who had
been bribed, took in all his doublets; on trying to put them on again,
he found them too narrow by fully four inches. "What in the world is
the matter—am I all swollen—could it be due to having eaten too many
mushrooms?" "That is quite possible," said Chaudebonne; "yesterday you
ate enough of them to split." All the accomplices joined in ridiculing
him, and he began to squirm and show a somewhat livid color. Mass was
rung, and he was compelled to attend in his chamber robe. Laughing, he
said: "That would be a fine end—to die at the age of twenty-one from
having eaten too many mushrooms." In the meantime, Chaudebonne advised
the use of an antidote which he wrote and handed to the count, who
read: "Take a good pair of scissors and cut your doublet." Only then
did the victim comprehend the joke.
One day, Voiture, having met a bear trainer, took him with his animals
to the room of the Marquise de Rambouillet; she, turning at the noise,
saw four large paws resting upon her screen. She readily forgave the
author of the surprise. Du Bled relates many more of these innocent
jokes.
Among the congenial people of the salons, the relations were always of
the most cordial, friendly, free, and intimate nature; they were like
the members of a large family. By them, love was not considered a
weakness but a mark of the elevation of the soul, and every man had
to be sensitive to beauty. When the Duchesse d'Aiguillon presented
to society her nephew, who later became the Duke of Richelieu, she
advised and encouraged him to complete his education and make of
himself an _honnête homme_ by association with the elder Mlle. du
Vigean and other women; the object of this procedure was to polish his
manners, elevate his instincts, and develop ease in deportment toward
the ladies. There was no hint of the vulgar or licentious pleasures
which became the characteristics of love in the eighteenth century.
The woman who inaugurated the movement toward purity of morals,
decency of language, polish of manners, and courtesy to woman, was
Mme. de Rambouillet. Cathérine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet,
whose mother was a great Roman lady and whose father had been
ambassador to Rome, inherited that pride of race and independence of
spirit for which she was so well known. In 1600, she was married, at
the age of twelve, to the Marquis de Rambouillet who was her senior by
eleven years, but who treated her with deference and respect rare at
that time. Husband and wife were perfectly congenial, and their happy
and peaceful life was a great contrast to that led by the majority of
the married couples of the day. Absolutely irreproachable in conduct,
she set a worthy example for all women who knew her.
Her high ideals, independence of character, family duties, and the
general debauchery, which was incompatible with her rigid chastity and
"precocious wisdom," caused her to withdraw from the court in 1608;
two years later, she decided to open her salon to such aristocratic
and cultured persons as appreciated womanly grace, wit, and taste. Her
familiarity with Italian and Spanish history and art placed her at
the head of intellectual as well as moral movements. She surrounded
herself with the distinguished men and women of the day, and her
salon, which in every detail was decorated and arranged for pleasure,
immediately became, through the exquisite charm with which she
presided, the one goal of the cultured; her blue room was the
sanctuary of polite society and she was its high priestess.
The highest ambition of the _habitué_ of the salon was to sing, dance,
and converse artistically and with refinement. A reaction against the
general social state immediately set in, even the brusque warriors
acquiring a refinement of speech and manners; and as conversation
developed and became a power, the great lords began to respect men
of letters and to cultivate their society. Anyone who possessed good
manners, vivacity, and wit was admitted to the salon, where a new and
more elevating sociability was the aspiration.
Mme. de Rambouillet was very particular in the choice of friends, and
they were always sincere and devoted, knowing her to be undesirous of
political favors and incapable of stooping to intrigue. Even Richelieu
could not, as compensation to him for a favor to her husband, induce
her to act as spy on some of the frequenters of her salon.
While not a woman of remarkable beauty, she was the personification
of reason and virtue; her unassuming frankness, exquisite tact, and
exceptional reserve discouraged all advances on the part of those
gallants who frequented every mansion and were always prepared to lay
siege to the heart of any fair woman. Her wide culture, versatility,
modesty, goodness, fidelity, and disinterestedness caused her to be
universally sought. Mlle. de Scudéry, in her novel _Cyrus_, leaves a
fine portrait of her:
"The spirit and soul of this marvellous person surpass by far her
beauty: the first has no limits in its extent and the other has no
equal in its generosity, goodness, justice, and purity. The intellect
of Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) is not like that of those whose
minds have no brilliancy except that which nature has given them, for
she has cultivated it carefully, and I think I can say that there are
no _belles connaissances_ that she has not acquired. She knows various
languages, and is ignorant of hardly anything that is worth knowing;
but she knows it all without making a display of knowing it; and one
would say, in hearing her talk, 'she is so modest that she speaks
admirably of things, through simple common sense only'; on the
contrary, she is versed in all things; the most advanced sciences
are not beyond her, and she is perfectly acquainted with the most
difficult arts. Never has any person possessed such a delicate
knowledge as hers of fine works of prose and poetry; she judges them,
however, with wonderful moderation, never abandoning _la bienséance_
(the seemliness) of her sex, though she is far above it. In the whole
court, there is not a person with any spirit and virtue that does not
go to her house. Nothing is considered beautiful if it does not
have her approval; no stranger ever comes who does not desire to see
Cléomire and do her homage, and there are no excellent artisans who
do not wish to have the glory of her approbation of their works. All
people who write in Phénicie have sung her praises; and she possesses
the esteem of everyone to such a marvellous degree that there is no
one who has ever seen her who has not said thousands of favorable
things about her—who has not been charmed likewise by her beauty,
_esprit_, sweetness, and generosity."
Mlle. de Scudéry describes the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet in the
following:
"Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) had built, according to her own
design, a place which is one of the finest in the world; she has found
the art of constructing a palace of vast extent in a situation
of mediocre grandeur. Order, harmony, and elegance are in all the
apartments, and in the furniture also; everything is magnificent,
even unique; the lamps are different from those of other palaces, her
cabinets are full of objects which show the judgment of her who chose
them. In her palace, the air is always scented; many baskets full of
magnificent flowers make a continual spring in her room, and the place
which she frequents ordinarily is so agreeable and so imaginative as
to make one feel as if she were in some enchanted place."
The very names of the frequenters of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet
testify to the prominence of her position in the world of culture:
Mlle. de Scudéry, Mlle. du Vigean; Mmes. de Longueville, de la Vergne,
de La Fayette, de Sablé, de Hautefort, de Sévigné, de la Suze, Marie
de Gonzague, Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Mmes. des Houlières, Cornuel,
Aubry, and their respective husbands; the great literary men: Rotrou,
Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Malherbe, Racan, Chapelain, Voiture, Conrart,
Benserade, Pellisson, Segrais, Vaugelas, Ménage, Tallemant des Réaux,
Balzac, Mairet, Corneille, Bossuet, etc. In the entire period of the
French salon, no other such brilliant gathering of men and women of
social standing, princely blood, genuine intelligence, and literary
ability ever assembled from motives other than those of politics
or intrigue; here was a gathering purely social and for purposes of
mutual refinement. The nobility went through a process of polishing,
and the men of letters sharpened their intelligence and modified their
manners and customs.
Julie, Duchess of Montausier, and Angélique, daughters of Mme. de
Rambouillet, were popular, but the former lost much of her charm after
she sacrificed her independence of thought and action by becoming
governess of the children of the queen. Julie was the centre of
attraction for all perfumed rhymesters, all sighers in prose and
verse, who thronged about her. The stern and unbending Duke of
Montausier was so under her influence that in 1641 he arranged and
laid before her shrine the famous _guirlande_ which was illustrated by
Robert and to which nineteen authors contributed. After her marriage
to the duke, the Hôtel de Rambouillet may be said to have ceased to
exist, as madame, who was seventy years of age, had for a number
of years kept herself in the background, and Julie had become the
acknowledged leader.
With the outbreak of the Fronde, friends were separated by their
individual interests and the reunions at the salon were interrupted
from about 1650 to 1652. After the death of her husband, Mme. de
Rambouillet retired, to reside with her daughter, Mme. de Montausier;
after that, she seldom appeared in public. She hardly lived to see the
spirit of the salon changed to the real _préciosité_—the direction
and aim she gave to it being gradually abandoned.
In her salon, for nearly fifty years, no pedantry, no loose manners,
no questionable characters, no social or political intrigues, no
discourtesies of any kind, were recorded; hers was a reign of dignity
and grace, of purity of language, manners, and morals. She died in
1665, at the advanced age of seventy-seven, esteemed and mourned by
the entire social and intellectual world of France. Her influence
was incalculable; it was the first time in the history of France
that refined taste, intellectuality, and virtue had won importance,
influence, and power.
It must be remembered that in the first period of the salon there were
no blue-stockings, no pedants: these were later developments. It was,
primarily, a gathering which found pleasure in parties, excursions,
concerts, balls, fireworks, dramatic performances, living tableaux;
the last form of amusement very strongly influenced the development
of the art, for in the galleries there appeared a surprisingly large
number of portraits of the women of the day in character—sometimes as
a nymph, sometimes as a goddess.
The salon, in its first phase, showed and developed tolerance in
religion as well as in art and literature. It also encouraged progress
and displayed acute discrimination, keeping pace with the time in all
that was new and meritorious. It developed individual liberty, public
interest, criticism, good taste, and the elegant, clear, and precise
conversational language in which France has excelled up to the present
day.
When about to build the Hôtel Pisani, Mme. de Rambouillet, having
no love for architects, planned its construction without their
assistance. She revolutionized the architecture of the time by
introducing large and high doors and windows and putting the stairway
to one side in order to secure a large suite of rooms. She was also
the first to decorate a room in other colors than red or tan. The
construction of her hôtel completely changed domestic architecture;
and it may be noted that when the Luxembourg was to be built,
the designers were instructed to examine, for ideas, the Hôtel de
Rambouillet.
Legouvé gives as the object and mission of Mme. de Rambouillet:
"to combat the sensualism of Rabelais, Villon, and Marot, to reform
society through love by reforming love through chastity; to place
women at the head of civilization, by beginning a crusade against vice
in the disguise of sentiment. The word 'fame' must, in the seventeenth
century, apply to both man and woman, meaning honor for the one and
purity for the other. Her ideal falls with the accession of Louis
XIV.; the dazzling luxury of royalty hardly conceals, under its
exterior elegance, the profound and deep-seated grossness of
Versailles and Marly."
To Mme. de Rambouillet, then, belongs the distinction of having
been the first to bring together men of letters and great lords on
a footing of social equality and for mutual benefit. Her salon
and friends continued in the seventeenth century what Marguerite
d'Angoulême had begun in the first part of the sixteenth—an
intellectual, social, and moral reform.
Many salons which were all more or less patterned after that of
Rambouillet sprang into existence. Among these the Academy of the
Vicomtesse d'Auchy, with Malherbe as president and tyrant, was of
little influence as far as women were concerned. The members were all
of second-rate importance, and Malherbe tolerated only the discussion
of his verses, while Mme. d'Auchy was better known for her splendid
neck than for any intellectuality. Every salon had a master of
ceremonies, who performed the rite of presentation; these men were
frequently abbés, and some of them, such as Du Buisson and Testu,
became famous.
Among the most noted of these salons was that of the celebrated
beauty, Ninon de Lenclos, she who called the _précieuses_ the
"Jansenists of love," an expression which became very popular. Her
salon was situated on the Rue des Tournelles. Ninon de Lenclos was a
woman of the most brilliant mind and exquisite taste, and it was at
her hôtel that Molière first read his _Tartuffe_ before Condé, La
Fontaine, Boileau, Lulli, Racine, and Chapelle, and it was there that
he received the principal ideas for his drama.
Ninon became famous for making staunch friends of her former lovers,
in which connection some interesting tales are told. She was the
mother of two children; upon the arrival of the first, a heated
discussion arose between Count d'Estrées and Abbé d'Effiat, both
claiming the honor of paternity. When the mother was consulted, she
made no attempt to conceal her amusement; finally, the rivals threw
dice for "father or not father."
The other child, whose father was the Marquis de Gersay, was the
victim of an unnatural passion for his mother with whom, when a young
man, he fell desperately in love, being ignorant of their relation.
While pleading his cause, he learned from her lips the secret, and, in
despair, blew out his brains, a tragedy which apparently had no effect
upon the mother. At one time, at the request of the clergy Ninon was
sent, for impiety, to the convent of the Benedictines at Lagny.
Among her friends she counted the greatest men and women of the day
and her salon was the foyer of _savoir-vivre_, of letters and art. At
the age of sixty she met the Great Condé, who dismounted to greet
her, something that he very seldom did, as he was not in the habit
of paying compliments to women. The saying: _Elle eut l'estime de
Lenclos_ [she had the esteem of Lenclos] became a popular manner of
expressing the fact that a certain woman was especially esteemed. Even
to the last (she died at the age of eighty-five), Ninon preserved
her grace, beauty, and intelligence. Colombey calls her _La mère
spirituelle de Voltaire_ [the spiritual mother of Voltaire].
The generality of women had their lovers; even the famous Mlle. de
Scudéry, in spite of her homeliness—she was a dark, large-boned,
and lean sort of old maid—had admirers galore; among the latter
was Pellisson who was said to be so ugly "that he really abused the
privilege—which man enjoys—of being homely."
The hôtel of the famous poet Scarron—Hôtel de
l'Impécuniosité—received almost all the frequenters of Ninon's salon.
At the former place there were no restrictions as to the manner of
enjoyment; after elevating and edifying conversation at the salon
of Ninon, the members would repair to that of Scarron for a feast of
_broutilles rabelaisiennes_ [Rabelaisian tidbits].
The salon of Mme. de Montbazon had its frequenters who, however, were
attracted mainly by her beauty; she was, to use the words of one of
her friends, "One of those beauties that delight the eye and provoke
a vigorous appetite." Her salon was one of suitors rather than of
intellectuality or harmless sociability.
The most famous of the men's salons was the Temple, constructed in
1667 by Jacques de Souvré and conducted from 1681 to 1720 by Phillipe
de Vendôme and his intendant, Abbé de Chaulieu. These reunions,
especially under the latter, were veritable midnight _convivia_; he
himself boasted of never having gone to bed one night in thirty years
without having been carried there dead drunk, a custom to which he
remained "faithful unto death." His boon companion was La Duchesse
de Bouillon. Most of his frequenters were jolly good persons, utterly
destitute of the sense of sufficiency in matters of carousing; the
better people declined his invitations.
After that of Mme. de Rambouillet, there were, in the seventeenth
century, but two great salons that exerted a lasting influence and
that were not saturated with the decadent _préciosité_. Of these
the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry has been called the salon of the
_bourgeoisie_, because the majority of its frequenters belonged to the
third estate, which was rapidly acquiring power and influence.
Mlle. de Scudéry, who was born in 1608 and lived through the whole
century, saw society develop, and therefore knew it better than did
any of her contemporaries. Having lost her parents early in life, her
uncle reared her and she received advantages such as fell to the lot
of few women of her condition; she was given an excellent education in
literature, art, and the languages.
Until the marriage of her brother, she was his constant and devoted
companion, exiling herself to Marseilles when he was appointed
governor of Notre Dame de La Garde, and returning to Paris with him
in 1647. She first collaborated with him in a literary production of
about eighty volumes. In their works, the brother furnished the rough
draft, the dramatic episodes, adventures, and the Romanesque part,
while she added the literary finish through charming character
sketches, conversation, sentimental analyses, and letters. With a
strong inclination toward society, and constantly fulfilling its
obligations, she would from day to day write up her conversations of
the evening before.
An interesting anecdote is told in connection with the travels and
coöperation of Mlle. de Scudéry and her brother; once, on the way to
Paris, while stopping over night at Lyons, they were discussing the
fate of one of their heroes, one proposing death and the other rescue,
one poison and the other a more cruel death; a gentleman from Auvergne
happened to overhear them and immediately notified the people of the
inn, thinking it was a question of assassinating the king; the brother
and sister were thrown into prison and only with great difficulty
were they able to explain matters the next morning. From this incident
Scribe drew the material for his drama, _L'Auberge ou les Brigands
sans le Savoir_.
At the Hôtel de Rambouillet where Mlle. de Scudéry was received early,
she won everyone by her modesty, simplicity, _esprit_, and lovable
disposition, and, in spite of her homeliness and poor figure, she
attracted many platonic lovers. She was one of the few brilliant
and famous women of the seventeenth century whose popularity was due
solely to admirable qualities of mind and soul. With her, friendship
became a cult, and it was in time of trouble that her friends received
the strongest proof of her affection. She preferred to incur disgrace
and the disfavor of Mazarin rather than forsake Condé and Madame de
Longueville; to them she dedicated the ten volumes, successively,
of her novel, _Cyrus_; the last volume was published after Mme. de
Longueville's retirement and partial disgrace.
After the brilliant society of the Hôtel de Rambouillet had been
broken up by the marriage of Julie and the operations of the Fronde,
and after her brother's marriage in 1654, Mlle. de Scudéry became
independent and established the custom of receiving her friends on
Saturday; these receptions became famous under the name of _Samedi_,
and besides the regular rather bourgeois gathering, the most brilliant
talent and highest nobility flocked to them, regardless of rank or
station, wealth or influence. Pellisson, the great master, the prince,
the Apollo of her Saturdays, was a man of wonderfully inventive
genius, and possessed in a higher degree than any of his
contemporaries the art of inventing surprises for the society that
lived on novelty. When, on account of his devotion to Fouquet, he
was imprisoned in the Bastille, Mlle. de Scudéry managed to persuade
Colbert to brighten his confinement by permitting him to see friends
and relatives. Part of every day she spent in his prison, conversing
and reading; and this is but one instance of her fidelity and
friendship.
Mlle. de Scudéry, considering all men as aspirants for authority
who, when husbands, degenerate into tyrants, preferred to retain
her independence. Her ideas on love were very peculiar and were
innovations at the time: she wished to be loved, but her love must be
friendship—a pure, platonic love, in which her lover must be her all,
her confidant, the participator in her sorrows and her conversation;
and his happiness must be in her alone; he must, without feeling
passion, love her for herself, and she must have the same feeling
toward him. These sentiments are expressed in her novels, from which
the following extracts are taken:
"When friendship becomes love in the heart of a lover or when this
love is mingled with friendship without destroying it, there is
nothing so sweet as this kind of love; for as violent as it is, it is
always held somewhat more in check than is ordinary love; it is more
durable, more tender, more respectful, and even more ardent, although
it is not subject to so many tumultuous caprices as is that love which
arises without friendship. It can be said that love and friendship
flow together like two streams, the more celebrated of which obscures
the name of the other." ... "They agreed on even the conditions of
their love; for Phaon solemnly promised Sapho (Mlle. de Scudéry)—who
desired it thus—not to ask of her anything more than the possession
of her heart, and she, also, promised him to receive only him in hers.
They told each other all their thoughts, they understood them even
without confessing them. Peace, however, was not so completely
established that their affection could not become languishing or cool;
for, although they loved each other as much as one can love, they at
times complained of not being loved enough, and they had sufficient
little difficulties to always leave something new to wish for; but
they never had any troubles that were serious enough to essentially
disturb their repose."
Mlle. de Scudéry was mistress of the art of conversation, speaking
without affectation and equally well on all affairs, serious, light,
or gallant; she objected, however, to being called a _savante_, and
she was far from resembling the false _précieuses_ to whom she was
likened by her enemies. The occupations of her salon were somewhat
different from those of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet. M. du Bled
describes them as follows:
"What they did in the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry you can guess readily:
they amused themselves as at Mme. de Rambouillet's, they joked quite
cheerfully, smiled and laughed, wrote farces in prose and
poetry. There were readings, _loteries d'esprit_, sonnet-enigmas,
_bouts-rimés_ (rhymes given to be formed into verse), _vers-échos_,
fine literary joustings, discussions between the casuists. This salon
had its talkers and speakers, those who tyrannized over the audience
and those who charmed it, those who shot off fireworks and those who
prepared them, those who had made a symphony of conversation and those
who made of it a monologue and had no flashes of silence. They did not
follow fashion there—they rather made it; in art and literature as
in toilets, smallness follows the fashion, pretension exaggerates it,
taste makes a compact with it."
A specimen of the _énigme-sonnets_ may be of interest, to show in what
intellectual playfulness and trivialities these wits indulged:
"Souvent, quoique léger, je lasse qui me porte.
Un mot de ma façon vaut un ample discours.
J'ai sous Louis le Grand commencé d'avoir cours,
Mince, long, plat, étroit, d'une étoffe peu forte.
"Les doigts les moins savants me taillent de la sorte;
Sous mille noms divers je parais tous les jours;
Aux valets étourdis je suis d'un grand secours.
Le Louvre ne voit point ma figure à sa porte.
"Une grossière main vient la plupart du temps
Me prendre de la main des plus honnêtes gens.
Civil, officieux, je suis né pour la ville.
"Dans le plus rude hiver j'ai le dos toujours nu:
Et, quoique fort commode, à peine m'a-t-on vu,
Qu'ausitôt négligé, je deviens inutile."
[Often, although light, I weary the person who carries me. A word in
my manner is worth a whole discourse. I began under Louis the Great to
be in vogue,—slight, long, flat, narrow, of a very slight material.
The most unskilled fingers cut me in their way; under a thousand
different forms I appear every day; I am a great aid to the astonished
valets. The Louvre does not see my face at its door.
A coarse hand most of the time receives me from the hand of the nicest
people. Civil, officious, I am born for the city.
In the coldest weather, my back is always bare; and, although quite
convenient, scarcely have they seen me, when I am neglected and
useless.—Visiting card.]
A more interesting one and one that caused no little amusement is the
following:
"Je suis niais et fin, honnête et malhonnête,
Moins sincère à la cour qu'en un simple taudis.
Je fais d'un air plaisant trembler les plus hardis,
Le fort me laisse aller, le sage m'arrête.
"A personne sans moi l'on ne fait jamais fête:
J'embellis quelquefois, quelquefois, j'enlaidis.
Je dédaigne tantôt, tantôt j'applaudis;
Pour m'avoir en partage, il faut n'être pas bête.
"Plus mon trône est petit, plus il a de beauté.
Je l'agrandis pourtant d'un et d'autre côté,
Faisant voir bien souvent des défauts dont on jase.
"Je quitte mon éclat quand je suis sans témoins,
Et je me puis vanter enfin d'être la chose
Qui contente le plus et qui coûte le moins."
[I am both stupid and bright, honest and dishonest; less sincere at
court than in a simple hovel; with a pleasant air, I make the boldest
tremble, the strong let me pass, the wise stop me.
There is no joy to anyone without me; I embellish at times, at times I
distort; I disdain and I applaud; to share me, one must not be stupid.
The smaller my throne, the greater my beauty; I enlarge it, however,
on both sides, often showing defects which are made sport of.
I leave my brilliancy when I am without witness, and I can boast
of being the thing which contents the most and costs the least.—A
smile.]
Critics often reproach Mlle. de Scudéry for having portrayed
herself—as Sapho—in a flattering light in her novel _Cyrus_; but it
must be remembered that at that time this was a common custom, women
of the highest quality indulging in such pastimes, there even being a
prominent salon where verbal portraiture was the sole occupation. No
one has written more or better on the condition of woman, for she,
above all, had the experience upon which to base her writings. The
idea of woman's education and aim, which was generally entertained by
the intelligent and modest women of the seventeenth century, is well
expressed by Mlle. de Scudéry in the following:
"The difficulty of knowing something with seemliness does not come to
a woman so much from what she knows as from what others do not know;
and it is, without doubt, singularity that makes it difficult to be as
others are not, without being exposed to blame. Seriously, is not the
ordinary idea of the education of women a peculiar one? They are not
to be coquettes nor gallants, and yet they are carefully taught all
that is peculiar to gallantry without being permitted to know anything
that can strengthen their virtue or occupy their minds. Don't imagine,
however, that I do not wish woman to be elegant, to dance or to sing;
but I should like to see as much care devoted to her mind as to her
body, and between being ignorant and _savante_ I should like to see
a road taken which would prevent annoyance from an impertinent
sufficiency or from a tiresome stupidity. I should like very much to
be able to say of anyone of my sex that she knows a hundred things of
which she does not boast, that she has a well-balanced mind, that she
speaks well, writes correctly, and knows the world; but I do not wish
it to be said of her that she is a _femme savante_. The best women of
the world when they are together in a large number rarely say anything
that is worth anything and are more ennuyé than if they were alone; on
the contrary, there is something that I cannot express, which makes it
possible for men to enliven and divert a company of ladies more than
the most amiable woman on earth could do."
Mlle. de Scudéry considered marriage a long slavery and preferred
virtuous celibacy enlivened by platonic gallantry. When youth and
adorers had passed away, she found consolation in interchanges of
wit, congenial conversation, and the cultivation of the mind by study.
Making of love a doctrine, a manual of morals or _savoir-vivre_, has
had a refining effect upon civilization; but the process has rendered
the emotion itself too subtle, select, narrow, enervating, and
exhausting; it has resulted in the production of splendid books
with heroes and heroines of the higher type, and has purified the
atmosphere of social life; this phase of its influence, however,
is felt by only a set of the élite, and its adherents are scattered
through every age and every country. Mlle. de Scudéry was a perfect
representative of that type, but healthy and normal rather than
morbidly æsthetic.
An opposition party soon arose, formed by those, especially, who
entertained different ideas of the sphere and duties of woman. Just
as the type of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet degenerated among the
aristocracy into those of the Hôtel de Condé, Mme. de Sablé, and Mlle.
de Luxembourg, so the type of the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry gave rise
to a number of literary salons among the _bourgeoisie_. The aim of
the latter institutions was to imitate her example in endeavoring to
spread the taste for courtesy, elegant manners and the higher forms
of learning; all these aspirations, however, drifted into mere
affectation, while the requisites of welcome at the original salon
were simplicity, freedom from affectation, delicacy, amiability, and
dignity.
As a writer, Mlle. de Scudéry occupies no mean position in the history
of French literature of the seventeenth century. Her descriptions
and anecdotes possess a wonderful charm and display unusual power of
analysis; in them, Victor Cousin recognizes a truly virile spirit. In
the history of the French novel, she forms a transition period, her
productions having both a psychological interest and a historical
value of a very high degree. Through her finesse and marvellous
feminine penetration, her truthful, delicate and fine portraitures,
which were widely imitated later, she has exerted an extensive
influence.
With Mlle. de Scudéry "we have substance, real character painting,
true psychological penetration, and realism in observation," while
previously the novel, under such men as Gomberville and La Calprenède,
was imaginative and full of fancy. Her talent, then, in that field,
lay in the analysis and development of sentiments, in delineation of
character, in the creation and reproduction of refined and ingenious
conversations, and in her reflections on subjects pertaining to
morality and literature—in all of which she displayed justness and
entire liberty and independence of thought. Her poetry, delicate
compliment or innocent gallantries, was a mere bagatelle of the salon.
Charming as well as accomplished, Mlle. de Scudéry was as intelligent,
witty, and intellectual a woman as could be found in the seventeenth
century; and in the history of that period she retains an undisputed
position as one of its great leaders of thought and progress. Her
salon, inasmuch as the salon of Mme. de Lambert was not opened until
1710, and therefore the discussion of it belongs properly to the
beginning of the eighteenth century, really closes the literary
progress of the seventeenth century.
The influence of the seventeenth century salon was of a threefold
nature—literary, moral, and social. According to the salon
conception, artistic, literary, or musical pleasure being derived
from form and mode of expression, it possessed a special and unique
interest in proportion to the efforts made and the difficulties
surmounted in attaining that form and expression: thus, woman
introduced a new standard of excellence.
_Préciosité_ treated language not as a work of art, but as a medium
for the display of individual linguistic dexterity; giving no thing
its proper name, it delighted in paraphrase, allusion, word play,
unexpected comparisons and abundance of metaphors, and revelled in
the elusive, delicate, subtle, and complex. Hence conversation turned
constantly to love and gallantry; thus woman developed to a wonderful
degree, unattainable to but few, the art of conversation, politeness
and courtesy of manners, and social relations, at the same time
purifying language and enriching it.
French women of the seventeenth century are condemned for having
treated serious things too lightly; and it is said that "in confining
the French mind to the observation of society and its attractions, she
has restricted and retarded a more realistic and larger activity."
In answer to this it may be asserted that the French mind was not
prepared for a broader field until it had passed through the process
of expurgating, refining, drilling, and disciplining. If _préciosité_
influenced politics, it was by developing diplomacy, for, from
the time that this spirit began to spread, French diplomacy became
world-renowned.
The social influence of the movement may be better appreciated
by considering the condition of woman in earlier periods. Having
practically no position except that of housewife or mother, she was
merely a source of pleasure for man, for whom she had little or no
respect. The _précieuses_, on the contrary, exacted respect, honor,
and a place beside man, as rights that belonged to them.
As the outcome of their desire to think, feel, and act with greater
delicacy, women introduced propriety in expression, finesse in
analysis, keenness of _esprit_, psychological subtleness: qualities
that surely tended to higher standards of morality, purer social
relations, finer and more subtle diplomacy, more elegance and
precision in literature. Therefore, _préciosité_ in France had a
wholesome influence, which was possible because woman had won for
herself her rightful position, and her aspirations were toward social
and moral elevation.
In general, the women of France have always been conscious of their
duty, their importance, and their limitations, appreciating their
power and cultivating the characteristics that attract man and retain
his respect and attention: sociability, morality, _esprit_, artistic
appreciation, sensitiveness, tact. These qualities became manifest to
a remarkable degree in French women of the seventeenth century, and
created in every writer, great or unimportant, the desire to win their
favor. Thus, Corneille strove to write dramas with which he might
establish the reign of decency on a stage the liberties of which
had previously made the theatre inaccessible to woman; hence, his
characters of humanity (Cid) and politeness (Menteur).
The purpose of the French Academy itself was not different from that
of the _précieuses_. Richelieu, realizing that every great talent
accepted the discipline of these women, sought to use this power for
his own ends by interesting the world of letters in the accomplishment
of his plans for a general political unity. Thus, when the first
period of _préciosité_ had reached its highest point and was beginning
to decline, and other smaller and envious social groups were forming
about Paris and causing a conflict of ideas, Richelieu conceived
the scheme of joining all in a union, with strong ideals and with a
language as dignified as the Latin and the Greek. The result was the
formation of the French Academy. From this time begins the decline
of the authority of woman; for while she still exerted a powerful
influence, it was no longer absolute. After the decline of the Hôtel
de Rambouillet, feminine influence became more general, expending
itself in petty rivalries, gossip, intrigues, and partaking of the
nature of that court life which was filled by the young king with
parties, feasts, collations, walks, carousals, boating, concerts,
ballets, and masquerades—a mode of living that gave rise to a new
standard of politeness, which was freer and looser than that of
_préciosité_.
As the power of the young king became stronger, his favor became
the goal of all men of letters. Although woman still to some extent
controlled the destinies of those who were struggling for recognition
and reputation, her influence was of a secondary nature, that of the
king being supreme. Woman seemed to be overcoming the influence of
woman—Mme. de Montespan replaced Mlle. de La Vallière, and she was in
turn replaced by Mme. de Maintenon.
The degeneration of the king was accompanied by that of literature,
society, and morals. The characteristic inclination of the day was
eagerly to seek and grasp that which was new, and the noble, forceful,
and dignified style of language of the previous period was replaced
by one of much lighter description; many female writers directed their
efforts entirely toward amusing, pleasing, and gaining applause.
In the beginning of the eighteenth century, with Mme. de Lambert as
its leader, there was a renascence of the _préciosité_ of the Hôtel
de Rambouillet, women protesting against the prevalent grossness
and indecency of manners. The salon of Mme. de Lambert was the great
antechamber to the Academy, election to which was generally gained
through her. A new aristocracy was forming, a new society arose;
from about 1720 to 1750, libertinism and atheism, licentiousness and
intrigue, crept into the salons.
The new aristocracy was of doubtful and impure source, cynical in
manner, unbridled in habits, over-fastidious in taste, and politically
powerful. In this society woman began to be felt as a political force.
M. Brunetière said: "Mme. de Lambert made Academicians; the Marquise
de Prie made a queen of France; Mme. de Tencin made cardinals and
ambassadors." Montesquieu wrote: "There is not a person who has any
employment at the court in Paris or in the provinces, who has not
the influence (and sometimes the injustices which she can cause) of
a woman through whom all favors pass;" and M. Brunetière added: "This
woman is not his wife." The popular spirit in literature was one of
subtleness, irony, superficial observations on manners and customs.
From the beginning of the eighteenth century up to the eve of
the Revolution, woman's influence continued to increase, but that
influence was mainly in the direction of politics. Thus, in every
period in French history, a group of women effectively moulds French
thought and language, and directs intellectual activity in general.
After the death of Louis XIV., society passed under the rule of the
regent, the Duke of Orléans—the personification of gallantry and
affability, of depravity which was a mania, and of licentiousness
which was a disease. From this atmosphere the salon of Mme. de Lambert
became a refuge to those who still cherished the ideals of the good
old times of Mme. de Rambouillet; it was distinguished by its
refined sentiment and polished manners, which were like those of the
seventeenth century at its best.
Mme. de Lambert believed that the demands of the time were just the
opposite of those of the seventeenth century: "What a multitude of
tastes nowadays—the table, play, theatre! When money and luxury are
supreme, true honor loses its power. Persons seek only those houses
where shameful luxury reigns." In her own salon, none might enter who
were not of the small number of the elect.
Very little is known of the life of Mme. de Lambert. She was born in
1647, and, in spite of the unfavorable surroundings of her youth and
of a dissolute, extravagant, and unrefined mother, the observance of
decorum and honor became the actuating principle of her life. Until
her marriage (in 1666) to Henri de Lambert, Marquis de Bris en
Auxerrois, she was in the midst of the grossest licentiousness and
freedom of manners; when married, she entered a family the very
opposite of her own.
She was a woman who believed in the power of ambitious energy. To her
son she once said: "Nothing is less becoming to a young man than a
certain modesty that makes him believe that he is not capable of great
things. This modesty is a languor of the soul, which prevents it from
soaring and rapidly carrying itself to glory."
At first she lived in the Hôtel de Lambert (in the Ile Saint-Louis),
renowned for its splendidly sculptured decorations, painted ceilings,
panels, and staircases. Her famous Salon des Muses and Cabinet
d'Amours were filled with the finest works of art and the most
exquisite paintings. There the élite of all classes were entertained
until the death of her husband (1686), when the hôtel was closed; it
was not reopened until 1710.
Though left with immense wealth, her affairs were in a very
complicated state. While actively employed in untangling her
difficulties, she at the same time superintended the education of her
son and daughter. After long and trying lawsuits, she managed to put
her fortune in order and established herself at Paris, where the Duc
de Nevers ceded to her, for life, a large portion of the magnificently
furnished Palais Mazarin, now the National Library. On the completion
of her work in remodelling this palace and furnishing it with the most
costly and beautiful panel paintings by Watteau and other artists, she
inaugurated her Tuesday and Wednesday dinner parties.
One remarkable characteristic of her company was the age of her
intimate associates—the Marquis de Saint-Aulaire, Fontenelle, Mme.
Dacier, and her husband, Louis de Sacy, all of whom, as well as Mme.
de Lambert herself, had passed threescore and more; but they still
kept alive the cherished memories of the brilliant society of their
youth. Mme. de Lambert did not personally know Mme. de Rambouillet,
but she visited the latter's daughter, Julie d'Angennes, from whom
she learned the customs and etiquette in vogue at the Hôtel de
Rambouillet.
The Wednesday dinners of Mme. de Lambert were to her intimate friends,
while every Tuesday afternoon she received a general circle which
indulged in general conversation and read and discussed books which
were about to be published; gambling, which seemed to be the principal
means of entertaining in those days, had no place there. Fontenelle
says: "It was, with very few exceptions, the only house which had been
preserved from the epidemic of gambling—the only house where persons
congregated simply for the sake of talking sensibly and with _esprit_.
Those who had their reasons for considering it bad taste that
conversation was still carried on in any place, cast mean reflections,
whenever they could, against the house of Mme. de Lambert." In the
evening, she received only a few select friends with whom she talked
seriously. Her salon soon became the envy of those who were not
admitted (and they were numerous), and was the object of many
calumnies and attacks.
During this time she found leisure to write two treatises of practical
morality, _Avis d'une mère à son fils_, and _Avis d'une mère à sa
fille_, which appeared without her permission. The manuscripts, lent
to friends, fell into the hands of a publisher; and although the
authoress endeavored to prevent the distribution of the works by
buying up the entire editions, they were published outside of France.
The two works written to her children form an important contribution
to the educational literature of the time; in them the religion of the
eighteenth century is first defined.
"Above all these duties—civil and human (says the mother to her
son)—is the duty you owe to the Supreme Being. Religion is a commerce
established between God and man through the grace of God to man and
through the duty of man to God. Elevated souls have for their God
sentiments and a cult apart, which do not resemble at all those of the
people; everything issues from the heart and goes to God."
In these works, she attacked also the fad of free-thinking in vogue
among the young men of the time. She was one of the few women of that
age who could not separate themselves from reason and thought, even in
religion; the latter was a matter for the reason and the intellect to
decide, and was thus an elevated product of the mind rather than an
instinct coming from the heart, or a positive revelation as it was in
the seventeenth century. In this view, Madame de Lambert indicated the
beginning of the later eighteenth-century spirit.
Mme. de Lambert taught her children to be satisfied with nothing
but the highest attainable object. She advised her son to choose his
friends from among men above him, in order to accustom himself to
respectful and polite demeanor; "with his equals he might cultivate
negligence and his mind might become dull." She desired her children
to think differently from the people—"Those who think lowly and
commonly, and the court is filled with such." To their servants they
were to be good and kind, for humanity and Christianity make
all equal. She was the first to use those words, "humanity" and
"equality," which later became the bywords of everyone, and the first
to teach that conscience is the best guide. "Conscience is defined as
that interior sentiment of a delicate honor which assures you that you
have nothing with which to reproach yourself."
Possibly the most important and lasting effect of Mme. de Lambert's
influence resulted from the expression of her ideas on the education
of young women who "are destined to please, and are given lessons
only in methods of delighting and pleasing." She was convinced that in
order to resist temptation and be normal, women must be educated, must
learn to think. Her counsels to her daughter are remarkable for an
unusual insight into the temperament of her sex and for an extreme
fear that makes her call to her aid all precautions and resources. She
thus advises her daughter:
"Try to find resources within yourself—this is a revenue of certain
pleasures. Do not believe that your only virtue is modesty; there are
many women who know no other virtue, and who imagine that it relieves
them of all duties toward society; they believe they are right in
lacking all others and think themselves privileged to be proud and
slanderous with impunity. You must have a gentle modesty; a good
woman may have the advantages of a man's friendship without abandoning
honesty and faithfulness to her duties. Nothing is so difficult as to
please without the use of what seems like coquettishness. It is more
often by their defects than by their good qualities that women please
men; men seek to profit by the weaknesses of good and kind women,
for whose virtues they care nothing, and they prefer to be amused by
persons not very estimable than to be forced merely to admire virtuous
persons."
This is a most faithful description of the society of her time, and
it was because her treatises struck home that they were severely
criticised; but, nothing daunted, she carried out her plans in her own
way, resorting neither to intrigue nor artifice. Many of her sayings
became household maxims, such as—"It is not always faults that undo
us; it is the manner of conducting ourselves after having committed
them."
Her reflections on women might be called the great plea, at the end
of the seventeenth century, for woman's right to use her reason. After
the severe and cruel satire of Molière, attacking women for their
innocent amusements, they gave themselves up entirely to pleasure.
"Mme. de Lambert now wrote to avenge her sex and demand for it the
honest and strong use of the mind; and this was done in the midst of
the wild orgies of the Regency."
Mme. de Lambert was not a rare beauty, but she possessed recompensing
charms. M. Colombey asserts that she became convinced of two things,
about which she became highly enthusiastic: first, that woman was more
reasonable than man; secondly, that M. Fontenelle, who presided over
or filled the functions of president of her salon, was always in the
right. He was indeed in harmony with the tone of the salon, being
considered the most polished, brilliant, and distinguished member of
the intellectual society of Paris, as well as one of the most talented
drawing room philosophers. He made the salon of Mme. de Lambert the
most sought for and celebrated, the most intellectual and moral of the
period.
Mme. de Lambert has, possibly, exercised more influence upon men—and
especially upon the Forty Immortals of her time—than did any woman
before or after her. The Marquis d'Argenson states that "a person was
seldom received at the Academy unless first presented at her salon. It
is certain that she made at least half of our actual Academicians."
Her salon was called a _bureau d'esprit_, which was due to the fact
that it was about the only social gathering point where culture and
morality were the primary requisites. As she advanced in years, she
became even more influential. After her death in 1733, her salon
ceased to exist, but others, patterned after hers, soon sprang up; to
those, her friends attached themselves—Fontenelle frequented several,
Hénault became the leader of that of Mme. du Deffand.
The finest résumé that can be given of Mme. de Lambert, is found in
the letters of the Marquis d'Argenson: "Her works contain a complete
course in the most perfect morals for the use of the world and the
present time. Some affectation of the _préciosité_ is found; but, what
beautiful thoughts, what delicate sentiments! How well she speaks
of the duties of women, of friendship, of old age, of the difference
between actual character and reputation!"
The salon of Mme. de Lambert forms a period of transition from the
seventeenth century type in which elegance, politeness, courtesy, and
morality were the first requisites, to the eighteenth century salon in
which _esprit_ and wit were the essentials demanded. It retained the
dignity, discipline, refinement, and sentiments of morality of
the Hôtel de Rambouillet; it showed, also, the first signs of
pure intellectuality. The salons to follow, will exhibit decidedly
different characteristics.