_The Marquise de Lambert--Her "Bureau d'Esprit"--Fontenelle--Advice
to her Son--Wise Thoughts on the Education of Women--Her love of
Consideration--Her Generosoty--Influence of Women upon the Academy._
While the gay suppers of the regent were giving a new but by no means
desirable tone to the great world of Paris, and chasing away the last
vestiges of the stately decorum that marked the closing days of Louis
XIV, and Mme. de Maintenon, there was one quiet drawing room which still
preserved the old traditions. The Marquise de Lambert forms a connecting
link between the salons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
leaning to the side of the latter, intellectually, but retaining much of
the finer morality that distinguished the best life of the former. Her
attitude towards the disorders of the regency was similar to that which
Mme. de Rambouillet had held towards the profligate court of Henry IV,
though her salon never attained the vogue of its model. It lacked a
certain charm of youth and freshness perhaps, but it was one of the few
in which gambling was not permitted, and in which conversation had not
lost its serious and critical flavor.
If Mme. de Lambert were living today she would doubtless figure openly
as an author. Her early tastes pointed clearly in that direction. She
was inclined to withdraw from the amusements of her age, and to pass her
time in reading, or in noting down the thoughts that pleased her. The
natural bent of her mind was towards moral reflections. In this quality
she resembled Mme. de Sable, but she was a woman of greater breadth and
originality, though less fine and exclusive. She wrote much in later
life on educational themes, for the benefit of her children and for her
own diversion; but she yielded to the prejudices of her age against the
woman author, and her works were given to the world only through the
medium of friends to whom she had read or lent them. "Women," she said,
"should have towards the sciences a modesty almost as sensitive
as towards vices." But in spite of her studied observance of the
conventional limits which tradition still assigned to her sex, her
writings suggest much more care than is usually bestowed upon the
amusement of an idle hour. If, like many other women of her time, she
wrote only for her friends, she evidently doubted their discretion in
the matter of secrecy.
As the child who inherited the rather formidable name of Anne Theresa
de Marguenat de Coucelles was born during the last days of the Hotel
de Rambouillet, she doubtless cherished many illusions regarding this
famous salon. Its influence was more or less apparent when the time came
to open one of her own. Her father was a man of feeble intellect, who
died early; but her mother, a woman more noted for beauty than for
decorum, was afterward married to Bachaumont, a well-known bel esprit,
who appreciated the gifts of the young girl, and brought her within a
circle of wits who did far more towards forming her impressible mind
than her light and frivolous mother had done. She was still very young
when she became the wife of the Marquis de Lambert, an officer of
distinction, to whose interests she devoted her talents and her ample
fortune. The exquisitely decorated Hotel Lambert, on the Ile Saint
Louis, still retains much of its old splendor, though the finest
masterpieces of Lebrun and Lesueur which ornamented its walls have found
their way to the Louvre. "It is a home made for a sovereign who would
be a philosopher," wrote Voltaire to Frederick the Great. In these
magnificent salons, Mme. de Lambert, surrounded by every luxury that
wealth and taste could furnish, entertained a distinguished company. She
carried her lavish hospitalities also to Luxembourg, where she adorned
the position of her husband, who was governor of that province for
a short period before his death in 1686. After this event, she was
absorbed for some years in settling his affairs, which were left in
great disorder, and in protecting the fortunes of her two children.
This involved her in long and vexatious lawsuits which she seems to have
conducted with admirable ability. "There are so few great fortunes that
are innocent," she writes to her son, "that I pardon your ancestors
for not leaving you one. I have done what I could to put in order our
affairs, in which there is left to women only the glory of economy." It
was not until the closing years of her life, from 1710 to 1733, that her
social influence was at its height. She was past sixty, at an age when
the powers of most women are on the wane, when her real career began.
She fitted up luxurious apartments in the Palais Mazarin, employing
artists like Watteau upon the decorations, and expending money as
lavishly as if she had been in the full springtide of life, instead of
the golden autumn. Then she gathered about her a choice and lettered
society, which seemed to be a world apart, a last revival of the genius
of the seventeenth century, and quite out of the main drift of the
period. "She was born with much talent," writes one of her friends; "she
cultivated it by assiduous reading; but the most beautiful flower in her
crown was a noble and luminous simplicity, of which, at sixty years, she
took it into her head to divest herself. She lent herself to the public,
associated with the Academicians, and established at her house a bureau
d'esprit." Twice a week she gave dinners, which were as noted for the
cuisine as for the company, and included, among others, the best of the
forty Immortals. Here new works were read or discussed, authors talked
of their plans, and candidates were proposed for vacant chairs in the
Academy. "The learned and the lettered formed the dominant element,"
says a critic of the time. "They dined at noon, and the rest of the day
was passed in conversations, in readings, in literary and scientific
discussions. No card tables; it was in ready wit that each one paid his
contribution." Ennui never came to shed its torpors over these reunions,
of which the Academy furnished the most distinguished guests, in company
with grands seigneurs eager to show themselves as worthy by intelligence
as by rank to play a role in these gatherings of the intellectual elite.
Fontenelle was the presiding genius of this salon, and added to its
critical and literary spirit a tinge of philosophy. This gallant savant,
who was adored in society as "a man of rare and exquisite conversation,"
has left many traces of himself here. No one was so sparkling in
epigram; no one talked so beautifully of love, of which he knew nothing;
and no one talked to delightfully of science, of which he knew a great
deal. But he thought that knowledge needed a seasoning of sentiment to
make it palatable to women. In his "Pluralite des Mondes," a singular
melange of science and sentiment, which he had written some years before
and dedicated to a daughter of the gay and learned Mme. de La Sabliere,
he talks about the stars, to la belle marquise, like a lover; but his
delicate flatteries are the seasoning of serious truths. It was the
first attempt to offer science sugar-coated, and suggests the character
of this coterie, which prided itself upon a discreet mingling of
elevated thought with decorous gaiety. The world moves. Imagine a female
undergraduate of Harvard or Columbia taking her astronomy diluted with
sentiment!
President Henault, the life-long friend of Mme. du Deffand, whose light
criticism of a pure-minded woman might be regarded as rather flattering
than otherwise, says: "It was apparent that Mme. de Lambert touched upon
the time of the Hotel de Rambouillet; she was a little affected, and had
not the force to overstep the limits of the prude and the precieuse. Her
salon was the rendevous of celebrated men.... In the evening the scenery
changed as well as the actors. A more elegant world assembled at
the suppers. The Marquise took pleasure in receiving people who were
agreeable to each other. Her tone, however, did not vary, and she
preached la belle galanterie to some who went a little beyond it. I
was of the two parties; I dogmatized in the morning and sang in the
evening." The two eminent Greek Scholars, La Motte and Mme. Dacier, held
spirited discussions on the merits of Homer, which came near ending in
permanent ill-feeling, but the amiable hostess gave a dinner for them,
"they drank to the health of the poet, and all was forgotten." The war
between the partizans of the old and the new was as lively then as it
is today. "La Motte and Fontenelle prefer the moderns," said the
caustic Mme. du Deffand; "but the ancients are dead, and the moderns
are themselves." The names of Sainte-Aulaire, de Sacy, Mairan, President
Henault, and others equally scholarly and witty, suffice to indicate the
quality of the conversation, which treated lightly and gracefully of
the most serious things. The Duchesse du Maine and her clever companion,
Mlle. de Launay were often among the guests; also the beautiful and
brilliant Mme. de Caylus, a niece of Mme. de Maintenon, whom some
poetical critic has styled "the last flower of the seventeenth
century." Sainte-Aulaire, tired of the perpetual excitement at Sceaux,
characterized this salon by a witty quatrain:
Je suis las de l'esprit, il me met en courroux,
Il me renverse la cervelle;
Lambert, je viens chercher un asile chez vous,
Entre La Motte et Fontenelle.
The wits of the day launched many a shaft of satire against it, as they
had against the Hotel de Rambouillet a century earlier; but it was
an intellectual center of great influence, and was regarded as the
sanctuary of old manners as well as the asylum of new liberties. Its
decorous character gave it the epithet of "very respectable;" but this
eminently respectable company, which represented the purest taste of the
time, often included Adrienne Lecouvreur, who was much more remarkable
for talent than for respectability. We have a direct glimpse of it
through the pen of d'Artenson:
"I have just met with a very grievous loss in the death of the Marquise
de Lambert" (he writes in 1733). "For fifteen years I have been one of
her special friends, and she has done me the favor of inviting me to her
house, where it is an honor to be received. I dined there regularly on
Wednesday, which was one of her days.... She was rich, and made a good
and amiable use of her wealth, for the benefit of her friends, and above
all for the unfortunate. A pupil of Bachaumont, having frequented only
the society of people of the world, and of the highest intelligence, she
knew no other passion than a constant and platonic tenderness."
The quality of character and intellect which gave Mme. de Lambert so
marked an influence, we find in her own thoughts on a great variety of
subjects. She gives us the impression of a woman altogether sensible
and judicious, but not without a certain artificial tone. Her
well-considered philosophy of life had an evident groundwork of ambition
and worldly wisdom, which appears always in her advice to her children.
She counsels her son to aim high and believe himself capable of great
things. "Too much modesty," she says, "is a languor of the soul, which
prevents it from taking flight and carrying itself rapidly towards
glory"--a suggestion that would be rather superfluous in this
generation. Again, she advises him to seek the society of his superiors,
in order to accustom himself to respect and politeness. "With equals
one grows negligent; the mind falls asleep." But she does not regard
superiority as an external thing, and says very wisely, "It is merit
which should separate you from people, not dignity or pride." By
"people" she indicates all those who think meanly and commonly. "The
court is full of them," she adds. Her standards of honor are high, and
her sentiments of humanity quite in the vein of the coming age. She
urges her daughter to treat her servants with kindness. "One of the
ancients says they should be regarded as unfortunate friends. Think that
humanity and Christianity equalize all."
Her criticisms on the education of women are of especial interest.
Behind her conventional tastes and her love of consideration she has a
clear perception of facts and an appreciation of unfashionable truths.
She recognizes the superiority of her sex in matters of taste and in the
enjoyment of "serious pleasures which make only the MIND LAUGH and
do not trouble the heart" She reproaches men with "spoiling the
dispositions nature has given to women, neglecting their education,
filling their minds with nothing solid, and destining them solely to
please, and to please only by their graces or their vices." But she had
not always the courage of her convictions, and it was doubtless quite as
much her dislike of giving voice to unpopular opinions as her aversion
to the publicity of authorship, that led her to buy the entire edition
of her "Reflexions sur les Femmes," which was published without her
consent.
One of her marked traits was moderation. "The taste is spoiled by
amusements," she writes. "One becomes so accustomed to ardent pleasures
that one cannot fall back upon simple ones. We should fear great
commotions of the soul, which prepare ennui and disgust." This wise
thought suggests the influence of Fontenelle, who impressed himself
strongly upon the salons of the first half of the century. His calm
philosophy is distinctly reflected in the character of Mme. de Lambert,
also in that of Mme. Geoffrin, with whom he was on very intimate terms.
It is said that this poet, critic, bel esprit, and courtly favorite,
whom Rousseau calls "the daintiest pedant in the world," was never
swayed by any emotion whatever. He never laughed, only smiled; never
wept; never praised warmly, though he did say pretty things to women;
never hurried; was never angry; never suffered, and was never moved by
suffering. "He had the gout," says one of his critics, "but no pain;
only a foot wrapped in cotton. He put it on a footstool; that was all."
It is perhaps fair to present, as the other side of the medallion, the
portrait drawn by the friendly hand of Adrienne LeCouvreur. "The charms
of his intellect often veiled its essential qualities. Unique of
his kind, he combines all that wins regard and respect. Integrity,
rectitude, equity compose his character; an imagination lively and
brilliant, turns fine and delicate, expressions new and always
happy ornament it. A heart pure, actions clear, conduct uniform, and
everywhere principles.... Exact in friendship, scrupulous in love;
nowhere failing in the attributes of a gentleman. Suited to intercourse
the most delicate, though the delight of savants; modest in his
conversation, simple in his actions, his superiority is evident, but he
never makes one feel it." He lived a century, apparently because it
was too much trouble to die. When the weight of years made it too much
trouble to live, he simply stopped. "I do not suffer, my friends, but I
feel a certain difficulty in existing," were his last words. With this
model of serene tranquillity, who analyzed the emotions as he would a
problem in mathematics, and reduced life to a debit and credit account,
it is easy to understand the worldly philosophy of the women who came
under his influence.
But while Mme. de Lambert had a calm and equable temperament, and loved
to surround herself with an atmosphere of repose, she was not without
a fine quality of sentiment. "I exhort you much more to cultivate your
heart," she writes to her son, "than to perfect your mind; the true
greatness of the man is in the heart." "She was not only eager to
serve her friends without waiting for their prayers or the humiliating
exposure of their needs," said Fontenelle, "but a good action to be done
in favor of indifferent people always tempted her warmly.... The ill
success of some acts of generosity did not correct the habit; she was
always equally ready to do a kindness." She has written very delicately
and beautifully of friendships between men and women; and she had her
own intimacies that verged upon tenderness, but were free from any
shadow of reproach. Long after her death, d'Alembert, in his academic
eulogy upon de Sacy, refers touchingly to the devoted friendship that
linked this elegant savant with Mme. de Lambert. "It is believed,"
says President Henault, "that she was married to the Marquis de
Sainte-Aulaire. He was a man of esprit, who only bethought himself,
after more than sixty years, of his talent for poetry; and Mme. de
Lambert, whose house was filled with Academicians, gained him entrance
into the Academy, not without strong opposition on the part of Boileau
and some others." Whether the report of this alliance was true or not,
the families were closely united, as the daughter of Mme. de Lambert
was married to a son of Sainte-Aulaire; it is certain that the enduring
affection of this ancient friend lighted the closing years of her life.
Though tinged with the new philosophy, Mme. de Lambert regarded religion
as a part of a respectable, well-ordered life. "Devotion is a becoming
sentiment in women, and befitting in both sexes," she writes. But she
clearly looked upon it as an external form, rather than an internal
flame. When about to die, at the age of eighty-six, she declined the
services of a friendly confessor, and sent for an abbe who had a great
reputation for esprit. Perhaps she thought he would give her a more
brilliant introduction into the next world; this points to one of her
weaknesses, which was a love of consideration that carried her sometimes
to the verge of affectation. It savors a little of the hypercritical
spirit that is very well illustrated by an anecdote of the witty
Duchesse de Luxenbourg. One morning she took up a prayer book that was
lying upon the table and began to criticize severely the bad taste
of the prayers. A friend ventured to remark that if they were said
reverently and piously, God surely would pay no attention to their
good or bad form. "Indeed," exclaimed the fastidious Marechale, whose
religion was evidently a becoming phase of estheticism, "do not believe
that."
The thoughts of Mme. de Lambert, so elevated in tone, so fine in
moral quality, so rich in worldly wisdom, and often so felicitous in
expression, tempt one to multiply quotations, especially as they show
us an intimate side of her life, of which otherwise we know very
little. Her personality is veiled. Her human experiences, her loves,
her antipathies, her mistakes, and her errors are a sealed book to us,
excepting as they may be dimly revealed in the complexion of her mind.
Of her influence we need no better evidence than the fact that her salon
was called the antechamber to the Academie Francaise.
The precise effect of this influence of women over the most powerful
critical body of the century, or of any century, perhaps, we can hardly
measure. In the fact that the Academy became for a time philosophical
rather than critical, and dealt with theories rather than with pure
literature, we trace the finger of the more radical thinkers who made
themselves so strongly felt in the salons. Sainte=Beuve tells us that
Fontenelle, with other friends of Mme. de Lambert, first gave it
this tendency; but his mission was apparently an unconscious one, and
strikingly illustrates the accidental character of the sources of the
intellectual currents which sometimes change the face of the world. "If
I had a handful of truths, I should take good care not to open it,"
said this sybarite, who would do nothing that was likely to cause him
trouble. But the truths escaped in spite of him, and these first words
of the new philosophy were perhaps the more dangerous because veiled
and insidious. "You have written the 'Histoire des Oracles,'" said a
philosopher to him, after he had been appointed the royal censor, "and
you refuse me your approbation." "Monsieur," replied Fontenelle, "if I
had been censor when I wrote the 'Histoire des Oracles,' I should have
carefully avoided giving it my approbation." But if the philosophers
finally determined the drift of this learned body, it was undoubtedly
the tact and diplomacy of women which constituted the most potent factor
in the elections which placed them there. The mantle of authority,
so gracefully worn by Mme. de Lambert, fell upon her successors, Mme.
Geoffrin and Mlle. de Lespinasse, losing none of its prestige. As a
rule, the best men in France were sooner or later enrolled among the
Academicians. If a few missed the honor through failure to enlist the
favor of women, as has been said, and a few better courtiers of less
merit attained it, the modern press has not proved a more judicious
tribunal.