_Her Capricious Character--Her Esprit--Mlle. de Launay--Clever Portrait
of Her Mistress--Perpetual Fetes at Sceaux--Voltaire and the "Divine
Emilie"--Dilettante Character of this Salon._
The life of the eighteenth century, with its restlessness, its love
of amusements, its ferment of activities, and its essential frivolity,
finds a more fitting representative in the Duchesse du Maine,
granddaughter of the Grand Conde, and wife of the favorite son of
Louis XIV, and Mme. de Montespan. The transition from the serene
and thoughtful atmosphere which surrounded Mme. de Lambert, to the
tumultuous whirl of existence at Sceaux, was like passing from the soft
light and tranquillity of a summer evening to the glare and confusion
of perpetual fireworks. Of all the unique figures of a masquerading age
this small and ambitious princess was perhaps the most striking, the
most pervading. It was by no means her aim to take her place in the
world as queen of a salon. Louise-Benedicte de Bourbon belonged to the
royal race, and this was by far the most vivid fact in her life. She
was but a few steps from the throne, and political intrigues played a
conspicuous part in her singular career. But while she waited for the
supreme power to which she aspired, and later, when the feverish dream
of her life was ended, she must be amused, and her diversions must have
an intellectual and imaginative flavor. Wits, artists, literary men, and
savants were alike welcome at Sceaux, if they amused her and entertained
her guests. "One lived there by esprit, and esprit is my God," said Mme.
du Deffand, who was among the brightest ornaments of this circle.
Born in 1676, the Duchesse du Maine lived through the first half of
the next century, of which her little court was one of the most notable
features. Scarcely above the stature of a child of ten years, slightly
deformed, with a fair face lighted by fine eyes; classically though
superficially educated; gifted in conversation, witty, brilliant,
adoring talent, but cherishing all the prejudices of the old
noblesse--she represented in a superlative degree the passion for esprit
which lent such exceptional brilliancy to the social life of the time.
In character the duchess was capricious and passionate. "If she were as
good as she is wicked," said the sharp-tongued Palatine, "there would be
nothing to say against her. She is tranquil during the day and passes it
playing at cards, but at its close the extravagances and fits of passion
begin; she torments her husband, her children, her servants, to such
a point that they do not know which way to turn." Her will brooked no
opposition. When forced to leave the Tuileries after the collapse of her
little bubble of political power, she deliberately broke every article
of value in her apartments, consigning mirrors, vases, statues,
porcelains alike to a common ruin, that no one else might enjoy them
after her. This fiery scion of a powerful family, who had inherited its
pride, its ambition, its uncontrollable passions, and its colossal will,
had little patience with the serene temperament and dilettante tastes of
her amiable husband, and it is said she did not scruple to make him
feel the force of her small hands. "You will waken some morning to find
yourself in the Academie Francaise, and the Duc d'Orleans regent," she
said to him one day when he showed her a song he had translated. Her
device was a bee, with this motto: "I am small, but I make deep wounds."
Doubtless its fitness was fully realized by those who belonged to the
Ordre de la Mouche-a-miel which she had instituted, and whose members
were obliged to swear, by Mount Hymettus, fidelity and obedience
to their perpetual dictator. But what pains and chagrins were not
compensated by the bit of lemon-colored ribbon and its small meed of
distinction!
The little princess worked valiantly for political power, but she worked
in vain. The conspiracy against the regent, which seemed to threaten
another Fronde, came to nothing, and this ardent instrigante, who had
the disposition to "set the four corners of the kingdom on fire" to
attain her ends, found her party dispersed and herself in prison. But
this was only an episode, and though it gave a death blow to her dreams
of power, it did not quench her irrepressible ardor. If she could not
rule in one way, she would in another. As soon as she regained her
freedom, her little court was again her kingdom, and no sovereign ever
reigned more imperiously. "I am fond of company," she said, "for I
listen to no one, and every one listens to me." It was an incessant
thirst for power, a perpetual need of the sweet incense of flattery,
that was at the bottom of this "passion for a multitude." "She believed
in herself," writes Mlle. de Launay, afterward Baronne de Staal, "as
she believed in God or Descartes, without examination and without
discussion."
This lady's maid, who loved mathematics and anatomy, was familiar with
Malebranche and Descartes, and left some literary reputation as a writer
of gossipy memoirs, was a prominent figure in the lively court at Sceaux
for more than forty years, and has given us some vivid pictures of her
capricious mistress. A young girl of clear intellect and good education,
but without rank, friends, or fortune, she was forced to accept the
humiliating position of femme de chambre with the Duchesse du Maine, who
had been attracted by her talents. She was brought into notice through
a letter to Fontenelle, which was thought witty enough to be copied and
circulated. If she had taken this cool dissector of human motives as
a model, she certainly did credit to his teaching. Her curiously
analytical mind is aptly illustrated by her novel method of measuring
her lover's passion. He was in the habit of accompanying her home from
the house of a friend. When he began to cross the square, instead of
going round it, she concluded that his love had diminished in the exact
proportion of two sides of a square to the diagonal. Promoted to the
position of a companion, she devoted herself to the interests of her
restless mistress, read to her, talked with her, wrote plays for her,
and was the animating spirit of the famous Nuits Blanches. While the
duchess was in exile she shared her disgrace, refused to betray her, and
was sent to the Bastille for her loyalty. She resigned herself to her
imprisonment with admirable philosophy, amused herself in the study of
Latin, in watching the gambols of a cat and kitten, and in carrying on
a safe and sentimental flirtation with the fascinating Duc de Richelieu,
who occupied an adjoining cell and passed the hours in singing with her
popular airs from Iphigenie. "Sentimental" is hardly a fitting word to
apply to the coquetries of this remarkably clear and calculating young
woman. She returned with her patroness to Sceaux, found many admirers,
but married finally with an eye to her best worldly interests, and,
it appears, in the main happily--at least, not unhappily. The shade of
difference implies much. She had a keen, penetrating intellect which
nothing escaped, and as it had the peculiar clearness in which people
and events are reflected as in a mirror, her observations are of great
value. "Aside from the prose of Voltaire, I know of none more agreeable
than that of Mme. de Staal de Launay," said Grimm. Her portrait of her
mistress serves to paint herself as well.
"Mme. la Duchesse du Maine, at the age of sixty years, has yet learned
nothing from experience; she is a child of much talent; she has
its defects and its charms. Curious and credulous, she wishes to be
instructed in all the different branches of knowledge; but she is
contented with their surface. The decisions of those who educated her
have become for her principles and rules upon which her mind has never
formed the least doubt; she submits once for all. Her provision for
ideas is made; she rejects the best demonstrated truths and resists the
best reasonings, if they are contrary to the first impressions she has
received. All examination is impossible to her lightness, and doubt is
a state which her weakness cannot support. Her catechism and the
philosophy of Descartes are two systems which she understands equally
well.... Her mirror cannot make her doubt the charms of her face; the
testimony of her eyes is more questionable than the judgment of those
who have decided that she is beautiful and well-formed. Her vanity is
of a singular kind, but seems the less offensive because it is not
reflective, though in reality it is the more ridiculous, Intercourse
with her is a slavery; her tyranny is open; she does not deign to color
it with the appearance of friendship. She says frankly that she has the
misfortune of not being able to do without people for whom she does not
care. She proves it effectually. One sees her learn with indifference
the death of those who would call forth torrents of tears if they were a
quarter of an hour too late for a card party or a promenade."
But this vain and self-willed woman read Virgil and Terence in the
original, was devoted to Greek tragedies, dipped into philosophy,
traversed the surface of many sciences, turned a madrigal with facility,
and talked brilliantly. "The language is perfect only when you speak it
or when one speaks of you," wrote Mme. de Lambert, in a tone of discreet
flattery. "No one has ever spoken with more correctness, clearness, and
rapidity, neither in a manner more noble or more natural," said Mlle. de
Launay.
Through this feminine La Bruyere, as Sainte-Beuve has styled her, we
are introduced to the life at Sceaux. It was the habit of the guests
to assemble at eight, listen to music or plays, improvise verses for
popular airs, relate racy anecdotes, or amuse themselves with proverbs.
"Write verses for me," said the insatiable duchess when ill; "I feel
that verses only can give me relief." The quality does not seem to
have been essential, provided they were sufficiently flattering.
Sainte-Aulaire wrote madrigals for her. Malezieu, the learned and
versatile preceptor of the Duc du Maine, read Sophocles and Euripides.
Mme. du Maine herself acted the roles of Athalie and Iphigenie with the
famous Baron. They played at science, contemplated the heavens through a
telescope and the earth through a microscope. In their eager search for
novelty they improvised fetes that rivaled in magnificence the Arabian
Nights; they posed as gods and goddesses, or, affecting simplicity,
assumed rustic and pastoral characters, even to their small economies
and romantic platitudes. Mythology, the chivalry of the Middle Ages,
costumes, illuminations, scenic effects, the triumphs of the artists,
the wit of the bel esprit--all that ingenuity could devise or money
could buy was brought into service. It was the life that Watteau
painted, with its quaint and grotesque fancies, its sylvan divinities,
and its sighing lovers wandering in endless masquerade, or whispering
tender nothings on banks of soft verdure, amid the rustle of leaves,
the sparkle of fountains, the glitter of lights, and the perfume
of innumerable flowers. It was a perpetual carnival, inspired by
imagination, animated by genius, and combining everything that could
charm the taste, distract the mind, and intoxicate the senses. The
presiding genius of this fairy scene was the irrepressible duchess, who
reigned as a goddess and demanded the homage due to one. Well might the
weary courtiers cry out against les galeres du bel esprit.
But this fantastic princess who carried on a sentimental correspondence
with the blind La Motte, and posed as the tender shepherdess of the
adoring but octogenarian Sainte-Aulaire, had no really democratic
notions. There was no question in her mind of the divine right of kings
or of princesses. She welcomed Voltaire because he flattered her vanity
and amused her guests, but she was far enough from the theories which
were slowly fanning the sparks of the Revolution. Her rather imperious
patronage of literary and scientific men set a fashion which all her
world tried to follow. It added doubtless to the prestige of those who
were insidiously preparing the destruction of the very foundations on
which this luxurious and pleasure-loving society rested. But, after all,
the bond between this restless, frivolous, heartless coterie and the
genuine men of letters was very slight. There was no seriousness, no
earnestness, no sincerity, no solid foundation.
The literary men, however, who figured most conspicuously in the
intimate circle of the Duchesse du Maine were not of the first order.
Malezieu was learned, a member of two Academies, faintly eulogized by
Fontenelle, warmly so by Voltaire, and not at all by Mlle. de Launay;
but twenty-five years devoted to humoring the caprices and flattering
the tastes of a vain and exacting patroness were not likely to develop
his highest possibilities. There is a point where the stimulating
atmosphere of the salon begins to enervate. His clever assistant,
the Abbe Genest, poet and Academician, was a sort of Voiture, witty,
versatile, and available. He tried to put Descartes into verse, which
suggests the quality of his poetry. Sainte-Aulaire, who, like his friend
Fontenelle, lived a century, frequented this society more or less for
forty years, but his poems are sufficiently light, if one may judge from
a few samples, and his genius doubtless caught more reflections in
the salon than in a larger world. He owed his admission to the Academy
partly to a tender quatrain which he improvised in praise of his lively
patroness. It is true we have occasional glimpses of Voltaire. Once
he sought an asylum here for two months, after one of his numerous
indiscretions, writing tales during the day, which he read to the
duchess at night. Again he came with his "divine Emilie," the learned
Marquise du Chatelet, who upset the household with her eccentric ways.
"Our ghosts do not show themselves by day," writes Mlle. de Launay;
"they appeared yesterday at ten o'clock in the evening. I do not think
we shall see them earlier today; one is writing high facts, the other,
comments upon Newton. They wish neither to play nor to promenade; they
are very useless in a society where their learned writings are of no
account." But Voltaire was a courtier, and, in spite of his frequent
revolts against patronage, was not at all averse to the incense of the
salons and the favors of the great. It was another round in the ladder
that led him towards glory.
The cleverest women in France were found at Sceaux, but the dominant
spirit was the princess herself. It was amusement she wanted, and even
men of talent were valued far less for what they were intrinsically than
for what they could contribute to her vanity or to her diversion. "She
is a predestined soul," wrote Voltaire. "She will love comedy to the
last moment, and when she is ill I counsel you to administer some
beautiful poem in the place of extreme unction. One dies as one has
lived."
Mme. du Maine represented the conservative side of French society in
spite of the fact that her abounding mental vitality often broke through
the stiff boundaries of old traditions. It was not because she did not
still respect them, but she had the defiant attitude of a princess whose
will is an unwritten law superior to all traditions. The tone of her
salon was in the main dilettante, as is apt to be the case with
any circle that plumes itself most upon something quite apart from
intellectual distinction. It reflected the spirit of an old aristocracy,
with its pride, its exclusiveness, its worship of forms, but faintly
tinged with the new thought that was rapidly but unconsciously
encroaching upon time-honored institutions. Beyond the clever pastimes
of a brilliant coterie, it had no marked literary influence. This
ferment of intellectual life was one of the signs of the times, but
it led to no more definite and tangible results than the turning of a
madrigal or the sparkle of an epigram.