_The Swiss Pastor's Daughter--Her Social Ambition--Her Friends--Mme.
de Marchais--Mme. d'Houdetot--Duchesse de Lauzun--Character of Mme.
Necker--Death at Coppet--Close of the most Brilliant Period of the
Salons._
There was one woman who held a very prominent place in the society of
this period, and who has a double interest for us, though she was not
French, and never quite caught the spirit of the eighteenth-century life
whose attractive forms she loved so well. Mme. Necker, whose history
has been made so familiar through the interesting memoirs of the Comte
d'Haussonville, owes her fame to her marked qualities of intellect and
character rather than to the brilliancy of her social talents. These
found an admirable setting in the surroundings which her husband's
fortune and political career gave her. The Salon Helvetique had a
distinctive color of its own, and was always tinged with the strong
convictions and exalted ideals of the Swiss pastor's daughter, who
passed through this world of intellectual affluence and moral laxity
like a white angel of purity--in it, but not of it. The center of a
choice and lettered circle which included the most noted men and women
of her time, she brought into it not only rare gifts, a fine taste, and
genuine literary enthusiasm, but the fresh charm of a noble character
and a beautiful family life, with the instincts of duty and right
conduct which she inherited from her simple Protestant ancestry.
She lacked a little, however, in the tact, the ease, the grace, the
spontaneity, which were the essential charm of the French women. Her
social talents were a trifle theoretical. "She studied society," says
one of her critics, "as she would a literary question." She had a theory
of conducting a salon, as she had of life in general, and believed
that study would attain everything. But the ability to do a thing
superlatively well is by no means always implied in the knowledge of
how it ought to be done. Social genius is as purely a gift of nature
as poetry or music; and, of all others, it is the most subtle and
indefinable. It was a long step from the primitive simplicity in which
Suzanne Curchod passed her childhood on the borders of Lake Leman to the
complex life of a Parisian salon; and the provincial beauty, whose
fair face, soft blue eyes, dignified but slightly coquettish manner,
brilliant intellect, and sparkling though sometimes rather learned
conversation had made her a local queen, was quick to see her own
shortcomings. She confessed that she had a new language to learn, and
she never fully mastered it. "Mme. Necker has talent, but it is in
a sphere too elevated for one to communicate with her," said Mme.
du Deffand, though she was glad to go once a week to her suppers at
Saint-Ouen, and admitted that in spite of a certain stiffness and
coldness she was better fitted for society than most of the grandes
dames. The salon of Mme. Necker marks a transition point between two
periods, and had two quite distinct phases. One likes best to recall her
in the freshness of her early enthusiasm, when she gave Friday dinners,
modeled after those of Mme. Geoffrin, to men of letters, and received
a larger world in the evening; when her guests were enlivened by
the satire of Diderot, the anecdotes of Marmontel, the brilliancy or
learning of Grimm, d'Alembert, Thomas, Suard, Buffon, the Abbe Raynal,
and other wits of the day; when they discussed the affairs of the
Academy and decided the fate of candidates; when they listened to the
recitations of Mlle. Clairon, and the works of many authors known and
unknown. It is interesting to recall that "Paul and Virginia" was
first read here. But there was apt to be a shade of stiffness, and the
conversation had sometimes too strong a flavor of pedantry. "No one
knows better or feels more sensibly than you, my dear and very
amiable friend," wrote Mme. Geoffrin, "the charm of friendship and its
sweetness; no one makes others experience them more fully. But you will
never attain that facility, that ease, and that liberty which give to
society its perfect enjoyment." The Abbe Morellet complained of the
austerity that always held the conversation within certain limits, and
the gay little Abbe Galiani found fault with Mme. Necker's coldness and
reserve, though he addresses her as his "Divinity" after his return to
Naples, and his racy letters give us vivid and amusing pictures of these
Fridays, which in his memory are wholly charming.
In spite of her firm religious convictions, Mme. Necker cordially
welcomed the most extreme of the philosophers. "I have atheistic
friends," she said. "Why not? They are unfortunate friends." But her
admiration for their talents by no means extended to their opinions, and
she did not permit the discussion of religious questions. It was at one
of her own dinners that she started the subscription for a statue of
Voltaire, for whom she entertained the warmest friendship. One may note
here, as elsewhere, a fine mental poise, a justness of spirit, and a
discrimination that was superior to natural prejudices. Sometimes her
frank simplicity was misunderstood. "There is a Mme. Necker here, a
pretty woman and a bel esprit, who is infatuated with me; she persecutes
me to have me at her house," wrote Diderot to Mlle. Volland, with
an evident incapacity to comprehend the innocent appreciation of a
pure-hearted woman. When he knew her better, he expressed his regret
that he had not known her sooner. "You would certainly have inspired me
with a taste for purity and for delicacy," he says, "which would have
passed from my soul into my works." He refers to her again as "a
woman who possesses all that the purity of an angelic soul adds to an
exquisite taste."
Among the many distinguished foreigners who found their way into this
pleasant circle was her early lover, Gibbon. The old days were far away
when she presided over the literary coterie at Lausanne, speculated upon
the mystery of love, talked of the possibility of tender and platonic
friendships between men and women, after the fashion of the precieuses,
and wept bitter tears over the faithlessness of the embryo historian.
The memory of her grief had long been lost in the fullness of subsequent
happiness, and one readily pardons her natural complacency in the
brilliancy of a position which took little added luster from the fame of
the man who had wooed and so easily forgotten her.
This period of Mme. Necker's career shows her character on a very
engaging side. Loving her husband with a devotion that verged upon
idolatry, she was rich in the friendship of men like Thomas, Buffon,
Grimm, Diderot, and Voltaire, whose respectful tone was the highest
tribute to her dignity and her delicacy. But the true nature of a woman
is best seen in her relations with her own sex. There are a thousand
fine reserves in her relations with men that, in a measure, veil her
personality. They doubtless call out the most brilliant qualities of
her intellect, and reveal her character, in some points, on its best and
most lovable side; but the rare shades of generous and unselfish feeling
are more clearly seen in the intimate friendships, free from petty
vanities and jealous rivalries, rich in cordial appreciation and
disinterested affection, which we often find among women of the finest
type. It is impossible that one so serious and so earnest as Mme. Necker
should have cherished such passionate friendships for her own sex,
if she had been as cold or as calculating as she has been sometimes
represented. Her intimacy with Mme. de Marchais, of which we have so
many pleasant details, furnishes a case in point.
This graceful and vivacious woman, who talked so eloquently upon
philosophical, political, and economic questions, was the center of a
circle noted for its liberal tendencies. A friend of Mme. de Pompadour,
at whose suppers she often sang; gifted, witty, and, in spite of a
certain seriousness, retaining always the taste, the elegance, the
charming manners which were her native heritage, she attracted to her
salon not only a distinguished literary company, but many men and women
from the great world of which she only touched the borders. Mme. Necker
had sought the aid and advice of Mme. de Marchais in the formation of
her own salon, and had taken for her one of those ardent attachments so
characteristic of earnest and susceptible natures. She confided to her
all the secrets of her heart; she felt a double pleasure when her joys
and her little troubles were shared with this sympathetic companion. "I
had for her a passionate affection," she says. "When I first saw her my
whole soul was captivated. I thought her one of those enchanting fairies
who combine all the gifts of nature and of magic. I loved her; or,
rather, I idolized her." So pure, so confiding, so far above reproach
herself, she refuses to see the faults of one she loves so tenderly. Her
letters glow with exalted sentiment. "Adieu, my charming, my beautiful,
my sweet friend," she writes. "I embrace you. I press you to my bosom;
or, rather, to my soul, for it seems to me that no interval can separate
yours from mine."
But the character of Mme. de Marchais was evidently not equal to her
fascination. Her vanity was wounded by the success of her friend. She
took offense at a trifling incident that touched her self-love. "The
great ladies have disgusted me with friendship," she wrote, in reply to
Mme. Necker's efforts to repair the breach. They returned to each other
the letters so full of vows of eternal fidelity, and were friends no
more. Apparently without any fault of her own, Mme. Necker was left with
an illusion the less, and the world has another example to cite of the
frail texture of feminine friendships.
She was not always, however, so unfortunate in her choice. She found a
more amiable and constant object for her affections in Mme. d'Houdetot,
a charming woman who, in spite of her errors, held a very warm place
in the hearts of her cotemporaries. We have met her before in the
philosophical circles of La Chevrette, and in the beautiful promenades
of the valley of Montmorency, where Rousseau offered her the incense
of a passionate and poetic love. She was facile and witty, graceful and
gay, said wise and thoughtful things, wrote pleasant verses which were
the exhalations of her own heart, and was the center of a limited though
distinguished circle; but her chief attraction was the magic of a sunny
temper and a loving spirit. "He only is unhappy who can neither love,
nor work, nor die," she writes. Though more or less linked with the
literary coteries of her time, Mme. d'Houdetot seems to have been
singularly free from the small vanities and vulgar ambitions so often
met there. She loved simple pleasures and the peaceful scenes of the
country. "What more have we to desire when we can enjoy the pleasures
of friendship and of nature?" she writes. "We may then pass lightly over
the small troubles of life." She counsels repose to her more restless
friend, and her warm expressions of affection have always the ring of
sincerity, which contrasts agreeably with the artificial tone of the
time. Mme. d'Houdetot lived to a great age, preserving always her
youthfulness of spirit and sweet serenity of temper, in spite of sharp
domestic sorrows. She took refuge from these in the life-long friendship
of Saint-Lambert, for whom Mme. Necker has usually a gracious message.
It is a curious commentary upon the manners of the age that one so rigid
and severe should have chosen for her intimate companionship two women
whose lives were so far removed from her own ideal of reserved decorum.
But she thought it best to ignore errors which her world did not regard
as grave, if she was conscious of them at all.
One finds greater pleasure in recalling her ardent and romantic
attachment to the granddaughter of the Marechale de Luxembourg, the
lovely Amelie de Boufflers, Duchesse de Lauzun, whose pen-portrait she
sketched so gracefully and so tenderly; whose gentle sweetness and shy
delicacy, in the rather oppressive glare of her surroundings, suggest
a modest wild flower astray among the pretentious beauties of the
hothouse, and whose untimely death on the scaffold has left her fragrant
memory entwined with a garland of cypress. But we cannot dwell upon the
intimate phases of this friendship, whose fine quality is shown in the
few scattered leaves of a correspondence overflowing with the wealth of
two rare though unequally gifted natures.
At a later period her husband's position in the ministry, and the
pronounced opinions of her brilliant daughter, gave to the salon of
Mme. Necker a marked political and semi-revolutionary coloring. Her
inclinations always led her to literary diversions, rather than to the
discussion of economic questions, but as Mme. de Stael gradually took
the scepter that was falling from her hand, she found it difficult to
guide the conversation into its old channels. Her pale, thoughtful face,
her gentle manner, her soft and penetrating voice, all indicated an
exquisitely feminine quality quite in unison with the spirit of urbanity
and politeness that was even then going out of fashion. Her quiet and
earnest though interesting conversation was somewhat overshadowed by the
impetuous eloquence of Mme. de Stael, who gave the tone to every circle
into which she came. "I am more and more convinced that I am not made
for the great world," she said to the Duchesse de Lauzun, with an accent
of regret. "It is Germaine who should shine there and who should love
it, for she possesses all the qualities which put her in a position to
be at once feared and sought."
If she was allied to the past, however, by her tastes and her
sympathies, she belonged to the future by her convictions, and her
many-sided intellect touched upon every question of the day. Profoundly
religious herself, she was broadly tolerant; always delicate in health,
she found time amid her numerous social duties to aid the poor and
suffering, and to establish the hospital that still bears her name. Her
letters and literary records reveal a woman of liberal thought and fine
insight, as well as scholarly tastes. If she lacked a little in the
facile graces of the French women, she had to an eminent degree the
qualities of character that were far rarer in her age and sphere. Though
she was cold and reserved in manner, beneath the light snow which she
brought from her native hills beat a heart of warm and tender, even
passionate, impulses. Devoted wife, loyal friend, careful mother,
large-minded and large-souled woman, she stands conspicuous, in a period
of lax domestic relations, for the virtues that grace the fireside as
well as for the talents that shine in the salon.
But she was not exempt from the sorrows of a nature that exacts from
life more than life can give, and finds its illusions vanish before
the cold touch of experience. She had her hours of darkness and of
suffering. Even the love that was the source of her keenest happiness
was also the source of her sharpest griefs. In the days of her husband's
power she missed the exclusive attention she craved. There were moments
when she doubted the depth of his affection, and felt anew that her
"eyes were wedded to eternal tears." She could not see without pain his
extreme devotion to her daughter, whose rich nature, so spontaneous,
so original, so foreign to her own, gave rise to many anxieties and
occasional antagonisms. This touches the weak point in her character.
She was not wholly free from a certain egotism and intellectual vanity,
without the imagination to comprehend fully an individuality quite
remote from all her preconceived ideas. She was slow to accept the fact
that her system of education was at fault, and her failure to mold
her daughter after her own models was long a source of grief and
disappointment. She was ambitious too, and had not won her position
without many secret wounds. When misfortunes came, the blows that fell
upon her husband struck with double force into her own heart. She was
destined to share with him the chill of censure and neglect, the bitter
sting of ingratitude, the lonely isolation of one fallen from a high
place, whose friendship and whose favors count no more.
In the solitude of Coppet, where she died at fifty-seven, during the
last and darkest days of the Revolution, perhaps she realized in the
tireless devotion of her husband and the loving care of Mme. de Stael
the repose of heart which the brilliant world of Paris never gave her.
With all her gifts, which have left many records that may be read,
and in spite of a few shadows that fall more or less upon all earthly
relations, not the least of her legacies to posterity was the beautiful
example, rarer then than now, of that true and sympathetic family life
in which lies the complete harmony of existence, a safeguard against
the storms of passion, a perennial fount of love that keeps the spirit
young, the tranquility out of which spring the purest flowers of human
happiness and human endeavor.
There were many salons of lesser note which have left agreeable
memories. It would be pleasant to recall other clever and beautiful
women whose names one meets so often in the chronicles of the time, and
whose faces, conspicuous for their clear, strong outlines, still look
out upon us from the galleries that perpetuate its life; but the list is
too long and would lead us too far. From the moving procession of social
leaders who made the age preceding the Revolution so brilliant I have
chosen only the few who were most widely known, and who best represent
its dominant types and its special phases.
The most remarkable period of the literary salons was really closed with
the death of Mme. du Deffand, in 1780. Mme. Geoffrin had already been
dead three years, and Mlle. de Lespinasse, four. Some of the most noted
of the philosophers and men of letters were also gone, others were
past the age of forming fresh ties, the young men belonged to another
generation, and no new drawing rooms exactly replaced the old ones. Mme.
Necker still received the world that was wont to assemble in the great
salons, Mme. de Condorcet presided over a rival coterie, and there were
numerous small and intimate circles; but the element of politics was
beginning to intrude, and with it a degree of heat which disturbed the
usual harmony. The reign of esprit, the perpetual play of wit had begun
to pall upon the tastes of people who found themselves face to face
with problems so grave and issues so vital. There was a slight reaction
towards nature and simplicity. "They may be growing wiser," said
Walpole, "but the intermediate change is dullness." For nearly half a
century learned men and clever women had been amusing themselves
with utopian theories, a few through conviction, the majority through
fashion, or egotism, or the vanity of saying new things, just as the
world is doing today. The doctrines put forth by Montesquieu, vivified
by Voltaire, and carried to the popular heart by Rousseau had been
freely discussed in the salons, not only by philosophers and statesmen,
but by men of the world, poets, artists, and pretty women. The sparks
of thought with which they played so lightly filtered slowly through the
social strata. The talk of the drawing room at last reached the street.
But the torch of truth which, held aloft, serves as a beacon star to
guide the world towards some longed for ideal becomes often a deadly
explosive when it falls among the poisonous vapors of inflammable
human passions. Liberty, equality, fraternity assumed a new and fatal
significance in the minds of the hungry and restless masses who,
embittered by centuries of wrong, were ready to carry these phrases to
their immediate and living conclusions. They had found their watchwords
and their hour. The train was already laid beneath this complex social
structure, and the tragedy that followed carried to a common ruin court
and salon, philosophers and beaux esprits, innocent women and dreaming
men.
That the salons were unconscious instruments in hastening the
catastrophe, which was sooner or later inevitable, is undoubtedly true.
Their influence in the dissemination of thought was immense. The part
they played was, to a limited extent, precisely that of the modern
press, with an added personal element. They moved in the drift of their
time, directed its intelligence, and reflected its average morality. As
centers of serious conversation they were distinctly stimulating. It is
quite possible that they stimulated the intellect to the exclusion of
the more solid qualities of character, and that they were the source
of a vast amount of affectation. It was the fashion to have esprit,
and those who were deficient in an article so essential to success were
naturally disposed to borrow it, or to put on the semblance of it. But
no phase of life is without its reverse side, and the present generation
cannot claim freedom from pretension of the same sort. It is not
unlikely that in expanding the intelligence they established new
standards of distinction, which in a measure weakened the old ones. But
if they precipitated the downfall of the court they began by rivaling,
it was in the logical course of events, which few were wise enough to
foresee, much less to determine.
It is worthy of remark that this reign of women, in which the manners
and forms of modern society found their initiative and their models, was
not a reign of youth, or beauty, though these qualities are never likely
to lose their own peculiar fascination. It was, before all things, a
reign of intelligence, and ascendency of women who had put on the hues
of age without laying aside the permanent charm of a fully developed
personality. It was intelligence blended with practical knowledge of
the world and with the graceful amenities that heightened while half
disguising its power. The women of the present have different aims. They
are no longer content with the role of inspirer. Their methods are more
direct. They depend less upon finesse, more upon inherent right and
strength. But it is to the women who shone so conspicuously in France
for more than two hundred years that we may trace the broadened
intellectual life, the unfettered activities, the wide and beneficent
influence of the women of today.