ROUSSEAU AND THE MORAL TALE
Locke and Rousseau—A New Conception of Childhood—Rousseau’s
Theory of Education—Parent and Tutor, Artificial Experiences,
Books, Handicrafts, Attitude to Nature and Humanity—The
Infallible Parent—Marmontel’s _Contes Moraux_—Berquin’s _L’Ami
des Enfans_—_The Looking Glass for the Mind_—Madame d’Epinay’s
_Conversations d’Emilie_—Madame de Genlis and her Books—French
Lilliputians: _Le Petit Grandison_ and _Le Petit La Bruyère_.
Rousseau, even when he repeated Locke’s precepts, caught the ear of a
wider public because he appealed not so much to reason as to feeling, and
instead of commending his doctrines by argument, charged them with warmth
and eloquence.
Locke had been before him in exposing the shams and pedantry of
schoolmasters, as in striving for a more natural method of education;
but he carried out his task in a quiet professional way, regarding the
child as a patient in need of a new regimen, but never setting him on a
pedestal.
It was Rousseau’s inspiration to take the beauty and promise of childhood
for his text, to make the child stand forth as the hope of the race, the
centre of all its aspirations, the proof of its powers.[74] Thus his
philosophy acquired the dignity of a new faith; and yet the child lost
nothing of his personal and human interest, for in Rousseau’s scheme, he
was the very core of a new conception of family life. There could be no
better setting for a natural education than the family, no simpler unit
of fellowship; and Rousseau drew persuasive pictures of the child at
successive stages of his growth,—pictures which writers of moral tales
reproduced with modifications of their own, and a greater or less amount
of theory.
For there was this great difference between Locke and Rousseau, in their
effect on children’s books: that Locke, beyond encouraging Fables, did
no more than furnish a toy library with his _Thoughts_; whereas Rousseau
taught two generations of writers to substitute living examples for
maxims.
In making Emile an orphan, Rousseau was guarding against interference
with his experiment; it is no part of his doctrine that a child should be
brought up by any but his parents, unless they are unable or unwilling to
do their duty. Then, indeed, a Tutor must be found, though he will never
be required, after the manner of tutors, to instruct. A child needs no
other teacher than Experience, no schoolroom but the open country which
is also his playground; all that the tutor need do is to enter into
his interests and amusements as an equal, and watch over him while he
educates himself. This marks a revolutionary change in the attitude of
the Philosopher to the Child. Locke’s theory of habit, his practice of
reasoning with children, have no place in the new scheme. Rousseau would
as soon have a child be five feet in height as to have judgment at the
age of ten. Children, he declares, are incapable of reason, Nature meant
them to be children before they become men. To forget this is to force a
fruit that has neither ripeness nor savour, to produce old infants and
child-philosophers.
Rousseau hits hard and straight at the pedantic mania for instruction
that filled the early miscellanies with Geography, Chronology and other
studies “remote from man and especially from the child”. Emile must never
be allowed to cheat himself with words. He shall learn nothing by heart,
not even Fables; for these he is sure to misinterpret. And how is a child
to grow up with any respect for truth, if his first book teach him that
_Foxes speak and speak the same language as Ravens_?
With Words and Fables, Rousseau dismisses all the inventions of primitive
imagination that find their natural place in a child’s mind.
At twelve, Emile hardly knows what a book is. He has spent his whole life
in the country, with a tutor whom he regards as a playfellow. In climbing
among rocks and trees and leaping over brooks, he has learnt to measure
himself with his surroundings and has lost all sense of danger. No human
will has ever opposed him, and since it is useless to fight against
circumstance, he submits to necessary evils, and bears pain without
complaining.
Emile is stronger and more capable than other children; yet conscious of
his dependence on others, of his need of protection. Abstract terms, such
as duty and obligation, mean nothing to him, nor will he practise the
empty forms of courtesy; but he has the basis of all good breeding, being
candid and fearless, but neither arrogant nor self-conscious.
From twelve to fifteen, Emile’s education is equally practical. Curiosity
moves him to experiment and discovery, and thus he learns the simple
truths of science without teaching. Locke’s belief in utility was not
greater than Rousseau’s. The word “useful”, he says, is the key to the
whole situation. Emile is always to test his discoveries by the question
“What is this good for?” and things which do not satisfy this test are
of no account. The tutor still attends the boy like his shadow, never
seeming to influence the course of events; but since Nature cannot be
trusted to adapt herself to his scheme, he now finds it necessary to
contrive artificial experiences which Emile accepts as natural.
Rousseau sees nothing inconsistent in this use of artifice by which the
Child of Nature, though wholly dependent on the will of his tutor, thinks
he is governing himself; yet everything is so planned and so foreseen
that he does nothing of his own choice.
It is here that Rousseau grudgingly admits the need of books; but he
takes care to restrict his Emile to a single book which deals chiefly
with practical affairs. “What is this wonderful Book? is it Aristotle? is
it Pliny? is it Buffon? No, it is _Robinson Crusoe_.”
Here at any rate, Rousseau made no mistake. Had Emile been free to
choose, this is precisely the book he would have chosen, though for less
philosophical reasons; and the very fact that it fits Rousseau’s scheme
of education is a proof that the scheme is sound. Robinson Crusoe, alone
on his island, with neither house nor tools, gradually providing for his
needs; it is Rousseau’s allegory of the triumph of man, and failure of
civilisation. Emile cannot understand this yet, but the book will be a
touchstone for his taste and judgment, and serve him and his tutor as a
text for all their talk on the natural sciences. The boy’s interest is
wholly practical; but it stimulates “the _real_ castle-building of that
happy age when we know no other happiness than necessity and freedom”. Of
free and imaginative castle-building, Rousseau has no notion, but Emile
will know his Robinson Crusoe all the better, if he is allowed to act the
story.
“I would have his head turned by it,” says Rousseau, “and have him always
busy about his Castle, his goats and his plantation.... I would have him
imagine he is Robinson himself.”
It is the reality of drama that appeals to the educator; the hint was not
lost upon writers of children’s books.
And now, since Emile cannot remain always in his island, it is time to
recall him to everyday life. His natural interest in handicrafts will
smooth the transition. The tutor goes with him from shop to shop, that
he may understand the division of labour among men. Thus he learns more
in an hour than from a whole day’s explanation. And lest this should
be only surface knowledge, he must learn some trade (for choice a
carpenter’s) which will guard him against common prejudice, and make him
independent of fortune.
Rousseau keeps the road so clear for his young traveller that he is not
afraid of chance encounters. In these years, Emile is to learn nothing of
the relations of man to man. His heart is not to be touched by suffering
nor his imagination kindled by the “living spectacle of Nature” which
Rousseau himself paints in such glowing colours. Eloquence and poetry
are wasted on a child. Moral and spiritual teaching can safely be left
till his sixteenth year. Up to that point Emile has studied nothing but
the natural world. He has little knowledge, but what he has is real and
complete. Simple surroundings have taught him to be content with what he
has and to despise luxury, which, according to Rousseau, is the secret of
true happiness. His body is strong and active, his mind unprejudiced; he
has courage, industry, self-control,—all the virtues proper to his age.
Rousseau’s disciples had some excuse for disregarding one of his chief
discoveries: the distinction between childhood and youth. It was
obviously impossible to draw a hard and fast line between the two stages,
and Rousseau would not give an inch to individual difference. Thus his
followers were either forced back upon precedent, or had to trust to
their own experience of children. On the one hand, they clung to the
old encyclopædic methods; on the other, they transferred Rousseau’s
provisions for youth and manhood to an earlier stage. Experience taught
them that a child could be stirred by other motives besides prudence and
self-love, that moral and spiritual influences in early childhood were
not to be ignored, that there were such things as childish imagination
and sympathy.
The greater number of moral tales owe their very existence to Rousseau’s
inconsistency; for although he had exposed the fallacy of maxims and
fables, he found no better substitute than the Example of a perfect
Parent or Tutor—a man without passion or prejudice, detached and
colourless, who, without seeming to guide or correct, should watch the
child’s every movement and on occasion teach Nature herself how to go
about her business.
The first generation of Emile, which proved Rousseau’s theory of
Childhood, disposed, once for all, of the Infallible Parent in real
life. A child might suspect that it was a literary rather than a
practical idea, and the few parents who, after a vigorous course of
self-discipline, felt equal to the part, would find it easier to sustain
by proxy in a moral tale. They decided, at any rate, to ignore Rousseau’s
veto upon books for children under twelve, and writers quickly rose to
the demand for a new sort of Fables, wherein the Child of Nature, walking
in the shadow of the Perfect Parent, acquired a measure of wisdom and
philanthropy beyond his years. Such tales, inspired by the Emile, are a
satirical comment on the writing of books to prove that books are useless.
Marmontel, though he did not write for children, was an admirable guide
for lesser moralists. His vivid character-contrasts, dramatic incidents
and humorous treatment of every-day life taught them that art might not
be thrown away upon a child’s book, if it only served to keep alive
interest and curiosity. The “Good Mother” and “Bad Mother” of the _Contes
Moraux_[75] supplied useful variants of the good and bad child, and the
“School for Fathers” encouraged the writers of little books to venture
satirical comments on the faults of parents.
It is true that Marmontel’s types are less convincing when reduced for
the nursery and coloured by Rousseau. “The School for Fathers” turned out
a uniform pattern of the Infallible Parent, and “The Good Mother”, “_La
femme comme il y en a peu_”, assuming the proportions of her virtues,
cast a monstrous shadow over two generations; yet there were books
that reflected Marmontel’s wise moderation, his sympathy with youthful
follies, all that was implied in the motto of his bon Curé, “_Moins de
prudence et plus de bonté_”.
The Nursery had its Marmontel in Armand Berquin, better known by the name
of his most famous book, _L’Ami des Enfans_,[76] an addition that no man
deserved better then he. Like Perrault, Berquin owed his reputation to
a book that he wrote for children; but times had changed: education had
now become of so much consequence that the writer of children’s books
was regarded as a public benefactor. Perrault the Academician had never
openly acknowledged the _Contes_ of 1697; but in 1784, Berquin’s _L’Ami
des Enfans_ was crowned by the French Academy.
Perhaps it was well for Berquin that by this time fairies were
discredited in France, and Perrault was gone from his old shelf, so
that no child could choose between them. As it was, children of all
sizes and conditions, with and without tutors, but all equally ignorant
of magic, read Berquin’s stories and read them again. Something of his
own sweetness and humour got into his book; they felt that he loved and
understood them, and those who lived near him used to crowd round him,
eager for a word or a handshake, whenever he came out of his house.
Berquin’s book owes something to Weisse’s _Der Kinderfreund_, from which
he took some of the stories, as well as to the writings of Campe and
Salzmann; but no German ever pointed a moral with such playful grace.
There is hardly a point in Rousseau’s argument that Berquin does not
illustrate; but he does it in a perfectly natural way, drawing the events
out of simple situations, and showing delightful glimpses of childish
character.
Marmontel’s “Bad Mother”, with her blind and cruel preference for one of
her two children, is easily recognised in the story of “_Philippine et
Maximin_”. His device of moral contrast appears in every variation of
Rousseau’s theme.
These are mostly little studies in black and white: Industry opposed to
Idleness in “The Two Apple Trees”; a rational education preferred to
riches in the story of Narcisse and Hippolyte; the character-contrast
grafted on fable in a similar study of two dogs.
Emile’s gentle consciousness of his dependence on others (one of his
more amiable traits) is shown in the docility of Prosper, who, by
accepting the gardener’s advice, finds in due season ripe strawberries
of an exquisite flavour hanging from his plants. “Ah, had I only planted
some in my garden,” cries the brother who jeered at him. Whereupon the
generous one replies: “You can eat them as if they were your own.”
M. Sage, who might be Emile’s tutor, believes that if he can make his boy
Philippe content with what he has, instead of longing for things which he
cannot get, he will do more for his happiness than by leaving him untold
wealth.
When the boy envies a rich man’s garden, his father says that he himself
possesses a finer one. Taking Philippe by the hand, he leads him to the
top of a hill that overlooks the open country. “Shall we soon come to
our garden, papa?” the boy asks eagerly. “We are already there!” answers
M. Sage.
Rousseau himself was not a greater lover of gardens than Berquin.
Gardening is the theme of half his stories: “_Le rosier à cent feuilles
et le genêt d’Espagne_”; “_Les cerises_”; “_Les tulipes_”; “_Les fraises
et les grosseilles_”; “_Les deux pommiers_”; the greater number deal with
country life and have their setting in the family.
The tale of the farmer who brings a jar of candied fruits to his
landlord’s children, is an eloquent sermon against ill-breeding and
prejudice.
This is a sequence of moral contrasts. First, the insolent treatment of
the farmer by the two boys is set against their little sister’s courtesy,
then contrasted with the simple friendliness of their father; and the
corresponding scene of their entertainment at the farm is drawn with the
same delicate point. The two boys are compared with the farmer’s sons,
more capable, even more accomplished than themselves; and stung to shame
by the generosity and natural courtesy of their host.
Farming, according to Rousseau, is the most honourable of industries.
After farmers he places blacksmiths and carpenters. Berquin brings his
children into a natural contact with men of various crafts, the farmer,
the blacksmith, the mason. They watch the building of a house and
learn the need for division of labour. He can dispense with Rousseau’s
artifice. He never hampers himself with theory, but allows Emile’s
virtues to appear in common adventures with men and birds and animals.
Clementine, who loads the little peasant girl with useless gifts, learns,
in a dialogue with her mother, to serve the real needs of her protegée;
the dentist’s visit to Laurette and Marcellin is a test of courage; “_Le
menteur corrigé par lui-même_” becomes a champion of truth.
Foolish wishes and false judgments are corrected according to Rousseau’s
plan. Little Fleuri, who, as each new season arrives, would have it last
for ever, is made to set down his fickle desires on his father’s tablets,
and, faced in Autumn with his Winter, Spring and Summer wishes, decides
that all the seasons of the year are good. Armand would cut away the
brambles that take toll of the sheep’s wool, but in the nesting season,
discovers how the wool is used.
Berquin cannot bring himself to judge the things that are merely
beautiful by Rousseau’s standard of utility. Lucette, when she finds gay
flowers in a place where her father planted those “_tristes oignons_”,
learns with astonishment that these were tulip-roots; and Berquin allows
her to rejoice where a rigid Rousseauist would have compared the uses of
flowers and vegetables.
“The time of faults is the time for fables,” said Rousseau; but he put
it late, when Emile was no longer a child. Berquin knows what happens in
nurseries: that Josephine will forget to feed her canary, that Firmin
and Julie will eat forbidden cherries, that Ferdinand, all frankness and
generosity, if he cannot control his temper, will be a danger to his
friends, and Camille if they give her the chance, will tyrannise over the
whole family.
The remedies are mostly found in the natural consequences of these
things; but Berquin brushes aside Rousseau’s strict law of necessity
with a light mischievous touch; nor does he ever sanction the plan of
governing a child by letting him suppose he is the master.
“The Children who wanted to govern themselves”, having tried it, do not
wish to repeat the experiment; and Camille is completely reduced by the
officer who advises her Mother to give her _a uniform and a pair of
moustaches_, in which she can more appropriately indulge her fancy for
ordering people about.
These children of Berquin’s are less hard and self-reliant than Emile.
Even the good ones are not unnatural. There is little Alexis on a showery
day in June, running first down to the garden to look at the sky, and
then back, three steps at a time, to the barometer—only to find that
the two are in league against him; and the eight-years-old Marthonie,
a delicious picture in her white linen dress, a pair of morocco shoes
on her “dear little feet”, and her hair, dark as ebony, hanging in
loose curls on her shoulders; Marthonie, who insisted on being dressed
for a picnic in a frock of the prettiest apple-green taffetas, with
rose-coloured ribbons and shoes—and came home hatless and draggled, a
tearful Cinderella with one shoe left in the mud. The Mother who met her
thus and only said, “Would you like me to have another silk frock made up
for you to-morrow?” owes her wisdom to Rousseau, but her playful irony to
Berquin and Marmontel.
Berquin’s parents are nearly infallible, but he does not give them every
point in an argument. In the affair of Charlotte and the watch, for
example, it is not always M. de Fonrose who scores.
Charlotte invents a dozen reasons for wanting a watch, and her inexorable
parent disposes of them all, till she is forced back on Rousseau’s final
position. A watch must needs be a _useful_ possession, since her Papa,
philosopher as he is, cannot do without it. This, obviously, is a point
to Charlotte. If she wants the thing for its _usefulness_, it is hers.
The sudden capitulation is too much for Charlotte. She suspects her Papa
of badinage. Not at all; he is perfectly serious. She will find the watch
hanging from the tapestry by the side of his bed.
_Charlotte_: What! that ancient thing, that King Dagobert
perhaps used for a pot to feed his dogs?
_M. de Fonrose_: It is a very good one, I assure you. They were
all made like that in your grandfather’s time. I regard it as
an heirloom. But in giving it to you, I shall not let it go
out of the family, nor shall I lose sight of it when I see you
wearing it.
_Charlotte_: But what will other people say, who are not my
grandpapa’s descendants?
Few English children could buy the first translation of Berquin, in
twenty-four volumes. A selection, including many little dramas for three
or four persons, appeared later under the title of _The Children’s
Friend_; but the true English version was the admirable _Looking Glass
for the Mind_[77] adapted by Mr. Cooper for E. Newbery and illustrated
by John Bewick’s inimitable cuts. Alexis transfers his best grace to
Bewick’s “little Anthony”, standing a-tiptoe on a chair to read the
barometer; Caroline walks as proudly as Marthonie in her finery; and the
four little pupils of Mademoiselle Boulon are not less French for their
English names.
It is odd, considering Rousseau’s attitude to the education of girls
(for in his account of Sophie he reverses the whole method of Emile’s
training) that the trilogy of educational romance, begun with Emile,
should have been completed by two women.
Madame d’Epinay, Rousseau’s friend and benefactress, published her
_Conversations d’Emilie_[78] at his request, and Madame de Genlis, in
_Adèle et Théodore_,[79] worked out her own scheme of practical education
on his principles.
Of the two, Madame d’Epinay is more faithful to Rousseau, and so great
was the interest aroused by the _Emile_, that she was awarded the French
Academy prize for “a work of the greatest benefit to humanity”.
She herself declared that her book contained “neither a plan of
education, nor any connection in the ideas”; yet it is plain that Emilie
follows Emile like an obedient younger sister.
An age that believed in freedom and equality could not long stand by
the privilege of sex, and Emilie, although she suffers some of the
restrictions imposed on Sophie, shares the natural education of Emile,
and is taught to practise most of his virtues. She gains her knowledge,
as he does, from experience; Nature is the wise Mistress who refuses
her request for more lessons, and had Emilie’s mother followed her own
inclination, it is likely that the little girl at ten years old “Would
not yet have known how to read.”
As it is, she is allowed to spend ten years (for Emile’s twelve) in
jumping and running, and her enlightened Parent (the counterpart of
Emile’s guardian) believes that the time has not been wasted. Not
that Emilie is ever allowed to forget Rousseau’s Salic Law concerning
obedience and restraint. She is sternly snubbed for romping with her
brothers, and after a disastrous adventure with a beautiful green ladder,
admonished that “the modesty of her sex requires a decorum which should
restrain the giddiness and warmth even of childhood”. This sends her back
to her doll, the care of which has so far exercised her ingenuity that
her mother “will not oppose a continuation of it for some time to come”.
And to Sophie’s sewing and embroidery, Emilie adds a new amusement: that
of passing these instructive conversations on to her doll.
Thus even “moments of relaxation” are to be employed by a vigilant mother
in order to form the understanding of her child. There is no escape for
little Emilie, she must be educated every minute of the day. Her play is
always under supervision, always liable to interference and criticism.
Her mother, usually her sole companion, is present at all interviews
between Emilie and other human creatures.
The book is, in one sense, a simplified _Emile_, intended for children
as well as parents; but Madame d’Epinay has not a vestige of Berquin’s
humour to help her along the “paths of pleasure and amusement”. These
repeated portraits of Emilie and her mother look dull indeed beside
Berquin’s dainty groups, and her insistent doctrine almost hides the one
beauty of the book: the character of Emilie.
There is no merit in Madame d’Epinay’s fancy portrait of herself as the
Perfect Parent, but Emilie is lifelike, and holds out for a number of
years in her stronghold of childhood. It is only on the eve of her tenth
birthday that she remarks resignedly, “To-morrow will be an important
day. When I rise, _I shall no longer be a child_”.
The tyranny of reason had, in fact, begun much sooner, when Emilie,
curious about her own small part in the Universe, learnt that _in time_
she would become a Reasonable Being.
_Emilie_: But what am I now, being but a child?
_Mother_: How! You are _five years old_ and have not yet
reflected on what you are! Endeavour to find out yourself.
_Emilie_: I cannot think of anything!
This is a priceless opportunity to impress the lesson of dependence,—to
prove that it is only by mildness, docility and attention that she can
hope for a continuation of help and protection.
Punishment, says the Maternal Governess, is proper only for intractable
and servile dispositions; but she is willing, before Rousseau, to correct
faults by means of Fables.
This is how she deals with her pupil after a courageous burst of
naughtiness:
_Mother_: Take a book from that shelf: that which you see at
the end of the second lowest shelf.
_Emilie_: Is it this, Mamma?
_Mother_: Yes, bring it to me.
_Emilie_: Mamma, it is Moral Tales.
_Mother_: So much the better; it will amuse us.
_Emilie_: Which shall I read?
_Mother_: The first.
_Emilie_: Oh! Mamma.
_Mother_: What now?
_Emilie_: It is—Let us read the second. Mamma.
_Mother_: Why not the first?
_Emilie_: Mamma, it is “The Naughty Girl”!
_Mother_: Well, we shall see if it bring to our recollection
any of our acquaintance.
_Emilie_: Must I read it aloud?
_Mother_: Without doubt; and pronounce distinctly.
(The very snap of the consonants can be heard.)
Madame d’Epinay was too true a disciple of Rousseau to follow him
slavishly. Not only did she ignore his strictures upon reading, through
the fear of being singular, and still more that of making an unfortunate
experiment, but she was even ready to tolerate myths for the sake of
morality, and to compare them with modern instances; on the other hand,
it must be confessed that she only once talked of fairies, and regretted
it afterwards.
Emilie herself has a child’s love of fairies; but she is made to reason
about them:
“Mamma, you will make me umpire between you and the fairies,” says the
intelligent little person, making the most of her dull game; and she
obediently works it out against herself: “They were, perhaps, two fairies
and a genii I met this morning. Well, no matter, Heaven bless them, I
say, you are the fairy Luminous and have _disenchanted me_!”
The Mother never shrinks from this grave responsibility. Berquin, though
he made war upon ghosts, was wise enough to let the fairies alone. At
least he could laugh like one of them. But Madame d’Epinay, in her first
Conversation with Emilie, finds it hard to be amused, and in the twelfth,
the little girl declares: “_In my whole life I never saw you play at
anything_”.
This, indeed, is a mother that sends Love himself to school:
_Emilie_: Mamma! Mamma! Let me come and kiss you.
_Mamma_: Most willingly; but you will tell me upon what account!
Madame de Genlis’s _Adèle et Théodore_, published in the same year
as _Emilie_, gives her interpretation of Rousseau in the form of
correspondence with a mother who desires to be enlightened, but as yet
clings to the ordinary customs of Society:
“You prevent your children till the age of thirteen from reading
Telemachus, Fontaine’s Fables and all such books, yet you would inspire
them with a taste for reading! What books would you give them instead
of those I have mentioned? Are they only to read the Arabian Nights and
Fairy Tales till they are thirteen?”
The answer gives the author’s convictions about children’s books:
“I neither give my children Fairy Tales to read nor Arabian Nights; not
even Madame d’Aulnoy’s Fables, which were composed for this purpose.
_There is scarcely one of them which has a moral tendency._”
To provide works “proper for infancy” she wrote _Les Veillées du
Château_,[80] tales which carry Rousseau’s theories along a facile stream
of conversation and incident. Adèle, until she is seven, is allowed to
read no other books. “I shall then”, says Madame de Genlis, “give her the
Conversations of Emilie, a book you have often heard me praise, and this
will employ her till she is eight.”
The apparent generosity to her rival, however, did not prevent the
writer of _Adèle et Théodore_ from attributing the success of _Emilie_ to
the good will of the Encyclopædists. “Madame d’Epinay was a philosopher,”
she remarks, “and took good care not to talk of religion to her Emilie.”
It is certainly true that Madame de Genlis had many qualifications for
her task which Madame d’Epinay lacked; and when for a moment she allows
herself to forget her theories, there are glimpses of autobiography in
her books. Her own life, in fact, was the most interesting of her tales,
and the rest are interesting chiefly for reflections of it.
No child could have reproached Madame de Genlis with never playing at
anything. She had an extraordinary childhood, and her early years in
the quiet Château of St. Aubin were filled with unusual interests.[81]
At eight years old she dictated little romances and comedies to her
governess, and amused herself by playing schoolmistress to some
Burgundian peasant children who came to cut rushes under her window; at
eleven she was the chief attraction of her mother’s theatrical fêtes. It
was characteristic of the society of the day to seek refuge in private
theatres from political and social realities; most owners of country
houses had their own companies composed of friends and neighbours, and
thus Félicie, before her twelfth year, had mixed freely with gentlefolk
and villagers, and had shown the aptitude for teaching and acting which
marked her whole career. Her dramatic talent, indeed, might be said
to cover all her other activities, for with her, teaching was little
more than a favourite and particularly successful rôle. She was active,
curious and enterprising as any child; before her marriage she was
an accomplished harpist and fluent writer; afterwards she acquired a
knowledge of literature, anatomy, music and flower-painting; but there
were other occupations which fitted her even better to be the exponent of
Rousseau’s theories. Writing in the _Memoirs_ of her early married life,
“I endeavoured”, she says, “to gain some insight into field-labour an
gardening. I went to see the cider made. I went to watch all the workmen
in the village at work, the carpenter, the weaver, the basket maker”.
Rousseau thought her the most natural and cheerful girl he had ever met.
Their friendship was short, but she never wavered in her loyalty to his
teaching, and could say at the age of seventy, “What I pride myself on,
is knowing twenty trades, by all of which I could earn my bread.”
In 1777, Madame de Genlis was made governess to the daughters of the
Duchess of Chartres, for whom, with her own children, she established a
school at the Convent of Belle Chasse. Her success was so great that,
in 1782, the Duke of Orleans took the unusual step of appointing her as
“governor” to his three sons. The result fully justified his courage and
silenced the critics who ridiculed this new method of using revolutionary
theory to educate princes.
The Duke purchased a country estate at St. Leu, and here the boys made
experiments in chemistry, studied botany, practised gardening, carpentry,
and other forms of handwork. But Madame de Genlis did more than play
the part of Rousseau with three Emiles. She handed on to her pupils the
delights of her own childhood. These boys could laugh at Emile marooned
in his island. They played out a dozen different Voyages in the park of
St. Leu; and had a theatre of their own in which they acted moral plays
from the _Théâtre d’Education_.[82]
Madame de Genlis had long ago added authorship to her list of trades and
had written stories for the children of Belle Chasse. It was easy enough
to invent new ones for St. Leu. “There is no great wisdom required in the
composition,” she declared, “but only Nature and common sense.”
Doubtless her books deserved Madame Guizot’s criticism, “_toujours bien
et jamais mieux_”. She is discursive, even garrulous, and often loses
the thread of the story in moral dialogues; but there are tales in the
_Veillées du Château_ that suggest her own enjoyment of the “delicious
life” with her children; and if none of them betray her love of mischief
and adventure, it is but a fresh proof that she was acting a part, that
she could not move freely under the cloak of the Infallible Parent. For
in actual life she could take either side in a moral contrast, bear her
part in the maddest pranks, assume every virtue of a heroine and hide
with complete success a thousand faults.
Her books, after all, were simply properties reserved for her parts of
Moralist and Schoolmistress. She dramatised the theories of Rousseau, and
although her wonderful energy hardly atoned for her lack of depth and
soundness, she left a rich legacy of device and suggestion to those who
could use it better.
Rousseau’s affinity to Locke on the side of theory, and to Richardson
in sentiment may account for some common features of French and English
tales, but it does not explain the writing of “Lilliputian” books by two
such authors as Berquin and Madame de Genlis.
There is, of course, no great difference between “writing down”
Rousseau’s doctrine for children, and making miniature versions of
Richardson and La Bruyère; but Berquin’s humour should have saved him
from _Le Petit Grandison_,[83] and Madame de Genlis might have reflected
on the undramatic qualities of _Le Petit La Bruyère_.[84] Berquin’s
Lilliputian hero reveals himself in letters to his mother as a perfect
miniature of Sir Charles Grandison, not less insufferable for his youth;
and the little _La Bruyère_ is made up of conventional homilies: “Of
Reading, Study and Application”; “Of Personal Merit”; “Of the Heart”
(introduced by a quotation from Marmontel); “Of Insipidity” (perhaps
evoked by the other platitudes).
It was Rousseau himself who saw that the subject of education was
entirely new, even after Locke’s treatise, and would be new after his
own. The closest of his followers overlooked his chief discovery.