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MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
AND THE BEGINNINGS OF
FEMALE EMANCIPATION
IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND
[Illustration: Logo]
J. BOUTEN
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT AND
THE BEGINNINGS OF FEMALE
EMANCIPATION IN FRANCE
AND ENGLAND
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT TER VERKRIJGING
VAN DEN GRAAD VAN DOCTOR
IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE AAN
DE UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM OP
GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR-MAGNIFICUS
Dr P. ZEEMAN, HOOGLEERAAR IN DE
FACULTEIT DER WIS- EN NATUURKUNDE,
IN HET OPENBAAR TE VERDEDIGEN IN
DE AULA DER UNIVERSITEIT OP VRIJDAG
17 NOV. 1922 DES NAMIDDAGS TE 4 UUR
DOOR
JACOB BOUTEN,
GEBOREN TE DORDRECHT
H. J. PARIS
V H FIRMA A. H. KRUYT
AMSTERDAM
TO
MY WIFE
PREFACE.
There is something particularly fascinating about the study of the
literature and philosophy of the eighteenth century, with its gradual
evolution of lofty social ideals which the Revolution failed to
realise. When the altered circumstances brought promotion within my
reach, it completely brought me under its sway, and ultimately came to
determine my choice of a subject for an inaugural dissertation. It was
while engaged upon tracing the influence of Rousseau's hopebringing
theories on his English disciple William Godwin, that the less boldly
assertive, but all the more humanly attractive personality of the
latter's first wife, Mary Wollstonecraft, attracted my attention. My
admiration of her husband's intellect paled before my sympathy for her
more modest, but at the same time more emotional character. Where the
indebtedness of Godwin to Rousseau and the Encyclopedians has been
manifested so clearly in different works, the absence of any direct
attempt to prove and determine the extent of the relations between
Mary Wollstonecraft and the early French philosophers struck me as an
omission for which I found it difficult to account, and made me turn
to a subject to which I am fully aware that a book of the size of the
present little volume does but scant justice.
I wish to avail myself of this opportunity to thankfully acknowledge
the valuable help and friendly encouragement received from _Professor
Dr. A. E. H. Swaen_, of the University of Amsterdam, whose unceasing
kindness and ever-ready interest in the preparation of this treatise I
shall never forget.
_Mr. K. R. Gallas_, Lecturer on French Literature in the same
University, has likewise a claim to my heartfelt gratitude for giving
me the benefit of his extensive knowledge in making various suggestions
with regard to the chapters dealing with the literature of France.
My best thanks are also due to _Mr. M. G. van Neck_ and _Dr. P.
Fijn van Draat_ for guiding my reading for the B.-examination, and
particularly to my first teacher of English, _Mr. L. P. H. Eijkman_,
for giving me that interest in England and her language and literature
which has determined my subsequent career.
_Amsterdam_, November 1922.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. THE MAIN THEORIES REGARDING THE POSITION
OF WOMEN 1
II. THE BEGINNINGS OF A FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN
FRANCE 11
III. THE POSITION OF FRENCH WOMEN IN EIGHTEENTH
CENTURY SOCIETY 52
IV. FEMINIST AND ANTI-FEMINIST TENDENCIES AMONG
THE ENGLISH AUGUSTANS 73
V. QUALIFIED FEMINISM: THE BLUESTOCKINGS 98
VI. RADICAL FEMINISM: MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 128
BIBLIOGRAPHY 183
INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
_The Main Theories regarding the Position of Women._
The history of the Emancipation of Women is the long and varied record
of their slow and gradual liberation from that utter subjection to
Man in which various circumstances beyond their control--among which
the physical superiority of the latter, a form of male supremacy
which has seldom been called into question, was probably the most
prominent--had combined to place them. It relates how in the course of
centuries--either with the support of a certain portion of the opposite
sex or relying upon their own resources--they strove to cast off the
shackles which bound and degraded them, and to acquire that degree of
physical, intellectual and moral freedom to which they felt themselves
entitled. That the movement towards complete enfranchisement met with
a varied reception and was hampered and retarded by men and often by
women themselves was due chiefly to the fact that in the question of
female possibilities there was much diversity of opinions at different
times and among different nations. The worst enemies to evolution
of this kind were those women who, holding the Empire of Love and
Gallantry to be their exclusive domain, in which their sway was not
likely to be ever disputed, turned deliberately against those of their
own sex who in trying to wrench from the hands of men the sceptre of
social power, were willing to forego the privileges of sex. That women
were thus divided among themselves from the first, was the natural
outcome of those differences in personal attractions and in personal
intelligence which have always constituted the great danger of too
sweeping conclusions with regard to the inclinations and capabilities
of the female sex. Individual members of the same sex may yet be
radically different, and he who would prescribe for all will always
find himself confronted by the bewildering problem of the disparity of
individuals.
The champions of the Cause of Woman have had to overcome a great deal
of stubborn opposition, nor can it be said that even at the present
moment the emancipation of women is complete. Even now that the
ideal of perfect equality in everything seems almost within reach,
and the domestic woman has largely given way to the social worker and
political agitator, it may be a matter of speculation whether the full
realisation of the long wished-for end, throwing open to women all
those occupations from which centuries of injustice rigorously excluded
them, would mean a blessing to society and to women in particular, or
a mixture of gain and loss. Those who regard women from the all-human
standpoint, holding the functions of sex to be only a passing incident
in the great scheme of life, will be inclined to take the former view;
those, on the other hand, who believe that a woman's life derives its
colour from considerations of sex which refuse to be ignored, may well
wonder where a rigorous application of perfect equality will land us in
the end. In one respect however, there has been great and undeniable
progress. The modern tendency to overlook sexual differences ensures to
individual women the necessary freedom to judge for themselves whether
a life of domestic or one of social duties will be more compatible with
their personal inclinations; and no woman whose hopes of domestic bliss
are rudely blunted, need--as was the case in former times--despair of
succeeding in life; any talents she may happen to possess, will find
full scope. If we contrast with this the truly pitiable condition
of unmarried women in earlier ages, who were too often treated
contemptuously for failing to perform what was considered the only
duty of womanhood--the propagation of the species--we cannot but feel
grateful to the champions of emancipation, whose restless ardour and
unceasing devotion has entailed such glorious results.
The feminist programme includes a number of points, on some of which
something will have to be said. There is, in the first place, that
physical enfranchisement which makes the woman cease to be the willess,
and therefore irresponsible and soulless, slave to the caprices of
a brutal master. There is, in the second place, the intellectual
emancipation of women, admitting the female sex to the participation
of Reason and granting them that education of the mind which is to
place them on a par with the other half of humanity; and there is
that moral emancipation which recognises woman as a being endowed
with a soul, equal to that of man, with consequent moral duties and
responsibilities, partly dictated by considerations of sex. As a
direct consequence of these, there is finally, social emancipation,
constituting principles of perfect equality between the sexes, also in
matters of social and political interest. They are all of them largely
dependent on the growth of civilisation. It has even been said that the
degree of civilisation in a nation is determined by the position of its
women in the life of the community.
In the early stages of history--in that savage state which some
authors persist in preferring to the social state of an imperfect
civilisation--only the physical condition of women was considered,
and, where even some of the most fervent advocates of the female
excellence are forced to acknowledge the physical inferiority of
the sex, it is but natural that the women of prehistoric times were
kept in utter subjection, being regarded exclusively as a means of
gratifying the animal instincts. But with the growth of civilisation
came the development of the mind, and it has always been one of
the bitterest grievances of feminists against man, that he, taking
advantage of his usurped authority, deliberately withheld from woman
the means of proving that the supposed inferiority only concerned
her physical capacities, and not those of the mind. Even as late as
the 18th century the complaint is repeatedly uttered (and this is
one of the points where two women of such widely different views as
Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More fully agree) that men keep from
women all opportunities of that cultivation of the understanding which
infallibly leads to virtue, and by a singular want of logic hold
them responsible for the moral deficiency which is the inevitable
consequence. In the introduction to her "_Strictures on the modern
system of female education_" Hannah More calls it "a singular injustice
which is often exercised towards women, first to give them a very
defective education and then to expect from them the most undeviating
purity of conduct; to train them in such a manner as shall lay them
open to the most dangerous faults and then to censure them for not
proving faultless"[1], and the argument seems indeed unanswerable.
Hence the cry for female education which Plato was among the first
to raise. The physical inequality between the sexes was apparent and
therefore remained, upon the whole, uncontested, but the problem of the
possibilities of the female understanding was less easy to solve and
admitted of different opinions; hence it was in the first stage of the
growth of the human mind that the great question was first broached the
solution of which was to occupy so many minds in so many successive
centuries.
While making every possible allowance for deviations due to individual
opinion, which mostly had its roots either in a particular form of
creed or in some special system of philosophy, it may be stated that
there were throughout the centuries two directly opposing lines of
thought, each leading to certain clearly marked conclusions.
Of these, the first and oldest is based upon considerations of practice
rather than theory, which makes it less rigid and more adaptable to the
exigencies of practical life. It was adopted on the whole by churchmen
and religious moralists rather than by abstract philosophers, and
had the full support of the unquestioned doctrines of Christianity,
of which support its adherents never failed to make the best use. It
determined the attitude of the early Christian Church towards women
in taking for granted the existence of a sexual character, from which
it draws inferences. The difference between the sexes is essential
and not restricted to physical differentiations. They were intended
for different functions and have widely different duties to fulfil.
Man's chief duty is the support of the family he has reared--for which
obviously his strength of muscle was intended,--his is the struggle for
life against a hostile society in which egoism reigns supreme and the
interests of individuals constantly clash. Woman's special province is
the home; hers is the difficult and important task of regulating the
domestic life and bringing up the children she has borne. So far this
theory receives support from observations of the animal world. But
that faculty which marks the essential difference between the human
and the animal kingdom became the apple of discord among many later
generations. For Reason was held to be the prerogative of Man only, in
which Woman had no share. His world is the world of the Intellect, the
world of Action, in which sex is only an episode; hers is the world of
Sentiment and of Contemplation, in which sex is the dominant factor.
To think is the prerogative of Man, to feel that of Woman. That there
is also an intellectual side to the quiet undisturbed contemplation
of confinement at home was demonstrated by Shakespeare when creating
the character of Lady Macbeth, nor was the monopoly of Thought greatly
abused by the mediaeval Lords of creation, the only scholars of that
period being those who had resigned their sex. But apart from those who
lived in convents and whose reading was exclusively religious, women
were self-taught or rather taught by experience, and the use of books
was confined to some monasteries.
Starting from the above principle, any claim to intellectual equality
would have seemed an encroachment upon the male kingdom. Love and
maternity, and the daily routine of the household ought to be the only
considerations in a woman's existence and whatever is outside these
is the domain of Man. To Woman was allotted the task of managing the
home, to Man the more comprehensive one of managing society. That in
reality the former is quite as important as the latter, which must
always largely depend on it, since Woman is the mother of Man, and
the guide of his first steps, did not find full recognition until the
17th century, when Fénelon and some of his contemporaries made this
consideration a basis on which to build their demands for a female
education.
Early Christianity, drawing the necessary conclusions from certain
Biblical allusions to the position of Woman and guided by St. Paul's
teachings, adopted the Hebraic notions of female inferiority and
dependence, which long met with no resistance whatever. The early
churchmen, in strict obedience to the teaching of their faith, tacitly
accepted the inferiority of women and their subjection to men. About
these little need be said here. They were partly responsible for the
misery of women in the early Middle Ages, the time of their greatest
debasement and degradation, and will be remembered only among the
adversaries of feminism. However, the fact must here be emphasized,
that even the full acceptance of a sexual character does not
necessitate, and in practice did not always lead to, insistence upon
the female inferiority.
There are those who, while assigning to woman a place in society
differing essentially from that held by man, do not infer that woman
is necessarily inferior to man. They purposely refrain from comparing
that which by its very nature defies comparison: "for Woman is not
undeveloped Man, but diverse." They insist instead on the division of
functions which makes the sexes supplement each other. The majority are
moralists, churchmen of a later age, and to them the problem is that of
sexual duties, with the promise of eternity in the background, which
is intended for both sexes, female as well as male. The pursuit of
Christian virtue, which to them is the essential thing, is regardless
of sex and leads to self-abnegation which renders the sexual problem
of secondary importance. The very orthodoxy of her faith prevented
Hannah More from becoming a feminist in the full sense of the word,
and as Mary Wollstonecraft's feminism came to absorb her mind more
fully, her religious convictions retired into the background. To the
Christian moralist the place of woman in the social structure must of
necessity be an important one; but it is made so only by the domestic
duties which devolve upon her. She is expected to bring up her children
to be good Christians, good citizens, and good fathers and mothers,
in the moral interest of society, and this duty obviously involves
the necessity for women to receive the benefit of a moral education.
In this lies the gist of the moralist's arguments in favour of a
partial female emancipation. To be a good educator of the young it is
indispensable that the mother herself should be liberally instructed,
for what is to become of her influence, should her male offspring
come to regard her as intellectually inferior? In this argument the
feminist and the moralist join hands. Fénelon and his contemporaries
were philosophers and for the rigid, inflexible interpretation of
Scripture by the early churchmen they substituted the structure of
moral philosophy, which thus indirectly promoted the growth of feminist
ideas. In their eyes an education is the very first requisite to enable
a woman to discharge the duties imposed by motherhood.
The second line of thought, in direct opposition to the assumption of a
sexual character, takes for its starting-point the theory of _equality_
in everything except what is physical, arriving at the conclusion
that there is nothing which woman--if given the benefit of the same
education--is not capable of performing equally well as man. In view of
the impossibility of furnishing conclusive rational evidence--women are
not educated and therefore no opportunity is given them to vindicate
their powers--the adherents of this theory, who mostly belong to the
rational school of philosophy, point to the example of some individual
women, who in spite of a defective education obtained great results,
thereby laying themselves open to the criticism that what may apply
to certain individuals, need not hold good for the entire sex, which
argument they try to refute by insisting on the experiment being made.
This ultra-feminist way of thinking equally originated in France,
where Mlle de Gournay and François Poullain de la Barre built up their
theories more than a century before Mary Wollstonecraft voiced their
claims in the English language.
Apart from certain physical differences which even she could not deny,
although she held with truth that they were often exaggerated, nay,
purposely augmented, woman possesses the same capabilities as man and
the existing difference in intellectual development may be entirely
removed by means of an education which does not regard sex. This
process of reasoning naturally leads to a denial of sexual character.
The mental inferiority of women is merely the consequence of ages
of neglect which urgently demands reparation. The soul, they agreed
with the moralists, has no sex--an assertion which some of the early
Christian leaders might have felt inclined to call into question--and
since the development of the moral sense depends largely upon the
condition of the mind, it is the _right_ of women to be educated. The
claim for education as a natural right was first made in its full
purport by Mary Wollstonecraft, to whom belongs the undivided honour
of having been the first woman in Europe to apply Rousseau's famous
theory of the Rights of Man to her own sex by taking her stand upon the
principle of equality of the sexes.
The extreme adherents of equality among the philosophers of the
French Revolution founded their claims upon an absolute denial of all
innate character, holding the character of every individual to be the
resultant of different influences to which it has been exposed. Among
French philosophers Helvétius had been the first to profess this theory
in his "_Traité de l'Homme_." Diderot had written an energetic reply,
vindicating the theory of innateness and heredity, and the topic had
remained a theme of frequent dispute. The partisans of Helvétius, among
whom were both Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, continuing his line
of argument, were naturally led to the most optimistic forecasts for
a happy future. It only remained to find a way to perfect education
and to extend it from a few privileged ones to the multitude, and all
evil would of necessity disappear, and society would be rebuilt upon a
more solid foundation. The consequence was an overwhelming number of
educational treatises, mainly in the French language, most of which,
however, sadly overlooked the pressing needs of woman.
It was again Mary Wollstonecraft who extended this implicit faith in
the perfectibility of humanity to the case of woman. All that women
needed was to be given a good education, and the rest would follow.
So convinced were these idealists of the incontestability of their
arguments that they refused to make any concessions, however slight,
to those who held different views. This very inflexibility became
the means of ruining their best intentions. They did not stop at
intellectual and moral enfranchisement, their daring schemes comprised
complete social and political emancipation. In the period with which we
shall be chiefly concerned, their efforts were doomed to failure by the
circumstance that their aims were physically incapable of realisation
while society remained in the state in which it found itself at the
time of the outbreak of the French Revolution. Those more or less
unconscious feminists, the Bluestockings, were responsible for far more
direct improvement through the very moderation of their suggestions
than Mary Wollstonecraft, whose lonely voice in the wilderness of
British conventionality heralded the great and successful movement of a
later century. When the inevitable reaction set in, the entire feminist
movement, which Mary had identified with the cause of liberty, as
advocated by the French, was regarded as anti-national and seditious,
and first ridiculed and reviled, to be soon after consigned to a
temporary oblivion.
When called upon to decide which of the two lines of argument
referred to above deserves most sympathy, the unbiased onlooker may
find himself sadly perplexed. In choosing between the advocates of
dignified domesticity and those of perfect equality, one might be
inclined to decide in favour of the former; yet the fact remains that,
if especially the last decades have brought considerable progress, it
is chiefly the latter we have to thank for it. For the pathway of the
pioneer is rough and beset with difficulties, and she may seem "no
painful inch to gain", and yet the amount of progress, when measured
after the lapse of ages may be found to be considerable. But the
fatal tendencies to generalise and to exaggerate are everywhere, and
invariably spoil the best arguments. To the advocates of equality
_à outrance_ might be held up the warning example of the "masculine
woman", who has succeeded in getting herself abominated both by man
and by the wise members of her own sex; who has voluntarily, for the
prospect of mostly imaginary gains, unsexed herself, forgetful alike
of her task of propagation and education and of the fact that even
outside the home-circle there are the sick to be ministered to, and
the suffering to be comforted, occupations that demand the loving
gentleness and unselfish devotion of which the womanly woman is made
more capable by Nature than her brother Man. She scornfully resigns the
chivalrous worship of the opposite sex, mixing in political and other
debates with a want of moderation and often with a narrowness of views
which prove all too clearly that the average woman's qualities fit her
for the domestic rather than the social task.
On the other hand, those moralists who exhort women to be content
to take their place in society as "wives and mothers", not inferior
to man, but different, forget to provide for those women, whom
circumstances beyond their control have destined for celibacy,
debarring them from the privileges of their own sex, while not
allowing them to share those of the male. For such women it was indeed
a blessed day when the word that was to deliver them from bondage
and to open to them paths of public usefulness was first spoken by
the pioneers of feminism, throwing open to the female sex the many
professions for which they are as fit, or even fitter--in spite of the
equality theory--than men!
Whatever may be the absolute truth,--which probably no moralist or
feminist has ever held, although some may have held a considerable
portion of it,--both may be credited with a firm and unshakable belief
in the creative force of a good education for women, of whatever
description their chief duties in life may be. And, after all, the
question of perfect equality and of rivalry between the sexes leading
to a struggle for pre-eminence will chiefly attract women who, being
more gifted than their sisters, and filled with a laudable desire to
devote their talents to their cause, make the error of identifying
their own individual plight with that of their sex, imagining women
in general to be thwarted in their aims and ambitions, and ascribing
to them aspirations which the majority of women never cherished and
probably never will cherish. They turn their weapons against "man,
the usurper", goading him to opposition and forgetting Hannah More's
wise remark that "cooperation, and not competition is indeed the clear
principle we wish to see reciprocally adopted by those higher minds
in each sex which really approximate the nearest to each other"[2].
This remark, however much it may hold good for the times in which we
live, would have elicited from Mary Wollstonecraft the reply that
between master and slave there can be no cooperation until the latter's
individuality has been fully recognised by emancipation. If, moreover,
we consider how she was always thinking of duties before considering
the question of female rights, claiming the latter only that with
their help women might be better enabled to perform the former, it is
difficult to withhold from either woman that sympathy to which the
purity of her motives and the extreme earnestness of her endeavour
justly entitles her.
The history of female emancipation, therefore, is so closely bound
up with that of female education that it often becomes impossible to
separate them. Education, to follow the feminist line of rational
thought, forms the mind; and a well-formed mind shows a natural
inclination towards that perfect virtue which ought to be the ruling
power in the universe and the attainment of which is the sole aim of
humanity. The feminist problem will not be fully settled until all men
and women are equal partakers of the best education which it is in our
power to bestow.
It is impossible to record the earliest beginnings of feminism in
England without first glancing at that country whence came the powerful
wave of philosophical thought which, stimulated by the fathers of
British philosophy, in its turn stung the latent feminist energy
of a Mary Wollstonecraft to life and was also--although in a less
degree--indirectly responsible for the more qualified feminism in the
tendencies of the Bluestocking circles and their literature, which it
will be our business to describe. After one or two abortive attempts of
a directly feminist nature a movement of indirect feminism, which was
fostered and nursed by the French _salons_ of the 17th century began
at a time when in England the condition of women was rapidly sinking
to the lowest ebb since the dark ages of mediaevalism. All through
the 17th and the greater portion of the 18th century female influence
and importance grew and intensified without calling forth anything
like a parallel movement in the great rival nation beyond the Channel.
Those who, like Mary Astell and Daniel Defoe, caught the spirit of
emancipation were indeed pioneers, and to them all English women owe a
never-to-be-forgotten debt.
From the beginning of the religious revival in England in the early
part of the 18th century to the outbreak of the French Revolution a
strong and determined reaction against French manners was noticeable
in England. This reaction found its root in national prejudices,
which held whatever came from France to be tainted with the utter
corruption and depravity of French society and as a natural consequence
disqualified public opinion from appreciating the glorious edifice
of philosophical thought which was being erected at the same time.
It derived greater emphasis from the vicious excesses of the French
aristocracy and afterwards from the unparalleled horrors of the
Revolution. The English nation has never been remarkable for any
special love of imitation, and the menace of French revolutionism
turned Great Britain into the very bulwark of the most rigid
conservatism. So general did the feeling of hatred of the French
revolutionary spirit become, that even Mary Wollstonecraft's determined
attempt remained unsupported and was predoomed to failure merely
because it was identified with the hated principles of the French
Revolution.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Edition T. Cadell, Strand, 1830; p. IX.
[2] _Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education_, p. 226.
CHAPTER II.
_The Beginnings of a Feminist Movement in France._
The two main feminist tendencies of the preceding chapter may be found
illustrated among the Ancients by the respective theories of Plato and
Plutarch regarding women.
The history of ancient Greece records the earliest traces of what might
be termed a feminist movement. There was a period when the position of
the women of Greece, who had long been kept in submission, excluded
from political influence and treated contemptuously in literature,
began to awaken some interest. The views of Plato were of an advancedly
feminist tendency. His _Republic_, of which the fifth Book deals with
the position of women in the ideal state, ascribed their inferior
power of reasoning to an education which was based upon the assumption
of a sexual character. Plato was the first to assert the moral and
intellectual equality of women and to claim for them an equal share in
the public duties. His writings foreshadow the constant alternative of
later centuries. The woman who is regarded as essentially a citizen
will find the consequent responsibilities crowding upon her, which
she will be expected to share with her male partners, a bar to the
exclusively feminine duties of motherhood and the education of her own
progeny. No theories and social movements of the past or of any future
time have altered or will alter the axiom that every individual woman
will sooner or later find herself at a parting of roads, one of which
will lead her to devote her energies to the progress of human society
at large, the other to the more exclusive happiness and welfare of
the domestic circle. So completely does Plato disregard the feminine
instinct, that the children in his commonwealth were to be entrusted to
professional nurses, and that the mothers were to be allowed only to
suckle the infants promiscuously and without even recognising them, out
of bare necessity. The maternal instinct in Plato's state was ignored,
and the existence of a sexual character emphatically denied.
Another feminist among the Ancients, although his views differed widely
from Plato's, was Plutarch, whose ideas represent the opposite extreme
of the ideal set up for women. Woman's chief duty he held to be, not to
the state, but to her own family. She should try to be her husband's
associate not merely in material things, but also in the fulfilment
of more delicate tasks, prominent among which is that of educating
the young, for which purpose she herself requires to be instructed.
In direct opposition to Plato, Plutarch insists on the essentially
feminine qualities of tenderness, gentleness, grace and sensibility.
In preference to a national education, he wishes for a home-education,
based upon the natural affections between parent and child.
The theories of Plato and Plutarch contain the germ of one of the main
points of dispute among later feminists and anti-feminists: that of a
sexual character. On the attitude taken by later writers on the Woman
Question towards this all-important problem depends the course into
which they are directed. Those who, like Plato, either deny or ignore
the existence of a specially feminine character and specially feminine
proclivities, are naturally driven to assert the equality of the sexes,
and to claim for the female sex an equal share in both the rights and
the responsibilities of social life. On the other hand, those who,
like Plutarch, lay stress on the domestic and educational duties of
womanhood, counterbalancing the public duties of man, duties which take
their origin in the innate propensities of the female character, may
yet become defenders of the cause of woman, but their demands will be
more qualified, and while including in their programme a liberal female
education to make women fitting companions to their husbands and wise
mothers to their children, will regard the political emancipation of
the sex as a hindrance to the discharge of more important duties, and
therefore as undesirable.
Although the problem regarding the social status of women was a matter
of some speculation and discussion in the early days of antiquity,
no female writers arose to take part in them, and the position of
the female sex was exclusively determined by male opinion. This
circumstance in itself proves conclusively that the prevailing opinion
was that woman in her then state was an inferior creature. Women were
not even appealed to to make known their own wishes on a subject so
vitally concerning them. Their participation in the movement belongs
to later times. Upon the whole, the educationalists of Rome took
little notice of the problem of female education and instruction.
Quintilian, the chief among them, completely ignores the point, and
Roman literature affords no contribution of any real importance.
The first statements of the cause thus remained without any direct
results. Such traces as had been left were completely swept up in the
years of turmoil that followed, causing early civilisation to fall
back into barbarism. The centuries that elapsed between the fall of
the Latin Empire and the Renaissance may be called the Dark Age of
feminism. Mr. Mc. Cabe in his "_Woman in Political Evolution_" states
that the decline of the comparative esteem in which women were held
among the Romans set in even before the great Empire began to totter
on its foundations, and was largely due to the Judaic spirit which
prevailed in the early days of Christianity, demanding the implicit
obedience of women to the stronger sex, a point of view which was
found endorsed in many places in both the old and the New Testament.
The earliest Christian leaders had been taught to regard woman as the
agent of man's downfall, and readily observed the law that rendered her
dependent. They were for the most part zealots, who did not believe in
any literature that was not devotional. Even the most enlightened among
them, St. Jerome, who had to answer the charge of occupying himself
preferably with the instruction of women--which accusation he met with
the complaint that the men were displaying an absolute indifference to
instruction of any kind--wanted to make narrow religious asceticism
the basis of his education of women. Being exempt from social and
political duties, they seemed naturally fitted for a life of devotion
and contempt of the world, directing their energies and hopes towards
a life to come. In the strict retirement of the cloisters they filled
their time with prayer and sacred literature. Thus, in the dark age,
the ideal of womanhood became the Virgin, who lived her life of
devotion far from the temptations of a wicked world with which she had
nothing in common. Those women--and they were the majority--who did not
pursue so lofty an ideal, sank lower and lower, and came to be regarded
as mere sexual instruments, without any claim to consideration, by men
whose only interest was war, and among whom learning was regarded with
contempt.
Before the great Renaissance came with its revival of learning in which
some women had a share, bringing improvement to some privileged ones,
but leaving the bulk of them in the pool of ignorance and slavery
into which they had sunk, two minor renaissances call for mention.
The first, of the late eighth and early ninth century, centres round
the names of Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks, and Alcuin. They
saw, indeed, the necessity for better instruction and founded a great
many schools, but in their scheme women as a class were unfortunately
overlooked. The second revival, that of Abélard, which took place in
the twelfth century, marks the beginning of a more rational education,
subjecting various theological problems to the test of reason and
logic. Unfortunately, this second revival soon degenerated, and gave
rise to a class of pedants who neither understood the aims, nor even
the principles of education and against whose severity and arrogance
the great reformers of the Renaissance as Rabelais, Montaigne and Roger
Ascham directed their shafts. Neither of these revivals, therefore,
exercised any considerable influence on the position of women.
It was also in the twelfth century that the influence of the conquest
of England by the Normans began to make itself felt in Latin Europe.
The early traditions of England regarding women offer a striking
contrast to those which lived on the continent. When in the days of
Julius Caesar the Romans first set foot on British soil, they found
a well-balanced society, in which prevailed a state of comparative
equality between the sexes, and a correspondingly high code of
morality. The British women were consulted whenever an important
resolution had to be taken, and Tacitus, and in later days Selden, were
lavish in their praise of the dignity and bravery of Boadicea, whose
history has furnished even modern authors with a fitting subject.
About the middle of the fifth century there began those invasions of
Anglo-Saxons which led to a partial blending of the two races. The
newcomers also reverenced their women; history even records the names
of some "Queens regnant" among them, and ladies of birth and quality
sat in their Witenagemot. The church boasted among its abbesses some
fine specimens of intellectual womanhood (St. Hilda, St. Modivenna),
and in general the position of women among the Anglo-Saxons points to a
spirit of generous chivalry.
William the Conqueror and his men, who overran and subjected the
country in the eleventh century, came from a land where the principles
of the Salic law were recognised. Seen from a feminist point of view,
this invasion was a most fatal occurrence. Under Norman influence a
rapid decline set in.
But if the Normans Latinised the manners and customs of the nations
subjected to their rule, the latter influenced their conquerors in
a more subtle way through their literature. It was especially the
literature of Celtic England that hit the taste of mediaeval France.
The Arthurian Cycle found its way to the Continent. It breathes a
spirit of chivalry, and depicts a blending of the sexes on terms
of homage to the fair and weaker which came like a revelation.
And although the chivalrous element soon degenerated--Mr. Mc. Cabe
deliberately leaves early romanticism out of account, calling it "a
cult of pretty faces and rounded limbs, leading to a general laxity in
morals"--yet it opened the eyes of the stronger sex to the possibility
of women playing some slight part in society. In this connection it
is rather amusing--and also enlightening as illustrating the general
estimate of women--to read about a proposal made by one Pierre du
Bois to king Edward the First to make Christian women marry Saracen
husbands, that they might have a chance of converting them. The first
social mission of women, if du Bois had been given his way, would thus
have been that of utilising their charms to make religious converts.
At the same time, he deemed it advisable to fit them for this task by
giving them a rather liberal education and instruction.
There was, however, one important result of the new tendencies. The
education of girls in the early Middle Ages,--such as it was--was a
monastic one, practised within the walls of a convent. But in feudal
society it became more and more customary to have the daughters of
aristocratic families brought up at home, either by a tutor, or by some
member of the family whose parts fitted him for the task. This first
secularisation of female education among the higher classes was mainly
responsible for the awakening interest of some women in literature of
a secular kind. The traditions of the Church had demanded the teaching
of Latin long after it had fallen into disuse in the outside world. The
secular education, which comprised little actual instruction, next to
music and dancing, came to include a good deal of physical exercise.
Religion was not neglected, but relegated to a less commanding
position, and secular literature in the vernacular became a favourite
pastime, so much so, that (about 1400) Gerson thought it necessary to
protest against the reading of the _Roman de la Rose_ by young ladies,
from motives of delicacy.
In spite of many backslidings, the position of women was now very
slowly beginning to improve, and in the argument between the partisans
and the opponents of female instruction the latter were beginning to
have the worst of it. In the fifteenth century one or two forerunners
of the renaissance-women swelled the ranks of the advocates of the
cause.
There was in France Christine de Pisan, who in her "_Cité des Dames_"
protested against the conventional statement, that the spreading of
learning among women had had a disastrous influence upon their morals.
In illustration of her plea she quoted the example of Jehan Andry,
"solennel canoniste à Boulogne", who, when prevented by circumstances
from giving his lessons of divine wisdom, sent his daughter Novelle
in his place. In order that the beauty of her appearance might not
awaken illicit thoughts among her male scholars "elle avait une petite
courtine devant son visage." Christine de Pisan was one of the first
women who made a living by their pen, and is said to have lived a life
of irreproachable virtue, besides being possessed of great erudition.
The country where the most considerable gain was recorded was Italy.
Not only did many Italian women share in the enthusiasm aroused by the
Renaissance, but their doings were no longer regarded as unworthy of
interest. In Boccaccio's writings, for instance, women occupy a very
prominent place, and Chaucer was among those who followed his example.
Although a great many writers of the period make the failings of women
the object of their satirical remarks, yet there is in their very
criticism the wish for something better and nobler, and better still,
the conviction that women are capable of improvement.
The Renaissance, with its revival of ancient culture, contained a
strong educational element, which, although like the earlier revivals
it busied itself only very indirectly with the female half of society,
was not without importance to the movement of female emancipation. For
in the first place man was the usurper of all authority, and it was
only by educating him and widening his horizon that he could be made to
recognise the absurdity of the relations between the sexes; and in the
second place it was the philosophical spirit of the Renaissance that
built its educational speculations upon a solid foundation of thought
and method. The educationalists of the Renaissance were not churchmen,
but philosophers. The tendency among them--when at all interested in
women--is to condemn both the monastic education, which forms devotees
instead of mothers, and that secular education which creates literary
ladies instead of housewives, and to return to the ancient ideal of
womanhood in making them essentially wives and mothers, assuming
without discussion the female inferiority.
The most striking exception to this rule was the German Cornelius
Agrippa, of Nettesheim, who was the first to state the cause and
pronounce upon it in a sense so favourable to female instruction that
it entitles him to the name of "father of feminism". His treatise "_De
nobilitate et praecellentia feminini sexus_" (first published in 1505),
though naturally crude and immature, and hesitatingly put forward,
has that enthusiasm of firm convictions which touches the reader's
heart. The rudiments of later contentions are to be found in his plea.
The tyranny of men, he says, has deprived woman of her birthright of
liberty. Iniquitous laws have prevented her from enjoying it, usage and
custom have neglected it, and finally an exclusively sexual education
has quite extinguished it. In her youth she is kept a close prisoner
at home, as though she were utterly incapable of any more dignified
occupation than the performance of domestic duties like a kind of
superior servant, and using the needle. Thus she is prepared for the
matrimonial yoke which is laid upon her the moment she has attained
maturity, that she may quickly serve her chief purpose of propagating
the species. She is then delivered up to the oppression of a husband
whose inordinate jealousy and fits of temper reduce her to a deplorable
condition. Or she is kept all her life in the even more rigorous
confinement of a convent, a retreat of so-called virgins and vestals,
where she is left to a thousand agonies, the worst among which is a
gnawing regret for lost happiness which finishes her.
In a supplementary treatise Agrippa exhorts the husband to regard
and to treat his wife as a companion, and not as a servant. He seems
almost afraid of the consequences of his audacity when he tries to
weaken its effects by acknowledging the natural dominion of the male
sex. "However", he adds, "let their rule be all grace and reverence.
Although woman be inferior, let her be given a place by the husband's
side, that she may be his faithful helpmate and counsellor. Not a
slave, but the mistress of the house; not the first among the servants,
but the mother of the fine children who are to inherit her husband's
property, succeed to his business, and transmit his name to posterity."
Erasmus in his _Dialogues_ depicts women as eager to rise out of
their conditions of servitude. However much he tempers the force of
his argument by continual jokes and pleasantries, yet he seems to
sympathise with the female complaint that woman herself has abandoned
her cause, leaving the husband to decide all matters of importance and
voluntarily resigning all liberty, consigning herself to a life of
religious devotion and household duties. The consequence is that men
regard them as mere playthings and even deny them the name of human
beings. The woman who voices this complaint enumerates the various
occupations for which her sex would be fit, and winds up by saying that
"there is nothing in what she has said which does not deserve serious
and mature consideration."
In "_Abbates et Eruditiae_" Erasmus anticipates the problem of female
education as it would present itself in later ages. He foresees that
there will come a time when women, dissatisfied with the state of
bondage, will seek improvement by demanding an education. The innate
masculine egoism, however, will realise that learning will make women
less submissive to male authority, and they will resist any innovations
by which their supremacy may be endangered. The coming struggle is thus
foreshadowed by one of the most prominent among the philosophers of the
Renaissance, and his sympathies are, upon the whole, with the female
sex. He is the first to see the close connexion between the moral
worthlessness of females and their need of an education. To remedy the
frivolity of women he demanded that girls should be taught some useful
occupation, so as to keep them from idleness and its concomitant vices.
He also wished for a more liberal intellectual education to be supplied
in the family, and, should that be impossible, by the husband.
In full accordance with the above is the main drift of the third of
the great humanist's works which show a tendency favourable to women:
his "_Christian Marriage_", which made its appearance in 1526. It
resolutely prefers the state of matrimony to that of religious celibacy
and makes the possibilities of conjugal happiness dependent on the
cultivation of the female soul.
Works like the above could not fail to draw to the problem the
attention of the reading public, and to make it a favourite topic of
controversy. France especially proved an extremely fruitful soil, and
the French nation became interested in a regular "querelle des femmes"
which inspired a great many pens, and culminated in the third Book of
Rabelais' _Pantagruel_. The habit of reviling the female character
and satirising the female weaknesses was of mediaeval growth, and may
be found illustrated among many other examples in that portion of
the "_Roman de la Rose_" which is the work of Jean de Meung, in the
"_Lamentations de Matheolus_", of which the late professor van Hamel
issued a new edition in 1892, and in a great many "_fabliaux_". It also
prevailed in England with great persistence for several centuries.[3]
But the somewhat puerile invective became a controversy in France
when about the middle of the 15th century the female sex found some
staunch defenders among the male French authors. Martin le Franc's
"_Champion des Dames_", composed between 1440 and 1442, aroused a
great deal of hostile criticism, mostly in the prevailing satirical
form and culminating in the "_Grand Blason des Faulces Amours_" by
Guillaume-Alexis, and some sympathy, as in the "_Chevalier aux Dames_",
an allegorical poem; while some authors, like Robert de Herlin in
his "_Acort des mesdisans et biendisans_" tried to reconcile the two
parties.
After 1500 the growth of the Renaissance spirit soon caused the
controversy to enter into a new phase. The interest it commanded
remained undiminished and towards the middle of the century it even
increased to immense proportions, without, however, leading to any
pronounced tangible results. The progress of learning caused the
argument to become intensified into a more serious, philosophical cast.
One of the champions of the female sex, at the time when the "quarrel"
had reached its acute stage, François du Billon, who also made use
of the allegorical device to level his threats at the heads of the
revilers of women in his "_Fort inexpugnable de l'honneur fëminin_",
narrates how three of the worst sinners are taken prisoner by the
gallant defenders of the fortress. They are Boccaccio, Gratien Dupont,
seigneur de Drusac, whose "_Controverses_", written in 1534, are full
of the fiercest invective against women, and Jean Nevizan, author of a
Latin treatise, published in 1521, of which the very lengthy title may
be advantageously condensed into "_Sylva nuptialis_". Nevizan's work
shows the Renaissance spirit of enquiry into the stores of antiquity
in its mention of a great many sources from Christ to Plato and itself
became a source of inspiration to Rabelais.
In the years that followed the champions of feminism became identified
with the Platonic idealists who were bent upon spiritualising love[4],
whilst its adversaries tried to uphold the ancient "gaulois" traditions
with their lower estimate of womanhood. The publication (in 1542)
of Antoine Héroët's "_Parfaicte Amye_", with its Platonic notions,
heralded a new phase in the history of the "Querelle des Femmes". In
its metaphysical tendencies this brief treatise contains a delicate
analysis of the emotions attendant upon the pure passion, the chief
inspirer of virtue which brings us nearer to God. It ushered in the
acute stage, during which not one of the great authors remained silent
on a question which occupied so many minds. The different contributions
to the problem under discussion were soon combined in one volume under
the name of "_Opuscules d'Amour_". The poets and poetesses of the
"école lyonnaise", Maurice Scève, Pernette du Guillet, Louise Labé,
and others, ranged themselves among those who tried to introduce a
purified love-ideal and also Marguerite, Queen of Navarre[5] joined
the controversialists in her poetry. So general did the interest taken
in the issue become, that Rabelais interrupted the narrative of his
_Pantagruel_ to contribute his reflections on the subject in the Third
Book (about 1546). He took his cue from Nevizan's "_Sylva nuptialis_"
in introducing the problem as a consequence of speculations regarding
the marriage of Panurge. Rabelais proved himself on the whole an
anti-feminist, and we have du Billon's authority for the fact that the
name "Pantagruéliste" was considered equivalent to that of enemy to the
cause of woman.[6]
If we except Christine de Pisan, Marie de Jars de Gournay, and "la
Belle Cordière," the Lyons poetess Louise Labé, the number of French
female authors was not greatly increased by the Renaissance movement.
But the number of women of the higher classes who took part in the
great intellectual movement grew all over Europe, particularly in
France, England and Spain. One of the most erudite Frenchwomen of the
time was Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, (1492-1549), sister to
Francis the First, who welcomed to her court the greatest scholars of
the day, and who was herself no mean poetess. It would not be difficult
to extend this list with more names of high-placed women who owed their
intellectual development to the instruction of special preceptors.
Education of this kind became the privilege of the female aristocracy.
The schools for the most part refused to admit women; in the convent
learning was discouraged because a spirit of free inquiry mostly led
to heresy, and for the women of the lower classes nothing at all was
done. Their more fortunate sisters learned to speak and write Latin,
Greek and Italian, and after 1600 also Spanish, and the abuse by women
of Italian words while pretending to speak their own language called
forth a strong reaction in 1579, the year which saw Euphues, and the
beginning of its influence at the Elizabethan court.
The tendencies of the Reformation pointed in the same direction; they
encouraged a spirit of free inquiry and were directly opposed to
those of the monastic education. Under Luther's influence a number of
lay-schools for girls arose in Germany and the early Reformation thus
tried to fill up the gap in female education which the Renaissance
had left. Unfortunately the political condition of France in the late
16th century was most unfavourable to educational reform owing to
the violence of the religious wars, and it was not until after the
Edict of Nantes that a number of Huguenot schools arose. The outlook
in the opening years of the 17th century was far from bright; great
misery prevailed everywhere, in addition to which the internal wars
had brought about a general decay of morals which threatened to become
the country's ruin. It was at this critical stage in the history of
France that woman had become sufficiently confident of her powers to
claim a beneficial share in all matters of social importance.[7] For
the first time in history the Woman Question reached an acute stage.
The seventeenth century, which witnessed the deepest abasement of
English women, will always be remembered in the history of France as
the time of the first self-conscious vindication of female rights.
This vindication--except in one or two isolated instances--did not
take the form of a direct appeal; it adopted the persuasive method of
furnishing convincing evidence of woman's capacity to hold her own both
intellectually and morally and even to supply certain elements which
were lacking among the opposite sex, for the benefit of French society.
We have seen that in the late sixteenth century the problem came to
be a much-discussed one in French literature, which it remained all
through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. M. Ascoli, in the
"_Revue de synthèse historique_" (Tome XIII) has published an extensive
bibliography of no fewer than ninety-seven works of a feminist or
anti-feminist tendency written between 1564 and 1773, which proves
conclusively that the intellectual condition of women remained a
subject of contemplation. The thirst for knowledge, as we have seen,
had imparted itself to a small category of women whose circumstances
enabled them to share the literary pursuits of their menfolks. But even
the boldest of these earliest champions in their wildest dreams did
not go beyond that enfranchisement of the mind which--however important
in itself--is only the indispensable first step in female emancipation.
Until quite late in the 16th century no women had entered the field
as the avowed champions of their sex against the arrogant assertions
of male supremacy. The alleged inferiority of women was a theme of
frequent discussion only in the works of male authors, who further
degraded the sex by the bantering, often insolently satirical tone of
their contentions. But no woman had come forward to test the evidence
on both sides, far less to enter into competition with men on behalf of
her sex. The growing taste for literature had done little or nothing
to improve the social position of women; it unfortunately limited
itself to a few privileged women, leaving the rest of womanhood in the
obscurity of hopeless ignorance. Thus matters stood when in the first
quarter of the seventeenth century two events of great importance in
the history of feminism took place, of which the first, abortive though
it was, and therefore predoomed to barrenness, represents a deliberate
attempt by a woman to constitute herself the champion of her sex; the
second being something in the nature of a social experiment, which,
without aiming definitely at the attainment of an exclusively feminist
ideal, did more to improve the condition of women than any more direct
endeavour. I refer to the work of Marie de Jars de Gournay, and to the
establishment of the first _salon_ by Catherine de Rambouillet.
The former struck a bold and defiant note, resolutely claiming for
her sex equality with men. This audacious assertion stamps her as the
pioneer of modern feminism. The remarkable thing about her theories is
that without the help of anything like a clearly defined philosophy
she strikes the keynote of whatever claim was put forward on behalf
of women in later times as a consequence of more than a century
of philosophical speculation, the practice of which entailed the
all-absorbing consequences of the great Revolution of 1789. When the
cause of woman was taken up in England by Mary Wollstonecraft, and
grafted upon the larger cause of humanity as its logical consequence,
the arguments of her plea were directly derived from that philosophy
of liberty, equality and fraternity which may be traced to its origin
in Locke, Descartes and Bacon. Yet here was a lady, at a time when
Descartes was a mere boy, boldly asserting that nature is opposed to
all inequality. "La pluspart de ceux qui prennent la cause des femmes
contre cette orgueilleuse preferance que les hommes s'attribuent, leur
rendent le change entier: r'envoyans la preferance vers elles. Moy
qui fuys toutes extremitez, je me contente de les esgaler aux hommes:
la nature s'opposant pour ce regard autant à la supériorité qu'à
l'infériorité." She thus sets about vindicating the equality of her sex
in everything except physical strength, going beyond the most daring
speculation of any previous author, with the exception of those who,
blinded by hate, had put forth theories of female pre-eminence in which
in sober moments they themselves hardly believed.
Marie de Gournay ascribed the state of inequality to the circumstance
that woman is purposely denied an education by man, who owes his
usurped authority to abuse of physical force, which she holds in utter
contempt. "Les forces corporelles sont vertus si basses, que la beste
en tient plus pardessus l'homme, que l'homme pardessus la femme." Woman
is man's inferior in bodily strength only "par la nécessité de port et
la nourriture des enfants", compensating her lack of brute force by
her delicate mission of propagation. But Mlle de Gournay emphatically
asserts the perfectibility of the female mind.
To understand and partly justify the extreme vehemence of the lady's
attack upon the opposite sex, whose unmerited contempt of the feminine
intellect had deeply injured her feelings, it is necessary to take into
account the circumstances of her life, which explain her acerbity. She
was a studious woman,--a forerunner of the Hannah Mores and Elizabeth
Carters as well as of the Mary Astells and Mary Wollstonecrafts of a
later period--whom her exceptional intellectual gifts betrayed into
that error so common among the extreme female champions--that of
substituting herself for her sex and claiming for all what no one with
any discernment would think of refusing her personally. Her mother's
attempts to turn her away from literature only irritated her. She
had no personal beauty and her entire life was a protracted struggle
against indifference, opposition and ridicule, which embittered her
beyond measure against that sex which valued the gift of a pleasing
appearance above that of a comprehensive mind. Born in or about 1565,
she must have been a mere girl when first brought into contact with
Montaigne's _Essays_. She expressed her admiration of them in a letter
to the author, couched in terms so enthusiastic that the philosopher
came to see her, thus laying the foundation of a friendship which
was only disturbed by his death in 1592. She became his spiritual
daughter,--his "fille d'alliance"--and took an active part in the
publication of the later editions of the _Essays_. She rather
conceitedly accounted for the close affection which bound them together
as "the sympathy from genius to genius". When Montaigne died, his
"fille d'alliance" was in a fair way to become a prominent figure in
the literary world, having under his influence written some pedagogical
essays, which were favourably received. With the philosopher her chief
guide passed away, and subsequent experience seems to have soured her
and made her spiteful and old-maidish before her time. Those whose
object was to ridicule her represent her with three cats, following
her about wherever she went. She met with little sympathy beyond that
expressed from chiefly intellectual motives in the correspondence
of the learned Dutchwoman Anna Maria Schuurman, and of the renowned
Louvain professor Juste Lipse--whose praise of Montaigne's _Essays_ had
won her instant recognition. But she deserves respect for the courage
of her opinions, regardless of the prejudices of her contemporaries,
and for standing her ground firmly, often turning ridicule into esteem.
Such was the pioneer whose ideas regarding the position of women are
embodied chiefly in a treatise entitled: "_De L'Egalité des Hommes et
des Femmes_" and in the "_Grief des Dames_", and further alluded to in
her preface to the 1595 edition of Montaigne's _Essays_ and in a prose
"_Apology_", intended to disarm her ridiculers, in which she protests
against being disregarded merely on account of her womanhood. Here,
indeed, we are confronted by a sense of personal injury. Concerning
"_De L'Egalité_" she says in one of her later writings: "Il faut le
soubmettre à la touche par ce que peuvent valoir ses raisons et ses
pensées, fortes ou feibles qu'elles soient, et puis apres, par la
consideration de son dessein. Sçavoir si ce nouveau biais qu'elle
prend, et qui la rend originale, est bon pour relever le lustre et pour
verifier les privileges des Dames, opprimez par la tyrannie des hommes."
The treatise "_De L'Egalité_" consists of two parts. In the first,
the right of women to equal consideration with men is vindicated by
means of evidence derived from the writings of men; in the second the
authority of God himself as contained in the Bible is referred to and
expounded in a manner wholly favourable to the doctrine of equality.
Regarding the first point, the author derives comfort from the
reflexion that the chief revilers of women are to be found among the
worst specimens of the male sex, who merely repeat the opinions of
others, "n'ayans pas appris que la première qualité d'un mal habill'
homme, c'est de cautionner les choses soubs la foy populaire et par
ouyr dire," in doing which, "d'une seule parolle ils desfont la moitié
du Monde." Their sole aim is to rise at the expense of the female sex.
But fortunately there is the testimony of truly great men to prove
the mental and moral capacity of women. Here follows a list of the
male partisans of some degree of feminism among the philosophers of
antiquity and of the renaissance: Plato, Socrates, Plutarch, Seneca,
Aristotle, Erasmus, Politian, Agrippa. Montaigne is introduced as
"le tiers chef du triumvirat de la sagesse humaine et morale" (with
Plutarch and Seneca), for having written that "il se trouve rarement
des femmes dignes de commander aux hommes," which she twists into an
implication that he holds woman to be the equal of man.
To counterbalance the principles of the Salic law, constructed entirely
upon considerations of war, Tacitus' account of the position of women
among the Germanic tribes is quoted, together with the example of the
Spartans, who in the discussion of their public affairs consulted
female opinion.
Marie de Gournay held that the two sexes have equal souls given them;
the institution of a sexual difference having been made exclusively
with regard to the propagation of the species. To illustrate which, the
author, whom nobody would dream of accusing of levity, bashfully craves
permission to quote a popular saying. "Et s'il est permis de rire en
passant, le quolibet ne sera pas hors de saison, nous apprenant: qu'il
n'est rien plus semblable au chat sur une fenestre, que la chatte."
After passing in review the principal secular authorities with
feminist tendencies, Mlle de Gournay tries the more difficult task
of reconciling her feminist views to those of the early Christians,
taking what she calls "la route des tesmoignages saincts", quoting St.
Basil and St. Jerome, and finding herself for the first time somewhat
perplexed at the teachings of St. Paul, who forbids preaching by women
and enjoins silence, "not because he despises the female sex, but
merely lest their beauty and grace, displayed to advantage in a public
office, should become a source of temptation to men."
That women have always excelled in religious devotion is demonstrated
by means of a reference to the championship of Judith and the martyrdom
of Joan of Arc. The mention of the former brings us to direct
Scriptural evidence, which the author finds an even harder subject to
tackle. Here, indeed she is sometimes led by her zeal into the most
palpable absurdities: "Et si les hommes se vantent, que Jesus-Christ
soit nay de leur sexe, on respond qu'il le falloit par nécessaire
biensceance, ne se pouvant pas sans scandale, mesler jeune et à toutes
les heures du jour et de la nuict parmy les presses, aux fins de
convertir, secourir et sauver le genre humain, s'il eust esté du sexe
des femmes: notamment en face de la malignité des Juifs."
The entire treatise is mere theorising, and being produced at a
time when the public mind on the subject was one mass of inveterate
prejudice, brushing aside any speculations of the kind it contained
as ridiculous and "paradoxical", it is not astonishing that Marie de
Gournay spoke to the winds, and that the practical results of her
labour were nihil.
One gets the impression that the author herself was fully convinced
of the hopelessness of even obtaining a hearing, and wrote chiefly
to relieve herself of the burden of her glowing indignation. To this
circumstance it may be attributed that she refrains from formulating
any practical claims, or drawing up a scheme of an ideal society in
which women were given their due. But her zeal and devotion to the
cause she believed to be just were above suspicion, and she has a claim
to the gratitude of her sex for having asserted the female equivalence.
If Mlle de Gournay combined in her person some of the elements of the
social reformer, there certainly is nothing sensational about her
personality and way of expressing her views, and she must be described
as revolutionary in a limited sense. Apart from her extreme feminism,
her social and political views were quite conventional, and in her
preface to "_De l'Egalité_" she even seeks the patronage of Queen Anne,
as the most prominent and influential member of her sex. François
Poullain de la Barre, however, who half a century later became heir to
her spiritual legacy, was an out-and-out revolutionist, whose theories
of female equality proceeded from generally revolutionary tendencies.
Like Mlle de Gournay, he was a theorist, but he differed from her in
being above all a philosopher of the school of Descartes, and the
first to apply the doctrine of Cartesianism to social problems. This
consideration renders him important not merely as the direct advocate
of the cause of woman, in which capacity his efforts met with no
success whatever, but as the forerunner of J. J. Rousseau in his theory
of human rights, which in its turn became the basis of the feminist
movement in England in the last years of the next century, inaugurated
by Mary Wollstonecraft. As M. Piéron puts it, "le chemin réel ira de
Descartes au féminisme par la Révolution, et non de Descartes à la
révolution par le féminisme."
M. Rousselot, in drawing attention to Poullain de la Barre, refers to
his works as "now almost forgotten."[8] The utter obscurity in which
this author remained buried for two centuries is probably due to his
life of retirement,--as M. Henri Grappin has pointed out in opposition
to M. Piéron's opinion, who, basing himself upon evidence of style
and language, adjudged him to be a frequent visitor to salons--to
his complete indifference to worldly fame, and to this freedom from
worldly ambitions. His work, like that of Mlle de Gournay, was received
with a mixture of scorn and ridicule, and soon forgotten. A century
later, some of the works of the Encyclopedians, which developed
the same social ideas--with a striking difference in the matter of
female education,--were burnt by the common hangman by order of the
authorities, who could not, however, prevent the new ideas from
taking root and bearing fruit. In striking contrast, Poullain, whose
revolutionism found few sympathisers and was consequently adjudged
harmless, was left at peace, and brought out his revolutionary
treatises "avec privilege du Roy", and "avec permission signée de la
Reynie", for which he paid with disregard and oblivion. Both Mary
Wollstonecraft and Poullain should have been born in the nineteenth
century, but whereas the former was the embodiment of that indomitable
spirit of rebellion which had taken almost a century to mature,
Poullain stands revealed to the modern reader, a living anachronism.
There is something in his "fanaticism of ideas" which anticipates
the intellectual "tours de force" of William Godwin, whose eccentric
genius, however, was made subservient to the larger cause of mankind.
Born at Paris in 1647, it seems that Poullain chiefly studied theology
at the University of his native city, until the discontent which was
roused in him by the system of education followed there, made him
yield to the intellectual allurements of Cartesianism. Descartes had
been dead some dozen years when the great vogue of his philosophy
began. Poullain became a fervent Cartesian and after some years
turned Protestant, which religion he felt to be better suited to his
philosophical ideas. He lived mostly at Paris and at Geneva, and died
at the latter place in 1723.
Although Poullain seems to shrink from openly confessing himself
influenced by Descartes, his works show the rationalist tendencies
of pronounced Cartesianism, to which we shall often have occasion to
refer in coming chapters. He may be called one of the forerunners of
the Encyclopedians, anticipating their imperturbable rationalism, their
contempt of tradition and custom,--which, by a somewhat sophistic turn
of reasoning, they call superstition and prejudice,--their habit of
referring to original principles, and above all their absolute faith in
the perfectibility of mankind through the education of the mind and in
the certainty of unlimited human progress. No theory had ever been put
forward which contained brighter promises for the future of the human
race, and the enthusiasm which it awakened was not damped by the fatal
experience of the failure of former experiments. To this circumstance
must be ascribed the boundless optimism of the partisans of the new
philosophy and their radicalism.
The three feminist treatises, in the order of their publication, were:
1. "_De L'Egalité des deux sexes, discours physique et moral ou l'on
voit l'importance de se défaire des préjugés._" (1673);
2. "_De L'Education des Dames, pour la conduite de l'esprit dans les
sciences et dans les moeurs._" (1674);
3. "_De l'Excellence des Hommes, contre l'Egalité des sexes, avec une
dissertation qui sert de réponse aux objections tirées de l'Ecriture
Sainte contre le sentiment de l'Egalité._" (1675).
Of these, the second may be dismissed in a few words, as containing
nothing very striking beyond the author's dissatisfaction with the
spirit prevailing at the Universities.
The first, on the other hand, contains the gist of Poullain's
contentions. We are exhorted to judge only from evidence, without
regarding the opinions of others, and are brought face to face with
what the author holds to be the unvarnished truth, unaffected by
that spirit of misplaced gallantry which he feels to be particularly
offensive. If, therefore, anybody is shocked at the crudeness of some
statements, he expects him to blame Truth, and not Poullain de la Barre.
Conventionalism is what the author holds to be the chief source of the
prevailing inequality. In conformity with the tenets of the Christian
faith, people are taught to regard the submission of women as the
will of God, whereas Reason shows it to be merely the consequence
of inferior strength. To maintain this usurped supremacy men have
purposely kept women from being instructed. In many respects the
capabilities of women are superior to those of men: it is their special
province to study medecine and by its aid to restore health to the sick
and ailing. There is, in fact, nothing for which he pronounces women to
be unfit: "il faut reconnaître que les femmes sont propres à tout." He
would make them judges, preachers and even generals.
The faults of women, which even this fanaticist of Reason cannot
overlook in the face of the distressing state of female manners and
morals, are due to the defective education which is given them.
They are taught to feel an interest only in balls, theatres and
the fashions, with the result that vanity is their predominant
characteristic. So far we might be listening to some English moralist
of the eighteenth century. Their only literature is of a devotional
kind, "avec ce qui est dans la cassette," Poullain meaningly adds. For
a girl to display any knowledge she may have acquired is thought a
shame, and makes her a "précieuse" in the eyes of everybody.
The only state of dependence which finds favour in Poullain's eyes
is that of children on their parents. Here again, we have the purely
rational view which was also Mary Wollstonecraft's. The reason of a
child is undeveloped, and therefore requires the support of full-grown
reason. But this dependence naturally comes to an end as soon as that
age is reached when the faculty is sufficiently developed to enable the
child to judge for himself, when advice may take the place of command.
Pierre Bayle informs us that Poullain fully expected to be taken to
task for this daring vindication of the right of woman to be educated.
However, as two years passed without bringing the looked-for refutation
of his arguments, he himself anticipated his opponents by writing the
third treatise. Its title is rather misleading. As a matter of fact,
the pamphlet itself presents the usual arguments in favour of the
theory of male excellence with which the arsenal of anti-feminists was
stocked, whilst the "remarques nécessaires" by which it is followed,
demonstrating the author's opinions, contain the entire feminist
theory. The spirit that was to conduct straight to the Revolution
breaks out when the author confidently states that as yet feminism is
only a matter of theoretical speculation, and not ripe for social or
political action. He next enters upon a diatribe against civilisation,
which has failed to bring humanity any nearer to absolute truth, and
extols the never-failing power of Reason.
However interesting treatises like the above may be in the evidence
they contain of what was secretly going on, of the mental processes
which occupied individuals when conventionalism was at its height,
processes which contained in them the germs of the great upheaval of
a later century, yet it cannot be sufficiently insisted on that they
were only abortive eruptions, showing that the social volcano was very
far from being extinct; mere puffs of smoke which the slightest breath
of wind dispersed. Of far greater direct importance to the growth of
opinions was that social movement which began in the early seventeenth
century, of which woman was herself the originator, and by means of
which she almost leapt into the seat of social influence: the movement
of the _salons_. We have seen that it was in the sixteenth century
that woman made her triumphal entry into society and began to dominate
the world of conversation and of literature. The chivalrous worship of
earlier centuries had degenerated without doing anything permanent to
increase the esteem in which women stood. But in the sixteenth century
a new form of courtship was introduced from Italy and Spain, which was
utilised by clever women as a means of gaining the ascendancy over men.
The love theory evolved by Plato, with its metaphysical conception
of the passion, which in the Greek philosopher's days had fallen on
deaf ears, was carried into practice two thousand years later under
the auspices of the great Renaissance. In accordance with the views
of Plato's circle, love came to be recognised as the chief inspirer
of virtue and of noble deeds. The platonic ideal thus was from the
beginning a refining influence, a corrective to coarseness and
materialism, and an incentive to the purest idealism. The theory of
spiritualised love recognised the love of physical beauty only as the
first step on the ladder of Beauty connecting Earth with Heaven; at
each new step, however, the ideal becomes transfigured and purified,
until everything earthly sinks into nothingness, the Soul becomes
paramount and everything else falls away. This view was adopted by the
intellectual leaders of the Italian Renaissance, Dante and Petrarch,
and also by the leading churchmen, in whose speculations the highest
and purest form of passion became the love of God. The spirit of
Platonism thus became mingled with that of religious mysticism, which
even surpassed Plato in its condemnation of that earthly love which
the latter had recognised. The Florentine Academy, however, adopted the
Platonic view, making human love one of the steps leading to the ideal
of eternal beauty; and refining upon it until it became the chaste
passion of the sacrifice of self to the loved object, of which the
passion of Michel Angelo and Vittoria Colonna furnishes an example.
The Italian wars of the late fifteenth century had brought Lewis the
Twelfth and his retinue to Genoa. One of the highly-cultured ladies of
that city, Tommassina Spinola, made a deep impression upon the king.
She was married and virtuous, and so the royal lover had to control his
passion and to be content with that platonic friendship which made of
the lady "la dame de ses pensées", and entitled him to nothing beyond
the purest and most disinterested friendship. A great many parallel
cases occurred among the king's followers, and the women found their
influence upon their platonic lovers far greater and more lasting
than that exercised over the husband in matrimony. There was in this
new form of courtship,--which in literature often took a pastoral
form,--an element of idealism which placed the weaker sex on a pedestal
in putting the adored one far beyond the reach of the lover, who only
aspired the more faithfully for not having his passion gratified. In
this lay the dormant power of womanhood, which might be successfully
turned into a means of improving their position in society; and as soon
as women came to realise this they made the most of their opportunity.
The "Platonic friendship craze" spread to France, where the sentimental
passion of these "Jansenists of love" found a fruitful soil. Before
this new form of worship all class-distinctions fell away; not
unfrequently the lady was so high above the lover's reach as to exclude
all possibility of gratification, which only added an additional zest
to the adventure.
Unfortunately the morals of the French court were not such as to
encourage the hope of a permanent improvement in the relations
between the sexes. The antithesis between the platonic ideals and the
brutal coarseness of sexual desire, ill-concealed under a varnish of
hypocritical gallantry, was indeed very marked. At the court of Francis
physical beauty was considered far above virtue. The years following
the introduction of the female element and the rise of female influence
at court witnessed a long and bitter struggle between the coarse
manners which the long years of warfare had engendered, regarding
women as the playthings of men, to be trifled with and to be lightly
thrown away when used, and the newly-introduced "galanterie" which
implied patient and disinterested worship of an object, superior in
the possession of that beauty of feature which was regarded as the
reflection of a beautiful soul. Women had become conscious of their
growing influence, and of the means of increasing it. This struggle
for recognition found expression in literature in the "_Contes de la
reine de Navarre_", written by Marguerite after her marriage, and
modelled upon Boccacio's _Decamerone_, the evident purpose of which
was to correct French manners and morals, and to glorify that form of
love which is a mixture of the worship of chivalry and the platonic
passion. The _Contes_ themselves show a certain looseness of morals
which is rather a concession to the general taste of the times, but
the prologues and epilogues are of a far more refined character,
and breathe a spirit of platonic idealism. In their celebration of
virtue and the pure, idealistic passion it inspires, the _Contes_
are a precursor of Mlle de Scudéry's later romances. Instead of the
deceitful, hypocritical homage of feudal times, the demand was for
women to be respected and to be recognised as the social equals of men.
The first serious attempt made by the ladies of the French court to
better their position ended disastrously. Their influence was more than
discounted by the demoralising effects of the wars and by the gross
libertinism of the male leaders of society. The more determined among
the women, finding the task of reforming the morals of a dissolute
court beyond their strength, resolved to cultivate in their own private
circles that refinement of manners and higher civilisation which
the court refused to adopt. Thus arose the famous _salons_ of the
seventeenth century, in which the struggle for the emancipation of the
female mind was combined with that for the improvement of contemporary
morals, the refinement of contemporary taste, and the purification of
the French language and literature.
"Depuis le salon de Madame de Rambouillet jusqu'au salon de Madame
Récamier", says M. Ferdinand Brunetière, "l'histoire de la littérature
française pourrait se faire par l'histoire des salons." This statement
by an eminent critic implies a magnificent eulogy of women and
testifies to the magnitude of their literary influence during the whole
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for the history of the
_salons_ is the history of indirect feminism. Nor was their influence
restricted to literature; in nearly every department of social life
French women rose to ascendancy; and this, too, at a time when the
subjugation of their sex in the other countries of Europe, and notably
in England, was most complete. After the great triumphs of the first
half-century of their existence, the _salons_ shared in the general
decline, to be revived with a fair amount of success,--although of a
somewhat different kind--in the eighteenth century.
Woman thus became a social influence to be reckoned with. The
question may be put whether upon the whole this remarkable event was
favourable to the cause of feminism? For, however much the movement
of "preciosity" did to make women realise their independence, and
assert their individuality, its original tendencies were not towards
any appreciable increase of female instruction. The leaders of the
movement: Mme de Rambouillet and her daughters, and afterwards Mme
de Sévigné and Mme de la Fayette, detested the "femme savante" quite
as much as they hated ignorance. The only aim of the education they
recommended was to make women fit for the society in which they were
expected to move; manners, taste and wit were cultivated at the expense
of those qualities which are indispensable to rouse a spirit of pure
feminism. The "précieuses" were bent upon cultivating sentiment rather
than intellect, and--apart from the fact that sentiment is rather apt
to run riot and that many women have a natural surplus which does not
require cultivation--it is by a well-regulated intellect that the cause
of feminism will be best served. As it was, the essentially feminine
qualities were cultivated by the _salons_, and the sexual difference
emphasized. It must therefore be admitted that the _salons_ only very
indirectly furthered the feminist movement and that the interest
evinced by the "précieuses" in the equality problem and its levelling
tendencies was naturally slight. But it stands to their credit that
they compelled men to recognise the importance of sex in other matters
than those which are purely sexual. If the cause of feminism in the
days of the _salons_ had been in a more advanced state, the ladies who
frequented them might have turned anti-feminist in their horror of
social changes which threatened to rob them of the empire which their
essentially feminine qualities had so easily secured over men.
The better "précieuse" was not an intellectual; she was expected
to conceal such knowledge as she might possess and to cherish that
"pudeur sur la science" which makes Mme de Lambert refer to her secret
"débauches d'esprit", and which became the prevailing sentiment also
among her Bluestocking sisters of the eighteenth century.
The history of the French _salons_ and of the "précieuses" who peopled
them begins in the year 1613, when Catherine, marquise de Rambouillet
invited to her town residence all those who, like herself, felt
disgusted at the camp-manners prevailing at the court and at the
licentiousness of the language and literature practised there. The
Rambouillet-assemblies, in their original intention a reaction against
the "esprit gaulois", accomplished far more than they aimed at in
securing for women a prominent place in French society. They became
a powerful factor in that thorough reform of manners and of language
which became the glory of the century and which, whatever excesses may
have followed in its train, did away for good and all with coarseness
and brutality. Of the very questionable society at court it might
be said that "force prevailed, while grace was wanting"; the latter
essentially feminine quality was abundantly supplied at the Hôtel de
Rambouillet, where the feminine element found its way into literature;
and conversation, which hitherto had been masculine, became the means
of introducing a new language for new manners.
In opposition to the scant respect with which women were treated in
court-circles, an ideal of love was set up which was more in accordance
with the platonic sentiment. Once again the virginal state became an
object of glorification. The state of matrimony, on account of its
coarser foundation, was relegated to an inferior position. To the
crude, almost offensive lovemaking of the courtier was opposed the
modest, unselfish worship of platonic love of a pastoral kind; and
the representative poetry of the period, some of which was the work
of women, exalted the platonic passion which was to revolutionize the
relations of the sexes. The warrior-lover of the feudal past, who was
only a tyrant under the mask of chivalrous adulation, gave way to the
"honnête homme", or knight without an armour, of whom it could be said
that he possessed "la justesse de l'esprit et l'équité du coeur",
safe-guarding him against error of judgment and excess of passion,
and making him the devoted and constant lover of his mistress. The
following enumeration is given of his duties: "aimer le monde, aimer
les lettres sans affectations; mais surtout être amoureux et rechercher
la conversation des femmes". Anybody wishing to be admitted to polite
society had to conform to these rules. The tone of conversation was
characterised by a spirit of "galanterie", a kind of chivalry of
words and actions, which was to inspire men to noble feelings and to
corresponding deeds.
Mme de Rambouillet attracted to her salon not only men and women
of the aristocracy, but also a great many men-of-letters, who were
valued according to their literary merit, regardless of fortune and
importance. This close alliance between the female sex and the men
of culture was in some respects the best education the former could
have chosen. They were bent on proving once for all, as Fléchier puts
it, that "l'esprit est de tout sexe" and that nothing was wanting to
make women the intellectual equals of men, but the habit of being
instructed and the liberty of acquiring useful knowledge. Women became
the unchallenged arbitresses of morals, taste, language, literature and
wit, in all of which they themselves set the example. In a contemporary
work we find the earliest salon described as "l'école de Madame de
Rambouillet, qui a renouvelé en partie les moeurs, où l'on mettait sa
gloire dans une conduite irréprochable." Not only was the language
purified by removing its overgrowth of obscenity and indelicacy, but
it was divested of a number of superfluous and affected foreign words.
The female influence upon the literary taste was equally all-embracing.
A number of new words owed their existence to feminine initiative,
and although the writers of the very first class were on the whole
unfavourably disposed towards what came to be called "préciosité", and
were consequently inclined to satirise its excesses, a great deal of
respectable second class talent was lavished upon the frequenters of
the salons.
The literature produced by the "habitués" of Mme de Rambouillet's
salon was mostly of an occasional nature, and composed in homage to
the female sex, comprising sonnets, madrigals, epistolary prose, and
plays. The literature of the Scudéry circle, besides the products of
a growing pedantry, also included many occasional pieces of a lighter
kind, among which were so-called sonnets-énigmes, vers-échos and the
like, which, if contributing to the enjoyment of an idle moment, had no
permanence whatever as literature. To this kind of poetry the ladies
themselves were important contributors. In M. Victor du Bled's "_La
société française_" we read about a "Journée des Madrigaux" at Mlle
de Scudéry's, occasioned by a present of a "cachet de cristal" made
to the hostess on one of her famous Saturdays, calling forth poetical
ebullitions from the most widely different authors. There were the
famous "Portrait" series, composed by the ladies of the Duchess of
Montpensier's circle; the written "Conversations",--those by Mlle de
Scudéry herself were judged by Mme de Maintenon to contain "useful
hints to young females" and therefore introduced at St. Cyr--and a very
extensive literature in the epistolary style, which was to become the
current form of the Richardsonian novel.
The topics of the day also formed a subject of animated discussion
at the assemblies. Among them the social position of women and their
treatment by the male sex occasionally found a place. Dissertations on
literary subjects alternated with discussions of intellectual problems,
one of the themes at Mlle de Scudéry's being: "De quelle liberté les
femmes doivent-elles jouir dans la société?" Although the salons of
the seventeenth century were not so revolutionary in their tendencies
as some of the next, inasmuch as they were strictly private and did
not either directly or indirectly aim at subverting the existing
government or promoting seditious theories, yet political subjects
were not shunned, and even philosophy and science--the craze of the
salons of the early eighteenth century--found a number of devotees and
sympathisers. About the middle of the seventeenth century, Cartesianism
became the fashionable philosophy in spite of the opposition of the
universities. Mme de Sévigné's letters prove that many women were
interested in its propagation. The "précieuses" felt attracted by the
speculations of Descartes, to follow which the cultivation of a sound
sense of logic is more indispensable than any great erudition. The
consequence of the philosophical movement was a widening interest in
knowledge, an awakening curiosity about science, and a corresponding
contempt of tradition, resulting from that self-reliance which is the
natural outcome of the theory of human perfectibility.
The two principal salons, those of the marquise de Rambouillet and of
Mlle de Scudéry, although of the same general tendencies, differed
somewhat in their particulars. The glory of the former and earlier was
never equalled by any subsequent one. The marquise herself was in every
respect an ornament of her sex. Born and bred in Italy, she married
the marquis de Rambouillet before she had reached the age of thirteen.
After some turbulent years at court she retired to the privacy of her
residence in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre and became the centre of a
brilliant circle of aristocratic people and celebrated men-of-letters.
Although some of the greatest wits of the age frequented her
salon--Malherbe, and afterwards Corneille and Balzac were among her
occasional visitors--there never was question of a domination of
literary men: the hostess remained enthroned in full and undisputed
authority, receiving the verbal and written homage which they paid to
her virtues.
The entire house was reconstructed after her own ideas, so as to afford
more room for the reception of guests. In one of the apartments which
opened into each other, the marquise was in the habit of keeping
her state, receiving her visitors while reclining upon a luxurious
couch. The Blue Room, which, by the way, changed its aspect with each
succeeding fashion, was a marvel of refined taste. Nor did the marquise
confine her receptions to her town-residence; assemblies were held at
Rambouillet in summer and garden-parties introduced plenty of variety.
Great praise has been lavished on her kindness of character, and rising
authors in particular found in her a warm-hearted patroness, always
ready to applaud and encourage. One of her daughters, Julie d'Angennes,
equalled her in popularity and had her beauty and virtue celebrated in
a collection of laudatory verse entitled "_La Guirlande de Julie_", to
which different poets made contributions, the principal being the young
marquis de Montausier, who afterwards became her husband. Among her
closest intimates were two men of a very much inferior social station:
Voiture, the chief poet and chronicler, and Chapelain, the chief oracle
and critic of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. She had made these two her own;
they basked in the serenity of her smile, shared in her joys as in her
troubles, and were the most perfect male satellites to female beauty
and brilliance.
The years between 1630 and 1645 were the crowning years of glory in the
history of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. After Julie's marriage, however,
there came a decline. There were some sudden deaths, including that of
the marquise's only son, and the Fronde began, in which some of the
marquise's intimates followed the fortunes of the rebels, entailing
fresh partings. In 1652 she sustained a further loss through the death
of her husband. Bowed down with sorrow, she retired to Rambouillet to
seek comfort in the intimacy of Julie's family.
The influence of the Hôtel de Rambouillet passed on to the circle
presided over by Madeleine de Scudéry, whose "Saturdays" were much
sought after. Her visitors were rather more given to affectations of
manners and speech than those of her aristocratic predecessor and the
transfer therefore marks the first step in the decadence which set in.
In her "ruelle" the Third Estate was largely represented; in fact, as
the "bourgeois" element gained in strength, the decadence became more
marked, for its representatives were more easily led into excesses
than the female members of the aristocracy. This explains how the name
of Mlle de Scudéry--rather unjustly--came to be identified with that
false preciosity which did the female cause such harm. And yet she
was herself an ardent feminist, not only in the qualified sense of
her predecessor, but in the full sense of the word. Her two principal
romances: "_Artamène, ou le grand Cyrus_" and "_Clélie_", derive an
interest--which their longwindedness greatly endangers--from their
marked feminist tendencies. In the former, Mlle de Scudéry, whose
views are expressed by Sapho, pleads for mental occupation as the only
means of promoting female virtue. She rebukes the vanity of ignorance
so common among those of her sex who imagine that "elles ne doivent
jamais rien savoir, si ce n'est qu'elles sont belles, et ne doivent
jamais rien apprendre qu'à se bien coiffer". She is also one of the
first to accuse the male sex of inconsistency, refusing their womenfolk
an education, yet finding fault with them for lacking those qualities
which are the fruit of education only. "Sérieusement, y a-t-il rien
de plus bizarre que de voir comment on agit pour l'ordinaire en
l'éducation des femmes? On ne veut pas qu'elles soient coquettes ni
galantes, et on leur permet pourtant d'apprendre soigneusement tout ce
qui est propre à la galanterie, sans leur permettre de savoir rien qui
puisse fortifier leur vertu, ni occuper leur esprit". But the "femme
savante" equally inspires her with profound disgust, and this some
of her critics have failed to recognize. The Damophile of the _Grand
Cyrus_ is an exact reproduction of the Philaminte of Molière's "_Femmes
Savantes_", pretending to an erudition which is only imaginary and
prevents her from attending to her household duties. There is nothing
more objectionable in Mlle de Scudéry's opinion than for a woman to
make parade of her knowledge, which may be useful chiefly in enabling
her to listen with appreciation when men were talking. The theory of
perfect equality, proposed about the same time by Poullain de la Barre,
did not find an adherent in Mlle de Scudéry. The "honnête homme" of her
dreams has more power of diverting and amusing than the most erudite
of her own sex. Of all the leading ladies of seventeenth century
French society there were none whose qualifications would have fitted
them so perfectly to be the rivals of Mrs. Montagu in presiding over
Bluestocking assemblies as Mlle de Scudéry!
Her second great romance, "_Clélie_", marks the culminating point
of the usual seventeenth century feminism in expressing the rather
one-sided ideal to which the ladies of the salons aspired, that of
commanding the love of gallantry and of ruling the world through it.
The entire romance is nothing but an elaborate code of gallantry by
which all love is to be regulated. In some passages, however, the
social position of women becomes the theme, regardless of the rather
too obtrusive love-theories. After protesting indignantly against
female bondage, Mlle de Scudéry proves that the doctrine of gallantry
has not impaired her judgment. She demands that man shall be "neither
the tyrant nor the slave of woman", and that the rights and duties of
matrimony shall be equally shared between the two partners. Nor has the
glitter of the platonic love-arsenal blinded her to the blessings of
the virginal state. Far superior to matrimony she holds the condition
of the wise and (of course!) beautiful woman who, although much
courted, remains indifferent; who has many friends, but no lovers; who
lives and moves in a world which to her is without peril, unswayed by
the passions which rule others, always free and always virtuous--and,
we may add, always sublimely conscious of her own superiority--an ideal
embodied in the person of Plotine.
The attempt at "regulating the passions", i. e. keeping the affections
under perfect control, no doubt led to a great deal of absurdity which
supplied the many antagonists with weapons against "la préciosité."
Some of the worst sinners in this respect were ladies of the Scudéry
circle. There was a certain Mlle Dupré, given to philosophy, and
surnamed "la Cartésienne" whose glory was to consider herself incapable
of tenderness; and, worse still, there was the example of her friend
Mlle de la Vigne, whose infatuation went so far as to make her reject
even the comforts of platonic worship.
Mlle de Scudéry herself was more moderate in her ideas, and proved
capable of cherishing some "tendresse" for the poet Pellisson whom
she rescued from the Bastille. Her verdict that "la vraie mesure du
mérite doit se prendre sur la capacité qu'on a d'aimer" even suggests
that she was capable of undergoing the real passion. Gradually,
however, the excesses in false "préciosité" began to multiply. The
original signification of the term had been a taste for whatever is
refined and delicate; noble, grand and sublime. The affectation and
pedantry which came to be substituted for this, gave rise to the
worst excesses of language. In their admiration of the fine phrasing
of the literary masterpieces the "précieuses" took to substituting
their periphrases and metaphors for the simple mode of expression
which daily conversation requires[9], making themselves ridiculous and
objectionable in the eyes of soberminded people and calling forth some
malignant attacks even by people who could not be accused of misogynist
leanings. To make matters worse, some very inferior imitations of
the aristocratic salons had sprung up among the "bourgeoisie" both at
Paris and in the provinces, where prudery was substituted for purity,
affectation for elegance and pedantry for charm and taste. The moral
tone prevailing at these meetings also compared very unfavourably
with the atmosphere of culture and good breeding which had reigned
at the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Scandal became a favourite topic of
conversation, and literary men of a usurped reputation, to whom the
better circles remained closed, laid down the law and constituted
themselves the arbiters of literary taste. The decline, which had been
slow and partial in the salons of Mlle de Scudéry and afterwards of
Mme Deshoulières, became rapid and complete in those of the so-called
"bourgeoisie de qualité".
M. Brunetière has pointed out that the "esprit précieux" of the salons,
aiming at polish and refinement--for which in later years it came to
substitute narrowness and affectation--was directly opposed to the
"esprit gaulois" which had the upper hand in court circles and whose
satire of the salons often degenerated into cynicism and coarseness.
The great authors found themselves occupying an intermediate position,
trying to reconcile what was recommendable in either and ridiculing
what was objectionable. The fact that they drew their inspiration
from Nature and from the lessons taught by antiquity brought them
into conflict with the précieuses who lived in an artificial present,
and eagerly welcomed whatever was new. In the Ancient and Modern
Controversy, which was started in the seventeenth century and
revived in the early eighteenth, the female element, with a very few
exceptions, unhesitatingly took the side of the Moderns. How powerful
a factor they had become in determining what was to be the public
opinion appears from the share they had in the ultimate victory of the
Moderns, and more still from the utter futility of the repeated efforts
made by men of the first genius to crush their power by means of
ridicule. Molière opened the campaign in his "_Précieuses Ridicules_"
(1659). Although very successful as a play, and warmly applauded by
the Rambouillet-circle, it missed its aim in utterly failing to crush
false "préciosité". When after Molière's death Boileau continued the
campaign, he met with no better success. No sooner had he retired from
the field than the monster he had set out to kill reared its head
again, enjoying undisputed possession until Mme de Lambert and her
friends made an endeavour to return to the old ideals; in doing which,
however, they did not forget to march with the times and to observe the
signs of impending change which were beginning to manifest themselves.
While the "précieuse" society of the salons in its anxiety to
strengthen the female element was occupying itself with the cultivation
of polished manners, taste and wit in the members of the sex, and
came to neglect female morals and instruction, the problem of a
moral education was introduced and discussed by a philosopher among
churchmen, the great Fénelon. The civil wars in France were followed
by a religious renaissance, representing a supreme effort made by
catholicism to recover the ground which had been lost to the combined
classical renaissance and reformation. The religious order of the
Jesuits, founded in the middle of the sixteenth century, saw in a
strictly religious education the means of strengthening the position of
the Roman Catholic church. Before the end of the century they had their
colleges in different parts of France and became the educators of the
Roman Catholic youth of that country. From the first their aim was the
attainment of political influence for the church by means of religious
propaganda. To this end they tried to suppress all spontaneity and
individuality in their pupils, a system which in that age of awakening
individualism and philosophical enquiry could not long remain without
protest. A reaction set in which aimed at combining a certain amount
of personal freedom and patriotic sense with religious sentiment, and
at reconciling the tenets of Catholicism with the theories of the new
philosophy. Such was the general character of the first great rival of
Jesuitism, the "Oratoire".
Neither society, however, took any notice of female education. The
omission was repaired by the Jansenists, the implacable enemies of the
Jesuits, be it in a manner in which some sound common sense was mingled
with a good deal of narrow dogmatism. For a number of years they
maintained a somewhat precarious footing in France, during which time
they proved themselves zealous educators, to whom the moral interests
of their pupils, and not the worldly ones of their society, were
paramount. Their chief educational establishment at Port Royal, founded
in 1643, was in many ways superior to contemporary institutions, and
some of their methods have found imitation in France to this very day.
It is true that the Jansenist system of education was, upon the whole,
a monastic one, and as such could not be a very great improvement. But
its practice was distinguished by a few characteristics which made it
superior to all parallel schemes of education. Nowhere do we find that
perfect purity of motives, that eagerness on the part of the educator
to keep his charges from temptation and evil. This circumstance found
its origin in the tenets of Jansenism, asserting that a tendency to sin
and evil is inherent in the infant soul. To the Jansenists, education
meant the unrelaxing struggle of the educator, aided by divine grace,
against this natural bias, for the purpose of saving the soul. That
this constant watchfulness on the teacher's part involved the total
disappearance of the last frail spark of liberty left to the child,
is only natural. On the other hand, it strengthened the affections.
The Jansenist "religieuses" were filled with a most laudable sense
of responsibility and loved their charges with the most unselfish
tenderness and devotion. Their individual kindness tempered the
severity of the rules laid down in Jacqueline Pascal's "_Règlement pour
les enfants_". (1657).
The discipline was of the strictest, and the entire system directed
towards forming pious Christian women and docile wives, rich in virtue
rather than in knowledge. The final decision was left to the girls
themselves; they either became nuns or re-entered the world after
some years of close sequestration, "selon qu'il plaisait à Dieu d'en
disposer", but it is to be feared that some moral pressure was often
brought to bear upon them. The rules for daily observance implied
early rising, strict silence, very limited ablutions and the greatest
simplicity in dress; the hours of daylight being divided among prayers,
devotional literature, manual labour and the elements of practical
knowledge.
The above will be sufficient to show that Port Royal was a convent
rather than a school and that its spirit was directly opposed to both
the Renaissance spirit and the philosophical spirit of the later
generations. In the annals of female education the "Petites Ecoles" of
Port Royal will therefore not be remembered as a milestone in the march
of Woman towards the ideal of perfect enfranchisement. They derive
their importance from the fact that they were among the very first
institutions in which great stress was laid on a moral education and in
which some attention was paid to psychology.
The convents of other religious orders also participated in the
educational movement and tried to recover lost influence. The seclusion
of convent-life in those days was not nearly so strict as it had been
in the days of early christianity, and this concession gained for them
many pupils who had no intention of taking the veil, but were merely
obeying the increasing call for female instruction. Some of these
religious orders, as for instance the Ursulines, did good service,
although they aimed at the pursuit of the moral virtues rather than
intellectual accomplishments. What constitutes their chief merit,
however, is the fact that by the side of the existing boarding-schools
for paying resident pupils they established dayschools for the benefit
of the poorer classes, in which all instruction was gratuitous. The
number of secular schools for girls was so small, that we may safely
regard the above as a first attempt to bring education within the reach
of the untaught female multitude. Unfortunately, the convent-schools
became involved in the general decline which marks the latter half of
the century. All sorts of abuses found their way into them. A great
deal too much regard was paid to the social standing of pupils, the
nuns were often unfit for their educational task, for which they
lacked preparation, and many convents became havens of refuge to
worldly ladies with a damaged reputation, who paid well, but in return
introduced lazy morals and a loose conversational tone. Add to this the
intense and general misery which both the Fronde and the later foreign
wars had engendered, and it need not astonish anybody that the efforts
of the religious orders were of too partial and desultory a nature to
bring about a lasting improvement in female education. Although the
actual progress recorded was slight, yet something had been gained. The
necessity for some degree of female instruction--thanks largely to the
indirect influence of the salons--was now universally granted, although
opinions varied regarding the extent and the means to be employed. It
had to a certain extent become a topic in France, and as such began to
attract a good deal of notice among moral philosophers. There arose the
philosophy of education, making the subject a basis for philosophical
speculation and applying to the systems then in vogue the severe
test of Reason. In this way some glaring abuses were revealed which
urgently demanded correction. The entire monastic system, based upon
conventional grounds, was full of faults and the reverse of practical,
showing an utter disregard of the demands of life. Thus began the
gradual emancipation of education from the shackles of monasticism, the
urgent necessity of which was recognised even by some of the leading
churchmen, whose works breathe the more liberal spirit of the new
philosophy. The theorisings of Fénelon mark a new departure in moral
education, and his ideas became the prevailing ones of the eighteenth
century which he heralded. He did not fall into the error made by his
predecessors of overlooking the female half of society, but placed
himself on the standpoint that the education of women is as important
a social problem as that of men. At the time of the composition of
his treatise "_De l'Education des Filles_" (published in 1683) he was
director of the "Nouvelles Catholiques", a Parisian institution in
which female converts from Protestantism were educated. Its direct
claims on behalf of woman--apart from absolute insistence on the right
of a moral education--are rather modest, but its originality consists
in the introduction of the problems of feminine psychology, lifting the
subject into the sphere of moral philosophy. Unmoved by the passion
which swayed some of the later feminists--there is a wide gulf between
his ideal of morality and theirs of equality--the moderation of his
views and the soundness of his logic gained him a hearing and procured
him some staunch supporters among the better Précieuses, who justly
admired his insight into the female character. Madame de Maintenon was
very much taken with his ideas and even procured him an appointment
to the archbishopric of Cambrai. While insisting on the fundamental
difference between the male and the female character, Fénelon never
hesitates to put woman on the same level as man, without troubling
to decide the theoretical question of superiority. The all-important
promise of eternity he believed to apply with perfect equality to both
sexes, and as regards earthly life he held that man and woman are
too fundamentally different to allow of comparison in the sense of
competition. However, he recognised that while the chief duties of man
were concerned with social life, those of woman lay within a smaller
circle: that of the home, upon the management of which depend both the
happiness of every individual and the prosperity of the state; thus
granting to woman a sphere of interest and activity in no wise inferior
to, though different from, that of man, and exhorting her to fulfil
those sacred duties to the very best of her ability. The domestic
duties of womanhood are first regarded by Fénelon as an important
social function, for which the monastic education was the worst
preparation that could be imagined. There are not only children to be
educated, but servants to be managed. The more deeply we enter into the
spirit and full purport of Fénelon's contentions, the more it strikes
us how he anticipates all the points of discussion which were to keep
the philosophical moralists of the next century busy. A woman may
excel in the art of being served; she may show in her treatment of her
inferiors that she realises the great truth that all human beings in
their widely different social stations are equal before God, and that
any amount of authority involves an equal amount of responsibility.
Ideas like the above seem to belong to the eighteenth century rather
than to the seventeenth. Fénelon was in the full sense of the word: a
pioneer.
We have said that the Jansenist educators held that "la composition
du coeur de l'homme est mauvaise dès son enfance", directing their
efforts towards reclamation from innate evil. Fénelon's views are more
optimistic.
To him, there is no original tendency towards either good or evil.
Everything depends upon guidance; give a child a good education and all
its possibilities for good will be developed and bear fruit. The sole
aim of education is not social influence or intellectual culture, but
merely what he calls "l'amour de la vertu". And who can be fitter for
such a task than the girl's own mother? "A good mother", says Fénelon,
"is infinitely preferable to the best convent". Only she can prepare
her daughter for the domestic circle over which it will one day be her
task to preside, and only she has enough natural affection for her to
impress upon her receptive mind lessons of moral wisdom. Boys, who are
brought up to be citizens, require a public education, but for girls
there is no place of education like the home, watched over by a loving
mother.
A few of the points introduced may here be passed in rapid review.
Great stress is laid on tenderness in education. Unless the pupil
feels real affection for the teacher, unless the task of learning
lessons is made a pleasant, and not a wearisome one, the results will
be disappointing. Gentle reasoning and persuasion ought therefore as
a rule to take the place of severity. Also in matters of religion an
appeal should be made to the child's budding reason. The religious
principles should be instilled in a subtle, slightly philosophical
manner, and cleverly arranged questions--often in the form of metaphors
or similes--should suggest to the pupil the expected replies. Here we
have an anticipation of that "mise en scène" which becomes a striking
feature in Rousseau.
A close study of the characters of women implies an insight into the
essentially feminine failings, which may render them unfit for their
task, and therefore ought to be first exposed and then carefully
eradicated. Fénelon's list of female shortcomings and their remedies
proves that there was no great difference in the matter of inclinations
between the female youth of France and that of England.
Their worst vices are said to proceed from the misdirection of two
characteristically feminine qualities: imagination and sensibility.
Want of purpose renders the former over-active and turns it towards
dangerous objects. A careful watch should be kept over the literature
put into the hands of young females, for of the amorous romances then
in vogue which were so eagerly devoured by the sex, the majority were
far too stimulating to an imagination which in the close seclusion
of home- or convent-life was but too apt to run riot. By living in
an imaginary society of "précieux et précieuses" the girls became
dissatisfied with everyday life and were made unfit for it.
Another dangerous consequence of inoccupation is that thirst for
amusement which is the leading motive in female society. It creates
egoists, bent upon indulging every wanton caprice. This, coupled with
physical weakness, makes women resort to cunning and dissimulation
as a means of attaining their end, to the detriment of their moral
characters.
Vanity, which is another inherent portion of the female character, is
responsible for that inordinate desire to please which in leading to
an all-absorbing passion for clothes and fashion threatens to ruin
domestic life and to deprave the female morals.
Fénelon had no patience with the "précieuses" of the decline, who
tried to appear "savantes" without being even "instruites". To him,
the value of knowledge depends entirely on its practical use as a
means of edifying the mind and soul. Woman was not meant for science,
and what Fénelon has seen of the "femme savante" is not calculated to
make him enthusiastic. Girls should feel "une pudeur sur la science
presque aussi délicate que celle qu'inspire l'horreur du vice." His
programme of subjects of female study is correspondingly small. Reading
and writing, spelling, arithmetic and grammar are the principal.
In addition, music, painting, history, Latin and literature are
conditionally recommended, for the individual talents have to be taken
into consideration.
Fénelon's picture of contemporary womanhood is far from alluring. Its
chief interest lies in the circumstance that it is the first instance
in French literature of a systematic estimate of female manners based
upon the feminine psychology, anticipating the current opinion among
the writers of the next century regarding the foibles of the sex.
Fénelon was among the first to realise--what Mary Wollstonecraft a
century later stated with that characteristic frankness which almost
entirely robbed her of female sympathy--that the worst enemy of female
emancipation is, and always has been, woman herself. As long as the
majority of women make considerations of sex the foundation of all
their actions, it will prove impossible for the champions of equality
to accomplish their full aims. Although a churchman and a moralist,
Fénelon was in open revolt against the spirit of monasticism which
regarded only eternity and failed to see its relation to everyday
life, with its many exigencies. The best preparation for eternity,
according to him, is a daily attention to the nearest duties of
life. Not science, but the domestic circle was the proper domain of
woman. More necessary than theoretical knowledge was that practical
instruction in the little household ways which turn a young woman into
a good housekeeper. What Fénelon did not sufficiently realise, was the
indispensable connection between a moral and an intellectual education.
The theory that perfect virtue arises out of the intellect and derives
its chief value from a rational source, was a further step in the same
direction which it was left to his successors to take. But he was
instrumental in preparing the enfranchisement of the female education
from the narrow principles of that church to which he belonged heart
and soul.
His precepts were almost immediately put in practice. Making some
allowance for personal inclinations and circumstances which forbade
their full application, we may call Madame de Maintenon the foremost
pupil of Fénelon's school. This remarkable woman's educational views
present two entirely different aspects. She was a pietist of the Roman
Catholic faith, but with certain leanings towards liberalism which
smacked of heresy, the origin of which may be found in the influence
of the philosophical creeds with which her early career as a précieuse
had brought her into contact. On the other hand, her experience of
society--after her marriage to the poet Scarron she had for some years
kept a salon in Paris--had given her a taste for literature and made
her a believer in "l'art de dire et d'écrire" as one of the necessary
elements of female education. She thus combined in her person two of
the principal tendencies of the century: a strong religious spirit
and an intense interest in literature, and both became important
factors in her educational system, in which she aimed at reconciling
the exigencies of the world with the demands of piety in forming
society women who were devout Christians. She was a woman of practical
common sense, actuated by the most unselfish motives, and devoted to
the exercise of that Reason which she held ought to be the constant
regulator of Piety and the governing motive of all human actions.
Nothing could be more directly opposed to the monastic spirit. Her
principles therefore stamped her as a reactionary of Fénelon's school,
save for the fact that "the world was too much with her", which made
her always keep in view that polite society whose morals she had set
out to improve, and the allurements of which constantly clashed with
the rigidity of her religious devotion. At the same time the charms
of domesticity appealed to her as strongly as to Fénelon. Reason, she
argued, forbids the education of women to any station except that for
which Providence originally intended them, and Providence never meant
them to pass their lives in a convent, but rather in the domestic
circle as devoted wives and loving mothers. She felt the monastic
education to be a violation of the destination of womanhood, and her
educational writings were a plea for emancipation from the compulsion
of conventional religiosity with its disregard of practical life.
The equality-claim has no place in her programme. The very spirit of
Christianity condemns it. "Dieu a soumis notre sexe au moment qu'il l'a
créé, la faiblesse de notre esprit et de notre corps a besoin d'être
conduite, soutenue et protégée; notre ignorance nous rend incapable
de décision, et nous ne pouvons dans l'ordre de Dieu, gouverner que
dépendamment des hommes." No further steps towards intellectual,
social or political enfranchisement are to be expected from Madame de
Maintenon.
Although woman can only "govern dependently", yet her rule of the
home--and here again she fully agrees with Fénelon--is of the utmost
importance, not only to her own small circle, but to society, or rather
to that portion of it which alone had her full regard and affection:
the kingdom of France. Woman was meant for marriage and her education
should be relative to her position in society. Plutarch's line of
thought, which we had almost lost sight of, re-enters the stage with
the appearance of Fénelon and Madame de Maintenon. No motives of false
delicacy should withhold from young women such information as may
be useful to them in their struggle against the temptations of the
outside world. The right place to prepare them for their natural place
in society is not the convent, but the college, where the educational
taste is entrusted to capable teachers, of whom it may be said that
"le monde n'est étranger qu'à leur coeur". The optimistic faith in the
capability of her sex of being perfected, which links her to Helvétius
and the other Encyclopedians gave her the necessary courage to attempt
an experiment which she confidently trusted might lead to a general
reform in female morals. The words of Racine's _Esther_:
Ici, loin du tumulte, aux devoirs les plus saints
Tout un peuple naissant est formé par mes mains,
are a faithful reflection of her hope for the future. And so Madame
de Maintenon declared war against convention and tradition and went
the way she had marked out for herself. Her influence with the king
enabled her to carry out her scheme to the minutest details and became
the means of placing the vast establishment of St. Cyr at her disposal.
The time had come to realise her dream of education. Two hundred and
fifty girls of aristocratic families whom the endless wars had ruined,
were entrusted to the care of a headmistress, Mme de Brinon, and her
staff, under Madame de Maintenon's personal superintendance. It was her
wish that they should constitute a large family and that the relation
between teacher and pupil should be as nearly as possible that of
mother to child, so as to make the reality differ as little as possible
from what Fénelon's theory had considered the ideal form. The secular
character of the establishment--on which the king had also insisted,
holding that there were already more nuns than was strictly compatible
with the interests of his kingdom--appeared from the fact that the
teachers--"les dames de Saint Louis"--were called "madame" instead
of "soeur" and wore dresses which, although simple, were different
from those worn in the convent. They were not at first expected to
take the vow for life, but their patroness expressed a distinct wish
that they should always regard their pupils' interests before their
own and show the greatest possible devotion to this task. In respect
of this insistence upon the most absolute self-abnegation--involving
a most unyielding sternness in taking what seemed the right moral
course and a most complete subjection on the part of the pupil--Mme
de Maintenon's ideas came dangerously near those of the Jansenists
against whose severe methods she professed to be in revolt. The rules
of discipline at St. Cyr were in some respects as strict as those
practised at Port Royal and in both the motive was to shield the pupil
against contamination. Realising the danger of influence from abroad at
an age when the character was not sufficiently formed, and apt to take
impressions too easily, Mme de Maintenon determined that all parental
authority should cease. The girls were kept in the establishment
until they were well out of their teens, and supposed to be morally
strong enough to resist temptation and to exercise influence on their
surroundings instead of undergoing it. There were no holidays and the
"demoiselles" were allowed to see their parents only four times a year
for half an hour or so under the watchful eye of one of the mistresses.
Even their correspondence with them was limited, and the tone of the
letters had to be strictly formal, in fact they were mere exercises of
style. Apart from these restrictions, the girls were treated with great
kindness, if with little outward show of affection. Mme de Maintenon
was too much devoted to Reason to approve of such demonstrations, and
wished the emotions to be kept under strict control. On the other
hand, punishments were few, the teacher took a liberal share in all
recreations and amusements, and the necessary instruction was made as
attractive and imparted in as unobtrusive a manner as possible, in
accordance with Fénelon's precepts.
The sudden change in Mme de Maintenon's system of discipline which
took place in the third year of St. Cyr and which narrowed down the
comparative liberty which had been a fundamental principle to the
absolute subjection described above, was a frank avowal of the failure
of her original methods and at the same time a proof of the sincerity
of her endeavour. It was due to a most unexpected development.
In the first years of St. Cyr--the establishment was opened in
1686--the study of literature had occupied an important place among the
subjects of the curriculum. The girls were made to act little domestic
scenes written by the headmistress. At the patroness's instigation
an experiment was made with Racine's "_Andromaque_", which, in her
opinion, "succeeded too well", for the girls so entered into the
spirit of the play, and developed such histrionic talents, that their
monitress, realising the danger, asked Racine to write another play
specially for them. In accordance with this request the great dramatist
wrote "_Esther_", which was performed several times before the king
and a select audience with signal success, and results disastrous to
the spirit prevailing among the girls of St. Cyr. Never before had the
discipline of the institution been in greater jeopardy. The girls'
heads were turned, and their vanity and conceit knew no bounds.
Mme de Maintenon saw that energetic measures were urgently called for,
and did not hesitate to adopt them. With an earnestness and resolution
greatly to her credit she undertook the necessary reform with the
effect of radically removing whatever was liberal and reactionary
in her system, and reducing St. Cyr to a slightly modified form of a
convent, thus granting to her opponents the satisfaction of a great
moral victory, which the latter deserved no more than Mme de Maintenon
deserved her defeat.
One of the unfortunate consequences was that the instruction which
the girls received, and which had never been abundant, was reduced to
almost a minimum. "Il n'est point question de leur orner l'esprit",
said Mme de Maintenon. The horrors of exaggerated preciosity were ever
since before her eyes. Too much learning, she feared, might turn the
girls into précieuses, and manual labour was introduced as an effective
antidote. Fortunately the years tended to soften the severity which
had prevailed immediately after the catastrophe, and upon the whole
the institution, which enjoyed special protection and undiminished
popularity until its suppression by the Convention in 1793, could boast
excellent results, and turned out some real "ornaments of their sex".
It seems a pity that in Mme de Maintenon's schemes so secondary a
place should have been given to that education of the mind which is so
essential to lasting improvement. She inevitably suffers by comparison
with her contemporary Mme de Sévigné, whose correspondence with her
daughter Mme de Grignan contains a most enlightened scheme for the
education of her granddaughter Pauline de Simiane. She recognises
that it is by literature that the mind is fed, and since to the
pure everything is pure, there is little to be feared even of the
otherwise pernicious reading of novels, for a sound mind will not
easily go astray. An optimistic view of education, taking its root in
considerations of philosophy, for Mme de Sévigné, like her daughter,
was a Cartesian. In comparing her contribution to the educational
problem with that of Mme de Maintenon, it should be remembered,
however, that an individual education within the family circle offers
better opportunities for freedom and less danger of contamination than
the collective system of St. Cyr. Mme de Sévigné's ideas, contained
in private correspondence, intended only for her daughter's use and
entirely without the militant spirit, exercised little influence and
were of little direct value to the cause of feminism.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] Cf. the two articles in "_A Cambridge History of English
Literature_", by Prof. F. M. Padelford (Vol. 2 p. 384) and by Prof. H.
V. Routh (vol. 3 p. 88).
[4] Cf. p. 30.
[5] See also page 32.
[6] A very interesting article on "_Le tiers Livre du Pantagruel et la
Querelle des Femmes_" by M. Abel Lefranc, containing an extensive list
of contributions to the feminist and the anti-feminist literature of
the time, may be found in the "Revue des Etudes Rabelaisiennes", (Tome
II, 1904).
[7] Heinrich Morf, in his "_Geschichte der französischen Literatur im
Zeitalter der Renaissance_" relates that a number of ladies took to
frequenting the _Académie de poésie et de musique_ founded by Baïf
under the auspices of Charles IX; especially after his successor Henry
III had transferred its seat to an apartment in the Louvre, whence it
came to be called "_Académie du Palais_".
[8] P. Rousselot. _Histoire de l'Education des Femmes en France._
Poullain de la Barre owes his revival to an article by M. Henri
Piéron in the "_Revue de Synthèse historique_" of 1902. The latter's
judgment is based upon two works: "_De l'Egalité des Sexes_" and "_De
l'Education des Dames_", which he found in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
In 1913 the "_Revue d'Histoire Littéraire de la France_" contained an
article by M. Henri Grappin, pointing out that some of Poullain's works
had been overlooked, supplying a full list of his literary productions
and fully discussing one, entitled: "_De l'Excellence des Hommes,
contre l'Egalité des Sexes_." The above-named three are the only
treatises by Poullain which bear upon the position of women.
[9] Cf. Livet, _Précieux et Précieuses_, p. XXV.