The Ancient Regime Part 13

responds the Duc de Bourbon, addressing the Comte d'Artois, meanwhile lowering the point of his sword, 'I am overcome with grat.i.tude for your kindness, and shall never be insensible to the honor you have done me.'"--Could there be a more just and delicate sentiment of rank, position, and circ.u.mstance, and could a duel be surrounded with more graces? There is no situation, however th.o.r.n.y, which is not saved by politeness. Through habit, and a suitable expression, even in the face of the king, they conciliate resistance and respect. When Louis XV, having exiled the Parliament, caused it to be proclaimed through Mme. Du Barry that his mind was made up and that it would not be changed, "Ah, Madame," replied the Duc de Nivernais, "when the king said that he was looking at yourself."--"My dear Fontenelle," said one of his lady friends to him, placing her hand on his heart, "the brain is there likewise." Fontenelle smiled and made no reply. We see here, even with an academician, how truths are forced down, a drop of acid in a sugar-plum; the whole so thoroughly intermingled that the piquancy of the flavor only enhances its sweetness. Night after night, in each drawing-room, sugar-plums of this description are served up, two or three along with the drop of acidity, all the rest not less exquisite, but possessing only the sweetness and the perfume. Such is the art of social worldliness, an ingenious and delightful art, which, entering into all the details of speech and of action, transforms them into graces; which imposes on man not servility and falsehood, but civility and concern for others, and which, in exchange, extracts for him out of human society all the pleasure it can afford.

V. Happiness.

What const.i.tutes happiness in the 18th Century.--The fascination of display.--Indolence, recreation, light conversation.

One can very well understand this kind of pleasure in a summary way, but how is it to be made apparent? Taken by themselves the pastimes of society are not to be described; they are too ephemeral; their charm arises from their accompaniments. A narrative of them would be but tasteless dregs, does the libretto of an opera give any idea of the opera itself?--If the reader would revive for himself this vanished world let him seek for it in those works that have preserved its externals or its accent, and first in the pictures and engravings of Watteau, Fragonard and the Saint-Aubins, and then in the novels and dramas of Voltaire and Marivaux, and even in Colle and Crebillon fils;[2252] then do we see the breathing figures and hear their voices, What bright, winning, intelligent faces beaming with pleasure and with the desire to please! What ease in bearing and in gesture! What piquant grace in the toilet, in the smile, in vivaciousness of expression, in the control of the fluted voice, in the coquetry of hidden meanings! How involuntarily we stop to look and listen! Attractiveness is everywhere, in the small spirituelle heads, in the slender hands, in the rumpled attire, in the pretty features, in the demeanor. The slightest gesture, a pouting or mutinous turn of the head, a plump little wrist peering from its nest of lace, a yielding waist bent over an embroidery frame, the rapid rustling of an opening fan, is a feast for the eyes and the intellect. It is indeed all daintiness, a delicate caress for delicate senses, extending to the external decoration of life, to the sinuous outlines, the showy drapery, and the refinements of comfort in the furniture and architecture. Fill your imagination with these accessories and with these figures and you will take as much interest in their amus.e.m.e.nts as they did. In such a place and in such company it suffices to be together to be content. Their indolence is no burden to them for they sport with existence.--At Chanteloup, the Duc de Choiseul, in disgrace, finds the fashionable world flocking to see him; nothing is done and yet no hours of the day are unoccupied.[2253] "The d.u.c.h.ess has only two hours' time to herself and these two hours are devoted to her toilet and her letters; the calculation is a simple one: she gets up at eleven; breakfasts at noon, and this is followed by conversation, which lasts three or four hours; dinner comes at six, after which there is play and the reading of the memoirs of Mme. de Maintenon." Ordinarily "the company remains together until two o'clock in the morning."

Intellectual freedom is complete. There is no confusion, no anxiety.

They play whist and tric-trac in the afternoon and faro in the evening.

"They do to day what they did yesterday and what they will do to-morrow; the dinner-supper is to them the most important affair in life, and their only complaint in the world is of their digestion. Time goes so fast I always fancy that I arrived only the evening before." Sometimes they get up a little race and the ladies are disposed to take part in it, "for they are all very agile and able to run around the drawing room five or six times every day." But they prefer indoors to the open air; in these days true sunshine consists of candle-light and the finest sky is a painted ceiling; is there any other less subject to inclemencies or better adapted to conversation and merriment?--They accordingly chat and jest, in words with present friends, and by letters with absent friends.

They lecture old Mme. du Deffant, who is too lively and whom they style the "little girl"; the young d.u.c.h.esse, tender and sensible, is "her grandmamma." As for "grandpapa," M. de Choiseul, "a slight cold keeping him in bed he has fairy stories read to him all day long, a species of reading to which we are all given; we find them as probable as modern history. Do not imagine that he is unoccupied. He has had a tapestry frame put up in the drawing room at which he works, I cannot say with the greatest skill, but at least with the greatest a.s.siduity. . . . Now, our delight is in flying a kite; grandpapa has never seen this sight and he is enraptured with it." The pastime, in itself, is nothing; it is resorted to according to opportunity or the taste of the hour, now taken up and now let alone, and the abbe soon writes: "I do not speak about our races because we race no more, nor of our readings because we do not read, nor of our promenades because we do not go out. What, then, do we do? Some play billiards, others dominoes, and others backgammon. We weave, we ravel and we unravel. Time pushes us on and we pay him back."

Other circles present the same spectacle. Every occupation being an amus.e.m.e.nt, a caprice or an impulse of fashion brings one into favor.

At present, it is unraveling, every white hand at Paris, and in the chateaux, being busy in undoing tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, epaulettes and old stuffs, to pick out the gold and silver threads. They find in this employment the semblance of economy, an appearance of occupation, in any event something to keep them in countenance. On a circle of ladies being formed, a big unraveling bag in green taffeta is placed on the table, which belongs to the lady of the house; immediately all the ladies call for their bags and "voila les laquais en l'air"[2254] It is all the rage. They unravel every day and several hours in the day; some derive from it a hundred louis d'or per annum. The gentlemen are expected to provide the materials for the work; the Duc de Lauzun, accordingly, gives to Madame de V--a harp of natural size covered with gold thread; an enormous golden fleece, brought as a present from the Comte de Lowenthal, and which cost 2 or 3,000 francs, brings, picked to pieces, 5 or 600 francs. But they do not look into matters so closely. Some employment is essential for idle hands, some manual outlet for nervous activity; a humorous petulance breaks out in the middle of the pretended work. One day, when about going out, Madame de R--observes that the gold fringe on her dress would be capital for unraveling, whereupon, with a dash, she cuts one of the fringes off. Ten women suddenly surround a man wearing fringes, pull off his coat and put his fringes and laces into their bags, just as if a bold flock of tomt.i.ts, fluttering and chattering in the air, should suddenly dart on a jay to pluck out its feathers; thenceforth a man who enters a circle of women stands in danger of being stripped alive. All this pretty world has the same pastimes, the men as well as the women. Scarcely a man can be found without some drawing room accomplishment, some trifling way of keeping his mind and hands busy, and of filling up the vacant hour; almost all make rhymes, or act in private theatricals; many of them are musicians and painters of still-life subjects. M. de Choiseul, as we have just seen, works at tapestry; others embroider or make sword-knots. M. de Francueil is a good violinist and makes violins himself; and besides this he is "watchmaker, architect, turner, painter, locksmith, decorator, cook, poet, music-composer and he embroiders remarkably well."[2255] In this general state of inactivity it is essential "to know how to be pleasantly occupied in behalf of others as well as in one's own behalf." Madame de Pompadour is a musician, an actress, a painter and an engraver. Madame Adelaide learns watchmaking and plays on all instruments from a horn to the jew's-harp; not very well, it is true, but as well as a queen can sing, whose fine voice is ever only half in tune. But they make no pretensions. The thing is to amuse oneself and nothing more; high spirits and the amenities of the hour cover all. Rather read this capital fact of Madame de Lauzun at Chanteloup: "Do you know," writes the abbe, "that n.o.body possesses in a higher degree one quality you would never suspect of her, that of preparing scrambled eggs? This talent has been buried in the ground, she cannot recall the time she acquired it; I believe that she had it at her birth. Accident made it known, and immediately it was put to test.

Yesterday morning, an hour for ever memorable in the history of eggs, the implements necessary for this great operation were all brought out, a heater, some gravy, some pepper and eggs. Behold Madame de Lauzun, at first blushing and in a tremor, soon with intrepid courage, breaking the eggs, beating them up in the pan, turning them over, now to the right, now to the left, now up and now down, with unexampled precision and success! Never was a more excellent dish eaten." What laughter and gaiety in the group comprised in this little scene. And, not long after, what madrigals and allusions! Gaiety here resembles a dancing ray of sunlight; it flickers over all things and reflects its grace on every object.

VI. Gaiety.

Gaiety in the 18th Century.--Its causes and effects.-- Toleration and license.--b.a.l.l.s, fetes, hunts, banquets, pleasures.--Freedom of the magistrates and prelates.

The Frenchman's characteristic," says an English traveler in 1785, "is to be always gay;"[2256] and he remarks that he must be so because, in France, such is the tone of society and the only mode of pleasing the ladies, the sovereigns of society and the arbiters of good taste. Add to this the absence of the causes which produce modern dreariness, and which convert the sky above our heads into one of leaden gloom. There was no laborious, forced work in those days, no furious compet.i.tion, no uncertain careers, no infinite perspectives. Ranks were clearly defined, ambitions limited, there was less envy. Man was not habitually dissatisfied, soured and preoccupied as he is nowadays. Few free pa.s.ses were allowed where there was no right to pa.s.s; we think of nothing but advancement; they thought only of amusing themselves. An officer, instead of raging and storming over the army lists, busies himself in inventing some new disguise for a masked ball; a magistrate, instead of counting the convictions he has secured, provides a magnificent supper.

At Paris, every afternoon in the left avenue of the Palais-Royal, "fine company, very richly dressed, gather under the large trees;" and in the evening "on leaving the opera at half-past eight, they go back there and remain until two o'clock in the morning." They have music in the open air by moonlight, Gavat singing, and the chevalier de Saint-George playing on the violin.[2257] At Moffontaine, "the Comte de Vaudreuil, Lebrun the poet, the chevalier de Coigny, so amiable and so gay, Brongniart, Robert, compose charades every night and wake each other up to repeat them." At Maupertuis in M. de Montesquiou's house, at Saint-Ouen with the Marshal de Noailles, at Genevilliers with the Comte de Vandreuil, at Rainay with the Duc d'Orleans, at Chantilly with the Prince de Conde, there is nothing but festivity. We read no biography of the day, no provincial doc.u.ment, no inventory, without hearing the tinkling of the universal carnival. At Monchoix,[2258] the residence of the Comte de Bede, Chateaubriand's uncle, "they had music, dancing and hunting, rollicking from morning to night, eating up both capital and income." At Aix and Ma.r.s.eilles, throughout the fashionable world, with the Comte de Valbelle, I find nothing but concerts, entertainment, b.a.l.l.s, gallantries, and private theatricals with the Comtesse de Mirabeau for the leading performer. At Chateauroux, M. Dupin de Francueil entertains "a troop of musicians, lackeys, cooks, parasites, horses and dogs, bestowing everything lavishly, in amus.e.m.e.nts and in charity, wishing to be happy himself and everybody else around him,"

never casting up accounts, and going to ruin in the most delightful manner possible. Nothing arrests this gaiety, neither old age, exile, nor misfortune; in 1793 it still subsists in the prisons of the Republic. A man in place is not then made uncomfortable by his official coat, puffed up by his situation, obliged to maintain a dignified and important air, constrained under that a.s.sumed gravity which democratic envy imposes on us as if a ransom. In 1753,[2259] the parliamentarians, just exiled to Bourges, get up three companies of private theatricals and perform comedies, while one of them, M. Dupre de Saint-Maur, fights a rival with the sword. In 1787,[2260] when the entire parliament is banished to Troyes the bishop, M. de Barral, returns from his chateau de Saint-Lye expressly to receive it, presiding every evening at a dinner of forty persons. "There was no end to the fetes and dinners in the town; the president kept open house," a triple quant.i.ty of food being consumed in the eating-houses and so much wood burned in the kitchens, that the town came near being put on short allowance. Feasting and jollity is but little less in ordinary times. A parliamentarian, like a seignior, must do credit to his fortune. See the letters of the President des Brosses concerning society in Dijon; it reminds us of the abbey of Theleme; then contrast this with the same town today.[2261] In 1744, Monseigneur de Montigny, brother of the President de Bourbonne, apropos of the king's recovery, entertains the workmen, tradesmen and artisans in his employ to the number of eighty, another table being for his musicians and comedians, and a third for his clerks, secretaries, physicians, surgeons, attorneys and notaries; the crowd collects around a triumphal car covered with shepherdesses, shepherds and rustic divinities in theatrical costume; fountains flow with wine "as if it were water," and after supper the confectionery is thrown out of the windows. Each parliamentarian around him has his "little Versailles, a grand hotel between court and garden," This town, now so silent, then rang with the clatter of fine equipages. The profusion of the table is astonishing, "not only on gala days, but at the suppers of each week, and I could almost say, of each day."--Amidst all these fete-givers, the most ill.u.s.trious of all, the President des Brosses, so grave on the magisterial bench, so intrepid in his remonstrances, so laborious,[2262]

so learned, is an extraordinary stimulator of fun (boute-entrain), a genuine Gaul, with a sparkling, inexhaustible fund of salacious humor: with his friends he throws off his perruque, his gown, and even something more. n.o.body dreams of being offended by it; n.o.body conceives that dress is an extinguisher, which is true of every species of dress, and of the gown in particular. "When I entered society, in 1785," writes a parliamentarian, "I found myself introduced in a certain way, alike to the wives and the mistresses of the friends of my family, pa.s.sing Monday evening with one, and Tuesday evening with the other. And I was only eighteen, and I belonged to a family of magistrates."[2263] At Basville, at the residence of M. de Lamoignon, during the autumnal vacation and the Whitsuntide holidays, there are thirty persons at the table daily; there are three or four hunts a week, and the most prominent magistrates, M. de Lamoignon, M. Pasquier, M. de Rosambo, M. and Mme.

d'Aguesseau, perform the "Barber of Seville" in the chateau theater.

As for the ca.s.sock, it enjoys the same freedom as the robe. At Saverne, at Clairvaux, at Le Mans and at other places, the prelates wear it as freely as a court dress. The revolutionary upheaval was necessary to make it a fixture on their bodies, and, afterwards, the hostile supervision of an organized party and the fear of constant danger. Up to 1789 the sky is too serene and the atmosphere too balmy to lead them to b.u.t.ton it up to the neck. "Freedom, facilities, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the Cardinal de Rohan to his secretary, "without these this life would be a desert."[2264] This is what the good cardinal took care to avoid; on the contrary he had made Saverne an enchanting world according to Watteau, almost "a landing-place for Cythera." Six hundred peasants and keepers, ranged in a line a league long, form in the morning and beat up the surrounding country, while hunters, men and women, are posted at their stations. "For fear that the ladies might be frightened if left alone by themselves, the man whom they hated least was always left with them to make them feel at ease," and as n.o.body was allowed to leave his post before the signal "it was impossible to be surprised."--About one p.m. "the company gathered under a beautiful tent, on the bank of a stream or in some delightful place, where an exquisite dinner was served up, and, as everybody had to be made happy, each peasant received a pound of meat, two of bread and half a bottle of wine, they, as well as the ladies, only asking to begin it all over again." The accommodating prelate might certainly have replied to scrupulous people along with Voltaire, that "nothing wrong can happen in good society." In fact, so he did and in appropriate terms. One day, a lady accompanied by a young officer, having come on a visit, and being obliged to keep them over night, his valet comes and whispers to him that there is no more room.--"'Is the bath-room occupied?'--'No, Monseigneur!'--'Are there not two beds there?'--'Yes, Monseigneur, but they are both in the same chamber, and that officer. . . '--'Very well, didn't they come together?

Narrow people like you always see something wrong. You will find that they will get along well together; there is not the slightest reason to consider the matter.'" And really n.o.body did object, either the officer or the lady.--At Granselve, in the Gard, the Bernardines are still more hospitable.[2265] People resort to the fete of St. Bernard which lasts a couple of weeks; during this time they dance, and hunt, and act comedies, "the tables being ready at all hours." The quarters of the ladies are provided with every requisite for the toilet; they lack nothing, and it is even said that it was not necessary for any of them to bring their officer.--I might cite twenty prelates not less gallant, the second Cardinal de Rohan, the hero of the necklace, M. de Jarente, bishop of Orleans, who keeps the record of benefices, the young M. de Grimaldi, bishop of Le Mans, M. de Breteuil, bishop of Montauban, M.

de Cice, archbishop of Bordeaux, the Cardinal de Montmorency, grand-almoner, M. de Talleyrand, bishop of Autun, M. de Conzie, bishop of Arras,[2266] and, in the first rank, the Abbe de Saint-Germain des Pres, Comte de Clermont, prince of the blood, who, with an income of 370,000 francs succeeds in ruining himself twice, who performs in comedies in his town and country residences, who writes to Colle in a pompous style and, who, in his abbatial mansion at Berny, installs Mademoiselle Leduc, a dancer, to do the honors of his table.--There is no hypocrisy. In the house of M. Trudaine, four bishops attend the performance of a piece by Colle ent.i.tled "Les accidents ou les Abbes,"

the substance of which, says Colle himself, is so free that he did not dare print it along with his other pieces. A little later, Beaumarchais, on reading his "Marriage of Figaro" at the Marechal de Richelieu's domicile, not expurgated, much more crude and coa.r.s.e than it is today, has bishops and archbishops for his auditors, and these, he says, "after being infinitely amused by it, did me the honor to a.s.sure me that they would state that there was not a single word in it offensive to good morals"[2267]: thus was the piece accepted against reasons of State, against the king's will, and through the connivance of all those most interested in suppressing it. "There is something more irrational than my piece, and that is its success," said its author. The attraction was too strong. People devoted to pleasure could not dispense with the liveliest comedy of the age. They came to applaud a satire on themselves; and better still, they themselves acted in it.--When a prevalent taste is in fashion, it leads, like a powerful pa.s.sion, to extreme extravagance; the offered pleasure must, at any price, be had.

Faced with a momentary pleasure gratification, it is as a child tempted by fruit; nothing arrests it, neither the danger to which it is insensible, nor the social norms as these are established by itself.

VII. Theater, Parade And Extravagance.

The princ.i.p.al diversion, elegant comedy.--Parades and extravagance.

To divert oneself is to turn aside from oneself, to break loose and to forget oneself; and to forget oneself fully one must be transported into another, put himself in the place of another, take his mask and play his part. Hence the liveliest of diversions is the comedy in which one is an actor. It is that of children who, as authors, actors and audience, improvise and perform small scenes. It is that of a people whose political regime excludes exacting manly tasks (soucis virile) and who sport with life just like children. At Venice, in the eighteenth century, the carnival lasts six months; in France, under another form, it lasts the entire year. Less familiar and less picturesque, more refined and more elegant, it abandons the public square where it lacks sunshine, to shut itself up in drawing-rooms where chandeliers are the most suitable for it. It has retained of the vast popular masquerade only a fragment, the opera ball, certainly very splendid and frequented by princes, princesses and the queen; but this fragment, brilliant as it is, does not suffice; consequently, in every chateau, in every mansion, at Paris and in the provinces, it sets up travesties on society and domestic comedies.--On welcoming a great personage, on celebrating the birthday of the master or mistress of the house, its guests or invited persons perform in an improvised operetta, in an ingenious, laudatory pastoral, sometimes dressed as G.o.ds, as Virtues, as mythological abstractions, as operatic Turks, Laplanders and Poles, similar to the figures then gracing the frontispieces of books, sometimes in the dress of peasants, pedagogues, peddlers, milkmaids and flower-girls like the fanciful villagers with which the current taste then fills the stage.

They sing, they dance, and come forward in turn to recite petty verses composed for the occasion consisting of so many well-turned compliments.[2268]--At Chantilly "the young and charming d.u.c.h.esse de Bourbon, attired as a voluptuous Naiad, guides the Comte du Nord, in a gilded gondola, across the grand ca.n.a.l to the island of Love;" the Prince de Conti, in his part, serves as pilot to the Grand d.u.c.h.esse; other seigniors and ladies "each in allegorical guise," form the escort,[2269] and on these limpid waters, in this new garden of Alcinous, the smiling and gallant retinue seems a fairy scene in Ta.s.so.--At Vaudreuil, the ladies, advised that they are to be carried off to seraglios, attire themselves as vestals, while the high-priest welcomes them with pretty couplets into his temple in the park; meanwhile over three hundred Turks arrive who force the enclosure to the sound of music, and bear away the ladies in palanquins along the illuminated gardens. At the little Trianon, the park is arranged as a fair, and the ladies of the court are the saleswomen, "the queen keeping a cafe," while, here and there, are processions and theatricals; this festival costs, it is said, 100,000 livres, and a repet.i.tion of it is designed at Choisy attended with a larger outlay.

Alongside of these masquerades which stop at costume and require only an hour, there is a more important diversion, the private theatrical performance, which completely transforms the man, and which for six weeks, and even for three months, absorbs him entirely at rehearsals.

Towards 1770,[2270] "the rage for it is incredible; there is not an attorney in his cottage who does not wish to have a stage and his company of actors." A Bernardine living in Bresse, in the middle of a wood, writes to Colle that he and his brethren are about to perform "La Partie de Cha.s.se de Henri IV," and that they are having a small theater constructed "without the knowledge of bigots and small minds." Reformers and moralists introduce theatrical art into the education of children; Mme. de Genlis composes comedies for them, considering these excellent for the securing of a good p.r.o.nunciation, proper self-confidence and the graces of deportment. The theater, indeed, then prepares man for society as society prepares him for the theater; in either case he is on display, composing his att.i.tude and tone of voice, and playing a part; the stage and the drawing room are on an equal footing. Towards the end of the century everybody becomes an actor, everybody having been one before.[2271] "We hear of nothing but little theaters set up in the country around Paris." For a long time those of highest rank set the example. Under Louis XV. the Ducs d'Orleans, de Nivernais, d'Ayen, de Coigny, the Marquises de Courtenvaux, and d'Entraigues, the Comte de Maillebois, the d.u.c.h.esse de Brancas, the Comtesse d'Estrades form, with Madame de Pompadour, the company of the "small cabinets;" the Due de la Valliere is the director of them; when the piece contains a ballet the Marquis de Courtenvaux, the Duc de Beuvron, the Comtes de Melfort and de Langeron are the t.i.tular dancers.[2272] "Those who are accustomed to such spectacles," writes the sedate and pious Duc de Luynes, "agree in the opinion that it would be difficult for professional comedians to play better and more intelligently." The pa.s.sion reaches at last still higher, even to the royal family. At Trianon, the queen, at first before forty persons and then before a more numerous audience, performs Colette in "Le Devin de Village," Gotte, in "La Gageure imprevue," Rosine in "Le Barbier de Seville," Pierette in "Le Cha.s.seur et la Laitiere,"[2273]

while the other comedians consist of the princ.i.p.al men of the court, the Comte d'Artois, the Comtes d'Adhemar and de Vaudreuil, the Comtesse de Guiche, and the Canoness de Polignac. A theater is formed in Monsieur's domicile; there are two in the Comte d'Artois's house, two in that of the Duc d'Orleans, two in the Comte de Clermont's, and one in the Prince de Conde's. The Comte de Clermont performs serious characters; the Duc d'Orleans represents, with completeness and naturalness, peasants and financiers; M. de Miromesnil, keeper of the seals, is the smartest and most finished of Scapins; M. de Vaudreuil seems to rival Mole; the Comte de Pons plays the "Misanthrope" with rare perfection.[2274] "More than ten of our ladies of high rank," writes the Prince de Ligne, "play and sing better than the best of those I have seen in our theaters." By their talent judge of their study, a.s.siduity and zeal. It is evident that for many of them it is the princ.i.p.al occupation. In a certain chateau, that of Saint-Aubin, the lady of the house, to secure a large enough troupe, enrolls her four chambermaids in it, making her little daughter, ten years old, play the part of Zaire, and for over twenty months she has no vacation. After her bankruptcy, and in her exile, the first thing done by the Princess de Guemenee was to send for upholsterers to arrange a theater. In short, as n.o.body went out in Venice without a mask so here n.o.body comprehended life without the masqueradings, metamorphoses, representations and triumphs of the player.

The last trait I have to mention, yet more significant, is the afterpiece. Really, in this fashionable circle, life is a carnival as free and almost as rakish as that of Venice. The play commonly terminates with a parade borrowed from La Fontaine's tales or from the farces of the Italian drama, which are not only pointed but more than free, and sometimes so broad that they cant be played only before princes and courtesans;"[2275] a morbid palate, indeed, having no taste for orgeat, instead demanding a dram. The Duc d'Orleans sings on the stage the most spicy songs, playing Bartholin in "Nicaise," and Blaise in "Joconde." "Le Marriage sans Cure," "Leandre grosse," "L'amant poussif," "Leandre Etalon," are the showy t.i.tles of the pieces composed by Colle "for the amus.e.m.e.nt of His Highness and the Court." For one which contains salt there are ten stuffed with strong pepper. At Brunoy, at the residence of Monsieur, so gross are they[2276] the king regrets having attended; "n.o.body had any idea of such license; two women in the auditorium had to go out, and, what is most extraordinary, they had dared to invite the queen."--Gaiety is a sort of intoxication which draws the cask down to the dregs, and when the wine is gone it draws on the lees. Not only at their little suppers, and with courtesans, but in the best society and with ladies, they commit the follies of a bagnio.

Let us use the right word, they are blackguards, and the word is no more offensive to them than the action. "For five or six months," writes a lady in 1782,"[2277] "the suppers are followed by a blind man's buff or by a draw-dance, and they end in general mischievousness, (une polissonnerie generale)." Guests are invited a fortnight in advance. "On this occasion they upset the tables and the furniture; they scattered twenty caraffes of water about the room; I finally got away at half-past one, wearied out, pelted with handkerchiefs, and leaving Madame de Clarence hoa.r.s.e, with her dress torn to shreds, a scratch on her arm, and a bruise on her forehead, but delighted that she had given such a gay supper and flattered with the idea of its being the talk the next day."--This is the result of a craving for amus.e.m.e.nt. Under its pressure, as under the sculptor's thumb, the face of the century becomes transformed and insensibly loses its seriousness; the formal expression of the courtier at first becomes the cheerful physiognomy of the worldling, and then, on these smiling lips, their contours changed, we see the bold, unbridled grin of the scamp.[2278]

NOTES:

[Footnote 2201: "LA VIE DE SALON" is Taine's t.i.tle. In Le Robert & Collins' Dictionary salon is translated as "lounge" (Brit.) sitting room, living room, or (cercle litteraire) salon.]

[Footnote 2202: De Lomenie, "Beaumarchais et son temps," I. 403. Letter of Beaumarchais, (Dec. 24, 1764.)--The travels of Mme. d'Aulnoy and the letters of Mme. de Villars.--As to Italy see Stendhal, "Rome, Naples et Florence."--For Germany see the "Memoires" of the Margrave of Bareith, also of the Chevalier Lang.--For England see my "Histoire de la literature Anglaise," vols. III. IV.]

[Footnote 2203: Volney, "Tableau du climat et du sol des Etats-Unis d'Amerique." The leading trait of the French Colonist when compared with the colonists of other nations, is, according to this writer, the craving for neighbors and conversation]

[Footnote 2204: Mme. de Caylus, "Souvenirs," p. 108.]

[Footnote 2205: St. Simon, 461.]

[Footnote 2206: Duc de Levis, p. 321.]

[Footnote 2207: Mme. de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Felicie," p. 160.--It is important, however, to call attention to the old-fashioned royal att.i.tude under Louis XV and even Louis XVI. "Although I was advised,"

says Alfieri, "that the king never addressed ordinary strangers, I could not digest the Olympian-Jupiter look with which Louis XV measured the person presented to him, from head to foot, with such an impa.s.sible air; if a fly should be introduced to a giant, the giant, after looking at him, would smile, or perhaps remark.--'What a little mite!' In any event, if he said nothing, his face would express it for him." Alfieri, Memoires," I.138, 1768. (Alfieri, Vittorio, born in Asti in 1749-- Florence 1803. Italian poet and playwright. (SR.)--See in Mme.

d'Oberkirk's "Memoires." (II. 349), the lesson administered by Mme.

Royale, aged seven and a half years, to a lady introduced to her.]

[Footnote 2208: Champfort, 26, 55; Bachaumont, I. 136 (Sept 7,1762). One month after the Parliament had pa.s.sed a law against the Jesuits, little Jesuits in wax appeared, with a snail for a base. "By means of a thread the Jesuit was made to pop in and out from the sh.e.l.l. It is all the rage--here is no house without its Jesuit."]

[Footnote 2209: On the other hand, the song on the battle of Rosbach is charming.]

[Footnote 2210: "Correspondance secrete," by Metra, Imbert, etc., V. 277 (Nov. 17, 1777).--Voltaire, "Princesse de Babylone."]

[Footnote 2211: Baron de Bezenval, "Memoires," II. 206. An anecdote related by the Duke.]

[Footnote 2212: Archives nationales, a report by M. Texier (1780). A report by M. Mesnard de Chousy (01, 738).]

[Footnote 2213: "Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, I. 277 (February 29. 1772).]

[Footnote 2214: De Luynes, XVII. 37 (August, 1758).--D'Argenson, February 11, 1753.]

[Footnote 2215: Archives nationales, 01, 738. Various sums of interest are paid: 12,969 francs to the baker, 39,631 francs to the wine merchant, and 173,899 francs to the purveyor.]

[Footnote 2216: Marquis de Mirabeau, "Traite de Population," 60.--"Le Gouvemement de Normandie," by Hippeau, II. 204 (Sept. 30, 1780).]

[Footnote 2217: Mme. de Larochejacquelein, "Memoires," p. 30.--Mme.

d'Oberkirk, II. 66.]

[Footnote 2218: D'Argenson, January 26, 1753.]