The Ancient Regime Part 15

[Footnote 2261: Foissets, "Le President des Brosses," 65, 69, 70, 346.--"Lettres du President des Brosses," (ed. Coulomb), pa.s.sim.--Piron being uneasy concerning his "Ode a Priape," President Bouhier, a man of great and fine erudition, and the least starched of learned ones, sent for the young man and said to him, "You are a foolish fellow. If any one presses you to know the author of the offence tell him that I am."

(Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VII. 414.)]

[Footnote 2262: Foisset, ibid.. 185. Six audiences a week and often two a day besides his labors as antiquarian, historian, linguist, geographer, editor and academician.]

[Footnote 2263: "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.]

[Footnote 2264: De Valfons, "Souvenirs," 60.]

[Footnote 2265: Montgaillard (an eye-witness). "Histoire de France," II.

246.]

[Footnote 2266: M. de Conzie is surprised at four o'clock in the morning by his rival, an officer in the guards. "Make no noise," he said to him, "a dress like yours will be brought to me and I will have a c.o.c.k made then we shall be on the same level." A valet brings him his weapons.

He descends into the garden of the mansion, fights with the officer and disarms him. ("Correspondance," by Metra, XIV. May 20, 1783.)--"Le Comte de Clermont," by Jules Cousin, pa.s.sim.--"Journal de Colle," III. 232 (July, 1769).]

[Footnote 2267: De Lomenie, "Beaumarchais et son temps, II. 304.]

[Footnote 2268: De Luynes, XVL 161 (September, 1757). The village festival given to King Stanislas, by Mme. de Mauconseil at Bagatelle.--Bachaumont, III. 247 (September 7, 1767). Festival given by the Prince de Conde.]

[Footnote 2269: "Correspondance," by Metra, XIII. 97 (June 15, 1782), and V. 232 (June 24 and 25, 1777).--Mme. de Genlis "Memoires," chap.

XIV.]

[Footnote 2270: Bachaumont, November 17, 1770.--"Journal de Colle,"

III. 136 (April 29, 1767).--De Montlosier, "Memoires," I. 43. "At the residence of the Commandant (at Clermont) they would have been glad to enlist me in private theatricals."]

[Footnote 2271: "Correspondance." by Metra, II. 245 (Nov. 18. 1775).]

[Footnote 2272: Julien. "Histoire du Theatre de Madame de Pompadour."

These representations last seven years and cost during the winter alone of 1749, 300,000 livres.--De Luynes, X. 45.--Mme. de Hausset, 230.]

[Footnote 2273: Mme. Campan, I. 130.--Cf. with caution, the Memoires, are suspect, as they have been greatly modified and arranged by Fleury.-- De Goncourt, 114.

[Footnote 2274: Jules Cousin, "Le Comte de Clermont," p.21.--Mme.

de Genlis, "Memoires," chap. 3 and 11.--De Goncourt, 114.]

[Footnote 2275: Bachaumont, III. 343 (February 23, 1768) and IV. 174, III. 232.--"Journal d Colle," pa.s.sim.--Colle, Laujon and Poisinet are the princ.i.p.al purveyors for these displays; the only one of merit is "La Verite dans le Vin." In this piece instead of "Mylord." there was at first the "bishop of Avranches," and the piece was thus performed at Villers-Cotterets in the house of the Duc d'Orleans.]

[Footnote 2276: Mme. d'Oberkirk, II. 82.--On the tone of the best society see "Correspondance" by Metra, I. 50, III. 68, and Bezenval (Ed.

Barriere) 387 to 394.]

[Footnote 2277: Mme. de Genlis, "Adele et Theodore," II. 362.]

[Footnote 2278: George Sand, I. 85. "At my grandmother's I have found boxes full of couplets, madrigals and biting satires.... I burned some of them so obscene that I would not dare read them through, and these written by abbes I had known to my infancy and by a marquis of the best blood." Among other examples, toned down, the songs on the Bird and the Shepherdess, may be read in "Correspondance," by Metra.]

CHAPTER III. DISADVANTAGES OF THIS DRAWING ROOM LIFE.

I.

Its Barrenness and Artificiality.--Return to Nature and sentiment.

Mere pleasure, in the long run, ceases to gratify, and however agreeable this drawing room life may be, it ends in a certain hollowness.

Something is lacking without any one being able to say precisely what that something is; the soul becomes restless, and slowly, aided by authors and artists, it sets about investigating the cause of its uneasiness and the object of its secret longings. Barrenness and artificiality are the two traits of this society, the more marked because it is more complete, and, in this one, pushed to extreme, because it has attained to supreme refinement. In the first place naturalness is excluded from it; everything is arranged and adjusted,--decoration, dress, att.i.tude, tone of voice, words, ideas and even sentiments. "A genuine sentiment is so rare," said M. de V--, "that, when I leave Versailles, I sometimes stand still in the street to see a dog gnaw a bone."[2301] Man, in abandoning himself wholly to society, had withheld no portion of his personality for himself while decorum, clinging to him like so much ivy, had abstracted from him the substance of his being and subverted every principle of activity.

"There was then," says one who was educated in this style,[2302] "a certain way of walking, of sitting down, of saluting, of picking up a glove, of holding a fork, of tendering any article, in short, a complete set of gestures and facial expressions, which children had to be taught at a very early age in order that habit might become a second nature, and this conventionality formed so important an item in the life of men and women in aristocratic circles that the actors of the present day, with all their study, are scarcely able to give us an idea of it."

Not only was the outward fact.i.tious but, again, the inward; there was a certain prescribed mode of feeling and of thinking, of living and of dying. It was impossible to address a man without placing oneself at his orders, or a woman without casting oneself at her feet, Fashion, 'le bon ton,' regulated every important or petty proceeding, the manner of making a declaration to a woman and of breaking an engagement, of entering upon and managing a duel, of treating an equal, an inferior and a superior. If any one failed in the slightest degree to conform to this code of universal custom, he is called "a specimen." A man of heart or of talent, D'Argenson, for example, bore a surname of "simpleton,"

because his originality transcended the conventional standard. "That has no name, there is nothing like it!" embodies the strongest censure.

In conduct as in literature, whatever departs from a certain type is rejected. The quant.i.ty of authorized actions is as great as the number of authorized words. The same super-refined taste impoverishes the initiatory act as well as the initiatory expression, people acting as they write, according to acquired formulas and within a circ.u.mscribed circle. Under no consideration can the eccentric, the unforeseen, the spontaneous, vivid inspiration be accepted. Among twenty instances I select the least striking since it merely relates to a simple gesture, and is a measure of other things. Mademoiselle de--obtains, through family influence, a pension for Marcel, a famous dancing-master, and runs off, delighted, to his domicile to convey him the patent. Marcel receives it and at once flings it on the floor: "Mademoiselle, did I teach you to offer an object in that manner? Pick up that paper and hand it to me as you ought to." She picks up the patent and presents it to him with all suitable grace. "That's very well, Mademoiselle, I accept it, although your elbow was not quite sufficiently rounded, and I thank you."[2303] So many graces end in becoming tiresome; after having eaten rich food for years, a little milk and dry bread becomes welcome.

Among all these social flavorings one is especially abused; one which, unremittingly employed, communicates to all dishes its frigid and piquant relish, I mean insincerity (badinage). Society does not tolerate pa.s.sion, and in this it exercises its right. One does not enter company to be either vehement or somber; a strained air or one of concentration would appear inconsistent. The mistress of a house is always right in reminding a man that his emotional constraint brings on silence.

"Monsieur Such-a-one, you are not amiable to day." To be always amiable is, accordingly, an obligation, and, through this training, a sensibility that is diffused through innumerable little channels never produces a broad current. "One has a hundred friends, and out of these hundred friends two or three may have some chagrin every day; but one could not award them sympathy for any length of time as, in that event, one would be wanting in consideration for the remaining ninety-seven;"[2304] one might sigh for an instant with some one of the ninety-seven, and that would be all. Madame du Deffant, having lost her oldest friend, the President Henault, that very day goes to sup in a large a.s.semblage: "Alas," she exclaimed, "he died at six o'clock this evening; otherwise you would not see me here." Under this constant regime of distractions and diversions there are no longer any profound sentiments; we have nothing but an epidermic exterior; love itself is reduced to "the exchange of two fantasies."--And, as one always falls on the side to which one inclines, levity becomes deliberate and a matter of elegance.[2305] Indifference of the heart is in fashion; one would be ashamed to show any genuine emotion. One takes pride in playing with love, in treating woman as a mechanical puppet, in touching one inward spring, and then another, to force out, at will, her anger or her pity.

Whatever she may do, there is no deviation from the most insulting politeness; the very exaggeration of false respect which is lavished on her is a mockery by which indifference for her is fully manifested.--But they go still further, and in souls naturally unfeeling, gallantry turns into wickedness. Through ennui and the demand for excitement, through vanity, and as a proof of dexterity, delight is found in tormenting, in exciting tears, in dishonoring and in killing women by slow torture. At last, as vanity is a bottomless pit, there is no species of blackness of which these polished executioners are not capable; the personages of Laclos are derived from these originals.[2306]--Monsters of this kind are, undoubtedly, rare; but there is no need of reverting to them to ascertain how much egotism is harbored in the gallantry of society. The women who erected it into an obligation are the first to realize its deceptiveness, and, amidst so much homage without heat, to pine for the communicative warmth of a powerful sentiment.--The character of the century obtains its last trait and "the man of feeling comes on the stage.

II. Return To Nature And Sentiment.

Final trait of the century, an increased sensitivity in the best circles.--Date of its advent.--Its symptoms in art and in literature.--Its dominion in private.--Its affectations.-- Its sincerity.--Its delicacy.

It is not that the groundwork of habits becomes different, for these remain equally worldly and dissipated up the last. But fashion authorizes a new affectation, consisting of effusions, reveries, and sensibilities as yet unknown. The point is to return to nature, to admire the country, to delight in the simplicity of rustic manners, to be interested in village people, to be human, to have a heart, to find pleasure in the sweetness and tenderness of natural affections, to be a husband and a father, and still more, to possess a soul, virtues, and religious emotions, to believe in Providence and immortality, to be capable of enthusiasm. One wants to be all this, or at least show an inclination that way. In any event, if the desire does exist it is one the implied condition, that one shall not be too much disturbed in his ordinary pursuits, and that the sensations belonging to the new order of life shall in no respect interfere with the enjoyments of the old one.

Accordingly the exaltation which arises is little more than cerebral fermentation, and the idyll is to be almost entirely performed in the drawing-rooms. Behold, then, literature, the drama, painting and all the arts pursuing the same sentimental road to supply heated imaginations with fact.i.tious nourishment.[2307] Rousseau, in labored periods, preaches the charms of an uncivilized existence, while other masters, between two madrigals, fancy the delight of sleeping naked in the primeval forest. The lovers in "La Nouvelle Heloise" interchange pa.s.sages of fine style through four volumes, whereupon a person "not merely methodical but prudent," the Comtesse de Blot, exclaims, at a social gathering at the d.u.c.h.esse de Chartres', "a woman truly sensitive, unless of extraordinary virtue, could refuse nothing to the pa.s.sion of Rousseau."[2308] People collect in a dense crowd in the Exhibition around "L'Accordee de Village," "La Cruche Ca.s.see," and the "Retour de nourrice," with other rural and domestic idylls by Greuze; the voluptuous element, the tempting undercurrent of sensuality made perceptible in the fragile simplicity of his artless maidens, is a dainty bit for the libertine tastes which are kept alive beneath moral aspirations.[2309] After these, Ducis, Thomas, Parny, Colardeau, Boucher, Delille, Bernardin de St. Pierre, Marmontel, Florian, the ma.s.s of orators, authors and politicians, the misanthrope Champfort, the logician La Harpe, the minister Necker, the versifiers and the imitators of Gessner and Young, the Berquins, the Bitaubes, nicely combed and bedizened, holding embroidered handkerchiefs to wipe away tears, are to marshal forth the universal eclogue down to the acme of the Revolution.

Marmontel's "Moral Tales" appear in the columns of the "Mercure"

for 1791 and 1792,[2310] while the number following the ma.s.sacres of September opens with verses "to the manes of my canary-bird."

Consequently, in all the details of private life, sensibility displays its magniloquence. A small temple to Friendship is erected in a park. A little altar to Benevolence is set up in a private closet. Dresses a la Jean-Jacques-Rousseau are worn "a.n.a.logous to the principles of that author." Head-dresses are selected with "puffs au sentiment" in which one may place the portrait of one's daughter, mother, canary or dog, the whole "garnished with the hair of one's father or intimate friend."[2311] People keep intimate friends for whom "they experience something so warm and so tender that it nearly amounts to a pa.s.sion" and whom they cannot go three hours a day without seeing. "Every time female companions interchange tender ideas the voice suddenly changes into a pure and languishing tone, each fondly regarding the other with approaching heads and frequently embracing," and suppressing a yawn a quarter of an hour after, with a nap in concert, because they have no more to say. Enthusiasm becomes an obligation. On the revival of "Le pere de famille" there are as many handkerchiefs counted as spectators, and ladies faint away. "It is customary, especially for young women, to be excited, to turn pale, to melt into tears and, generally, to be seriously affected on encountering M. de Voltaire; they rush into his arms, stammer and weep, their agitation resembling that of the most pa.s.sionate love."[2312]--When a society-author reads his work in a drawing-room, fashion requires that the company should utter exclamations and sob, and that some pretty fainting subject should be unlaced. Mme. de Genlis, who laughs at these affectations, is no less affected than the rest. Suddenly some one in the company is heard to say to the young orphan whom she is exhibiting: "Pamela, show us Heloise,"

whereupon Pamela, loosening her hair, falls on her knees and turns her eyes up to heaven with an air of inspiration, to the great applause of the a.s.sembly.[2313] Sensibility becomes an inst.i.tution. The same Madame de Genlis founds an order of Perseverance which soon includes "as many as ninety chevaliers in the very best society." To become a member it is necessary to solve some riddle, to answer a moral question and p.r.o.nounce a discourse on virtue. Every lady or chevalier who discovers and publishes "three well-verified virtuous actions" obtains a gold medal.

Each chevalier has his "brother in arms," each lady has her bosom friend and each member has a device, and each device, framed in a little picture, figures in the "Temple of Honor," a sort of tent gallantly decorated, and which M. de Lauzun causes to be erected in the middle of a garden.[2314]--The sentimental parade is complete, a drawing room masquerade being visible even in this revival of chivalry.

The froth of enthusiasm and of fine words nevertheless leaves in the heart a residuum of active benevolence, trustfulness, and even happiness, or, at least, expansiveness and freedom. Wives, for the first time, are seen accompanying their husbands into garrison; mothers desire to nurse their infants, and fathers begin to interest themselves in the education of their children. Simplicity again forms an element of manners. Hair-powder is no longer put on little boys' heads; many of the seigniors abandon laces, embroideries, red heels and the sword, except when in full dress. People appear in the streets "dressed a la Franklin, in coa.r.s.e cloth, with a knotty cane and thick shoes."[2315] The taste no longer runs on cascades, statues and stiff and pompous decorations; the preference is for the English garden.[2316] The queen arranges a village for herself at the Trianon, where, "dressed in a frock of white cambric muslin and a gauze neck-handkerchief, and with a straw hat," she fishes in the lake and sees her cows milked. Etiquette falls away like the paint scaling off from the skin, disclosing the bright hue of natural emotions. Madame Adelaide takes up a violin and replaces an absent musician to let the peasant girls dance. The d.u.c.h.esse de Bourbon goes out early in the morning incognito to bestow alms, and "to see the poor in their garrets." The Dauphine jumps out of her carriage to a.s.sist a wounded post-boy, a peasant knocked down by a stag. The king and the Comte d'Artois help a carter to extract his cart from the mud. People no longer think about self-constraint, and self-adjustment, and of keeping up their dignity under all circ.u.mstances, and of subjecting the weaknesses of human nature to the exigencies of rank. On the death of the first Dauphin,[2317] whilst the people in the room place themselves before the king to prevent him from entering it, the queen falls at his knees, and he says to her, weeping, "Ah, my wife, our dear child is dead, since they do not wish me to see him." And the narrator adds with admiration; "I always seem to see a good farmer and his excellent wife a prey to the deepest despair at the loss of their beloved child." Tears are no longer concealed, as it is a point of honor to be a human being.

One becomes human and familiar with one's inferiors. A prince, on a review, says to the soldiers on presenting the princess to them, "My boys, here is my wife." There is a disposition to make people happy and to take great delight in their grat.i.tude. To be kind, to be loved is the object of the head of a government, of a man in place. This goes so far that G.o.d is prefigured according to this model. The "harmonies of nature" are construed into the delicate attentions of Providence; on inst.i.tuting filial affection the Creator "deigned to choose for our best virtue our sweetest pleasure."[2318]--The idyll which is imagined to take place in heaven corresponds with the idyll practiced on earth. From the public up to the princes, and from the princes down to the public, in prose, in verse, in compliments at festivities, in official replies, in the style of royal edicts down to the songs of the market-women, there is a constant interchange of graces and of sympathies. Applause bursts out in the theater at any verse containing an allusion to princes, and, a moment after, at the speech which exalts the merits of the people, the princes return the compliment by applauding in their turn.[2319]--On all sides, just as this society is vanishing, a mutual deference, a spirit of kindliness arises, like a soft and balmy autumnal breeze, to dissipate whatever harshness remains of its aridity and to mingle with the radiance of its last hours the perfume of dying roses.

We now encounter acts and words of infinite grace, unique of their kind, like a lovely, exquisite little figure on old Sevres porcelain. One day, on the Comtesse Amelie de Boufflers speaking somewhat flippantly of her husband, her mother-in-law interposes, "You forget that you are speaking of my son."--"True, mamma, I thought I was only speaking of your son-in-law." It is she again who, on playing "the boat," and obliged to decide between this beloved mother-in-law and her own mother, whom she scarcely knew, replies, "I would save my mother and drown with my mother-in-law."[2320] The d.u.c.h.esse de Choiseul, the d.u.c.h.esse de Lauzun, and others besides, are equally charming miniatures. When the heart and the mind combine their considerations they produce masterpieces, and these, like the art, the refinements and the society which surrounds them, possess a charm unsurpa.s.sed by anything except their own fragility.

III. Personality Defects.

The failings of character thus formed.--Adapted to one situation but not to a contrary situation.--Defects of intelligence.--Defects of disposition.--Such a character is disarmed by good-breeding.

The reason is that, the better people have become adapted to a certain situation the less prepared are they for the opposite situation. The habits and faculties that serve them in the previous condition become prejudicial to them in the new one. In acquiring talents adapted to tranquil times they lose those suited to times of agitation, reaching the extreme of feebleness at the same time with the extreme of urbanity.

The more polished an aristocracy becomes the weaker it becomes, and when no longer possessing the power to please it not longer possesses the strength to struggle. And yet, in this world, we must struggle if we would live. In humanity, as in nature, empire belongs to force. Every creature that loses the art and energy of self-defense becomes so much more certainly a prey according as its brilliancy, imprudence and even gentleness deliver it over in advance to the gross appet.i.tes roaming around it. Where find resistance in characters formed by the habits we have just described? To defend ourselves we must, first of all, look carefully around us, see and foresee, and provide for danger. How could they do this living as they did? Their circle is too narrow and too carefully enclosed. Confined to their castles and mansions they see only those of their own sphere, they hear only the echo of their own ideas, they imagine that there is nothing beyond the public seems to consist of two hundred persons. Moreover, disagreeable truths are not admitted into a drawing-room, especially when of personal import, an idle fancy there becoming a dogma because it becomes conventional. Here, accordingly, we find those who, already deceived by the limitations of their accustomed horizon, fortify their delusion still more by delusions about their fellow men. They comprehend nothing of the vast world, which envelops their little world; they are incapable of entering into the sentiments of a bourgeois, of a villager; they have no conception of the peasant as he is but as they would like him to be. The idyll is in fashion, and no one dares dispute it; any other supposition would be false because it would be disagreeable, and as the drawing rooms have decided that all will go well, all must go well. Never was a delusion more complete and more voluntary. The Duc d'Orleans offers to wager a hundred louis that the States-General will dissolve without accomplishing anything, not even abolishing the lettre-de-cachet.. After the demolition has begun, and yet again after it is finished, they will form opinions no more accurate. They have no idea of social architecture; they know nothing about its materials, its proportions, or its harmonious balance; they have had no hand in it, they have never worked at it. They are entirely ignorant of the old building[2321] in which they occupy the first story. They are not qualified to calculate either its pressure or its resistance.[2322] They conclude, finally, that it is better to let the thing tumble in, and that the restoration of the edifice in their behalf will follow its own course, and that they will return to their drawing-room, expressly rebuilt for them, and freshly gilded, to begin over again the pleasant conversation which an accident, some tumult in the street, had interrupted.[2323] Clear-sighted in society, they are obtuse in politics. They examine everything by the artificial light of candles; they are disturbed and bewildered in the powerful light of open day. The eyelid has grown stiff through age. The organ so long bent on the petty details of one refined life no longer takes in the popular life of the ma.s.ses, and, in the new sphere into which it is suddenly plunged, its refinement becomes the source of its blindness.