The Ancient Regime Part 16

Nevertheless action is necessary, for danger is seizing them by the throat. But the danger is of an ign.o.ble species, while their education has provided them with no arms suitable for warding it off. They have learned how to fence, but not how to box. They are still the sons of those at Fontenoy, who, instead of being the first to fire, courteously raised their hats and addressed their English antagonists, "No, gentlemen, fire yourselves." Being the slaves of good-breeding they are not free in their movements. Numerous acts, and those the most important, those of a sudden, vigorous and rude stamp, are opposed to the respect a well-bred man entertains for others, or at least to the respect which he owes to himself. They do not consider these allowable among themselves; they do not dream of their being allowed, and, the higher their position the more their rank fetters them. When the royal family sets out for Varennes the acc.u.mulated delays by which they are lost are the result of etiquette. Madame de Touzel insists on her place in the carriage to which she is ent.i.tled as governess of the Children of France. The king, on arriving, is desirous of conferring the marshal's baton on M. de Bouille, and after running to and fro to obtain a baton he is obliged to borrow that of the Duc de Choiseul. The queen cannot dispense with a traveling dressing-case and one has to be made large enough to contain every imaginable implement from a warming-pan to a silver porridge-dish, with other dishes besides; and, as if there were no shifts to be had in Brussels, there had to be a complete outfit in this line for herself and her children.[2324]--A fervent devotion, even humanness, the frivolity of the small literary spirit, graceful urbanity, profound ignorance,[2325] the lack or rigidity of the comprehension and determination are still greater with the princes than with the n.o.bles.--All are impotent against the wild and roaring outbreak. They have not the physical superiority that can master it, the vulgar charlatanism which can charm it away, the tricks of a Scapin to throw it off the scent, the bull's neck, the mountebank's gestures, the stentor's lungs, in short, the resources of the energetic temperament and of animal cunning, alone capable of diverting the rage of the unchained brute. To find such fighters, they seek three or four men of a different race and education, men having suffered and roamed about, a brutal commoner like the abbe Maury, a colossal and dirty satyr like Mirabeau, a bold and prompt adventurer like that Dumouriez who, at Cherbourg, when, through the feebleness of the Duc de Beuvron, the stores of grain were given up and the riot began, hooted at and nearly cut to pieces, suddenly sees the keys of the storehouse in the hands of a Dutch sailor, and, yelling to the mob that it was betrayed through a foreigner having got hold of the keys, himself jumps down from the railing, seizes the keys and hands them to the officer of the guard, saying to the people, "I am your father, I am the man to be responsible for the storehouse!"[2326] To entrust oneself with porters and brawlers, to be collared by a political club, to improvise on the highways, to bark louder than the barkers, to fight with the fists or a cudgel, as much later with the young and rich gangs, against brutes and lunatics incapable of employing other arguments, and who must be answered in the same vein, to mount guard over the a.s.sembly, to act as volunteer constable, to spare neither one's own hide nor that of others, to be one of the people to face the people, all these are simple and effectual proceedings, but so vulgar as to appear to them disgusting. The idea of resorting to such means never enters their head; they neither know how, nor do they care to make use of their hands in such business.[2327] They are skilled only in the duel and, almost immediately, the brutality of opinion, by means of a.s.saults, stops the way to polite combats. Their arms, the shafts of the drawing-room, epigrams, witticisms, songs, parodies, and other needle thrusts are impotent against the popular bull.[2328] Their personality lacks both roots and resources; through super-refinement it has weakened; their nature, impoverished by culture, is incapable of the transformations by which we are renewed and survive.--An all-powerful education has repressed, mollified, and enfeebled their very instincts. About to die, they experience none of the reactions of blood and rage, the universal and sudden restoration of the forces, the murderous spasm, the blind irresistible need of striking those who strike them. If a gentleman is arrested in his own house by a Jacobin we never find him splitting his head open.[2329] They allow themselves to be taken, going quietly to prison; to make an uproar would be bad taste; it is necessary, above all things, to remain what they are, well-bred people of society. In prison both men and women dress themselves with great care, pay each other visits and keep up a drawing-room; it may be at the end of a corridor, by the light of three or four candles; but here they circulate jests, compose madrigals, sing songs and pride themselves on being as gallant, as gay and as gracious as ever: need people be morose and ill-behaved because accident has consigned them to a poor inn? They preserve their dignity and their smile before their judges and on the cart; the women, especially, mount the scaffold with the ease and serenity characteristic of an evening entertainment. It is the supreme characteristic of good-breeding, erected into an unique duty, and become to this aristocracy a second nature, which is found in its virtues as well as in its vices, in its faculties as well as in its impotencies, in its prosperity as at its fall, and which adorns it even in the death to which it conducts.

NOTES:

[Footnote 2301: Champfort, 110.]

[Footnote 2302: George Sand, V. 59. "I was rebuked for everything; I never made a movement which was not criticized."]

[Footnote 2303: "Paris, Versailles, et les provinces," I. 162.--"The king of Sweden is here; he wears rosettes on his breeches; all is over; he is ridiculous, and a provincial king." ("Le Gouvernement de Normandie," by Hippeau, IV. 237, July 4, 1784.]

[Footnote 2304: Stendhal, "Rome, Naples and Florence," 379. Stated by an English lord.]

[Footnote 2305: Marivaux, "La Pet.i.t-Maitre corrige.--Gresset, "Le Mechant." Crebillon fils, "La Nuit et le Moment," (especially the scene between the scene between Citandre and Lucinde).--Colle, "La Verite dans le Vin," (the part of the abbe with the with the presidente).--De Bezenval, 79. (The comte de Frise and Mme. de Blot). "Vie privee du Marechal de Richelieu," (scenes with Mme. Michelin).--De Goncourt, 167 to 174.]

[Footnote 2306: Laclos, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Mme. de Merteuil was copied after a Marquise de Gren.o.ble.--Remark the difference between Lovelace and Valmont, one being stimulated by pride and the other by vanity.]

[Footnote 2307: The growth of sensibility is indicated by the following dates: Rousseau, "Sur l'influence des lettres et des arts," 1749; "Sur l'inegalite," 1753; "Nouvelle Heloise," 1759. Greuze, "Le Pere de Famille lisant la Bible," 1755; "L'Accordee de Village," 1761. Diderot, "Le fils natural," 1757; "Le Pere de Famille," 1758.]

[Footnote 2308: Mme. de Genlis, "Memoires," chap. XVII.--George Sand, I.

72. The young Mme. de Francueil, on seeing Rousseau for the first time, burst into tears.]

[Footnote 2309: This point has been brought out with as much skill as accuracy by Messieurs de Goncourt in "L'Art au dix-huitieme siecle," I.

433-438.]

[Footnote 2310: The number for August, 1792, contains "Les Rivaux d'eux-memes."--About the same time other pieces are inserted in the "Mercure," such as "The federal union of Hymen and Cupid," "Les Jaloux,"

"A Pastoral Romance," "Ode Anacreontique a Mlle. S. D. . . . "etc.]

[Footnote 2311: Mme. de Genlis, "Adele et Theodore," I. 312.--De Goncourt, "La Femme an dixhuitieme siecle," 318.--Mme. d'Oberkirk, I.

56.--Description of the puff au sentiment of the d.u.c.h.esse de Chartres (de Goncourt, 311): "In the background is a woman seated in a chair and holding an infant, which represents the Duc de Valois and his nurse.

On the right is a parrot pecking at a cherry, and on the left a little Negro, the d.u.c.h.ess's two pets: the whole is intermingled with locks of hair of all the relations of Mme. de Chartres, the hair of her husband, father and father-in-law."]

[Footnote 2312: Mme. de Genlis, "Les Dangers du Monde." I, scene VII; II, scene IV;--"Adele et Theodore," I. 312;--"Souvenirs de Felicie,"

199;--Bachaumont, IV, 320.]

[Footnote 2313: Mme. de la Rochejacquelein, "Memoires."]

[Footnote 2314: Mme. de Genlis, "Memoires," chap. XX.--De Lauzun, 270.]

[Footnote 2315: Mme. d'Oberkirk, II. 35 (1783-1784). Mme. Campan, III.

371.--Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," pa.s.sim.]

[Footnote 2316: "Correspondance" by Metra, XVII. 55, (1784).--Mme.

d'Oberkirk, II. 234.--"Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II.

63, 29.]

[Footnote 2317: "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," by Hippeau, IV. 387 (Letters of June 4, 1789, by an eye-witness).]

[Footnote 2318: Florian, "Ruth".]

[Footnote 2319: Hippeau, IV. 86 (June 23, 1773), on the representation of "Le Siege de Calais," at the Comedie Francaise, at the moment when Mlle. Vestris has p.r.o.nounced these words:

Le Francais dans son prince aime a trouver un frere Qui, ne fils de l'Etat, en devienne le pere.

"Long and universal plaudits greeted the actress who had turned in the direction of the Dauphin." In another place these verses recur:

Quelle lecon pour vous, superbes potentats!

Veillez sur vos sujets dans le rang le plus bas, Tel, loin de vos regards, dans la misere expire, Qui quelque jour peut-etre, eut sauve votre empire.

"The Dauphin and the Dauphine in turn applauded the speech. This demonstration of their sensibility was welcomed with new expressions of affection and grat.i.tude."]

[Footnote 2320: Madame de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Felicie," 76, 161.]

[Footnote 2321: M. de Montlosier; in the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, is about the only person familiar with feudal laws.]

[Footnote 2322: "A competent and impartial man who would estimate the chances of the success of the Revolution would find that there are more against it than against the five winning numbers in a lottery; but this is possible, and unfortunately, this time, they all came out" (Duc de Levis, "Souvenirs," 328.)]

[Footnote 2323: "Corinne," by Madame de Stael, the character of the Comte d'Erfeuil.--Malonet, "Memoires," II. 297 (a memorable instance of political stupidity).]

[Footnote 2324: Mme. Campan, II. 140, 313.--Duc de Choiseul, "Memoires."]

[Footnote 2325: Journal of Dumont d'Urville, commander of the vessel which transported Charles X. into exile in 1830.--See note 4 at the end of the volume.]

[Footnote 2326: Dumouriez, "Memoires," III. chap. III. (July 21, 1789).]

[Footnote 2327: "All these fine ladies and gentlemen who knew so well how to bow and courtesy and walk over a carpet, could not take three steps on G.o.d's earth without getting dreadfully fatigued. They could not even open or shut a door; they had not even strength enough to lift a log to put it on the fire; they had to call a servant to draw up a chair for them; they could not come in or go out by themselves. What could they have done with their graces, without their valets to supply the place of hands and feet?" (George Sand, V. 61.)]

[Footnote 2328: When Madame de F--had expressed a clever thing she felt quite proud of it. M--remarked that on uttering something clever about an emetic she was quite surprised that she was not purged. Champfort, 107.]

[Footnote 2329: The following is an example of what armed resistance can accomplish for a man in his own house. "A gentleman of Ma.r.s.eilles, proscribed and living in his country domicile, has provided himself with gun, pistols and saber, and never goes out without this armament, declaring that he will not be taken alive. n.o.body dared to execute the order of arrest. (Anne Plumptree, "A Residence of three years in France," (1802-1805), II. 115.]

BOOK THIRD. THE SPIRIT AND THE DOCTRINE.

CHAPTER I. SCIENTIFIC ACQUISITION.

The composition of the revolutionary spirit.--Scientific acquisition its first element.

On seeing a man with a somewhat feeble const.i.tution, but healthy in appearance and of steady habits, greedily swallow some new kind of cordial and then suddenly fall to the ground, foam at the mouth, act deliriously and writhe in convulsions, we at once surmise that this agreeable beverage contained some dangerous substance; but a delicate a.n.a.lysis is necessary to detect and decompose the poison. The philosophy of the eighteenth century contained poison, and of a kind as potent as it was peculiar; for, not only is it a long historic elaboration, the final and condensed essence of the tendency of the thought of the century, but again its two princ.i.p.al ingredients have this peculiarity, that, separate, they are salutary, and in combination they form a venomous compound.