Women Of Modern France Part 11

Her contemporaries knew her as a woman distinguished for her _esprit_, frank, playful and sprightly humor, irreproachable conduct, loyalty to her friends, and as an idolizer of her daughter; no one suspected that she would partake of the glory of our cla.s.sical authors--and she, less than any one. She had immortalized herself, without wishing or knowing it, by an intimate correspondence which is, to-day, universally regarded as one of the most precious treasures and one of the most original monuments to French literature. To deceive the _ennui_ of absence, she wrote to her daughter all that she had in her heart and that came to her mind--what she did, wished to do, saw and learned, news of court, city, Brittany, army, everything--sadly or gayly, according to the subject, always with the most keen, ardent, delicate, and touching sentiments of tenderness and sympathy. She amuses, instructs, interests, moves to tears or laughter. All that pa.s.ses within or before her, pa.s.ses within and before us. If she depicts an object, we see it; if she relates an event, we are present at its occurrence; if she makes a character talk, we hear his words, see his gestures, and distinguish his accent. All is true, real, living: this is more than talent--it is enchantment. Generations pa.s.s away in turn; a single one, or, rather, a group escapes the general oblivion--the group of friends of Mme. de Sevigne."

A woman with characteristics the very opposite of those of Mme.

de Sevigne, but who in some respects resembled her, was Mme. de La Fayette. Of her life, very little is to be said, except in regard to her lasting friendship and attachment for La Rochefoucauld. She was born in 1634, and, with Mme. de Sevigne, was probably the best educated among the great women of the seventeenth century. She was faithful to her husband, the Count of La Fayette, who, in 1665, took her to Paris, where she formed her lifelong attachment for the great La Rochefoucauld, and where she won immediate recognition for her exquisite politeness and as a woman with a large fund of common sense.

After her marriage, she seemed to have but one interest--La Rochefoucauld, just as that of Mme. de Maintenon was Louis XIV. and that of Mme. de Sevigne--her daughter. These three prominent women ill.u.s.trate remarkably well that predominant trait of French women--faithfulness to a chosen cause; each one of the three was vitally concerned in an enduring, a legitimate, and sincere attachment, which state of affairs gives a certain distinction to the society of the time of Louis XIV.

Mme. de La Fayette, like Mme. de Sevigne, possessed an exceptional talent for making and retaining friends. She kept aloof from intrigues, in fact, knew nothing about them, and consequently never schemed to use her favor at court for purposes of self-interest. Two qualities belonged to her more than to any of her contemporaries--an instinct which was superior to her reason, and a love of truth in all things.

Compared with those of Mme. de Rambouillet, it is said that her attainments were of a more solid nature; and while Mlle. de Scudery had greater brilliancy, Mme. de La Fayette had better judgment.

These qualities combined with an exquisite delicacy, fine sentiment, calmness, and depth of reason, the very basis of her nature, are reflected in her works. Sainte-Beuve says that "her reason and experience cool her pa.s.sion and temper the ideal with the results of observation." She was one of the very few women playing any role in French history who were endowed with all things necessary to happiness--fortune, reputation, talent, intimate and ideal friendship. Extremely sensitive to surroundings, she readily received impressions--a gift which was the source of a somewhat doubtful happiness.

In her later days, notwithstanding terrible suffering, she became more devout and exhibited an admirable resignation. A letter to Menage will show the mental and physical state reached by her in her last days: "Although you forbid me to write to you, I wish, nevertheless, to tell you how truly affected I am by your friendship. I appreciate it as much as when I used to see it; it is dear to me for its own worth, it is dear to me because it is at present the only one I have. Time and old age have taken all my friends away from me.... I must tell you the state I am in. I am, first of all, a mortal divinity, and to an excess inconceivable; I have obstructions in my entrails--sad, inexpressible feelings; I have no spirit, no force--I cannot read or apply myself.

The slightest things affect me--a fly appears an elephant to me; that is my ordinary state.... I cannot believe that I can live long in this condition, and my life is too disagreeable to permit me to fear the end. I surrender myself to the will of G.o.d; He is the All-Powerful, and, from all sides, we must go to Him at last. They a.s.sure me that you are thinking seriously of your salvation, and I am very happy over it."

There probably never existed a more ideal friendship between two French women, one more lasting, sincere, perfect in every way, than that of Mme. de Sevigne and Mme. de La Fayette. The major part of the information we possess regarding events in the life of Mme. de La Fayette is obtained from their letters. Said Mme. de Sevigne: "Never did we have the smallest cloud upon our friendship. Long habit had not made her merit stale to me--the flavor of it was always fresh and new.

I paid her many attentions, from the mere promptings of my affection, not because of the propriety by which, in friendships, we are bound. I was a.s.sured, too, that I was her dearest consolation--which, for forty years past, had been the case."

Shortly before her death, she wrote to Mme. de Sevigne: "Here is what I have done since I wrote you last. I have had two attacks of fever; for six months I had not been purged; I am purged once, I am purged twice; the day after the second time, I sit down at the table; oh, dear! I feel a pain in my heart--I do not want any soup. Have a little meat, then? No, I do not wish any. Well, you will have some fruit? I think I will. Very well, then, have some. I don't know--I think I will have some by and by. Let me have some soup and some chicken this evening.... Here is the evening, and there are the soup and the chicken; I don't desire them. I am nauseated, I will go to bed--I prefer sleeping to eating. I go to bed, I turn round, I turn back, I have no pain, but I have no sleep either. I call--I take a book--I close it. Day comes--I get up--I go to the window. It strikes four, five, six--I go to bed again, I doze until seven, I get up at eight, I sit down to table at twelve--to no purpose, as yesterday.... I lay myself down in my bed, in the evening, to no purpose, as the night before. Are you ill? Nay, I am in this state for three days and three nights. At present, I am getting some sleep again, but I still eat mechanically, horsewise--rubbing my mouth with vinegar. Otherwise, I am very well, and I haven't so much as a pain in my head."

Her depressing melancholy kept her indoors a great deal; in fact, after 1683, after the death of the queen, who was one of her best friends, she was seldom seen at court. Mme. de Sevigne gives good reason for this in her letter:

"She had a mortal melancholy. Again, what absurdity! is she not the most fortunate woman in the world? That is what people said; it needed that she should die to prove that she had good reason for not going out and for being melancholy. Her reins and her heart were all gone--was not that enough to cause those fits of despondency of which she complained? And so, during her life she showed reason, and after death she showed reason, and never was she without that divine reason which was her princ.i.p.al gift."

Her liaison with La Rochefoucauld is the one delicate and tender point in her life, a relation that afforded her much happiness and finally completed the ruin of her health. M. d'Haussonville said: "It is true that he took possession of her soul and intellect, little by little, so that the two beings, in the eyes of their contemporaries, were but one; for after his death (1680) she lived but an incomplete and mutilated existence."

Some critics have ventured to p.r.o.nounce this liaison one of material love solely, others are convinced of its morality and pure friendship.

In favor of the latter view, M. d'Haussonville suggests the fact that Mme. de La Fayette was over thirty years of age when she became interested in La Rochefoucauld, and that at that age women rarely ally themselves with men from emotions of physical love merely. At that age it is reason that mutually attracts two beings; and this feeling was probably the predominant one in that case, because her entire career was one of the most extreme reserve, conservatism, good sense, and propriety. However, other proofs are brought forward to show that there was between the two a sort of moral marriage, so many examples of which are found in the seventeenth century between people of prominence, both of whom happened to have unhappy conjugal experiences.

French society, one must remember, was different from any in the world; it seems to have been a large family gathering, the members of which were as intimate, took as much interest in each other's affairs, showed as much sympathy for one another and partic.i.p.ated in each other's sorrows and pleasures, as though they were children of the same parents.

In his early days, La Rochefoucauld found it convenient, for selfish purposes, to simulate an ardent pa.s.sion for Mme. de Longueville, of which mention has been made in the chapter relating to Mme. de Longueville. In his later period, he had settled down to a normal mode of life and sought the friendship of a more reasonable and less pa.s.sionate woman. He himself said:

"When women have well-informed minds, I like their conversation better than that of men; you find, with them, a certain gentleness which is not met with among us; and it seems to me, besides, that they express themselves with greater clearness and that they give a more pleasant turn to the things they say."

Mme. de La Fayette exercised a great influence upon La Rochefoucauld--an influence that was wholesome in every way. It was through her influential friends at court that he was helped into possession of his property, and it was she who maintained it for him.

As to his literary work (his _Maxims_), her influence over him was supposed to have somewhat modified his ideas on women and to have softened his tone in general. She wrote: "He gave me wit, but I reformed his heart." M. d'Haussonville has proved, without doubt, that her restraint modified many of his maxims that were tinged with the spirit of the commonplace and trivial. While Mme. de Sable--essentially a moralist and a deeply religious woman--was more of a companion to him, and though his maxims were, for the greater part, composed in her salon, Mme. de La Fayette, by her tenderness and judgment, tempered the tone of them before they reached the public.

Mme. de La Fayette will always be known, however, as the great novelist of the seventeenth century. Two novels, two stories, two historical works, and her memoirs, make up her literary budget. M.

d'Haussonville claims that her memoirs of the court of France are not reliable, because she was so often absent from court; also, in them she shows a tendency to avenge herself, in a way, upon Mme. de Maintenon, whose friend she was until the trouble between this lady and Mme. de Montespan occurred. The latter was the intimate friend of Mme. de La Fayette. As for her literary work proper, her desire to write was possibly encouraged, if not created, by her indulgence in the general fad of writing portraitures, in which she was especially successful in portraying Mme. de Sevigne. Her literary effort was, besides, a revolt of her own taste and sense against the pompous and inflated language of the novels of the day and against the great length of the development of the events and adventures in them. Thus, Mme. de La Fayette inaugurated a new style of novel; to show her influence, it will be well to consider the state of the Romanesque novel at the period of her writing.

In the beginning of the century, D'Urfe's novels were in vogue; these works were characterized by interminable developments, relieved by an infinite number of historical episodes. All characters, shepherds as well as n.o.blemen, expressed the same sentiments and in the same language. There was no pretension to truth in the portraying of manners and customs.--A reaction was natural and took the form of either a kind of parody or gross realism. These novels, of which _Francion_ and _Berger Extravagant_ were the best known, depicted shepherds of the Merovingian times, heroes of Persia and Rome, or procurers, scamps, and scoundrels; but no descriptions of the manners of decent people (_honnetes gens_) were to be found.

The novels of Mlle. de Scudery, while interesting as portraitures, are not thoroughly reliable in their representation of the sentiments and environment of the times; on the other hand, those of Mme. de La Fayette are impersonal--no one of the characters is recognizable; yet their atmosphere is that of the court of Louis XIV., and the language, never so correct as to be unnatural, is that used at the time. Her novels reflect perfectly the society of the court and the manner of life there. "Thus," says M. d'Haussonville, "she was the first to produce a novel of observation and sentiment, the first to paint elegant manners as they really were."

Her first production was _La Princesse de Montpensier_ (1662); in 1670, appeared _Zayde_, it was ostensibly the work of Segrais, her teacher and a writer much in vogue at the time; in 1678, _La Princesse de Cleves_, her masterpiece, stirred up one of the first real quarrels of literary criticism. For a long time after the appearance of that book, society was divided into two cla.s.ses--the pros and the cons. It was the most popular work of the period.

M. d'Haussonville says it is the first French novel which is an ill.u.s.tration of woman's ability to a.n.a.lyze the most subtile of human emotions. Mme. de La Fayette was, also, the first to elevate, in literature, the character of the husband who, until then, was a nonent.i.ty or a b.o.o.by; she makes of him a hero--sympathetic, n.o.ble, and dignified.

In no fict.i.tious tale before hers was love depicted with such rare delicacy and pathos. In her novel, _La Princesse de Cleves_, "a novel of a married woman, we feel the woman who has loved and who knows what she is saying, for she, also, has struggled and suffered." The writer confesses her weakness and leaves us witness of her virtue. All the soul struggles and interior combats represented in her work the auth.o.r.ess herself has experienced. As an example of this we cite the description of the sentiments of Mme. de Cleves when she realizes that her feeling toward one of the members of the court may develop into an emotion unworthy of her as a wife. She falls upon her knees and says:

"I am here to make to you a confession such as has never been made to man; but the innocence of my conduct and my intentions give me the necessary courage. It is true that I have reasons for desiring to withdraw from court, and that I wish to avoid the perils which persons of my age experience. I have never shown a sign of weakness, and I would not fear of ever showing any, if you permitted me to withdraw from court, or if I still had, in my efforts to do right, the support of Mme. de Chartres. However dangerous may be the action I take, I take it with pleasure, that I may be worthy of your actions, I ask a thousand pardons; if I have sentiments displeasing to you, I shall at least never displease you by my actions. Remember, to do what I am doing, one must have for a husband more friendship and esteem than was ever before had. Have pity on me and lead me away---and love me still, if you can."

_La Princesse de Cleves_ is a novel of human virtue purely, and teaches that true virtue can find its reward in itself and in the austere enjoyment of duty accomplished. "It is a work that will endure, and be a comfort as well as a guide to those who aspire to a high morality which necessitates a difficult sacrifice."

M. d'Haussonville regards the novels of Mmes. de Charriere, de Souza, de Duras, de Boigne, as mere imitations or as having been inspired by that masterpiece of Mme. de La Fayette. He says: "In fact, novels in general, that depict the struggle between pa.s.sion and duty, with the victory on the side of virtue, emanate more or less from it."

Taine wrote: "She described the events in the careers of society women, introducing no special terms of language into her descriptions.

She painted for the sake of painting and did not think of attempting to surpa.s.s her predecessors. She reflects a society whose scrupulous care was to avoid even the slightest appearance of anything that might displease or shock. She shows the exquisite tact of a woman--and a woman of high rank."

Mme. de La Fayette is one of the very rare French writers that have succeeded in a.n.a.lyzing love, pa.s.sion, and moral duty, without becoming monotonous, vulgar, brutal, or excessively realistic. Her creations contain the most minute a.n.a.lyses of heart and soul emotions, but these never become purely physiologic and nauseating, as in most novels.

This achievement on her part has been too little imitated, but it, alone, will preserve the name of Mme. de La Fayette.

Mme. de Motteville is deserving of mention among the important literary women of the seventeenth century. She is regarded as one of the best women writers in French literature, and her memoirs are considered authority on the history of the Fronde and of Anne of Austria. The poetry of Mme. des Houlieres was for a long time much in vogue; to-day, however, it is not read. The memoirs of Mlle. de Montpensier are more occupied with herself than with events of the time or the numerous princes who tarried about her as longing lovers.

Guizot says: "She was so impa.s.sioned and haughty, with her head so full of her own greatness, that she did not marry in her youth, thinking no one worthy of her except the king and the emperor, and they had no fancy for her." The following portrait of her was sketched by herself:

"I am tall, neither fat nor thin, of a very fine and easy figure.

I have a good mien, arms and hands not beautiful, but a beautiful skin--and throat, too. I have a straight leg and a well-shaped foot; my hair is light and of a beautiful auburn; my face is long, its contour is handsome, nose large and aquiline; mouth neither large nor small, but chiselled and with a very pleasing expression; lips vermilion, not fine, but not frightful, either; my eyes are blue, neither large nor small, but sparkling, soft, and proud like my mien.

I talk a great deal, without saying silly things or using bad words. I am a very vicious enemy, being very choleric and pa.s.sionate, and that, added to my birth, may well make my enemies tremble; but I have, also, a n.o.ble and kindly soul. I am incapable of any base and black deed; and so I am more disposed to mercy than to justice. I am melancholic, and fond of reading good and solid books; trifles bore me--except verses, and them I like, of whatever sort they may be; and undoubtedly I am as good a judge of such things as if I were a scholar."

Possibly the greatest female scholar that France ever produced was Mme. Dacier, a truly learned woman and one of whom French women are proud; during her last years she enjoyed the reputation of being one of the foremost scholars of all Europe. It was Mme. de Lambert who wrote of her:

"I esteem Mme. Dacier infinitely. Our s.e.x owes her much; she has protested against the common error which condemns us to ignorance.

Men, as much from disdain as from a fancied superiority, have denied us all learning; Mme. Dacier is an example proving that we are capable of learning. She has a.s.sociated erudition and good manners; for, at present, modesty has been displaced; shame is no longer for vices, and women blush over their learning only. She has freed the mind, held captive under this prejudice, and she alone supports us in our rights."

Tanneguy-Lefevre, the father of Mme. Dacier, was a savant and a type of the scholars of the sixteenth century. He brought up his sons to be like him--instructing them in Greek, Latin, and antiquities. The young daughter, present at all the lessons given to her brothers, acquired, unaided, a solid education; her father, amazed at her marvellous faculty for comprehending and remembering, soon devoted most of his energy to her. He was, at that time, professor at the College of Saumur; and he was conspicuous not only for the liberty he exhibited in his pedagogical duties, but for his general catholicity.

After the death of her father, the young daughter went to Paris where her family friends, Chapelain and Huet, encouraged her in her studies, the latter, who was a.s.sistant preceptor to the dauphin, even going so far as to request her to a.s.sist him in preparing the Greek text for the use of the dauphin. She soon eclipsed all scholars of the time by her illuminating studies of Greek authors and of the quality of the new editions which she prepared of their works, but she was continually pestered on account of her erudition and her religion, the Protestant faith, to which she clung while realizing that it had been the cause of the failure of her father's advancement.

From that time appeared her famous series of translations of Terence and Plautus, which were the delight of the women of the period and which gave her the reputation of being the most intellectual woman of the seventeenth century. In 1635, when nearly thirty years of age, she married M. Dacier, the favorite pupil of her father, librarian to the king and translator of Plutarch--a man of no means, but one who thoroughly appreciated the worth of Mlle. Lefevre. This union was spoken of by her contemporaries as "the marriage of Greek and Latin."

Two years after their marriage, after long and serious deliberation, both abjured Protestantism, adopted the Catholic religion, and succeeded in converting the whole town of Castres--an act which gained them royal favor, and Louis XIV. granted them a pension of two thousand livres. Sainte-Beuve states that their conversion was perfectly sincere and conscientious. In all their subsequent works were seen traces of Mme. Dacier's powerful intellect, which was much superior to that of her husband. Boileau said: "In their production of _esprit_, it is Mme. Dacier who is the father."

Besides her translations of the plays of Plautus, all of Terence, the _Clouds_ and _Plutus_ of Aristophanes, she published her translation of the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_ (1711-1716), which gave her a prominent place in the history of French literature, especially as it appeared at the time of the "quarrels of the ancients and moderns," which concerned the comparative merits of ancient and modern literature.

Mme. Dacier thoroughly appreciated the grandeur of Homer and knew the almost insurmountable difficulties of a translation; therefore, when in 1714 the _Iliad_ appeared in verse (in twelve songs by La Motte-Houdart), preceded by a discourse on Homer, in which the author announced that his aim was to purify and embellish Homer by ridding him "of his barbarian crudeness, his uncivil familiarities, and his great length," the ire of Mme. Dacier was aroused, and in defence of her G.o.d she wrote her famous _Des Causes de la Corruption du Gout_ (Causes of the Corruption of Taste), a long defence of Homer, to which La Motte replied in his _Reflexions de la Critique_ This rekindled the whole controversy, and sides were immediately formed.

Mme. Dacier was not politic; although she sustained her ideas well and displayed much erudition and depth of reason, she is said to have injured her cause by the violence of her polemic. Her immoderate tone and bitter a.s.saults upon the elegant and discerning favorite only detracted from his opponent's favor and grace. Voltaire said: "You could say that the work of M. de La Motte was that of a woman of _esprit_, while that of Mme. Dacier was of a _homme savant_. He translated the _Iliad_ very poorly, but attacked very well." Mme.

Dacier's translation remained a standard for two centuries. She and her adversary became reconciled at a dinner given by M. de Valincour for the friends of both parties; upon that festive occasion, "they drank to the health of Homer, and all was well."

Mme. Dacier died in 1720. "She was a _savante_ only in her study or when with savants; otherwise, she was unaffected and agreeable in conversation, from the character of which one would never have suspected her of knowing more than the average woman." She was an incessant worker and had little time for social life; in the evening, after having worked all morning, she received visits from the literary men of France; and, to her credit may it be added, amid all her literary work, she never neglected her domestic and maternal duties.

A woman of an entirely different type from that of Mme. Dacier, one who fitly closes the long series of great and brilliant women of the age of Louis XIV., who only partly resembles them and yet does not quite take on the faded and decadent coloring of the next age, was Mme. de Caylus, the niece of Mme. de Maintenon. It was she who, partly through compulsion, partly of her own free will, undertook the rearing of the young and beautiful Marthe-Marguerite de Villette. Mme. de Maintenon was then at the height of her power, and naturally her beautiful, clever, and witty niece was soon overwhelmed by proposals of marriage from the greatest n.o.bles of France. To one of these, M. de Boufflers, Mme. de Maintenon replied: "My niece is not a sufficiently good match for you. However, I am not insensible to the honor you pay me; I shall not give her to you, but in the future I shall consider you my nephew."

She then married the innocent young girl to the Marquis de Caylus, a debauched, worthless reprobate--a union whose only merit lay in the fact that her niece could thus remain near her at court. At the latter place, her beauty, gayety, and caustic wit, her adaptable and somewhat superficial character and her freedom of manners and speech, did not fail to attract many admirers. Her frankness in expressing her opinions was the source of her disgrace; Louis XIV. took her at her word when she exclaimed, in speaking of the court: "This place is so dull that it is like being in exile to live here," and forbade her to appear again in the place she found so tiresome. Those rash words cost her an exile of thirteen years, and only through good behavior, submission, and piety was she permitted to return.

She appeared at a supper given by the king, and, by the brilliancy of her beauty and _esprit_, she attracted everyone present and soon regained her former favor and friends. From that time she was the constant companion of Mme. de Maintenon, until the king's death, when she returned to Paris; at that place her salon became an intellectual centre, and there the traditions of the seventeenth century were perpetuated.

Sainte-Beuve said that Mme. de Caylus perfectly exemplified what was called urbanity--"politeness in speech and accent as well as in _esprit_." In her youth she was famous for her extraordinary acting in the performance, at Saint-Cyr, of Racine's _Esther_. Mme. de Sevigne wrote: "It is Mme. de Caylus who makes Esther." Her brief and witty _Souvenirs_ (Memoirs), showing marvellous finesse in the art of portraiture, made her name immortal. M. Saint-Amand describes her work thus: