Women Of Modern France Part 15

Mme. du Chatelet was the one great _femme savante_ of that century. In the preface to her _Traduction des Principes Mathematiques de Newton_, Voltaire wrote: "Never was a woman so _savante_ as she, and never did a woman merit less the saying, _she is a femme savante_. She did not select her friends from those circles where there was a war of _esprit_, where a sort of tribunal was established, where they judged their century, by which, in recompense, they were severely judged.

She lived for a long time in societies which were ignorant of what she was, and she took no notice of this ignorance. The words precision, justness, and force are those which correctly describe her elegance.

She would have written as Pascal and Nicole did rather than like Mme.

de Sevigne; but this severe firmness and this tendency of her _esprit_ did not make her inaccessible to the beauties of sentiment."

Maupertuis, the astronomer, wrote: "What a marvel, moreover, to have been able to combine the fine qualities of her s.e.x with the sublime knowledge which we believe uniquely made for us! This enterprising phenomenon will make her memory eternally respected."

CHAPTER IX

SALON LEADERS--(CONTINUED)

MME. NECKER, MME. D'EPINAY, MME. DE GENLIS: MINOR SALONS

It seems strange indeed that in a century in which the universal impulse was toward pleasure, and sameness of personality was visible everywhere, the types of great women showed such an absolute dissimilarity. The contrast between the natural inclinations of Mme.

Necker, the wife of the great minister of finance, and the atmosphere in which she lived, makes the study of her a most interesting one.

Born in Switzerland, the daughter of Curchod, a poor Protestant minister, "with patriarchal morals, solid education, and strong good sense," this moral and stern woman was thrown into the midst of depraved elegance, refined licentiousness, and physical debauchery.

Sincere, chaste, enthusiastic, and essentially religious, she remained so amidst all the corruption and physical and mental degeneracy of the age.

Critics have made much ado over her marriage, a union of pure love and mutual inclinations, amidst the marriages of mere convenience and the gallant liaisons, such as those of Mme. du Deffand and _le President_ Henault, and Mme. d'Epinay and Grimm. The matrimonial selection of Susanne Curchod was natural in a girl of her serious make-up, her moral education and her pure ancestry of the strict Protestant type.

As a girl of sixteen, she had given evidence of remarkable mental ability and had acquired a wide knowledge--physics, Latin, philosophy, metaphysics--when she was sent to Lausanne, possibly with the idea of meeting a future husband with whom she could become thoroughly acquainted before giving up her independence. There she became the centre of a group or academy of young people, who, under her leadership, discussed subjects of every nature. At first she showed a tendency toward _preciosite_ and the spirit of the blue-stocking rather than toward the seriousness and dignity which marked her later career.

It was at Lausanne that she met and fell in love with Gibbon, the English historian; this love affair met with opposition from Gibbon's father, and, after the death of the father of his fiancee, a calamity which left her poor and necessitated her teaching for a living, the Englishman, by his actions and manner toward her, compelled the breaking of their engagement. When, later in life, he went to her salon, they became intimate friends, enjoying "the intellectual union which had been impossible for them in their earlier days."

Thus, at the age of twenty-four, Mlle. Curchod, beautiful, virtuous, and accomplished, and at the height of her reputation in a small town in Switzerland, was left an orphan. She was taken to Paris by Mme. de Vermenoux, a wealthy widow, who was sought in marriage by M. Necker, banker and capitalist; but, as she was unable to make up her mind to a definite answer, his attention was attracted to her young companion.

The result was that, after a few months' sojourn in Paris, Mlle.

Curchod became the wife of M. Necker, an event which caused rejoicing from Lausanne to Geneva. Their characters are well portrayed in two letters, written by them to their friends after their marriage. M.

Necker wrote, in reply to a letter of congratulation:

"Yes, sir; your friend (Mlle. Curchod) was indeed willing to have me, and I believe myself as happy as one can be. I cannot understand how it can be you whom they congratulate, unless it is as my friend. Will money always be the measure of opinion? That is pitiable! He who wins a virtuous, kind, and sensible woman--has he not made a good transaction, whether or not she be seated on sacks of money? Humanity, what a poor judge you are!"

Shortly after her marriage, Mme. Necker wrote to one of her friends: "My dear, I have married a man who, according to my ideas, is the kindest of mortals, and I am not the only one to judge thus. I had had a liking for him ever since I learned to know him. At present, I see, in all nature, only my husband. I take notice of other men only in so far as they come more or less up to the standard of my husband, and I compare them only for the pleasure of seeing the difference." The marital relations of this loving pair lasted throughout life; and among great women of the eighteenth century, Mme. Necker is one of the few examples of ideal marriage relations.

Soon after their marriage, the Neckers took up their quarters at the Rue Michel-le-Comte, where they began to receive friends. As at that time every day in the week was reserved by other salons,--Monday and Wednesday at Mme. Geoffrin's, Tuesday at Helvetius's, Thursday and Sunday at the Baron d'Holbach's,--Mme. Necker was compelled to appoint Friday as her reception day. She soon succeeded in attracting to her hotel the best _esprit_ of Paris: Diderot, Suard, Grimm, Comte de Schomberg, Marmontel, D'Alembert, Thomas, Saint-Lambert, Helvetius, Ducis, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, the Abbes Raynal, Armand, and Morellet, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du Deffand, Mme. de Marchais, Mme.

Suard, the Marechale de Luxembourg, the d.u.c.h.esse de Lauzun, the Marquise de La Ferte-Imbault, Mme. de Boufflers.

Among these visitors, most of whom were atheists, Mme. Necker preserved her own religious opinions and piety, although her friends at Geneva never ceased to be concerned about her. Her admirers were many, but they were kept within the bounds of propriety and never attempted any gallant liberties with the hostess--except her ardent admirer Thomas, the intensity of whose eulogies upon her she was forced to check occasionally. It was not long before she became very influential in filling the vacant seats of the Academy. In this and many other respects, her salon may be compared with that of Mme. de Lambert.

Mme. Necker's idea of conducting a salon and its conversation was much the same as the management of a state; she believed that the hostess must never join in the conversation as long as it goes on by itself, but, ever watchful, must never permit disturbances, disagreements, improprieties, or obstacles; she must animate it if it languish; she must see that conversation never takes a dangerous, disagreeable, or tiresome turn, and that it never brings into undue prominence one man especially, as this makes others jealous and displeases the entire society; it must always interest and include all members. The discussions at Mme. Necker's were literary and philosophical; and to prevent even the possibility of tedium, frequent readings were given in their place.

It was at the salon of Mme. Necker that Bernardin de Saint-Pierre first read his _Paul et Virginie_, which received such a cold and indifferent welcome that the author, utterly discouraged, was on the point of burning his ma.n.u.script, when he was prevailed upon by his friend Vernet, the great artist, to preserve all his works. Mme.

Necker was always quite frank and outspoken, often showing a cutting harshness and a rigor which, as was said, was little in harmony with her bare neck and arms--a style then in vogue at court. She never judged persons by their reputations, but by their _esprit_; thus, it was possible for her to receive people of the most diverse tendencies.

When the Marquise de La Ferte-Imbault, one of the few virtuous women of the time, and of the highest aristocracy, was invited to attend the salon of Mme. Necker and was told that the Marechale de Luxembourg, Mme. du Deffand, Mme. de Boufflers, and Mme. Marchais were frequenters, she said: "These four women are so discredited by manners, and the first two are so dangerous, that for thirty years they have been the horror of society."

The two portraits by Marmontel and Galiani are interesting, as throwing light upon the doings of her salon. Marmontel wrote: "Mme.

Necker is very virtuous and instructed, but emphatic and stiff. She does not know Mme. de Sevigne, whom she praises, and only esteems Buffon and Thomas. She calculates all things; she sought men of letters only as trumpets to blow in honor of her husband. He never said a word; that was not very recreating."

Galiani leaves a different impression: "There is not a Friday that I do not go to your house _en esprit_. I arrive, I find you now busy with your headdress, now busy with this d.u.c.h.ess. I seat myself at your feet. Thomas quietly suffers, Morellet shows his anger aloud. Grimm and Suard laugh heartily about it, and my dear Comte de Greuze does not notice it. Marmontel finds the example worthy to be imitated, and you, madame, make two of your most beautiful virtues do battle, bashfulness and politeness, and in this suffering you find me a little monster more embarra.s.sing than odious. Dinner is announced. They leave the table and in the cafe all speak at the same time. M. Necker thinks everything well, bows his head and goes away."

In summer her receptions were first held at the Chateau de Madrid, and, later on, in a chateau at Saint-Ouen; the guests were always called for and returned in carriages supplied by the hostess. It was in her salon, in 1770, that the plan originated to erect the statue of Voltaire, which is to-day the famous statue of the _Palais de l'Inst.i.tute_.

When, during the stirring times before the Revolution, her salon took on a purely political nature, Mme. Necker played a very secondary role. In 1788 she and her husband were compelled to leave Paris; but being recalled by Louis XVI., Necker managed affairs for thirteen months, after which he retired with Mme. Necker to Coppet, where, in 1794, the latter died.

Mme. Necker never became a thorough Frenchwoman; she always lacked the grace and charm which are the necessary qualifications of a salon leader; intelligence was her most meritorious quality. Her dinners were apt to become tiresome and to drag. A very interesting story is told of her by the Marquis de Chastellux, which was reported by Mme.

Genlis, one of her intimate friends:

"Dining at Mme. Necker's, the marquis was first to arrive, and so early that the hostess was not yet in the salon. In walking up and down the room, he noticed a small book under Mme. Necker's chair. He picked it up and opened it. It was a blank book, a few of the pages of which had been written upon by Mme. Necker. Certainly, he would not have read a letter, but, believing to find only a few spiritual thoughts, he read without any scruples. It contained the plan for the dinner of that day, to which he had been invited, and had been written by Mme. Necker on the previous evening. It told what she would say to the most prominent of the invited guests. She wrote: 'I shall speak to the Chevalier de Chastellux about public felicity and Agatha; to M.

d'Angeviller, I shall speak of love; between Marmontel and Guibert I shall raise some literary discussion.' After reading the note, he hurriedly replaced the book under the chair. A moment later, a valet entered, saying that madame had left her notebook in the salon. The dinner was charming for M. de Chastellux, because he had the pleasure of hearing Mme. Necker say, word for word, what she had written in her notebook."

This woman was ever preoccupied with style, and, throughout her life, retained the solemn, studied, and academic air, as well as the simple, rural, innocent manner and spirit of her early surroundings. A mere bourgeoise, unaccustomed to elegance or to the manners of French social life, upon entering Parisian society she set her mind to observing, and immediately began to change her provincial ways and to make over her _esprit_ for conversation, for circ.u.mstances, and for characters; she adjusted her provincial spirit to that of Paris, thus making of it an entirely new product. Later on, her salon became the first of the modern political salons, but it was far from reaching the prominence of that of Mme. Geoffrin, whose characteristics were social prudence and strict propriety, while those of Mme. Necker were virtue and goodness.

Mme. Necker was never in perfect sympathy with her visitors, the philosophers, the common basis of ideas and sentiments never existing between her and her friends as it did between Mme. Geoffrin and her frequenters; her tie was always artificial. "She represented the Swiss spirit in Parisian society; those serious and educated souls, virtuous and sentimental, somewhat sad and strictly moral, were rather tiresome to the Parisian world." Marmontel well describes her in another of his famous portraits:

"A stranger to the customs of Paris, Mme. Necker had none of the charms and accomplishments of the young French woman. In her manner and language she had neither the air nor the tone of a woman reared in the school of arts, formed at the school of high society.

Without taste in her headdress, without ease in her bearing, without fascination in her politeness, her mind--as was her countenance--was too properly adjusted to show grace. But a charm more worthy of her was that of propriety, of candor, of goodness. A virtuous education and solitary studies had given to her all that culture can add to an excellent nature. In her, sentiment was perfect, but her thought was often confused and vague; instead of clearing her ideas, meditation disturbed them; in exaggerating them, she believed to enlarge them; in order to extend them, she wandered off into abstractions and hyperboles. She seemed to see certain objects only through a fog, which augmented their importance in her eyes; and then her expression became so inflated that the pomposity of it would have been laughable if one had not known her to be entirely ingenuous."

"In summing up the character of Mme. Necker, we find," says Sainte-Beuve, "first of all, a genuine individuality and a personality with defects which at first impression are shocking, but which only helped to render the woman and all her aspirations the more admirable.

Entering a Parisian society with the firm decision of becoming a woman of _esprit_ and of being in relation with the _beaux esprits_, she was able to preserve the moral conscience of her Protestant training, to protest against the false doctrines about her, to give herself up to duties in the midst of society, to found inst.i.tutions for the sick and needy,--and to leave a memory without a stain."

While, among the famous salon leaders of the eighteenth century, Mme.

Necker stands out preeminently for her strict moral integrity and fidelity to her marriage relations, Mme. d'Epinay is unique for the constancy of her affections for the men to whom she owes her celebrity, Rousseau and Grimm. Born in 1725, the record of her life runs like that of most French women. At the age of twenty she was married to her cousin, La Live, who later took the name of d'Epinay, from an estate his father, the wealthy M. de Bellegarde, had bought--a man who was really in love with her for a whole month after their marriage, but who, tiring of the pure affections of a loving wife, soon began to lavish his time and fortune upon a _danseuse_. The poor young wife was between two fires, the extravagance and wild dissipations of her husband and the rigid discipline and orthodoxy of her mother. Never was a woman treated so outrageously and insultingly as was this woman by a man who contrived in every manner to corrupt her morals by throwing her among his dissolute companions, Mme.

d'Artz, the mistress of the Prince de Conti, and Mlle. d'Ette, an intriguing woman of the time; to the latter, Mme. d'Epinay confided her troubles, and, as the result of her counsels, fell into the hands of a M. de Francueil, handsome, clever, accomplished, but as morally depraved as was her husband.

When Mme. d'Epinay was finally convinced that her husband was untrue to her, she felt nothing but disdain and contempt for him, and decided to live a virtuous life; after holding for a short time to her resolution "that a woman may have the most profound and tender sentiment for a man and yet remain faithful to her duties," she lost herself under the influence of the professional seducer Francueil, and, completely carried away by that pa.s.sion, she cries out, in her memoirs: _Francueil, Francueil, tu m'as perdue, et tu disais que tu m'aimais_ [You have undone me--and you said you loved me]! Such was the lot, as was seen, of most women of those days, who had n.o.ble intentions, but a woman's weakness. The century did not demand faithfulness to the marital vows; but when a woman had once abandoned herself to love, it required that the attachment be to a man of honor and standing. Marriage was simply a preliminary step to freedom; after that ceremony came the natural election of the heart and mutual tenderness of the beings who could be mated only through the freedom which married life afforded. A superior illegitimate liaison was nothing unnatural--on the contrary, it was but a natural human selection; such was the nature of the affection of Mme. d'Epinay for this debauche Francueil.

As she enjoyed absolute liberty, her lover paid his respects to her at Epinay; there he inaugurated amus.e.m.e.nts and took his friends. It was he who suggested the erection of a theatre at which her friends'

productions might be offered to the world of critics. Through his efforts, the great men who made her salon famous were gathered at "La Chevrette," where the actors and players soon drew the attention of literary Paris. After a year or two of attachment, Francueil became indifferent to Mme. d'Epinay and transferred his affections to an actress--the sister of M. d'Epinay's mistress. Thus runs the story of the life of the average married woman. If she remained virtuous, she usually became resigned to her fate and lived happily; if she undertook to imitate her husband's tactics, she fell from the good graces of one lover to those of another, ending her life in absolute wretchedness.

These two men--the lover and the husband--carried on with two sisters their licentious living and extravagances to such an extent that the injured wife demanded a separation of her fortune from that of her husband, in which project her father-in-law aided her and gave her thirteen thousand francs income. Mme. d'Epinay, in the midst of success, became acquainted with Mlle. Quinault, the daughter of the famous actor of the time, and herself a great actress. This woman invited Mme. d'Epinay to her so-called salon, which was, possibly, the most licentious and irreligious of the salons then in vogue, where she met Duclos, with whom she immediately formed a strong friendship.

After the death of M. de Bellegarde, her wealth was considerably increased, a piece of good fortune which enabled her to carry out all her plans. It was at this time, 1755, that she induced Rousseau to live in her cottage, "l'Hermitage;" and for about two years she enjoyed perfect happiness with him. By a peculiar freak of fate she fell in with Grimm, who was introduced to her by Rousseau and who had, for some time, been on the hunt for a "faithful mistress." This German by birth, but Frenchman in spirit, had championed her at a dinner, where she was the object of the severest reproach. She had burned the papers of her sister, Mme. de Jully, who had betrayed an honest husband. Stricken with smallpox, just before dying, she confessed all to Mme. d'Epinay. The latter owed Mme. de Jully fifty ecus and the note was among the papers of Mme. de Jully. Mme. d'Epinay was accused of having burned the note to which it was a.s.serted she had access; and Grimm undertook to plead her cause, an act which so elated madame that she turned all her affection upon her defender, whereupon Rousseau departed. Later on, the note having been found, Mme. d'Epinay was completely vindicated. Grimm then became her third lover.

This third marriage, so to speak, was one of reason; the first was one of mere emanc.i.p.ation; the second, one of pa.s.sion and genuine love.

In 1755, worn out physically, she took a trip to Switzerland, to be treated by the famous Dr. Tronchin; there she became so ill that Grimm was summoned. They remained together for about two years, and after her return to Paris she reopened her salon of "La Chevrette." Her reunions partook more of the nature of our house parties; the salon was an immense room, in which the members would pair off and divert themselves as they pleased; in that respect "La Chevrette" was unique. After her fortune, which at one time was quite large, became diminished, partly through her own extravagance and partly through that of her son, who was the very counterpart of his father, she was forced to rent "La Chevrette" and, later on, "La Briche," where she had opened her second salon.

The last years of her life she spent in Paris with Grimm. She had reached such a physical condition that her sufferings could be relieved only by the use of opium. Financial relief came to her in 1783, when the Academy awarded her the Montyon prize, then given for the first time, for her _Conversations d'Emilie_. She died in the same year, surrounded by her dearest friends--Grimm, M. and Mme. Belgunce, and Mme. d'Houdetot.

Mme. d'Epinay, in many respects, was a remarkable woman. Amid all her social duties, with all her physical and mental troubles, she found time to help others and to manage her own business affairs and those of her children, took an active interest in art, music, and literature, raised, with the utmost care, her granddaughter, produced one of the best works of the time for children, made tapestry, and wrote innumerable letters. Her fortune was lost through the reforms of Necker.

She was not a beautiful woman; but she was distinguished by a small, thin figure, an abundance of rich dark hair, which brought out in striking relief the peculiar whiteness of her skin, and large brown eyes. Her five lovers she called her five bears: Rousseau, Grimm, Desmoulin, Saint-Lambert, Gauffecourt. An epistle to Grimm begins thus;

"Moi, de cinq ours la souveraine, Qui leur donne et present des lois, Faut-il que je sois a la fois Et votre esclave et votre reine, O des tyrans le plus tyran?"

[I, sovereign over five bears, Who give and prescribe laws for them-- Must I be your slave and queen at the same time, O among tyrants, the greatest?]

As far as the care of the education of her children is concerned, with its sacrifice and real application to duty, she was sometimes called--and not unadvisedly--the type of the ideal mother. From 1757 on her ideas and thoughts ran to education. Her friends were all of the philosophical trend, and intellectual labor was their chief pleasure. After having pa.s.sed through a career of excitement and love's caprices, she longed for a peaceful, quiet existence; at that point, however, her health gave way, and she entered upon a new territory at Geneva. There she conquered Voltaire, who was profuse with his compliments and kindnesses. Upon her return she became the recognized leader or champion of the philosophic and foreign group and the Encyclopaedists, and was regarded as the central figure of the philosophical movement in general.