Women Of Modern France Part 5

Mme. de Hautefort, while less powerful than Mme. de Chevreuse and of quite a different type, is a.s.sociated with her in the history of the time. Pure, beautiful, and virtuous, she everywhere inspired love and respect; without political aspirations and seeking neither power nor favors, she refused to deliver her soul or betray her friends for Richelieu or Mazarin; she was their enemy, but not their rival.

Because of her desire to serve the queen, of whom she was an intimate friend, and to further her interests, she was connected with the first intrigues of Mme. de Chevreuse, but as an innocent and disinterested party. Louis XIII. conceived an ardent attachment for her, and Richelieu endeavored to win her over to his policies, but she remained faithful to her queen and refused to sacrifice her honor to the king.

The cardinal did not rest until he had prevailed upon the king to exile her, ostensibly for only fifteen days; and as her unselfishness and generosity had made an impression upon the whole court, her departure was much regretted, though no demonstration was made. When, after the king's death, Mme. de Hautefort returned to Paris, she soon reestablished herself in the affection, admiration, and respect of her a.s.sociates.

As Mazarin gained ascendency over Queen Anne, that regent changed her policy and abandoned her former friends. Mme. de Hautefort was opposed to the queen on account of her liaison with her minister and her lack of fidelity to those who, in time of trouble, had served her so well.

As _dame d'atours_, she was forced either to close her eyes to all scenes between the cardinal and Anne or to combat the regent and resign. She was not to be tempted by the honors and favors with which the two sought to purchase her criminal connivance or her silence; preferring poverty and exile to a guilty conscience, she soon retired to the convent of the Daughters of Sainte-Marie, where she was followed by her admirers, who were willing to place themselves and their fortunes at her disposal. At the age of thirty she accepted the hand of the Duke of Schomberg, and, away from the court and its intrigues, lived in peace.

Indifferent to the powerful, but kind and compa.s.sionate to the poor and oppressed, Mme. de Hautefort is a type of those great women of the seventeenth century who stood for honor, courage, generosity, sympathy, and virtue; fervently, even austerely, religious, she was yet far removed from anything resembling bigotry. Among the ladies of the Hotel de Rambouillet, she was one of the most popular; her vivacity, modesty, and reserve, combined with a tall figure, imposing bearing, and large, expressive blue eyes, won the hearts of many cavaliers, among whom the most prominent were the Dukes of Lorraine and La Rochefoucauld.

A close second to Mme. de Chevreuse in influence and power, was Mme.

de Longueville, a woman of exquisite and aristocratic beauty, of brilliant mind, and an adept in the art of conversation. Tender and kind, but ambitious, she, like many others of her time and s.e.x, had two distinct periods--one of conquest and one of penitence and pious devotion.

Born in a prison at Vincennes during the captivity of her father, the great Henry of Bourbon, Prince of Conde, she in time developed remarkable personal charms. Her early days were spent at the convent of the Carmelites and at the Hotel de Rambouillet, her mind--in these opposite worlds of religion and society--being divided between pious meditations and romantic dreams. At the time of the execution at Toulouse of her uncle, M. de Montmorency, she seriously considered entering the Carmelite convent.

Upon making her social debut, she immediately became one of the leaders about whom all the gallants gathered. She formed a fast friendship with Mme. de Sable, Mme. de Rambouillet, Mme. de Bouteville, and Mlle. du Vigean. Her beauty, which was quite phenomenal, soon became the subject of poetry. Voltaire wrote:

"De perles, d'astres et de fleurs, Bourbon, le ciel fit tes couleurs, Et mit dedans tout ce melange L'esprit d'un ange!

L'on jugerait par la blancheur De Bourbon, et par sa fraicheur, Qu'elle a prit naissance des lis."

[The heaven made thy colors, Bourbon, of pearls, of stars, of flowers, and to all this mixture added the spirit of an angel. One would judge by the whiteness and freshness of Bourbon that she was born of the lilies.]

In 1642, at the age of twenty-three, she was married, against her will, to M. de Longueville who was, after the princes of the blood, the greatest seigneur of France; he was old and indifferent, and enamored of another woman, while she was young and full of hopes, ambitions, and love. His conduct, being anything but correct, immediately set the young wife, with her instincts of refinement and principles and habits of the _precieuses_, against her husband. The advent of a rival in the person of Mme. de Montbazon, one of the most noted beauties of the day, made the state of affairs even more unpleasant, the humiliation being so much keener because it was on account of her charms that Montbazon was preferred to the wife. The latter's fate was a cruel one; she could not respect her husband, and, for her, respect was the only road to love. She continued to live at the Hotel de Longueville and to attend all court functions, where, through her beauty, she early became the object of much attention from the young lords, among whom Coligny seemed to impress her more than any other.

About this time occurred the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII., and the Importants, flocking to Paris to regain their rights and to share in the spoils of the new regency, began to make themselves felt. The leaders expected great favors from Anne of Austria who had been forced into obedience by the cardinal, but she was a great disappointment to them. A born lady of leisure, she was only too glad to be relieved of the arduous duties of government, and this her minister, Mazarin, quickly proceeded to do; his first object was to crush the influence of the Importants, who were very powerful in the salons, society, and politics.

The house of Conde declared in favor of Mazarin, but at first this did not affect Mme. de Longueville, whose kindness of heart and indifference to politics and intrigues were generally known. Probably, she never would have taken a part in the Fronde had it not been for the rival who had been seeking, by every possible means, to injure her reputation--a design which Mme. de Montbazon well-nigh accomplished by declaring that two letters which, at a reception, had fallen from the pocket of Coligny had been written by Mme. de Longueville. In reality, they had been written by Mme. de Fouquerolles to the Marquis of Maulevrier. Mme. la Princesse, mother of Mme. de Longueville demanded full reparation, threatening that unless it was at once granted the house of Conde would withdraw from court, and Mazarin managed to induce the queen to compel Mme. de Montbazon to apologize publicly. It may be of interest to give, in full, the apology, to show the nature of court etiquette, hypocrisy, and intrigue of that day. Mme. de Montbazon called at the hotel of the princess and spoke the following words, which were written on a paper attached to her fan: "Madame, I come here to attest that I am innocent of the spitefulness of which they accuse me, there being no person of honor capable of uttering such a calumny; and if I had committed such a crime, I would have submitted to the punishments that the queen would have imposed upon me, would never have shown myself before the world again, and would have asked your pardon. I beg you to believe that I shall never be lacking in the respect that I owe you because of the opinion which I have of the merit and virtue of Mme. de Longueville." To which the princess replied: "I very willingly receive the a.s.surance you give me of having had no part in the spitefulness that was published, deferring all to the order the queen has given me."

After this episode, the princess refused to be in the same place with Mme. de Montbazon. On one occasion, Mme. de Chevreuse had invited the queen to a collation at a place where the queen enjoyed walking; she requested the princess to join her, giving her word of honor that Mme.

de Montbazon would not be there; she was present, however, and the princess was about to leave when the queen ordered Mme. de Montbazon to feign illness and retire; this she refused to do and remained, whereupon the queen and the princess left, and shortly afterward Mme.

de Montbazon received orders to leave Paris.

This excited the Importants to fever heat and a plot was formed, with Mme. de Chevreuse as the leader, to a.s.sa.s.sinate the cardinal. Shortly after this, Coligny, as champion of the cause of Mme. de Longueville, challenged the Duc de Guise to a duel. The whole court was made up of two parties: the Importants with Mme. de Montbazon and Mme. de Chevreuse; and Conde and Mme. de Longueville with their friends; the result was the death of Coligny. Mme. de Longueville was a true _precieuse_ and hardly loved Coligny, but allowed him and any other to serve and adore her in a respectable way--a principle followed by the better women of the age, such as Mme. de Rambouillet and Mme. de Sable.

Some time after these occurrences, Mme. de Longueville was stricken with smallpox which, fortunately, did not impair her beauty; it was said, on the contrary, that in taking away its first flower it left all the brilliancy which, joined to her culture and charming languor, made her one of the most attractive persons in France. La Rochefoucauld has left the following picture of her: "This princess had all the advantages of _esprit_ and beauty to as great a degree as if nature had taken pleasure in completing, in her person, a perfect work; but these qualities shone less brilliantly on account of one characteristic which led her to imbibe so thoroughly the sentiments of those who adored her that she no longer recognized her own."

After her twenty-fifth year, Mme. de Longueville became more and more imbued with the general spirit of the seventeenth century: coquetry and _bel esprit_ became her chief occupation. The glory of her brother, the Duc d'Enghien, who was rapidly becoming a power, and the probability of the house of Conde becoming dangerous, made Mazarin realize that Mme. de Longueville was to be reckoned with, inasmuch as she had full control over D'Enghien and was constantly instilling new ideas into his mind and requesting from him the distribution of all sorts of favors. Mazarin, in 1646, succeeded in causing her withdrawal to Munster for one year; there she ruled as queen of the Congress. On the death of her father, the Prince of Conde, and at the request of her mother to come home for her lying-in, the husband of Mme. de Longueville consented to her return to Paris.

In the meantime, everything was being done by the Importants to win over the house of Conde and cause a breach between it and Mazarin.

The court at this time was in full glory; to amuse the queen-regent, Mazarin was lavishing money on artists from Italy, and the n.o.bility outdid itself in its attempts to rival royalty in elegance and luxury.

Upon her return, everyone paid homage to Mme. de Longueville; it was at this period that La Rochefoucauld, who was anxious about his position at court, as he was accused of being in league with the Importants and was therefore refused the favors he desired, met Mme.

de Longueville who was in the height of her glory and in full control of the most prominent house of the time--that of the Duc d'Enghien and the Prince de Conti, her brothers.

In order to conquer for himself what the cardinal would not grant him, La Rochefoucauld put forth every effort to win Mme. de Longueville; captivated by his fine appearance, his chivalry and, above all, by his powerful intellect, she gave herself up entirely, willing to share his destiny, to sacrifice all her interests, even those of her family, and the deepest sentiment of her life--the tenderness for her brother.

France at this time, 1648, was in a position to gain for herself a peace with the world at her own terms, and her future seemed to be without a cloud. It was the Fronde that checked her growth and glory, and the cause of this was the estrangement of the house of Conde through the action of Mme. de Longueville in pa.s.sing with her husband over to the party of the Importants, she being the first of her family to forsake the government. Under the leadership of La Rochefoucauld, she cast her lot with the opposing party, allowing herself to be identified with the interests of those who had endeavored to tarnish her early reputation. Becoming a leader with Mme. de Chevreuse and Mme. de Montbazon (her rival), she easily won over her young brother, the Prince de Conti. After the imprisonment of her husband and her two brothers, she began her real career as a woman of tactics, politics, and generalship.

With the connivance of Mme. de Chevreuse and the Princess Palatine, a general plan had been formed to create a new government by the union of the aristocracy. The marriage, already spoken of, between the Duke of Enghien and one of the daughters of the Duke of Orleans and that arranged between the Prince of Conti and the daughter of Mme. de Chevreuse were to have united the Fronde with the house of Conde. The alliances, however, were declared off, and Mme. de Chevreuse went over to the cardinal and the queen; Conde's fall and Mazarin's success followed, being the result, mainly, of the determination of Mme. de Chevreuse to avenge herself upon Conde for having consented to the breaking of the marriage contracts.

Mme. de Longueville did all in her power to continue the conflict that Conde had undertaken, but, exhausted by continual excitement and ill success, she was compelled to retire. After this, her life, spent in Normandy, at the Carmelites' convent and at Port Royal, became a long penance, which increased in austerity until she died in 1679. Thus, her career was at first one of unblemished brilliancy, then a period of elegant and intellectual debauch, and finally one of expiation.

"Her politics," says Sainte-Beuve, "considered in the _ensemble_, are nothing more than a desire to please, to shine--a capricious love. Her character lacked consistency and self-will, her mind was keen, ready, subtle, ingenious, but not reasonable."

In her convent life, her crowning virtue was humility. Her enemies did not cease to attack her, but she received all their affronts with the n.o.blest resignation. The following testimonies are taken from a Jansenist ma.n.u.script of 1685:

"She never said anything to her own advantage. She made use of as many occasions as she could find for humiliating herself without any affectation. What she said, she said so well that it could not be better said. She listened much, never interrupted, and never showed any eagerness to speak. She spoke sensibly, modestly, charitably, and without pa.s.sion. To court her was to speak with equity and without pa.s.sion of everyone and to esteem the good in all. Her whole exterior, her voice, her face, her gestures, were a perfect music; and her mind and body served her so well in expressing what she wished to make heard, that she appeared the most perfect actress in the world."

Her love for La Rochefoucauld was the secret of her failure in life.

When she experienced the disappointments of her married life and discovered that her dream of being loved by her husband could not be realized, she looked to other sources for diversion. She was not an intriguing woman like Mme. de Chevreuse, but one of ambitions which were incited by her love for and interest in the objects of her affection. Although she carried on flirtations with Coligny and the Duke of Nemours, she really loved no one but La Rochefoucauld, to whom she sacrificed her reputation and tranquillity, her duties and interests. For him she took up the cause of the Fronde; for him she was a mere slave, her entire existence being given up to his love, his whims, his service; when he failed her, she was lost, exhausted, and retired to a convent at the age of thirty-five and in the full bloom of her beauty. Her professed lover simply used her as a means to an end, seeking only his own interests in the Fronde, while she sought his; and this is the explanation of her seeming inconsistency of conduct. In her religious life she was happy and contented; surrounded by her friends, she lived peacefully for over twenty years.

Thus, Marie de' Medici, a foreigner, Mme. de Chevreuse, and Mme. de Longueville represent the political women of the first half of the seventeenth century; Anne of Austria, who was of foreign extraction, was a mere tool in the hands of Mazarin, and exerted little influence in general.

One of the princ.i.p.al differences between the conspicuous political women of the sixteenth and those of the seventeenth centuries lies in the possession by the latter of less personal force than that wielded by the former, who allowed nothing to thwart their plans. The women of both periods were beautiful, but those of the earlier one were of a magnetic and sensual type, "inspiring insensate pa.s.sions and exciting a feverish unrest," thus ruling man through his lower instincts. The lack of refinement, sympathy, and charity reflected in their actions is in glaring contrast to the dignity, repose, reserve, and womanly modesty and grace displayed by their less masterful successors of the seventeenth century.

CHAPTER IV

WOMAN IN SOCIETY AND LITERATURE

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, after the death of Henry IV., there were three cla.s.ses in France,--the n.o.bility, clergy, and third estate,--each with a distinct field of action: the n.o.bility dominated customs, morality, and the government; the clergy supervised instruction and education; the third estate furnished the funds, that is, its work made possible the operations of the other cla.s.ses.

At court, various dialects and diverse p.r.o.nunciations were in use by the representatives of the different provinces; the written language, though understood generally, was not used. Warriors were largely in evidence among the members of the n.o.bility and court; entirely indifferent to decency of expression, purity of morals, and refinement of manners, and even boasting of their scorn of all restrictions, they took their boisterous rudeness into the drawing room where their influence was unlimited. The king, being of the same cla.s.s, knew no better, or, if he did, had not the moral courage to compel a change; thus, the inst.i.tution of a reformatory movement fell to the lot of woman.

Then, however, woman was but little better than man; to gain his esteem, she would first have to make radical changes in her own behavior and become self-respecting. The customs of the time placed many disadvantages in the way of her social and moral reform. As a rule, the young girl was confined to a convent until she reached marriageable age; when that came and with it an undesired husband, she was ready for almost any prank that would relieve the monotony of her uncongenial marital relations. The convents themselves were so corrupt or so easily corruptible, that, very frequently, young girls did not leave them with unstained purity. To certain of these inst.i.tutions, women and men of standing often bought the privilege of access at any time, to drink, dine, sleep, or attend sacred exercises with other persons; thus, libertinage was not uncommon within the walls of those so-called religious establishments.

Mme. de Rambouillet felt most keenly the degradation of woman and resolved to act against it by combating everything that could offend taste or delicacy. As in the beginning of every great age, all things tended to greatness. A period of discipline and coordination set in, and elegance, grace, and refinement became the most p.r.o.nounced characteristics of the time; rough, crude, robust, vigorous, and energetic characteristics, combined with coa.r.s.eness and brutality, were eliminated during the seventeenth century. The women who caused this general purification of morals and language were given the name of _precieuses_ and the movement that of _preciosite_.

The extent to which the _precieuses_ went in inventing locutions by which they were to be recognized as elegant, is generally exaggerated; Livet says that out of six hundred women hardly thirty could be accused of such fatuity. The wiser and more conservative women did adopt a large number of expressions which were necessary for refinement of language and these cla.s.sicisms were exaggerated by some of the provincial cla.s.ses who received their expressions from books and the theatre; such authors as Corneille, etc., were studied and their poetic licenses introduced into spoken language. These follies, pictured by Moliere, naturally afforded much amus.e.m.e.nt in cultured circles where every event of the day was discussed, from the vital affairs of the government to the aesthetic interests of art and literature.

The tremendous vogue of the seventeenth century salons or drawing rooms naturally gave a stimulus to literature; but, as they were so numerous and as each one claimed its large coterie of literary men, they proved to be disastrous to some while helpful to others. Two distinct cla.s.ses of writers arose: the one, serious, elevated, thoughtful, cla.s.sical, and independent of the salon, is well represented by Moliere, Pascal, Boileau; the other, light, affected, gallant, superficial, was composed of the innumerable unimportant writers of the day.

The salon movement must not be confounded with two other social movements or forces--those of court and society; while at the former all was formality, the latter was still gross and brutish. The Marquis de Caze, at a supper seized a leg of mutton and struck his neighbor in the face with it, sprinkling her with gravy, whereupon she laughed heartily; the Count of Bregis, slapped by the lady with whom he was dancing, tore off her headdress before the whole company; Louis XIII., noticing in the crowd admitted to see him dine a lady dressed too _decollete_, filled his mouth with wine and squirted the liquid into the bosom of the unfortunate girl; the Prince of Conde, indulging in customary brutishness, ate dung and had the ladies follow his example; these are fair ill.u.s.trations of social _elegances_.

As will be seen, nothing of this nature occurred in the salon of Mme.

de Rambouillet, whose object was to charm her leisure hours, distract and amuse the husband whom she adored, and be agreeable to her friends. Her amus.e.m.e.nts were most original--concerts, mythological representations, suppers, fireworks, comedies, readings, always something new, often in the form of a surprise or a joke. Of the latter, the best known is the one played on the Count of Guise whose fondness for mushrooms had become proverbial; on one occasion when he had consumed an immense number of them at table, his valet, who had been bribed, took in all his doublets; on trying to put them on again, he found them too narrow by fully four inches. "What in the world is the matter--am I all swollen--could it be due to having eaten too many mushrooms?" "That is quite possible," said Chaudebonne; "yesterday you ate enough of them to split." All the accomplices joined in ridiculing him, and he began to squirm and show a somewhat livid color. Ma.s.s was rung, and he was compelled to attend in his chamber robe. Laughing, he said: "That would be a fine end--to die at the age of twenty-one from having eaten too many mushrooms." In the meantime, Chaudebonne advised the use of an antidote which he wrote and handed to the count, who read: "Take a good pair of scissors and cut your doublet." Only then did the victim comprehend the joke.

One day, Voiture, having met a bear trainer, took him with his animals to the room of the Marquise de Rambouillet; she, turning at the noise, saw four large paws resting upon her screen. She readily forgave the author of the surprise. Du Bled relates many more of these innocent jokes.

Among the congenial people of the salons, the relations were always of the most cordial, friendly, free, and intimate nature; they were like the members of a large family. By them, love was not considered a weakness but a mark of the elevation of the soul, and every man had to be sensitive to beauty. When the d.u.c.h.esse d'Aiguillon presented to society her nephew, who later became the Duke of Richelieu, she advised and encouraged him to complete his education and make of himself an _honnete homme_ by a.s.sociation with the elder Mlle. du Vigean and other women; the object of this procedure was to polish his manners, elevate his instincts, and develop ease in deportment toward the ladies. There was no hint of the vulgar or licentious pleasures which became the characteristics of love in the eighteenth century.

The woman who inaugurated the movement toward purity of morals, decency of language, polish of manners, and courtesy to woman, was Mme. de Rambouillet. Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet, whose mother was a great Roman lady and whose father had been amba.s.sador to Rome, inherited that pride of race and independence of spirit for which she was so well known. In 1600, she was married, at the age of twelve, to the Marquis de Rambouillet who was her senior by eleven years, but who treated her with deference and respect rare at that time. Husband and wife were perfectly congenial, and their happy and peaceful life was a great contrast to that led by the majority of the married couples of the day. Absolutely irreproachable in conduct, she set a worthy example for all women who knew her.

Her high ideals, independence of character, family duties, and the general debauchery, which was incompatible with her rigid chast.i.ty and "precocious wisdom," caused her to withdraw from the court in 1608; two years later, she decided to open her salon to such aristocratic and cultured persons as appreciated womanly grace, wit, and taste. Her familiarity with Italian and Spanish history and art placed her at the head of intellectual as well as moral movements. She surrounded herself with the distinguished men and women of the day, and her salon, which in every detail was decorated and arranged for pleasure, immediately became, through the exquisite charm with which she presided, the one goal of the cultured; her blue room was the sanctuary of polite society and she was its high priestess.

The highest ambition of the _habitue_ of the salon was to sing, dance, and converse artistically and with refinement. A reaction against the general social state immediately set in, even the brusque warriors acquiring a refinement of speech and manners; and as conversation developed and became a power, the great lords began to respect men of letters and to cultivate their society. Anyone who possessed good manners, vivacity, and wit was admitted to the salon, where a new and more elevating sociability was the aspiration.