INTRODUCTION
The prominent position assumed by women during the eighteenth century has always been considered a characteristic trait of that period. We do not here refer to the intrigues or friendships of the younger women. We allude rather to the influence of women of a certain age, who, as mothers and advisers, formed so powerful an element in society.
The Vicomte de Ségur, in his book upon women, gives us a vivid description of the manner in which this feminine influence made itself felt: “Society,” he says, “was at that time divided into three classes: the young women, women of a certain age, andthose elderly ladies who, receiving every consideration and respect, were regarded as the upholders of established principles, and, in a great measure, the sole arbitrators of taste, tone, and fashion. A young man coming out in society was said to make his ‘debût’ or ‘first appearance.’ He was bound to succeed or fail; that is to say, he had to please or displease these three classes of women, whose sentence determined his reputation, his position at Court, his place and rank, and who nearly always made up an excellent match for him.”
All education, therefore, tended towards the attainment of this favourable object. The father merely directed a tutor to give his son such general and superficial instruction as might inspire the child with a possible taste for some branch of learning later on. But the mother alone imparted to her son that polish, grace, and amiability which sheherself possessed, and to which she knew so much importance was attached. Her self-love and her maternal affection were equally involved. “If a young man,” M. de Ségur again writes, “had been wanting in proper attention towards a lady, or a man older than himself, his mother was sure to be informed of it by her friends the same evening, and the next day the giddy young fellow was certain to be reprimanded!” From this system arose that delicate politeness, that exquisite good taste and moderation in speech, whether discussing or jesting, which constituted the manners of what was termed “Good Society” (La bonne compagnie).
The first question we naturally ask ourselves is: What was the training that so well prepared young girls, when married, to take such a leading part in society? Where had they learnt that consummate art of good taste and tone, that facility of conversation,which enabled them to glance at the lightest subjects, or discuss the most serious topics, with an ease and grace of which Mesdames de Luxembourg, de Boufflers, de Sabran, the Duchesse de Choiseul, the Princesse de Beauvau, the Comtesse de Ségur, and many others, give us such perfect examples? This question is the more difficult to solve from the fact that, although the mothers were much occupied with the education of their sons, we do not find that they concerned themselves in the same degree with that of their daughters. The reason is very simple. At this epoch young girls, especially those of the nobility, were never brought up at home, but were sent to a Convent at five or six years of age. They only left it to marry, and the mother’s influence was entirely absent, or came but late into play. What was, therefore, the conventual education which produced such brilliant results? Webelieve we have found an interesting answer to this question in theMemoirsof the young Princesse Massalska, which are contained in the first part of this work. They show us, without reserve, the strong and the weak points of the training given to girls of good family, future great ladies,—a training which enabled them to play their part on a stage where success awaited them, but whose brilliant scene was so soon to disappear in the storm that was already threatening the political horizon.
It is evident, however, that although this system fulfilled its purpose, it could not entirely replace home education. But where did family life exist in the eighteenth century? Perhaps in the middle classes; but even that is not certain—for they strove to imitate the upper classes; and under the conditions which prevailed at that time amongst the nobility, family life, such as we understand it, was an impossibility.
All gentlemen of good name held an office at Court, or a rank in the army, and consequently lived very little at home. A great many of the female members of the family were attached to the service of the Queen or the Princesses by duties which required their presence at Versailles, and took up half their time. The other half was employed either in paying their court, or in cultivating those accomplishments which were considered so important. They had also to read up the new books, about which they would have to converse in the evening; and as dressing, especially hair-dressing, took up most of the morning, they generally employed in reading the time which the hairdresser devoted to the construction of those wonderful edifices which ladies then carried about on their heads.
All the great houses received daily twenty to twenty-five people to dinner, and the conversationwas hardly of a nature to admit of the presence of young girls. The dinner hour was at one o’clock, they separated at three, and at five went to the theatre, whenever their duties did not summon them to Versailles; after which they returned home, bringing with them as many friends as possible. What time could have been devoted to the children in a day so fully occupied? The mothers felt this, and by placing their daughters in a convent did the best they could for them. But we shall see, by the life of the young Princess herself, how incomplete was an education thus carried on by women, themselves utterly ignorant of the world, and therefore unfit to prepare their pupils for the temptations that there awaited them.
TheseMemoirs, begun by a child of nine years old and continued till she was fourteen, commence with her entry into the Convent and end on the eve of her marriage. Theywere not intended to be published, and have lain by for over a hundred years in their old cases, from whence, with M. Adolphe Gaiffe’s kind permission, we brought them to light, when searching through his splendid libraries at the Château d’Oron and in Paris. There, amongst treasures of the sixteenth century and austere Huguenot authors bound in black shagreen, or dark turkey leather, we found the journals of the little Princesse Massalska, whose bright blue, yellow, and red covers contrasted with those of their sterner neighbours.
Their genuineness is unquestionable. The margins covered with childish caricatures, and scribbled over with her or her companions’ jokes, like any schoolboy’s book; the old yellow-stained paper, the faded ink, the large handwriting, which gradually improves; the incorrect and careless style of the first chapters, which towards the end becomesremarkable for its elegance;—all combine to show us that theseMemoirsare really the production of a precocious and intelligent child.
The Princess died forty years after having written them, and she only mentions them twice in her correspondence. She simply says that one day at Bel Œil, the residence of the Prince de Ligne, her father-in-law, she read some passages of theMemoirsshe wrote when she was a little girl, and that her husband was so amused by them that he wanted to print a couple of chapters in his private printing-press. Twenty years later, during a long winter in Poland, she read them to her daughter, the Princesse Sidonie, and was much pleased at finding her childish recollections so ingeniously expressed.
Our researches have enabled us to test the veracity of theseMemoirs. We found by the records at Geneva how exact is heraccount of Mademoiselle de Montmorency’s death; and the romantic story of Madame de Choiseul Stainville, as related in theMémoiresof Lauzun, in theCorrespondanceof Madame du Deffand, and in theMémoiresof Durfort de Cheverny, confirms and explains the narrative of the little Princess, written forty or fifty years before theseMemoirswere published. She also describes a taking of the veil, of which we have found an official report in the national Archives.[1]After the names of the Abbess and Prioress and other signatures, appears that of the little Princess as one of the witnesses.
Convinced of the exactness of the facts related by Hélène Massalska, it has seemed to us interesting to place before the public this faithful picture of an education in the eighteenth century, with its detailed account of the studies, punishments, rewards, and gamesof the Convent, and its descriptions, often satirical, but always witty, of the mistresses and scholars; in fact, the complete life of a young girl in a Convent from 1772 to 1779. We must add that all worldly gossip did not stop at the Convent door, that many echoes invaded the cloisters, and that the little Princess does not fail to notice them. This is not the least curious side of the book.
After reading these interesting pages, we felt regret at parting so abruptly with the little writer; and we have, thanks to the kindness of our friends and correspondents, been able to reconstruct the history of her life.
The Princesse Massalska, later on Princesse de Ligne, though she did not play a prominent part in history, found herself, through her uncle, the Bishop of Wilna, and her father-in-law and husband, the Princes de Ligne, mixed up with many interestinghistorical events. Besides which, her own life was a most romantic one. The variety of documents we have gathered together, and the brevity of many of the memoranda, have not permitted us to quote them word for word, as we have done in the case of the letters. We have therefore endeavoured to give them a certain unity of style, and to avoid such sudden transitions as might be distasteful to our readers.
FOOTNOTES:[1]Portfolio H. No. 3837, Abbaye-aux-Bois.
[1]Portfolio H. No. 3837, Abbaye-aux-Bois.
[1]Portfolio H. No. 3837, Abbaye-aux-Bois.