The seventeenth century was, in French history, the greatest century from the standpoint of literary perfection, the sixteenth century the richest in naissant ideas, and the eighteenth the greatest in the way of developing and formulating those ideas; and each century produced great women who were in perfect harmony with and expressed the ideals of each period of civilization.
It is not within the limits of reason to expect women to rival, in literature, the great writers such as Corneille, Racine, Molière, Bossuet, La Fontaine, Descartes, Pascal--most of whom were but little influenced by femininity; there were those, however, among the sex, who were conspicuous for elevation of thought, dignity in manner and bearing, and brilliancy in conversation--attributes which they have left to posterity in numberless exquisite and charming letters, in interesting and invaluable memoirs, or in consummate psychological and social portraitures incorporated into the form of novels. Among female writers of letters, Mme. de Sévigné wears the laurel wreath; Mme. de La Fayette, with Mlle. de Scudéry, is the representative of the novel; Mme. Dacier was the great advocate of the more liberal education of women; and theSouvenirsof Mme. de Caylus made that authoress immortal.
The association of La Rochefoucauld, the Cardinal de Retz, the Chevalier de Meré, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mme. de Sévigné, was responsible for almost everything elevating and of interest produced in the seventeenth century. Of that highly intellectual circle, Mme. de Sévigné was the leading spirit by force of her extraordinary faculty for making friends, her wonderful talent as a writer, her originality and her charming disposition. She gave the tone to letters; M. Faguet says that her epistles were all masterpieces of amiable badinage, lively narration, maternal passion, true eloquence. More than that, they are important sources of historical knowledge, inasmuch as they contain much information concerning the politics of the day, and furnish an excellent guide to the etiquette, fashions, tastes, and literature of the writer's period.
Mme. de Sévigné was the most important figure of the time, being to that third prodigiously intellectual epoch of France what Marguerite de Navarre was to the sixteenth century, and the Hôtel de Rambouillet to the beginning of the seventeenth century. She represented the style,esprit, elegance, andgoûtof this greatest of French cultural periods. Her life may be considered as having had two distinct phases--one connected with an unhappy marriage and the other the period of a restless widowhood.
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, Marchioness of Sévigné, was born at Paris, in 1626; at the age of eighteen months she lost her father; at seven years of age, her mother; at eight, her grandmother; at ten, her grandfather on her mother's side; she was thus left with her paternal grandmother, Mme. de Chantal, who had her carefully educated under the best masters, such as Ménage and Chapelain (court favorites), from whom she early imbibed a genuine taste for solid reading; from these instructors she learned Spanish, Italian, and Latin.
In 1644, she was married to the Marquis Henri de Sévigné, who was killed six years later in a duel, but who had, in the meantime, succeeded in making a considerable gap in her immense fortune, in spite of the precautions of her uncle, the Abbé of Coulanges. Henceforward, her interests in life were centred in the education of her two children; to them she wrote letters which have brought her name down to posterity as, possibly, the greatest epistolary writer that the history of literature has ever recorded.
Mme. de Sévigné was but nineteen years old when, after the marriage of Julie d'Angennes, the frequenters of the Hôtel de Rambouillet began to disperse, and she was in much demand by the successors of Mme. de Rambouillet. While the women of the reign of Louis XIII.--Mmes. de Hautefort, de Sablé, de Longueville, de Chevreuse, etc.--were exceedingly talented talkers, they were poor writers: but in Mme. de Sévigné, Mme. de La Fayette, and Mlle. de Scudéry both arts were developed to the highest degree.
Mme. de Sévigné was on the best terms with every great writer of her time--Pascal, Racine, La Fontaine, Bossuet, Bourdaloue, La Rochefoucauld. She was a woman of such broad affections that numerous friends and admirers were a necessary part of her existence. Of all the eminent women of the seventeenth century, she had the greatest number of lovers--suitors who frequently became her tormentors. Ménage, her teacher, who threatened to leave her never to see her again, was brought back to her by kind words, such as: "Farewell, friend--of all my friends the best." The Abbé Marigny, that "delicate epicurean, that improviser of fine triolets, ballads, vaudevilles, that enemy of all sadness and sticklers for morality," charmed her, at times, with sentimental ballads, such as the following:
"Si l'amour est un doux servage,Si l'on ne peut trop estimerLes plaisirs ou l'amour engage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!"Mais si l'on se sent enflammerD'un feu dont l'ardeur est extrême,Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"Si dans la fleur de son bel âge,Une qui pourrait tout charmer,Vous donne son coeur en partage,Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,Craindre, rougir, devenir blême,Aussitôt qu'on s'entend nommer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"Pour complaire au plus beau visageQu'amour puisse jamais former,S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!"Mais quand on se voit consumer.Si la belle est toujours de même,Sans que rien la puisse animer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"L'ENVOI."En amour si rien n'est amer,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!Si tout l'est au degré suprême,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"[If love is a sweet bondage,If we cannot esteem too muchThe pleasures in which love engages,How foolish one is not to love!But if we feel ourselves inflamedWith a passion whose ardor is extreme,And which we dare not express,How foolish we are, then, to love!If in the flower of her youthThere is one who could charm all.And offers you her heart to share,How very foolish not to love!But if we must always be full of alarm--Fear, blush and become pallid,As soon as our name is spoken,How foolish to love!If to please the most beautiful countenanceThat love can ever form,Only a mellow language is necessary,How foolish not to love!But if we see ourselves wasting away,If the belle is always the sameAnd cannot be animated,How very foolish to love!ENVOY.If in love, nothing is bitter,How dreadfully foolish not to love!If everything is so to the highest degree,How awfully foolish to love!]
"Si l'amour est un doux servage,Si l'on ne peut trop estimerLes plaisirs ou l'amour engage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!"Mais si l'on se sent enflammerD'un feu dont l'ardeur est extrême,Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"Si dans la fleur de son bel âge,Une qui pourrait tout charmer,Vous donne son coeur en partage,Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,Craindre, rougir, devenir blême,Aussitôt qu'on s'entend nommer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"Pour complaire au plus beau visageQu'amour puisse jamais former,S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!"Mais quand on se voit consumer.Si la belle est toujours de même,Sans que rien la puisse animer,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"L'ENVOI."En amour si rien n'est amer,Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!Si tout l'est au degré suprême,Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"[If love is a sweet bondage,If we cannot esteem too muchThe pleasures in which love engages,How foolish one is not to love!But if we feel ourselves inflamedWith a passion whose ardor is extreme,And which we dare not express,How foolish we are, then, to love!If in the flower of her youthThere is one who could charm all.And offers you her heart to share,How very foolish not to love!But if we must always be full of alarm--Fear, blush and become pallid,As soon as our name is spoken,How foolish to love!If to please the most beautiful countenanceThat love can ever form,Only a mellow language is necessary,How foolish not to love!But if we see ourselves wasting away,If the belle is always the sameAnd cannot be animated,How very foolish to love!ENVOY.If in love, nothing is bitter,How dreadfully foolish not to love!If everything is so to the highest degree,How awfully foolish to love!]
"Si l'amour est un doux servage,
Si l'on ne peut trop estimer
Les plaisirs ou l'amour engage,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
"Mais si l'on se sent enflammer
D'un feu dont l'ardeur est extrême,
Et qu'on n'ose pas l'exprimer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Si dans la fleur de son bel âge,
Une qui pourrait tout charmer,
Vous donne son coeur en partage,
Qu'on est sot de ne point aimer!
"Mais s'il faut toujours s'alarmer,
Craindre, rougir, devenir blême,
Aussitôt qu'on s'entend nommer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"Pour complaire au plus beau visage
Qu'amour puisse jamais former,
S'il ne faut rien qu'un doux langage,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
"Mais quand on se voit consumer.
Si la belle est toujours de même,
Sans que rien la puisse animer,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!
"L'ENVOI.
"En amour si rien n'est amer,
Qu'on est sot de ne pas aimer!
Si tout l'est au degré suprême,
Qu'on est sot alors que l'on aime!"
[If love is a sweet bondage,
If we cannot esteem too much
The pleasures in which love engages,
How foolish one is not to love!
But if we feel ourselves inflamed
With a passion whose ardor is extreme,
And which we dare not express,
How foolish we are, then, to love!
If in the flower of her youth
There is one who could charm all.
And offers you her heart to share,
How very foolish not to love!
But if we must always be full of alarm--
Fear, blush and become pallid,
As soon as our name is spoken,
How foolish to love!
If to please the most beautiful countenance
That love can ever form,
Only a mellow language is necessary,
How foolish not to love!
But if we see ourselves wasting away,
If the belle is always the same
And cannot be animated,
How very foolish to love!
ENVOY.
If in love, nothing is bitter,
How dreadfully foolish not to love!
If everything is so to the highest degree,
How awfully foolish to love!]
Tréville went so far as to say that the figure of Mme. de Sévigné was beautiful enough to set the world afire. M. du Bled divides her lovers into three classes: the first was composed of her literary friends; the second, of those enamored, impassioned suitors, loving her from good motives or from the opposite, who strove to compensate her for the unfaithfulness of her husband while alive and for the ennui of her widowhood; the third class was composed of her Parisian friends, of whom she had hosts, court habitués who were leaders of society.
Representatives of the second class were the Prince de Conti, the great Turenne, various counts and marquises, and Bussy-Rabutin, who was a type of the sensual lover and the more dangerous on account of the privileges he enjoyed because of his close relationship to Mme. de Sévigné. His portrait of her is interesting: "I must tell you, madame, that I do not think there is a person in the world so generally esteemed as you are. You are the delight of humankind; antiquity would have erected altars to you, and you would certainly have been a goddess of something. In our century, when we are not so lavish with incense, and especially for living merit, we are contented to say that there is not a woman of your age more virtuous and more amiable than are you. I know princes of the blood, foreign princes, great lords with princely manners, great captains, gentlemen, ministers of state, who would be off and away for you, if you would permit them. Can you ask any more?"
Such eulogies came not only from men like the perfidious and cruel cousin, but from her friends everywhere. The finest of these is the one by her friend Mme. de La Fayette, contained in one of the epistolary portraits so much in vogue at that time, and which were turned out,par excellence, in the salon of Mlle. de Luxembourg: "Know, madame,--if by chance you do not already know it,--that your mind adorns and embellishes your person so well that there is not another one on earth so charming as you when you are animated in a conversation in which all constraint is banished. Your soul is great, noble, ready to dispense with treasures, and incapable of lowering itself to the care of amassing them. You are sensible to glory and ambition, and to pleasures you are less so; yet you appear to be born for the latter, and they made for you; your person augments pleasures, and pleasures increase your beauty when they surround you. Joy is the veritable state of your soul, and chagrin is more unlike to you than to anyone. You are the most civil and obliging person that ever lived, and by a free and calm air--which is in all your actions--the simplest compliments of seemliness appear, in your mouth, as protestations of friendship."
The originality which gained Mme. de Sévigné so many friends lay principally in her force, wealth of resource, intensity, sincerity, and frankness. M. Scherer said she possessed "surprises for us, infinite energy, inexhaustible variety--everything that eternally revives interest."
The interest of the modern world in this remarkable woman is centred mainly in her letters. Guizot says: "Mme. de Sévigné is a friend whom we read over and over again, whose emotions we share, to whom we go for an hour's distraction and delightful chat; we have no desire to chat with Mme. de Grignan (her daughter)--we gladly leave her to her mother's exclusive affection, feeling infinitely obliged to her for having existed, inasmuch as her mother wrote letters to her. Mme. de Sévigné's letters to her daughter are superior to all her other epistles, charming as they all are; when she writes to M. Pomponne, to M. de Coulanges, to M. de Bussy, the style is less familiar, the heart less open, the soul less stirred; she writes to her daughter as she would speak to her--it is not a letter, it is an animated and charming conversation, touching upon everything, embellishing everything with an inimitable grace."
She had married her daughter to the Comte de Grignan, a man of forty, twice married, and with children, homely, but wealthy and aristocratic; writing to her cousin, Bussy-Rabutin, concerning this marriage, she said: "All these women (the count's former wives) died expressly to make room for your cousin." By marrying her daughter to such a man she encouraged all the questionable proprieties of the time. Mme. de Sévigné's affection for that daughter amounted almost to idolatry; it was to her that most of the mother's letters were written, telling her of her health, what was being done at Vichy, and about her business and for that child the authoress gave up her life at Paris in order to economize and thereby to help Mme. de Grignan in her extravagance, her son-in-law being an expert in spending money.
The intensity of her nature is well reflected in her letter upon the separation from her daughter: "In vain I seek my darling daughter; I can no longer find her, and every step she takes removes her farther from me. I went to St. Mary's, still weeping and dying of grief; it seemed as if my heart and my soul were being wrenched from me and, in truth, what a cruel separation! I asked leave to be alone; I was taken into Mme. du Housset's room, and they made me up a fire. Agnes sat looking at me, without speaking--that was our bargain. I stayed there till five o'clock, without ceasing to sob; all my thoughts were mortal wounds to me. I wrote to M. de Grignan (you can imagine in what key). Then I went to Mme. de La Fayette's, and she redoubled my griefs by the interest she took in them; she was alone, ill, and distressed at the death of one of the nuns; she was just as I should have desired, I returned hither at eight; but oh, when I came in! can you conceive what I felt as I mounted these stairs? That room into which I always used to go, alas! I found the doors of it open, but I saw everything upturned, disarranged, and your little daughter, who reminded me of mine.... The wakenings of the night were dreadful. I think of you continuously--it is what devotees call habitual thought, such as one should have of God, if one did one's duty. Nothing gives me diversion; I see that carriage which is forever going on and will never come near me. I am forever on the highways; it seems as if I were sometimes afraid that the carriage will upset with me; the rains there for the last three days, drove me to despair. The Rhone causes me strange alarm. I have a map before my eyes--I know all the places where you sleep. This evening you are at Nevers; on Sunday you will be at Lyons where you will receive this letter. I have received only two of yours--perhaps the third will come; that is the only comfort I desire; as for others, I seek none."
The letters of Mme. de Sévigné contain a great number of sayings applicable to habits and conduct, and these have had their part in shaping the customs and in depicting the time. To be modest and moderate, friendly, and conciliatory, to be content with one's lot and to bow to circumstances, to be sincere, to cultivate good sense and good grace--these counsels have been and still are, according to French opinion, the basis of French character: and Mme. de Sévigné's own popularity and success attest their wisdom.
She had not the gift of seeing things vividly and reproducing them in living form; her talent was a rarer one--it induced the reader to form a mental picture of the scene described, so vivid as to be under the illusion of being present in reality; and this is done with so much grace, charm, happy ease and naturalness, that to read her letters means to love the writer. What mother or friend would not fall a willing victim to the charm of a woman who could write the following letter?
"You ask me, my dear child, whether I continue to be really fond of life; I confess to you that I find poignant sorrows in it, but I am even more disgusted with death; I feel so wretched at having to end all thereby, that, if I could turn back again, I would ask for nothing better, I find myself under an obligation which perplexes me; I embark upon life without my consent, and so must I go out of it; that overwhelms me. And how shall I go? Which way? By what door? When will it be? In what condition? Shall I suffer a thousand, thousand pains which will make me die desperate? Shall I have brain fever? Shall I die of an accident? How shall I be with God? What shall I have to show Him? Shall fear, shall necessity bring me back to Him? Shall I have sentiment except that of dread? What can I hope? Am I worthy of heaven? Am I worthy of hell? Nothing is such madness as to leave one's salvation in uncertainty, but nothing is so natural. The stupid life I lead is the easiest thing in the world to understand; I bury myself in these thoughts and I find death so terrible that I hate life more because it leads me thereto, than because of the thorns with which it is planted. You will say that I want to live forever, then; not at all; but, if my opinion had been asked, I would have preferred to die in my nurse's arms; that would have removed me from the vexations of spirit and would have given me heaven full surely and easily."
Mme. de Sévigné never bored her readers with her own reflections. She differed from her contemporaries, who seemed to be dead to nature's beauty, in her striking descriptions of nature. A close observer, she knew how to describe a landscape; animating and enlivening it, and making it talk, she inspired the reader with love of it.
"I am going to be alone and I am very glad. Provided they do not take away from me the charming country, the shore of the Allier, the woods, streams, and meadows, the sheep and goats, the peasant girls who dance thebourréein the fields, I consent to say adieu; the country alone will cure me.... I have come here to end the beautiful days and to say adieu to the foliage--it is still on the trees, it has only changed color; instead of being green, it is golden, and of so many golden tints that it makes a brocade of rich and magnificent gold, which we are likely to find more beautiful than the green, if only it were not for the changing part."
If the style of her letters did not make her the greatest prose writer of her time, it certainly entitled her to rank as one of the most original. The prose of the seventeenth century lacked "easy suppleness in lively movement, and imagination in the expression"--two qualities which Mme. de Sévigné possessed in a high degree. The slow and grave development, the just and harmonious equilibrium, the amplitude, are in her supplanted by a quick, alert, and freesaillie; the detail and marvellous exactness are enriched by color, abundance of imagery, and metaphors. M. Faguet says she is to prose what La Fontaine is to poetry.
The literary style of Mme. de Sévigné is not learned, studied, nor labored. In an epoch in which the language was already formed, she did what Montaigne did a century before, when, we may almost assert, he had to create the French language. Her most striking expressions are her own--newly coined, not taken from the vocabulary in usage. Her style cannot be duplicated, and for this reason she has few imitators. Her letters show that they were improvised--her pen doing, alone, the work over which she seemed to have no control when communicating with her daughter; to the latter she said: "I write prose with a facility that will kill you."
Mme. de Sévigné was possibly not a beautiful woman, but she was a charming one; broad in the scope of her affections, she found the making of friends no difficult task. M. Vallery-Radot leaves the following picture of her: "A blonde, with exuberant health, a transparent complexion, blue eyes, so frank, so limpid, a nose somewhat square, a mouth ready to smile, shoulders that seem to lend splendor to her pearl necklace. Her gayety and goodness are so in evidence that there is about her a kind of atmosphere of good humor."
M. du Bled most admirably sums up her character and writings in the following: "She is the person who most resembles her writings--that is, those that are found; for alas! many (the most confidential, the most interesting, I think) are lost forever: in them she is reflected as she reflects French society in them. Endowed--morally and physically--with a robust health, she is expansive, loyal, confiding, impressionable, loving gayety in full abundance as much as she does the smile of the refined, as eager for the prattle of the court as for solid reading, smitten with nobiliary pride, a captive of the prejudices, superstitions and tastes of her caste (or of even her coterie), with her pen hardly tender for her neighbor--her daughter and intimates excepted. A manager and a woman of imagination, a Frondist at the bottom of her soul, and somewhat of a Jansenist--not enough, however, not to cry out that Louis XIV. will obscure the glory of his predecessors because he had just danced with her--faithful to her friends (Retz, Fouquet, Pomponne) in disgrace and detesting their persecutors, seeking the favor of court for her children. In the salons, she is celebrated for heresprit--and this at an age when one seldom thinks about reputation, when one is like the princess who replied to a question on the state of her soul, 'At twenty one has no soul;' and she possesses the qualities that are so essential to style--naturaléclat, originality of expression, grace, color, amplitude without pomposity and abundance without prolixity; moreover, she invents nothing, but, knowing how to observe and to express in perfection everything she had seen and felt, she is a witness and painter of her century: also, she loves nature--a sentiment very rare in the seventeenth century."
Mme. de Sévigné was endowed with the best qualities of the French race--good will and friendliness, which influence one to judge others favorably and to desire their esteem; of a very impressionable nature, she was gifted with a natural eloquence which enabled her to express her various emotions in a light or gay vein which often bordered on irony. Affectionate and appreciative and tender and kind to everyone in general, toward those whom she loved she was generous to a fault and unswerving in her fidelity.
Her last years were spent in the midst of her family. She died in 1696, of smallpox, thanking God that she was the first to go, after having trembled for the life of her daughter, whom she had nursed back to health after a long and dangerous illness. Her son-in-law, M. de Grignan, wrote to her uncle, M. de Coulanges:
"What calls far more for our admiration than for our regret, is the spectacle of a brave woman facing death--of which she had no doubt from the first days of her illness--with astounding firmness and submission. This person, so tender and so weak towards all whom she loved, showed nothing but courage and piety when she believed that her hour had come; and, impressed by the use she managed to make of that good store in the last moments of her life, we could not but remark of what utility and of what importance it is to have the mind stocked with the good matter and holy reading for which Mme. de Sévigné had a liking--not to say a wonderful hunger."
In order to give an idea of the place that Mme. de Sévigné holds in the opinion of the average Frenchman, we quote the final words of M. Vallery-Radot:
"To take a place among the greatest writers, without ever having written a book or even having thought of writing one--this is what seems impossible, and yet this is what happened to Mme. de Sévigné. Her contemporaries knew her as a woman distinguished for heresprit, 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 classical 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 theennuiof 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 passes within or before her, passes 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 pass away in turn; a single one, or, rather, a group escapes the general oblivion--the group of friends of Mme. de Sévigné."
A woman with characteristics the very opposite of those of Mme. de Sévigné, 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 Sévigné, 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 Sévigné--her daughter. These three prominent women illustrate 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 Sévigné, 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 Scudéry 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 passion and temper the ideal with the results of observation." She was one of the very few women playing any rôle 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 Ménage 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 God; He is the All-Powerful, and, from all sides, we must go to Him at last. They assure 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 Sévigné 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 Sévigné: "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 assured, 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 Sévigné: "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 Sévigné 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 principal 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 pronounce 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 participated 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 passion 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 passionate 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 (hisMaxims), 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 Sablé--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 Sévigné. 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'Urfé'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 noblemen, 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 whichFrancionandBerger Extravagantwere 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 (honnêtes gens) were to be found.
The novels of Mlle. de Scudéry, 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 wasLa Princesse de Montpensier(1662); in 1670, appearedZayde, it was ostensibly the work of Segrais, her teacher and a writer much in vogue at the time; in 1678,La Princesse de Clèves, 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 classes--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 illustration of woman's ability to analyze 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 nonentity or a booby; she makes of him a hero--sympathetic, noble, and dignified.
In no fictitious tale before hers was love depicted with such rare delicacy and pathos. In her novel,La Princesse de Clèves, "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 authoress herself has experienced. As an example of this we cite the description of the sentiments of Mme. de Clèves 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 Clèvesis 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 Charrière, 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 passion 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 surpass 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 analyzing love, passion, and moral duty, without becoming monotonous, vulgar, brutal, or excessively realistic. Her creations contain the most minute analyses 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 Houlières 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 impassioned 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 passionate, and that, added to my birth, may well make my enemies tremble; but I have, also, a noble 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 sex 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 associated 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-Lefèvre, 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 assistant preceptor to the dauphin, even going so far as to request her to assist 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. Lefèvre. 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 ofesprit, it is Mme. Dacier who is the father."
Besides her translations of the plays of Plautus, all of Terence, theCloudsandPlutusof Aristophanes, she published her translation of theIliadandOdyssey(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 theIliadappeared 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 god she wrote her famousDes Causes de la Corruption du Goût(Causes of the Corruption of Taste), a long defence of Homer, to which La Motte replied in hisRéflexions de la CritiqueThis 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 assaults 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 ofesprit, while that of Mme. Dacier was of ahomme savant. He translated theIliadvery 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 asavanteonly 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 nobles 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 andesprit, 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 inesprit." In her youth she was famous for her extraordinary acting in the performance, at Saint-Cyr, of Racine'sEsther. Mme. de Sévigné wrote: "It is Mme. de Caylus who makes Esther." Her brief and wittySouvenirs(Memoirs), showing marvellous finesse in the art of portraiture, made her name immortal. M. Saint-Amand describes her work thus:
"Her friends, enchanted by her lively wit, had long entreated her to write--not for the public, but for them--the anecdotes which she related so well. Finally, she acquiesced, and committed to paper certain incidents, certain portraits. What a treasure are theseSouvenirs--so fluently written, so unpretentious, with neither dates nor chronological order, but upon which, for more than a century, all historians have drawn! How much is contained in this little book which teaches more in a few lines than interminable works do in many volumes! How feminine it is, and how French! One readily understands Voltaire's liking for these charmingSouvenirs. Who, than Mme. de Caylus, ever better applied the famous precept: 'Go lightly, mortals; don't bear too hard.'"
She belonged to that class of spontaneous writers who produce artistic works without knowing it, just as M. Jourdain wrote prose, and who do not even suspect that they possess that chief attribute of literary style--naturalness. What pure, what ready wit! What good humor, what unconstraint, what delightful ease! What a series of charming portraits, each more lifelike, more animated, still better than all the others! "These little miniatures--due to the brush of a woman of the world--are better worth studying than is many a picture or fresco."