After securing the release of her friend Châteauneuf, Mme. de Chevreuse set to work to restore him to his former office of Guard of the Seals, but did not succeed. She then turned her attention to undermining the power of Mazarin, agitating all émigrés returning to France and starting the most outspoken denunciation of the policy of the cardinal, his injustice and tyranny against the nobility. The cries of disapproval became so general that Mazarin was kept busy warding off the blows aimed at him by his enemy; the latter succeeded in placing Châteauneuf asChancelier des ordres du roiand in having his estates restored to him, while Alexandre de Campion she placed in the household of the queen. Mazarin, living in constant dread of her, managed to thwart two of her cherished schemes—the restoration to the Duke of Vendôme of the government of Brittany and the placing of Châteauneuf in the ministry—upon the success of which depended her own influence and power.
Finding that ruse, flattery, insinuation, and ordinary court intrigues were of no avail, she turned to other methods. The Importants, a party made up of adventurers and a large number of the nobility, were making themselves felt more and more; they were opposed to Richelieu and Mazarin, and Mme. de Chevreuse became their chief and instigator. Failing to succeed with the cardinal's own methods, she decided to assassinate him, but the plot was discovered, the Duke of Beaufort was arrested and all the princes of the party of the Importants were ordered to leave Paris. Mme. de Chevreuse was compelled to depart from court and retire to Dampierre, and then to Touraine, where she did everything in her power to assist the friends who had compromised themselves for her. During her first exile she had had the consolation of the friendship of the queen; but now she was banished bythe very friend whom she had served so well and who had up to this time been able and willing to afford her comfort and protection. Through Lord Goring, Count Craft, and the Commander de Jars, she opened up correspondence and negotiations with England, but was again surprised by the vigilant Mazarin and sent to Angoulême; determining to escape, after many hardships, she successfully reached Liège; from there, as head of all foreign intrigues against France, she continued to thwart Mazarin's foreign policy.
As soon as the first signs of the Fronde broke out, Mme. de Chevreuse became active and succeeded in attracting to her the young Marquis de Laigues with whom, later on, she contracted amariage de conscience. As ambassador of the Fronde, she prevailed upon Spain to promise troops and subsidies to her party. After the peace of 1649, she went to Paris where she found almost all her friends ready to follow her and to pay her homage. It was she who conceived the idea of an aristocratic league which, under the auspices of the two great princes of the blood, the Duke of Orléans and the Prince of Condé, would unite the best part of the nobility.
Her plan was to marry her daughter to the Prince de Conti and the young Duc d'Enghien to one of the daughters of the Duke of Orléans. The contracts were signed and all was in readiness when Mazarin was exiled, and the following Frondists came into power: the Duke of Orléans at court, Condé and Turenne at the head of the army, Châteauneuf in the Cabinet, Molé in Parliament, while Mme. de Chevreuse and Mme. de Longueville managed to keep harmony among all. Queen Anne in a short time annulled the marriage contracts; and on the return of Mazarin, Mme. de Chevreuse took up her work with him, the cardinal being wise enough toappreciate the fact that she was a greater force with than against him.
Strange as it may seem, Mme. de Chevreuse in time became the great acting and controlling force of royalty, winning over the Duke of Lorraine and becoming a staunch friend to both the regent and the cardinal; after the death of the latter, she became all-powerful, and it may be said that she made Colbert what he was. In the fulness of her power, she gradually retired, having seen, in turn, the passing away or the fall of Richelieu, Mazarin, Louis XIII., Anne of Austria, the Queen of England, Châteauneuf, the Duke of Lorraine, her daughter, and the Marquis de Laigues. She ceased plotting, renounced politics and intrigues, and retired to the country, where she died in 1679.
Mme. de Chevreuse was undoubtedly one of the most important political characters of the seventeenth century, just as she was also one of its greatest beauties—possibly the most seductive and charming woman of her epoch. A consummate diplomat and an untiring worker, she was at the head of more intrigues and plots, had more thrilling adventures, controlled and ruined more men, than any other woman of her century, if not of all French history. Thinking little of religion, she was yet in the very midst of the Catholic party; unswerving in her friendships, she scorned danger, opinion, fortune, for those whom she loved or whose cause she espoused; an implacable foe, she was the most dreaded enemy of both Richelieu and Mazarin.
With a remarkable ability for grasping the details of an antagonist's position she combined all the other qualities of an astute politician; thus, upon the desired consummation of her plots she brought to bear a sagacity, finesse, and energy that baffled all her adversaries. With her, politics became a passion and a necessity; even while in exile, her zeal was unflagging and she intrigued over allEurope. Scorning peril as well as all petty restraints, and characterized by courage, loyalty, and devotion, she was without an equal among the members of her sex.
Mme. de Hautefort, while less powerful than Mme. de Chevreuse and of quite a different type, is associated 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 reëstablished herself in the affection, admiration, and respect of her associates.
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. Asdame d'atours, she was forced either to close her eyes to all scenes between the cardinal and Anne or tocombat 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 compassionate 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 Hôtel 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 sex, 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 Condé, she in time developed remarkable personal charms. Her early days were spent at the convent of the Carmelites and at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, her mind—in these oppositeworlds 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 début, she immediately became one of the leaders about whom all the gallants gathered. She formed a fast friendship with Mme. de Sablé, 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 mélangeL'esprit d'un ange!L'on jugerait par la blancheurDe Bourbon, et par sa fraicheur,Qu'elle a prit naissance des lis."
"De perles, d'astres et de fleurs,Bourbon, le ciel fit tes couleurs,Et mit dedans tout ce mélangeL'esprit d'un ange!L'on jugerait par la blancheurDe Bourbon, et par sa fraicheur,Qu'elle a prit naissance des lis."
"De perles, d'astres et de fleurs,
Bourbon, le ciel fit tes couleurs,
Et mit dedans tout ce mélange
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 theprécieuses, 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 ofher 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 Hôtel 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 Condé 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 Condé wouldwithdraw 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 hôtel 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 assurance 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 assassinate the cardinal. Shortly after this, Coligny, as championof 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 Condé and Mme. de Longueville with their friends; the result was the death of Coligny. Mme. de Longueville was a trueprécieuseand 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 Sablé.
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 ofespritand 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 andbel espritbecame 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 Condé 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 causingher withdrawal to Münster for one year; there she ruled as queen of the Congress. On the death of her father, the Prince of Condé, 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 Condé 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 nobility 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 Condé through the action of Mme. de Longueville in passing with her husband over to the party of the Importants, she being the first ofher 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 Orléans 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 Condé. The alliances, however, were declared off, and Mme. de Chevreuse went over to the cardinal and the queen; Condé's fall and Mazarin's success followed, being the result, mainly, of the determination of Mme. de Chevreuse to avenge herself upon Condé for having consented to the breaking of the marriage contracts.
Mme. de Longueville did all in her power to continue the conflict that Condé 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 theensemble, are nothing more than a desire to please, toshine—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 noblest resignation. The following testimonies are taken from a Jansenist manuscript 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 passion. To court her was to speak with equity and without passion 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 hislove, 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 principal 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 passions 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.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, after the death of Henry IV., there were three classes in France,—the nobility, clergy, and third estate,—each with a distinct field of action: the nobility 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 classes.
At court, various dialects and diverse pronunciations 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 nobility 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 class, knew no better, or, if he did, had not the moral courage to compel a change; thus, the institution 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 inthe 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 institutions, 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 coördination set in, and elegance, grace, and refinement became the most pronounced characteristics of the time; rough, crude, robust, vigorous, and energetic characteristics, combined with coarseness and brutality, were eliminated during the seventeenth century. The women who caused this general purification of morals and language were given the name ofprécieusesand the movement that ofpréciosité.
The extent to which theprécieuseswent 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 classicisms were exaggerated by some of the provincial classes who received their expressions from books and the theatre; such authors asCorneille, etc., were studied and their poetic licenses introduced into spoken language. These follies, pictured by Molière, naturally afforded much amusement in cultured circles where every event of the day was discussed, from the vital affairs of the government to the æsthetic 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 classes of writers arose: the one, serious, elevated, thoughtful, classical, and independent of the salon, is well represented by Molière, 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 Brégis, 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 toodécolleté, filled his mouth with wine and squirted the liquid into the bosom of the unfortunate girl; the Prince of Condé, indulging in customary brutishness, ate dung and had the ladies follow his example; these are fair illustrations of socialelegances.
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 whomshe adored, and be agreeable to her friends. Her amusements 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. Mass 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 manhad to be sensitive to beauty. When the Duchesse 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 anhonnête hommeby association 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. Cathérine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet, whose mother was a great Roman lady and whose father had been ambassador 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 chastity 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 distinguishedmen 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 thehabituéof 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.
Mme. de Rambouillet was very particular in the choice of friends, and they were always sincere and devoted, knowing her to be undesirous of political favors and incapable of stooping to intrigue. Even Richelieu could not, as compensation to him for a favor to her husband, induce her to act as spy on some of the frequenters of her salon.
While not a woman of remarkable beauty, she was the personification of reason and virtue; her unassuming frankness, exquisite tact, and exceptional reserve discouraged all advances on the part of those gallants who frequented every mansion and were always prepared to lay siege to the heart of any fair woman. Her wide culture, versatility, modesty, goodness, fidelity, and disinterestedness caused her to be universally sought. Mlle. de Scudéry, in her novelCyrus, leaves a fine portrait of her:
"The spirit and soul of this marvellous person surpass by far her beauty: the first has no limits in its extent and the other has no equal in its generosity, goodness, justice,and purity. The intellect of Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) is not like that of those whose minds have no brilliancy except that which nature has given them, for she has cultivated it carefully, and I think I can say that there are nobelles connaissancesthat she has not acquired. She knows various languages, and is ignorant of hardly anything that is worth knowing; but she knows it all without making a display of knowing it; and one would say, in hearing her talk, 'she is so modest that she speaks admirably of things, through simple common sense only'; on the contrary, she is versed in all things; the most advanced sciences are not beyond her, and she is perfectly acquainted with the most difficult arts. Never has any person possessed such a delicate knowledge as hers of fine works of prose and poetry; she judges them, however, with wonderful moderation, never abandoningla bienséance(the seemliness) of her sex, though she is far above it. In the whole court, there is not a person with any spirit and virtue that does not go to her house. Nothing is considered beautiful if it does not have her approval; no stranger ever comes who does not desire to see Cléomire and do her homage, and there are no excellent artisans who do not wish to have the glory of her approbation of their works. All people who write in Phénicie have sung her praises; and she possesses the esteem of everyone to such a marvellous degree that there is no one who has ever seen her who has not said thousands of favorable things about her—who has not been charmed likewise by her beauty,esprit, sweetness, and generosity."
Mlle. de Scudéry describes the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet in the following:
"Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) had built, according to her own design, a place which is one of the finest in the world; she has found the art of constructing a palace ofvast extent in a situation of mediocre grandeur. Order, harmony, and elegance are in all the apartments, and in the furniture also; everything is magnificent, even unique; the lamps are different from those of other palaces, her cabinets are full of objects which show the judgment of her who chose them. In her palace, the air is always scented; many baskets full of magnificent flowers make a continual spring in her room, and the place which she frequents ordinarily is so agreeable and so imaginative as to make one feel as if she were in some enchanted place."
The very names of the frequenters of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet testify to the prominence of her position in the world of culture: Mlle. de Scudéry, Mlle. du Vigean; Mmes. de Longueville, de la Vergne, de La Fayette, de Sablé, de Hautefort, de Sévigné, de la Suze, Marie de Gonzague, Duchesse d'Aiguillon, Mmes. des Houlières, Cornuel, Aubry, and their respective husbands; the great literary men: Rotrou, Scarron, Saint-Evremond, Malherbe, Racan, Chapelain, Voiture, Conrart, Benserade, Pellisson, Segrais, Vaugelas, Ménage, Tallemant des Réaux, Balzac, Mairet, Corneille, Bossuet, etc. In the entire period of the French salon, no other such brilliant gathering of men and women of social standing, princely blood, genuine intelligence, and literary ability ever assembled from motives other than those of politics or intrigue; here was a gathering purely social and for purposes of mutual refinement. The nobility went through a process of polishing, and the men of letters sharpened their intelligence and modified their manners and customs.
Julie, Duchess of Montausier, and Angélique, daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet, were popular, but the former lost much of her charm after she sacrificed her independence of thought and action by becoming governess of the childrenof the queen. Julie was the centre of attraction for all perfumed rhymesters, all sighers in prose and verse, who thronged about her. The stern and unbending Duke of Montausier was so under her influence that in 1641 he arranged and laid before her shrine the famousguirlandewhich was illustrated by Robert and to which nineteen authors contributed. After her marriage to the duke, the Hôtel de Rambouillet may be said to have ceased to exist, as madame, who was seventy years of age, had for a number of years kept herself in the background, and Julie had become the acknowledged leader.
With the outbreak of the Fronde, friends were separated by their individual interests and the reunions at the salon were interrupted from about 1650 to 1652. After the death of her husband, Mme. de Rambouillet retired, to reside with her daughter, Mme. de Montausier; after that, she seldom appeared in public. She hardly lived to see the spirit of the salon changed to the realpréciosité—the direction and aim she gave to it being gradually abandoned.
In her salon, for nearly fifty years, no pedantry, no loose manners, no questionable characters, no social or political intrigues, no discourtesies of any kind, were recorded; hers was a reign of dignity and grace, of purity of language, manners, and morals. She died in 1665, at the advanced age of seventy-seven, esteemed and mourned by the entire social and intellectual world of France. Her influence was incalculable; it was the first time in the history of France that refined taste, intellectuality, and virtue had won importance, influence, and power.
It must be remembered that in the first period of the salon there were no blue-stockings, no pedants: these were later developments. It was, primarily, a gathering which found pleasure in parties, excursions, concerts, balls, fireworks, dramatic performances, living tableaux; the lastform of amusement very strongly influenced the development of the art, for in the galleries there appeared a surprisingly large number of portraits of the women of the day in character—sometimes as a nymph, sometimes as a goddess.
The salon, in its first phase, showed and developed tolerance in religion as well as in art and literature. It also encouraged progress and displayed acute discrimination, keeping pace with the time in all that was new and meritorious. It developed individual liberty, public interest, criticism, good taste, and the elegant, clear, and precise conversational language in which France has excelled up to the present day.
When about to build the Hôtel Pisani, Mme. de Rambouillet, having no love for architects, planned its construction without their assistance. She revolutionized the architecture of the time by introducing large and high doors and windows and putting the stairway to one side in order to secure a large suite of rooms. She was also the first to decorate a room in other colors than red or tan. The construction of her hôtel completely changed domestic architecture; and it may be noted that when the Luxembourg was to be built, the designers were instructed to examine, for ideas, the Hôtel de Rambouillet.
Legouvé gives as the object and mission of Mme. de Rambouillet: "to combat the sensualism of Rabelais, Villon, and Marot, to reform society through love by reforming love through chastity; to place women at the head of civilization, by beginning a crusade against vice in the disguise of sentiment. The word 'fame' must, in the seventeenth century, apply to both man and woman, meaning honor for the one and purity for the other. Her ideal falls with the accession of Louis XIV.; the dazzling luxury of royalty hardly conceals, under its exterior elegance,the profound and deep-seated grossness of Versailles and Marly."
To Mme. de Rambouillet, then, belongs the distinction of having been the first to bring together men of letters and great lords on a footing of social equality and for mutual benefit. Her salon and friends continued in the seventeenth century what Marguerite d'Angoulême had begun in the first part of the sixteenth—an intellectual, social, and moral reform.
Many salons which were all more or less patterned after that of Rambouillet sprang into existence. Among these the Academy of the Vicomtesse d'Auchy, with Malherbe as president and tyrant, was of little influence as far as women were concerned. The members were all of second-rate importance, and Malherbe tolerated only the discussion of his verses, while Mme. d'Auchy was better known for her splendid neck than for any intellectuality. Every salon had a master of ceremonies, who performed the rite of presentation; these men were frequently abbés, and some of them, such as Du Buisson and Testu, became famous.
Among the most noted of these salons was that of the celebrated beauty, Ninon de Lenclos, she who called theprécieusesthe "Jansenists of love," an expression which became very popular. Her salon was situated on the Rue des Tournelles. Ninon de Lenclos was a woman of the most brilliant mind and exquisite taste, and it was at her hôtel that Molière first read hisTartuffebefore Condé, La Fontaine, Boileau, Lulli, Racine, and Chapelle, and it was there that he received the principal ideas for his drama.
Ninon became famous for making staunch friends of her former lovers, in which connection some interesting tales are told. She was the mother of two children; upon thearrival of the first, a heated discussion arose between Count d'Estrées and Abbé d'Effiat, both claiming the honor of paternity. When the mother was consulted, she made no attempt to conceal her amusement; finally, the rivals threw dice for "father or not father."
The other child, whose father was the Marquis de Gersay, was the victim of an unnatural passion for his mother with whom, when a young man, he fell desperately in love, being ignorant of their relation. While pleading his cause, he learned from her lips the secret, and, in despair, blew out his brains, a tragedy which apparently had no effect upon the mother. At one time, at the request of the clergy Ninon was sent, for impiety, to the convent of the Benedictines at Lagny.
Among her friends she counted the greatest men and women of the day and her salon was the foyer ofsavoir-vivre, of letters and art. At the age of sixty she met the Great Condé, who dismounted to greet her, something that he very seldom did, as he was not in the habit of paying compliments to women. The saying:Elle eut l'estime de Lenclos[she had the esteem of Lenclos] became a popular manner of expressing the fact that a certain woman was especially esteemed. Even to the last (she died at the age of eighty-five), Ninon preserved her grace, beauty, and intelligence. Colombey calls herLa mère spirituelle de Voltaire[the spiritual mother of Voltaire].
The generality of women had their lovers; even the famous Mlle. de Scudéry, in spite of her homeliness—she was a dark, large-boned, and lean sort of old maid—had admirers galore; among the latter was Pellisson who was said to be so ugly "that he really abused the privilege—which man enjoys—of being homely."
The hôtel of the famous poet Scarron—Hôtel de l'Impécuniosité—received almost all the frequenters of Ninon'ssalon. At the former place there were no restrictions as to the manner of enjoyment; after elevating and edifying conversation at the salon of Ninon, the members would repair to that of Scarron for a feast ofbroutilles rabelaisiennes[Rabelaisian tidbits].
The salon of Mme. de Montbazon had its frequenters who, however, were attracted mainly by her beauty; she was, to use the words of one of her friends, "One of those beauties that delight the eye and provoke a vigorous appetite." Her salon was one of suitors rather than of intellectuality or harmless sociability.
The most famous of the men's salons was the Temple, constructed in 1667 by Jacques de Souvré and conducted from 1681 to 1720 by Phillipe de Vendôme and his intendant, Abbé de Chaulieu. These reunions, especially under the latter, were veritable midnightconvivia; he himself boasted of never having gone to bed one night in thirty years without having been carried there dead drunk, a custom to which he remained "faithful unto death." His boon companion was La Duchesse de Bouillon. Most of his frequenters were jolly good persons, utterly destitute of the sense of sufficiency in matters of carousing; the better people declined his invitations.
After that of Mme. de Rambouillet, there were, in the seventeenth century, but two great salons that exerted a lasting influence and that were not saturated with the decadentpréciosité. Of these the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry has been called the salon of thebourgeoisie, because the majority of its frequenters belonged to the third estate, which was rapidly acquiring power and influence.
Mlle. de Scudéry, who was born in 1608 and lived through the whole century, saw society develop, and therefore knew it better than did any of her contemporaries. Having lost her parents early in life, her unclereared her and she received advantages such as fell to the lot of few women of her condition; she was given an excellent education in literature, art, and the languages.
Until the marriage of her brother, she was his constant and devoted companion, exiling herself to Marseilles when he was appointed governor of Notre Dame de La Garde, and returning to Paris with him in 1647. She first collaborated with him in a literary production of about eighty volumes. In their works, the brother furnished the rough draft, the dramatic episodes, adventures, and the Romanesque part, while she added the literary finish through charming character sketches, conversation, sentimental analyses, and letters. With a strong inclination toward society, and constantly fulfilling its obligations, she would from day to day write up her conversations of the evening before.
An interesting anecdote is told in connection with the travels and coöperation of Mlle. de Scudéry and her brother; once, on the way to Paris, while stopping over night at Lyons, they were discussing the fate of one of their heroes, one proposing death and the other rescue, one poison and the other a more cruel death; a gentleman from Auvergne happened to overhear them and immediately notified the people of the inn, thinking it was a question of assassinating the king; the brother and sister were thrown into prison and only with great difficulty were they able to explain matters the next morning. From this incident Scribe drew the material for his drama,L'Auberge ou les Brigands sans le Savoir.
At the Hôtel de Rambouillet where Mlle. de Scudéry was received early, she won everyone by her modesty, simplicity,esprit, and lovable disposition, and, in spite of her homeliness and poor figure, she attracted many platonic lovers. She was one of the few brilliant and famouswomen of the seventeenth century whose popularity was due solely to admirable qualities of mind and soul. With her, friendship became a cult, and it was in time of trouble that her friends received the strongest proof of her affection. She preferred to incur disgrace and the disfavor of Mazarin rather than forsake Condé and Madame de Longueville; to them she dedicated the ten volumes, successively, of her novel,Cyrus; the last volume was published after Mme. de Longueville's retirement and partial disgrace.
After the brilliant society of the Hôtel de Rambouillet had been broken up by the marriage of Julie and the operations of the Fronde, and after her brother's marriage in 1654, Mlle. de Scudéry became independent and established the custom of receiving her friends on Saturday; these receptions became famous under the name ofSamedi, and besides the regular rather bourgeois gathering, the most brilliant talent and highest nobility flocked to them, regardless of rank or station, wealth or influence. Pellisson, the great master, the prince, the Apollo of her Saturdays, was a man of wonderfully inventive genius, and possessed in a higher degree than any of his contemporaries the art of inventing surprises for the society that lived on novelty. When, on account of his devotion to Fouquet, he was imprisoned in the Bastille, Mlle. de Scudéry managed to persuade Colbert to brighten his confinement by permitting him to see friends and relatives. Part of every day she spent in his prison, conversing and reading; and this is but one instance of her fidelity and friendship.
Mlle. de Scudéry, considering all men as aspirants for authority who, when husbands, degenerate into tyrants, preferred to retain her independence. Her ideas on love were very peculiar and were innovations at the time: she wished to be loved, but her love must be friendship—a pure, platonic love, in which her lover must be her all, her confidant,the participator in her sorrows and her conversation; and his happiness must be in her alone; he must, without feeling passion, love her for herself, and she must have the same feeling toward him. These sentiments are expressed in her novels, from which the following extracts are taken:
"When friendship becomes love in the heart of a lover or when this love is mingled with friendship without destroying it, there is nothing so sweet as this kind of love; for as violent as it is, it is always held somewhat more in check than is ordinary love; it is more durable, more tender, more respectful, and even more ardent, although it is not subject to so many tumultuous caprices as is that love which arises without friendship. It can be said that love and friendship flow together like two streams, the more celebrated of which obscures the name of the other." ... "They agreed on even the conditions of their love; for Phaon solemnly promised Sapho (Mlle. de Scudéry)—who desired it thus—not to ask of her anything more than the possession of her heart, and she, also, promised him to receive only him in hers. They told each other all their thoughts, they understood them even without confessing them. Peace, however, was not so completely established that their affection could not become languishing or cool; for, although they loved each other as much as one can love, they at times complained of not being loved enough, and they had sufficient little difficulties to always leave something new to wish for; but they never had any troubles that were serious enough to essentially disturb their repose."
Mlle. de Scudéry was mistress of the art of conversation, speaking without affectation and equally well on all affairs, serious, light, or gallant; she objected, however, to being called asavante, and she was far from resembling the falseprécieusesto whom she was likened by herenemies. The occupations of her salon were somewhat different from those of the salon of Mme. de Rambouillet. M. du Bled describes them as follows:
"What they did in the salon of Mlle. de Scudéry you can guess readily: they amused themselves as at Mme. de Rambouillet's, they joked quite cheerfully, smiled and laughed, wrote farces in prose and poetry. There were readings,loteries d'esprit, sonnet-enigmas,bouts-rimés(rhymes given to be formed into verse),vers-échos, fine literary joustings, discussions between the casuists. This salon had its talkers and speakers, those who tyrannized over the audience and those who charmed it, those who shot off fireworks and those who prepared them, those who had made a symphony of conversation and those who made of it a monologue and had no flashes of silence. They did not follow fashion there—they rather made it; in art and literature as in toilets, smallness follows the fashion, pretension exaggerates it, taste makes a compact with it."
A specimen of theénigme-sonnetsmay be of interest, to show in what intellectual playfulness and trivialities these wits indulged: