Women Of Modern France Part 13

Somewhat later in the century a different movement was started by a woman, which involved many of the highest in rank at court. This took the form of a kind of mystical enthusiasm, running into a theory of pure love, and was instigated by Mme. Guyon, a widow, still young, and gifted with a lofty and subtile mind. After losing her husband, whom she had converted to her religious views, she went, in 1680, to Paris to educate her children. Becoming interested in religion, she went to Geneva, where she became very intimate with a priest who was her spiritual director, and whom she soon wholly subjected to her influence. On account of their views on sanctification, they were ordered to leave.

After travelling over Europe for a number of years, and writing several works, including _Spiritual Torrents_ and _Short and Easy Method of Making Orison with the Heart_, the widow returned to Paris, with the intention of living in retirement; but so many persons of all ranks sought her out, that she organized, for ladies of rank, meetings for purposes of prayer and religious conversation. The d.u.c.h.ess of Beauvilliers, the d.u.c.h.ess of Bethune, the Countess of Guiche, the Countess of Chevreuse, and many others, with their husbands, became her devoted adherents.

According to Mme. Guyon, prayer should lose the character of supplication, and become simply the silence of a soul absorbed in G.o.d.

"Why are not simple folks so taught? Shepherds, keeping their flocks, would have the spirit of the old anchorites; and laborers, whilst driving the plow, would talk happily with G.o.d. In a little while, vice would be banished and the kingdom of G.o.d would be realized on earth."

Thus, her doctrine was directly opposite to the theories of the Jansenists.

At that time, 1687 to 1688, all religious movements, however quiet, were condemned at Rome; and the teachings of Mme. Guyon were found to differ very little from those of the Spanish priest Molinas. The first arrest, that of her friend Lacombe, was soon followed by that of Mme. Guyon herself, by royal order; she was released through the intercession of Mme. de Maintenon, who was fascinated by her to the extent of permitting her to teach her doctrines at Saint-Cyr, Upon the appearance of her _Method of Prayer_, an examination was inst.i.tuted by Bossuet and Fenelon, who marked out a few pa.s.sages as erroneous--a procedure to which she submitted. However, Bossuet himself wrote a treatise against her _Method of Prayer_, in which he cast reflections upon her character and conduct; to that work Fenelon refused to subscribe, which antagonistic proceeding brought on the great quarrel between those two absolute ecclesiasts. In fact, Fenelon became imbued with the doctrines of Mme. Guyon.

She was imprisoned at various times; and when a letter was received from Lacombe, who had been imprisoned at Vincennes for a long time, exhorting her to repent of their criminal intimacy, Mme. Guyon's cause was hopeless. She was sent to the Bastille, her son was dismissed from the army, and many of her friends were banished. In 1702 she was released from prison and banished to Diziers; she pa.s.sed the remainder of her life in complete retirement at Blois.

Fenelon had written a treatise, _Maxims of the Saints_, which was said to favor Mme. Guyon's doctrines, and which was sent to Rome for examination. He defined her doctrine of divine love in the following maxim, which was condemned at Rome:

"There is an habitual state of love of G.o.d, which is pure charity without any taint of the motive of self-interest. Neither fear of punishment nor desire of reward has, any longer, part in this love; G.o.d is loved, not for the merit, but for the happiness to be found in loving Him."

Such a doctrine made repentance unnecessary, destroyed all effort to withstand evil, and did not acknowledge the need of a Redeemer. This the great Bossuet foresaw; consequently, he, as the supreme religious potentate of his inferior in rank, Fenelon, demanded the condemnation by the latter of the works of Mme. Guyon. The refusal cost Fenelon exile for life. To Mme. de Maintenon he wrote a letter which shows the sincerity of his devotion to a friend in disgrace, even though his own reputation was thereby endangered:

"So it is to secure my own reputation that I am wanted to subscribe that a lady--my friend--would plainly deserve to be burned, with all her writings, for an execrable form of spirituality which is the only bond of our friends.h.i.+p. I tell you, madame, I would burn my friend with my own hands, and I would burn myself joyfully, rather than let the Church be imperilled; but here is a poor, captive woman, overwhelmed with sorrows; there is none to defend her, none to excuse her; all are afraid to do so. I maintain that this stroke of the pen, given from a cowardly policy and against my conscience, would render me forever infamous and unworthy of my ministry and my position."

Thus, in the seventeenth century, religious agitations and religious reform were the work preeminently of women; but that reform and those agitations were productive of good results to a far greater degree than was any similar movement in any other century, with the possible exception of the nineteenth. The seventeenth century was, as mentioned before, a century of stability, one that toned down and crushed all violations and abuses of the standard established by authority. Woman, in her constant striving for the complete emanc.i.p.ation and gradual purification of her s.e.x, rebelled against the power of established authority; she did not consciously or intentionally violate law and order, but in her intense desire to act for good as she saw it, and in her n.o.ble efforts to ameliorate all undesirable conditions, she created commotion and confusion. The seventeenth-century woman is conspicuous as a champion of religion, moral purity, and social reform; therefore, her influence was mainly social, religious, moral, and literary, while that of the woman of the sixteenth century was mainly political. This difference was the result of the greater advantages of education and training enjoyed by the females of the later period.

In the beginning of the seventeenth century, young girls were granted greater privileges and received more attention from men and society than did their predecessors; they thus had more opportunities for mental development, more occasion to become aware of the temptations and injustices of life, without falling prey to them. Such young girls as Julie d'Angennes, Mlle. d'Arquenay, and Mlle. de Pisani, took part in the b.a.l.l.s, fetes, garden parties, and all amus.e.m.e.nts in which society indulged. They met young men of their own age and became intimately acquainted with them, morals were purer, marriages of affection were much more frequent, and the state of married life was much more congenial, than in any other century. Young men paid court to the older ladies, to refine their manners and sharpen their intellects, but not for any immoral purpose. To a certain extent women were more world-wise when they reached the marriageable age, and inspired respect and admiration rather than pa.s.sion and desire as in the next century.

Young girls of the seventeenth century were early placed in a convent, and when they left it they were ready for marriage; in the meantime, they frequently visited home and a.s.sociated with their parents and brothers; at the convents intellectual intercourse with people of high rank and men of letters was encouraged. Yet the discipline at those inst.i.tutions was very rigid, the boarders being more carefully watched then than later on; two nuns always accompanied them on their walks, and when not busy with their studies, to prevent the mind from wandering, they were kept busy with their hands; "the transports of the soul of the young girl, as every reflection of the intelligence, are watched and held in check, every one of her inclinations opposed, all originality suppressed."

At first the convents were reproached for stifling all culture and development and applying only correction and mortification of the flesh. Mme. de Maintenon opposed such a state of affairs, but her methods discouraged true independence. The happiness of her charges was her one aim, but they had no voice in the matter. When of marriageable age, they were given a trousseau and a husband; however, they were taught to be reasonable.

In that century, the young girl, mixing more generally in society, received greater consideration--hence, she became more active and conspicuous. It will be seen that the role played by the eighteenth century woman was not so much played by the young woman as it was by the woman of mature years, of the mother, the counsellor--the indispensable element of society. There were three cla.s.ses of women--young women, mature women who sought consideration, and old women who received respect and deference, and who, as arbiters of culture, upheld the principles already established.

A young man making his debut had to find favor with one of those cla.s.ses which decided his future reputation and the extent of his favor at court, and a.s.signed him his place and grade, upon which depended his marriage. All education was directed to the one end--social success. The duty of the tutor charged with the instruction of a young son was to give a well-rounded, general education; by the mother, he was taught politeness, grace, amiability--a part of his training to which more importance was attached than to the intellectual portion. Whenever a young man was guilty of misconduct toward a woman, his mother was notified of the occurrence, on the same evening, and he promptly received his reprimand. This spirit naturally fostered that rare politeness, exquisite taste and tact in conversation, in which the eighteenth century excels.

But where did the young girls receive the education which gave them such prestige--that consummate art of conversation exemplified in Mme. de Boufflers, Mme. de Luxembourg, Mme. de Sabran, the d.u.c.h.ess of Choiseul, the Princess of Beauvau, the Countess of Segur? The sons were educated in the usages of the _bonne compagnie_ by the mothers, but the daughters did not enjoy that attention, for, at the age of five or six years, they were sent to the convent; there the mother's influence could not have reached them, and they never left the convent except to marry. The middle cla.s.s imitated the higher cla.s.s, and family life became practically impossible. All men of any importance had a charge at court or a grade in the army, and lived away from their families. A large number of women were attached to the queen, spending the greater part of their time at Versailles; the little time pa.s.sed at their homes was entirely occupied in preparation for the evening _causeries_ at the salons, in reading new books, acquiring information upon current events, and in superintending the making of the many necessary and always elaborate gowns; as M. Perey so well says, "as the toilettes and hairdressing took up the greater part of the morning, they devoted the time used by the _coiffeur_, in constructing complicated edifices that crushed down the heads of women, to the reading of new books."

Nearly every large establishment kept open house, dining from twenty to thirty persons every day. They dined at one, separated at three, were at the theatre at five, and returned with as many friends as possible--the more, the greater the reputation for hospitality and popularity. Under such circ.u.mstances, the mother had no time for the daughters, nor were the conversations at those dinners food for young, innocent girls--and innocence was the first requirement of a marriageable young woman.

The great convents were the Abbaye-aux-Bois and Penthemont, where the daughters of the wealthiest and highest families were educated. In those convents or seminaries, strange to say, the young girls were taught the most practical domestic duties, as well as dancing, music, painting, etc. Such teachers as Mole and Larrive gave instruction in declamation and reading, and Noverre and Dauberval in dancing; the teaching nuns were all from the best families. The most complete costumes, scenic decorations, and other equipments of a complete theatre were supplied, special hours being set aside for the play.

However, much intriguing went on there, and many friends.h.i.+ps and lifelong enmities were formed, which later led to serious troubles.

Often, from the midst of a group of young girls of from ten to fifteen years of age, one would be notified of her coming marriage with a man she had never seen, and whom, in all probability, she could not love, having given her heart to another. If it turned out to be an uncongenial marriage, a separate life would be the result, and, while still absolutely ignorant of the world, those young married women would fall prey to the charms of young gallants or men of quality, and a liaison would follow.

The difference between a liaison of the seventeenth century and one of the eighteenth led to one essential difference in the standards of social and moral etiquette; in the former period, a liaison meant nothing more censurable than an intimate friends.h.i.+p, a purely platonic love; the lover simply paid homage to the lady of his choice; it was an attraction of common intellectual interests and usually lasted for life; in the eighteenth century, a liaison was essentially immoral, rarely a union of interests, but rather one of pa.s.sions and physical propensities. Such relations developed and fostered deceit, intrigues, infidelity, and rivalry, one woman endeavoring to allure the lover of another; affairs of that nature were the chief topic of conversation in social circles, and were soon reflected in every phase of the intelligent world. This will be seen in the study of the eighteenth century.

CHAPTER VIII

SALON LEADERS MME. DE TENCIN, MME. GEOFFRIN, MME. DU DEFFAND, MLLE. DE LESPINa.s.sE, MME. DU CHaTELET

In studying the vast numbers of salons of the eighteenth century, three types are discernible, each of which was prominent and in full sway throughout the century up to the Revolution. To the first cla.s.s belong the great literary and philosophical salons which, though not political in nature, finally changed politics; such were the circles of Mme. de Tencin, Mme. Geoffrin, Mme. du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, Mme. Necker, Mme. d'Epinay, Mme. de Genlis; with these every literary student is familiar. The second cla.s.s includes the smaller and less important literary, philosophical, and social salons--those of Mme. de Marchais, Mme. de Persan, Mme. de Villars, Mme. de Vaines, and of D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Helvetius. The third cla.s.s is of a social nature exclusively, good breeding and good tone being the essentials; its conspicuous features were the dinners and suppers of Suard, Saurin, the Abbes Raynal and Morellet, of the Palais-Royal of Mme. de Blot, of the Temple of the Prince of Conti, those of Mme. de Beauvau, Mme. de Gramont, M. de La Popeliniere, and others.

The distinctions thus made will not hold throughout, but they facilitate the presentation of a subject that is exceedingly complicated. It may almost be said that each generation of the eighteenth century had a salon with a different physiognomy; those of 1710, 1730, 1760, and 1780 were all inspired by different motives, causes, and events, and were all led by women of different histories and aspirations, whose common idol was man, but whose ideas of what const.i.tuted a hero were as widely different as was the const.i.tution of society in the respective periods. Not until the middle of the reign of Louis XIV. did social life become detached from Versailles, and, spreading out and circulating in a thousand hotels, showed itself in all its force, splendor, and elegance. The celebrated women of the regency--Mme. de Prie, Mme. de Parabere, Mme. de Sabran--had no salon, while those of the Marquis d'Alluys and the Hotels de Sully, de Duras, de Villars, and the suppers of Mme. de Chauvelin were of a distinctly different type from those of the earlier and the later periods.

In a certain sense, the salons changed the complexion of the age. The eighteenth century itself was friendly and generous; it was, also, impatient and inexperienced, seeing things not as they were but as it wished them to be, compelling science and art to serve its purpose.

It was frank, often brutally frank, a characteristic due partly to the conversational license of the salons. With its Fontenelle, Voltaire, Piron, etc., it was indeed a happy century. A _bon mot_ was the event of the day and travelled over all the civilized world.

Feeling keenly the need of a guiding principle, the need of a more substantial foundation in education, the women of the century thought and wrote much on that subject; such was, for the most part, the work of the great salons, but in them the philosophical tenets of the age were also discussed. The spirit of criticism thus created and cultivated, which finally spread through all cla.s.ses of society, gradually conquered the new power in the state--public opinion which, at the end of the century, ruled supreme in all its strength and vehemence, defying every effort of the government to stifle it. The highest form of agreeable and intellectual society which the world has ever seen attained to its most complete development in these salons.

Every century has had its specialty: the twelfth had its crusades, the sixteenth its religious struggles, the seventeenth its grand _gout_, the eighteenth its conversation and love of reason, the nineteenth its political struggles; and each one displayed the French pa.s.sion for _esprit_; the eighteenth, however, was, _par excellence_, the century of _esprit_, and it was most remarkably developed in woman.

"Such astonis.h.i.+ngly loquacious people as lived in Paris in the eighteenth century! ineffective, sardonic, verbose, sociable, intellectual, elegant, immoral--grand gentlemen and ladies, with tears for mimic woes and none for actual ones, praise for wit, rewards for cleverness, and absolute ignorance of the destinies they were preparing for themselves;" such is the story of women and society of the eighteenth century. Among these women the salon leaders will be found the most attractive, and the most influential in literature, theory of government, and social and moral development; to the mistresses belongs the t.i.tle of "politicians."

_La Menagerie de Mme. de Tencin_ was one of the earliest of the eighteenth-century salons, although, in the strict sense of the word, Mme. de Tencin's salon was of a political rather than a literary nature. Successively nun, mistress, mother, she was one of the shrewdest women of the century. Born in 1681, she early became a nun; but such was the character of her life at the convent that it was not long before she became a mother. In 1714 she abandoned her conventual life and went to Paris, where she rose to influence as the mistress of Cardinal Dubois and of the regent, the Duke of Orleans. At Paris her real activity began; she arrived at that gay capital with no other collateral than a pretty face and an extraordinary cunning, which soon brought her a fortune. Fertile in resources of all kinds, she succeeded immediately, and gained for her nephew the cardinal's hat.

In 1717 was born to her the afterward famous d'Alembert, whom she left upon the steps of the church Saint-Jean-le-Rond; afterward, when he had become eminent and her power was waning, she unsuccessfully used every means at her command to gain his favor and recognition; the father of that child was the Chevalier Destouches.

About 1726, when lovers were numerous and friends plentiful, the death of Lafresnaye occurred at her salon. In his testament he stated that his death was caused by Mme. de Tencin; however, she was too shrewd, cunning, and careful to be guilty of permitting any weak points to appear in her plots, and it was not difficult for her to clear herself of that charge by the verdict of the judges, who considered the accusation a posthumous vengeance.

The great literary men whom Mme. de Tencin gathered about her, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marivaux, Helvetius, Marmontel, were called her menagerie, or her _betes_. Among them, Marivaux received a pension of one thousand ecus from her, besides drawing at will upon the exchequer of an old maid by the name of Saint-Jean. Marmontel, desirous of writing tragedies, took lessons from the famous Mlle.

Clairon--at his friend's expense. To give a correct idea of the character of woman's influence upon the literary style of that century, the words of Marmontel may be quoted: "He who wishes to write with precision, energy, and vigor, may live with man only; but he who in his style wishes to have subtleness, amenity, charm, flexibility, will do well, I think, to live with woman."

Mme. de Tencin exerted an immense influence upon the men of her circle, especially socially; for example, she married the wealthy M.

de La Popeliniere to Mlle. Dancourt. She was one of the few really consummate diplomats; later on, she became less a.s.sociated with intrigues, and gave lessons in current diplomacy, with which she was perfectly familiar. Her counsel to her pupils was to gain friends among women rather than among men. "For," she would say, "we do whatever we wish with men; they are so dissipated, or so preoccupied with their personal interests, that to give attention to them would be to neglect your own interests."

Every New Year's Day the _betes_ of her menagerie received two yards of velvet, to make knickerbockers to be worn at her receptions; this custom was observed up to the last year of the existence of her salon.

Her receptions were among the first of the kind in France. Like the majority of salon leaders, she was an auth.o.r.ess of no mean ability.

Her novels were widely read at the time--_Le Siege de Calais_ and _Les Malheurs de l'Amour_. Her memoirs, throwing light upon the intrigues and plots, social animosities, and general state of the society of the time, are historically valuable. She died in Paris, in 1749.

Among all the great salons, that of Mme. de Tencin was the only one in which gambling was indulged in on a wholesale scale; fortunes changed hands every evening, a large part of the gains always falling to the lot of the hostess, as a sort of "rake off." She herself was a professional at the business, and by receiving private information from headquarters, through her famous friend Law, the _controleur-general_, and her lover Dubois, she was able to acquire an immense fortune which she distributed freely among her friends and favorites. Her place among the literary salon leaders depends mainly upon her endeavors to advance the interests of the aspiring young authors who were willing to place themselves under her protection.

After the death of Mme. de Tencin and that of Mme. de Chatelet, who had received many of the celebrities of the time, there remained but two distinguished, purely literary and philosophical salons open in Paris. By right of precedence, the _betes_ should have gone over to the salon of Mme. du Deffand, as she had been established some years when Mme. Geoffrin began to receive at her residence, which gained its first renown through the exquisite dinners served there. But the _betes_ all flocked to the _salon bourgeois_, and consequently a more brilliant gathering never a.s.sembled in a salon; here sat, enjoying the liberal hospitalities, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marmontel, Helvetius, Diderot, D'Alembert, Thomas, D'Holbach, Hume, Morellet, Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, the Marquis de Duras, Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne. Here, conversation--which, in the eighteenth century, was not only a discussion or a dissertation, but an art--reached its highest development; the members did not need to be eloquent, to expatiate upon some theory or science; the conversation moved about the members, and they had to be a part of it.

Mme. Geoffrin was born in Paris in 1699, and was the daughter of M.

Rodet, _valet de chambre_ of the dauphiness, d.u.c.h.esse de Bourgogne, mother of Louis XV. When barely fifteen she was married to the wealthy M. Geoffrin, the so-called founder of the celebrated _Manufacture des Glaces de Gobelins_. Through his wealth and his a.s.sociations with people of n.o.bility who bought his ware, she was soon encouraged in her desire to entertain the n.o.bility; and her _esprit_, tact, intelligence, and admirable taste in dress were all effective in bringing about the desired results.

Her career was one of continual successes. When she opened her salon, in 1741, she inst.i.tuted the custom of receiving her friends at table, not only men of letters, but artists, architects, builders, painters, sculptors, all men of genius and prominence. Monday was the day reserved for artists exclusively; Marmontel, who lived with Mme.

Geoffrin for ten years "as her tenant," and the indispensable Abbe Morellet were the exceptions who might be present upon that day. From the very beginning she formed the habit of permitting conversation to go just so far, then cutting it off with her famous: _Voil qui est bien!_

Her husband was the _maitre d'hotel_, of whom many interesting anecdotes are told; the best and one that ill.u.s.trates well the appreciation of individuals in those days is the following, which is so admirably told by Lady Jackson that we quote from her: "For some years, there sat at the bottom of Mme. Geoffrin's dinner and supper table a dignified-looking, white-haired old gentleman, bland in manner, but very modest and retiring, speaking only when spoken to, but looking very happy when the guests seemed to enjoy the good cheer set before them. When, at last, his customary place became vacant, and some brilliant b.u.t.terfly of madame's circle of _visiteurs flottants_, who, perhaps, had smiled patronizingly upon the silent old gentleman, becoming aware of his absence, would, perchance, carelessly inquire what had become of her constant dinner guest, madame would reply: _Mais, c'etait mon mari. Helas! il est mort, le bon homme._ [Why, that was my husband! alas, he is dead, poor man!] Just so little was the consideration shown this worthy creature in his own house! Yet it both pleased and amused him to sit there silently and gaze at the throng of rank, fas.h.i.+on, and learning, a.s.sembled in his wife's salon, and to witness her social success."

After the death of Mme. Geoffrin's husband, the immense fortune pa.s.sed under her own management, whereupon began her real career as a social arbitress, during which she is said to have tempered both opinions and characters. Thomas said of her that "she was, in morals, like that divinity of the ancients which maintained or reestablished limits."

She was a great patroness of arts and her rooms were decorated with pictures by Vanloo, Greuze, Vernet, Robert, etc. She and her salon became, in time, the acknowledged judge and dictator of matters literary and artistic. Whenever a financier wished to purchase a certain work of art, it was taken to her Monday dinner, where the artists determined its artistic value and fixed the price. Her house was a real museum; there the precious Mariette collection was on permanent exhibition.

Besides her Monday dinners to artists and her Wednesday dinners to the literary world, she gave private luncheons to a select few who were especially congenial. At those functions, such celebrities as the Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne, the Marquise de Duras, and the Prince de Rohan were frequent guests.

Mme. Geoffrin was shrewd and tactful enough to avoid politics and not to permit discussions of a political nature at her salon--precautions which she observed to keep the government from interfering with her fortune and mode of living. Her salon and dinners became so famous that every foreigner going to Paris had the ambition to be received at Mme. Geoffrin's; when any aspirant was successful in this, she would say to her friends: _Soyons aimables_ [Let us be kind]. She spent freely of her immense fortune constantly seeking and aiding the poor.

Persons who refused to accept her charity found little favor with her; Rousseau was one of these. It was her habit to go frequently to see friends, merely to ascertain their wants and to satisfy them. The Abbe Morellet, Thomas, D'Alembert, and Mlle. de Lespina.s.se (the only lady admitted to her Wednesdays) were given liberal pensions. Upon each New Year's Day, in commemoration of Mme. de Tencin, she sent each Wednesday guest a velvet cap. Her motto was: _Donner et pardonner_ [Give and forgive].

Stanislas, King of Poland, her _protege_, whom she had rescued from the debtor's prison in Paris, and to whom she had shown many favors, upon being elected King of Poland in 1764, said to her: _Maman, votre fils est roi_ [Mamma, your son is king]. Two years later, when she paid him a visit, the leading members of the Polish n.o.bility met her on the road, and the king had a special residence prepared for her.