Women Of Modern France Part 14

As she pa.s.sed through Vienna, Joseph II. received her, and the Empress Maria entertained her at dinner. Upon her return to Paris, after this triumphal tour through Europe, the members of the world of literature and art, and even the ministers and the n.o.bility, flocked to see her; this demonstration was the more remarkable from the fact that she wielded no political influence, her only desire and pleasure seeming to lie in aiding her friends.

Mme. Geoffrin was too practical and had too much good common sense to be vain. The majority of men were influenced by and favored her, and, which seemed strange, she had few enemies among her own s.e.x. Mme.

Necker said: "The old age of Mme. Geoffrin is like that of old trees, whose age we know by the s.p.a.ce they cover and the quant.i.ty of roots they spread. She has seen all the ill.u.s.trious men of the century; she has discovered, with sagacity, their peculiarities and their defects.

She judges them by their conduct, never by their talents."

In her best years, she was intimately a.s.sociated with the Encyclopaedists, to whom she paid over one hundred thousand francs for the publication of their work. Of all the great women of that century, she was the closest friend of the philosophers and free-thinkers, being called _La Fontenelle des Femmes_. She was always ready with an answer; one day a friend pointed out to her the house of the farmer-general Bouvet, and asked her: "Have you ever seen anything as magnificent and in better taste?" She replied: "I would have nothing to say if Bouvet were the _frotteur_ [floor polisher] of it."

Mme. Geoffrin, more than any other woman of the salons, possessed the three essential qualifications of a salon leader,--good sense, tact, and intelligence. She had also _esprit_, perfect simplicity, precision, and faultless taste; though a sceptic, she was a diplomat who perfectly understood the art of manoeuvring. In short, Mme.

Geoffrin was an intellectual authority, a sort of minister to society, and her salon was the great centre and rendezvous, a veritable inst.i.tution of the eighteenth century. This seems the more remarkable when we consider that she belonged to the bourgeoisie, and that by dint of her exquisite tact, her almost infallible judgment, her admirable taste in dress, and her keen intelligence, she created for herself a position which was the envy of all Europe. Such women are rare. During the last eighteen months of her life, though suffering from paralysis and rheumatism, which she contracted at a religious fete at Notre-Dame, she was unremitting in her attention to her friends and the poor; and up to her death, in 1777, her friends were faithful to her.

That spirit, or malady, which penetrated and ruled almost every creature in the eighteenth century found its most notable victim in Marie de Vichy-Chamrond--Mme. du Deffand. She, so to speak, yawned out her life in a blase society without faith or ideal. That horrible affliction, with all its painful symptoms, ennui, whose origin was seen to lie in an excess and abuse of _esprit_ in a society that based all its pleasures and happiness upon the mind without any higher interest than the self, infected a whole century with an "irremediable disenchantment of others and one's self." This self-cult, or life in and for the mind, developed sagacity, justness of views, and an incomparable penetration, but it neglected all the elements necessary to contentment and those other pleasures, of which the first is love for one's fellow beings. Mme. du Deffand exemplified this stage of mental unbalance; and when she wrote of her former friend and companion: "Mlle. de Lespina.s.se died to-day at two o'clock; formerly, that would have been an event for me; to-day, it is nothing at all,"

she gave an idea of the indifference which was characteristic of the society of the time--an indifference which developed into an incurable malady and an all-consuming egoism, stifling the heart-beat of that world which was weary of everything and yet was unwilling to close its eyes.

Marie de Vichy-Chamrond was born in 1697, of a n.o.ble family. She began the same manner of life as that followed by most French women, being reared in the Convent of Madeleine de Frenel, where, when quite young, she evinced a strong spirit of impiety, giving expression to the most sceptical opinions upon religious subjects, to the great dismay of her superiors and parents. At the age of twenty she was married to the Marquis du Deffand, who had but his brevet of colonel of a regiment of dragoons, and whose intelligence and fortune were of a _nullite rare_.

However, her marriage was a sort of emanc.i.p.ation which enabled her to enter society; and it is a.s.serted that she soon became the mistress of Philippe of Orleans, the regent, from whom she received six thousand francs life income.

As the result of a disagreement, she separated from her husband, and then began a life of pleasure among the gayest of the most fas.h.i.+onable world, where, through the power of her brilliancy, wit, charm, and fascinating beauty, she immediately became a leader. After pa.s.sing through all the phases of social life and its varied experiences--from the society of Mme. de Prie, the type of the dissolute woman of the Regency, from the famous suppers of the regent, whose ingenious inventions of lewd and wanton pleasures made him notorious, from an a.s.sociation with the intriguing d.u.c.h.esse de Maine, to all the great and influential social centres of Paris--in short, after pursuing a career of fas.h.i.+onable dissipation, she became reconciled to her husband, and lived with him in peace and happiness for a short time; but six months of regular life affected her behavior toward the poor marquis to such a degree that he thought it best to leave her. After that episode, she returned to her lover; and, rejected by him and her friends, and becoming the subject of the gossip of the entire city, she sought consolation from one acquaintance after another, and was miserable all the time.

At the age of about thirty-four, Mme. du Deffand returned to a kind of regular life, and, in time, won a reputation for _esprit_, regained her honorable friends and established for herself a kind of accepted authority. Thus, when she opened a salon in 1742, she was able to attract a brilliant company, which became famous after 1749, when she took apartments in the Convent Saint-Joseph. Here wit and polished manners, taste, vivacity, and good sense were the requisites; literature, politics, and philosophy were not tolerated, but "sparkling _bons mots_, glancing epigrams, witty verses, were the avenues to social success."

Until her dotage this woman, who, from a natural selfishness and lack of sympathy, was incapable of loving with the characteristic ardor of the women of her time, by knowing how to inspire love in others, controlled and held near her the famous men and women of her age.

When she began to realize the calamity of her failing sight, which was probably due to her general state of restlessness and the resultant physical decay, she received, as companion, a relative, Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, who undertook the most difficult, disagreeable, and ungrateful task of waiting on the marquise. As Mme. du Deffand arose in time to receive at six, mademoiselle soon announced to the friends that she herself would be visible at an earlier hour. Thus, it happened that Marmontel, Turgot, Condorcet, and d'Alembert regularly a.s.sembled in mademoiselle's room--a proceeding which soon led to a rupture between the two women and a breach between Mme. du Deffand and d'Alembert. The marquise was therefore left alone, blind, but too proud to tolerate pity, yet by her conversation retaining her power of fascination. It was about this time that Horace Walpole became connected with her life. Upon the death of Mme. Geoffrin, she, hearing of the imposing ceremonies and funeral orations, exclaimed: _Voila bien du bruit pour une omelette au lard_. [A great ado about a lard omelet!] Her latter years were dragged out most miserably, being marked by a singular feverishness and unavailing efforts toward the acceptance of some faith. Her death, in 1780, finally brought her relief.

The career of Mme. du Deffand actually began as early as 1730, when she opened her establishment on the Rue de Beaune, at the time that she became attached to the president Henault, who presided over her salon for more than thirty years. The famous salon Du Deffand at the Convent Saint-Joseph was not opened until 1749; there she was very particular as to those whom she received, and access to her salon was a matter of difficulty. Grimm was never received, and Diderot was present but once. The conversation was always intellectual, and whenever she tired of French vivacity, she would spend an evening with Mme. Necker.

A letter of Walpole to Montagu leaves, on the whole, a splendid picture of her: "I have heard her dispute with all sorts of people, upon all sorts of subjects, and never knew her to be in the wrong.

She humbles the learned, sets right their disciples, and finds conversation for everybody. As affectionate as Mme. de Sevigne, she has none of her prejudices, but a more universal taste; and with the most delicate frame, her spirits hurry her through a life of fatigue that would kill me were I to remain here."

The simple furnis.h.i.+ngs of her apartments, which were very s.p.a.cious and had been occupied by the famous Mme. de Montespan, stood out in striking contrast to the elegance of her visitors. Here she gathered about her her two lovers, _le President_ Henault and Pont de Veyle, besides D'Alembert, Turgot, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Necker, Walpole, the Abbes Barthelemy and Pernetty, the Chevalier de Lisle, de Formant, _le Docteur_ Gatti, Hume, Gibbon, Baron de Gleichen, and many other celebrities, including the Princesses de Beauvau, de Poix, de Talmont, the d.u.c.h.esses de Choiseul, d'Aiguillon, de Gramont, the Marechale de Luxembourg, the Marquises de Boufflers and du Chatelet, the Comtesses de Rochefort, de Broglie, de Forcalquier, Mme. Necker, Lady Pembroke, De Lauzun, and many others, all of whom were society leaders. Whenever Mme. du Deffand had a special supper, it was said that Paris was at Mme. du Deffand's.

Her salon, above all others, was the centre of cosmopolitanism, where all great men, foreigners and natives, found means of social intercourse, and where, more than in any other salon, were a.s.sembled the great beauties of the day, represented especially by the Countesses de Forcalquier and Choiseul-Beaupre, d.u.c.h.esse de La Valliere. Gallantry and beauty were found in the Marechale de Luxembourg and the Comtesse de Boufflers. The philosophical movement of the Encyclopaedists and Economists was not encouraged at all.

Thus, in Mme. du Deffand's salon, we find neither pure philosophy nor religion, nor the air of pedants and _declamateurs_; it was a royalist salon without illusion, hence indifferent to all questions. It represented the perfect type of the French model of _esprit de finesse_,--that is, precision,--and its leader possessed a keen insight into human character.

This wonderful woman, who, during a period of over forty years, had held at her feet the elite of the French world, at the age of about threescore and ten, fell desperately in love with a man of fifty--Horace Walpole. She who had never loved with her heart, but only with her mind, then declared it better to be dead than not to love someone. Although her actions and letters were pitiful in the extreme, her epistles are invaluable for their incomparable portraitures and keen reflections upon persons and events of the time.

She attracted Walpole by the possibilities that were opened up to him by her position in society, and by her brilliant conversation, in which she scoffed at the clergy and the philosophers, showing a profound insight into human nature and the society of the time as well as into politics. Their correspondence shows one of the most pitiful, pathetic, and lamentable love tales in the history of society. He looked upon her friends.h.i.+p as a most valuable acquisition by which he was kept in touch with all the scandals and stories of society, of which he was so fond, and she mistook that friends.h.i.+p for love.

He felt himself flattered in being the one preferred by such a distinguished old lady of high society.

All critics are at a loss for the explanation of such a love in a woman of seventy. Was it the result of the lifetime of disappointment of a woman who had constantly sought love but had never found it? Was it, thus, the hallucination of the childish old age of the woman who was physically consumed by incessant social functions and all-night reading? Mme. du Deffand sees in Walpole her ideal, and she gives expression to her feelings, regardless of propriety; for she is childish and irresponsible. To a certain extent, the same was true of Mme. de Stael, but she was still physically healthy and young enough to enjoy life and the realization of that which she had so long desired--an ideal affection. In the case of Mme. du Deffand, the soul was willing, but the body failed. Her emotion can scarcely be termed love, but is rather to be designated as a mental hallucination, an exaggerated intellectual affection bordering upon sentimentality--the outgrowth of that morbid imagination developed from her long suffering from ennui.

She was a woman destined to pa.s.s by the side of happiness without ever reaching it. She hardly had enjoyed what may be called friends.h.i.+p; she was always either suspicious of it and of her friends' sentiments, or she herself broke off relations for some trivial reason. This woman, however, always longed to believe her friends sincere, but never succeeded. "Her friends either leave her, they die, or they are far away; or, if present, faithful and attached to her, she cannot believe in their affection; her cursed scepticism deceived her heart."

Mme. du Deffand was one of the few women of the eighteenth century who saw reality and nothing but reality, and admitted what she saw; she was gifted with such quick penetration and such mental facility that she stands out prominently as one of the brightest and most intellectual of the spiritual women of her time. This quickness of perception and tendency to follow a mere impression made it difficult for her to examine closely, to be patient of details; too sure of herself, too emotional, too pa.s.sionate, she displayed injustice, vehemence, over-enthusiasm; easily bored and disgusted, she was, at the same time, susceptible to infatuation. Scherer said: "She is a superior man in a body of a nervous and weak woman."

She was a woman dominated by her reason--a characteristic which led to an incurable ennui, thus causing her terrible suffering, but equipping her with a penetration which saw through the world and knew man, whom she divided into three cla.s.ses: _les trompeurs_, _les trompes_, _les trompettes_. According to her judgment, man is either fatiguing or, if brilliantly endowed, usually false or jealous; but she realized, also, her own shortcomings, the incompleteness of her faculties. "The force of her thought does not reach talent; her intelligence is active and responsive, but fails to respond. She often shows a sovereign disdain for herself, everybody, and everything. She arrives at a point in life when she no longer has pa.s.sion, desire, or even curiosity; she detests life, and dreads death because she does not know that there is another world. She is not happy enough to do without those whom she scorns, and must therefore seek diversion in the conversation of stupid people, preferring anything to solitude; this refers to the time when her best friends are no more and when she herself is out of her former _milieu_; she was too old, or lived too long; she belongs to another age."

By her friends she was called the feminine Voltaire, and the celebrated philosopher and she were drawn together by a very similar habit of mind, although, to her intimates, she scorched Voltaire; but in writing to him she would overwhelm him with compliments, calling him the only orthodox representative of good taste. In general, she detested philosophers, because their hearts were cold and their minds preoccupied with themselves.

Mme. du Deffand had an inherent pa.s.sion for simplicity, frankness, justice, and a hatred for deceit and affectation; but, strange as it may seem, her nature required variety in her pleasure--new people, new pursuits, new amus.e.m.e.nts, new agitations for her hungry mind; she was too critical to be contented and to put implicit trust in her friends.

An agnostic, always endeavoring to probe into the nature of things, the possession of a personal, living faith was yet the strongest desire of her heart; all her life she longed for the peace that religion affords, but this was denied her, although she had the spiritual a.s.sistance of the most famous of the clergy, attended church, had her oratory, her confessor, and faithfully studied the Bible; all was vain--belief would not come to her. The marriage tie was not sacred to her, which was the case with many of the French women of the day, but she went further in lacking all reverence for religious ceremony, though she respected the beliefs of others.

She was all wit and intellectuality. In order to keep her friends from falling under the spell of ennui, she devoted herself to the culinary art, and her suppers became famous for their rare dishes. "She is an example of the type that was predominant in the time--one that had lived too much and was dying from excess of knowledge and pleasure; but she sought that which did not exist in that age,--serenity, peace, faith. She was pa.s.sionate, sensitive, and sympathetic, in a cold, heartless, and unfeeling world. She needed variety; being bored with society, solitude, husband, lovers, herself, nothing remained for her but to await deliverance by death." This came to her in 1780.

[Ill.u.s.tration 3: _MME. DU CHaTELET PROTECTING VOLTAIRE After the painting by Mme. E. Armand Leleux._ _A woman who played a prominent part in society during the Regency, but who had no salon in the proper sense of the word, was Mme. du Chatelet, commonly called Voltaire's Emilie. She was especially interested in sciences, and did more than any other woman of that time to encourage nature study. It was at her Chateau de Cirey that Voltaire found protection when threatened with a second visit to the Bastille; and there, from time to time for sixteen years, he did some of the best work of his life. It was Mme. du Chatelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him, and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During these years, while he was under the influence of madame, appeared_ Merope, Alzire, _the_ Siecle de Louis XIV, _etc._]

In matters literary, Mme. du Deffand preserved an absolute liberty and independence of opinion. She refused to accept the verdicts of the most competent judges; with instinctive attractions and repulsions, she found but few writers that pleased her. Boileau, Lesage, Chamfort, were her favorites. She said that Buffon was of an unendurable monotony. "He knows well what he knows, but he is occupied with beasts only; one must be something of a beast one's self in order to devote one's self to such an occupation."

As a writer, she showed remarkable good sense, admirable sincerity, rare judgment, justness, and precision; depth and charm were present in a less degree than were other desirable qualities, but she exhibited excellent _esprit_. She was probably the most subtile, and at the same time the most fastidious person of the century. The best portraits of her were written by her own pen; two of them we give, one written at the beginning of her career in 1728, the other at its end in 1774.

"Mme. la Marquise du Deffand is an enemy of all falseness and affectation. Her talk and countenance are always the faithful interpreters of the sentiment of her soul. Her form is not fine nor bad. She has _esprit_, is reasonable and has a correct taste. If vivacity at times leads her off, truth soon brings her back. After she falls into an ennui which extinguishes all the light of her mind, she finds that state insupportable and the cause of such unhappiness, that she blindly embraces all that presents itself, without deliberation."

(1774.) "They believe Mme. du Deffand to possess more _esprit_ than she really has; they praise and fear her, but she merits neither the one nor the other. As far as her _esprit_ is concerned, she is what she is; in regard to her form, to her birth and fortune--nothing extraordinary, nothing distinguished. Born without great talent, incapable of great application, she is very susceptible to ennui, and, not finding any resource within herself, she resorts to those that surround her and this search is often without success."

Mme. du Deffand arouses our curiosity because she was such an exceptional character, led such a strange life, made and retained friends in ways so different from those of the noted heroines of the salons. In her youth, she was beautiful and fascinating, with numerous lovers and numberless suitors, but she grew even more famous as her age increased; when infirm and blind, and living in a convent, she ruled by virtue of her acknowledged authority and was still able to cope with the greatest philosophers, the chief and dean of whom, Voltaire, wrote the following four lines:

"Qui vous voit et qui vous entend Perd bientot sa philosophie; Et tout sage avec Du Deffand Voudrait en fou pa.s.ser sa vie."

[He who sees and hears you, Soon loses his philosophy.

Wise he who with Du Deffand Insane would pa.s.s his life.]

Living long enough to witness the reigns of three kings and one regent, she was brilliant enough to reign over the intellectual and social world for over fifty years, by virtue of her intellectuality, keenness, and wit; yet, among all the great women of France, she is truly the one who deserves genuine pity and sympathy.

The salon of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, her rival, was of a different type, being exclusively intellectual, but permitting absolute liberty of expression of opinions. Born in 1732, at the house of a surgeon of Lyons, she was the illegitimate daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon and was baptized as the child of a man supposed to be named Claude Lespina.s.se. From 1753 she was the constant attendant to Mme. du Deffand, her mother's sister-in-law, for a period of ten years, until she became completely worn out physically, morally, and mentally by incessant care and endless all-night readings. An attempt to end her existence with sixty grains of opium failed. Owing to the jealousy of Mme. du Deffand, a separation ensued in 1764, when she retired some distance from the Convent Saint-Joseph to very modest apartments, where, by means of her friends, she was able to receive in a dignified way. The Marechale de Luxembourg completely fitted up her apartment, the Duc de Choiseul succeeded in getting her an annual pension from the king, and Mme. Geoffrin allowed her three thousand francs.

The majority of the members of her salon were from that of Mme. du Deffand, having followed Mlle. de Lespina.s.se after the rupture of the two women; besides these, there were Condorcet, Helvetius, Grimm, Marmontel, Condillac, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, and many others. As her hours for receiving were after five o'clock, her friends were made to understand that her means were not such as to warrant suppers or dinners, four o'clock being the dinner hour in those days.

Her salon immediately became known as the official encyclopaedia resort, Mme. du Deffand dubbing it _La Muse de l'Encyclopedie_.

D'Alembert was the high priest, and it was not long before he was comfortably lodged in the third story of her house, Mlle. de Lespina.s.se having nursed him through a malignant fever which the poor man had contracted in the wretched place where he lodged. A strange gathering, those salons! Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, one of the leaders in the social world, with a prominent salon, was the illegitimate daughter of a Comtesse d'Albon, and her presiding genius was the illegitimate son of Mme. de Tencin; here we find the wealthiest and most elegant of the aristocracy coming from their palaces to meet, in friendly social and intellectual intercourse, men who lived on a mere pittance, dressed on almost nothing, lodged in the most wretched of dens, boarding wherever a salon or palace was opened to them. Surely, intellect was highly valued in those days, and moral etiquette was at a low ebb!

Mlle. de Lespina.s.se possessed two characteristics which were prominent in a remarkable degree--love and friends.h.i.+p. She appeared to interest herself in everybody in such a way as to make him believe that he was the preferred of her heart; loving everybody sincerely and affectionately, she "lacked altogether the sentimental equilibrium."

Especially pathetic was her love for two men--the Count de Mora, a Spanish n.o.bleman, and a Colonel Guibert, who was celebrated for his relations with Frederick the Great; although this wore terribly on her, consuming her physical force, she always received her friends with the same good grace, but often, after their departure, she would fall into a frightful nervous fit from which she could find relief only by the use of opium.

Her love for Guibert was known to her friends, but was a secret from her platonic lover, D'Alembert. When, after a number of years of untold sufferings which even opium could not relieve, she died in 1776, having been cared for to the last by D'Alembert, the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, and her cousin, the Marquis d'Enlezy, it was with these words on her dying lips, addressed to Guibert: "Adieu, my friend!

If ever I return to life, I should like to use it in loving you; but there is no longer any time." When D'Alembert read in her correspondence that she had been the mistress of Guibert for sixteen years, he was disconsolate, and retired to the Louvre, which was his privilege as Secretary of the Academy. He left there only to go walking in the evening with Marmontel, who tried to console him by recalling the changeableness of humor of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se. "Yes,"

he would reply, "she has changed, but not I; she no longer lived for me, but I always lived for her. Since she is no longer, I don't know why I am living. Ah, that I must still suffer these moments of bitterness which she knew so well how to soothe and make me forget!

Do you remember the happy evenings we used to pa.s.s? What is there now?

Instead of her, when coming home, I find only her shadow! This Louvre lodging is itself a tomb, which I enter only with fright."

Mlle. de Lespina.s.se died of grief for a lover's death, but she left a group of lovers to lament her loss. In many respects she was not unlike Mlle. de Scudery; exceptionally plain, her face was much marked with smallpox, a disfigurement not uncommon in those days; her exceedingly piercing and fine eyes, beautiful hair, tall and elegant figure, excellent taste in dress, pleasing voice and a most brilliant talent for conversation, combined to make her one of the most attractive and popular women of her time. As previously stated, she was the only female admitted to the dinners given by Mme. Geoffrin to her men of letters.

Mme. du Deffand's friend, _le President_ Henault, left the following portrait of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se: "You are cosmopolitan--you are suitable to all occasions. You like company--you like solitude.

Pleasures amuse, but do not seduce you. You have very strong pa.s.sions, and of the best kind, for they do not return often. Nature, in endowing you with an ordinary state, gave you something with which to rise above it. You are distinguished, and, without being beautiful, you attract attention. There is something piquant in you; one might obstinately endeavor to turn your head, but it would be at one's own expense. Your will must be awaited, because you cannot be made to come. Your cheerfulness embellishes you, and relaxes your nerves, which are too highly strung. You have your own opinion, and you leave others their own. You are extremely polite. You have divined _le monde_. In vain one would transplant you--you would take root anywhere. In short, you are not an ordinary person."

The salon of Mlle. de Lespina.s.se was unique. Everyone was at perfect liberty to express and sustain his own opinions upon any subject, without danger of offending the hostess, which, as has been seen, was not the case in the salon of Mme. Geoffrin. Her high and sane intellectual culture permitted her to listen to all discussions and to take part in all. She had no strong prejudices, having read--for Mme.

du Deffand--nearly everything that was read at that time; also, she had the talent of preserving harmony among her members by drawing from each one his best qualities.

A woman who played a prominent part in society during the Regency, but who had no salon in the proper sense of that word, was Mme.

du Chatelet, commonly called Voltaire's Emilie. She was especially interested in sciences, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, and did more than any other woman of that time to encourage nature study.

It was at her Chateau de Cirey that Voltaire found protection when threatened with a second visit to the Bastille; and there, from time to time for sixteen years, he did some of the best work of his life.

It was Mme. du Chatelet who encouraged him, sympathized with him, and appreciated his mobile humor as well as his talent. During these years, while he was under the influence of madame, appeared _Merope_, _Alzire_, the _Siecle de Louis XIV_, etc.