Читать книгу The Women of the French Salons - Amelia Gere Mason - Страница 8

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Salons of the Noblesse—"The Illustrious Sappho"—Her Romances—The Samedis—Bon Mots of Mme. Cornuel—Estimate of Mlle. de Scudery

There were a few contemporary salons among the noblesse, modeled more or less after the Hotel de Rambouillet, but none of their leaders had the happy art of conciliating so many elements. They had a literary flavor, and patronized men of letters, often doubtless, because it was the fashion and the name of a well-known litterateur gave them a certain eclat; but they were not cosmopolitan, and have left no marked traces. One of the most important of these was the Hotel de Conde, over which the beautiful Charlotte de Montmorency presided with such dignity and grace, during the youth of her daughter, the Duchesse de Longueville. Another was the Hotel de Nevers, where the gifted Marie de Gonzague, afterward Queen of Poland, and her charming sister, the Princesse Palatine, were the central attractions of a brilliant and intellectual society. Richelieu, recognizing the power of the Rambouillet circle, wished to transfer it to the salon of his niece at the Petit Luxembourg. We have a glimpse of the young and still worldly Pascal, explaining here his discoveries in mathematics and his experiments in physics. The tastes of this courtly company were evidently rather serious, as we find another celebrity, of less enduring fame, discoursing upon the immortality of the soul. But the rank, talent, and masterful character of the Duchesse d'Aiguillon did not suffice to give her salon the wide influence of its model; it was tainted by her own questionable character, and always hampered by the suspicion of political intrigues.

There were smaller coteries, however, which inherited the spirit and continued the traditions of the Hotel de Rambouillet. Prominent among these was that of Madeleine de Scudery, who held her Samedis in modest fashion in the Marais. These famous reunions lacked the prestige and the fine tone of their model, but they had a definite position, and a wide though not altogether favorable influence. As the forerunner of Mme. de La Fayette and Mme. de Sevigne, and one of the most eminent literary women of the century with which her life ran parallel, Mlle. de Scudery has a distinct interest for us and it is to her keen observation and facile pen that we are indebted for the most complete and vivid picture of the social life of the period.

The "illustrious Sappho," as she was pleased to be called, certainly did not possess the beauty popularly accorded to her namesake and prototype. She was tall and thin, with a long, dark, and not at all regular face; Mme. Cornuel said that one could see clearly "she was destined by Providence to blacken paper, as she sweat ink from every pore." But, if we may credit her admirers, who were numerous, she had fine eyes, a pleasing expression, and an agreeable address. She evidently did not overestimate her personal attractions, as will be seen from the following quatrain, which she wrote upon a portrait made by one of her friends.

Nanteuil, en faisant mon image,

A de son art divin signale le pouvoir;

Je hais mes yeux dans mon miroir,

Je les aime dans son ouvrage.

She had her share, however, of small but harmless vanities, and spoke of her impoverished family, says Tallemant, "as one might speak of the overthrow of the Greek empire." Her father belonged to an old and noble house of Provence, but removed to Normandy, where he married and died, leaving two children with a heritage of talent and poverty. A trace of the Provencal spirit always clung to Madeleine, who was born in 1607, and lived until the first year of the following century. After losing her mother, who is said to have been a woman of some distinction, she was carefully educated by an uncle in all the accomplishments of the age, as well as in the serious studies which were then unusual. According to her friend Conrart she was a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge both useful and ornamental. "She had a prodigious imagination," he writes, "an excellent memory, an exquisite judgment, a lively temper, and a natural disposition to understand everything curious which she saw done, and everything laudable which she heard talked of. She learned the things that concern agriculture, gardening, housekeeping, cooking, and a life in the country; also the causes and effects of maladies, the composition of an infinite number of remedies, perfumes, scented waters and distillations useful or agreeable. She wished to play the lute, and took some lessons with success." In addition to all this, she mastered Spanish and Italian, read extensively and conversed brilliantly. At the death of her uncle and in the freshness of her youth, she went to Paris with her brother who had some pretension as a poet and dramatic writer. He even posed as a rival of Corneille, and was sustained by Richelieu, but time has long since relegated him to comparative oblivion. His sister, who was a victim of his selfish tyranny, is credited with much of the prose which appeared under his name; indeed, her first romances were thus disguised. Her love for conversation was so absorbing, that he is said to have locked her in her room, and refused her to her friends until a certain amount of writing was done. But, in spite of this surveillance, her life was so largely in the world that it was a mystery when she did her voluminous work.

Of winning temper and pleasing address, with this full equipment of knowledge and imagination, versatility and ambition, she was at an early period domesticated in the family of Mme. de Rambouillet as the friend and companion of Julie d'Angennes. Her graces of mind and her amiability made her a favorite with those who frequented the house, and she was thus brought into close contact with the best society of her time. She has painted it carefully and minutely in the "Grand Cyrus," a romantic allegory in which she transfers the French aristocracy and French manners of the seventeenth century to an oriental court. The Hotel de Rambouillet plays an important part as the Hotel Cleomire. When we consider that the central figures were the Prince de Conde and his lovely sister the Duchesse de Longueville, also that the most distinguished men and women of the age saw their own portraits, somewhat idealized but quite recognizable through the thin disguise of Persians, Greeks, Armenians, or Egyptians, it is easy to imagine that the ten volumes of rather exalted sentiment were eagerly sought and read. She lacked incident and constructive power, but excelled in vivid portraits, subtle analysis, and fine conversations. She made no attempt at local color; her plots were strained and unnatural, her style heavy and involved. But her penetrating intellect was thoroughly tinged with the romantic spirit, and she had the art of throwing a certain glamour over everything she touched. Cousin, who has rescued the memory of Mlle. de Scudery from many unjust aspersions, says that she was the "creator of the psychological romance." Unquestionably her skill in character painting set the fashion for the pen portraits which became a mania a few years later.

She depicts herself as Sapppho, whose opinions may be supposed to reflect her own. In these days, when the position of women is discussed from every possible point of view, it may be interesting to know how it was regarded by one who represented the thoughtful side of the age in which their social power was first distinctly asserted. She classes her critics and enemies under several heads. Among them are the "light and coquettish women whose only occupation is to adorn their persons and pass their lives in fetes and amusements—women who think that scrupulous virtue requires them to know nothing but to be the wife of a husband, the mother of children, and the mistress of a family; and men who regard women as upper servants, and forbid their daughters to read anything but their prayer books."

"One does not wish women to be coquettes," she writes again, "but permits them to learn carefully all that fits them for gallantry, without teaching them anything which can fortify their virtue or occupy their minds. They devote ten or a dozen years to learning to appear well, to dress in good style, to dance and sing, for five or six; but this same person, who requires judgment all her life and must talk until her last sigh, learns nothing which can make her converse more agreeably, or act with more wisdom."

But she does not like a femme savante, and ridicules, under the name of Damophile, a character which might have been the model for Moliere's Philaminte. This woman has five or six masters, of whom the least learned teaches astrology. She poses as a Muse, and is always surrounded with books, pencils, and mathematical instruments, while she uses large words in a grave and imperious tone, although she speaks only of little things. After many long conversations about her, Sappho concludes thus: "I wish it to be said of a woman that she knows a hundred things of which she does not boast, that she has a well-informed mind, is familiar with fine works, speaks well, writes correctly, and knows the world; but I do not wish it to be said of her that she is a femme savante. The two characters have no resemblance." She evidently recognized the fact that when knowledge has penetrated the soul, it does not need to be worn on the outside, as it shines through the entire personality.

After some further discussion, to the effect that the wise woman will conceal superfluous learning and especially avoid pedantry, she defines the limit to which a woman may safely go in knowledge without losing her right to be regarded as the "ornament of the world, made to be served and adored."

One may know some foreign languages and confess to reading Homer, Hesiod, and the works of the illustrious Aristee (Chapelain), without being too learned. One may express an opinion so modestly that, without offending the propriety of her sex, she may permit it to be seen that she has wit, knowledge, and judgment. That which I wish principally to teach women is not to speak too much of that which they know well, never to speak of that which they do not know at all, and to speak reasonably.

We note always a half-apologetic tone, a spirit of compromise between her conscious intelligence and the traditional prejudice which had in no wise diminished since Martial included, in his picture of a domestic menage, "a wife not too learned … " She is not willing to lose a woman's birthright of love and devotion, but is not quite sure how far it might be affected by her ability to detect a solecism. Hence, she offers a great deal of subtle flattery to masculine self-love. With curious naivete she says:

Whoever should write all that was said by fifteen or twenty women together would make the worst book in the world, even if some of them were women of intelligence. But if a man should enter, a single one, and not even a man of distinction, the same conversation would suddenly become more spirituelle and more agreeable. The conversation of men is doubtless less sprightly when there are no women present; but ordinarily, although it may be more serious, it is still rational, and they can do without us more easily than we can do without them.

She attaches great importance to conversation as "the bond of society, the greatest pleasure of well-bred people, and the best means of introducing, not only politeness into the world, but a purer morality." She dwells always upon the necessity of "a spirit of urbanity, which banishes all bitter railleries, as well as everything that can offend the taste," also of a certain "esprit de joie."

We find here the code which ruled the Hotel de Rambouillet, and the very well-defined character of the precieuse. But it may be noted that Mlle. de Scudery, who was among the avant-coureurs of the modern movement for the advancement of women, always preserved the forms of the old traditions, while violating their spirit. True to her Gallic instincts, she presented her innovations sugar-coated. She had the fine sense of fitness which is the conscience of her race, and which gave so much power to the women who really revolutionized society without antagonizing it.

Her conversations, which were full of wise suggestions and showed a remarkable insight into human character, were afterwards published in detached form and had a great success. Mme. de Sevigne writes to her daughter: "Mlle. De Scudery has just sent me two little volumes of conversations; it is impossible that they should not be good, when they are not drowned in a great romance."

When the Hotel de Rambouillet was closed, Mlle. de Scudery tried to replace its pleasant reunions by receiving her friends on Saturdays. These informal receptions were frequented by a few men and women of rank, but the prevailing tone was literary and slightly bourgeois. We find there, from time to time, Mme. de Sable, the Duc and Duchesse de Montausier, and others of the old circle who were her lifelong friends. La Rochefoucauld is there occasionally, also Mme. de. La Fayette, Mme. de Sevigne, and the young Mme. Scarron whose brilliant future is hardly yet in her dreams. Among those less known today, but of note in their age, were the Comtesse de la Suze, a favorite writer of elegies, who changed her faith and became a Catholic, as she said, that she "might not meet her husband in this world or the next;" the versatile Mlle. Cheron who had some celebrity as a poet, musician, and painter; Mlle. de la Vigne and Mme. Deshoulieres, also poets; Mlle. Descartes, niece of the great philosopher; and, at rare intervals, the clever Abbess de Rohan who tempered her piety with a little sage worldliness. One of the most brilliant lights in this galaxy of talent was Mme. Cornuel, whose bons mots sparkle from so many pages in the chronicles of the period. A woman of high bourgeois birth and of the best associations, she had a swift vision, a penetrating sense, and a clear intellect prompt to seize the heart of a situation. Mlle. De Scudery said that she could paint a grand satire in four words. Mme. de Sevigne found her admirable, and even the grave Pomponne begged his friend not to forget to send him all her witticisms. Of the agreeable but rather light Comtesse de Fiesque, she said: "What preserves her beauty is that it is salted in folly." Of James II of England, she remarked, "The Holy Spirit has eaten up his understanding." The saying that the eight generals appointed at the death of Turenne were "the small change for Turenne" has been attributed to her. It is certainly not to a woman of such keen insight and ready wit that one can attach any of the affectations which later crept into the Samedis.

The poet Sarasin is the Voiture of this salon. Conrart, to whose house may be traced the first meetings of the little circle of lettered men which formed the nucleus of the Academie Francaise, is its secretary; Pellisson, another of the founders and the historian of the same learned body, is its chronicler. Chapelain is quite at home here, and we find also numerous minor authors and artists whose names have small significance today. The Samedis follow closely in the footsteps of the Hotel de Rambouillet. It is the aim there to speak simply and naturally upon all subjects grave or gay, to preserve always the spirit of delicacy and urbanity, and to avoid vulgar intrigues. There is a superabundance of sentiment, some affectation, and plenty of esprit.

They converse upon all the topics of the day, from fashion to politics, from literature and the arts to the last item of gossip. They read their works, talk about them, criticize them, and vie with one another in improvising verses. Pellisson takes notes and leaves us a multitude of madrigals, sonnets, chansons and letters of varied merit. He says there reigned a sort of epidemic of little poems. "The secret influence began to fall with the dew. Here one recites four verses; there, one writes a dozen. All this is done gaily and without effort. No one bites his nails, or stops laughing and talking. There are challenges, responses, repetitions, attacks, repartees. The pen passes from hand to hand, and the hand does not keep pace with the mind. One makes verses for every lady present." Many of these verses were certainly not of the best quality, but it would be difficult, in any age, to find a company of people clever enough to divert themselves by throwing off such poetic trifles on the spur of the moment.

In the end, the Samedis came to have something of the character of a modern literary club, and were held at different houses. The company was less choice, and the bourgeois coloring more pronounced. These reunions very clearly illustrated the fact that no society can sustain itself above the average of its members. They increased in size, but decreased in quality, with the inevitable result of affectation and pretension. Intelligence, taste, and politeness were in fashion. Those who did not possess them put on their semblance, and, affecting an intellectual tone, fell into the pedantry which is sure to grow out of the effort to speak above one's altitude. The fine-spun theories of Mlle. de Scudery also reached a sentimental climax in "Clelie," which did not fail of its effect. Platonic love and the ton galant were the texts for innumerable follies which finally reacted upon the Samedis. After a few years, they lost their influence and were discontinued. But Mlle. de Scudery retained the position which her brilliant gifts and literary fame had given her, and was the center of a choice circle of friends until a short time before her death at the ripe age of ninety-four. Even Tallemant, writing of the decline of these reunions, says, "Mlle. De Scudery is more considered than ever." At sixty-four she received the first Prix D'Eloquence from the Academie Francaise, for an essay on Glory. This prize was founded by Balzac, and the subject was specified. Thus the long procession of laureates was led by a woman.

In spite of her subtle analysis of love, and her exact map of the Empire of Tenderness, the sentiment of the "Illustrious Sappho" seems to have been rather ideal. She had numerous adorers, of whom Conrart and Pellisson were among the most devoted. During the long imprisonment of the latter for supposed complicity with Fouquet, she was of great service to him, and the tender friendship ended only with his life, upon which she wrote a touching eulogy at its close. But she never married. She feared to lose her liberty. "I know," she writes, "that there are many estimable men who merit all my esteem and who can retain a part of my friendship, but as soon as I regard them as husbands, I regard them as masters, and so apt to become tyrants that I must hate them from that moment; and I thank the gods for giving me an inclination very much averse to marriage."

It was the misfortune of Mlle. de Scudery to outlive her literary reputation. The interminable romances which had charmed the eloquent Flechier, the Grand Conde in his cell at Vincennes, the ascetic d'Andilly at Port Royal, as well as the dreaming maidens who signed over their fanciful descriptions and impossible adventures, passed their day. The touch of a merciless criticism stripped them of their already fading glory. Their subtle analysis and etherealized sentiment were declared antiquated, and fashion ran after new literary idols. It was Boileau who gave the severest blow. "This Despreaux," said Segrais, "knows how to do nothing else but talk of himself and criticize others; why speak ill of Mlle. de Scudery as he has done?"

There has been a disposition to credit the founder of the Samedis with many of the affectations which brought such deserved ridicule upon their bourgeois imitators, and to trace in her the original of Moliere's "Madelon." But Cousin has relieved her of such reproach, and does ample justice to the truth and sincerity of her character, the purity of her manners, and the fine quality of her intellect. He calls her "a sort of French sister of Addison." Perhaps her resemblance to one of the clearest, purest, and simplest of English essayists is not quite apparent on the surface; but as a moralist and a delineator of manners she may have done a similar work in her own way.

Sainte-Beuve, who has left so many vivid and exquisite portraits of his countrywomen, does not paint Mlle. de Scudery with his usual kindly touch. He admits her merit, her accomplishments, her versatility, and the perfect innocence of her life; but he finds her didactic, pedantic, and tiresome as a writer, and without charm or grace as a woman. Doubtless one would find it difficult to read her romances today. She lacks the genius which has no age and belongs to all ages. Her literary life pertains to the first half of the seventeenth century, when style had not reached the Attic purity and elegance of a later period. She was teacher rather than artist; but no one could be farther from a bas bleu, or more severe upon pedantry or pretension of any sort. She takes the point of view of her time, and dwells always upon the wisdom of veiling the knowledge she claims for her sex behind the purely feminine graces. How far she practiced her own theories, we can know only from the testimony of her contemporaries. It is not possible to perpetuate so indefinable a thing as personal charm, but we are told repeatedly that she had it in an eminent degree. It is certain that no woman without beauty, fortune, or visible rank, living simply and depending mainly upon her own talents, could have retained such powerful and fastidious friends, during a long life, unless she had had some rare attractions. That she was much loved, much praised, and much sought, we have sufficient evidence among the writers of her own time. She was familiarly spoken of as the tenth Muse, and she counted among her personal friends the greatest men and women of the century. Leibnitz sought her correspondence. The Abbe de Pure, who was not friendly to the precieuses and made the first severe attack upon them, thus writes of her: "One may call Mlle. de Scudery the muse of our age and the prodigy of her sex. It is not only her goodness and her sweetness, but her intellect shines with so much modesty, her sentiments are expressed with so much reserve, she speaks with so much discretion, and all that she says is so fit and reasonable, that one cannot help both admiring and loving her. Comparing what one sees of her, and what one owes to her personally, with what she writes, one prefers, without hesitation, her conversation to her works. Although she has a wonderful mind, her heart outweighs it. It is in the heart of this illustrious woman that one finds true and pure generosity, an immovable constancy, a sincere and solid friendship."

The loyalty of her character was conspicuously shown in her brave devotion to the interests of the Conde family, through all the reverses of the Fronde. In one of her darkest moments Mme. de Longueville received the last volume of the "Grand Cyrus," which was dedicated to her, and immediately sent her own portrait encircled with diamonds, as the only thing she had left worthy of this friend who, without sharing ardently her political prejudices, had never deserted her waning fortunes. The same rare quality was seen in her unwavering friendship for Fouquet, during his long disgrace and imprisonment. Mme. de Sevigne, whose satire was so pitiless toward affectation of any sort, writes to her in terms of exaggerated tenderness.

"In a hundred thousand words, I could tell you but one truth, which reduces itself to assuring you, Mademoiselle, that I shall love you and adore you all my life; it is only this word that can express the idea I have of your extraordinary merit. I am happy to have some part in the friendship and esteem of such a person. As constancy is a perfection, I say to myself that you will not change for me; and I dare to pride myself that I shall never be sufficiently abandoned of God not to be always yours … I take to my son your conversations. I wish him to be charmed with them, after being charmed myself."

Mlle. de Scudery is especially interesting to us as marking a transition point in the history of women; as the author of the first romances of any note written by her sex; as a moral teacher in an age of laxity; and as a woman who combined high aspirations, fine ideals, and versatile talents with a pure and unselfish character. She aimed at universal accomplishments from the distillation of a perfume to the writing of a novel, from the preparation of a rare dish to fine conversation, from playing the lute to the dissection of the human heart. In this versatility she has been likened to Mme. de Genlis, whom she resembled also in her moral teaching and her factitious sensibility. She was, however, more genuine, more amiable, and far superior in true elevation of character. She was full of theories and loved to air them, hence the people who move across the pages of her novels are often lost in a cloud of speculation. But she gave a fresh impulse to literature, adding a fine quality of grace, tenderness, and pure though often exaggerated sentiment. Mme. de La Fayette, who had more clearness of mind as well as a finer artistic sense, gave a better form to the novel and pruned it of superfluous matter. The sentiment which casts so soft and delicate a coloring over her romances was more subtle and refined. It may be questioned, however, if she wrote so much that has been incorporated in the thought of her time.