The Women of the French Salons
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Amelia Gere Mason >> The Women of the French Salons
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Mme. de Tencin loved literature and philosophy for their own
sake, and received men of letters at their intrinsic value. She
encouraged, too, the freedom of thought and expression at that
time so rare and so dangerous. It was her influence that gave
its first impulse to the success of Montesquieu's esprit DES
LOIS, of which she personally bought and distributed many copies.
If she talked well, she knew also how to listen, to attract by
her sympathy, to aid by her generosity, to inspire by her
intelligence, to charm by her versatility.
Another figure flits in and out of this salon, whose fine
qualities of soul shine so brightly in this morally stifling
atmosphere that one forgets her errors in a mastering impulse of
love and pity. There is no more pathetic history in this arid
and heartless age than that of Mlle. Aisse, the beautiful
Circassian, with the lustrous, dark, Oriental eyes," who was
brought from Constantinople in infancy by the French envoy, and
left as a precious heritage to Mme. de Ferriol, the intriguing
sister of Mme. de Tencin, and her worthy counterpart, if not in
talent, in the faults that darkened their common womanhood. This
delicate young girl, surrounded by worldly and profligate
friends, and drawn in spite of herself into the errors of her
time, redeemed her character by her romantic heroism, her
unselfish devotion, and her final revolt against what seemed to
be an inexorable fate. The struggle between her self-forgetful
love for the knightly Chevalier d'Aydie and her sensitive
conscience, her refusal to cloud his future by a portionless
marriage, and her firmness in severing an unholy tie, knowing
that the sacrifice would cost her life, as it did, form an
episode as rare as it is tragical. But her exquisite
personality, her rich gifts of mind and soul, her fine
intelligence, her passionate love, almost consecrated by her
pious but fatal renunciation, call up one of the loveliest
visions of the century--a vision that lingers in the memory like
a medieval poem.
Mme. de Tencin amused her later years b writing sentimental
tales, which were found among her papers after her death. These
were classed with the romances of Mme. de La Fayette. Speaking
of the latter, La Harpe said, "Only one other woman succeeded, a
century later, in painting with equal power the struggles of love
and virtue." It is one of the curious inconsistencies of her
character, that her creations contained an element which her life
seems wholly to have lacked. Behind all her faults of conduct
there was clearly an ideal of purity and goodness. Her stories
are marked by a vividness and an ardor of passion rarely found in
the insipid and colorless romances of the preceding age. Her
pictures of love and intrigue and crime are touched with the
religious enthusiasm of the cloister, the poetry of devotion, the
heroism of self-sacrifice. Perhaps the dark and mysterious facts
of her own history shaped themselves in her imagination. Did the
tragedy of La Fresnaye, the despairing lover who blew out his
brains at her feet, leaving the shadow of a crime hanging over
her, with haunting memories of the Bastille, recall the innocence
of her own early convent days? Did she remember some long-buried
love, and the child left to perish upon the steps of St. Jean le
Rond, but grown up to be her secret pride in the person of the
great mathematician and philosopher d'Alembert? What was the
subtle link between this worldly woman and the eternal passion,
the tender self-sacrifice of Adelaide, the loyal heroine who
breathes out her solitary and devoted soul on the ashes of La
Trappe, unknown to her faithful and monastic lover, until the
last sigh? The fate of Adelaide has become a legend. It has
furnished a theme for the poet and the artist, an inspiration for
the divine strains of Beethoven, another leaf in the annals of
pure and heroic love. But the woman who conceived it toyed with
the human heart as with a beautiful flower, to be tossed aside
when its first fragrance was gone. She apparently knew neither
the virtue, nor the honor, nor the purity, nor the truth of which
she had so exquisite a perception in the realm of the
imagination. Or were some of the episodes which darken the story
of her life simply the myths of a gossiping age, born of the
incidents of an idle tale, to live forever on the pages of
history?
But it was not as a literary woman that Mme. de Tencin held her
position and won her fame. Her gifts were eminently those of her
age and race, and it may be of interest to compare her with a
woman of larger talent of a purely intellectual order, who
belonged more or less to the world of the salons, without
aspiring to leadership, and who, though much younger, died in the
same year. Mme. du Chatelet was essentially a woman of letters.
She loved the exact sciences, expounded Leibnitz, translated
Newton, gave valuable aid to Voltaire in introducing English
thought into France, and was one of the first women among the
nobility to accept the principles of philosophic deism. "I
confess that she is tyrannical," said Voltaire; "one must talk
about metaphysics, when the temptation is to talk of love. Ovid was
formerly my master; it is now the turn of Locke." She
has been clearly but by no means pleasantly painted for us in the
familiar letters of Mme. de Graffigny, in the rather malicious
sketches of the Marquise de Crequi, and in the still more
strongly outlined portrait or Mme. du Deffand, as a veritable bas
bleu, learned, pedantic, eccentric, and without grace or beauty.
"Imagine a woman tall and hard, with florid complexion, face
sharp, nose pointed--VOILA LA BELLE EMILIE," writes the latter;
"a face with which she was so contented that she spared nothing
to set it off; curls, topknots, precious stones, all are in
profusion . . . She was born with much esprit; the desire of
appearing to have more made her prefer the study of the abstract
sciences to agreeable branches of knowledge; she thought by this
singularity to attain a greater reputation and a decided
superiority over all other women. Madame worked with so much
care to seem what she was not, that no one knew exactly what she
was; even her defects were not natural." "She talks like an
angel"--"she sings divinely"--"our sex ought to erect altars
to her," wrote Mme. de Graffigny during a visit at her chateau.
A few weeks later her tone changed. They had quarreled. Of such
stuff is history made. But she had already given a charming
picture of the life at Cirey.
Mme. du Chatelet plunged into abstractions during the day. In
the evening she was no more the savante, but gave herself up to
the pleasures of society with the ardor of a nature that was
extreme in everything. Voltaire read his poetry and his dramas,
told stories that made them weep and then laugh at their tears,
improvised verses, and amused them with marionettes, or the magic
lantern. La belle Emilie criticized the poems, sang, and played
prominent parts in the comedies and tragedies of the philosopher
poet, which were first given in her little private theater.
Among the guests were the eminent scientist, Maupertuis, her
life-long friend and teacher; the Italian savant, Algarotti,
President Henault, Helvetius, the poet, Saint-Lambert, and many
others of equal distinction. "Of what do we not talk!" writes
Mme. de Graffigny. "Poetry, science, art, everything, in a tone
of graceful badinage. I should like to be able to send you these
charming conversations, these enchanting conversations, but it is
not in me."
Mme. du Chatelet owned for several years the celebrated Hotel
Lambert, and a choice company of savants assembled there as in
the days when Mme. de Lambert presided in those stately
apartments. But this learned salon had only a limited vogue.
The thinking was high, but the dinners were too plain. The real
life of Mme. du Chatelet was an intimate one. "I confess that in
love and friendship lies all my happiness," said this astronomer,
metaphysician, and mathematician, who wrote against revelation
and went to mass with her free-thinking lover. Her learning and
eccentricities made her the target for many shafts of ridicule,
but she counted for much with Voltaire, and her chief title to
fame lies in his long and devoted friendship. He found the
"sublime and respectable Emilie" the incarnation of all the
virtues, though a trifle ill-tempered. The contrast between his
kindly portrait and those of her feminine friends is striking and
rather suggestive.
"She joined to the taste for glory a simplicity which does not
always accompany it, but which is often the fruit of serious
studies. No woman was ever so learned, and no one deserves less
to be called a femme savante. Born with a singular eloquence,
this eloquence manifested itself only when she found subjects
worthy of it . . . The fitting word, precision, justness, and
force were the characteristics of her style. She would rather
write like Pascal and Nicole than like Mme. de Sevigne; but this
severe strength and this vigorous temper of her mind did not
render her inaccessible to the beauties of sentiment. The charms
of poetry and eloquence penetrated her, and no one was ever more
sensitive to harmony . . . She gave herself to the great world
as to study. Everything that occupies society was in her
province except scandal. She was never known to repeat an idle
story. She had neither time nor disposition to give attention to
such things, and when told that some one had done her an
injustice, she replied that she did not wish to hear about it."
"She led him a life a little hard," said Mme. de Graffigny, after
her quarrel; but he seems to have found it agreeable, and broke
his heart--for a short time--when she died. "I have lost half
of my being," he wrote--"a soul for which mine was made." To
Marmontel he says: "Come and share my sorrow. I have lost my
illustrious friend. I am in despair. I am inconsolable." One
cannot believe that so clear-sighted a man, even though a poet,
could live for twenty years under the spell of a pure illusion.
What heart revelations, what pictures of contemporary life, were
lost in the eight large volumes of his letters which were
destroyed at her death!
While Mme. de Tencin studied men and affairs, Mme. du Chatelet
studied books. One was mistress of the arts of diplomacy, gentle
but intriguing, ambitious, always courting society and shunning
solitude. The other was violent and imperious, hated finesse,
and preferred burying herself among the rare treasures of her
library at Cirey.
The influence of Mme. de Tencin was felt, not only in the social
and intellectual, but in the political life of the century. The
traditions of her salon lingered in those which followed,
modified by the changes that time and personal taste always
bring. Mme. du Chatelet was more learned, but she lacked the
tact and charm which give wide personal ascendancy. Her
influence was largely individual, and her books have been mostly
forgotten. These women were alike defiant of morality, but taken
all in all, the character of Mme. Chatelet has more redeeming
points, though little respect can be accorded to either. With
the wily intellect of a Talleyrand, Mme. de Tencin represents the
social genius, the intelligence, the esprit, and the worst vices
of the century on which she has left such conspicuous traces.
"She knew my tastes and always offered me those dishes I
preferred," said Fontenelle when she died in 1740. "It is an
irreparable loss." Perhaps his hundred years should excuse his
not going to her funeral for fear of catching cold.
CHAPTER XII. MADAME GEOFFRIN AND THE PHILOSOPHERS
Cradles of the New Philosophy--Noted Salons of this Period--
Character of Mme. Geoffrin--Her Practical Education--Anecdotes
of her Husband--Composition of her Salon--Its Insidious
Influence--Her Journey to Warsaw--Her Death
During the latter half of the eighteenth century the center of
social life was no longer the court, but the salons. They had
multiplied indefinitely, and, representing every shade of taste
and thought, had reached the climax of their power as schools of
public opinion, as well as their highest perfection in the arts
and amenities of a brilliant and complex society. There was a
slight reaction from the reckless vices and follies of the
regency. If morals were not much better, manners were a trifle
more decorous. Though the great world did not take the tone of
stately elegance and rigid propriety which it had assumed under
the rule of Mme. de Maintenon, it was superficially polished, and
a note of thoughtfulness was added. Affairs in France had taken
too serious an aspect to be ignored, and the theories of the
philosophers were among the staple topics of conversation;
indeed, it was the great vogue of the philosophers that gave many
of the most noted social centers their prestige and their fame.
It is not the salons of the high nobility that suggest themselves
as the typical ones of this age. It is those which were animated
by the habitual presence of the radical leaders of French
thought. Economic questions and the rights of man were discussed
as earnestly in these brilliant coteries as matters of faith and
sentiment, of etiquette and morals, had been a hundred years
before. Such subjects were forced upon them by the inexorable
logic of events; and fashion, which must needs adapt itself in
some measure to the world over which it rules, took them up. If
the drawing rooms of the seventeenth century were the cradles of
refined manners and a new literature, those of the eighteenth
were literally the cradles of a new philosophy.
The practical growth and spread of French philosophy was too
closely interwoven with the history of the salons not to call for
a word here. Its innovations were faintly prefigured in the
coterie of Mme. de Lambert, where it colored almost imperceptibly
the literary and critical discussions. But its foundations were
more firmly laid in the drawing room of Mme. de Tencin, where the
brilliant wit and radical theories of Montesquieu, as well as the
pronounced materialism of Helvetius, found a congenial
atmosphere. Though the mingled romance and satire of the "Persian
Letters," with their covert attack upon the state and society,
raised a storm of antagonism, they called out a burst of
admiration as well. The original and aggressive thought of men
like Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, and Diderot, with its
diversity of shading, but with the cardinal doctrine of freedom
and equality pervading it all, had found a rapidly growing
audience. It no longer needed careful nursing, in the second
half of the century. It had invaded the salons of the haute
noblesse, and was discussed even in the anterooms of the court.
Mme. de Pompadour herself stole away from her tiresome lover-king
to the freethinking coterie that met in her physician's
apartments in the Entresol at Versailles, and included the
greatest iconoclasts of the age. If she had any misgivings as to
the outcome of these discussions, they were fearlessly cast aside
with "Apres Nous le Deluge." "In the depth of her heart she was
with us," said Voltaire when she died.
There were clairvoyant spirits who traced the new theories to
their logical results. Mme. du Deffand speaks with prophetic
vision of the reasoners and beaux esprits "who direct the age and
lead it to its ruin." There were conservative women, too, who
used their powerful influence against them. It was in the salon
of the delicate but ardent young Princesse de Robecq that
Palissot was inspired to write the satirical comedy of "The
Philosophers," in which Rousseau was represented as entering on
all fours, browsing a lettuce, and the Encyclopedists were so
mercilessly ridiculed. This spirited and heroic daughter-in-law
of the Duchesse de Luxembourg, the powerful patroness of
Rousseau, was hopelessly ill at the time, and, in a caustic reply
to the clever satire, the abbe Morellet did not spare the
beautiful invalid who desired for her final consolation only to
see its first performance and be able to say, "Now, Lord, thou
lettest thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen
vengeance." The cruel attack was thought to have hastened her
death, and the witty abbe was sent to the Bastille; but he came
out in two months, went away for a time, and returned a greater
hero than ever. There is a picture, full of pathetic
significance, which represents the dying princess on her pillow,
crowned with a halo of sanctity, as she devotes her last hours to
the defense of the faith she loves. One is reminded of the sweet
and earnest souls of Port Royal; but her vigorous protest, which
furnished only a momentary target for the wit of the
philosophers, was lost in the oncoming wave of skepticism.
The vogue of these men received its final stamp in the admiring
patronage of the greatest sovereigns in Europe. Voltaire had his
well-known day of power at the court of Frederick the Great.
Grimm and Diderot, too, were honored guests of that most liberal
of despots, and discussed their novel theories in familiar
fashion with Catherine II, at St. Petersburg. The reply of this
astute and clear-sighted empress to the eloquent plea of Diderot
may be commended for its wisdom to the dreamers and theorists of
today.
"I have heard, with the greatest pleasure, all that your
brilliant intellect has inspired you to say; but with all your
grand principles, which I comprehend very well, one makes fine
books and bad business. You forget in all your plans of reform
the difference of our two positions. You work only on paper,
which permits everything; it is quite smooth and pliant, and
opposes no obstacles to your imagination nor to your pen; while
I, poor empress, I work upon the human cuticle, which is quite
sensitive and irritable."
It is needless to say that the men so honored by sovereigns were
petted in the salons, in spite of their disfavor with the
Government. They dined, talked, posed as lions or as martyrs,
and calmly bided their time. The persecution of the
Encyclopedists availed little more than satire had done, in
stemming the slowly rising tide of public opinion. Utopian
theories took form in the ultra circles, were insidiously
disseminated in the moderate ones, and were lightly discussed in
the fashionable ones. Men who talked, and women who added
enthusiasm, were alike unconscious of the dynamic force of the
material with which they were playing.
Of the salons which at this period had a European reputation, the
most noted were those of Mme. du Deffand, Mlle. de Lespinasse,
and Mme. Geoffrin. The first was the resort of the more
intellectual of the noblesse, as well as the more famous of the
men of letters. The two worlds mingled here; the tone was spiced
with wit and animated with thought, but it was essentially
aristocratic. The second was the rallying point of the
Encyclopedists and much frequented by political reformers, but
the rare gifts of its hostess attracted many from the great
world. The last was moderate in tone, though philosophical and
thoroughly cosmopolitan. Sainte-Beuve pronounced it "the most
complete, the best organized, and best conducted of its time; the
best established since the foundation of the salons; that is,
since the Hotel de Rambouillet."
"Do you know why La Geoffrin comes here? It is to see what she
can gather from my inventory," remarked Mme. de Tencin on her
death bed. She understood thoroughly her world, and knew that
her friend wished to capture the celebrities who were in the
habit of meeting in her salon. But she does not seem to have
borne her any ill will for her rather premature schemes, as she
gave her a characteristic piece of advice: "Never refuse any
advance of friendship," she said; "for, if nine out of ten bring
you nothing, one alone may repay you. Everything is of service
in a menage if one knows how to use his tools." Mme. Geoffrin
was an apt pupil in the arts of diplomacy, and the key to her
remarkable social success may be found in her ready assimilation
of the worldly wisdom of her sage counselor. But to this she
added a far kinder heart and a more estimable character.
Of all the women who presided over famous salons, Mme. Geoffrin
had perhaps the least claim to intellectual preeminence. The
secret of her power must have lain in some intangible quality
that has failed to be perpetuated in any of her sayings or
doings. A few commonplace and ill-spelled letters, a few wise or
witty words, are all the direct record she has left of herself.
Without rank, beauty, youth, education, or remarkable mental
gifts of a sort that leave permanent traces, she was the best
representative of the women of her time who held their place in
the world solely through their skill in organizing and conducting
a salon. She was in no sense a luminary; and conscious that she
could not shine by her own light, she was bent upon shining by
that of others. But, in a social era so brilliant, even this
implied talent of a high order. A letter to the Empress of
Russia, in reply to a question concerning her early education,
throws a ray of light upon her youth and her peculiar training.
"I lost my father and mother," she writes, "in the cradle. I was
brought up by an aged grandmother, who had much intelligence and
a well-balanced head. She had very little education; but her
mind was so clear, so ready, so active, that it never failed her;
it served always in the place of knowledge. She spoke so
agreeably of the things she did not know that no one wished her
to understand them better; and when her ignorance was too
visible, she got out of it by pleasantries which baffled the
pedants who tried to humiliate her. She was so contented with
her lot that she looked upon knowledge as a very useless thing
for a woman. She said: 'I have done without it so well that I
have never felt the need of it. If my granddaughter is stupid,
learning will make her conceited and insupportable; if she has
talent and sensibility, she will do as I have done--supply by
address and with sentiment what she does not know; when she
becomes more reasonable, she will learn that for which she has
the most aptitude, and she will learn it very quickly.' She
taught me in my childhood simply to read, but she made me read
much; she taught me to think by making me reason; she taught me
to know men by making me say what I thought of them, and telling
me also the opinion she had formed. She required me to render
her an account of all my movements and all my feelings,
correcting them with so much sweetness and grace that I never
concealed from her anything that I thought or felt; my internal
life was as visible as my external. My education was continual."
The daughter of a valet de chambre of the Duchess of Burgundy,
who gave her a handsome dowry, Marie Therese Rodet became, at
fourteen, the wife of a lieutenant-colonel of the National Guard
and a rich manufacturer of glass. Her husband did not count for
much among the distinguished guests who in later years frequented
her salon, and his part in her life seems to have consisted
mainly in furnishing the money so essential to her success, and
in looking carefully after the interests of the menage. It is
related that some one gave him a history to read, and when he
called for the successive volumes the same one was always
returned to him. Not observing this, he found the work
interesting, but "thought the author repeated a little." He read
across the page a book printed in two columns, remarking that "it
seemed to be very good, but a trifle abstract." One day a
visitor inquired for the white-haired old gentleman who was in
the habit of sitting at the head of the table. "That was my
husband," replied Mme. Geoffrin; "he is dead."
But if her marriage was not an ideal one, it does not appear that
it was unhappy. Perhaps her bourgeois birth and associations
saved her youth from the domestic complications which were so far
the rule in the great world as to have, in a measure, its
sanction. At all events her life was apparently free from the
shadows that rested upon many of her contemporaries.
"Her character was a singular one," writes Marmontel, who lived
for ten years in her house, "and difficult to understand or
paint, because it was all in half-tints and shades; very decided
nevertheless, but without the striking traits by which one's
nature distinguishes and defines itself. She was kind, but had
little sensibility; charitable, without any of the charms of
benevolence; eager to aid the unhappy, but without seeing them,
for fear of being moved; a sure, faithful, even officious friend,
but timid and anxious in serving others, lest she should
compromise her credit or her repose. She was simple in her
taste, her dress, and her furniture, but choice in her
simplicity, having the refinements and delicacies of luxury, but
nothing of its ostentation nor its vanity; modest in her air,
carriage, and manners, but with a touch of pride, and even a
little vainglory. Nothing flattered her more than her
intercourse with the great. At their houses she rarely saw them,
--indeed she was not at her ease there,--but she knew how to
attract them to her own by a coquetry subtly flattering; and in
the easy, natural, half-respectful and half-familiar air with
which she received them, I thought I saw remarkable address."
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