diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:06:41 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:06:41 -0700 |
| commit | b97ca743bcbe1edddf28d7b3b573376450e0b184 (patch) | |
| tree | 7f0fcef81f62a4e437f438d62a57612e4b1cc5f1 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19872-8.txt | 5081 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19872-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 113574 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19872.txt | 5081 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 19872.zip | bin | 0 -> 113194 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
7 files changed, 10178 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/19872-8.txt b/19872-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eee74c2 --- /dev/null +++ b/19872-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5081 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of +France, by Edmund Gosse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19872] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE FRENCH MORALISTS *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Don Perry and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + + + THREE FRENCH + MORALISTS + AND THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE + + + BY + + EDMUND GOSSE, C.B. + + OFFICIER DE LA LÉGION D'HONNEUR + + + LONDON + WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + +TO + +LORD RIBBLESDALE + +_This little book, long the subject of my meditation, suddenly began +to take shape one Sunday morning when I was your guest at Gisburne. We +were actually starting for church, and the car was at the door, when I +announced to you that the spirit moved me to stay behind. "Very well, +then," you said, with your habitual good-nature, "we leave you to your +folios." My "folios" were the three volumes of one of the smallest of +books, the 18mo edition of Vauvenargues published by Plon in 1874. In +the midst of a violent thunderstorm, which was like a declaration of +war upon your golden Yorkshire summer, I wrote my first pages, and you +were so sceptical, when you came back, as to my having done anything +but watch the lightning, that I told you you would have to endure the +responsibility of being sponsor to a work thus suddenly begun in all +the agitation of the elements. So, such as time has proved it, here it +is._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +THREE FRENCH MORALISTS-- + + LA ROCHEFOUCAULD + + LA BRUYÈRE + + VAUVENARGUES + +THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + + INTRODUCTION + +The object of these essays is to trace back to its source, or to some +of its sources--for the soul of France is far too complex to be +measured by one system--the spirit of gallantry which inspired the +young French officers at the beginning of the war. We cannot examine +too minutely, or with too reverent an enthusiasm, the effort of our +great ally, and in this theme for our admiration there are many +strains, some of which present themselves in apparent opposition to +one another. The war has now lasted so long, and has so completely +altered its character, that what was true of the temper of the +soldiers of France in November 1914 is no longer true in April 1918. +Confidence and determination are still there, there is no diminution +in domestic intensity or in patriotic fervour, but the long +continuance of the struggle has modified the temper of the French +officer, and it will probably never be again what it was in the stress +and tempest of sacrifice three years and a half ago, when the young +French soldiers, flushed with the idealisms which they had imbibed at +St. Cyr, rushed to battle like paladins, "with a pure heart," in the +rapture of chivalry and duty. + +All that has long been wearied out, and might even be forgotten, if +the letters and journals of a great cloud of witnesses were not +fortunately extant. The record kept by the friends of Paul Lintier and +those others whom I am presently to mention, and by innumerable +persons to whose memory justice cannot here be done, will keep fresh +in the history of France the idealism of a splendid generation. Now we +see, and for a long time past have seen, a different attitude on the +fields of Champagne and Picardy. There is no feather worn now in the +cap, no white gloves grasp the sword; the Saint Cyrian elegance is +over and done with. There is no longer any declamation, any emphasis, +any attaching of importance to "form" or rhetoric. The fervour and the +emotion are there still, but they are kept in reserve, they are below +the surface, "at the bottom of the heart," as La Rochefoucauld puts +it. + +Heroism is now restrained by a sense of the prodigious length and +breadth of the contest, by the fact, at last patent to the most +unthinking, that the war is an octopus which has wound its tentacles +about every limb and every organ of the vitality of France. A +revelation of the overwhelming violence of enormous masses of men has +broken down the tradition of chivalry. War is now accepted with a sort +of indifference, as a part of the day's work; "pas de grands mots, pas +de grands gestes, pas de drame!" The imperturbable French officer of +1918 attaches no particular importance to his individual gesture. He +concentrates his energy in another kind of action. + +But the French race is by nature bellicose and amorous of adventure, +and more than all other nations has a tendency to clothe its +patrimonial ardour of defence in beautiful terms and gallant +attitudes. This is one of the points on which the British race, with +its scrupulous reserve, often almost its affectation of +self-depreciating shyness, differs most widely from the French, and is +most in need of sympathetic imagination in dealing with a noble ally +whose methods are not necessarily the same as ours. It is difficult to +fancy a young English lieutenant quoting with rapturous approval, as +Pierre de Rozières and Henri Lagrange did in August 1914, the counsels +which were given more than a hundred years ago by the Prince de Ligne: +"Let your brain swim with enthusiasm! Let honour electrify your heart! +Let the holy flame of victory shine in your eyes! as you hoist the +glorious ensigns of renown let your souls be in like measure +uplifted!" A perpetual delirium or intoxication is the state of mind +which is recommended by this "heart of fire," as the only one becoming +in a French officer who has taken up arms to defend his country. + +For the young men who consciously adopted the maxims of the Prince de +Ligne as their guide at the opening of this war, M. Maurice Barrès has +found the name of "Traditionalists." They are those who followed the +tradition of the soldierly spirit of France in its three main lines, +in its individualism, in its intelligence, in its enthusiasm. They +endeavoured, in those first months of agony and hope, to model their +conduct on the formulas which their ancestors, the great moralists of +the past, had laid down for them. Henri Lagrange, who fell at +Montereau in October 1915, at the age of twenty, was a type of +hundreds of others. This is how his temper of mind, as a soldier, is +described by his friend Maxime Brienne:-- + +"The confidence of Lagrange was no less extraordinary than was his +spirit of sacrifice. He possessed the superhuman severity which comes +from being wholly consecrated to duty.... With a magnificent +combination of logic and of violence, with a resolution to which his +unusually lucid intelligence added a sort of methodical vehemence, he +expressed his conviction that resolute sacrifice was necessary if the +result was to be a definite success.... He declared that a soldier +who, by force of mind and a sentiment of honour and patriotism, was +able to conquer the instinct of fear, should not merely "fulfil" his +military duty with firmness, but should hurl himself on death, because +it was only at that price that success could be obtained over a +numerical majority." + +This is a revelation of that individualism which is characteristic of +the trained French character, a quality which, though partly obscured +by the turn the great struggle has taken, will undoubtedly survive and +ultimately reappear. It is derived from the admonitions of a series of +moral teachers, and in the wonderful letters which M. Maurice Barrès +has brought together with no less tact than passion in his series of +volumes issued under the general title of "L'Ame Française et la +Guerre," we have an opportunity of studying it in a great variety of +situations. This is but a portion, and it may be but a small portion, +of the multiform energy of France, and it is capable, of course, of +being subjected to criticism. That, in fact, it has had to endure, but +it is no part of my business here, nor, if I may venture to say so, is +it the business of any Englishman to criticise at any time, except in +pathetic admiration, an attitude so beautiful, and marked in its +self-sacrifice by so delicate an effusion of scrupulous good taste. We +are in presence of a field of those fluttering tricolor flags which +fill the eyes of a wanderer over the battle-centres of the Marne with +a passion of tears. We are in presence of the memorials of a chivalry +that did not count the price, but died "joyfully" for France.[1] + + [Footnote 1: The poet Léon Guillot, in dying, bid his + comrades describe him to his father and mother as "tombé au + champ d'honneur et mort _joyeusement_ pour son pays."--"Les + Diverses Familles Spirituelles de la France," pp. 178, 179.] + +There is not much advantage in searching for the germs of all this +exalted sentiment earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century. +The malady of the Fronde was serious precisely because it revealed the +complete absence, in the nobles, in the clergy, in the common people, +of patriotic conviction of any kind. Cardinal's men and +anti-cardinalists, Mazarin and Monsieur, Condé and Plessis-Praslin,--we +follow the bewildering turns of their fortune and the senseless +evolution of their mercenaries, without being able to trace any moral +line of conduct, any ethical aim on the part of the one or the other. +It was anarchy for the sheer fun of anarchy's sake, a struggle which +pervaded the nation without ever contriving to be national, a riot of +forces directed by no intellectual or ethical purpose whatever. The +delirium of it all reached a culminating point in 1652 when the +aristocratic bolshevists of Condé's army routed the victorious king +and cardinal at the Faubourg St. Antoine. This was the consummation of +tragical absurdity; what might pass muster for political reason had +turned inside out; and when Mazarin fled to Sedan he left behind him a +France which was morally, religiously, intellectually, a sucked +orange. + +Out of the empty welter of the Fronde there grew with surprising +rapidity the conception of a central and united polity of France which +has gone on advancing and developing, and, in spite of outrageous +revolutionary earthquakes, persisting ever since. We find La +Rochefoucauld, as a moral teacher, with his sardonic smile, actually +escaping out of the senseless conflict, and starting, with the +stigmata of the scuffle still on his body, a surprising new theory +that the things of the soul alone matter, and that love of honour is +the first of the moral virtues. We see him, the cynic and sensual +brawler of 1640, turned within a few years into a model of regularity, +the anarchist changed into a serious citizen with a logical scheme of +conduct, the atheistical swashbuckler become the companion of saints +and pitching his tent under the shadow of Port Royal. More than do the +purely religious teachers, he marks the rapid crystallization of +society in Paris, and the opening of a new age of reflection, of +polish and of philosophical experiment. Moral psychology, a science in +which Frenchmen have ever since delighted, seems to begin with the +stern analysis of _amour-propre_ in the "Maximes." + +It is obvious that my choice of three moral maxim-writers to exemplify +the sources of modern French sentiment must be in some measure an +arbitrary one. The moralists of the end of the seventeenth century in +France are legion, and I would not have it supposed that I am not +aware of the relative importance of some of them. But although La +Rochefoucauld and La Bruyère were not the inventors of their +respective methods of writing, nor positively isolated in their +treatment of social themes, I do not think it is claiming too much for +them to say that in the crowd of smaller figures they stand out large, +and with each generation larger, in any survey of their century. In +their own day, Cureau de la Chambre, Coëffeteau and Senault were +considered the first of moral philosophers, but there must be few who +turn over the pages of the "Usages des Passions" now, whereas the +"Caractères" enjoys a perpetual popularity. + +The writers whom I have just named are dead, at least I presume so, +for I must not profess to have done more than touch their +winding-sheets in the course of my private reading. But there are two +moralists of the period who remain alive, and one of whom burns with +an incomparable vivacity of life. If I am asked why Pascal and Nicole +have not been chosen among my types, I can only answer that Pascal, +unlike my select three, has been studied so abundantly in England that +by nothing short of an exhaustive monograph can an English critic now +hope to add much to public apprehension of his qualities. The case of +Nicole is different. Excessively read in France, particularly during +the eighteenth century, and active always in influencing the national +conscience--since the actual circulation of the "Essais de Morale" is +said to have far exceeded that of the "Pensées" of Pascal--Nicole has +never, in the accepted phrase, "contrived to cross the Channel," and +he is scarcely known in England. Books and their writers have these +fates. Mme de Sévigné was so much in love with the works of Nicole, +that she expressed a wish to make "a soup of them and swallow it"; but +I leave her to the enjoyment of the dainty dish. As theologians, too, +both Pascal and Nicole stand somewhat outside my circle. + +The three whom I have chosen stand out among the other moralists of +France by their adoption of the maxim as their mode of instruction. +When La Bruyère, distracted with misgivings about his "Caractères," +had made up his mind to get an introduction to Boileau, and to ask the +advice of that mighty censor, Boileau wrote to Racine (May 19, 1687), +"Maximilian has been out to Auteuil to see me and has read me parts of +his Theophrastus." Nicknames were the order of the day, and the critic +called his new friend "Maximilian," although his real name was Jean, +because he wrote "Maximes." There is no other country than France +where the maker of maxims has stamped a deep and permanent impression +upon the conscience and the moral habits of the nation. But this has +been done by La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Vauvenargues, whom, did it +not sound frivolous, we might style the three great Maximilians. + +The three portraits were first exhibited as a course of lectures at +the Royal Institution in February of this year. They have been revised +and considerably enlarged. For the English of the passages translated +or paraphrased I am in every case responsible. The chapter on "The +Gallantry of France" appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_, and I thank +the editor and publisher of that periodical for their courteous +permission to include it here. + +_April 1918_. + + + + + LA ROCHEFOUCAULD + + +One of the most gifted of the young officers who gave their lives for +France at the beginning of the war, Quartermaster Paul Lintier, in the +admirable notes which he wrote on his knee at intervals during the +battle of the Meuse in August 1914, said-- + +"The imperative instinct for making the best you can of life, the +sentiment of duty, and anxiety for the good opinion of others, in a +word _honour_--these are the main educators of the soldier under fire. +This is not a discovery, it is simply a personal statement." + +Taken almost at random from the records of the war, this utterance may +serve us as well as any other to distinguish the attitude of the +Frenchman in the face of violent and critical action from the equally +brave and effective attitude of other races. He has the habit, not +common elsewhere, of analyzing conduct and of stripping off from the +contemplation of it those voluntary illusions which drop a curtain +between it and truth. + +The result of this habit of ruthless criticism is to concentrate the +Frenchman's attention, even to excess, on the motives of conduct, and +to bring him more and more inevitably to regard self-love, +self-preservation, personal vanity in its various forms, as the source +of all our apparent virtues. Even when we appear to be most +disinterested, even when we are most clearly actuated by unselfish +devotion, by _honour_, we are really the prey, as Lintier saw it, of +the wish to save our lives and to preserve the good opinion of others. +Underneath the transports of patriotism, underneath the sincerity of +religious fervour, the Frenchman digs down and finds _amour-propre_ at +the root of everything. + +This attitude or habit of mind is particularly shocking to all those +who live in a state of illusion, and there is probably no aspect of +French character which is more difficult for the average Englishman to +appreciate than this tendency towards sceptical dissection of the +motives of conduct. Yet it is quite certain that it is widely +disseminated among those of our neighbours who are most prompt and +effective in action, and whose vigour is in no degree paralysed by the +clairvoyance with which they seek for exact truth even in the most +romantic and illusive spiritual circumstances. To throw light on this +aspect of French character, I propose to call attention to a little +book, which is probably well-known to my readers already, but which +may be regarded from a point of view, as I venture to think, more +instructive than that which is usually chosen. + +In the year 1665 there appeared anonymously in Paris, in all the +circumstances of well-advertised secrecy, a thin volume of "Maximes," +which were understood to have exercised for years past the best +thoughts of a certain illustrious nobleman. Mme de Sablé, who was not +foreign to the facts, immediately wrote a review, intended for the +_Journal des Scavants_, in the course of which she said that the new +book was "a treatise on movements of the human heart which may be said +to have remained until now unrecognized." The book, as every one +knows, was the work of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, and the subject +of it was an unmasking of "the veritable condition of man." + +It would be idle not to admit that La Rochefoucauld has been almost +exclusively regarded as the chief exponent of egotism among the great +writers of Europe. He has become--he became during his own lifetime-- +the bye-word for bitterness. He is represented as believing that +egotism is the _primum mobile_ of all human action, and that man is +wholly the victim of his passions, which lead him whither they will. +He denies all spirituality and sees a physical cause for everything we +do. His own words are quoted against him. It is true that he says, +"All the passions are nothing but divers degrees of heat or cold in +the blood." It is true that he says, "All men naturally hate one +another," and again, "Our virtues are mostly vices in disguise." Yet +again, he defines the subject of his mordant volume in terms which +seem to exclude all bountiful theories concerning the disinterested +instincts of the human soul, for he says "_Amour-propre_ is the love +of one's self and of all things for one's self; it turns men into +their own idolators, and, if fortune gives them the opportunity, makes +them the tyrants of others.... It exists in all states of life and in +all conditions; it lives everywhere and it lives on everything; it +lives on nothing." He does not admit that Christianity itself is +immune from the ravages of this essential cankerworm, which adopts all +disguises and slips from one Protean shape into another. "The +refinements of self-love surpass those of chemistry," and the purpose +of La Rochefoucauld is to resolve all our virtues in a crucible and to +show that nothing remains but a poisonous deposit of egotism. + +No wonder that La Rochefoucauld has been generally regarded as a +scourge of the human race, a sterile critic of mankind without +sympathy or pity. It is true that his obstinate insistence on the +universality of egotism produces a depressing and sometimes a +fatiguing impression on the reader, who is apt to think of him as +Shakespeare's Apemantus, "that few things loves better than to abhor +himself." But when the First Lord goes on to add "He's opposite to +humanity," we feel that no phrase could less apply to La +Rochefoucauld. We have, therefore, immediately to revise our opinion +of this severe dissector of the human heart, and to endeavour to find +out what lay underneath the bitterness of his "Maximes." It is a +complete mistake to look upon La Rochefoucauld as a monster, or even +as a Timon. Without insisting, at all events for the moment, on the +plain effect of his career on his intellect, but yet accepting the +evidence that much of his bitterness was the result of bad health, +sense of failure, shyness, foiled ambition, we have to ask ourselves +what he gave to French thought in exchange for the illusions which he +so rudely tore away. In dealing with any savage moralist, we are +obliged to turn from the abstract question: Why did he say these +things? to the realistic one. What did he hope to effect by what he +said? Perhaps we can start no better on this inquiry than to quote the +Duchess of Schomberg's exclamation when she turned over the pages of +the first edition--namely that "this book contains a vast number of +truths which I should have remained ignorant of all my life if it had +not taught me to perceive them." This may be applied to French energy, +and we may begin to see what has been the active value of La +Rochefoucauld's apparently negative and repugnant aphorisms. + +The La Rochefoucauld whom we know belongs to a polite and modern age. +He is instinct with the spirit of society, "la bonne compagnie," as it +was called in the middle of the seventeenth century, when a crowd of +refined and well-trained pens competed to make of the delicate +language of France a vehicle which could transfer from brain to brain +the subtlest ingenuities of psychology. He is a typical specimen of the +Frenchman of letters at the moment when literature had become the ally +of political power and the instrument of social influence. Into this +new world, before it had completely developed, the future author of +the "Maximes" was introduced at a very early age. He was presented to +the wits and _précieuses_ of the Hôtel Rambouillet at the age of +eighteen. It is amusing to think that he may have seen Voiture, in the +Blue Room, seize his lute and sing a Spanish song, or have volunteered +as a paladin in the train of Hector, King of Georgia. But the +pedantries and affectations of this wonderful society seem to have +made no immediate impression upon La Rochefoucauld, whose early years +were those of the young nobleman devoid of all apparent intellectual +curiosity. It is true that he says of himself that directly he came +back from Italy (this was in 1629, when he was only sixteen), "I began +to notice with some attention whatever I saw," but this was, no doubt, +external; he does not exhibit in his writings, and in all probability +did not feel, the slightest interest in the pedantic literature of the +end of Louis XIII.'s reign. He represented, through his youth, the +purely military and aristocratic element in the society of that age. +If he had died when he was thirty, or at the close of the career of +Richelieu, nothing would have distinguished him from the mob of +violent noblemen who made the streets of Paris a pandemonium. + +To understand the influence of La Rochefoucauld it is even more +needful than in most similar cases to form a clear idea of his +character, and this can only be obtained by an outline of his +remarkable career. François VI. Duke of La Rochefoucauld, as a typical +Parisian, was born in the ducal palace in the rue des Petits-Champs, +on September 15, 1613. The family was one of the most noble not merely +in France but in Europe, and we do not begin to understand the author +until we realize his excessive pride of birth. In a letter he wrote to +Cardinal Mazarin in 1648 he says, "I am in a position to prove that +for three hundred years the monarchs [of France] have not disdained to +treat us as members of their family." This arrogance of race inspired +the early part of his life to the exclusion, so far as we can +perceive, of any other stimulus to action. He was content to be the +violent and fantastic swashbuckler of the half-rebellious court of +Louis XIII. In late life, he crystallized his past into a maxim, +"Youth is a protracted intoxication; it is the fever of the soul." +Fighting and love-making, petty politics and scuffle upon +counter-scuffle--such was the life of the young French nobleman of whom +La Rochefoucauld reveals himself and is revealed by others as the type +and specimen. + +La Rochefoucauld is the author, not merely of the "Maximes," but of a +second book which is much less often read. This is his "Mémoires," a +very intelligent and rather solemn contribution to the fragmentary +history of France in the seventeenth century. It is hardly necessary +to point out that not one of the numerous memoirs of this period must +be taken as covering the whole field of which they treat. Each book is +like a piece of a dissected map, or of a series of such maps cut to a +different scale. All are incomplete and most of them overlap, but they +make up, when carefully collated, an invaluable picture of the times. +No other country of Europe produced anything to compare with these +authentic fragments of the social and political history of France +under Richelieu and Mazarin. These Memoirs had a very remarkable +influence on the general literature of France. They turned out of +favour the chronicles of "illustrious lives," the pompous and false +travesties of history, which the sixteenth century had delighted in, +and in this way they served to prepare for the purification of French +taste. The note of the best of them was a happy sincerity even in +egotism, a simplicity even in describing the most monstrous and +grotesque events. Among this group of writers, Cardinal de Retz seems +to me to be beyond question the greatest, but La Rochefoucauld is not +to be despised in his capacity as the arranger of personal +recollections. + +We must not expect from these seventeenth-century autobiographers the +sort of details which we demand from memoir-writers to-day. La +Rochefoucauld, although he begins in the first person, has nothing +which he chooses to tell us about his own childhood and education. He +was married, at the age of fifteen, to a high-born lady, Andrée de +Vivonne, but her he scarcely mentions. By the side of those glittering +amatory escapades of his on the grand scale, with which Europe rang, +he seems to have pursued a sober married existence, without +upbraidings from his own conscience, or curtain-lectures from his meek +duchess, who bore him eight children. La Rochefoucauld's "Mémoires" +open abruptly with these words:--"I spent the last years of the +Cardinal's administration in indolence," and then he begins to +discourse on the audacities of the Duke of Buckingham (pleasingly +spelled Bouquinquant) and his attacks on the heart of the Queen of +France. We gather that although the English envoy can have had no +personal influence on the future moralist--since Buckingham was +murdered at Portsmouth in 1628, while La Rochefoucauld did not come to +court till 1630--yet the young Frenchman so immensely admired what he +heard of the Englishman, and so deliberately set himself to take him +as a model, that our own knowledge of Buckingham may be of help to us +in reproducing an impression of La Rochefoucauld, or rather of the +Prince de Marcillac, as he was styled until his father died. + +After describing the court as the youth of seventeen had found it, he +skips five years to tell us how the Queen asked him to run away with +her to Brussels in 1637. History has not known quite what to make of +this amazing story, of which La Rochefoucauld had the complacency to +write more than twenty years afterwards-- + +"However difficult and perilous this adventure might seem to me, I may +say that never in all my life have I enjoyed anything so much. I was +at an age (24) at which one loves to do extravagant and startling +things, and I felt that nothing could be more startling or more +extravagant than to snatch at the same time the Queen from the King +her husband, and from the Cardinal de Richelieu who was jealous, and +Mlle d'Hautefort from the King who was in love with her." + +He tells the story with inimitable gusto. But he tells it just as an +episode, and he hurries on to the death of Richelieu in 1642, as +though he were conscious that up to his thirtieth year his own life +had not been of much consequence. + +Even in that age of turbulent extravagance, the Prince of Marcillac +was known, where he was known at all, merely as a hare-brained youth +who carried the intolerance and insolence of amatory youth past the +confines of absurdity, and it is amusing to find Balzac, who was +twenty years his senior, and who was buried in the country, describing +him--surely by repute--as the type of-- + +"These gentlemen who chatter so much about the empire and about the +sovereignty of ladies, and have their heads so stuffed with tales and +strange adventures, that they grow to believe that they can do all +that was done under the reign of Amadis, and that the least of their +duties is to reply to a supplicating lady, I, who am only a man, how +should I resist the prayer of her to whom the Gods themselves can +refuse nothing?" + +We seem far from the sombre and mordant author of the "Maximes," but +a complete apprehension of the character of La Rochefoucauld requires +the story of his adventures to be at least briefly indicated. A chasm +divides his early from his late history, and this chasm is bridged +over in a very shadowy way by such records as we possess of his +retirement after the Fronde. + +Between the death of Richelieu and this retirement there lies a period +of ten years, during which the future author of the "Maximes" is +swallowed up in the hurly-burly of the worst moment in the whole +history of France. It is difficult from any point of view to form what +it would be mere waste of time for us to attempt in this connection, a +clear conception of the chaos into which that country was plunged by +the weakness of Anne of Austria and the criminality of Mazarin. The +senseless intrigues of the Fronde affect the bewildered student of +those times as though + + _this frame + Of Heav'n were falling and these elements + In mutiny had from her axle torn + The steadfast earth._ + +At first La Rochefoucauld seems to have meant to support the cause of +the court, expecting to be rewarded for what he had done, or been +prepared to do for the Queen. He says in his "Mémoires" that after the +death of Louis XIII. the Queen-Mother "gave me many marks of +friendship and confidence; she assured me several times that her +honour was involved in my being pleased with her, and that nothing in +the kingdom was large enough to reward me for what I had done in her +service." That sounds very well, but what it really illustrates is the +extraordinary violence of aristocratic frivolity, the fierce levity +and insatiable frenzied vanity of the noble families. The aims of La +Rochefoucauld, in support of which he was ready to sacrifice his +country, were of a class that must seem to us now petty in the +extreme. He wanted the _tabouret_, the footstool, for his duchess, in +other words the right to be seated in presence of the members of the +royal family. He wanted the privilege of driving into the courtyard of +the Louvre without having to descend from his coach outside and walk +in. He demanded these honours because they were already possessed by +the families of Rohan and of Bouillon. It is extraordinary to consider +what powerful effects such trumpery causes could have, but it is a +fact that the desolating and cruel wars of the Fronde largely depended +upon jealousies of the _carrosse_ and the _tabouret_. La +Rochefoucauld's support of the rebellion frankly and openly was based +upon it. + +La Rochefoucauld brings the first part of his "Mémoires" down to 1649. +In the second part he begins again with 1642, being very anxious to +show, to his own advantage of course, what the conditions were at +court after the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII., and in particular +to define the position of Mme de Chevreuse, the great intriguer and +seductress of the French politics of the age. The charm of this lady, +who was no longer young, faded before that of the Duchess of +Longueville, one of the most ambitious and most unscrupulous women who +ever lived. She was the sister of the Prince de Conti, and from the +time when her celebrated relations with La Rochefoucauld began, her +influence engaged him in all the unplumbed chaos which led to civil +war. When this finally broke out, however, in 1648, the Duke is found +once more on the side of the young king and his government, that is to +say, of Cardinal Mazarin. + +Through the "universal hubbub wide of stunning sounds and noises all +confused," we can catch with difficulty the accents of literature, at +first indeed vocal in the midst of the riot, and even stimulated by +it, as birds are by a heavy shower of rain, but soon stunned and +silenced by horrors incompatible with the labour of the Muses. The +wars of the Fronde made a sharp cut between the heroic age of +imaginative literature and the classical age which presently succeeded +it, and offer in this respect a tolerable parallel to the civil wars +raging in England about the same time. It is specious, but convenient, +to discover a date at which a change of this kind may be said to +occur. In England we have such a date marked large for us in 1660; +French letters less obviously but more certainly can be said to start +afresh in 1652. It is tolerably certain that in that year Pascal, Retz +and the subject of our inquiry simultaneously and independently began +to write. Up to that time there is no reason to believe that La +Rochefoucauld had given himself at all to study, and we possess no +evidence that up to the age of forty he was more interested in the +existence of the literature of his country than was the idlest of the +cut-throat nobility who swaggered in and out of the courtyard of the +Louvre. + +His "Mémoires" end with an account of the war in Guienne in 1651 which +is more solemn and more detached than all the rest. No one would +suspect that the historian, who affects the gravity of a Tacitus, was +acting all through the events he describes with the levity of a +full-blooded and unscrupulous schoolboy. The most amazing instance of +this is his grotesque attempt to have Cardinal de Retz murdered at the +Palais de Justice. In the course of a sort of romping fray he caught +Retz's head between the flaps of a folding door, and shouted to +Coligny to come and stab him from behind. But he himself was shoved +away, and the Cardinal released. La Rochefoucauld admits the escapade, +without any sign of embarrassment, merely observing that Retz would +have done as much by him if he had only had the chance. But now comes +the incident which, better than anything else could, illustrates the +feverish and incongruous atmosphere of the Fronde, and the difficulty +of following the caprices of its leading figures. The very next day +after this attempt to assassinate Retz in a peculiarly disgraceful +way, La Rochefoucauld met the Cardinal driving through the streets of +Paris in his coach. Kneeling in the street, he demanded and received +the episcopal benediction of the man whom he had tried to murder in an +undignified scuffle a few hours before. No animosity seems to have +persisted between these two princes of the realm of France, and this +may be the moment to introduce the picture which Cardinal de Retz, +whose head was held in the folding door, painted very soon after of +the volatile duke who had held him there to be stabbed from behind. +Both writers began their memoirs in 1652, and no one has ever decided +which is the more elegant of the two unique conpositions. The +conjunction between two of the greatest prose-writers of France is +piquant, and we cannot trace in Retz's sketch of his antagonist the +smallest sign of resentment. It was not published until 1717, but it +has all the appearance of having been written sixty years earlier, at +least, when Mademoiselle was seized with the fortunate inspiration of +having "portraits" written of, and often by, the celebrated personages +of the day. This, then, is how Retz saw La Rochefoucauld-- + +"There has always been a certain _je ne sais quoi_ in M. de La +Rochefoucauld. He has always ever since his childhood wanted to be +taking part in some plot, and that at a time when he was indifferent +to small interests, which have never been his weakness, and when he +had no experience of great ones, which, in another sense, have never +been his strong point. He has never had any skill in conducting +business, and I don't know why; for he possessed qualities which in +any other man would have made up for those which he lacked. He was not +longsighted enough, and he did not see as a whole even what was within +his range of vision. But his good sense--which in the field of +speculation was very good--joined to his gentleness, his insinuating +charm, and his admirable ease of manner, ought to have compensated, +more than they have done, for his defect of penetration. He has always +suffered from an habitual irresoluteness; but I do not know to what +this irresoluteness should be attributed. He has never been a warrior, +though very much a soldier. He has never, through his own effort, +succeeded in being a good courtier, though he has always intended to +be one. That air of bashfulness and of shyness which you observe in +him in social life has given him in matters of business an apologetic +air. He has always fancied that he needed to apologize; and this--in +conjunction with his 'Maximes,' which do not err on the side of too +much faith in virtue, and with his practice, which has always been to +wind up business as impatiently as he started it--makes me conclude +that he would have done much better to know himself, and to be content +to pass, as he might well have passed, for the most polished courtier +and the finest gentleman, in private life, which this age has +produced." + +We are now beginning to see the real author of the "Maximes," when, at +the age of forty, he begins to peep forth from the travesty of his +aristocratic violence and idleness. Whether the transformation would +have been gradual instead of sudden is what can never be decided, but +we date it from July 2, 1652, when he was dangerously wounded in a +riot in the Faubourg St. Antoine, at the Picpus barricade, where he +was shot in the forehead and, as it at first appeared, blinded for +life. According to the faithful Gourville, when La Rochefoucauld +thought he would lose his eyesight, he had a picture of Madame de +Longueville engraved with two lines under it from a fashionable +tragedy, the "Alcyonée" of Duryer-- + + _That I might hold her heart and please her lovely eyes + I made my war on kings and would have fought the skies._ + +With this piece of rodomontade the old Rochefoucauld ceases and makes +place for the author of the "Maximes." When he recovered from his +wound, his spirit of adventure was broken. He submitted to the +cardinal, he withdrew from Condé, and in 1653, still his head bound +with bandages and wearing black spectacles to hide those clear and +seductive eyes which Petitot had painted, he crept, a broken man, to +his country house at Verteuil, in the neighbourhood of Ruffec, now in +the Charente. This chateau, built just two hundred years before that +date, still exists, a noble relic of feudal France, and a place of +pilgrimage for lovers of the author of the "Maximes." + +No one was ever more suddenly and more completely cured of a whole +system of existence than was La Rochefoucauld by the wound which was +so nearly fatal. He said, "It is impossible for any man who has +escaped from civil war to plunge into it again." For him, at all +events, it was impossible. His only wish in 1653 was to bury himself +and his slow convalescence among his woods at Verteuil. In this +enforced seclusion, at the age of forty, he turned for solace to +literature, which he would seem to have neglected hitherto. We know +nothing of his education, which had probably been as primitive as that +of any pleasure-seeking and imperious young nobleman of the time. He +went to the wars when he was thirteen. In an undated letter he says +that he sends some Latin verses composed by a friend for the judgment +of his unnamed correspondent, but he adds, "I do not know enough Latin +to dare to give an opinion." M. Henri Regnier, in his invaluable +"Lexique de la langue de La Rochefoucauld" (1883) points out that the +Duke's evident lack of classical knowledge is a positive advantage to +him, as it throws him entirely on the resources of pure French. In +like manner we may rejoice that Shakespeare had "little Latin and less +Greek." + +It is tantalizing for us that we know almost nothing of the years, +from 1653 to 1656, which La Rochefoucauld spent in severe retirement +at Verteuil. What was happening to France was happening, no doubt, in +its degree to him; he was chewing the cud of remorse for the follies +and crimes of the Fronde. "Only great men should have great failings," +the exile wrote, and we may be sure that he had by this time +discovered, like the rest of the world, that as a swashbuckler and +intriguer he was noisy and petulant, but on the whole anything but +great. The Fronde left behind it a sense of littleness, of +poverty-stricken humanity, and this particular frondeur had seen the +mask drop from the features of his fellow-men. Now, in the quiet of the +country, in disgrace with fortune and his own conscience, he grasped a +new and this time a dignified and suitable ambition. He began to study +reality and learned to distinguish truth from pretence. This study was +to make him one of the most eminent of French authors and a great power +in the purification of French intelligence. He began, doubtless, his +career as an author by composing the "Mémoires," in which he embodied +his exasperations and his recriminations in language of studied +dignity. There is little here which betrays the future moralist, except +the simplicity and almost colourless transparency of the style. + +As containing nearly the sole certain evidence of La Rochefoucauld's +state of mind at the time of transition, it is well, perhaps, to speak +at this moment of his letters, which were first brought together in +1881. They extend from 1637 to 1677, and the biographer pores over +them in the hope of extracting from them some crumbs of information. +But to the general reader they cannot be recommended. They are seldom +confidential, the writer never lets himself go. Even to his later +friends, such as Mme de Sablé, La Rochefoucauld is rarely familiar, +and the impression of himself in these graceful and sometimes vigorous +epistles is illusive; the writer seems for ever on his guard. The +great mass of this correspondence, in which politics takes no part +after 1653, is singularly literary; it is mainly occupied with the +interests, and almost with the jargon, of the professional author. We +are told that his affectation in society was to appear cold and +unmoved, and this he certainly contrived to do in those of his letters +which have been preserved. + +La Rochefoucauld told Mme de Sablé that he depended on her for his +knowledge of the inmost windings of the human heart. When he returned +to Paris, this lady was approaching the age of sixty. Her _salon_ +competed with that of the Hôtel de Rambouillet and that of Mlle de +Montpensier at the Luxembourg. The Marquise de Sablé had been gay in +her youth, but when her young lover, Armentières, was killed in a +duel, she turned devout. She also turned hypochondriacal and literary. +According to Tallemont des Réaux, who has left a portrait of her which +is equally ill-natured and entertaining, she built herself a house +adjoining the choir of the church of Port Royal, in the Faubourg St. +Jacques. Her friend, the Abbé d'Ailly, who edited her works after her +death in 1678, admits that she was "one of the greatest visionaries in +the world on the chapter of death." She herself expressed her +hypochondria otherwise: "I fear death more than other people do, +because no one has ever formed so clear a conception of nothingness as +I have." Ludicrous stories were told of her excessive fear of illness, +and in her fits of alarm she found comfort from the ministrations of +Antoine Singlin, who was the director of Pascal's conscience.[2] She +became intimate with Arnauld d'Andilly, and with the rest of those +Jansenist authors of whom Racine said that their works were "the +admiration of scholars and the consolation of all pious persons." But +she seems to have had the cleverness to observe that in one respect +the literature of Port Royal, as it expressed itself before "Les +Provinciales," had the fault of being verbose and redundant. Mme. de +Sablé deserves more merit than seems to have been given to her for her +fervent cultivation of precise language. + + [Footnote 2: It was of Singlin that Pascal wrote in 1654, + "Soumission total à J.C. et à mon directeur."] + +As La Rochefoucauld's correspondence throws little light on the +character and person of its author at the time of his intellectual and +moral conversion, we turn with satisfaction to a document which owes +its existence to a social amusement, almost to a "parlour game." We +have seen that La Grande Mademoiselle, anxious to amuse the friends +whom she gathered round her in her _salon_ at the Luxembourg, hit upon +the notion of inducing her guests to produce written portraits of +themselves. You might say all the good of yourself you liked, on the +understanding that you put in the shades as well. The collection of +these self-portraits was actually printed in 1659, and is a work of +great value and interest to biographer and historian. It marks a new +movement of French intelligence, a critical excursion into psychology +not hitherto attempted in France, and some of the portraits are +marvellously delicate in their conscientious precision. Here, however, +we are not concerned with more than one of them, that which is signed +with the initials of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. It is his only +important composition produced between the "Mémoires" and the +"Maximes," and it is charmingly written, a portrait drawn in tones of +rose-colour and dove-grey, like the pastel-portraits of a century +later. + +He begins by describing his physical appearance, but passes soon to +the moral and social qualities. It would be interesting to quote the +whole of this portrait, but we must confine ourselves to some brief +quotations. How far we seem from the beasts of prey which ranged the +forests of the Fronde, or tore one another to pieces in the streets of +Paris, when we follow this refined attempt to present the character of +a modern and a complicated man:-- + +"There is something," says La Rochefoucauld, "at once peevish and +proud in my appearance. This makes most people think that I am +contemptuous, but I am not so at all. So far as my humour goes, I am +melancholy, and I am so to such an extent that, in the last three or +four years, I have scarcely been seen to laugh three or four times. It +seems to me nevertheless that my melancholy would be supportable and +mild enough if it depended solely on my temperament, but it comes so +much from outside causes, and what so comes fills my imagination to +such a degree, and occupies my thoughts so exclusively, that most of +the time I move as in a dream, and scarce listen to what I myself am +saying." + +Here we have the disappointed courtier still brooding over his +disgrace, but we pass to an account of the relief which the new-born +man of letters find in the cultivation of the intellect alone-- + +"I am fond of general reading, but that in which I find something to +fashion the mind and to fortify the soul is what I like best. Above +all it gives me an extreme satisfaction to read in company with an +intelligent person, for in this way one is kept constantly reflecting +on what one reads, and the reflections thus exchanged form a species +of conversation than which no other in the world is so agreeable or so +useful. I give a sound opinion about works in verse and prose which +are submitted to me, but perhaps I allow myself too much freedom in +expressing that opinion. Another fault of mine is that I am sometimes +too scrupulously delicate and too severely critical. I do not dislike +to listen to argument, and sometimes I am glad to take my share in the +discussion, but I usually support my opinion with too much heat, and +when any one pleads an unjust cause in my presence, sometimes, in my +zeal for logic, I myself become exceedingly illogical. My sentiments +are virtuous, my inclinations are honest, and I am so intensely +anxious to act in all things as a gentleman should, that my friends +cannot do me a greater favour than to warn me sincerely of my faults. +Those who know me rather intimately, and who have been so kind as to +give me their counsels in this direction, are aware that I have ever +received them with all imaginable joy and with all the submission of +mind which they could possibly desire." + +All this, and what remains, show that in the character of La +Rochefoucauld action had abruptly receded in favour of analysis, and +the brutality of civil war in the woods had given place to the +refinement of endless conversation by the fireside corner. The old +swashbuckler turned from the illusions of the camp to the most +exquisite of peaceful associations, and he regarded women from a +totally new point of view. It was the age of the _salons_, and La +Rochefoucauld tells us why it was that he became their sedulous +associate. He says, "When women are intelligent, I like their +conversation better than that of men. There is a certain suavity in +their talk which is lacking in that of our sex, and it seems, in +addition, that they explain themselves with more precision, and give a +more agreeable turn to what they say." In other words, La +Rochefoucauld had, by 1658, become a complete, and indeed the most +competent and highly finished example of the new social intelligence +which was to be found in France. We must dwell for one rapid moment on +what that new spirit was. + +The seventeenth century in France, liberated from the weight of +internecine wars and political tyrannies, had now thrown itself with +ardour into the civilized arts, and had, in particular, developed a +love of moral disquisition. All the talk which presently became +fashionable about virtue and the higher life was a reaction against +the horrors of the Fronde. The advance of social refinement was very +rapid, and, especially in Paris, there was a determined and +intelligent movement in the direction of the amelioration of manners +and a studied elegance of life. M. Rébelliau has pointed out that it +was precisely at this moment that a great number of new words, and +among them _délicate, distinguer, moraliste, ménagements, finesse_ and +many others, were accepted as part of the French language. These +served immediately to enrich the vocabulary of the men and women who +were anxious to push further and deeper their investigations into +psychological analysis. With this social tendency to dissect the human +heart and to seize its most secret movements, was combined the +religious and, as we may put it, protestant fashion of the hour, in +the spirit of Port Royal. To be a moralist was almost in itself to be +a Jansenist, and we see the author of the "Maximes" presently claiming +to be, after a fashion, evangelical. + +There is so little said about theology, in the direct sense, in the +writings of La Rochefoucauld, that his various French critics have +given perhaps too little thought to his religious tendencies. They +have treated him as though he were the enemy of a pious life. But if +we examine that contention from the standpoint provided for us by our +own Puritan habit of thought, we must recognize that there was +something positively pious about the bitter philosopher of the +"Maximes." He was trying, let us never forget, to discover a +scientific form of morals, and hardly enough attention has been given +to the prominence which he gave to a searching analysis of conscience. +He found little to help him in the court religion of the age, but he +was immensely impressed with the Jansenist conception of the frailty +and worthlessness of the natural man. Hence, his persistency in +cultivating almost exclusively the society of those men and women of +Port Royal with whom we might suppose that he had very little in +common. But, quite recently, a discovery has been made, which is not +only of special interest to us as Englishmen, but which throws a +further light on the evangelical or puritan tendency of the author of +the "Maximes." + +A careful scholar, M. Ernest Jouy, was led by a passage in a +seventeenth-century MS. to make investigations which seem to have +proved that La Rochefoucauld was acquainted with an English book of +edification and even that he deigned to make use of it in the +fashioning of his famous "Maximes." This was "The Mystery of +Self-Deceiving," published in 1615 by a semi-nonconformist Puritan +divine, Daniel Dyke, minister of Coggeshall in Essex, and translated +obscurely into French by a certain Vernulius. Of the original work +Fuller wrote, "It is a book which will be owned for a truth while men +have any badness in them, and will be owned as a treasure whilst they +have any goodness in them." It is, certainly, an amazing thing to find +that this clumsy old treatise of English divinity was apparently +possessed as a treasure by the most elegant and the most sceptical of +Frenchmen. + +La Rochefoucauld may be conceived as saying to the practical divines +of Port Royal, "Your work is confused and thwarted by the vast +prevalence of rubbish under which morals are concealed. I will help +you to force the people who talk so glibly of humanity and pity, of +rectitude and amiability, to dissect the real bodies of egotism to +which they give those names. I put Man in the pillory of +self-judgment; it is for you to deal evangelically with what remains +of his temperament when he comes down out of the ordeal." + +To do this, La Rochefoucauld prepared, with infinite patience and with +the conscientiousness of a great literary artist, his sheaf of +Maxim-arrows, ready to shoot them, one by one, into the gross heart of +_amour-propre_. What, then, were the reflexions which, now settled in +Paris, and secure from the rough world in the recesses of Mme de +Sablé's _salon_, the Duke began to fashion and to polish? A maxim is a +formula, which comprehends the whole truth on a particular subject. +Coleridge says, in his "Table Talk," that a maxim is a conclusion upon +observation of matters of fact; we may add that it is final, it goes +as far as it can possibly go, and contains the maximum of truth in the +minimum of verbiage. If we take some of the most cynical and savage +maxims of La Rochefoucauld we may see that conciseness could proceed +no further: for instance, "Virtue is a rouge that women add to their +beauty"; or "Pride knows no law and self-love no debt"; or "The +pleasure of love is loving." The ingenuity of man has not devised a +mode of saying those particular things as exactly in fewer words. They +reach the maximum of conciseness, and are therefore called maxims. + +It is very unusual in the history of literature to be able to point to +a man of genius as the positive founder of a class of work. When we +look closely into the matter, we are sure to find that there was an +obscure predecessor, a torch-bearer who lighted up the path. Even +Shakespeare has Marlowe in front of him, and in front of Marlowe are +Greene and Peele. Several poets were inspired by the story of the fall +of the rebel angels before Milton took up "Paradise Lost" and seized +that province as his own by conquest. In like manner, La Rochefoucauld +seems to us in a general view, and seemed indeed to his own Parisian +contemporaries, to have invented a new art in the production of his +"Maximes." But, in truth, he was not the pioneer, and he seems to have +spent months, and even years, in a sort of apprenticeship to two +authors who have not survived in French literature as he has. So far +as we can make out, the real creator of the maxim in French was +Jacques Esprit (1611-1678), the Abbé Esprit as he was called, although +he was never a priest, and had a legitimate wife and family. He was a +young man from Béziers in Provence, who came to Paris under the +protection of Chancellor Séguier, soon became a member of the French +Academy, and enjoyed a steady social and literary success. + +There seems little doubt that Esprit was known early to La +Rochefoucauld, for he was familiar in the family of the Duke and +Duchess of Longueville, and later the governor of their children. He +enjoyed the confidence of the _salons_ from an early date. There is +some reason to suppose that Esprit had begun to write maxims before La +Rochefoucauld's return from exile, and certainly before Mme de Sablé's +retreat to Port Royal in 1659. It is very noticeable in La +Rochefoucauld's letters to Esprit--most of which belong to the year +1660--that he treats the academician--who was of plebeian birth and +not many months older than himself--with extreme deference. The Duke +adopts the style of a pupil to a master, and he submits his sketches +or experiments in maxim-making to Esprit for a severe criticism, which +he accepts, and for advice, which he adopts. The probability seems to +be that Esprit introduced the fashion for writing maxims to Mme de +Sablé, who was fascinated by it, recommended it to La Rochefoucauld, +and then pointed Esprit out as the acknowledged master of the art, who +could give invaluable technical advice. + +There was a sort of collaboration. We find La Rochefoucauld writing to +Esprit, "I shall be much obliged if you will show _our_ last sentences +to Mme de Sablé; it may perhaps induce her to write some of her own." +And to the lady he writes, "Here are all my maxims which you have not +yet seen, but as nothing is done for nothing, I beg you to send me in +return the receipt for the carrot soup which we had when Commander de +Souvré dined at your house," The three maximists consulted one +another, polished up one another's sentences, and suggested subjects +which were first discussed round the dinner-table or in the summer +parlour and then worked up, sometimes by all three conjointly, to the +highest pitch of perfection. It was probably Esprit by whom many of +the original suggestions were started, indeed it is he who seems to +have first laid down the formula that "the mind is the servant and +even the dupe of the instincts," which both Pascal and La +Rochefoucauld were presently to expand in such brilliant forms. But it +is quite an error to presume, as some writers have done, that there +was a kind of factory for maxims, out of which sentences were turned +which really belonged to no one in particular. The "Maximes" of Mme de +Sablé and those of the Abbé Esprit--the latter contained in a +Jansenist volume called "The Falsity of Human Virtues"--were published +independently, but in the same year, 1678. Any one who has the +patience to refer to these works may satisfy himself that Mme de +Sablé, as an artist, is superior to Esprit, but immeasurably inferior +to La Rochefoucauld, who is the one unapproachable master of the +maxim.[3] + + [Footnote 3: A good deal of the prejudice which successive + critics, and (very mischievously) Brunetière in particular, + have shown with regard to the character of La Rochefoucauld, + is due, in my opinion, to the influence of Victor Cousin, + who published, in 1854, a disjointed and diffuse, but in + many ways brilliantly executed volume on Mme de Sablé. + Cousin, who examined, for the first time, a vast array of + MS. sources, deliberately lowered the value of La + Rochefoucauld in order to enhance the merit of the lady, of + whom the learned academician wrote like a lover. Even Esprit + was thrown into the scale to lighten the weight of the + Duke's originality. Cousin was borne gaily on the stream of + his heroine-worship, and others less profoundly acquainted + with the facts have let themselves be carried with him. But + it is time that we should cease to imitate them in this.] + +For six or seven years the Duke worked away at the polishing of his +incomparable epigrams, and it was not until October 27, 1665, that the +little famous book made its anonymous appearance. The importance of +the work was perceived immediately in the close circle of the _salons_ +which regulated literary opinion in Paris. For half a century past +Frenchmen had been regarding with jealous attention the causes and +effects of human passion, culminating, for the moment, in the treatise +written by Descartes for the daughter of the Queen of Bohemia. The +Jansenists and the Jesuits, the playwrights, the novelists, Hobbes and +Spinoza, all pursued, along widely different paths, those illusive +secrets of the human heart which had escaped the notice of earlier +generations. But La Rochefoucauld reduced the desultory psychology of +his predecessors to a system, so that for us the moralizing tendencies +of the seventeenth century in France seem to have found their final +expression less in the sob of Pascal's conscience than in the resigned +ironic nonchalance of La Rochefoucauld, who, as Voltaire so admirably +says, "dissolves every virtue in the passions which surround it." +Perhaps what the "Maximes" most resembled was the then +recently-published analysis of egotism in "Leviathan." But the cool +and atrocious periods of what Sir Leslie Stephen calls "the unblushing +egotism" of Hobbes have really little in common with the sparkling +rapier-strokes of La Rochefoucauld, except that both these moralists-- +who may conceivably have met and compared impressions in Paris-- +combined a resolute pessimism about the corruption of mankind with an +epicurean pursuit of happiness. + +The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld were atoms of gold sifted through the +mesh of discussions at the dinner-table, around the fire in winter, +under the hawthorns and lilacs which Mme de Sévigné describes, in +endless talk between two or more trained and intelligent persons, +along the course of which thought oscillated from extreme to extreme, +until at last the company dispersed, leaving La Rochefoucauld to +capture and to fix the essential result of all that desultory +conversation. It is not impossible for us to conjecture the general +character of this brilliant and illusive talk. It had one central aim, +more or less clearly perceived, namely the desire to reach a Latin +standard of perfection. It sought to exchange for the romantic +barbarism which had underlain so much that was picturesque in the +sixteenth century--a barbarism which had come down from the late +Middle Ages, and which was really a dissolution of strong things +outworn--to exchange for this a preciousness of quality as against +mere rude bulk. It desired to introduce depth of purpose in the place +of chaotic moral disorder, originality in place of a frenzied and +incoherent eccentricity, and to found a solid structure upon a basis +of intellectual discipline. + +But in order to carry out this fine scheme, and especially in order +successfully to check that decadence which had alarmed the best minds +in France, there was a pioneer work to be done. It was necessary to +intensify and purify the light of criticism. For this purpose the +conversations of the _salons_ culminated in the lapidary art of La +Rochefoucauld, who was not a creator like Racine and Molière, like +Bossuet and Fenelon, but who prepared the way for these slightly later +builders of French literature by clearing the ground of shams. +Segrais, whose recollections of him are among the most precious which +have come down to us, says that La Rochefoucauld never argued. He had +the Socratic manner, and led others on to expose and expound their +views. His custom was, in the course of the endless talks about morals +and the soul, "to conceal half of his own opinion, and to show tact +with an obstinate opponent, so as to spare him the annoyance of having +to yield." There is something very like this in the "Pensées" of +Pascal. La Rochefoucauld blames himself, in his self-portrait, for +arguing too fiercely, and for being testy with an opponent, but these +faults were not perceived by other people. Doubtless he was aware of +an inward impatience, and succeeded in concealing it by means of that +extreme politeness on which he prided himself. + +The "Maximes" are shocking to persons who live in a state of illusion +about themselves, and they were so from the hour of their publication. +They roll up a bitter pill for human vanity. When Mme de La Fayette, +destined to look deeper than any other mortal into the soul of La +Rochefoucauld, read them first in 1663, in company with Mme du Plessis +at the Château de Fresnes, she was terrified and shocked at what she +called the "corruption" which they revealed. She wrote to Mme de +Sablé, who had lent her the manuscript-- + +"Ah, Madame, how corrupt he must be in mind and heart to be capable of +imagining such things! I am so frightened by it that I should say, if +this were not a matter too serious for jest, that such maxims are +likely to do more to upset him than all the plates of soup he +swallowed at your house the other day." + +As the "Maximes" pass from hand to hand, we see the spiritual Mænads +of Port Royal clustering "with a lovely frightened mien" about the +sinister author, while he turns "his beauteous face haughtily another +way," like young Apollo in the Phrygian highlands. The word +"pessimism" was, I believe, unknown until the year 1835, but this is +what Mme de La Fayette and the rest of the Jansenist ladies meant by +"corruption." Perhaps the most celebrated of all the sayings of her +terrible friend is that which declares that "In the misfortunes of our +friends there is always something which gives us no displeasure." She +was about to learn that no one had a nobler practice in friendship +than the cynic who wrote this: "There are good marriages, but no +delicious ones"; Mme de La Fayette's own marriage had been not at all +delicious and not even good. "Gratitude in the majority of men is +simply a strong and secret wish to receive still greater benefits." +Terrifying this must have been to a sentimental and exalted bosom, and +exclusive of all hope until the little word "majority" was observed, a +loophole offered for scared humanity to creep out at. + +The design of La Rochefoucauld was to make people ashamed of their +egotism, and so to help them to modify it. He saw France deadened by a +universal sycophancy, and tyrannized over by a court life which made a +lie of everything. He insisted upon the value of individual sincerity, +but in a voice so harsh and bitter, and in such sardonic phrases--as +when he says: "Sincerity is met with in very few people, and is +usually nothing but a delicate dissimulation to attract the confidence +of others"--that the more timid of his auditors shrank from him, as if +he had been Hamlet or Lear. When he dared to suggest that none of +these maxims were intended to refer to the reader himself, but only to +all other persons, he invited the reaction which led Huet, Bishop of +Avranches, to appeal against the morality of the "Maximes," as suited +only to the vices of wicked persons, "improborum hominum vitiis," and +to issue a warning against the too-sweeping cynicism of +Roccapucaldius, as he called the Duke. This was, perhaps, the +beginning of the dead-set against La Rochefoucauld. It encouraged +Rousseau, a century later, to talk of "ce triste livre," and to +declare, in the true romantic spirit, that "Bad maxims are worse than +bad acts." There have always been, and always will be, people who +experience a sort of _malaise_, an ill-defined discomfort, as though +they sat in an east wind, while they read La Rochefoucauld. This is +particularly true of Englishmen, who resent being told that "Our +virtues are often only our vices in disguise," and who also, by the +way, are constitutionally impatient of the French genius for making +what is ugly, and even what is detestable, pleasing by the surface of +style. + +There is an element of unmercifulness in the candour of La +Rochefoucauld which is distressing to sentimentalists. But this was +characteristic of the age, which looked upon compassion as a frailty, +as a break-down of noble personal reserve. He shall speak on this +matter for himself-- + +"I am little sensible of pity, and if I had my way, I would avoid it +altogether. At the same time, there is nothing I would not do to +relieve an afflicted person: and I believe as a matter of fact that +one ought to go so far as to express compassion for the misfortunes of +such a man, since the unhappy are so stupid that compassion does them +more good than anything else in the world. But I also hold that one +should confine one's self to professions of pity and be very careful +not to feel any. Pity is a passion which is wholly useless to a +well-constituted mind; it can but weaken the heart, and it ought to be +left to people who, carrying nothing out in a logical manner, require +passion to constrain them to do things." + +He seems to paint himself in tones of Prussian blue, but we must +really think of him as of a man timid, and at the same time +preternaturally wide-awake, who was determined at all risks not to be +taken at a disadvantage. When he was an old man, when much communing +with Mme de La Fayette had allayed his suspicion of mankind, La +Rochefoucauld said to Mlle de Scudery, "I hope that clemency will come +into fashion, and that we shall see no more men unhappy." [4] He +professed to found politeness on extreme _amour-propre_, but perhaps +in a still closer analysis he would have discovered its basis in +kindness of heart. He resists the temptation to weaken his own +pessimism, just as in his biting sarcasms about love we may trace a +tender soul still bleeding from the wounds which Mme de Longueville's +levity had inflicted on it.[5] + + [Footnote 4: Mme de Sévigné told her daughter that she was + sure that if one could peep at the Duke and Mme de La + Fayette "when they were alone with the cat," one would find + all the restraints of society flung aside, and see them + without the mask, their cynicism forgotten, mingling cries + and tears over the sorrows of the world. But neither she nor + any third person would ever see their social discretion thus + betrayed, and she concludes, in her droll way, "C'est une + vision!" In another letter to Mme de Grignan (June 6, 1672) + she says of the Duke, "Il connaît quasi aussi bien que moi + la tendresse maternelle."] + + [Footnote 5: There was unquestionably a strong vein of + tenderness running through the stoical character of the + Duke, and if we were more intimately acquainted with his + private life we should probably see many traces of it. Such + traces exist as it is. We have Mme de Sévigné's account of + his reception of the news of the Passage of the Rhine. It + was announced to him, on the 17th of June, 1672, at the + house of Mme de La Fayette, in the presence of Mme de + Sévigné, that in that terrible disaster his eldest son had + been dangerously wounded and his fourth son, the Chevalier, + killed. The tears seemed to start out of the depth of his + heart, and they brimmed his eyes, although his self-command + prevented an outbreak of grief. But there was a further + complication. The young Duke of Longueville was also killed + at the Rhine, and he, as a select circle of intimate friends + were perfectly aware, was really the love-child of La + Rochefoucauld. Mme de Sévigné, having given a superficial + account of the incident, characteristically goes on to say, + "Alas! I am telling a lie; between ourselves, my dear, he + does not feel the loss of the Chevalier so much; it is that + of the young man whom all the world regrets which leaves him + so inconsolable." And again she says: "I saw the secrets of + his heart revealed under this cruel blow; and no one that I + have ever seen surpasses him in courage, in honour, in + tenderness, in balance of mind." This is a tribute not to be + overlooked.] + +To understand the wholesome influence which La Rochefoucauld has +exercised on French character, we must keep constantly in sight his +hatred of falsehood. If he is angry and sardonic, it is because he +sees, or thinks he sees, falsehood everywhere masquerading as virtue. +His foremost duty was to pluck the mask from the false virtues which +strutted everywhere through the society and literature of France. +Voltaire recognized nothing else in La Rochefoucauld but this sardonic +misanthropy, this determination to prove that man is guided solely by +self-interest. This Voltaire thought was the _seule vérité_ contained +in the "Maximes," and in a measure he was right. The moralist saw +_amour-propre_ as an Apollyon straddling right across the pathway of +mankind; he saw lies flourish everywhere, and proclaim themselves to +be the truth. The conscience of mankind was seduced or browbeaten by +the impudency of self-love. Thus-- + +"We have not the courage to say broadly that we ourselves have no +defects, and that our enemies have no good qualities; but as a matter +of fact that is not far from being what we think." + +He believed not at all, or very faintly, in altruism. He had to sweep +away affected and therefore erroneous suppositions with regard to +morality, and particularly with regard to social motives. He had come +back to Paris, after his long and irksome exile, with a terrible +clear-sightedness, and he saw that society had gone to pieces and that +truth was essential to its rebuilding. He was convinced--and this must +be asserted in the face of his own apparent cynicism--he was convinced +of the existence of pure virtue, but he thought that _amour-propre_ in +the individual, and conventionality (what was then meant by _la +coutume_) in the social order, had made it almost as rare as the dodo. +He wished, by his stringent exposure of the arts of lying, to save +virtue before it was absolutely extinct. He had the instinct of +race-preservation.[6] + + [Footnote 6: It is possible that the conversation of Mme de + Sablé concentrated his thoughts on self-love. A contemporary + MS. says of that lady, "Elle flatte fort l'amour propre + quand elle parle aux gens." But egotism was a new discovery + which fascinated everybody in the third quarter of the + century.] + +Let us turn to the few, but profoundly beautiful reflections which +form the constructive element in La Rochefoucauld's teaching. His aim +in edification is to train us to dig through the crust of social sham +to the limpid truth which exists in the dark centre of our souls-- + +"If there is a pure love, he says, exempt from all admixture with +other passions, it is that which lies hidden at the bottom of the +heart, and of which we ourselves are ignorant." + +Unlike Mandeville, our own great cynic of the eighteenth century, La +Rochefoucauld, while calling in question the reality of almost all +benevolent impulses, stopped short of denying the existence of virtue +itself. He would not have said, as the author of the "Fable of the +Bees" (1714) did, that the "hunting after this _pulchrum et honestum_ +is not much better than a wild-goose chase." But he had a strong +contempt for the humbugs of the world, and among them he placed +unflinching optimists. One of the main forms of humbug in his day was +the legend that everybody acted nobly for the sake of other people. +This La Rochefoucauld stoutly denied, but he was not so excessive as +his commentators in his condemnation of that self-love which he +declares to be the source of all our moral actions. He insinuates the +possibility of an innocent and even a beneficial egotism. He says, +"The praise which is given us serves to fix us in the practice of +virtue," and if that is true, _amour-propre_ must be practically +useful. Helvétius, who made some very valuable comments on the +"Maximes" a hundred years later, pointed out that _amour-propre_ is +not in itself an evil thing, but is a sentiment implanted in us all by +nature, and that this sentiment is transformed in every human being +into either vice or virtue, so that although we are all egoists, some +are good and some are bad. + +La Rochefoucauld, therefore, while he takes a very dark view of the +selfishness of the human race, softens the shades of his picture by +admitting that egotism may be, and often must be, advantageous not +merely to the individual but to the race. And here we find the key to +one of the oddest passages in his works, that in which he attributes +his inspiration to two saints, St. Augustine and St. Epicurus! He +says-- + +Everybody wishes to be happy; that is the aim of all the acts of +life. Spurious men of the world and spurious men of piety only seek +for the appearance of virtue, and I believe that in matters of +morality, Seneca was a hypocrite and Epicurus was a saint. I know of +nothing in the world so beautiful as nobility of heart and loftiness +of mind: from these proceeds that perfect integrity which I set above +all other qualities, and which seems to me, at my present stage of +life, to be of more price than a royal crown. But I am not sure +whether, in order to live happily and as a man of the highest sense of +honour, it is not better to be Alcibiades and Phaedo than to be +Aristides and Socrates. + +It would take us too far out of our path to comment on the relation of +this epicureanism to the religion of La Rochefoucauld's day, but a few +words seem necessary on this subject. He says extremely little about +religion, although he makes the necessary and perhaps not wholly +perfunctory, statement that he was orthodox. But the position of a +votary of St. Epicurus had grown difficult. Since the Duke's exile, +the enmity between the church and the world had become violent, so +violent that a man of prominent social and intellectual position was +bound to take one side or another. We may note that the years during +which the "Maximes" were being composed were precisely those during +which Bossuet was thundering from the pulpit his anathemas against +worldly luxury and the pride of life. The period marked at one +extremity by "L'Amour des Passions" (1660) and at the other by the +"Grandeurs Humains" (1663) is precisely that in which the lapidary art +of La Rochefoucauld was most assiduous. The church was advocating +asceticism and humility with all its authority, and was leading up +towards the later phase of the fanatical despotism of Louis XIV.'s old +age, with all its attendant hypocrisy. For the moment, in the +struggle, La Rochefoucauld, though no _dévot_, would seem a friend of +the church rather than a foe, and in fact he retained the intimacy of +Bossuet, in whose arms he died. We may be sure that he guarded himself +with delicate care from the charge of being what was then called a +"libertine," that is a man openly at war with the theory and practice +of the theologians. + +It is said that La Rochefoucauld invented[7] the word "vraie," "true," +to describe the character of Mme de La Fayette. His intimacy with this +illustrious lady is one of the most beautiful episodes in the history +of literature, and perhaps its purest example of true friendship +between the sexes. The phrase we have already quoted shows that in +1663 the two great writers were acquainted but not yet intimate. Marie +de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette, was in her thirtieth year, La +Rochefoucauld had completed his fiftieth when some cause which remains +obscure drew them together with a tie which death alone, after +seventeen wonderful years of almost unbroken association, was to +sever. There was no scandal about it, even in that scandal-mongering +age. The astute Mile de Scudery, writing to her gossip Bussy Rabutin +(December 6, 1675), says, "Nothing could be happier for her, or more +dignified for him; the fear of God on either side, and perhaps +prudence as well, have clipped the wings of love." Twelve years +before, when Ménage had repeated to her some critical remarks about +her novel, "La Princesse de Montpensier," Mme de La Fayette had +replied, "I am greatly obliged to M. de la Rochefoucauld for his +expressions. They are the result of our similarity of experience, 'de +la belle sympathie qui est entre nous.'" + + [Footnote 7: Mme de Sévigné seems not to have known this + when, in writing to her daughter (July 19, 1671), she claims + to have been the first to say _vraie_ when she meant + sincere, loyal. "Il y a longtemps que je dis que vous êtes + _vraie_"] + +The famous friends were excluded by their physical conditions from the +activities of life. Mme de La Fayette, who was perhaps something of a +hypochondriac, tossed all day among the pillows of that golden bed +with the extravagance of which the austerity of Mme de Maintenon +upbraided her. La Rochefoucauld, tormented by the gout, lay stretched +at her side in his long chair, and the days went by in endless +discussion, endless balancing of right and wrong, much gossip, much +reading of books new and old, and not a little consultation of artist +with artist. They kept their secrets well, and no curiosity of +successive critics has been able to discover how much of La +Rochefoucauld is hidden in the pages of "La Princesse de Clèves", the +earliest of the modern novels of the world, nor how much of Mme de La +Fayette in the revised and re-revised text of the "Maximes." [8] But we +know that she was no less sagacious and no less an enemy to illusion +than he was, and those are probably not far wrong who have detected a +softening influence from her conversation on the late genius of La +Rochefoucauld. + +In 1675 Mme de Thiange presented to the Duke du Maine a toy which has +long ago disappeared, and for the recovery of which I would gladly +exchange many a grand composition of painting and sculpture. It was a +sort of gilded doll's house, representing the interior of a _salon_. +Over the door was written, "Chambre des Sublimes." Inside were wax +portrait-figures of living celebrities, the Duke du Maine in one +arm-chair; in another La Rochefoucauld, who was handing him some +manuscript. By the arm-chairs were standing Bossuet, then Bishop of +Condom, and La Rochefoucauld's eldest son, M. de Marcillac. At the +other end of the alcove Mme de La Fayette and Mme de Thiange were +reading verses together. Outside the balustrade, Boileau with a +pitchfork was preventing seven or eight bad poets from entering, to +the amusement and approval of Racine, who was already inside, and of +La Fontaine, who was invited to come forward. The likeness of these +little waxen images is said to have been perfect, and there can hardly +be fancied a relic of that fine society which would be more valuable +to us in re-establishing its social character. We know not what became +of it in the next generation. No doubt, the wax grew dusty, and the +figures lost their heads and hands, and some petulant châtelaine +doomed the ruined treasure to the dustbin. + + [Footnote 8: Bussy Rabutin writes to Mme de Sévigné that he + hears that La Rochefoucauld and Mme de La Fayette are + preparing "quelque chose de fort joli." This shows that + before "La Princess de Clèves" was finished the Duke's name + was identified with its composition.] + +No mention of Mme de Sévigné is made in the inventory of the "Chambre +des Sublimes," and yet there is no one to whom we owe an exacter +portraiture of its inmates, nor one who was more worthy to animate its +golden recesses. For the last ten years of La Rochefoucauld's life she +was one of the closest observers of the famous sedentary friendship. +Unfortunately she tells us nothing about the original publication of +the "Maximes," for his name does not occur in her correspondence +before 1668, and does not abound there until 1670. Then we find her +for ever at the Duke's house, or meeting him at Mme de La Fayette's +bedside. He gratified her by warm and constant praise of Mme de +Grignan, whose letters were regularly read to the friends by her +infatuated mother. It is vexing that Mme de Sévigné, who might have +spared us two or three of her immortal pages, although she incessantly +mentions and even quotes La Rochefoucauld, generally refrains from +describing him. She and Mme de La Fayette were his guests in the +country on May 15, and the three wonderful companions walked in the +harmony of "nightingales, hawthorns, lilacs, fountains and fine +weather," or played with his pet white mouse. Such touches are rare, +and Paris seems best to suit what Mme de Sévigné admirably calls "the +grey-brown" thought of La Rochefoucauld. + +In 1671 he had a terrible attack of the gout, accompanied by agonies +moral and physical which filled the ladies with alarm and pity. Better +in 1672, he was able to entertain company to hear Corneille read his +new tragedy of "Pulchérie" in January, and Molière his new comedy, +"Les Femmes Savantes," in March. He was now, in premature old age, the +venerable figure in the group, the benevolent Nestor of the salons. +Let his detractors remember that Mme de Sévigné, who knew what she was +talking about, wrote that "he is the most lovable man I have ever +known," His sufferings, his disenchantments and disappointments, only +seemed to accentuate his beautiful patience. Just before his fatal +illness (January 31, 1680) Mme de Sévigné writes again: "I have never +seen a man so obliging, nor more amiable in his wish to give pleasure +by what he says." [9] Her detailed and pathetic account of his last +hours, which closed on the night of March 16, 1680, testifies to her +deep attachment and to Mme de La Fayette's despair. + + [Footnote 9: Two of La Fontaine's fables, "L'Homme et son + Image" and "Les Lapins," were dedicated to La Rochefoucauld + in 1668. In the former we read:-- + + _On voit bien où je veux venir. + Je parle a tous, et cette erreur extrême + Est un mal que chacun se plaît d'entretenir + Notre âme, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui-même; + Tant de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui, + Miroirs, de nos défauts les peintres légitimes; + Et quant au canal, c'est celui, + Que chacun sait: le livre des Maximes._] + +When Mme de Sévigné, in 1675, received the third edition of the Duke's +book, which contained more than seventy new maxims, she wrote, "Some of +them are divine; some of them, I am ashamed to say, I don't understand." +Probably she would have partly agreed with some one's criticism of them, +"De l'esprit, encore de l'esprit, et toujours de l'esprit--trop +d'esprit!" [10] No doubt, La Rochefoucauld has done his own reputation +wrong by the bluster of his scepticism and also by the fact that he +sometimes wraps his thoughts up in such a blaze of epigram that we are +disconcerted to find, when we analyze them, that they are commonplaces. +Contemporaries seemed to have smiled at the excessive subtlety into +which their long conversations led Mme de La Fayette and her sublime +companion. Mme de Sévigné describes such talks with her delicate irony, +and says, "We plunged into subtleties which were beyond our +intelligence." An example is the dispute whether "Grace is to the body +what good sense is to the mind," or "Grace is to the body what delicacy +is to the mind" should be the ultimate form of a maxim. They sometimes +drew the spider's thread so fine that it became invisible.[11] + + [Footnote 10: The practice of making "maxims," _axiomata_, + encouraged the enlivenment of conversation by the + introduction of topsy-turvy statements, such as "Constancy + is merely inconstancy arrested," in the manner of Oscar + Wilde and Mr. Chesterton.] + + [Footnote 11: La Rochefoucauld was not without affectations. He + spoke airily about his _manière négligée_ of writing, whereas + no one ever took more pains. Segrais gives very interesting + information on this point: he says that the Duke + "sent me from time to time what he had been working + on, and he wished me to keep these note-books of his for + five or six weeks, so as to be able to give them my + closest attention, particularly with regard to the turn of + the thoughts and the arrangement of the words. Some of + his maxims he altered as many as thirty times." But + when he wrote to Esprit, in 1660, La Rochefoucauld + affected to regard his own writings as trifles thrown off + "au coin de mon feu" The great of the earth have these + amiable and amusing weaknesses.] + +But his clearness of insight was immense, and he was too profoundly +intelligent to be a merely destructive or sterile force. He builded +better than he knew. For instance, courage, it has been alleged, he +denies, and indeed he is so savage in his exposure of braggadocio that +it might well be believed that he refused to admit that men could be +brave. Yet what does he say?-- + +"Intrepidity is an extraordinary force of the soul which lifts it +above those troubles, disorders and emotions which the aspect of great +peril would otherwise excite; it is by this force that heroes maintain +themselves in a state of equanimity, preserving the free use of their +reason through the most surprising and the most terrible accidents." + +This must include the most moving of all accidents, those which call +forth moral and physical courage in the face of national danger, and +are rewarded by _gloire_, by public and lasting fame. And we are led +on to a consideration of the lengthy reflection on the spirit in which +the approach of death should be faced, with which he closed the latest +edition of the "Maximes," declaring that "the splendour of dying with +a firm spirit, the hope of being regretted, the desire to leave a fair +reputation behind us, the assurance of being released from the +drudgery of life and of depending no more on the caprices of fortune," +are remedies which would medicine our pain in approaching the dreaded +goal of our existence. + +We must read La Rochefoucauld closely to perceive why a book so +searching, and even so cruel as his, has exercised on the genius of +France a salutary and a lasting influence. His savage pessimism is not +useless, it is not a mere scorn of humanity and a sneer at its +weaknesses. It tends, by stripping off all the shams of conduct and +digging to the root of action, to make people upright, candid and +magnanimous on a new basis of truth. So we come at last to see the +significance of Voltaire's dark saying of the "Maximes": "This book is +one of those which have contributed most to form the taste of the +French nation, and to give it the spirit of accuracy and precision." + + + + + LA BRUYÈRE + + +La Bruyère was thirty-five years of age when La Rochefoucauld died, +and twenty when the "Maximes" were published. We have no evidence that +he ever met the former, but he certainly read the latter, and in spite +of his eager denial that Pascal or La Rochefoucauld suggested his +method to him--"I have followed neither of these paths," he says--it +is impossible to doubt that the example of the "Maximes" had a great +deal to do with the form of the "Caractères." His own disciple, +Brillon, tells us of La Bruyère that, "the author of the work which +this age has most admired was at least ten years writing it, and about +as long hesitating whether he would write it or not." The "Caractères" +was finished in 1687; Brillon's estimate takes us back to 1667 or +earlier, and the brilliant success of the "Maximes" dates from 1665. +Every author imagines that he loses some dignity by being supposed to +follow the lead of another author, although the entire history of +literature is before him to show that the lamp of genius has always +been handed on from hand to hand. La Bruyère, in particular, was not +exempt from this amiable weakness, but his ghost needs feel no +displeasure if we insist on connecting him with the effort of La +Rochefoucauld. + +It is very amusing to see how anxious La Bruyère is not to seem to owe +anything to La Rochefoucauld. He speaks of his own writings as "less +delicate" than those of the Duke, and in his own opening words he +declares that he has had no wish to write maxims, "which are laws in +morals," as he has no legislative authority. I suppose that in +describing the tone of La Rochefoucauld as "delicate" La Bruyère +really meant supercilious, and deprecated any idea that he, the +typical bourgeois, should seem to lay down the law like the architype +of intellectual aristocracy. He scoffs at the Duke for making his +reflections "like oracles," so short are they and so concise; and he +is quite correct when he boasts of the extreme variety and versatility +of his own manner. He accuses La Rochefoucauld of browbeating his +readers into subjection to his thought; while, La Bruyère says, "for +my part I am quite willing that my reader should say sometimes that I +have not observed correctly, provided that he himself will observe +better." The reader, on the other hand, must not be taken in by all +this, which is very characteristic of La Bruyère's timid +self-confidence. His reputation loses nothing by our discovering that +he owes much to Montaigne and still more to La Rochefoucauld. + +The link is clear, in spite of the foliage with which La Bruyère seeks +to conceal it. It could only be from La Rochefoucauld that the author +of "Les Caractères" derived that sad disillusionment, lighted up by +flashes of savage wit, with which he expresses his sense of the +defects of human character. It may often be noted that when La Bruyère +speaks of egotism, of the prevalence of _amour-propre_, his pungent +phrases have the very sound of those of his precursor. The truth is +that a strong new book is not read by a young man whose genius is +prepared for its teaching, without its image being stamped upon his +mind. La Bruyère's own experience had already offered to him a banquet +of the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil when he +met with the "Maximes" of 1665. His conscience and his memory were +prepared, and the truth is that a great deal of La Rochefoucauld's +teaching passed into his veins without his knowing it. This does not +in the least undermine the reputation which justly belongs to La +Bruyère as one of the most original writers of France, or even of +Europe, but it links him for our intelligence with the other great +moralist of his century. + +The author of the "Maximes" was the head of one of the great princely +houses of France. The author of the "Caractères" was the type of the +plebeian citizen of Paris. If La Rochefoucauld offers us the +quintessence of aristocracy, La Bruyère is not less a specimen of the +middle class. His reputation as an honest man long suffered from his +own joke about his ancestry. He wrote, "I warn everybody whom it may +concern, in order that the world may be prepared and nobody be +surprised, that if ever it should happen that one of the mighty of the +earth should deem me worthy of his care, in other words if I should +ever come into an immense fortune, there is a Godefroi de La Bruyère +whom all the chroniclers place in the list of the greatest nobles of +France who followed Godefroi de Bouillon to the conquest of the Holy +Land. When that happens, I shall descend from him in the direct line." +One would think that a child could perceive this to be a satire at the +profiteers of the age, who invented ancestors, and so a child would +to-day, but in the seventeenth and even the eighteenth century it was +not safe to be funny. In particular, nonsense--the divine charm of +which we now admit--had not been acclimatized, and was looked upon +with grave displeasure. It wrings the heart that when Goldsmith, in a +purple coat, pretended to think himself more attractive than the +Jessamy Bride, his contemporaries severely censured this as an +instance of his "vanity." + +So the fools and fops of La Bruyère's time thought or pretended to +think that he was seriously claiming to be of noble birth. Nothing was +further from his intention; no La Bruyère had taken part in the +Crusades, any more than any member of Charles Lamb's family had been +Pope of Rome. The moralist's father, Louis de La Bruyère, was +Comptroller-General of Rents of the Hôtel de Ville of Paris; his +mother was an attorney's daughter. The eldest of five, he was born on +August 17, 1645, in the centre of old Paris, close to the church of St. +Christopher. It is only of late years that this fact has been +discovered, and there are still immense blanks in the life of La +Bruyère during which he disappears from us altogether, engulfed in the +lanes of the Cité, not because of any adventurous mystery, but simply +because of his total lack of adventure. There has scarcely lived a +great man of letters in comparatively recent times about whose life +there is so little to relate as about that of La Bruyère. He is +believed to have gone to school to the Fathers of the Oratory, but +even that is not certain. His knowledge of Greek is thought to prove +it, but, though the Oratorians were admirable Hellenists, surely Greek +could be learned elsewhere. + +When he was twenty, he passed his examination in law in Orleans, and, +coming back to Paris, practised as a lawyer for eight or nine years. +He was concerned in no famous case, it is supposed, since his name is +never mentioned in the gossip of the time. He inherited a competence +from his father, and probably lived an idle life, diversified by a +little legal business of a very mediocre nature. As his biographer +says, he grew more and more "inclined by his temperament to a +meditative existence." When he was in his thirtieth year, a crisis +came. By some means or other, he secured a lucrative sinecure, that of +treasurer of finances at Caen in Normandy. He hated the country and +went down to Caen on the rarest occasions possible. La Bruyère, a +Parisian to the marrow of his bones, says, "Provincials and fools are +always ready to lose their temper and believe that one is laughing at +them or despising them. You must never venture on a joke, even the +mildest, except with well-bred, witty people." Perhaps he had been +trying Godefroi de La Bruyère off on the stolid inhabitants of Caen. +He received a salary, however, which was far from being all paid away +to a substitute, and he rose, in the curious social scale of those +days, from Mister (_roturier_) into Esquire (_écuyer_). The court in +Normandy was extremely angry with him at periodical intervals, but +apparently could do nothing to assert itself. When it raged, La +Bruyère was like the East in Matthew Arnold's poem, he "bow'd low +before the blast in patient, deep disdain." + +He lived through these quiet years in one apartment after another in +the heart of Paris. Vigneul de Marville saw him "nearer heaven than +earth" in a room which a light curtain divided into two. "The wind, +always at the service of philosophers, running ahead of visitors, +would lift this curtain adroitly, and reveal the philosopher, smiling +with pleasure at the opportunity of distilling the elixir of his +meditations into the brain and the heart of a listener." He was always +at work, but his work was confined to meditation, talk and study. +Sometimes he left his garret, and studied "the court and the town" +from the benches of the public gardens, the Luxembourg and the +Tuileries. There has been an enormous amount of speculation and +conjecture about the central period of the life of La Bruyère, but we +really have only one positive document to go upon. During the illness +of his own footman, he borrowed the services of his brother's man, who +robbed him of money and clothes. La Bruyère put the case in the hands +of the police, who failed to catch the thief. This is the only +definite fact which has rewarded the patience of the investigators, +and we must build round it what we can. We build round it his own +glimpse of self-portraiture (in "Des Biens de Fortune") and find the +philosopher bending over the volume where Plato discusses the +spirituality of the soul, or measuring, with a rapt expression, the +infinite distance between Saturn and Jupiter.[12] + + [Footnote 12: "Vigneul de Marville," to whom we owe some + picturesque impressions of La Bruyère at this time of social + obscurity, was one of the pseudonyms of Bonaventure + d'Argonne, whose real name appears to have been Noël + Argonne. He was a Carthusian who dabbled in literature, and + who towards the close of his career compiled a volume of + "Mélanges," containing anecdotes which are often spiteful, + but sometimes useful to the historian of literature. He + seems to have visited La Bruyère in the days of his + comparative poverty, when his mother kept home for the whole + family, first in the Rue Chapon, and later in the Rue des + Grands Augustins.] + +When he is on the point of entering his fortieth year, La Bruyère +suddenly breaks out of the cloud which encompasses him, and is +revealed as professor of history to the Duke of Bourbon, and resident +in the household of the great Prince de Condé. There is no evidence to +show how Bossuet, then Bishop of Meaux, and the most influential man +of intellect in France, became acquainted with the discreet and +obscure treasurer of finances; but it is evident that he was struck by +the vast learning and intelligence of this silent, smiling anchorite. +Fontenelle tells us that Bossuet, who had been tutor to the Dauphin, +"made a practice of supplying to the princes such persons, meritorious +in letters, as they had need of." In 1684, then, we know not why nor +how, Bossuet recommended La Bruyère as tutor to the House of Condé. It +is a matter of ceaseless wonderment, however, that the philosopher +accepted and retained the post. He possessed a sufficient though a +modest competence already, and he exchanged a life of complete +independence for a most painful and trying servitude, hung up between +the insolence of those above and the impertinence of those below him. +The situation of La Bruyère in the Maison de Condé was like that of +Fanny Burney at the court of George III., only worse. Commentators +have expended endless ingenuity in conjecturing what were the reasons +which induced him to enslave himself. + +A careful study of his great book must add to our amazement. No one +ever locked himself up in prison with an exacter appreciation of the +discomforts of captivity. La Bruyère has some remarks about freedom, +which plunge us in bewilderment. "Liberty," he says, "is not laziness: +it is a free use of one's time; it is having the choice of one's own +work and exercise. To be free, in a word, is not to do nothing, but to +be sole judge of what one shall do or not do. In this sense, what a +boon is liberty!" This practical freedom he possessed to the full, +when in August 1684 he accepted bondage to a spiteful monkey of a boy, +a dwarf with a huge head and a dreadful face, to whom he was to +impart, with tears of disappointment and humiliation, the rudiments of +national history. He was immediately responsible to the father of this +infant phenomenon, to Henry Jules, Duke d'Enghien, of whose "useless +talents, wasted genius, imagination which was a torment to himself and +others," Saint-Simon gives so copious an account. We have to think of +our delicate and timid La Bruyère now for years the powerless +plaything of this "unnatural son, cruel father, terrible husband, +detestable master, pernicious neighbour, without affection, without +friends." + +But after two centuries of canonization of the Condés, it has now +become the fashion to denigrate them to an equal excess. The +traditional figure of the Grand Condé, Olympian and sublime, has been +exposed by pitiless documentary evidence. La Bruyère's latest and most +learned editor, M. Emile Magne, gives a terrible picture of the +Prince's meanness and dirtiness; Harpagon in an ostler's jacket, he +calls him, _en souquenille_. But to dwell on all this is to forget +that the great Condé, even in his ugly old age, was haloed by the +glory of having been the first soldier of the world. It was a +privilege, even at the end, to be admitted to his intimacy, and I +believe that we pity La Bruyère more than he pitied himself. It +scandalizes the biographers that the Prince, on one occasion, made La +Bruyère dance a _pas seul_ before him, twanging a tune on the guitar. +I suppose De Quincey would have been complaisant if the Duke of +Wellington had asked him to whistle "Home, Sweet Home" to him. There +is a limit, after all, to the modern theory of the Dignity of Letters. + +Valincourt says that "All the time La Bruyère lived in the House of +Condé, everybody was always making fun of him." Possibly the fear of +appearing pedantic among all these people of fashion and these +tinselled flunkeys made him lend himself to ridicule. They all teased +and mocked him, I suppose, but not, I think, so as seriously to hurt +him, and now, with his book in our hands, the laugh is on his side. +For when we examine carefully we see that his position in the House of +Condé improved as time went on. He got rid of his rivals, the other +tutors; when the Grand Condé died, La Bruyère got rid of his dreadful +pupil as well. We find him no longer "précepteur," but "gentilhomme de +M. le Duc,"--no longer, that is, a mere scholastic drudge, but a sort +of lord-in-waiting. He had probably a large increase of salary, since +in 1687 he seems to have resigned his "charge" at Caen. Instead of +being pinned to the dark apartment in the recesses of the Cité, he now +revolved in ceaseless movement between Chantilly and Fontainebleau, +Paris and Versailles. He became a sort of confidential reader to the +Duke and Duchess, an essential part of the suite. After the first +years, he had a great deal of leisure. He could retire to the security +of a handsomely furnished apartment--upholstered in green--on the +second floor of the Hôtel de Condé, opposite the Luxembourg, and he +had another set of rooms at Versailles. The bondage became, I expect, +no real bondage at all. + +But why had he, so long completely his own master, consented to become +the servant even of famous Royal princes? I think that as mothers +accept irksome situations for the support of their children, so La +Bruyère became the serf of the Condés for the sake of his book. For it +is now time to reveal the fact that in this apparently listless, empty +life there was one absorbing secret interest. This was the collection +of the maxims, reflections, pictures, and what not which he had been +quietly absorbing and turning into the honey of more and more +exquisite prose ever since his early youth. I think that La Bruyère +deliberately accepted all that might prove irksome in the captivity to +the House of Condé for the sole sake of his book. He needed to see +more types, and types of a more brilliant and effective kind than he +could become familiar with in his mediocre condition. He knew all that +was to be known about the artizans and the shopkeepers of the Cité; he +wanted to examine the rulers of society, and while he watched them +like a naturalist, they might make what contortions they pleased. How +did one of his contemporaries describe him? "When Ménippe leaves his +home, it is for the purpose of studying the attitudes of the whole +human race and of painting them from the life. But he is not merely a +portrait-painter, he is an anatomist as well. Do you see that vain and +arrogant fellow in the midst of his good fortune? He is enchanted to +think Ménippe is admiring him. What a mistake! At this very moment +Ménippe is dissecting him and preparing him as a specimen for a public +lecture in the schools. Not a vein, not a fibre will escape him, and +from that man's heart he will draw the inmost springs of passion and +expose the circulation of every vice." + +It is time, however, to present the famous book in which all these +investigations were noted, the cabinet where all these butterflies and +less beautiful insect-forms were exhibited. The final title of it is +"Characters; or, the Manners of this Age." It was published in January +1688, but, as is believed, had been begun nearly thirty years earlier, +and slowly finished, the final revision and arrangement dating from +1686 and 1687. The book, like so many of the world's masterpieces, is +short, and a fashionable novelist of to-day could scribble in a +fortnight as many words as it contains. But there is not a careless +phrase nor a hurried line in the whole of it. I do not know in the +range of literature a book more deliberately exquisite than the +"Caractères." It started, probably, with the jotting down of social +remarks at long intervals. Then, I think, La Bruyère, always extremely +fastidious, observed that the form of his writing was growing to +resemble too much that of La Rochefoucauld, and so he began to +diversify it with "portraits." These had been in fashion in Paris for +more than a generation, but La Bruyère invented a new kind of +portrait. He says, on the very first page of the "Caractères," "you +make a book as you make a clock"; he ought to have said, "I make _my_ +book," for no other work is quite so clock-like in its variety of +parts, its elaborate mechanism, and its air of having been constructed +at different times, in polished fragments, which have needed the most +workmanlike ingenuity to fit them together into an instrument that +moves and, rings. + +What perhaps strikes us most, when we put down the "Caractères" after +a close re-perusal of one of the most readable books in all +literature, is its extraordinary sustained vitality. It hums and +buzzes in our memory long after we have turned the last page. We may +expand the author's own mage, and compare it, not with a clock, but +with a watchmaker's shop; it is all alive with the tick-tick of a +dozen chronometers. La Bruyère's observations are noted in a manner +that is disjointed, apparently even disordered, but it was no part of +his scheme to present his maxims in a system. We shall find that he +was incessantly improving his work, revising, extending and weighing +it. He was one of those timid men who surprise us by their crafty +intrepidity. It was dangerous to publish sarcastic "portraits" of +well-known influential people, and there are few of these in the first +edition, but when the success of the book was once confirmed these +were made more and more prominent. It was not until the eighth +edition, of 1694, that La Bruyère ventured to print the following +study of one of the most influential men of letters of that day. +Fontenelle-- + +THE PORTRAIT OF CYDIAS + +"Ascange is a sculptor, Hegion a bronze-founder; Æschine a fuller, and +Cydias a wit--that is his profession. He has a signboard, a workshop, +finished articles for sale, mechanics who work under him. He cannot +deliver for more than a month the stanzas which he has promised you, +unless he breaks his word to Dosithée, who has ordered an elegy from +him. He has an idyl on the loom; it is for Crantor, who is hurrying +him, and from whom he expects a handsome price. Prose, verse, which do +you want? He is equally successful with either. Ask him for letters to +sympathize with a bereavement or to explain an absence, and he will +undertake them. If you want them ready-made, you have only to enter +his shop, and to choose what you like. He has a friend whose only duty +upon this earth is to promise Cydias a long time ahead to a certain +set of people, and then to present him at last in their houses as a +man of rare and exquisite conversation; and, there, just as a musician +sings or a lute-player touches his lute before the people who have +engaged him, Cydias, after having coughed, and lifted the ruffle from +his wrist, stretched out his hand and opened his fingers, begins to +retail his quintessential thoughts and his sophistical arguments.... +He opens his mouth only to contradict. 'It seems to me,' he gracefully +says, 'that the truth is exactly the contrary of what you say,' or 'I +cannot agree with your opinion,' or even 'that used to be my +prepossession, as it is yours, but now----!'" + +The idol of the gossips, "the prettiest pedant in the world," was thus +paid out for his intrigues against La Bruyère in the French +Academy.[13] + + [Footnote 13: The contemporary "keys," which were generally + ill-informed and ill-forming, said that Cydias was + Perrault. But it is almost certain that Fontenelle was + meant. M.A. Chassang has brought together a formidable list + of Fontenelle's activity. He wrote for Thomas Corneille part + of "Psyché" (1678) and of "Bellerophon" (1679); for Donneau + le Visé the comedy of "La Comète" (1681); for Beauval the + "Éloge" on Perrault (1688); for Catherine Bernard part of + her tragedy of "Brutus" (1691), a discourse for the prize of + eloquence given by the French Academy, and signed by Brunel + (1695); and part of "L'Analyse des infiniments petits" for + the Marquis de l'Hôpital (1696). This is merely part of the + work turned out of Fontenelle's factory before the death of + La Bruyère. Another candidate for the type of Cydias is + Fontenelle's uncle, Thomas Corneille (1625-1709).] + +There was great danger, or so it would seem to a timid man like La +Bruyère, in affronting public opinion with a book so full of sarcasm +and reproof, so unflinching in its way of dealing with success, as the +"Caractères." He adopted a singular mode of self-protection. That was +the day of the mighty dispute between the Ancients and the Moderns, +and La Bruyère, at all events ostensibly, took the highly respectable +side of the Greeks and Romans. There had lived a philosopher in the +fourth century B.C., Theophrastus, the successor and elucidator of +Aristotle, who left a book of "Ethical Characters" (_[Greek: HThikoi +charaktêres]_), which had been introduced to the Western world by +Casaubon at the end of the sixteenth century. For some reason or +other, the greatest impression had been made by Theophrastus in +England, where there appeared a large number of successive imitations +or paraphrases of his "Characters." In France, on the other hand, +Theophrastus was still unknown to the vulgar, when La Bruyère took him +up. It seems likely that his own collection of portraits and maxims +was practically finished, when, as M. Paul Morillot has put it, he +determined to hoist the Greek flag as a safeguard. He made a French +translation of the sketches of Theophrastus, and he put this at the +head of his book, waving it to keep off the public, as a lady unfurls +her parasol at a cow whose intentions are uncertain. + +The evidences of La Bruyère's extreme caution are amusing. He +hesitated long, but in 1687 he submitted his MS. to Boileau, who was +highly encouraging, and to the poet-mathematician, Malizian, who said, +"This will bring you plenty of readers and plenty of enemies." Finally +he determined to risk the dive, and he took the book to Michallet, the +publisher, saying as he did so, "If it is successful, the result shall +be your daughter's dowry," the said daughter being a little child who +was then seated on La Bruyère's knee. The ultimate success of the book +being prodigious, Mlle Michallet must, by the time she was +marriageable, have become a remarkable _parti_, but the story is not +one which commends itself to the Incorporated Society of Authors. "Les +Caractères" was published in January 1688, and the critics, with the +veteran Bussy-Rabutin at their head, welcomed it with shouts of +applause. Bussy frankly said, "It must be admitted that having proved +the merit of Theophrastus by his translation, he has obscured the fame +of that writer by what he has done next, for he has penetrated, in his +own portraits, deeper into the heart of man than Theophrastus did, and +has penetrated with even greater delicacy and by means of more +exquisite language." This must have been very gratifying from the +survivor of the great school of Malherbe and Balzac. + +At the age of forty-three, then, previously unknown in the world of +letters, this shy and obscure gentleman-in-waiting to the Princes of +Condé, rose into fame, and enjoyed the admiration or the envy of +whatever was most prominent in Paris. The public which he addressed +was one which we may pause a moment to contemplate. The authority of +the Academic and noble _salons_ was practically at an end, and +intellectual culture had spread to a somewhat wider circle. Those who +governed taste had thrown off many affectations of a previous +generation, and in particular the curious disease of "preciousness." +They were healthier, soberer and slightly less amusing than their +forerunners. But they formed, in the heart of Paris, the most compact +body of general intelligence to be met with at that time in any part +of the world. They were certain, in their little sphere, of their +æsthetic and logical aims. They were the flower of an intense +civilization, very limited, in a way very simple; so far as the +adoption of outer impulses went, very inactive, and yet within its own +range energetic, elegant and audacious. To this world the "Caractères" +was now offered, modestly, as though it were a summing up of the +moralizations of the last fifty years. The author begins by +deprecating the idea that he has anything new to impart. His trick is +rather subtle; he concentrates our attention on the sayings of an +ancient Aristotelian philosopher, and then, as if to fill up the time, +he ventures to repeat a few reflexions of his own. These he introduces +with the words: "Everything has been said, and we arrive too late into +a world of men who have been thinking for more than seven thousand +years. In the field of morals, all that is fairest and best has been +reaped already; we can but glean among the ancients and among the +cleverest of the moderns." In this insinuating manner, he leads the +reader on to the perusal of his own part of the book, and soon we +become aware how cold and dry and pale the Greek translation seems +beside the rich and palpitating world of the new French morality. + +Whether he perceived it or not--and I for one am convinced that he did +perceive it--La Bruyère introduced a new thing into French literature; +he opened out, we may almost say, a new world. The classical attitude +of the great age had produced splendid manifestations of thought and +form. However revolutionary it pleases us of 1918 to be, we cannot get +away from the perfection of the age of Bossuet and Racine and La +Fontaine and Fénelon. We come back to these solid and passionate +writers after each one of our romantic excursions, not entirely +satisfied with them, as our forefathers were, but with a sense of +their solid glory, with a confidence in their permanent value in +stimulating and supporting human effort. They may not give us all that +they were once presumed to give, but they offer us a firm basis; they +are always there for the imagination to start from. We must not +forget, of course, that in 1688 in Paris these classics of the hour +represented a great deal more than that; their prestige was +untarnished. They so completely outshone, in cultivated opinion, all +else that had been produced since the Christian era, that the Italy of +Dante, the Spain of Cervantes, and the England of Shakespeare did not +so much as exist. If the intelligence was not satisfied by Descartes, +well! there was nothing for it but to go back to Plato, and if Racine +did not sufficiently rouse the passions, they must be worked upon by +Sophocles. In all this, the divines took a particularly prominent +place because they alone presented something for which no definite +parallel could be found in antiquity. It was the great theologians of +the age with whom La Bruyère chiefly competed. + +These theologians were themselves artists to a degree which we have +now a difficulty in realizing, although in the seventeenth century the +Church of England also had some great artists in her pulpits. If +Jeremy Taylor had been a Frenchman, the work of La Bruyère might have +been different. But the French orators lacked the splendour and oddity +of the author of "The Great Exemplar," and we can feel that La +Bruyère, who was instinct with the need for colour, was dissatisfied +with the broad outlines and masses of character for which the French +divines were famous; indeed, even Bossuet, to an English reader fresh +from Fuller and Taylor, seems with all his magnificence too abstract +and too rhetorical. La Bruyère determined to be less exacting and yet +more exact; he would sink to describing emotions less tremendous and +to designing figures of more trifling value, but he would paint them +with a vivid detail hitherto unsolicited. The consequence was that the +public instantly responded to his appeal, and we have continued to +contemplate with reverence Bossuet's huge historical outlines, but to +turn for sheer pleasure to La Bruyère's finished etchings of the +tulipomaniac and the collector of engravings. + +Everyone who approaches an analysis of the "Caractères" is obliged to +pause to commend the style of La Bruyère. It is indeed exquisite. At +the time his book was published our own John Locke was putting +together his famous "Thoughts on Education," and he remarked on the +"policy" of the French, who were not thinking it "beneath the public +care to promote and reward the improvement of their own language. +Polishing and enriching their tongue," so Locke proceeds, "is no small +business amongst them." It is perhaps not extravagant to believe that +in writing these words the English philosopher was thinking of the new +Parisian moralist. For La Bruyère was a great artist, who understood +the moral value of form in a degree which would peculiarly commend +itself to the lucid mind of Locke. He says, early in his book, "Among +all the different expressions which can render a single one of our +thoughts, there is only one which is right. We do not always hit upon +it in speaking or composing; nevertheless it is a fact that somewhere +it exists, and everything else is feeble and does not satisfy a man of +intelligence who desires to be understood." This search for the one +and only perfect expression was an unfailing passion with La Bruyère. +In another place he says: "The author who only considers the taste of +his own age is thinking more of himself than of his writings. We ought +always to be striving after perfection, and then posterity will render +us that justice which is sometimes refused to us by our +contemporaries." This is an ideal to which Locke, anxious to make +disciples by his regular and sometimes racy use of language, never +attained. La Bruyère, who did not address the passing age, so polished +his periods that all successive generations have hailed him as one of +the greatest masters of prose. + +Voltaire's definition of the style of La Bruyère is well known, but +cannot too often be repeated. He calls it "a rapid, concise, nervous +style, with picturesque expressions, a wholly novel use of the French +language, yet with no infringement of its rules." Fortunately, with +all his admiration of others--and his great chapter "Des Ouvrages de +l'Esprit" is one of the most generous and catholic examples of current +criticism which we possess in all literature--with his modest and +glowing appreciation of his famous predecessors, he did not attempt to +imitate them in the grand manner. We are able to perceive that +Bossuet, who was nearly twenty years his senior, to whom he owed his +advancement in life, whose majestic genius and princely prestige were +so well adapted to dazzle La Bruyère, remained his indefatigable +patron and probably his closest friend. But we do not find in La +Bruyère a trace of imitation of the great preacher whom he loved and +honoured. If we think what the authority of Bossuet had come to be at +the time when the "Caractères" was published, how hardly its +evangelical science pressed upon the convictions of all Frenchmen, and +particularly upon those of men who accepted it as unquestionably as +did the author of that book, that there should be no trace of Bossuet +on his style is a great tribute to the originality of La Bruyère. + +"There is no pleasure without variety," this same mighty Bossuet had +written in 1670, and his young friend had taken the axiom to heart. We +find him pursuing almost beyond the bounds of good taste the search +for variety of manner. He has strange sudden turns of thought, +startling addresses, inversions which we should blame as violent, if +they were not so eminently successful that we adopt them at once, as +we do Shakespeare's. La Bruyère passes from mysterious ironies to bold +and coarse invective, from ornate and sublime reflections to phrases +of a roguish simplicity. He suddenly drops his voice to a shuddering +whisper, and the next moment is fluting like a blackbird. The gaiety +with which he mocks the ambitions of the rich is suddenly relieved by +the dreadful calm with which he reveals the horror of their +disappointments. He is never in the same mood, or adopting the same +tone, for two pages running. It is difficult in a translation to give +an idea of the surprising element in his style, but something of its +oddity may be preserved in such an attempt as this-- + +"There are creatures of God whom we call men, who have a soul which is +intelligence, and whose whole life is spent and whose whole attention +is centred in the sawing of marble. This is a very simple, a very +little thing. There are others who are amazed at this, but who +themselves are utterly useless, and who spend their days in doing +nothing at all. This is a still smaller thing than sawing marble." + +English prose, which a century earlier had limped so far behind French +in clearness and conciseness, was rapidly catching its rival up, and +in the next generation was to run abreast with it. But if we wish to +see how far behind the best French writers our own best still were, we +need but compare the exquisite speed and elasticity of the +"Caractères" with the comparative heaviness and slowness of a famous +Theophrastian essay published in the same year, 1688, namely the +"Character of a Trimmer." In the characteristics of a lively prose +artist, we shall have to confess La Bruyère nearer to Robert Louis +Stevenson than to his own immediate contemporary, Lord Halifax. + +The surface of La Bruyère's writing is crisp and parched, but it is +easy by careful reading to crack it, and to discover the coolness, the +softness, the salutary humidity which lie beneath the satirical crust +of his irony. He is primarily a satirist, dealing as he says with the +vices of the human mind and the subterfuges of human self-deception. +He lays bare "the sentiments and the movements of men, exposing the +principles which actuate their malice and their frailty"; he aims at +showing that such is the native evil implanted in their souls that "no +one should any longer be surprised at the thousands of vicious or +frivolous actions with which their lives are crowded." We note him at +first as entirely devoted to these painful investigations, and we are +apt to confound his attitude with that of La Rochefoucauld, the weary +Titan, who sighs contemptuously as he holds up to censure the globe of +human _amour-propre_. But we do not begin to understand the attitude +of La Bruyère until we notice that there always is, in the popular +phrase, "more in him than meets the eye." He is indeed a satirist, but +not of the profound order of the Timons of the mind; his satire is +superficial, and under it there flows a lenient curiosity mingled with +a sympathy that fears to be detected. + +There is a note of sadness, a mysterious melancholy, which frequently +recurs in the "Caractères," and this produces a constant variety in +its appeal to the feelings. We find the author amusing himself by +detailing the weaknesses of his fellow-beings, but the entertainment +they offer him soon leaves him dissatisfied and sad. He is overheard +to sigh, he is seen to shake his head, as he turns his clear eyes away +from the self-humiliation of men. There is nothing of this in the hard +superiority of La Rochefoucauld, and one of the most important things +which we have to note is the advance in feeling which the later +moralist makes, in spite of his extremely unpretentious attitude. La +Bruyère attains to a reasoned tolerance which neither his immediate +predecessor nor Pascal nor Bossuet reached or had the least wish to +reach. In him we meet, not commonly nor prominently presented, but +quite plainly enough, the modern virtue of indulgence, of tolerance. +Here is a passage which could scarcely have been written by any other +moralist of the seventeenth century:-- + +"It is useless to fly into a passion with human beings because of +their harshness, their injustice, their pride, their self-love and +their forgetfulness of others. They are made so, it is their nature, +and to be angry about it is to be angry with the stone for falling or +with the flame for rising." + +Here is the voice of the man who had lived and who was still living in +the house of that Prince de Condé of whom Saint Simon said that, "A +pernicious neighbour, he made everybody miserable with whom he had to +do." I like to imagine La Bruyère escaping from some dreadful scene +where Henry Jules had injured his dependants and insulted his +familiars, or had drawn out in public the worst qualities of his son, +"incapable of affection and only too capable of hatred." I imagine him +escaping from the violence and meanness of those intolerable tyrants +up into the asylum of his own hushed apartment at Versailles; there +flinging himself down for a moment in the alcove, on the painted +bedstead, then presently rising, with a smile on his lips and the +fright and anger gone out of his eyes, and advancing to the great +oaken bureau which displayed his faience and his guitar. He would +glance, for encouragement, at the framed portrait of Bossuet which was +the principal ornament of the wall above it, and then, listening a +moment to be sure that he was safe from disturbance, he would unlock +one of the three drawers, and take out the little portfolio in which +for years and years he had been storing up his observations upon +society and his consolations in affliction. Presently, with infinite +deliberation and most fastidious choice of the faultless phrase and +single available word, he would paint the Holbein portrait of one of +the prodigious creatures whom he had just seen in action, some +erratic, brilliant and hateful "ornament of society" such as the Duke +de Lauzun, and the picture of Straton would be added to his gallery:-- + +"Straton was born under two stars; unlucky, lucky in the same degree. +His life is a romance: no, for it lacks probability. He has had +beautiful dreams, he has bad ones: what am I saying? people don't +dream as he has lived. No one has ever extracted out of a destiny more +than he has. The preposterous and the commonplace are equally familiar +to him. He has shone, he has suffered, he has dragged along a humdrum +existence: nothing has escaped him.... He is an enigma, a riddle that +can probably be never solved." + +La Bruyère aimed at the improvement of human nature. La Rochefoucauld +had said, "Don't be ridiculous--a blatant love of self is the only +spring of your being." Pascal, less haughty but more overwhelming, had +said, "Insect that you are, doomed to damnation, cease to strive +against your own miserable impotence." La Bruyère's teaching was not +so definite, partly because his intellect was not so systematic as +theirs, but partly because he was more human than either, human with +more than a touch of the modern democratic humanity. His attitude was +the easier one implied in the sense that "there is so much that's good +in the worst of us, and so much that's bad in the best of us" that +there is room, even among moralists, for an infinite indulgence. His +was, on the whole, and accounting for some fluttering of the nerves, a +very tranquil spirit. He is much less formal and mechanical than La +Rochefoucauld, and he seems to study men with less dependence on a +theory. His own statement should not be overlooked; he says, very +plainly, that he desired above all things to make men live better +lives. + +Boileau said that the style of La Bruyère was "prophetic," and I do +not know that any one has attempted to explain this rather curious +phrase. But we may adopt it in the light of more than two centuries +which were unknown to Boileau. More than any other writer of the end +of the seventeenth century La Bruyère prophesied of a good time +coming. He did not speak out very plainly, but it is the privilege of +prophets to be obscure, and their predictions are commonly not +comprehensible until after the event. But we may claim for La Bruyère +the praise of being a great civilizer of French thought; more than +that, he widened human social intelligence throughout Europe. He is +the direct ancestor of the Frenchman of to-day who observes closely +and clearly, who has the power to define what he sees, and who retains +the colour and movement of it. To this day, as may be amply seen in +the records and episodes of the war, in the correspondence of officers +at the front, in the general intellectual conduct of the contest, +Frenchmen rarely experience a difficulty in finding the exact word +they want. These men who arrest for our pleasure an impression, who +rebuild before us the fabric of their experience, descend in direct +line from La Bruyère. It was he who taught their nation to seize the +attitude and to photograph the gesture. + +La Bruyère's express aim is to clarify our minds, to make us think +lucidly and in consequence speak with precision. We have already seen +what value he sets on the right word in the right place. He is the +enemy of all those who shamble along in the supposition that an +inaccurate phrase will "do well enough," and that any slipshod +definition is excused by our saying, "Oh, you know what I mean!" His +own style is finished up to the highest point, and it is brightened +and varied with such skill that the author never ceases to hold the +attention of the reader. He reaches the very ideal of that elegant +wandering art of writing which the Latins called _sermo pedestris_. +Indeed, he gives so much attention to the perfect mode of saying +things that some critics have brought it as a charge against him that +he overdoes it, that in fact his style is more weighty than his +subject. This, I think, is a very hasty judgment, founded a little, no +doubt, upon a certain dread on La Bruyère's part of being commonplace. +He was dealing, as every moralist is bound to deal, with ideas of a +more or less primitive character, to which sparkle and force must be +given by illustrative examples. These examples gave him his great +chance, and he built them up, those exemplary "portraits" of his, with +infinite labour, accumulating details to make a type, and sometimes, +it is possible, accumulating too many. The result is that the +"Caractères" are sometimes a little laboured; I do not know any other +fault that can be laid to their charge. + +One of the most important qualities of La Bruyère was that he prepared +the popular mind for liberty. He is democratic in many ways, in his +language, where he often borrows words from the _patois_ of the common +people; in his exposure of the errors of the _ancien régime_, its +tyranny, its selfishness, its want of humanity and imagination; in his +hatred of wealth, the scandalous triumph of which had already reached +a pitch which the next generation was to see outdone. In all this, as +cannot be too often insisted upon, it was essential for a reformer to +be prudent. The People had no voice, and that their interests should +be defended was inconceivable.[14] In the next century, after the reign +of Louis XV. was over and speech had, in a great measure, become free, +it was not understood how difficult it was under Louis XIV. to express +any criticism of the feudal order. For instance, there is a long +passage at the end of the chapter "De la Ville," which scandalized the +political reformers of the eighteenth century. It is that which +begins, "The emperors never triumphed in Rome so softly, so +conveniently, or even so successfully, against wind and rain, dust and +sunshine, as the citizen of Paris knows how to do as he crosses the +city to-day in every direction. How far have we advanced beyond the +mule of our ancestors!" La Bruyère was charged, and even by Voltaire, +with attacking the progress of civilization, and with preferring the +rude subterfuges of Carlovingian times to the comforts of 1688. But he +was really making an appeal for thrift and modesty of expenditure on +the part of those bourgeois who had suddenly become rich, as a +satirist of our own day might denounce the pomp of a too successful +shopkeeper, without being accused of denying the convenience of +motor-cars or desiring to stop the progress of scientific invention. + + [Footnote 14: Perhaps the earliest Frenchman to have his full + attention called to the miseries of the poor, was Vauban, + whose benevolence was an object of amazement to his own + contemporaries. Saint-Simon notes that "Patriote comme il + l'était, il avait toute sa vie été touché de la misère du + peuple et de toutes les vexations qu'il souffrait." This + would be particularly the case when Vauban was writing the + "Projet d'une dixième royale," finished in 1698.] + +La Bruyère was the first effective moralist who realized what a +monstrous disproportion existed between the fortune of the rich and of +the poor.[15] If we read the chapter "Des Biens de Fortune" we may be +astonished at his courage, and we may see in him a direct precursor of +the revolution which took a little more than a hundred years to gather +before it broke on France. He describes the great of the earth with a +savage serenity, and then he adds, "Such people are neither relatives, +nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even men. They +have money." There are many such maxims in the chapter "De l'homme" +which must have set people's thoughts running in channels which had +before been wholly dry. La Bruyère was not a political reformer, and +we must not exaggerate the influence of his charming book in this +particular direction. But, as a popular imaginative writer, he took a +long step in the democratic direction. Frenchmen were already touched +in their consciences and beginning to examine the state of their souls +with anxiety; but the teachers of the ascetic revival had been too +uncompromising. Ordinary mortals could not hope to reach the ascetic +ideal of Port Royal, they could only be discouraged by the savage +attacks on _amour-propre_, while in the "Caractères" they met with a +lay-preacher who was one of themselves, and who did not disdain to +encourage moral effort. + + [Footnote 15: The wonderful passage in which La Bruyère + dwells on the condition of the French peasant of his day + marks a crisis in the conscience of Europe. It occurs in the + chapter "De l'Homme": "We see certain wild animals, male and + female, scattered over the fields, black, livid and scorched + by the sun, fastened to the soil which they delve and stir + with an invincible obstinacy; they have a sort of articulate + speech, and when they stand up upon their feet, they show a + countenance that is human: and in short they are human + beings. They creep back at nightfall into dens, where they + live on black bread, water and roots. They spare the rest of + mankind the trouble of sowing, ploughing and reaping what is + required for food, and accordingly they seem to deserve that + they should themselves not lack the bread which they have + sown." And in "Des Biens de Fortune" he says: "There are + sorrows in the world that grip the heart, there are men and + women who have nothing, not even bread, who shudder at the + approach of winter, who have learned the significance of + life, while others eat fruit forced out of due season, and + compel the soil and the seasons to indulge their + fastidiousness."] + +It was a great advantage to La Bruyère, and a sign of his genius, that +he was able to descend from the pulpit, and walk about among his +readers with a smile, recognizing them as reasonable beings. He is +persuasive; his forerunners had been denunciatory. He may be harsh and +sometimes unjust, but he is never contemptuous to human nature. He +feels that he is addressing a wide public of intelligent men and +women, whom he would fortify against the moral tyranny of the violent +and the rich. For this purpose, though he would tell them their +faults, he would not shut the gates of mercy in their faces. But how +admirably he himself puts it in his chapter "Des Jugements":-- + +"A man of talent and reputation, if he allows himself to be peevish +and censorious, scares young people, makes them think evil of virtue, +and frightens them with the idea of an excessive reform and a tiresome +strictness of conduct. If, on the other hand, he proves easy to get on +with, he sets a practical lesson before them, since he proves to them +that a man can live gaily and yet laboriously, and can hold serious +views without renouncing honest pleasures; so he becomes an example +which they find it possible to follow." + +When we look round for an author of high importance on whom the +influence of La Bruyère was direct, we find the most obvious to be an +Englishman, and our own enchanting "Mr. Spectator." Addison was born +when La Bruyère was twenty-seven; when the "Caractères" was published +he was an undergraduate at Queen's College, Oxford, walking in +meditation under the elms beside the Cherwell. Addison was not in +France until La Bruyère had been some months dead; there can have been +no personal intercourse between them; but he stayed at Blois for over +twelve months in 1699 and 1700, and during that time he was much in +company with the Abbé Phélippeaux, member of that family of friends +who had so efficiently supported La Bruyère's candidature to the +French Academy only six years before. I do not think this fact has +been noted, but surely it is almost certain that in their talks about +literature Phélippeaux must have described La Bruyère to Addison? +Another contributor to the _Spectator_, Eustace Budgell, translated +Theophrastus and knew La Bruyère's book. Dr. Johnson mentions that the +French moralist is the source of Addison's effort, but English +critical opinion then, and since, has held that La Bruyère wrote +without any of the earnestness of the moral reformer. I have +indicated, I hope, the hasty error contained in such a judgment. + +There is one point, however, on which it must be admitted that Addison +shows himself much in advance of his French precursor, or rather +perhaps we should consider it a proof of the advantage of English +society under Anne over French society under Louis XIV. The delicacy +and sympathy with which women are treated in the _Spectator_ has no +parallel in the "Caractères." In that volume, the chapter "Des Femmes" +is perhaps the least agreeable to a sensible reader of to-day. It is +crowded with types of pretentious and abnormal womanhood, which it +caricatures very effectively. Addison had manifestly studied it, for +here we see the origin of his coquettes and prudes, with their +"brocade petticoat which rises out of the mines of Peru, and the +diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan." But what we miss +completely in La Bruyère is that cordial recognition of women as the +proper companions of men and the organizers of intelligent society +which is so admirably sustained in the _Spectator_. It was Addison, +and not La Bruyère, who broke down once for all, and finally, the +monkish conception of women as the betrayers of the human species, +which had lingered on so detestably from the Middle Ages. + +The influence of La Bruyère on Steele is apparent, and may have +preceded that on Addison. We may observe that Steele says, in the +general preface to the _Tatler,_ "the elegance, purity and correctness +which appeared in [Mr. Addison's] writings were not so much to my +purpose as... to rally all those singularities of human life, through +the different professions and _characters_ in it, which obstruct +anything that is truly good and great," The similarity of expression +here is certainly not accidental; La Bruyère stood before Steele as a +model when he wrote, for instance, in 1709, Mr. Isaac Bickerstaffs +"portraits" of Chloe and Clarissa, or the "lucubration" on Deference +to Public Opinion. When La Bruyère died, Steele was already an author, +and what is more, a moralist. It is impossible not to believe that he +had been reading the "Caractères" when it occurred to him that he +might procure himself "a most exquisite pleasure," by framing +"Characters of Domestic Life." + +The ladies may hold it to be an excuse for our French moralist that he +was a confirmed and impenitent bachelor. He thought that marriage +enchained a philosopher, and would have said, in the words of Rudyard +Kipling, "He rideth the faster who rideth alone," Boileau, after a +visit from La Bruyère, remarked that nature had not consented to make +him so agreeable as he wished to be. It seems that he was shy and +gauche, and that he strove to conceal these defects by occasional +outbursts of a dreadful playfulness. There are stories about his +behaviour in the House of Condé, which if they are true seem to carry +eccentricity beyond the bounds of what is permitted even to a +philosopher. Nevertheless, contemporaries report that, in spite of his +plain features and his "look of a common soldier" (a dreadful thing to +say in the seventeenth century), the ladies ran after him. I am afraid +that when they did so, he repulsed them. He says about love none of +the charming things which he says about friendship, such as "To be +with those we are fond of, that is enough; to dream, to speak to them, +to say nothing to them, to think about them, to think of indifferent +things, but in their presence,--all is equally pleasant." Or this: +"Pure friendship has a flavour which is beyond the taste of those who +are born mediocre." Or again. "There ought to be, deep down in the +heart, inexhaustible wells of sorrow in readiness for certain losses." +The tenderness of such thoughts as these may surely outweigh the +dryness of the portraits of Corinne and Clarice. + +The career of our moralist, after the publication of his single book, +was a short one. His startling success as a writer irresistibly +pointed him out as a candidate for election to the French Academy, but +here he was met by the barbed wire of jealousy and exasperated vanity. +He had laughed at too many pretentious mandarins to hope to escape +their resentment. At last, in 1693, but alas! at the expense of a vast +deal of intrigue on the part of his illustrious protectors, he stormed +that reluctant fortress. In his Reception Discourse, he revenged +himself on his enemies by firing volley after volley of irony into +their ranks, and the august body was beside itself with rage. No +pompous Academician, for instance, likes to hear, in the solemn +conclave of his colleagues, that he is so Christian and so charitable +that "writing well may be said to be among the least of his +qualities." La Bruyère summed up his attacks in a preface to the +eighth edition of the "Caractères" in 1694. He then retired again to +his independence as a crafty old bachelor, and Saint Simon gives us a +pleasant snapshot of him in these latest years, "a very +straightforward man, capital company, simple, with nothing of the +pedant about him, and entirely disinterested." + +He remained the man of one book until nearly the close of his life. It +is thought that Bossuet, who had always been his great exemplar, urged +him to undertake a reply to the heresies of Mme de Guyon and Fénelon, +and that so he was dragged into that very painful quarrel. At all +events, he started a series of "Dialogues on Quietism," in which all +the extreme doctrines of Molinos and his disciples were examined and +ridiculed. On May 8, 1696, La Bruyère dined with Antoine Bossuet, the +bishop's elder brother; after dinner he took out the MSS. from his +pocket, and read extracts to his host. Two days afterwards, after +walking in the garden at Versailles, he had a stroke, and two days +after that he died. He had had no premonition of illness, and the +rumour went round that the Quietists had poisoned him. His body was +exhumed, but of course no trace of poison was to be found. The +"Dialogues," revised and completed by the Abbé Elliès du Pin, were +published the next year. Their authenticity has been obstinately +contested, but, as I confess it seems to me, without excuse. Both +external and internal evidence go to prove, I think, that they are +substantially the work of La Bruyère, and for those who are not +alarmed at theological discussions conducted in rather a profane +spirit, they make very good reading. + +One last word about our amiable author. His great book remains +eminently alive, and wields after two centuries and a half a permanent +influence. When you refer to it, you must not expect a logical +development of philosophical theory. We do not look to find a system +in a book of maxims and portraits. La Bruyère was a moralist, pure and +simple; he awakened sensibility, he encouraged refinement, and he +exposed the vicious difference which existed around him--and which no +one else had seemed to notice--that the possession of more or fewer +pieces of money made between human beings otherwise equal. He had a +democratic philosophy which is sometimes that of Mr. Micawber, +"Celui-là est riche qui reçoit plus qu'il ne consume; celui-là est +pauvre dont la dépense excède la recette," But he is seldom so prosy +as this. Let us think of him as one who wished to turn his talent as a +painter of still life to the benefit of his nation, and who succeeded +in a degree far beyond his own modest hopes. + + + + + VAUVENARGUES + + +If we had been in Paris on a summer's day in 1744 we might have seen +emerge from a modest house in the ungenteel rue du Paon (Peacock +Street) a young man of less than twenty-nine years of age. It is +improbable that we should have been attracted to him without warning, +for though his expression was very pleasant, he was not +distinguished-looking, and though he was uncomplaining, his evident air +of suffering was painful to witness. He had the gallant bearing of a +soldier and a certain noble elegance, but a shade across his forehead +testified to the failure of his eyesight, and he shambled along with +difficulty on two lame legs. If we followed him he would probably take +us slowly to the Garden of the Luxembourg, where it was very unlikely +that any one would greet him. + +He would presently turn out of the fashionable promenade, to +contemplate the poor and the unfortunate. Sometimes he would stop +those who seemed most wretched, and would try to share their sorrows, +but sympathy on the part of a gentleman was strange, or else there was +something in himself which failed to express his tenderness, for he +complained that the unfortunate always turned away from him. If, at +the moment of such a repulse, we had addressed him, and had +respectfully offered him our sympathy, he would have struggled with +his painful shyness, and would have told us that he felt no resentment +against those who rejected his help. Nothing hardened his heart, and +the lack of response merely doubled his pity. He would assure us, with +the pale smile which was the charm of his anæmic countenance, that +those who were vicious were so by their misfortune, not their fault, +and that of the worst criminals he was persuaded that, if they could, +they would "end their days in innocence." With an exquisite and simple +politeness he would leave us wondering a little who this pathetic +young man, with all the stigmata upon him of poverty and sickness +bravely borne, might be; and there would be none to explain to us that +it was the Marquis de Vauvenargues, come home a broken man from the +wars in Bohemia. + +This inconspicuous personage, who glided almost like a ghost through +less than thirty-two years of pain and adversity, was not merely the +greatest moralist that France produced in the course of the eighteenth +century, but was of all the world's writers perhaps the one who has +lifted highest the banner of hope and joy in heroism and virtue. In La +Rochefoucauld we encountered a representative of the dominant class, +the prince-dukes. La Bruyère was a typical bourgeois. In our third +example of the moral energy of France we meet with a specimen of the +_petite noblesse_, the impoverished country gentlemen who dragged out +a provincial existence in obscurity and ignorance, supported by their +pride in a long pedigree. Luc de Clapiers, whose father was raised to +the marquisate of Vauvenargues in 1722, was born seven years earlier +than that, at Aix in Provence, where his father was mayor. It is a +pleasant touch to be told that his father was the only magistrate who +did not desert his post when Aix was swept by the plague in 1720. +There seems a foreshadowing here of his famous son's high courage. But +it seems also certain that there was no appreciation of scholarship or +literature in the household. No atmosphere less benevolent to learning +can be imagined. The future philosopher went to school at Aix for a +little while, and then his weak health was made the excuse for +cancelling what was perhaps looked upon as a needless expense. He was +thrown upon himself, and what education he secured was the result of +his own desultory reading. + +Vauvenargues never acquired a knowledge of Greek or even Latin,[16] but +when he was about sixteen years of age he came across a book which +absolutely transfigured his outlook upon the world and decided the +course of his aspirations. This was none less than a translation of +the "Lives" of Plutarch, a work which has had a very remarkable moral +effect on the Frenchmen of four centuries. We know not which this +particular translation was, but it would be pleasant to think it was +that made by Amyot in 1559. The effect it had on the temperament of +Vauvenargues must be told in his own words. He says in a letter to +Mirabeau (March 22, 1740)-- + + [Footnote 16: Suard is definite as to this: "Il est mort + sans être en état de lire Horace et Tacite dans leur + langue."] + +"I wept for joy while I read these 'Lives' [of Plutarch]. No night +went by but I had spent part of it in talking to Alcibiades, to +Agesilas, or to others. I walked in the streets of Rome that I might +argue with the Gracchi, and when stones were flung at Cato, there was +I to defend him. You remember that when Cæsar wished to pass a law +which was too much in favour of the populace, Cato tried to prevent +his doing so, and put his hand on Cæsar's mouth to prevent his +speaking? These modes of action, so unlike our fashions of to-day, +made a deep impression on me." + +He attributed to the teaching of Plutarch his introduction to the +master-passions of his brief future existence, namely, his devotion to +a sense of heroic duty and his determination to live up to the measure +of his high calling. In the pages of Plutarch he says that he +discovered "la vraie grandeur de notre âme"; here was exposed before +him a scene of life illustrated by "virtue without limit, pleasure +without infamy, wit without affectation, distinction without vanity, +and vices without baseness and without disguise." This boyish +appreciation is worthy of our attention, because it contains the +future moral teaching of Vauvenargues as in a nutshell. To our great +regret, it is the only positive record which survives of the +adolescence of this great mind, on whose development we should so +gladly dwell if it were possible. In one of his own beautiful phrases +Vauvenargues says, "The earliest days of spring have less charm than +the budding virtue of a young man," In his own case those "earliest +days" are hopelessly sunken into oblivion.[17] + + [Footnote 17: We know, at least, that he taught himself to + write on the "sedulous ape" system, by imitating Bossuet and + Fénelon. He must have been in several respects very much + like Robert Louis Stevenson. His modesty led him to distrust + his own taste, and it is worthy of notice that the + corrections he made to please Voltaire often reduce the + vigour of his thought in its original expression. Voltaire-- + it is beyond conjecture why--cancelled the famous maxim, + "Les feux de l'aurore".] + +How harshly his tastes were condemned at home may be judged by an +anecdote about his father which occurs in the "Essai sur quelques +caractères":-- + +"Anselme was shocked that his son should show a taste for science. He +burnt the young man's papers and books, and when he learned that he +had gone to sup with certain men of letters, he threatened to banish +him to the country if he persisted in keeping _bad company_. 'Since +you are fond of reading,' he said to him, 'why don't you read the +history of your own family? You will not find any savants there, but +you will find men of the right sort. Do you wish to be the first +pedant of your race?'" + +There were but two alternatives for a lad of his class who had to make +a living, the Church and the Army. For Vauvenargues there could be no +question, he was born to be a soldier. At the age of eighteen he +entered the King's Regiment as a second-lieutenant, and he marched +into Lombardy under the orders of that illustrious marshal-general, +the Duke of Villars, now in his eighty-first year, but still the +unquestioned summit of French military genius. The idea of "following +Hannibal over the mountains" filled our young philosopher with an +enthusiasm beyond his years. He took part in the victories of Parma +and Guastalla, and he was probably with Villars at Turin when that +indomitable octogenarian died in June 1734. The War of the Polish +Succession presently sank into a mere armistice, and until 1736 we +dimly perceive Vauvenargues sharing the idle and boring life of the +officer who, too poor to retire to Paris, vegetates in some deplorable +frontier-garrison of Burgundy or Franche Comté. We know that he was +dissipated and idle, for he tells us so, but his confession is marred +by no sort of priggishness, and it is very important to insist that +this greatest of moralists never exaggerated the capacity of ordinary +human virtue. He pretended to no exceptional loftiness in his own +conduct; he demanded no excessive sacrifice on the part of others. +Suard speaks of the "sweet indulgence" which marked his relations with +those with whom he lived, and he tells us that Vauvenargues "gradually +rose above the frivolous occupations of his time of life, without ever +contracting, in the development of serious ideas, that austerity which +commonly accompanies the virtues of youth.... Vauvenargues, thrown +upon the world directly he ceased to be a child, learned to know men +before it occurred to him to judge them. He saw their weaknesses +before he had reflected on their duties; and virtue, when it entered +his heart, found there all possible dispositions to indulgence." + +"Dispositions to indulgence"--we linger on this phrase, which has an +engaging beauty of its own. It distinguishes Vauvenargues at once from +all the great French moralists who preceded him, from La Rochefoucauld +with his savage cynicism, from Pascal with his contempt of the natural +man. Vauvenargues rejected the idea which had so tormented the great +spirits of the seventeenth century, that the noblest life was a life +of mortification, and he made no demand on the soul to divorce itself +from all human interests as being things naturally vile and +ignominious. He was to come down to us waving an olive-branch, the +most amiable of all idealists, an apostle of tolerance. He says that +he "hated scorn of human things." To this we must presently return, +but we may pause to note it here, as a faint light thrown over the +obscurity of his adolescence. + +The Marquis of Mirabeau was the cousin of Vauvenargues and almost +exactly his coeval. The discovery of a packet of letters which passed +between the young men from the summer of 1737 to that of 1740 has +dissipated in some measure the otherwise total darkness which had +gathered around the youth of our philosopher. Mirabeau (who was to be +the father of the famous orator) was a man of talent, but violent, +chimerical and lawless, "farouche," as he himself put it. Later he was +the author of the redoubtable "Ami des Hommes." This prodigal uncle of +the Revolution, this dangerous and violent "physiocrate" as he called +himself, would seem divided, as pole from pole, from the +gently-reasoning, the benevolently-meditative Vauvenargues. +Nevertheless, they are seen in warm relation of friendship to each +other, and the letters exhibit their characteristics. Mirabeau +shamelessly pours out the catalogue of his shifting and venal loves, +in confidences which Vauvenargues invariably receives with discretion, +unupbraiding, but not volunteering any like confidence in his turn. A +single example must be quoted: Mirabeau, wishing to get rid of a +mistress of whom he is tired, but who is still devoted to him, writes +her a letter of the most studied insolence, cleverly turned, and sends +a copy of it, with infinite fatuity, to his friend. Vauvenargues +replies that he has read out this letter at dinner to his +fellow-officers, who have been greatly diverted by its wit. "But," +said Vauvenargues, "we are sorry" (that is to say, of course, +Vauvenargues is sorry) "for the poor girl, who shows intelligence, and +who loves you." Could anything be a more indulgent, or at the same +time a more definite reproof? The germ of the _Réflexions_ is found in +this passing phrase, so unexpected in a soldier of that time and place. + +An anecdote, preserved like a spark of light in the darkness of those +early garrison years, takes us a step further. The sentiment of +compassion was scarcely known to the early eighteenth century in +France; it was certainly never extended to those unfortunate women +who, as Vauvenargues puts it, "watch for young men as evening begins +to darken." He was himself accosted on one occasion by a girl, whom he +allowed to walk by his side while he gently questioned her. She easily +told him of the wretched poverty which had driven her to vice, and +Vauvenargues, after trying to revive in her some sentiment of modesty, +left her with the gift of a little money. His fellow-officers of the +regiment greeted the incident with shouts of mirth: such behaviour was +unheard of. Vauvenargues replied: "My friends, you laugh too easily. I +am sorry for these poor creatures, obliged to ply such a profession to +earn their bread. The world is full of sorrows which wring my heart; +if we are to be kind only to those who deserve it, we may never be +called upon at all. We must be indulgent to the weak who have more +need of support than the virtuous; and we must remember that the +errors of the unfortunate are always caused by the harshness of the +rich." M. Paléologue, in a very interesting passage, has remarked that +we have to wait a hundred years before there is a repetition in French +literature of this peculiar mansuétude. + +Bearing in mind this capacity for indulgence, for pity, and +remembering how little it was conceived in the age he lived in, we may +look forward a moment to recognize that in his whole teaching +Vauvenargues differs from other moralists, but particularly from his +great predecessors in France, in that he has a constructive object. He +wishes exceedingly to help the unfortunate to live happily, easily and +profitably, and he regards almost the whole human race as more or less +unhappy. His desire, therefore, is not, as that of the +seventeenth-century moralists had been, to put human egotism in the +pillory and to pelt it with rotten eggs, but so far as possible to +encourage and affirm a decent, self-respecting egotism. Vauvenargues +finds the lock of life to be rusty; he touches it with the oiled +feather of his advice, so that the key may turn without resistance, +and without noise. He does not profess to strive after perfection in +conduct, but after improvement, and he is most careful never to +recommend violent means or an excessive austerity; nor does he condemn +or scold, even when his own humanity is most affronted, but he tries to +induce every one to make the best of his relations with other men +during the fugitive and frail duration of their common existence. If +he hated anything--in his universal benignity--Vauvenargues hated a +rigid puritanism. In one place he says, "We believe no longer in +witches, and yet there are people who still believe in Calvin!" + +Vauvenargues was twenty-six years of age when the war of the Austrian +Succession broke out, and swept him into military action. He was +vegetating in garrison at Metz when the armies of Marshal de +Belle-Isle, the gallant and thrice-unfortunate, streamed eastward into +Germany and carried our philosopher with them. The Regiment of the +King, of which Vauvenargues was an officer, reached Bohemia in July +1741. In a night attack of extraordinary rapidity and audacity Prague +was captured, and Vauvenargues took a personal part in this adventure, +which must have cast fuel on the fire of his rising military ambition. +But the conduct of war is all composed of startling ups and downs, and +at the height of the successes of the French, their luck abandoned +them. Relieved by no reinforcements and pressed hard by famine, the +army of Belle-Isle could no longer hold Prague, and on the night of +December 16-17, 1742, began the retreat from Bohemia which is one of +the most noted disasters of the eighteenth century. Nine days later, +what remained of the French army arrived at Egra, but after a march +through thick fog over frozen ground, without food, without shelter, +in a chaotic frenzy of despair. + +Vauvenargues was one of those who never recovered from the agony of +the retreat from Prague. Both his legs were frost-bitten, so that for +the remainder of his life he was lame; his eyesight was permanently +impaired; and he appears to have sown the seeds of the pulmonary +disease which was to carry him off five years later. But his tender +heart endured what were still severer pangs from the sufferings and +death of those of his companions for whom he had the greatest regard. +Among these the first place was held by Hippolyte de Seyres, whose +figure pervades the earliest developments of the genius of +Vauvenargues. De Seyres was a lieutenant in the philosopher's +regiment. He was only eighteen years of age, and Vauvenargues felt for +him the interest of an elder brother and the affection of a devoted +friend. We can trace the progress of the sentiment, in which are fully +revealed for the first time the peculiar qualities of our author's +mind. He does not conceal from himself the weaknesses of the character +of De Seyres, he blames him for his lack of suppleness, of simplicity +of manner, of self-confidence. He found in him a proud and delicate +spirit which exaggerated its own frailties and shrank morbidly from +their consequences. He was anxious that the spirit of the young man +should not be debased by low associations; he did not think the +slightly older officers who surrounded De Seyres to be wholesome +companions for him. The lad displayed a lack of moral force; he hoped +to succeed less by his own exertions than by the favour of others; he +was in despair over his own faults without having the energy to +correct them. It is in writing about De Seyres that Vauvenargues first +defines his central axiom, that the only sources of success are +virtue, genius and patience. He observed the lack of them all in De +Seyres, and his incapacity for expansion made his case the more +difficult to handle. "Son coeur est toujours serré," Vauvenargues +exclaims. But he nourished a deep and ever-deepening affection for +this sensitive lad, and became desirous, almost passionately desirous, +to lead him up to better things from out of the mediocrity of his +present associations. + +It appears certain to me that it was the study expended on the +character of Hippolyte de Seyres and the shock received by his +dreadful death which gave the earliest expansion to the genius of +Vauvenargues and left their definite mark on his writings. I do not +know why this all-important episode seems to have attracted so little +of the attention of those who have written about him. The "Conseils à +un Jeune Homme," which was evidently finished in 1743, is the earliest +complete work of Vauvenargues which we possess; it contains in embryo +the whole of his teaching as a moralist, and it was written for the +guidance of young De Seyres. On the other hand, I think that Gilbert +and other editors are mistaken in attributing the "Discours sur la +Gloire" to the same date and occasion; it seems to me much later in +style, and addressed to a very different person. The note of the +address to De Seyres is accurately given in the exquisite essay +entitled "Love of the Noble Passions." But it appears that the edifice +built up by the tender affection of Vauvenargues was rased to the +ground in December 1742. The young friend so passionately guarded, so +anxiously watched, died under his eyes in the course of the terrible +retreat over the icy passes of Bohemia, a victim to the united agony +of famine, cold and fatigue. Vauvenargues wrote an "Éloge" on his +young friend, which betrays something of the hysterical agitation of +his own soul. Here is a fragment of this strange document-- + +"Open, ye formidable sepulchres! Solitary phantoms, speak, speak! What +unconquerable silence! O sad abandonment! O terror! What hand is it +which holds all nature paralyzed beneath its pressure? O thou hidden +and eternal Being, deign to dissipate the alarm in which my feeble +soul is plunged. The secret of Thy judgments turns my timid heart to +ice. Veiled in the recesses of Thy being, Thou dost forge fate and +time, and life and death, and fear and joy, and deceitful and +credulous hope. Thou dost reign over the elements and over hell in +revolt. The smitten air shudders at Thy voice. Redoubtable judge of +the dead, take pity upon my despair." + +This is a voice we hear, so far as I remember, nowhere else in the +French literature of the eighteenth century. There is a certain accent +of Bossuet in it; it is still more like the note which a group of +English poets were striking. It may really seem to us an extraordinary +coincidence that the "Éloge" on Hippolyte de Seyres should belong to +the very same year, 1743, which saw the publication of Blair's "Grave" +and Young's "Night Thoughts." + +The rhetorical turn of the sentences I have just read was not habitual +with Vauvenargues; it was in this case the mask worn by the intensity +of his feeling, but he confesses in an early letter, "I like sometimes +to string big words together, and to lose myself in a period; I make a +jest of it." But after this outburst of panic grief in 1743 we see no +more trace of such a tendency to eloquence. He became more and more +completely himself, that is to say, very simple intellectually, in a +pedantic age. He adopted, indeed, a certain gravity at which we may +now smile; he did not approve of fairy-tales and fables, on the ground +that anything which came between direct truth and the receptive mind +of man was a disadvantage. "The disease of our age is to want to make +jokes about everything," he complains. + +To poor Vauvenargues life was not a laughing matter. His health had +been completely ruined by the disastrous campaigns in Austria, and by +the hardships of garrison life; and he was feeling more and more +sharply that pinch of genteel poverty which is the hardest of all to +bear. But if he never laughed, this martyr of the soul never ceased to +smile. His perpetual sufferings did not affect his gentle sobriety of +conversation. Those whose privilege it was to see Vauvenargues during +these last years of his brief existence are united in their report of +his magnanimity. Voltaire wrote, "I have always found him the most +unfortunate of human beings and the most tranquil." He was notable for +his "indulgent goodness," his "constant peace," his "justice of +heart," his "rectitude of soul." His conversation, so Marmontel +reports to us, had something more animated, more delicate, than even +his divine writings. The same acute observer noted that in the heart +of Vauvenargues, when he reflected upon the misery of mankind, pity +took the place of indignation and hatred. Sensitive, serene, +compassionate, affable, he tried to conceal from his friends as much +as possible his own pain, and even when it was evident that he +suffered most, no one dared to be melancholy in his presence. + +In the fleeting and impoverished life of Vauvenargues his friendships +were the main adventure. We have mentioned a name which is too +frequently the object of malignity on English lips, the name of +Voltaire. No one would pretend that the multiform energy of this giant +of literature did not take some unseemly directions and several +unlovely shapes. But the qualities of Voltaire must, in the eyes of +any unbiassed observer, vastly overtop his defects. If, however, we +wish to see Voltaire at his best, we must contemplate him in relation +to our soldier-philosopher. As soon as his health had recovered a +little from the horror of the Bohemian campaign, Vauvenargues took the +step of writing to Voltaire, then a stranger, for his opinion on that +crying question, the relative greatness of Corneille and of Racine, a +question to all Frenchmen like that between predestination and +free-will to Milton's rebel angels. This was towards the end of 1743, +when Voltaire, who had reached his fiftieth year, was recognised as +the first living historian and critic in France, and had been recalled +to court through the good offices of Mme du Châtelet. It was, no doubt, +at a happy moment that Vauvenargues' random letter arrived, Voltaire +responded with ardour; Vauvenargues quickly became to him, as +Marmontel says, what Plato was to Socrates, and nothing in the long +life of Voltaire shows him in a more charming light than does his +devotion to the young friend whom he called "the sweet hope of the +remainder of my days." After the death of the philosopher, Voltaire +wrote a brief, but invaluable, account of their relations, which had +lasted, without a cloud, until the death of Vauvenargues. + +He reminded Voltaire of Pascal, whose "incurable disease was consoled +by study," but the elder friend noted a striking distinction; the +eloquence of Pascal was fiery and imperious, that of Vauvenargues was +"insinuating." The powerful physical force of Voltaire was softened by +the suffering of his young companion, for whom "nature had poured out +large draughts of hemlock," and who, "while all his body sank into +dissolution, preserved in spirit that perfect tranquillity which the +pure alone enjoy." Although Vauvenargues was twenty years younger than +his friend, Voltaire succumbed to the gravity of his demeanour; like +the fellow-officers at Arras or at Metz, we smile to find him +addressing Vauvenargues as _mon père_. One of the philosopher's maxims +is, "Great thoughts proceed from the heart," and Voltaire in a note +has added, "In writing this, though he knew it not, he painted his own +portrait." He found in Vauvenargues "the simplicity of a timid child," +and it seems that he had a difficulty in overcoming his modesty so far +as to make him write down those Reflections which are now placed for +ever among the masterpieces of French literature. It is to Voltaire +that we owe the fact that Vauvenargues found resolution enough to +become an author. + +A typical instance of the mixture of courage and tact in the young +author is to be found in the attitude which he took up towards +Voltaire with regard to the Marquise de Pompadour, without in the +least offending his tempestuous friend. That remarkable young lady, +then still known as la petite Étoile, had succeeded in catching the +King's eye, and was soaring into the political heavens like a rocket, +carrying, among other incongruous objects, the genius of Voltaire in +her glittering train. Voltaire must have boasted to his young friend +that his fortune was made. Vauvenargues surprisingly expresses in his +reply the evil which must be done by great authors who flatter vice +and think to conceal its corruption by heaping flowers over a lie. The +incident is important for us, because it led Vauvenargues, thus +disappointed in Voltaire as he had been disappointed in Mirabeau, to +examine into the sources of the low moral condition of the age. He +attributed it to "le mépris de la gloire," and he set himself to +define this quality and to impress it, with all the force of +repetition, on the dulled consciences of his contemporaries. + +It is extremely difficult, it is well-nigh impossible, to find an +equivalent in English for the word "gloire." It is a French +conception, and one to which our language does not readily, or +gracefully, lend itself. In the mind of Vauvenargues the idea of +"gloire" took the central place, and we may form an intelligent +conception of the meaning he stamped upon the word, by repeating some +of his axioms. + +He says: "The flush of dawn is not so lovely as the earliest +experiences of _gloire_. _Gloire_ makes heroes beautiful." Again: +"Nothing is so essential as renown, and nothing so surely gives renown +as merit; these are things that reason itself has united, and why +should we distinguish true _gloire_ from merit, which is the source of +it, and of which it is the proof?" This moral union of merit, glory +and renown, in triple splendour revolving round each other, was the +main object of Vauvenargues' contemplation, and he admits that the +central passion of his life was "l'amour de la gloire." What, then, is +the exact meaning of "la Gloire," which the dictionaries superficially +translate by "glory,"--a very different thing? + +Vauvenargues starts a new conception of the value of self-esteem, or +rather of the desire of being esteemed by others. The seventeenth +century had poured its vials of contempt over the _amour-propre_ of +mankind, and no doubt that had led to a corresponding decline in the +energy of the nation. Pascal had severely ridiculed the vanity which +he says is anchored in the heart of man, and he actually mocks at the +idea of a desire for renown; expressing his astonishment that even +philosophers have the fatuity to wish for fame. Vauvenargues is +probably thinking of Pascal when he says that those who dilate upon +the inevitable nothingness of human glory would feel vexation if they +had to endure the open contempt of a single individual. Men are proud +of little things--of dancing well or even of skating gracefully, or of +still meaner accomplishments, yet those very persons despise real +renown. "But us," he says in one of his noble outbursts, "but us it +excites to labour and virtue." We note, then, at once that the +_amour-propre_ of the seventeenth century, the sentiment against which +we saw the most burning arrows of La Rochefoucauld directed, was not +the source of Vauvenargues' desire of glory; that with him renown was +not a matter of egotistic satisfaction, but of altruistic stimulus, +awakening in others, by a happy rivalry, sentiments of generosity and +self-sacrifice which might redeem society and the dying world of +France. And this may perhaps at this point be observed as the centre +of his action, namely the discovery that a wholesome desire for fame +proceeds not from our self-satisfaction, but from our profound sense +of emptiness, of imperfection. + +How needful the lesson was, no one who examines the social history of +the first half of the eighteenth century can doubt. Without falling +into errors of a Puritanic kind, we cannot fail to see that opinion +and action alike had become soft, irresolute, superficial; that strong +views of duty and piety and justice were half indulged in, half +sneered at, and not at all acted upon. The great theologians who +surrounded Bossuet, the Eagle of Meaux, had died one by one, and had +left successors who were partly pagan, partly atheist. Art and +literature tripped after the flowered skirts of the emancipated +Duchess of Maine. Looking round the world of France in 1746, +Vauvenargues could but cry, like a preacher in the wilderness, "we +have fallen into decadence, into moral desuetude," but he cried +without anger, remembering that "still the love of _gloire_ is the +invisible soul of all those who are capable of any virtue." + +It was a critical moment in the history of France. After the long and +painful wars of Louis XIV. the army had become unpopular; it was the +fashion to sneer at it. The common soldiers were considered, and often +were, the offscourings of the community. The officers, who had left +their homes too soon, in most cases, to acquire the rudiments of +education, were bored with garrison life, and regretted Paris, which +they made every excuse to regain. They affected to have no curiosity +about military science, and to talk "army shop" was the worst of bad +form. Those who were poor lived and grumbled in their squalor; those +who were rich gave themselves up to sinful extravagance. There was no +instinctive patriotism in any section of the troops. What pleasure can +a man have in being a soldier if he possesses neither talent for war, +nor the esteem of his men, nor a taste for glory? It is Vauvenargues +himself, who had seen all classes of officers, who asks that question. +From his "Réflexions" of 1746 a chapter on "Our Armies at the Present +Moment" was omitted, and not published in its proper sequence until +long after his death. No doubt its searching exposure of the rot in +the military state of France was the cause of this suppression. + +"Courage," he says in this deleted chapter of his book, "courage, +which our ancestors admired as the first of virtues, is now generally +regarded as a popular error." Those few officers who still desire to +see their country glorious, are forced to retire into civil life +because they cannot endure a condition in which there is no reward but +shame for a man of courage and ambition. + +These were prominent among the considerations which filled the mind of +Vauvenargues when, at the age of twenty-nine, he saw himself driven +out of military life by the rapid aggravation of ill-health. His +thoughts turned to diplomacy. He greatly admired the writings of Sir +William Temple, on whom he may have partly modelled his own style as +an essayist; he dreamed of becoming an ambassador of the same class, +known, as Temple was, "by their writings no less than by their +immortal actions." But his inexorable bad luck followed him in this +design. A pathetic letter to the King remained unanswered, and so did +another to Amelot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. + +After waiting a long time he wrote again to Amelot, and this second +letter is highly characteristic of the temper and condition of +Vauvenargues-- + +"MONSEIGNEUR. + +"I am painfully distressed that the letter which I had the honour of +writing to you, as well as that which I took the liberty of asking you +to forward to the King, have not been able to arrest your attention. +It is not, perhaps, surprising that a minister so fully occupied as +you are should not find time to examine such letters; but, +Monseigneur, will you permit me to point out to you that it is +precisely this moral impossibility for a gentleman, who has no claim +but zeal, to reach his master, which leads to that discouragement that +is noticeable in all the country nobility, and which extinguishes all +emulation? + +"I have passed, Monseigneur, my youth far from all worldly +distractions, in order to prepare myself for the species of employment +for which it was my belief that my temperament designed me; and I was +bold enough to think that so concentrated an effort would place me at +least on a level with those who depend for all their fortune upon +their intrigues and upon their pleasures. It overwhelms me, +Monseigneur, to discover that the confidence which I had based mainly +on the love of my duty, should be so disappointed. My health no longer +permitting me to continue my services in the war, I have written to M. +the Duke de Biron to beg him to appoint my successor. I could not, in +a situation so piteous, refrain from informing you of my despair. +Pardon me, Monseigneur, if it has led me into any extravagance of +expression. + +"I am, etc." + +To this last appeal the Minister for Foreign Affairs did respond in a +brief and perfunctory note, promising to find an occasion of bringing +the talents of Vauvenargues to the notice of the King, but nothing +resulted. Vauvenargues had been living in a dream of military glory, +and had been thirsting to serve his country in the loftiest and most +responsible capacities. His very physical appearance now completed the +bankruptcy of his wishes, for he was attacked with the smallpox, which +disfigured him so badly that, to use his own expression, "it prevented +his soul from appearing in his features." Thus without fortune, or +profession, without hope for the future, half-blind, with gangrened +limbs that tottered under his feeble body, Vauvenargues started on the +steadily downward path which was to lead in less than four years to +his grave. History presents to us no more dolorous figure of physical +and social failure, nor a more radiant example of moral success. + +The alternative now presented itself of a wretched solitude in the +castle of his Provençal ancestors, or a garret, perhaps even more +wretched, but certainly far less solitary, in Paris. In either case it +would be necessary to relinquish all the luxuries, all the comforts of +life. He chose to finish his suffering years in Paris, and in humble +furnished rooms in the street of the Peacock, where he was consoled by +the visits of Voltaire and Marmontel. We find him settled there in May +1745, and seven months later there crept into circulation an anonymous +volume of moral essays, which was absolutely ignored by the literary +world of France. We do not appreciate to the full the Calvary which +Vauvenargues so meekly mounted, unless we realize that to all his +other failures was added a complete disregard of his ideas by the +literary public of his own day. He died unknown, save by two or three +friends, having never experienced anything but languor, disappointment +and obscurity. Under the pseudonym of Clazomène, just before his +death, he drew a picture of his own fortune and character which proves +that he had no illusion about himself, and which yet contains not a +murmur against the injustice of fate nor a breath of petulance or +resentment. "Let no one imagine," this portrait closes, "that +Clazomène would exchange his wretchedness for the prosperity of weak +men; fortune may sport with the wisdom of brave souls, but it has no +power to subdue their courage." + +It is time, however, to examine the actual compositions of our +author.[18] Until his friendship with Voltaire began, Vauvenargues had +not given much attention to verse, but he now began a series of +critical essays on the poets. He says, in the course of these +"Réflexions," that what little he knew of poetry he owed to M. de +Voltaire. His remarks on this subject, however, are more independent +than he would give us to suppose, and they are always worthy of +attention because they illustrate the moral attitude of Vauvenargues +himself. He was not embarrassed by tradition in advancing along his +road through the masterpieces of literature. He was always an amateur, +never a man in bondage to the "authorities;" he seems, indeed, to have +avowed a dislike for general reading: "Pascal avait peu lu, ainsi que +Malebranche," was his excuse. In the case of Pascal, we may question +the fact, but it is recorded that when at last Malebranche was +persuaded to read Descartes' "Traité de l'homme," it excited him so +violently as to bring on palpitation of the heart. Such are the +dangers of a retarded study of the classics. Vauvenargues was no less +inflammable. He met with the tragedies of Racine at a moment when the +reputation of that poet had sunk to its lowest point, and, totally +indifferent to the censure of the academical sanhedrim, he extolled +him as a master-anatomist of the human heart. + + [Footnote 18: The writings of Vauvenargues exist in a + confusion which is not likely to be ever remedied, for the + bulk of his MSS. were burned during the Commune in May 1871. + But much gratitude is owing to Suard (1806) and Gilbert + (1857) for their pious labours. A variorum edition might + even yet be attempted, and although not complete, might at + least be final.] + +In considering the observations of Vauvenargues with regard to poets, +we must bear in mind that he and his contemporaries did not seek from +poetry what we require in the twentieth century. The critics of the +early eighteenth century in France talked about Homer and Virgil, but +what they really admired were Ariosto and Pope. Voltaire, the greatest +of them, considered the "épopée héroï-comique" the top-stone of modern +practical effort; we know what astonishing feats he was himself guilty +of in that species of architecture. But his whole teaching and +practice tended towards an identity of speech between prose and verse, +the prosodical pattern or ornament being the sole feature which +distinguished the latter from the former. His own poetry, when it was +not fugitive or satiric, was mainly philosophical, that is to say, it +did not stray beyond the confines of logic and wit. At the same time, +Voltaire was an energetic protagonist for verse, and he did very much +to prevent the abandonment of this instrument at a time when prose, in +such hands as those of Montesquieu and Buffon, was manifestly in the +ascendant. He earnestly recommended the cultivation of a form in which +precision of thought and elegance of language were indispensable, and +he employed it in tragedies which we find it impossible to read, but +which enchanted the ear and fancy of Vauvenargues. + +The taste of the age of Louis XV. affected to admire Corneille to the +disadvantage of all other rivals, and Voltaire was not far from +blaming Vauvenargues for his "extreme predilection" for Racine. But +Vauvenargues, with unexpected vivacity, took up the cudgels, and +accused the divine Corneille of "painting only the austere, stern, +inflexible virtues," and of falling into the affectation of mistaking +bravado for nobility, and declamation for eloquence. He is extremely +severe on the faults of the favourite tragedian, and he blames +Corneille for preferring the gigantic to the human, and for ignoring +the tender and touching simplicity of the Greeks. It is from the point +of view of the moralist that these strictures are now important; they +show us that Vauvenargues in his reiterated recommendation of virtue +and military glory did not regard those qualities from the Cornelian +point of view, which he looked upon as fostering a pompous and falsely +"fastueux" conception of life. He blamed Corneille's theatrical +ferocity in terms so severe that Voltaire called the passage "a +detestable piece of criticism" and ran his blue pencil through it. No +doubt the fact is that Vauvenargues saw in the rhetoric of Corneille a +parody of his own sentiments, carried to the verge of rodomontade. + +The publications of Vauvenargues during his lifetime come under two +categories. His "Introduction à la Connaissance de l'Esprit Humain" is +a short book, and it is also a fragment. The author had begun to +collect notes for it during his Bohemian campaign, in 1741; but "those +passions which are inseparable from youth, and ceaseless physical +infirmity, brought on by the war, interrupted my studies," he says. +Voltaire has expressed his amazement that under such piteous +conditions, Vauvenargues had the fortitude to pursue them at all. +There seems to be a change apparent in the object he put before him; +he set out, like Locke, to write an essay on the Human Understanding, +but he ended by putting together a chain of maxims. He quoted Pascal, +who had said, "All good maxims are in the world; we have only got to +apply them," but though Vauvenargues takes this dictum as his text he +refutes it. He says that maxims originally "good," in Pascal's sense, +may have grown sleepy in popular use, and may have ceased to act, so +that we ought to rid ourselves of conventional prejudice and go to the +fountain-head, to try all spirits, in fact, and find out what spirits +really are of God. When Vauvenargues began to reflect, he was +astonished at the inexactitude and even self-contradiction of the +philosophical language of his day. He was not, and probably never +would have become, what we understand now as a philosopher. He was a +moralist, pure and simple, and had no more relation with men like +Descartes or Berkeley than a rousing revivalist preacher has with a +regius professor of Theology. + +The only thing which really interested Vauvenargues was the social +duty of man, and to discover what that is he attempted to define +morals, politics and religion. He had an intense desire for clear +guidance, and he waited for the heavenly spark to fall. He said to +himself, before he made it plain to others, that if we are not guided +by _truth_, we fall into the pit. There was a certain childishness in +his attitude in this matter, for he was inclined to regard abstract +truth as the only one worthy of pursuit. That he was advancing in +breadth of view is shown by the fact that he cancelled in the second +edition of his book a whimsical passage in which he urged people who +were studying conchology, to throw away their shells, asking them to +consider "whether glory is but a name, virtue all a mistake, and law +nothing else than a phantom." The "Introduction" is all written in +this spirit; it is a passionate appeal to the French nation to leave +mean and trivial pursuits, and to live for pure and passionate ideals, +for glory gained by merit, and as the reward of solid and strenuous +effort. + +Vauvenargues' attitude to the English moralists has not been +sufficiently examined. So far as is known he never visited this +country, although he desired to do so. In one of his letters he speaks +of intending to consult a famous oculist in London, but this project +was not carried out; his poverty doubtless prevented it. Whether he +knew English is not certain, but he appears to have read Temple and +Locke, possibly in the original, and a reference to a remarkable +English contemporary appears to have hitherto escaped observation. In +the "Introduction à la connaissance de l'esprit humain," he speaks of +a writer who has argued that private vices are public benefits, and he +attempts to show that this is a fallacy. He returns, less definitely, +to the same line of thought in the "Discours sur la gloire," where he +denies that vice has any part in stimulating social action. It is +strange that no one, so far as I know, has observed this proof that +Vauvenargues was acquainted with the celebrated paradox of Bernard +Mandeville, whose "Fable of the Bees" was in 1747 continuing to cause +so scandalous a sensation, and was still so completely misunderstood. +There seems, occasionally, a trace of the idealism of Shaftesbury in +the colour of Vauvenargues' phrase, but on this it would be dangerous +to insist. + +His own views, however, were more emphatically defined, and more +directly urged, in the other contribution to literature published by +Vauvenargues in his lifetime, the "Réflexions sur divers sujets." Here +he abandons the attempt at forming a philosophical system, and admits +that his sole object is "to form the hearts and the manners" of his +readers. Perhaps the most penetrating of all his sentences is that in +which he says: "If you possess any passion which you feel to be noble +and generous, be sure you foster it." This was diametrically opposed +to all the teaching of the seventeenth-century moralists who had +preceded him, and also had taught us that we should mistrust our +passions and disdain our enthusiasms. To see how completely +Vauvenargues rejected the Christian doctrine of the utter decrepitude +and hopeless inherent badness of the human mind, we have but to gather +some of his sparse thoughts together. He says, in defiance of Pascal +and the Jansenists, "Mankind is the only source of our happiness, +outside that there is nothing." Again, "As it is the heart, in most +people, that doubts, so when once the heart is converted, all is done; +it leads them along the path to virtue." He deprecated the constant +checking and blaming of children which was part of the system of +education then in vogue; he declared that it sapped the confidence of +the young, their inherent sense of virtue; and he exclaimed, "Why does +no one dream of training children to be original, bold and +independent?" + +Those who knew Vauvenargues recognized in the purity and sweetness and +severity of his teaching the record of his own conduct. Marmontel +speaks of the "tender veneration" with which all the more serious of +his early comrades in the army regarded him. In his works we trace the +result of a curious thing, experience superseding, taking the place +of, education. "He observed the weaknesses of mankind before he had +time to reflect upon their duties," says a contemporary. His mind, +although assaulted by such a crowd of disadvantages, remained calm, +and free from prejudice; remained gently indulgent to human weakness +on the one hand, rigid in allegiance to his ideal pursuit of "la +gloire" on the other. The noble movements of his mind were native, not +acquired, and he had not been hardened or exasperated by the pressure +of a mortifying theology. He does not take so exalted or so pitiless +an attitude as the classic seventeenth-century moralist. Pascal +scourges the mass of humanity down a steep place into the sea; +Vauvenargues takes each wanderer by the hand, and leads him along the +primrose path. + +A singular charm in the French character lies in its gift for +composite action. Frenchmen prefer marching towards victory in a body +to a scattered effort of individual energy. It was part of the +constructive genius of Vauvenargues to find the aim and joy of life in +a combination of sentiment and action, in a community of rivals +amiably striving for the crown with fellowmen of like instincts and of +like experience. He was of all moralists the least solitary; he had +spent his life as a soldier among soldiers, among those who did their +best, in the midst of hardships, to live a life of pleasure without +reflection. He was no prig, but he had formed the habit of giving +fatherly counsel which was much beyond his years. He observes that +"the advice of old men is like winter sunshine that gives out light +without warmth," but that the words of a wise and genial young man may +radiate heat and glow. His own advice, given first to his +fellow-officers, then to a circle of literary friends, then to France +so long as her classic literature finds readers, was identical. He +hated conscientious subterfuges which equalize good and evil. He looked +upon "gloire" and "vertu" as the two great motive forces of a sane and +beneficent life. In this he was unique; Voltaire notes that +Vauvenargues soared, in an age of mediocrities, _un siècle des +petitesses_, by his refusal to adopt the spirit of the world. He was a +puritan of the intelligence, and for the ideal of Sully or Villars he +put up the ideal of Oliver Cromwell. + +The moral grandeur and spiritual force of Vauvenargues' philosophy +demanded in the disciple a constant exercise of energy and will. Faith +inspired by effort was to be pursued through sacrifice to the utmost +limits of endurance, and with no ultimate reward but _gloire_. This +was, however, modified, as it is in the most strenuous direction of +character in the Frenchmen of to-day, by an illuminating humanity. +Lofty as was the aim of Vauvenargues, nothing could have been more +tender than his practice. We are told that the expression in the eyes +of a sick animal, the moan of a wounded deer in the forest, moved him +to compassion. He carried this tolerance into human affairs, for he +was pre-eminently a human being; "the least of citizens has a right to +the honours of his country." He set a high moral value on courtesy, +and exposed, as a fallacy, the pretence that to be polite is to lack +sincerity. His disposition was easy-going, although his intellect was +such a high-flyer; in pagan times he would have believed in ridiculous +divinities rather than set himself up as an atheist. He did not +believe that excess of knowledge gives firmness to the judgment, and +he remarks that the opulence of learned men often leads to more errors +than the poverty of those who depend on the native virtues of instinct +and experience. He has phrases which seem meant to condemn the +mechanical emptiness of the modern German system of _kultur_. + +Full of ardour for all that is beautiful and good, tortured by disease +and pinched by poverty, but never allowing his personal misfortunes to +affect his view of life, or to cloud his vision of the trinity of +heavenly lights, _mérite_, _vertu_, _gloire_, Vauvenargues pursued his +painful life in the Street of the Peacock. He knew his feebleness, but +he refused to let it depress him; "labour to get _gloire_ is not +lost," he said, "if it tends to make us worthy of it." In his curious +mixture of simplicity and acuteness, in his gravity and ardour, he was +morally just like the best types which this great war has produced, he +is like Paul Lintier in France, like Julian Grenfell among ourselves, +meeting the worst blows of fate with serenity and almost with ecstasy, +with no shadow of indignation or rebellion. Some posthumous +reflections have let us into the secret that, as the shadows darkened +around him, he occasionally gave way, if not to despair, yet to +depression, and permitted himself to wonder whether all his effort in +the cause of manliness and virtue had been useless. He had not +awakened the sleepers in France; he doubted that his voice would ever +reach them; he asked himself whether all his effort had not been in +vain. This was the natural inner weakness consequent on his physical +state; he gave no outward sign of it. Marmontel, who watched his last +hours with enthusiastic affection, says that, "In his company we +learned how to live,--and how to die." He lay like Socrates, +surrounded by his friends, talking and listening to the last; he +astonished them by the eloquence and gravity of his discourse. His +latest recorded utterance was, "Fortune may sport with the wisdom of +those who are courageous, but it has no power to bend their courage." +Gently but firmly refusing the importunities of the Church, +Vauvenargues was released from his life-in-death on May 28, 1747, in +his thirty-second year. + +You will not find in the pages of Vauvenargues a distinct revival of +that passion for the very soil of France, "la terre sainte, la douce +France," which inspired the noble "Chanson de Roland" and has been so +strongly accentuated in the recent struggle for Alsace-Lorraine. But +he recalled to the memory of a generation which had grown densely +material the forgotten ideal of France as the champion of chivalry. We +must not forget that we possess in the writings of Vauvenargues merely +the commencements of reflection, the first fruit of a life which was +broken before its summer was complete. But we find in his teaching, +and in that of no other moralist of the early eighteenth century, the +insistence on spiritual courage as the necessary opposite to brutal +force and mere materialism. He connected that high ambition, that +craving for _la gloire_, with all pure and elevated things, with the +art and literature, with the intelligence and beauty of the French +creative mind. He recommended, in that gray hour of European dulness, +a fresh ornament to life, a scarlet feather, a _panache_, as our +French friends say. And the gay note that he blew from his battered +clarion was still sounding last year in the heroic resistance of the +forts of Verdun. + + + + + THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE + + +The spirit displayed by the young French officers in this war deserves +to be compared in many essential respects with that which is blazoned +in the glorious "Chanson de Roland." It is interesting to remember +that during the long years in which the direct influence of that +greatest of medieval epics was obscured, it was chiefly known through +the paraphrase of it executed in German by the monk Konrad in the +twelfth century. Many years ago, Gaston Paris pointed out the curious +fact that Konrad completely modified the character of the "Chanson de +Roland" by omitting all expressions of warlike devotion to "la douce +France," and by concentrating the emotion of the poem on its religious +sentiment. But the real theme of the "Chanson de Roland," as we know +now, was the passionate attachment of the heroes to the soil of +France; "ils étaient poussés par l'amour de la patrie, de l'empereur +français leur seigneur, de leur famille, et surtout de la gloire." + +It is a remarkable instance of German "penetration" that in the +paraphrase of the "Chanson de Roland" which Germany so long foisted +upon Europe, these elements were successfully effaced. There was a +sort of poetical revenge, therefore, in the attitude of those who +answered the challenge of Germany in the true spirit of Roland and +Oliver. + +We have seen that Vauvenargues--to whose memory the mind incessantly +reverts in contemplation of the heroes of this war--says in one of his +"Maximes"--written nearly two centuries ago--"The earliest days of +spring have less charm than the budding virtue of a young man." No +figure of 1914 exemplifies this quality of grace more surprisingly +than Jean Allard (who called himself in literature Méeus). He was only +twenty-one and a half when he was killed at Pierrepont, at the very +beginning of the war, but he was already one of the promising figures +of his generation. Allard was looked upon as an incipient Admirable +Crichton; he was a brilliant scholar, an adroit and multiform athlete, +the soul of wit and laughter, the centre of a group of adoring +admirers. This sparkling poet was suddenly transformed by the +declaration of war into the sternest of soldiers. His poem, called +"Demain," created, or rather expressed, the patriotic passion which +was simultaneously evoked all over France; it is really a lesser +"Marseillaise." Not less popular, but more elaborate and academic, is +Allard's aviation poem, "Plus haut toujours!"--an extraordinary vision +of the flight and ecstasy and tragic death of a solitary airman. We +may notice that in this, and many other verses describing recent +inventions of science, the young French poets contrive to be very +lucid and simple in their language, and to avoid that display of +technical verbiage which deforms too many English experiments in the +same class. + +It is not, however, so much by his writings, which are now collected +in two, or perhaps three, little volumes, that Allard-Méeus strikes +the imagination of a foreign spectator, as by his remarkable attitude. +From the first, this lad of twenty-one exemplified and taught the +value of a chivalrous behaviour. In the face of events, in that +corruption of all which could make the martial spirit seem noble, that +Germany has forced upon the world, this attitude of young French +officers at the very opening of the war is pathetic, and might even +lend itself, if we were disposed for mirth, to an ironic smile. But it +should be recorded and not forgotten. It was Allard who revived the +etiquette of going to battle dressed as sprucely as for a wedding. We +shall do well to recollect the symbolic value which the glove holds in +legends of medieval prowess. When the dying Roland, under the +pine-trees, turns to the frontier of Spain, he offers, as a dying +soldier, his glove to God-- + +"_Pur ses pecchiez deu puroftrid son guant_." + +Allard-Méeus at St. Cyr made all the young officers swear that they +would not go into battle except in white gloves and with their _képi_ +adorned with the _casoar_, the red and white dress-plume. "Ce serment, +bien français, est aussi élégant que téméraire," he said, and the rest +followed him with acclamation. He was one of the first French officers +to fall in battle, at the head of his infantry, and his mother was +presented by the regiment with his _casoar_ and his gloves, worn at +the moment of his death, on August 22, 1914, and stained with his +blood. Allard offers a fugitive but typical specimen of the splendour +of French sentiment in the first flush of its enthusiasm. + +On March 26, 1917, the Société des Gens de Lettres in Paris held a +solemn assembly under the presidency of M. Pierre Decourcelle to +commemorate those authors who, during the present war, have fallen in +the service of France. Touching and grave in the extreme was the +scene, when, before a crowded and throbbing audience, the secretary +read the name of one young writer after another, pausing for the +president to respond by the words "Mort au champ d'honneur!" In each +case there followed a brief silence more agitating in its emotion than +any eloquence could be. + +The great number of young men of high intellectual promise who were +killed early in this war is a matter for grave and painful reflection. +Especially in the first months of the autumn of 1914 the holocaust was +terrible. There was no restraining the ardour of the young, who sought +their death in a spirit of delirious chivalry, each proud to be the +Iphigenia or the Jephtha's Daughter of a France set free. It has been +noted since that the young generation, born about 1890, had been +prepared for the crisis in a very significant way. The spiritual +condition of these grave and magnificent lads resembled nothing that +had been seen before, since the sorrows of 1870. They gave the +impression of being dedicated. As we now read their letters, their +journals, their poems, we are astonished at the high level of moral +sentiment which actuated them all. There is often even a species of +rapturous detachment which seems to lift them into a higher sphere +than that of vain mortality. Examples might be given by the sheaf, but +it suffices here to quote a letter from the youthful Léo Lantil, who +was killed early in 1915, in one of the obscure battles of Champagne. +He says, in writing to his parents, shortly before his death, "All our +sacrifice will be of sweet savour if it leads to a really glorious +victory and brings more light to human souls." It was this Léo Lantil, +dying in his twenty-fifth year, whose last words were "Priez pour la +France, travaillez pour la France, haussez-la!" + +A story is told by M. Henri Bordeaux which illustrates the impression +made by these young soldiers. A peasant of Savoy, while ploughing his +fields in the autumn of 1914, saw his wife crossing to him with the +local postman, who had a letter in his hands. He took it from them, +and put on his spectacles, and read that his two sons had been killed +in an engagement in the Vosges. He said quietly, "God has found them +ready," and then, slowly, "My poor wife!" and he returned to his yoke +of oxen. It would seem that the French accepted, without reserve and +without difficulty, an inward discipline for which the world had +formed little conception of their readiness. There is no question now, +since all the private letters and diaries prove it, that the +generation which had just left college, and had hardly yet gone out +into the world, had formed, unsuspected by their elders, a conception +of life which might have been called fatalistic if it had not been so +rigorously regulated by a sense of duty. They were singularly calm +under a constant presentiment of death. When the war came, they +accepted the fiery trial not merely with resignation, but even with +relief. Their athletic stoicism took what fortune offered them, +instead of attempting to rebel against it. Their sentiment was that a +difficulty had been settled. Life had been producing upon their +consciences a sense of complication, a tangle of too many problems. +Now they might, and did, cheerfully relinquish the effort to solve +them. One of the most extraordinary features of the moral history of +the young French officers in this war has been the abandonment of +their will to the grace of God and the orders of the chief. In the +letters of the three noble brothers Belmont, who fell in rapid +succession, this apprenticeship to sacrifice is remarkable, but it +recurs in all the records. "God found them ready!" + +When all is of so inspired an order of feeling, it is difficult, it is +even invidious, to select. But the figure of Paul Lintier, whose +journals have been piously collected by M. Edmond Haraucourt, stands +out before us with at least as much saliency as any other. We may take +him as a peculiarly lucent example of his illuminated class. +Quartermaster Lintier died on March 15, 1916, struck by a shell, on +the Lorraine frontier, at a place called Jeandelincourt. He had not +yet completed his twenty-third year, for he was born at Mayenne on May +13, 1893. In considering the cases of many of these brilliant and +sympathetic young French officers, who had already published or have +left behind them works in verse and prose, there may be a disposition, +in the wonderful light of their experience, to exaggerate the positive +value of their productions. Not all of them, of course, have +contributed, or would have contributed, durable additions to the store +of the literature of France. We see them, excusably, in the rose-light +of their sunset. But, for this very reason, we are inclined to give +the closer attention to Paul Lintier, who not only promised well but +adequately fulfilled that promise. It seems hardly too much to say +that the revelation of a prose-writer of the first class was brought +to the world by the news of his death. + +His early training predicted nothing of romance. He was intended for a +career in commerce, but, showing no aptitude for trade, he dallied +with legal studies at Lyons, and "commenced author" by publishing some +essays in that city. At the age of twenty he joined a regiment of +artillery, and seems to have perceived, a year before the war, that +the only profession he was fitted for was soldiering. Towards the +close of September 1914, in circumstances which he recounts in his +book, he was severely wounded; he went back to the front in July 1915, +and, as we have said, fell fighting eight months later. This is the +history of a young man who will doubtless live in the annals of French +literature; and brief as it seems, it is really briefer still, since +all we know of Paul Lintier, or are likely ever to know, is what he +tells us himself in describing what he saw and practised and endured +between August 1 and September 22, 1914. This wonderful book, "Ma +Pièce," was written by the young gunner, night after night, on his +knee, during seven weeks of inconceivable intensity of emotion, and it +is by this revelation of his genius that his memory will be preserved. + +The style of Paul Lintier is one of the miracles of art. There is no +evidence that this youth had studied much or had devoted himself to +any of the training which adequate expression commonly demands. We +know nothing about him until he suddenly bursts upon us, in the +turmoil of mobilization, as a finished author. What strikes a critical +reader of "Ma Pièce," as distinguishing it from other works of its +class, is a certain intellectual firmness most remarkable in a lad of +Lintier's age, suddenly confronted by such a frenzy of public action. +There is no pessimism, and no rhetoric, and no touch of humour, but an +obsession for the truth. This is displayed by another and an extremely +popular recent publication, "En Campagne," by M. Marcel Dupont, which +exhibits exactly the same determination to exaggerate nothing and to +reduce nothing, but to report exactly what the author saw with his own +eyes, in that little corner of the prodigious battle-field in which +his own regiment was fighting. Truth, the simple unvarnished truth, +has been the object of these various writers in setting down their +impressions, but the result exemplifies the difference between what +is, and what is not, durable as literature. For this purpose, it is +well to turn from Lintier's pages to those of the honest writers of +whom Dupont is the type, and then back again to Lintier. All evoke, +through intense emotion, most moving and most tragic sensations, but +Lintier, gifted with some inscrutable magic, evokes them in the +atmosphere of beauty. + +A quality of the mind of Paul Lintier which marked him out for a place +above his fellows was the prodigious exactitude of his memory. This +was not merely visual, but emotional as well. Not only did it retain, +with the precision of a photograph, all the little fleeting details of +the confused and hurried hours in which the war began, but it kept a +minute record of the oscillation of feeling. Those readers who take a +pleasure in the technical parts of writing may enjoy an analysis of +certain pages in "Ma Pièce," for instance, the wonderful description +of an _alerte_ at 2 A.M. above the village of Tailly-sur-Meuse (pp. +131, 132). With the vigorous picturesqueness of these sentences we may +compare the pensive quality and the solidity of touch which combine to +form such a passage as the following account of a watch at Azannes +(August 14, 1914):--"La nuit est claire, rayée par les feux des +projecteurs de Verdun qui font des barres d'or dans le ciel; +merveilleuse nuit de mi-août, infiniment constellée, égayée d'étoiles +filantes qui laissent après elles de longues phosphorescences. + +"La lune s'est levée. Elle perce mal les feuillages denses des +pruniers et le cantonnement immobile reste sombre. Çà et là, +seulement, elle fait des taches jaunes sur l'herbe et sur les croupes +des chevaux qui dorment debout. Le camarade avec qui je partage cette +nuit de garde est étendu dans son manteau au pied d'un grand poirier. +Devant moi, la lune illumine la plaine. Les prairies sont voilées de +gaze blanche. Les deux armées, tous feux éteints, dorment ou se +guettent." + +Lintier has no disposition to make things out better than they were. +His account of the defeat at Virton, on August 22, is grave and calm +in its sad stoicism, it is even harsh in its refusal to overlook any +of the distressing features of the affair. But hope rises in his heart +like clear water in a troubled well, and it is just after this +melancholy set-back that the noble French spirit most vividly asserts +itself. In the very forefront of physical and moral misery, "quelle +émouvante compréhension de la Patrie s'est révélée à nous!" An army +which is instantly and completely victorious can never experience the +depth of this sentiment. It is necessary to have fought, to have +suffered, to have feared (if only for a moment) that all was lost, in +order to comprehend with passion what the mother-country means to a +man. Lying in the fog, soaked with rain, at the edge of the copses +from which the German guns had ejected them, it was at that wretched +moment that the full apprehension came to Paul Lintier that France +comprised for him all the charm of life, all the affections, all the +joys of the eyes and the heart and the brain. "Alors, on préfère +tomber, mourir là, parce qu'on sent que la France perdue, ce serait +pire que la mort." This is a feeling which animates the darkest pages +of his book--and many of them perforce are gloomy; through all the +confusion and doubt, the disquietude, the physical dejection, the +sense of a kind of blind-man's buff intolerably wearisome and +fatiguing--through all this, which the young author does not seek to +conceal, there runs the ceaseless bright thread of hope sustained by +love. + +For us English the book has a curious interest in its unlikeness to +anything which an English lad of twenty would have dreamed of writing. +It strikes an English reader, in comparison with the equally gallant +and hardly less picturesque records which some of our own young +officers have produced, as extraordinarily "grown up." The new +generation which France sent into the war of defence was more simple +and more ardent at the outset than our own analogous generation was. +It was less dilettante and more intellectual. The evidences of +thought, of reasoned reflection carried out to its full extent, of an +adequate realization of the problems presented by life, are manifest, +though in various degree, in all these records of French officers +killed in the months which preceded Christmas 1914. These Frenchmen +did not go out light-heartedly, nor with a pathetic inability to +fathom the purpose for which they so generously went, but they had +given the matter a study which seemed beyond their years. They marched +to the blood-baths of Belgium and Lorraine with solemnity, as though +to a sacrament. + +It must be remarked as an interesting point that this generation had +recovered a sense of the spirituality of a war of national defence. In +simpler words, it had recovered that honest pride which France, in +certain of its manifestations since the war of 1870, seemed to have +lamentably lost. Posterity will compare the serene simplicity of Péguy +and Lintier with the restlessness and bitter disenchantment of the +1880 generation, which arrived at manhood just when France was most +deeply conscious of her humiliation. If we seek for the sources of +this recovery of self-respect, which so beautifully characterized +French character at the immediate crisis of 1914, we have to find it, +of course, in the essential elasticity of the trained French mind. The +Frenchman likes the heroic attitude, which is unwelcome to us, and he +adopts it instinctively, with none of our national shyness and false +modesty. But, if we seek for a starting-point of influence, we may +probably find it in the writings of a soldier whose name is scarcely +known in England, but whose "Études sur le Combat," first published in +1880, have been the text-book of the young French officer, and were +never being so much read as just before the outbreak of the war. + +The author of these "Études sur le Combat" was Colonel Ardent du Picq, +who fell at the battle of Longeville-les-Metz, on August 15, 1870. He +had predicted the calamity of that war, which he attributed to the +mental decadence of the French army, and to the absence of any +adequate General Staff organization. Ardent du Picq had received no +encouragement from within or from without, and the reforms which he +never ceased to advocate were treated as the dreams of an eccentric +idealist. He died, unrecognized, without having lived to see carried +out one of the reforms which he had so persistently advocated. His +tongue was rough and his pen was dipped in acid; the military critic +who ridiculed the "buffooneries" of his generals and charged his +fellow-officers with trying to get through their day's work with as +little trouble to themselves as possible, was not likely to carry much +weight at the close of the Second Empire. But the scattered papers of +the forgotten Colonel Ardent du Picq were preserved, and ten years +after his death a portion of them was published. Every scrap which +could be found of the work of so fruitful a military thinker was +presently called for, and at the moment of the outbreak of the present +war the "Études sur le Combat" had become the text-book of every +punctilious young officer. It is still unknown how much of the +magnificent effort of 1914 was not due to the shade of Ardent du Picq. +Although the name of that author does not occur in the pages of "Ma +Pièce," we are constrained to believe that Lintier had been, like so +many young men of his class, an infatuated student of the "Études." He +had comprehended the essence of military vitality and the secret of +military grandeur. He had perceived the paramount importance of moral +force in contending with formidable hostile organizations. Ardent du +Picq, who possessed the skill of his nation in the manufacture of +maxims, laid it down that "Vaincre, c'est d'être sûr de la victoire." +He assented to the statement that it was a spiritual and not a +mechanical ascendancy which had gained battles in the past and must +gain them in the future. Very interesting it is to note, in the +delicately scrupulous record of the mind and conscience of Paul +Lintier, how, side by side with this uplifted patriotic confidence, +the weakness of the flesh makes itself felt. At Tailly, full of the +hope of coming battle, waiting in the moonlit forest for the sound of +approaching German guns, suddenly the heroism drops from him, and he +murmurs the plaintive verses of the old poet Joachim du Bellay to the +echo of "Et je mourrai peut-être demain!" The delicate sureness with +which he notes these changes of mood is admirable; and quickly the +depression passes: "vite notre extraordinaire insouciance l'emporte, +et puis, jamais heure a-t-elle été plus favorable à la revanche?" + +In defining the particular principles which have actuated the +magnificent French General Staff in the present crisis, Lord Haldane +has dwelt on the fact that the French have displayed throughout "that +moral effect which comes from certainty of purpose and which only +concentrated thought can give." The value which the higher authority +sets on the cultivation of moral enthusiasm is exemplified by the fact +that the French Ministry of War has encouraged the publication of +those personal records, from which we have here made a selection, on +the ground that they carry throughout the army a contagion of energy +and courage. We are far here from the obscure jealousy of thought +which made a military representative of the British War Office the +other day lay down the brilliant axiom "A hairdresser is of more value +to the country at war than a librarian!" Such a man could not exist in +a French community, where, at the very height of hostilities, so +prominent a military authority as Colonel Émile Manceau could pause to +say, "Let us read, let us give much time to reading!" It is a curious +reflection that the present struggle has been, for the French, the +most literary of all wars, the one in which the ordered expression of +clear thought in language has been most carefully and consciously +cultivated. + +This was very far from being the case with the war of 1870, when the +absence of literature was strongly felt during and after the crisis. +The old satirist of the "Iambes," Auguste Barbier, wrote, immediately +after the declaration of peace, a poem in which he rehearsed the +incidents of the war, and commented on the absence from the list of +its victims of a single distinguished writer. He said-- + +_"La Muse n'a pas vu tomber un seul poète_," + +and it was out of any one's power to refute the sinister and prosaic +verse. The contrast with 1914 is painful and striking. In the existing +war the holocaust of victims, poets and historians, painters and +sculptors, musicians and architects, has been heartrending, and it can +never in future years be pretended that the Muses have this time +spared us their most poignant sacrifices. A year ago the _Revue +Critique_, one of the most serious and original of the learned +journals of Paris, announced the losses it had endured. It was +conducted by a staff of forty scholars; by the summer of 1916 this +number was reduced by twenty-seven; thirteen had been killed, eleven +severely wounded, three had disappeared. + +Many writers have asked, and M. Maurice Barrès prominently among them, +what is the reason of the fact that intelligence has taken a front +place in this war? What has been the source of the spirit of +self-immolation which has driven the intellectual and imaginative section +of French youth to hold out both hands to catch the full downpour of +the rain of death? There is no precedent for it in French history, and +we may observe for ourselves how new a thing it was, and how +unexpected, by comparing with the ardent and radiant letters and poems +of the youngest generation the most patriotic expressions of their +elders. A single example may suffice. No man of letters has given a +nobler witness to the truth of his patriotism than Colonel Patrice +Mahon, known in letters as Art Roë. His novels, which dealt largely +with modern Russian life, in relation with the French army, were +virile and elevated productions, but he was a man of fifty at the time +of his heroic death at the head of his troops, in the battle of +Wisembach (August 22, 1914), and his tone was not that of such young +men as Camille Violand and Marcel Drouet. To read again the "Pingot et +moi" of Art Roë is to return to a book of the utmost sincerity and +valour, but it was published in 1893, and there is no touch of the +splendour of 1914 about it. + +A figure which stands midway between the generation of Art Roë and +that of the adolescent comrades of a new Sophocles of whom we shall +presently speak, is Captain E.J. Détanger, who seems to be +transitional, and to share the qualities of both. This name has, even +now, scarcely grown familiar to the eye and ear, but it proves to have +been the real name of Émile Nolly, whose romances of modern life in +the Extreme East had been widely read just before the war. Nolly's +earliest books, "Hien le Maboul" and "La Barque Annamite" (but +particularly the latter), gave promise of a new Pierre Loti or a new +Rudyard Kipling, but totally distinct in manner from both. Détanger +was just thirty-four when the war broke out, and he was one of its +early victims, dying at Blainville-sur-l'Eau on September 5. He +greatly distinguished himself by his personal bravery, and the cross +of the Legion of Honour was pinned to his blood-stained uniform on his +last battle-field. The tribute of a fellow-officer to this devoted man +of letters may be quoted here. It is an example of the sudden and +complete transformation which turned artists into soldiers at the +first sound of the bugle:-- + +"Émile Nolly proved a magnificent soldier. He had a youthful, blithe, +fervent and resolute soul; he had the soul of a hero completely +prepared to sacrifice himself with joy for his country. After having +served valiantly and brilliantly in Indo-China, and then in Morocco, +it was with a radiant hope that he set out for the frontier of +Lorraine. 'What does the life of any one of us matter?' he said to me +just before he left. 'All that is essential is that France should +live, that she should be victorious.'" + +Marcel Drouet, who has just been mentioned, was much younger. He was a +native of the invaded department of the Ardennes, and had not +completed his twenty-sixth year when he was killed in the trenches of +Consenvoye, in the Woëvre, when he was taking part in the outer +defence of Verdun. He seems to have been distinguished by a refinement +of spirit, which is referred to, in different terms, by every one who +has described him. He leaves behind him a volume of poems, "L'Ombre +qui tourne," and various essays and fragments. The journal of the last +days of his life has been edited by M. Maurice Barrès, and is a record +of singular delicacy and courage. We see him facing the dreadful +circumstances of the war, made the more dreadful to him because the +horrors are committed in the midst of the familiar scenes of his own +home, and we find him patiently waiting for the signal to lead his men +into action while he holds a volume of Chateaubriand open upon his +knee. The reflections of Marcel Drouët differ in some respects from +those of his most enthusiastic companions. There is a note of +tenderness in them which is unusual, and which is very pathetic. At +the very close of his brief and heroic life, the thoughts of Drouët +reverted to the historic town in which he was born, to Sedan which +still shuddered in his infancy at the recollection of the horrors of +1870. He thought of the dead who fell on that melancholy field; and +then his thoughts turned to those dear faces which he had so recently +left behind. The following passage, in its simplicity, in its +sweetness, deserves to live in the memorial literature of the war:-- + +"Je pense à vous, mes chers vivants, aux mains des barbares en ce +moment sans doute, mais en le coeur de qui j'ai foi, tant je connais +votre dévouement aux choses sublimes. + +"Mais aussi je pense à vous, mon Dieu, qui avez voulu toutes ces +choses pour votre plus grand gloire et pour l'établissement de votre +justice. Tous ces malheurs, ces tristesses, tout ce sang répandu sont +imposés par vous, mon Dieu, en manière de rédemption. Mais votre +soleil glorieux éclairera bientôt, j'en suis absolument certain, la +victoire du bon droit qui attend depuis près d'un demi-siècle. J'y +coopère de toutes mes forces, de toute mon âme. Et si vous me retirez +de ce monde, ô Dieu de bonté, permettez que ce soit pour me joindre à +ceux qui m'out précédé dans votre séjour, et dont l'affection +terrestre me fut précieuse. C'est toute la prière ardente que je fais +devant le soleil levant, ce jour de Toussaint que sillonnent déjà les +obus semeurs de mort, en cette année 1914 qui verra rétablir la paix +du monde, par l'anéantissement du peuple barbare, et la régénérescence +de la nation française." + +In most cases there rests an obscurity over the brief lives of these +gallant young officer-authors, whose nature was little observed until +the flash of battle illuminated them for one last brilliant moment. We +feel a strong desire, which cannot be gratified, to follow them from +their childhood to their adolescence, and to see for ourselves what +impulses directed them into the path of heroism. It is rarely that we +can do this, but one of these poets has left behind him two friends +who have recaptured the faint and shrouded impressions of his early +life. The piety of M. Henri Albert Besnard, who was his intimate +companion, and of that practised narrator M. Henri Bordeaux, who is +his biographer, enable us to form a clearer and fuller conception of +Camille Violand than of any of his compeers. Born in 1891, he was +typical of that latest generation of which we have spoken, in whom all +seemed to be unconsciously preparing for the great and critical +sacrifice. He was born at Lyons, but was brought up in the Quercy, +that wild and tortured district just north of the Pyrenees, where +nature seems to gather together all that she possesses of the +grotesque and violent in landscape; but he was educated at Alençon, +and trained at Vouziers, in the midst of the orchards of Normandy. +Thus both sides of France, the Midi and the Manche, were equally known +to him, but the ceaseless peregrinations which he underwent, so far +from enlarging his horizon, seem to have plunged his soul in +melancholy. At the age of twenty he struck M. Bordeaux as being the +typical _déraciné._ + +The letters of Camille Violand and the memories of his friends present +to us the record of a vague and uneasy boyhood. He began quite early +to exercise his mind in prose and verse, but without energy or aim. He +was not fixed in any plan of life. His letters--for he wrote with +abundance, and something undefined seems to have induced his family to +keep his letters--are steeped in sombre and objectless melancholy. He +was tormented by presentiments of misfortune; he indulged a kind of +romantic valetudinarianism. In the confusion of his spirit as he +passed uneasily from boyhood into manhood, the principal moral quality +we perceive is a peevish irritation at the slow development of life. +He was just twenty-one when the death of his mother, to whom he was +passionately attached, woke him out of this paralyzed condition, and +it is remarkable that, in breaking, like a moth from a chrysalis, out +of his network of futile and sterile sophisms, it was immediately on +the contingency of war that he fixed his thoughts. The news of his +mother's death, by a strange and rapid connexion of ideas, reminded +him of his future responsibility as an officer in the coming struggle. +He wrote, in 1913, "Je m'effraie en pensant à cette responsabilité qui +pèsera certainement un jour sur moi, car je considère la guerre comme +à peu près certaine à bref délai." + +Having once formed this conviction, a complete revolution affected the +character of the young Violand. His melancholy ceased; his uncertainty +fell from him; it seemed as though his soul threw off her fetters. +From the close of 1913, when the chancelleries of Europe were still +profoundly unconscious of the tremendous upheaval which was in store +for them, this young man, hitherto so timorous and irresolute, is seen +to be filled with a species of prophetic ecstasy:-- + + _"The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness! + The vaporous exultation not to be confined! + .........the animation of delight + Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light, + And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind"_ + +This remarkable change of character was encouraged by the military +discipline which now regulated his life, and which he accepted with +rapture and devotion. His mother's one aim had been to make of Camille +a soldier and a Christian, and he became the very type of that +combination. + +To use a striking phrase of M. Henri Bordeaux, the war found Camille +Violand in a state of preparedness. He saw it arrive, not with anxiety +or trepidation, but with solemn joy. His father was placed in command +of a brigade of dragoons, and he himself, at another part of the +frontier line, was given the rank of second lieutenant and a command +which filled him with the pride of responsibility. Three weeks later +he was wounded in the head at the battle of Virton, but not until he +had seen the Germans, after a hard fight, retire before the attack of +his men. "Il a connu l'ivresse de la victoire: il a vu fuir +l'ennemi"--so a friend announced it. He was taken back to the hospital +at Limoges, but the victory of the Marne intoxicated him, and it was +found impossible to hold him back. With a head still bandaged, he made +his appearance once more in his beloved regiment, which was now +fighting in the forest of the Argonne, but on the first occasion on +which he led his men, Violand was wounded again, now in the shoulder. +He was sent far back, into Brittany, to Quimper, where, a second time, +by a subterfuge he contrived to escape from the hospital before his +wound was properly healed. He was absolutely intractable in his +determination to get back promptly to the fighting line: "il était +comme ça, avec son air délicat et tranquille!" Again brought back, he +was set to training men at Quimper. But he could not endure the +restraint, and his nerves broke down. + +It was found impossible to hold him back, and on October 8 the +military authorities consented to his return to his regiment, and with +the permission was combined the news that he had been nominated for +the cross of the Legion of Honour. The letter in which he announces +that fact to the ladies at home--"mes chères Grand'mère et Tante"--is +charming in its simplicity. "La croix gagnée sur un champ de bataille, +c'est à mes yeux le plus beau rêve qu'un jeune Français pût faire; je +regrette seulement de ne pas l'avoir méritée davantage; mais l'avenir +me permettra, j'espère, de justifier cette récompense, que je +considère comme anticipée." The official notification specifies the +wounds which he had received and the fact that, by the testimony of +all who saw him under fire, the young lieutenant gave evidence of very +great courage and of indomitable energy. That he was, by what he calls +a queer coincidence, the youngest officer of his regiment and its only +member of the Legion of Honour, afforded him an unaffected +satisfaction. + +From this time--the end of October 1914--the letters of Camile Violand +testify to the rapid development of his mind and character. He loses a +certain childishness which had hitherto clung to him, and he expresses +himself with a more virile sobriety. Nothing could exceed the pathos +of his pictures of the terrible life in the Argonne, and we are made +to feel how rapidly the suffering and the responsibility of his +military life were bringing out all the deepest and most serious +elements in his character. There is a remarkable letter of January 7, +1915, describing an engagement in which he lost several of his best +men, and in particular an experienced corporal in whose skill he much +confided. The briefest fragment broken from this pathetic description, +addressed to his father, will give a notion of the tone of it:-- + +"J'étais absorbé par les blessés dans mon poste de commandement et +quand je pus me rendre dans la tranchée où il était, il tombait dans +le coma. Ses derniers mots avaient été: 'Adieu, ma Patrie!' Pourtant, +il me reconnut à la voix, me répondit faiblement. Je l'assistai dans +ses derniers moments. Ce fut bien rapide, bien simple et bien beau. +_J'étais pour lui le chef, ce qui est plus que le Père et le Prêtre +réunis_. Je l'ai bien senti là; quand ce fut presque fini, je +l'embrassai et le quittai pour retourner aux soucis que nous donne +l'ennemi." + +Thus was this lad of three-and-twenty fortified and ripened by the +arduous warfare in the Argonne. He was now spending what leisure the +fighting gave him in a careful study of Homer. We gather that he had +just finished re-reading the "Iliad" when the end came. On March 4, +1915, at Mesnil-les-Hurlus, a ball pierced his heart, splintering in +its passage the cross of the Legion of Honour of which he was so +proud. In his pocket was found his last letter, still unposted, in +which he told his father of a fresh distinction for valour which he +had just received, and in the course of which, with a manifest +presentiment of his approaching end, he wrote, "Je mourrai, si Dieu +veut, en bon chrétien et en bon Français." + +It is not to be denied that ordinary observers were not in any degree +prepared for the heroic devotion displayed by such young officers as +these at the beginning of the war. The general opinion in peace time +was expressed by M. Maurice Maeterlinck when he laid it down that +"courage, moral and physical endurance (if not abnegation, +forgetfulness of self, renunciation of all comfort, the faculty of +sacrifice, the power to face death) belong exclusively to the most +primitive, the least happy, the least intelligent of peoples, those +which are least capable of reasoning, of taking danger into account." +It was the common hypothesis among moralists that, as men's nerves +grew more sensitive and the means of destruction more cruel and +irresistible, no human being would be able to support the strain of +actual fighting. It seemed inevitable that soldiers would rapidly +become demoralized, when exposed to the multifarious horrors of modern +mechanical battle. Nothing, therefore, could have been more surprising +than the temper shown by thousands of young men, suddenly called up +from sedentary and safe pursuits, and confronted by the terrors of +shrapnel and liquid fire and mines and gas, and all the other horrible +ingenuities of an unseen enemy for killing and mutilating. Their +imaginations were unaccustomed to these terrors, it is true, but the +higher faculties of the human mind asserted themselves, and in the +vague collective battle of the trenches these young French officers; +despite the refinement and the security in which they had always been +acustomed to exist, instantly reverted to the chivalrous attitude +which their remote ancestors had adopted in a warfare that was +romantic and personal in its individualism. + +No doubt a not inconsiderable part of the serenity, which is so +remarkably evident in the letters and journals of these young men, was +due to the fact that they had arrived, for the first time, at a +comprehension of the unity of life. There is no tedious alternative of +choice in the active military career. All is regulated, all is +arranged in accordance with a hierarchical discipline, and war becomes +what dogmatic religion is to a weak soul that has been tossed about by +the waves of doubt. It must be also borne in mind that the incessant +dread of invasion, especially in the neighbourhood of the eastern +frontier, had kept the spirits of those who knew that responsibility +would fall upon them, in a state of unceasing agitation. It is a +paralyzing thing to exist under a perpetual menace which nothing can +precipitate and yet nothing can avert. Captain Belmont, in his +admirable letters, speaks much of the "romanticism" which attracted +many of his companions, and of the natural satisfaction which the +declaration of war gave to their restless faculties. The two +sentiments were probably one and the same, and to a poetical +temperament that might well seem "romantic" which filled a less vivid +mind with restlessness and languor. + +It is noticeable, too, that when once the sickening suspense was +removed, and the path of pain and glory lay clear before these +youthful spirits, they grew very rapidly in intellectual stature. They +had found their equilibrium, and no more time and force were wasted in +useless oscillations. Each of them had, at last, the occasion, and +therefore the power, to fill out the lines of his proper +individuality. As M. Henri Bordeaux excellently says, "L'esprit +inquiet ne se contente de rien, le coeur inapaisé se croit incompris." +But now these men knew their vocation, and a precocious experience of +life developed in them a temper of meditation. It is extraordinary +what an intelligent philosophy, what a delicate study of nature, were +revealed at once in the writings of these heroic boys of twenty. +Lieutenant Belmont, who fought in Alsace, had spent his infancy and +adolescence in the neighbourhood of Grenoble, and his memory was full +of the rich Dauphiné valley, with its great river and its eastern +horizon of the Alps. In the misery of the September nights of 1914, in +the harshness of misty mornings among the Alsatian pines, his thoughts +return to the luminous twilights of his old home under the great oaks +of the Isère, and he expresses his nostalgia in terms of the most +exquisite and the most unstudied grace. Here is a fragment of one of +his letters home (October 1914):-- + +"Les journées sont exquises, tristes et pâles, également différentes +des crudités de nos idées et des ténèbres de l'hiver. L'imagination a +vite fait de s'envoler, à travers cette lumière adoucie, vers tous les +horizons familiers de la petite patrie, vers la vallée de Grenoble, +paresseusement allongée dans ce bain de léger soleil, au pied des +Alpes déjà engourdies, vers les terres rousses de Lonnes longées par +les futaies jaunissantes où s'abritent les gibiers, tranquilles cette +année." + +No doubt, the reason why this war has been, for France, so peculiarly +a literary war, is that the mechanical life in the trenches, +alternately so violent and so sedentary, has greatly enforced the +habit of sustained contemplation based on a vivid and tragic +experience. This has encouraged, and in many instances positively +created, a craving for literary expression, which has found abundant +opportunity for its exercise in letters, journals, and poems; and what +it has particularly developed is a form of literary art in which +Frenchmen above all other races have always excelled, that analysis of +feeling which has been defined as "le travail de ciselure morale." +This moral carved-work, or chasing, as of a precious metal, revealing +the rarity and value of spiritual surfaces, is characteristic of the +journals of Paul Lintier, of the beauty of which we have already +spoken. His art expends itself in the effect of outward things on the +soul. He speaks of mysterious sights, half-witnessed in the gloaming, +of sinister noises which have to be left unexplained. He does not +shrink from a record of unlovely things, of those evil thoughts which +attend upon the rancour of defeat, of the suspicion of treason which +comes to dejected armies like a breath of poison-gas. That portion of +his "Souvenirs" which deals with the days of the retreat on Paris is +written in a spasm of savage anger; a whole new temper is instantly +revealed when once the tide turns at Nanteuil. Nature herself thus +endorses his new mood, as he writes "There are still clouds heaped up +to the west, but the blue, that cheers us, is chasing them all away." + +Among the noble young poets whose pathetic and admirable fragments the +piety of surviving friends has preserved, it is difficult to select +one name rather than another. But in the rank of these Rupert Brookes +and Julian Grenfells and Charles Listers of France, we may perhaps +pause before the ardent figure of Jacques de Choudens. He was a +Breton, and was trained for the law on the other side of France, at +Lille. He found that the call of the sea was irresistible, and after +two years at a desk in that dreary and dusty city, he suddenly flung +up his cap and would have no more of such drudgery. To the despair of +his family, he started on the high seas, and explored the wonderland +of Haiti. After various adventures, he was about to return to France, +when the sea again took him by the throat, and he vanished, like +Robert Louis Stevenson, in the Pacific. Having sailed twice round the +world, "beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars," a +tired Ulysses under thirty, Jacques de Choudens had just come back to +France when the war seized him with a fresh and deep enchantment. He +entered into it with a profound ardour, and proved himself to possess +exceptional military qualities. He was severely wounded on the second +day of the battle of Charleroi, but slowly recovered, only to be +killed in an engagement on June 13, 1915. His poems, written since war +broke out, have been carefully collected and published by his friend, +M. Charles Torquet. They are few, and they suffer from a certain +hardness of touch; Jacques de Choudens had, as yet, a deeper +acquaintance with life than with literature; but they breathe a spirit +of high and romantic heroism. Let the sonnet called "Autre Prière" be +offered as an example:-- + + "_Terres, fleuves, forêts, ô puissances occultes, + C'est votre âme qui bat au bleu de nos poignets; + Notre orgueil s'est enfin cabré sous les insultes + Dont, depuis quarante ans, ô France, tu saignais. + + Dans le livre où s'apprend le plus hautain des cultes, + Marque la page avec nos sabres pour signets; + Ceins la couronne d'or qu'en l'An deux tu ceignais, + Car c'est dans notre chair à nous que tu la sculptes. + + France! France! Bénis chaque arme et chaque front; + C'est d'ardeur, non de peur, que tremble l'éperon. + Nous sommes tes martyrs volontaires, superbes, + + Sous l'auréole d'or des galons du képi.... + Nous allons préparer aux faucilles des gerbes, + Puisqu'où tombe un soldat pousse un nouvel épi._" + +The poet, shortly before he fell, wrote to a friend "Nous +travaillerons mieux après la victoire, ce que nous ferons ayant été +mûri par la fatigue et les angoisses. La vie est bonne et belle et la +guerre est une chose bien amusante." This is the type of Frenchman who +fights for the love of fighting, who puts above all other happiness +the prize of military honour and glory won in a good cause. We meet +with it in the lyrical effusion of an adventurous poet like Jacques de +Choudens and in the straightforward evidence of a practised soldier +like Captain Hassler, whose "Ma Campagne" is a record extraordinary +alike for its courage, for its vivacity, and for its modesty. + +The peculiar spirit of ardent gallantry to which we have dedicated +these few pages is illustrated, as will be observed, by examples taken +without exception from the first months of the war. It would be rash +to say, without a careful sifting of evidence, how much of this +sentiment survived the days which preceded the battle of the Marne. +France has, in the succession of her attacks up to the present hour, +continued and confirmed the magnificent tradition of her courage. But +it is impossible to overlook the elements which have taken the +romantic colour out of the struggle. No chivalry could survive close +experience of the vile and bestial cruelty of German methods. The sad +and squalid aspects of a war of resistance, fought in the very +bleeding flesh of the beloved mother-country, were bound to be fatal +to "cette bonne humeur bienfaisante" which so marvellously +characterized the young French officers of August 1914. Moreover, the +mere physical element of fatigue has been enough to quench that first +radiant flame. We find it deadening, at last, even the high spirit of +Paul Lintier, and we listen to his confession: "To sleep! to sleep! O +to live without a thought, in absolute silence. To live, after having +so often nearly died. I could sleep for days, and days, and days!" + +These are considerations which belong to a heavier and a wearier time. +As a matter of history--so that in our hurrying times a gesture of so +much beauty may not, because it was so ephemeral, be forgotten--I have +endeavoured to catch a reflection of the glow which blazed in the +hearts of young intellectual officers at the very beginning of the +war. If in the inevitable wear and tear of the interminable struggle, +this beauty fades into the light of common day, so much the more is +there need that we should fix it in memory, since in a world which +savagery and treason have made so hideous, we cannot afford to let +this jewel of pure moral beauty be trampled into oblivion. + + _breve et irreparabile tempus + Omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere facti + Hoc virtutis opus._ + + + + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + +The writings of La Rochefoucauld were subjected to accurate and +detailed examination in the edition begun by Gilbert in 1868, and +brought to a pause at his untimely death in 1870. It was completed in +1883 by J. Gourdault. After the lapse of half a century, the short +biography by Gilbert, with which this edition began, naturally +requires some revision, and is open to several additions. An earlier +volume (1863), by E. de Barthélemy, is of a more technical character, +but may be referred to with advantage by those curious regarding +detail. The MSS of Rochefoucauld still in existence--one of these, +known as the Liancourt MS., is in the Duke's handwriting--are +numerous, and may still, no doubt, reward investigation. The best +recent summary is that by J. Bourdeau (1895), published in M. +Jusserand's charming series. There is not, so far as I am aware, any +English biography of the author of the "Maximes." + +The complete works of La Bruyère were elaborately edited in three +volumes (1865-1878) by G. Servois. Much curious information is to be +found in Allaire's "La Bruyère dans la Maison de Condé" (1887), and an +excellent summary in the Life by M Paul Morillot, 1904. But the latest +and fullest account of La Bruyère's career is to be found in M. Emile +Magne's Preface to the selected works (1914). Editions of "Les +Caractères" are countless. + +The writings of Vauvenargues were collected by the Marquis de Portia +in 1797, by Suard in 1806, by Brière in 1821, by Gilbert in 1857, and +again in 1874; each of these editions added considerably to knowledge. +The only recent Life is that by M Maurice Paléologue (1890). + +The principal volumes referred to in "The Gallantry of France" are the + following:-- + +"Ma Pièce" Souvenir d'un canonnier de 1914. Par Paul Lintier. Paris: + Librairie Plon, 1916. + +"Anthologie des Écrivains français morts pour la Patrie." Par Carlos + Larronde. Préface de Maurice Barrès. I-IV. Paris: Larousse. 1916-1917 + +"La Jeunesse Nouvelle." Par Henri Bordeaux. Paris: Librairie Plon + 1917. + +"En Campagne" (1914-1915). Impression d'un officier de Légère. Par + Marcel Dupont. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1916. + +"Ma Campagne de jour de jour." Par le Capitaine Hassler. Paris: + Librairie Plon. 1917. + + + + + INDEX + + +Academy, French, 91 + +Addison, at Blois, 87,88 + +----compared with La Bruyère, 87 + +d'Ailly, Abbé, 22 + +Aix in Provence, 100 + +Alençon, 155 + +Allard, Jean, 136-138 + +Alsace, 162 + +Alsace-Lorraine, 132 + +Amelot, 118 + +Amyot, Jacques, 99 + +Anne of Austria, 11, 13 + +Anne of England, 88 + +Apemantus, 6 + +Argonne, the, 157 + +d'Argonne, Bonaventure, 61 _n_. + +Arnauld (d'Andilly), 22 + +Augustine, St., 43 + + +Barbier, Auguste, 150 + +Barrès, M. Maurice, xiii, xv, 153 + +Belgium, 146 + +Bellay, Joachim du, 148 + +Belle-Isle, Marshal de, 106-107 + +Belmont, the brothers, 140, 161, 162 + +Berkeley, Bishop, 125 + +Besnard, H A., 155 + +Blair's "Grave," 110 + +"Blue Room," the, 8 + +Bohemia, the campaign in, 98, 107, 109, 112 + +Bohemia, Queen of, 33 + +Boileau, xix, 47, 70, 82 + +Bordeaux, M Henri, 139, 157, 162 + +Bossuet, Antoine, 92 + +Bossuet (Bishop),35, 44, 47, 61, 62, 76, 91, 101 _n_. 110, 116 + +Bouillon, Godefroi de, 58 + +Bourbon, Duc de, 61 + +Brillon, 55 + +Brooke, Rupert, 131, 164 + +Brunetière, Ferdinand, 32 _n_. + +Buckingham, Duke of, 11 + +Budgell, Eustace, 88 + +Burney, Fanny, 62 + +Bussy-Rabutin, 45, 70 + + +Caen, 59, 60, 64 + +Calvin, 106 + +Casaubon, 70 + +"Chambre des Sublimes," 47 + +Champagne, 139 + +"Chanson de Roland," 132, 135 + +Chateaubriand, 153 + +Châtelet, Mme du, 112 + +Chevreuse, Mme de, 14 + +Choudens, Jacques de, 164-6 + +Clapiers, Luc de, 99 _see_ Vauvenargues + +Coleridge, his "Table-Talk," 29 + +Commune, the, 121 _n_. + +Condé, Prince de (the Grand Condé), 19, 61, 63, 64 + +Consenvoye, 152 + +Conti, Prince de, 14 + +Corneille, Pierre, 123, 124, his "Pulchérie," 48 + +Cousin, Victor, 32 + +Cromwell, Oliver, 129 + + +Decourcelle, M. Pierre, 138 + +Descartes, 33, 122, 125 + +Détanger, Capt E J., 151, 152 + +Drouet, Marcel, 151-154 + +Dupont, Marcel, his "En Campagne," 143 + +Duryer, his tragedy of "Alcyonée," 18 + +Dyke, Daniel, his "Mystery of Self-deceiving," 28 + + +Egra, 107 + +d'Enghien, Henri Jules, Duc, 63 + +Esprit, Jacques, 30-32, 50 _n_ + + +Fénelon, 35, 91, 101 _n_. + +Fontenelle, 61, 69 _n_.; described as "Cydias", 68 + +Fresnes, Château de, 36 + +Fronde, the, 13, 20, 24 + +Fuller, Thomas, 28, 74 + + +Gilbert, 109 + +Gourville, 18 + +Grenfell, Julian, 131, 164 + +Grenoble, 162, 163 + +Grignan, Mme de, 39 _n_, 48 + +Guastalla, victory at, 102 + +Guienne, 15 + +Guillot, Léon, xv + +Guyon, Mme, 91 + + +Haldane, Lord, quoted, 149, 174 + +Halifax, Earl of, 77, 78 + +Haraucourt, M.E., 141 + +Hassler, Capt, his "Ma Campagne", 166 + +d'Hautefort, Mlle, 11 + +Helvétius, 42 + +Hobbes, his "Leviathan," 33, 34 + +Huet, Bishop of Avranches, 37 + + +Jansenists, 27, 33, 127 + +Jeandelincourt, 141 + +Jesuits, 33 + +Johnson, Dr., 88 + +Jouy, Ernest, 28 + + +Kipling, Rudyard, 152, quoted, 90 + +Konrad, the monk, 135-6 + + +La Bruyère, 55-93; birth and parentage, 58; La Bruyère at Chantilly, + 64; contrasted with La Rochefoucauld, 57, described as "Ménippe," + 65, in the House of Condé, 65, 90, at Fontainebleau, 64, Paris, 64; + at Versailles, 64; his "Caractères," 55-57; 66-72, 76, 78, 83, his + "Dialogues," 92 + +La Bruyère, Louis, 58 + +La Fayette, Mme de, 36, 37, 39, 45, 46, 48-50 + +La Fontaine, 47; "Fables" of, 49 _n_ + +Lagrange, Henri, xiv + +Lamb, Charles, 58 + +Lantil, Léo, 139 + +La Rochefoucauld, Duc de, 3-52, birth and descent, 8, 9; marriage, + 10; his "Letters," his "Maximes," xvi, 4-6, 33,47, 51, 52, 57, his + "Mémoires," 9-17, 21, 23-25; his portrait by himself, 22-25 by + Petitot, 19, by Cardinal de Retz, 17 + +Lauzun, Duc de, 80 + +La Vergne, Marie de, _see_ La Fayette, Mme de + +Lille, 164 + +Lintier, Paul, 3, 4, 131, 140-149, 163, 169 + +Lister, Charles, 164 + +Locke, John, 74, 124, 126 + +Longeville-les-Metz, 147 + +Longueville, Mme de, 14, 18, 39 40 _n_ + +Lorraine, 146 + +Loti, Pierre, 152 + +Louis XIII, 8, 9, 13, 14 + +Louis XIV., 84 + +Louis XV, 84, 117, 123 + +Luxembourg (Palace), 23, 64 + +Lyons, 141, 155 + + +Mademoiselle, La Grande, 17, 23 + +Maeterlinck, M., 160 + +Magne, M., Emile, 63 + +Mahon, Col Patrice, 151 + +Maine, Duc du, 46,47 + +Maine, Duchesse du, 116 + +Maintenon, Mme de, 46 + +Malebranche, 122 + +Malizian, 70 + +Manceau, Col. Emile, 149 + +Mandeville, Bernard, 42, 126 + +Marcillac, Prince de, 11, 12, 47, _see_ La Rochefoucauld + +Mirabeau, Marquis de, 100, 103-105 + +Molière, 48 + + +Nolly, Émile; _see_ Détanger + + +Paléologue, M., 105, 169 + +Paris, Gaston, 135 + +Parma, French victory at, 102 + +Pascal, xviii, 22, 23, 32, 33, 35, 55, 81, 113, 115, 122, 127, 128 + +Péguy, 146 + +Petitot, 19 + +Phélippeaux, Abbé, 87, 88 + +Picq, Col. Ardent du 147, 148 + +Pierrepont, 136 + +Pin, Abbé Elliès du, 92 + +Plessis, Mme du, 36 + +Plutarch's "Lives," 99, 100 + +Pompadour, Mme de, 114 + +Port Royal, 22, 23, 27, 28, 36, 86 + +Prague, capture of, 107 + + +Quercy, 155 + +Quimper,157, 158 + + +Racine, xix, 35, 47, 122, 123 + +Rambouillet, Hôtel de, 7 + +Regnier, Henri, 20 + +Retz, Cardinal de, 10, 16, 17 + +_Revue Critique_, 150 + +Rhine, Passage of the, 40 _n_. + +Richelieu, 10-12, 14 + +Roë, Art, _see_ Mahon + +Rousseau, J.J., 38 + +Ruffec, 19 + + +Sablé, Mme de, 4, 5, 21, 23, 29, 31, 32. 36, 41 _n_. + +Saint-Antoine, Faubourg, 18 + +Saint-Cyr, 137 + +Saint-Simon, quoted, 79, 91 + +Schomberg, Duchesse de, 7 + +Scudery, Mlle de, 39, 45 + +Sedan, 153 + +Segrais, 35, 50 _n_ + +Séguier (Chancellor), 30 + +Seneca, 43 + +Seven Years War, 106 + +Sévigné, Mme de, 34, 39 _n_, 40 _n_, 45 _n_, quoted, 48-50 + +Seyres, Hippolyte de, 107-110 + +Shaftesbury, Third Earl, 126 + +Shakespeare, quoted, 6, 30 + +Singlin, Antoine, 22 + +Société des Gens de Lettres, 138 + +_Spectator_, the, 88, 89 + +Spinoza, 33 + +Steele, Sir Richard, 89 + +Stephen, Sir Leslie, 34 + +Stevenson, R.L., 78, 101, 165 + +Suard, 99, 121 + +Sully, 129 + + +Tailly-sur-Meuse, 143, 148 + +Tallemont des Réaux, 22 + +Temple, Sir William, 118, 126 + +Theophrastus, 69-71, 88 + +Thiange, Mme de, 46, 47 + +Torquet, M. Charles, 165 + +Turin, 102 + + +Valincourt, 64 + +Vauban, Sebastien de, 84 _n_. + +Vauvenargues, Marquis de, 97-132; birth and parentage, 99-101; + described as "Clazomène," 121; serves in the Bohemian campaign, 98, + 107, 109, 112, in garrison at Arras, 113; in garrison at Metz, 106, + 113, in Paris, 120, with Villars in Lombardy, 102; his "Éloge" on De + Seyres, 109, his "Discours sur la Gloire," 109, his "Introduction à + la Connaissance de l'Esprit humain," 124, his "Réflexions sur divers + Sujets," 104, 117, 121, 127 + +Verdun, 144 + +Vernulius, 28 + +Verteuil, 19, 20, 48 + +Vigneul de Marville, 60, 61 _n_. + +Villars, Marshal de, 102, 129 + +Violand, Camille, 151, 155-160 + +Virton, Battle of, 144, 157 + +Vivonne, Andrée de, 10 + +Voiture, 8 + +Voltaire, 40, 84, 101 _n_, 111-114, quoted, 33, 52, 75, 122, 123 + +Vouziers, 155 + + +Young's "Night-Thoughts," 110 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three French Moralists and The +Gallantry of France, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE FRENCH MORALISTS *** + +***** This file should be named 19872-8.txt or 19872-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/7/19872/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Don Perry and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/19872-8.zip b/19872-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7fdb3bf --- /dev/null +++ b/19872-8.zip diff --git a/19872.txt b/19872.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..136da8b --- /dev/null +++ b/19872.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5081 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of +France, by Edmund Gosse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France + +Author: Edmund Gosse + +Release Date: November 19, 2006 [EBook #19872] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE FRENCH MORALISTS *** + + + + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Don Perry and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + + + + + + THREE FRENCH + MORALISTS + AND THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE + + + BY + + EDMUND GOSSE, C.B. + + OFFICIER DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR + + + LONDON + WILLIAM HEINEMANN + + +TO + +LORD RIBBLESDALE + +_This little book, long the subject of my meditation, suddenly began +to take shape one Sunday morning when I was your guest at Gisburne. We +were actually starting for church, and the car was at the door, when I +announced to you that the spirit moved me to stay behind. "Very well, +then," you said, with your habitual good-nature, "we leave you to your +folios." My "folios" were the three volumes of one of the smallest of +books, the 18mo edition of Vauvenargues published by Plon in 1874. In +the midst of a violent thunderstorm, which was like a declaration of +war upon your golden Yorkshire summer, I wrote my first pages, and you +were so sceptical, when you came back, as to my having done anything +but watch the lightning, that I told you you would have to endure the +responsibility of being sponsor to a work thus suddenly begun in all +the agitation of the elements. So, such as time has proved it, here it +is._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + +THREE FRENCH MORALISTS-- + + LA ROCHEFOUCAULD + + LA BRUYERE + + VAUVENARGUES + +THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE + +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + + + + INTRODUCTION + +The object of these essays is to trace back to its source, or to some +of its sources--for the soul of France is far too complex to be +measured by one system--the spirit of gallantry which inspired the +young French officers at the beginning of the war. We cannot examine +too minutely, or with too reverent an enthusiasm, the effort of our +great ally, and in this theme for our admiration there are many +strains, some of which present themselves in apparent opposition to +one another. The war has now lasted so long, and has so completely +altered its character, that what was true of the temper of the +soldiers of France in November 1914 is no longer true in April 1918. +Confidence and determination are still there, there is no diminution +in domestic intensity or in patriotic fervour, but the long +continuance of the struggle has modified the temper of the French +officer, and it will probably never be again what it was in the stress +and tempest of sacrifice three years and a half ago, when the young +French soldiers, flushed with the idealisms which they had imbibed at +St. Cyr, rushed to battle like paladins, "with a pure heart," in the +rapture of chivalry and duty. + +All that has long been wearied out, and might even be forgotten, if +the letters and journals of a great cloud of witnesses were not +fortunately extant. The record kept by the friends of Paul Lintier and +those others whom I am presently to mention, and by innumerable +persons to whose memory justice cannot here be done, will keep fresh +in the history of France the idealism of a splendid generation. Now we +see, and for a long time past have seen, a different attitude on the +fields of Champagne and Picardy. There is no feather worn now in the +cap, no white gloves grasp the sword; the Saint Cyrian elegance is +over and done with. There is no longer any declamation, any emphasis, +any attaching of importance to "form" or rhetoric. The fervour and the +emotion are there still, but they are kept in reserve, they are below +the surface, "at the bottom of the heart," as La Rochefoucauld puts +it. + +Heroism is now restrained by a sense of the prodigious length and +breadth of the contest, by the fact, at last patent to the most +unthinking, that the war is an octopus which has wound its tentacles +about every limb and every organ of the vitality of France. A +revelation of the overwhelming violence of enormous masses of men has +broken down the tradition of chivalry. War is now accepted with a sort +of indifference, as a part of the day's work; "pas de grands mots, pas +de grands gestes, pas de drame!" The imperturbable French officer of +1918 attaches no particular importance to his individual gesture. He +concentrates his energy in another kind of action. + +But the French race is by nature bellicose and amorous of adventure, +and more than all other nations has a tendency to clothe its +patrimonial ardour of defence in beautiful terms and gallant +attitudes. This is one of the points on which the British race, with +its scrupulous reserve, often almost its affectation of +self-depreciating shyness, differs most widely from the French, and is +most in need of sympathetic imagination in dealing with a noble ally +whose methods are not necessarily the same as ours. It is difficult to +fancy a young English lieutenant quoting with rapturous approval, as +Pierre de Rozieres and Henri Lagrange did in August 1914, the counsels +which were given more than a hundred years ago by the Prince de Ligne: +"Let your brain swim with enthusiasm! Let honour electrify your heart! +Let the holy flame of victory shine in your eyes! as you hoist the +glorious ensigns of renown let your souls be in like measure +uplifted!" A perpetual delirium or intoxication is the state of mind +which is recommended by this "heart of fire," as the only one becoming +in a French officer who has taken up arms to defend his country. + +For the young men who consciously adopted the maxims of the Prince de +Ligne as their guide at the opening of this war, M. Maurice Barres has +found the name of "Traditionalists." They are those who followed the +tradition of the soldierly spirit of France in its three main lines, +in its individualism, in its intelligence, in its enthusiasm. They +endeavoured, in those first months of agony and hope, to model their +conduct on the formulas which their ancestors, the great moralists of +the past, had laid down for them. Henri Lagrange, who fell at +Montereau in October 1915, at the age of twenty, was a type of +hundreds of others. This is how his temper of mind, as a soldier, is +described by his friend Maxime Brienne:-- + +"The confidence of Lagrange was no less extraordinary than was his +spirit of sacrifice. He possessed the superhuman severity which comes +from being wholly consecrated to duty.... With a magnificent +combination of logic and of violence, with a resolution to which his +unusually lucid intelligence added a sort of methodical vehemence, he +expressed his conviction that resolute sacrifice was necessary if the +result was to be a definite success.... He declared that a soldier +who, by force of mind and a sentiment of honour and patriotism, was +able to conquer the instinct of fear, should not merely "fulfil" his +military duty with firmness, but should hurl himself on death, because +it was only at that price that success could be obtained over a +numerical majority." + +This is a revelation of that individualism which is characteristic of +the trained French character, a quality which, though partly obscured +by the turn the great struggle has taken, will undoubtedly survive and +ultimately reappear. It is derived from the admonitions of a series of +moral teachers, and in the wonderful letters which M. Maurice Barres +has brought together with no less tact than passion in his series of +volumes issued under the general title of "L'Ame Francaise et la +Guerre," we have an opportunity of studying it in a great variety of +situations. This is but a portion, and it may be but a small portion, +of the multiform energy of France, and it is capable, of course, of +being subjected to criticism. That, in fact, it has had to endure, but +it is no part of my business here, nor, if I may venture to say so, is +it the business of any Englishman to criticise at any time, except in +pathetic admiration, an attitude so beautiful, and marked in its +self-sacrifice by so delicate an effusion of scrupulous good taste. We +are in presence of a field of those fluttering tricolor flags which +fill the eyes of a wanderer over the battle-centres of the Marne with +a passion of tears. We are in presence of the memorials of a chivalry +that did not count the price, but died "joyfully" for France.[1] + + [Footnote 1: The poet Leon Guillot, in dying, bid his + comrades describe him to his father and mother as "tombe au + champ d'honneur et mort _joyeusement_ pour son pays."--"Les + Diverses Familles Spirituelles de la France," pp. 178, 179.] + +There is not much advantage in searching for the germs of all this +exalted sentiment earlier than the middle of the seventeenth century. +The malady of the Fronde was serious precisely because it revealed the +complete absence, in the nobles, in the clergy, in the common people, +of patriotic conviction of any kind. Cardinal's men and +anti-cardinalists, Mazarin and Monsieur, Conde and Plessis-Praslin,--we +follow the bewildering turns of their fortune and the senseless +evolution of their mercenaries, without being able to trace any moral +line of conduct, any ethical aim on the part of the one or the other. +It was anarchy for the sheer fun of anarchy's sake, a struggle which +pervaded the nation without ever contriving to be national, a riot of +forces directed by no intellectual or ethical purpose whatever. The +delirium of it all reached a culminating point in 1652 when the +aristocratic bolshevists of Conde's army routed the victorious king +and cardinal at the Faubourg St. Antoine. This was the consummation of +tragical absurdity; what might pass muster for political reason had +turned inside out; and when Mazarin fled to Sedan he left behind him a +France which was morally, religiously, intellectually, a sucked +orange. + +Out of the empty welter of the Fronde there grew with surprising +rapidity the conception of a central and united polity of France which +has gone on advancing and developing, and, in spite of outrageous +revolutionary earthquakes, persisting ever since. We find La +Rochefoucauld, as a moral teacher, with his sardonic smile, actually +escaping out of the senseless conflict, and starting, with the +stigmata of the scuffle still on his body, a surprising new theory +that the things of the soul alone matter, and that love of honour is +the first of the moral virtues. We see him, the cynic and sensual +brawler of 1640, turned within a few years into a model of regularity, +the anarchist changed into a serious citizen with a logical scheme of +conduct, the atheistical swashbuckler become the companion of saints +and pitching his tent under the shadow of Port Royal. More than do the +purely religious teachers, he marks the rapid crystallization of +society in Paris, and the opening of a new age of reflection, of +polish and of philosophical experiment. Moral psychology, a science in +which Frenchmen have ever since delighted, seems to begin with the +stern analysis of _amour-propre_ in the "Maximes." + +It is obvious that my choice of three moral maxim-writers to exemplify +the sources of modern French sentiment must be in some measure an +arbitrary one. The moralists of the end of the seventeenth century in +France are legion, and I would not have it supposed that I am not +aware of the relative importance of some of them. But although La +Rochefoucauld and La Bruyere were not the inventors of their +respective methods of writing, nor positively isolated in their +treatment of social themes, I do not think it is claiming too much for +them to say that in the crowd of smaller figures they stand out large, +and with each generation larger, in any survey of their century. In +their own day, Cureau de la Chambre, Coeffeteau and Senault were +considered the first of moral philosophers, but there must be few who +turn over the pages of the "Usages des Passions" now, whereas the +"Caracteres" enjoys a perpetual popularity. + +The writers whom I have just named are dead, at least I presume so, +for I must not profess to have done more than touch their +winding-sheets in the course of my private reading. But there are two +moralists of the period who remain alive, and one of whom burns with +an incomparable vivacity of life. If I am asked why Pascal and Nicole +have not been chosen among my types, I can only answer that Pascal, +unlike my select three, has been studied so abundantly in England that +by nothing short of an exhaustive monograph can an English critic now +hope to add much to public apprehension of his qualities. The case of +Nicole is different. Excessively read in France, particularly during +the eighteenth century, and active always in influencing the national +conscience--since the actual circulation of the "Essais de Morale" is +said to have far exceeded that of the "Pensees" of Pascal--Nicole has +never, in the accepted phrase, "contrived to cross the Channel," and +he is scarcely known in England. Books and their writers have these +fates. Mme de Sevigne was so much in love with the works of Nicole, +that she expressed a wish to make "a soup of them and swallow it"; but +I leave her to the enjoyment of the dainty dish. As theologians, too, +both Pascal and Nicole stand somewhat outside my circle. + +The three whom I have chosen stand out among the other moralists of +France by their adoption of the maxim as their mode of instruction. +When La Bruyere, distracted with misgivings about his "Caracteres," +had made up his mind to get an introduction to Boileau, and to ask the +advice of that mighty censor, Boileau wrote to Racine (May 19, 1687), +"Maximilian has been out to Auteuil to see me and has read me parts of +his Theophrastus." Nicknames were the order of the day, and the critic +called his new friend "Maximilian," although his real name was Jean, +because he wrote "Maximes." There is no other country than France +where the maker of maxims has stamped a deep and permanent impression +upon the conscience and the moral habits of the nation. But this has +been done by La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyere, Vauvenargues, whom, did it +not sound frivolous, we might style the three great Maximilians. + +The three portraits were first exhibited as a course of lectures at +the Royal Institution in February of this year. They have been revised +and considerably enlarged. For the English of the passages translated +or paraphrased I am in every case responsible. The chapter on "The +Gallantry of France" appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_, and I thank +the editor and publisher of that periodical for their courteous +permission to include it here. + +_April 1918_. + + + + + LA ROCHEFOUCAULD + + +One of the most gifted of the young officers who gave their lives for +France at the beginning of the war, Quartermaster Paul Lintier, in the +admirable notes which he wrote on his knee at intervals during the +battle of the Meuse in August 1914, said-- + +"The imperative instinct for making the best you can of life, the +sentiment of duty, and anxiety for the good opinion of others, in a +word _honour_--these are the main educators of the soldier under fire. +This is not a discovery, it is simply a personal statement." + +Taken almost at random from the records of the war, this utterance may +serve us as well as any other to distinguish the attitude of the +Frenchman in the face of violent and critical action from the equally +brave and effective attitude of other races. He has the habit, not +common elsewhere, of analyzing conduct and of stripping off from the +contemplation of it those voluntary illusions which drop a curtain +between it and truth. + +The result of this habit of ruthless criticism is to concentrate the +Frenchman's attention, even to excess, on the motives of conduct, and +to bring him more and more inevitably to regard self-love, +self-preservation, personal vanity in its various forms, as the source +of all our apparent virtues. Even when we appear to be most +disinterested, even when we are most clearly actuated by unselfish +devotion, by _honour_, we are really the prey, as Lintier saw it, of +the wish to save our lives and to preserve the good opinion of others. +Underneath the transports of patriotism, underneath the sincerity of +religious fervour, the Frenchman digs down and finds _amour-propre_ at +the root of everything. + +This attitude or habit of mind is particularly shocking to all those +who live in a state of illusion, and there is probably no aspect of +French character which is more difficult for the average Englishman to +appreciate than this tendency towards sceptical dissection of the +motives of conduct. Yet it is quite certain that it is widely +disseminated among those of our neighbours who are most prompt and +effective in action, and whose vigour is in no degree paralysed by the +clairvoyance with which they seek for exact truth even in the most +romantic and illusive spiritual circumstances. To throw light on this +aspect of French character, I propose to call attention to a little +book, which is probably well-known to my readers already, but which +may be regarded from a point of view, as I venture to think, more +instructive than that which is usually chosen. + +In the year 1665 there appeared anonymously in Paris, in all the +circumstances of well-advertised secrecy, a thin volume of "Maximes," +which were understood to have exercised for years past the best +thoughts of a certain illustrious nobleman. Mme de Sable, who was not +foreign to the facts, immediately wrote a review, intended for the +_Journal des Scavants_, in the course of which she said that the new +book was "a treatise on movements of the human heart which may be said +to have remained until now unrecognized." The book, as every one +knows, was the work of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld, and the subject +of it was an unmasking of "the veritable condition of man." + +It would be idle not to admit that La Rochefoucauld has been almost +exclusively regarded as the chief exponent of egotism among the great +writers of Europe. He has become--he became during his own lifetime-- +the bye-word for bitterness. He is represented as believing that +egotism is the _primum mobile_ of all human action, and that man is +wholly the victim of his passions, which lead him whither they will. +He denies all spirituality and sees a physical cause for everything we +do. His own words are quoted against him. It is true that he says, +"All the passions are nothing but divers degrees of heat or cold in +the blood." It is true that he says, "All men naturally hate one +another," and again, "Our virtues are mostly vices in disguise." Yet +again, he defines the subject of his mordant volume in terms which +seem to exclude all bountiful theories concerning the disinterested +instincts of the human soul, for he says "_Amour-propre_ is the love +of one's self and of all things for one's self; it turns men into +their own idolators, and, if fortune gives them the opportunity, makes +them the tyrants of others.... It exists in all states of life and in +all conditions; it lives everywhere and it lives on everything; it +lives on nothing." He does not admit that Christianity itself is +immune from the ravages of this essential cankerworm, which adopts all +disguises and slips from one Protean shape into another. "The +refinements of self-love surpass those of chemistry," and the purpose +of La Rochefoucauld is to resolve all our virtues in a crucible and to +show that nothing remains but a poisonous deposit of egotism. + +No wonder that La Rochefoucauld has been generally regarded as a +scourge of the human race, a sterile critic of mankind without +sympathy or pity. It is true that his obstinate insistence on the +universality of egotism produces a depressing and sometimes a +fatiguing impression on the reader, who is apt to think of him as +Shakespeare's Apemantus, "that few things loves better than to abhor +himself." But when the First Lord goes on to add "He's opposite to +humanity," we feel that no phrase could less apply to La +Rochefoucauld. We have, therefore, immediately to revise our opinion +of this severe dissector of the human heart, and to endeavour to find +out what lay underneath the bitterness of his "Maximes." It is a +complete mistake to look upon La Rochefoucauld as a monster, or even +as a Timon. Without insisting, at all events for the moment, on the +plain effect of his career on his intellect, but yet accepting the +evidence that much of his bitterness was the result of bad health, +sense of failure, shyness, foiled ambition, we have to ask ourselves +what he gave to French thought in exchange for the illusions which he +so rudely tore away. In dealing with any savage moralist, we are +obliged to turn from the abstract question: Why did he say these +things? to the realistic one. What did he hope to effect by what he +said? Perhaps we can start no better on this inquiry than to quote the +Duchess of Schomberg's exclamation when she turned over the pages of +the first edition--namely that "this book contains a vast number of +truths which I should have remained ignorant of all my life if it had +not taught me to perceive them." This may be applied to French energy, +and we may begin to see what has been the active value of La +Rochefoucauld's apparently negative and repugnant aphorisms. + +The La Rochefoucauld whom we know belongs to a polite and modern age. +He is instinct with the spirit of society, "la bonne compagnie," as it +was called in the middle of the seventeenth century, when a crowd of +refined and well-trained pens competed to make of the delicate +language of France a vehicle which could transfer from brain to brain +the subtlest ingenuities of psychology. He is a typical specimen of the +Frenchman of letters at the moment when literature had become the ally +of political power and the instrument of social influence. Into this +new world, before it had completely developed, the future author of +the "Maximes" was introduced at a very early age. He was presented to +the wits and _precieuses_ of the Hotel Rambouillet at the age of +eighteen. It is amusing to think that he may have seen Voiture, in the +Blue Room, seize his lute and sing a Spanish song, or have volunteered +as a paladin in the train of Hector, King of Georgia. But the +pedantries and affectations of this wonderful society seem to have +made no immediate impression upon La Rochefoucauld, whose early years +were those of the young nobleman devoid of all apparent intellectual +curiosity. It is true that he says of himself that directly he came +back from Italy (this was in 1629, when he was only sixteen), "I began +to notice with some attention whatever I saw," but this was, no doubt, +external; he does not exhibit in his writings, and in all probability +did not feel, the slightest interest in the pedantic literature of the +end of Louis XIII.'s reign. He represented, through his youth, the +purely military and aristocratic element in the society of that age. +If he had died when he was thirty, or at the close of the career of +Richelieu, nothing would have distinguished him from the mob of +violent noblemen who made the streets of Paris a pandemonium. + +To understand the influence of La Rochefoucauld it is even more +needful than in most similar cases to form a clear idea of his +character, and this can only be obtained by an outline of his +remarkable career. Francois VI. Duke of La Rochefoucauld, as a typical +Parisian, was born in the ducal palace in the rue des Petits-Champs, +on September 15, 1613. The family was one of the most noble not merely +in France but in Europe, and we do not begin to understand the author +until we realize his excessive pride of birth. In a letter he wrote to +Cardinal Mazarin in 1648 he says, "I am in a position to prove that +for three hundred years the monarchs [of France] have not disdained to +treat us as members of their family." This arrogance of race inspired +the early part of his life to the exclusion, so far as we can +perceive, of any other stimulus to action. He was content to be the +violent and fantastic swashbuckler of the half-rebellious court of +Louis XIII. In late life, he crystallized his past into a maxim, +"Youth is a protracted intoxication; it is the fever of the soul." +Fighting and love-making, petty politics and scuffle upon +counter-scuffle--such was the life of the young French nobleman of whom +La Rochefoucauld reveals himself and is revealed by others as the type +and specimen. + +La Rochefoucauld is the author, not merely of the "Maximes," but of a +second book which is much less often read. This is his "Memoires," a +very intelligent and rather solemn contribution to the fragmentary +history of France in the seventeenth century. It is hardly necessary +to point out that not one of the numerous memoirs of this period must +be taken as covering the whole field of which they treat. Each book is +like a piece of a dissected map, or of a series of such maps cut to a +different scale. All are incomplete and most of them overlap, but they +make up, when carefully collated, an invaluable picture of the times. +No other country of Europe produced anything to compare with these +authentic fragments of the social and political history of France +under Richelieu and Mazarin. These Memoirs had a very remarkable +influence on the general literature of France. They turned out of +favour the chronicles of "illustrious lives," the pompous and false +travesties of history, which the sixteenth century had delighted in, +and in this way they served to prepare for the purification of French +taste. The note of the best of them was a happy sincerity even in +egotism, a simplicity even in describing the most monstrous and +grotesque events. Among this group of writers, Cardinal de Retz seems +to me to be beyond question the greatest, but La Rochefoucauld is not +to be despised in his capacity as the arranger of personal +recollections. + +We must not expect from these seventeenth-century autobiographers the +sort of details which we demand from memoir-writers to-day. La +Rochefoucauld, although he begins in the first person, has nothing +which he chooses to tell us about his own childhood and education. He +was married, at the age of fifteen, to a high-born lady, Andree de +Vivonne, but her he scarcely mentions. By the side of those glittering +amatory escapades of his on the grand scale, with which Europe rang, +he seems to have pursued a sober married existence, without +upbraidings from his own conscience, or curtain-lectures from his meek +duchess, who bore him eight children. La Rochefoucauld's "Memoires" +open abruptly with these words:--"I spent the last years of the +Cardinal's administration in indolence," and then he begins to +discourse on the audacities of the Duke of Buckingham (pleasingly +spelled Bouquinquant) and his attacks on the heart of the Queen of +France. We gather that although the English envoy can have had no +personal influence on the future moralist--since Buckingham was +murdered at Portsmouth in 1628, while La Rochefoucauld did not come to +court till 1630--yet the young Frenchman so immensely admired what he +heard of the Englishman, and so deliberately set himself to take him +as a model, that our own knowledge of Buckingham may be of help to us +in reproducing an impression of La Rochefoucauld, or rather of the +Prince de Marcillac, as he was styled until his father died. + +After describing the court as the youth of seventeen had found it, he +skips five years to tell us how the Queen asked him to run away with +her to Brussels in 1637. History has not known quite what to make of +this amazing story, of which La Rochefoucauld had the complacency to +write more than twenty years afterwards-- + +"However difficult and perilous this adventure might seem to me, I may +say that never in all my life have I enjoyed anything so much. I was +at an age (24) at which one loves to do extravagant and startling +things, and I felt that nothing could be more startling or more +extravagant than to snatch at the same time the Queen from the King +her husband, and from the Cardinal de Richelieu who was jealous, and +Mlle d'Hautefort from the King who was in love with her." + +He tells the story with inimitable gusto. But he tells it just as an +episode, and he hurries on to the death of Richelieu in 1642, as +though he were conscious that up to his thirtieth year his own life +had not been of much consequence. + +Even in that age of turbulent extravagance, the Prince of Marcillac +was known, where he was known at all, merely as a hare-brained youth +who carried the intolerance and insolence of amatory youth past the +confines of absurdity, and it is amusing to find Balzac, who was +twenty years his senior, and who was buried in the country, describing +him--surely by repute--as the type of-- + +"These gentlemen who chatter so much about the empire and about the +sovereignty of ladies, and have their heads so stuffed with tales and +strange adventures, that they grow to believe that they can do all +that was done under the reign of Amadis, and that the least of their +duties is to reply to a supplicating lady, I, who am only a man, how +should I resist the prayer of her to whom the Gods themselves can +refuse nothing?" + +We seem far from the sombre and mordant author of the "Maximes," but +a complete apprehension of the character of La Rochefoucauld requires +the story of his adventures to be at least briefly indicated. A chasm +divides his early from his late history, and this chasm is bridged +over in a very shadowy way by such records as we possess of his +retirement after the Fronde. + +Between the death of Richelieu and this retirement there lies a period +of ten years, during which the future author of the "Maximes" is +swallowed up in the hurly-burly of the worst moment in the whole +history of France. It is difficult from any point of view to form what +it would be mere waste of time for us to attempt in this connection, a +clear conception of the chaos into which that country was plunged by +the weakness of Anne of Austria and the criminality of Mazarin. The +senseless intrigues of the Fronde affect the bewildered student of +those times as though + + _this frame + Of Heav'n were falling and these elements + In mutiny had from her axle torn + The steadfast earth._ + +At first La Rochefoucauld seems to have meant to support the cause of +the court, expecting to be rewarded for what he had done, or been +prepared to do for the Queen. He says in his "Memoires" that after the +death of Louis XIII. the Queen-Mother "gave me many marks of +friendship and confidence; she assured me several times that her +honour was involved in my being pleased with her, and that nothing in +the kingdom was large enough to reward me for what I had done in her +service." That sounds very well, but what it really illustrates is the +extraordinary violence of aristocratic frivolity, the fierce levity +and insatiable frenzied vanity of the noble families. The aims of La +Rochefoucauld, in support of which he was ready to sacrifice his +country, were of a class that must seem to us now petty in the +extreme. He wanted the _tabouret_, the footstool, for his duchess, in +other words the right to be seated in presence of the members of the +royal family. He wanted the privilege of driving into the courtyard of +the Louvre without having to descend from his coach outside and walk +in. He demanded these honours because they were already possessed by +the families of Rohan and of Bouillon. It is extraordinary to consider +what powerful effects such trumpery causes could have, but it is a +fact that the desolating and cruel wars of the Fronde largely depended +upon jealousies of the _carrosse_ and the _tabouret_. La +Rochefoucauld's support of the rebellion frankly and openly was based +upon it. + +La Rochefoucauld brings the first part of his "Memoires" down to 1649. +In the second part he begins again with 1642, being very anxious to +show, to his own advantage of course, what the conditions were at +court after the deaths of Richelieu and Louis XIII., and in particular +to define the position of Mme de Chevreuse, the great intriguer and +seductress of the French politics of the age. The charm of this lady, +who was no longer young, faded before that of the Duchess of +Longueville, one of the most ambitious and most unscrupulous women who +ever lived. She was the sister of the Prince de Conti, and from the +time when her celebrated relations with La Rochefoucauld began, her +influence engaged him in all the unplumbed chaos which led to civil +war. When this finally broke out, however, in 1648, the Duke is found +once more on the side of the young king and his government, that is to +say, of Cardinal Mazarin. + +Through the "universal hubbub wide of stunning sounds and noises all +confused," we can catch with difficulty the accents of literature, at +first indeed vocal in the midst of the riot, and even stimulated by +it, as birds are by a heavy shower of rain, but soon stunned and +silenced by horrors incompatible with the labour of the Muses. The +wars of the Fronde made a sharp cut between the heroic age of +imaginative literature and the classical age which presently succeeded +it, and offer in this respect a tolerable parallel to the civil wars +raging in England about the same time. It is specious, but convenient, +to discover a date at which a change of this kind may be said to +occur. In England we have such a date marked large for us in 1660; +French letters less obviously but more certainly can be said to start +afresh in 1652. It is tolerably certain that in that year Pascal, Retz +and the subject of our inquiry simultaneously and independently began +to write. Up to that time there is no reason to believe that La +Rochefoucauld had given himself at all to study, and we possess no +evidence that up to the age of forty he was more interested in the +existence of the literature of his country than was the idlest of the +cut-throat nobility who swaggered in and out of the courtyard of the +Louvre. + +His "Memoires" end with an account of the war in Guienne in 1651 which +is more solemn and more detached than all the rest. No one would +suspect that the historian, who affects the gravity of a Tacitus, was +acting all through the events he describes with the levity of a +full-blooded and unscrupulous schoolboy. The most amazing instance of +this is his grotesque attempt to have Cardinal de Retz murdered at the +Palais de Justice. In the course of a sort of romping fray he caught +Retz's head between the flaps of a folding door, and shouted to +Coligny to come and stab him from behind. But he himself was shoved +away, and the Cardinal released. La Rochefoucauld admits the escapade, +without any sign of embarrassment, merely observing that Retz would +have done as much by him if he had only had the chance. But now comes +the incident which, better than anything else could, illustrates the +feverish and incongruous atmosphere of the Fronde, and the difficulty +of following the caprices of its leading figures. The very next day +after this attempt to assassinate Retz in a peculiarly disgraceful +way, La Rochefoucauld met the Cardinal driving through the streets of +Paris in his coach. Kneeling in the street, he demanded and received +the episcopal benediction of the man whom he had tried to murder in an +undignified scuffle a few hours before. No animosity seems to have +persisted between these two princes of the realm of France, and this +may be the moment to introduce the picture which Cardinal de Retz, +whose head was held in the folding door, painted very soon after of +the volatile duke who had held him there to be stabbed from behind. +Both writers began their memoirs in 1652, and no one has ever decided +which is the more elegant of the two unique conpositions. The +conjunction between two of the greatest prose-writers of France is +piquant, and we cannot trace in Retz's sketch of his antagonist the +smallest sign of resentment. It was not published until 1717, but it +has all the appearance of having been written sixty years earlier, at +least, when Mademoiselle was seized with the fortunate inspiration of +having "portraits" written of, and often by, the celebrated personages +of the day. This, then, is how Retz saw La Rochefoucauld-- + +"There has always been a certain _je ne sais quoi_ in M. de La +Rochefoucauld. He has always ever since his childhood wanted to be +taking part in some plot, and that at a time when he was indifferent +to small interests, which have never been his weakness, and when he +had no experience of great ones, which, in another sense, have never +been his strong point. He has never had any skill in conducting +business, and I don't know why; for he possessed qualities which in +any other man would have made up for those which he lacked. He was not +longsighted enough, and he did not see as a whole even what was within +his range of vision. But his good sense--which in the field of +speculation was very good--joined to his gentleness, his insinuating +charm, and his admirable ease of manner, ought to have compensated, +more than they have done, for his defect of penetration. He has always +suffered from an habitual irresoluteness; but I do not know to what +this irresoluteness should be attributed. He has never been a warrior, +though very much a soldier. He has never, through his own effort, +succeeded in being a good courtier, though he has always intended to +be one. That air of bashfulness and of shyness which you observe in +him in social life has given him in matters of business an apologetic +air. He has always fancied that he needed to apologize; and this--in +conjunction with his 'Maximes,' which do not err on the side of too +much faith in virtue, and with his practice, which has always been to +wind up business as impatiently as he started it--makes me conclude +that he would have done much better to know himself, and to be content +to pass, as he might well have passed, for the most polished courtier +and the finest gentleman, in private life, which this age has +produced." + +We are now beginning to see the real author of the "Maximes," when, at +the age of forty, he begins to peep forth from the travesty of his +aristocratic violence and idleness. Whether the transformation would +have been gradual instead of sudden is what can never be decided, but +we date it from July 2, 1652, when he was dangerously wounded in a +riot in the Faubourg St. Antoine, at the Picpus barricade, where he +was shot in the forehead and, as it at first appeared, blinded for +life. According to the faithful Gourville, when La Rochefoucauld +thought he would lose his eyesight, he had a picture of Madame de +Longueville engraved with two lines under it from a fashionable +tragedy, the "Alcyonee" of Duryer-- + + _That I might hold her heart and please her lovely eyes + I made my war on kings and would have fought the skies._ + +With this piece of rodomontade the old Rochefoucauld ceases and makes +place for the author of the "Maximes." When he recovered from his +wound, his spirit of adventure was broken. He submitted to the +cardinal, he withdrew from Conde, and in 1653, still his head bound +with bandages and wearing black spectacles to hide those clear and +seductive eyes which Petitot had painted, he crept, a broken man, to +his country house at Verteuil, in the neighbourhood of Ruffec, now in +the Charente. This chateau, built just two hundred years before that +date, still exists, a noble relic of feudal France, and a place of +pilgrimage for lovers of the author of the "Maximes." + +No one was ever more suddenly and more completely cured of a whole +system of existence than was La Rochefoucauld by the wound which was +so nearly fatal. He said, "It is impossible for any man who has +escaped from civil war to plunge into it again." For him, at all +events, it was impossible. His only wish in 1653 was to bury himself +and his slow convalescence among his woods at Verteuil. In this +enforced seclusion, at the age of forty, he turned for solace to +literature, which he would seem to have neglected hitherto. We know +nothing of his education, which had probably been as primitive as that +of any pleasure-seeking and imperious young nobleman of the time. He +went to the wars when he was thirteen. In an undated letter he says +that he sends some Latin verses composed by a friend for the judgment +of his unnamed correspondent, but he adds, "I do not know enough Latin +to dare to give an opinion." M. Henri Regnier, in his invaluable +"Lexique de la langue de La Rochefoucauld" (1883) points out that the +Duke's evident lack of classical knowledge is a positive advantage to +him, as it throws him entirely on the resources of pure French. In +like manner we may rejoice that Shakespeare had "little Latin and less +Greek." + +It is tantalizing for us that we know almost nothing of the years, +from 1653 to 1656, which La Rochefoucauld spent in severe retirement +at Verteuil. What was happening to France was happening, no doubt, in +its degree to him; he was chewing the cud of remorse for the follies +and crimes of the Fronde. "Only great men should have great failings," +the exile wrote, and we may be sure that he had by this time +discovered, like the rest of the world, that as a swashbuckler and +intriguer he was noisy and petulant, but on the whole anything but +great. The Fronde left behind it a sense of littleness, of +poverty-stricken humanity, and this particular frondeur had seen the +mask drop from the features of his fellow-men. Now, in the quiet of the +country, in disgrace with fortune and his own conscience, he grasped a +new and this time a dignified and suitable ambition. He began to study +reality and learned to distinguish truth from pretence. This study was +to make him one of the most eminent of French authors and a great power +in the purification of French intelligence. He began, doubtless, his +career as an author by composing the "Memoires," in which he embodied +his exasperations and his recriminations in language of studied +dignity. There is little here which betrays the future moralist, except +the simplicity and almost colourless transparency of the style. + +As containing nearly the sole certain evidence of La Rochefoucauld's +state of mind at the time of transition, it is well, perhaps, to speak +at this moment of his letters, which were first brought together in +1881. They extend from 1637 to 1677, and the biographer pores over +them in the hope of extracting from them some crumbs of information. +But to the general reader they cannot be recommended. They are seldom +confidential, the writer never lets himself go. Even to his later +friends, such as Mme de Sable, La Rochefoucauld is rarely familiar, +and the impression of himself in these graceful and sometimes vigorous +epistles is illusive; the writer seems for ever on his guard. The +great mass of this correspondence, in which politics takes no part +after 1653, is singularly literary; it is mainly occupied with the +interests, and almost with the jargon, of the professional author. We +are told that his affectation in society was to appear cold and +unmoved, and this he certainly contrived to do in those of his letters +which have been preserved. + +La Rochefoucauld told Mme de Sable that he depended on her for his +knowledge of the inmost windings of the human heart. When he returned +to Paris, this lady was approaching the age of sixty. Her _salon_ +competed with that of the Hotel de Rambouillet and that of Mlle de +Montpensier at the Luxembourg. The Marquise de Sable had been gay in +her youth, but when her young lover, Armentieres, was killed in a +duel, she turned devout. She also turned hypochondriacal and literary. +According to Tallemont des Reaux, who has left a portrait of her which +is equally ill-natured and entertaining, she built herself a house +adjoining the choir of the church of Port Royal, in the Faubourg St. +Jacques. Her friend, the Abbe d'Ailly, who edited her works after her +death in 1678, admits that she was "one of the greatest visionaries in +the world on the chapter of death." She herself expressed her +hypochondria otherwise: "I fear death more than other people do, +because no one has ever formed so clear a conception of nothingness as +I have." Ludicrous stories were told of her excessive fear of illness, +and in her fits of alarm she found comfort from the ministrations of +Antoine Singlin, who was the director of Pascal's conscience.[2] She +became intimate with Arnauld d'Andilly, and with the rest of those +Jansenist authors of whom Racine said that their works were "the +admiration of scholars and the consolation of all pious persons." But +she seems to have had the cleverness to observe that in one respect +the literature of Port Royal, as it expressed itself before "Les +Provinciales," had the fault of being verbose and redundant. Mme. de +Sable deserves more merit than seems to have been given to her for her +fervent cultivation of precise language. + + [Footnote 2: It was of Singlin that Pascal wrote in 1654, + "Soumission total a J.C. et a mon directeur."] + +As La Rochefoucauld's correspondence throws little light on the +character and person of its author at the time of his intellectual and +moral conversion, we turn with satisfaction to a document which owes +its existence to a social amusement, almost to a "parlour game." We +have seen that La Grande Mademoiselle, anxious to amuse the friends +whom she gathered round her in her _salon_ at the Luxembourg, hit upon +the notion of inducing her guests to produce written portraits of +themselves. You might say all the good of yourself you liked, on the +understanding that you put in the shades as well. The collection of +these self-portraits was actually printed in 1659, and is a work of +great value and interest to biographer and historian. It marks a new +movement of French intelligence, a critical excursion into psychology +not hitherto attempted in France, and some of the portraits are +marvellously delicate in their conscientious precision. Here, however, +we are not concerned with more than one of them, that which is signed +with the initials of the Duke of La Rochefoucauld. It is his only +important composition produced between the "Memoires" and the +"Maximes," and it is charmingly written, a portrait drawn in tones of +rose-colour and dove-grey, like the pastel-portraits of a century +later. + +He begins by describing his physical appearance, but passes soon to +the moral and social qualities. It would be interesting to quote the +whole of this portrait, but we must confine ourselves to some brief +quotations. How far we seem from the beasts of prey which ranged the +forests of the Fronde, or tore one another to pieces in the streets of +Paris, when we follow this refined attempt to present the character of +a modern and a complicated man:-- + +"There is something," says La Rochefoucauld, "at once peevish and +proud in my appearance. This makes most people think that I am +contemptuous, but I am not so at all. So far as my humour goes, I am +melancholy, and I am so to such an extent that, in the last three or +four years, I have scarcely been seen to laugh three or four times. It +seems to me nevertheless that my melancholy would be supportable and +mild enough if it depended solely on my temperament, but it comes so +much from outside causes, and what so comes fills my imagination to +such a degree, and occupies my thoughts so exclusively, that most of +the time I move as in a dream, and scarce listen to what I myself am +saying." + +Here we have the disappointed courtier still brooding over his +disgrace, but we pass to an account of the relief which the new-born +man of letters find in the cultivation of the intellect alone-- + +"I am fond of general reading, but that in which I find something to +fashion the mind and to fortify the soul is what I like best. Above +all it gives me an extreme satisfaction to read in company with an +intelligent person, for in this way one is kept constantly reflecting +on what one reads, and the reflections thus exchanged form a species +of conversation than which no other in the world is so agreeable or so +useful. I give a sound opinion about works in verse and prose which +are submitted to me, but perhaps I allow myself too much freedom in +expressing that opinion. Another fault of mine is that I am sometimes +too scrupulously delicate and too severely critical. I do not dislike +to listen to argument, and sometimes I am glad to take my share in the +discussion, but I usually support my opinion with too much heat, and +when any one pleads an unjust cause in my presence, sometimes, in my +zeal for logic, I myself become exceedingly illogical. My sentiments +are virtuous, my inclinations are honest, and I am so intensely +anxious to act in all things as a gentleman should, that my friends +cannot do me a greater favour than to warn me sincerely of my faults. +Those who know me rather intimately, and who have been so kind as to +give me their counsels in this direction, are aware that I have ever +received them with all imaginable joy and with all the submission of +mind which they could possibly desire." + +All this, and what remains, show that in the character of La +Rochefoucauld action had abruptly receded in favour of analysis, and +the brutality of civil war in the woods had given place to the +refinement of endless conversation by the fireside corner. The old +swashbuckler turned from the illusions of the camp to the most +exquisite of peaceful associations, and he regarded women from a +totally new point of view. It was the age of the _salons_, and La +Rochefoucauld tells us why it was that he became their sedulous +associate. He says, "When women are intelligent, I like their +conversation better than that of men. There is a certain suavity in +their talk which is lacking in that of our sex, and it seems, in +addition, that they explain themselves with more precision, and give a +more agreeable turn to what they say." In other words, La +Rochefoucauld had, by 1658, become a complete, and indeed the most +competent and highly finished example of the new social intelligence +which was to be found in France. We must dwell for one rapid moment on +what that new spirit was. + +The seventeenth century in France, liberated from the weight of +internecine wars and political tyrannies, had now thrown itself with +ardour into the civilized arts, and had, in particular, developed a +love of moral disquisition. All the talk which presently became +fashionable about virtue and the higher life was a reaction against +the horrors of the Fronde. The advance of social refinement was very +rapid, and, especially in Paris, there was a determined and +intelligent movement in the direction of the amelioration of manners +and a studied elegance of life. M. Rebelliau has pointed out that it +was precisely at this moment that a great number of new words, and +among them _delicate, distinguer, moraliste, menagements, finesse_ and +many others, were accepted as part of the French language. These +served immediately to enrich the vocabulary of the men and women who +were anxious to push further and deeper their investigations into +psychological analysis. With this social tendency to dissect the human +heart and to seize its most secret movements, was combined the +religious and, as we may put it, protestant fashion of the hour, in +the spirit of Port Royal. To be a moralist was almost in itself to be +a Jansenist, and we see the author of the "Maximes" presently claiming +to be, after a fashion, evangelical. + +There is so little said about theology, in the direct sense, in the +writings of La Rochefoucauld, that his various French critics have +given perhaps too little thought to his religious tendencies. They +have treated him as though he were the enemy of a pious life. But if +we examine that contention from the standpoint provided for us by our +own Puritan habit of thought, we must recognize that there was +something positively pious about the bitter philosopher of the +"Maximes." He was trying, let us never forget, to discover a +scientific form of morals, and hardly enough attention has been given +to the prominence which he gave to a searching analysis of conscience. +He found little to help him in the court religion of the age, but he +was immensely impressed with the Jansenist conception of the frailty +and worthlessness of the natural man. Hence, his persistency in +cultivating almost exclusively the society of those men and women of +Port Royal with whom we might suppose that he had very little in +common. But, quite recently, a discovery has been made, which is not +only of special interest to us as Englishmen, but which throws a +further light on the evangelical or puritan tendency of the author of +the "Maximes." + +A careful scholar, M. Ernest Jouy, was led by a passage in a +seventeenth-century MS. to make investigations which seem to have +proved that La Rochefoucauld was acquainted with an English book of +edification and even that he deigned to make use of it in the +fashioning of his famous "Maximes." This was "The Mystery of +Self-Deceiving," published in 1615 by a semi-nonconformist Puritan +divine, Daniel Dyke, minister of Coggeshall in Essex, and translated +obscurely into French by a certain Vernulius. Of the original work +Fuller wrote, "It is a book which will be owned for a truth while men +have any badness in them, and will be owned as a treasure whilst they +have any goodness in them." It is, certainly, an amazing thing to find +that this clumsy old treatise of English divinity was apparently +possessed as a treasure by the most elegant and the most sceptical of +Frenchmen. + +La Rochefoucauld may be conceived as saying to the practical divines +of Port Royal, "Your work is confused and thwarted by the vast +prevalence of rubbish under which morals are concealed. I will help +you to force the people who talk so glibly of humanity and pity, of +rectitude and amiability, to dissect the real bodies of egotism to +which they give those names. I put Man in the pillory of +self-judgment; it is for you to deal evangelically with what remains +of his temperament when he comes down out of the ordeal." + +To do this, La Rochefoucauld prepared, with infinite patience and with +the conscientiousness of a great literary artist, his sheaf of +Maxim-arrows, ready to shoot them, one by one, into the gross heart of +_amour-propre_. What, then, were the reflexions which, now settled in +Paris, and secure from the rough world in the recesses of Mme de +Sable's _salon_, the Duke began to fashion and to polish? A maxim is a +formula, which comprehends the whole truth on a particular subject. +Coleridge says, in his "Table Talk," that a maxim is a conclusion upon +observation of matters of fact; we may add that it is final, it goes +as far as it can possibly go, and contains the maximum of truth in the +minimum of verbiage. If we take some of the most cynical and savage +maxims of La Rochefoucauld we may see that conciseness could proceed +no further: for instance, "Virtue is a rouge that women add to their +beauty"; or "Pride knows no law and self-love no debt"; or "The +pleasure of love is loving." The ingenuity of man has not devised a +mode of saying those particular things as exactly in fewer words. They +reach the maximum of conciseness, and are therefore called maxims. + +It is very unusual in the history of literature to be able to point to +a man of genius as the positive founder of a class of work. When we +look closely into the matter, we are sure to find that there was an +obscure predecessor, a torch-bearer who lighted up the path. Even +Shakespeare has Marlowe in front of him, and in front of Marlowe are +Greene and Peele. Several poets were inspired by the story of the fall +of the rebel angels before Milton took up "Paradise Lost" and seized +that province as his own by conquest. In like manner, La Rochefoucauld +seems to us in a general view, and seemed indeed to his own Parisian +contemporaries, to have invented a new art in the production of his +"Maximes." But, in truth, he was not the pioneer, and he seems to have +spent months, and even years, in a sort of apprenticeship to two +authors who have not survived in French literature as he has. So far +as we can make out, the real creator of the maxim in French was +Jacques Esprit (1611-1678), the Abbe Esprit as he was called, although +he was never a priest, and had a legitimate wife and family. He was a +young man from Beziers in Provence, who came to Paris under the +protection of Chancellor Seguier, soon became a member of the French +Academy, and enjoyed a steady social and literary success. + +There seems little doubt that Esprit was known early to La +Rochefoucauld, for he was familiar in the family of the Duke and +Duchess of Longueville, and later the governor of their children. He +enjoyed the confidence of the _salons_ from an early date. There is +some reason to suppose that Esprit had begun to write maxims before La +Rochefoucauld's return from exile, and certainly before Mme de Sable's +retreat to Port Royal in 1659. It is very noticeable in La +Rochefoucauld's letters to Esprit--most of which belong to the year +1660--that he treats the academician--who was of plebeian birth and +not many months older than himself--with extreme deference. The Duke +adopts the style of a pupil to a master, and he submits his sketches +or experiments in maxim-making to Esprit for a severe criticism, which +he accepts, and for advice, which he adopts. The probability seems to +be that Esprit introduced the fashion for writing maxims to Mme de +Sable, who was fascinated by it, recommended it to La Rochefoucauld, +and then pointed Esprit out as the acknowledged master of the art, who +could give invaluable technical advice. + +There was a sort of collaboration. We find La Rochefoucauld writing to +Esprit, "I shall be much obliged if you will show _our_ last sentences +to Mme de Sable; it may perhaps induce her to write some of her own." +And to the lady he writes, "Here are all my maxims which you have not +yet seen, but as nothing is done for nothing, I beg you to send me in +return the receipt for the carrot soup which we had when Commander de +Souvre dined at your house," The three maximists consulted one +another, polished up one another's sentences, and suggested subjects +which were first discussed round the dinner-table or in the summer +parlour and then worked up, sometimes by all three conjointly, to the +highest pitch of perfection. It was probably Esprit by whom many of +the original suggestions were started, indeed it is he who seems to +have first laid down the formula that "the mind is the servant and +even the dupe of the instincts," which both Pascal and La +Rochefoucauld were presently to expand in such brilliant forms. But it +is quite an error to presume, as some writers have done, that there +was a kind of factory for maxims, out of which sentences were turned +which really belonged to no one in particular. The "Maximes" of Mme de +Sable and those of the Abbe Esprit--the latter contained in a +Jansenist volume called "The Falsity of Human Virtues"--were published +independently, but in the same year, 1678. Any one who has the +patience to refer to these works may satisfy himself that Mme de +Sable, as an artist, is superior to Esprit, but immeasurably inferior +to La Rochefoucauld, who is the one unapproachable master of the +maxim.[3] + + [Footnote 3: A good deal of the prejudice which successive + critics, and (very mischievously) Brunetiere in particular, + have shown with regard to the character of La Rochefoucauld, + is due, in my opinion, to the influence of Victor Cousin, + who published, in 1854, a disjointed and diffuse, but in + many ways brilliantly executed volume on Mme de Sable. + Cousin, who examined, for the first time, a vast array of + MS. sources, deliberately lowered the value of La + Rochefoucauld in order to enhance the merit of the lady, of + whom the learned academician wrote like a lover. Even Esprit + was thrown into the scale to lighten the weight of the + Duke's originality. Cousin was borne gaily on the stream of + his heroine-worship, and others less profoundly acquainted + with the facts have let themselves be carried with him. But + it is time that we should cease to imitate them in this.] + +For six or seven years the Duke worked away at the polishing of his +incomparable epigrams, and it was not until October 27, 1665, that the +little famous book made its anonymous appearance. The importance of +the work was perceived immediately in the close circle of the _salons_ +which regulated literary opinion in Paris. For half a century past +Frenchmen had been regarding with jealous attention the causes and +effects of human passion, culminating, for the moment, in the treatise +written by Descartes for the daughter of the Queen of Bohemia. The +Jansenists and the Jesuits, the playwrights, the novelists, Hobbes and +Spinoza, all pursued, along widely different paths, those illusive +secrets of the human heart which had escaped the notice of earlier +generations. But La Rochefoucauld reduced the desultory psychology of +his predecessors to a system, so that for us the moralizing tendencies +of the seventeenth century in France seem to have found their final +expression less in the sob of Pascal's conscience than in the resigned +ironic nonchalance of La Rochefoucauld, who, as Voltaire so admirably +says, "dissolves every virtue in the passions which surround it." +Perhaps what the "Maximes" most resembled was the then +recently-published analysis of egotism in "Leviathan." But the cool +and atrocious periods of what Sir Leslie Stephen calls "the unblushing +egotism" of Hobbes have really little in common with the sparkling +rapier-strokes of La Rochefoucauld, except that both these moralists-- +who may conceivably have met and compared impressions in Paris-- +combined a resolute pessimism about the corruption of mankind with an +epicurean pursuit of happiness. + +The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld were atoms of gold sifted through the +mesh of discussions at the dinner-table, around the fire in winter, +under the hawthorns and lilacs which Mme de Sevigne describes, in +endless talk between two or more trained and intelligent persons, +along the course of which thought oscillated from extreme to extreme, +until at last the company dispersed, leaving La Rochefoucauld to +capture and to fix the essential result of all that desultory +conversation. It is not impossible for us to conjecture the general +character of this brilliant and illusive talk. It had one central aim, +more or less clearly perceived, namely the desire to reach a Latin +standard of perfection. It sought to exchange for the romantic +barbarism which had underlain so much that was picturesque in the +sixteenth century--a barbarism which had come down from the late +Middle Ages, and which was really a dissolution of strong things +outworn--to exchange for this a preciousness of quality as against +mere rude bulk. It desired to introduce depth of purpose in the place +of chaotic moral disorder, originality in place of a frenzied and +incoherent eccentricity, and to found a solid structure upon a basis +of intellectual discipline. + +But in order to carry out this fine scheme, and especially in order +successfully to check that decadence which had alarmed the best minds +in France, there was a pioneer work to be done. It was necessary to +intensify and purify the light of criticism. For this purpose the +conversations of the _salons_ culminated in the lapidary art of La +Rochefoucauld, who was not a creator like Racine and Moliere, like +Bossuet and Fenelon, but who prepared the way for these slightly later +builders of French literature by clearing the ground of shams. +Segrais, whose recollections of him are among the most precious which +have come down to us, says that La Rochefoucauld never argued. He had +the Socratic manner, and led others on to expose and expound their +views. His custom was, in the course of the endless talks about morals +and the soul, "to conceal half of his own opinion, and to show tact +with an obstinate opponent, so as to spare him the annoyance of having +to yield." There is something very like this in the "Pensees" of +Pascal. La Rochefoucauld blames himself, in his self-portrait, for +arguing too fiercely, and for being testy with an opponent, but these +faults were not perceived by other people. Doubtless he was aware of +an inward impatience, and succeeded in concealing it by means of that +extreme politeness on which he prided himself. + +The "Maximes" are shocking to persons who live in a state of illusion +about themselves, and they were so from the hour of their publication. +They roll up a bitter pill for human vanity. When Mme de La Fayette, +destined to look deeper than any other mortal into the soul of La +Rochefoucauld, read them first in 1663, in company with Mme du Plessis +at the Chateau de Fresnes, she was terrified and shocked at what she +called the "corruption" which they revealed. She wrote to Mme de +Sable, who had lent her the manuscript-- + +"Ah, Madame, how corrupt he must be in mind and heart to be capable of +imagining such things! I am so frightened by it that I should say, if +this were not a matter too serious for jest, that such maxims are +likely to do more to upset him than all the plates of soup he +swallowed at your house the other day." + +As the "Maximes" pass from hand to hand, we see the spiritual Maenads +of Port Royal clustering "with a lovely frightened mien" about the +sinister author, while he turns "his beauteous face haughtily another +way," like young Apollo in the Phrygian highlands. The word +"pessimism" was, I believe, unknown until the year 1835, but this is +what Mme de La Fayette and the rest of the Jansenist ladies meant by +"corruption." Perhaps the most celebrated of all the sayings of her +terrible friend is that which declares that "In the misfortunes of our +friends there is always something which gives us no displeasure." She +was about to learn that no one had a nobler practice in friendship +than the cynic who wrote this: "There are good marriages, but no +delicious ones"; Mme de La Fayette's own marriage had been not at all +delicious and not even good. "Gratitude in the majority of men is +simply a strong and secret wish to receive still greater benefits." +Terrifying this must have been to a sentimental and exalted bosom, and +exclusive of all hope until the little word "majority" was observed, a +loophole offered for scared humanity to creep out at. + +The design of La Rochefoucauld was to make people ashamed of their +egotism, and so to help them to modify it. He saw France deadened by a +universal sycophancy, and tyrannized over by a court life which made a +lie of everything. He insisted upon the value of individual sincerity, +but in a voice so harsh and bitter, and in such sardonic phrases--as +when he says: "Sincerity is met with in very few people, and is +usually nothing but a delicate dissimulation to attract the confidence +of others"--that the more timid of his auditors shrank from him, as if +he had been Hamlet or Lear. When he dared to suggest that none of +these maxims were intended to refer to the reader himself, but only to +all other persons, he invited the reaction which led Huet, Bishop of +Avranches, to appeal against the morality of the "Maximes," as suited +only to the vices of wicked persons, "improborum hominum vitiis," and +to issue a warning against the too-sweeping cynicism of +Roccapucaldius, as he called the Duke. This was, perhaps, the +beginning of the dead-set against La Rochefoucauld. It encouraged +Rousseau, a century later, to talk of "ce triste livre," and to +declare, in the true romantic spirit, that "Bad maxims are worse than +bad acts." There have always been, and always will be, people who +experience a sort of _malaise_, an ill-defined discomfort, as though +they sat in an east wind, while they read La Rochefoucauld. This is +particularly true of Englishmen, who resent being told that "Our +virtues are often only our vices in disguise," and who also, by the +way, are constitutionally impatient of the French genius for making +what is ugly, and even what is detestable, pleasing by the surface of +style. + +There is an element of unmercifulness in the candour of La +Rochefoucauld which is distressing to sentimentalists. But this was +characteristic of the age, which looked upon compassion as a frailty, +as a break-down of noble personal reserve. He shall speak on this +matter for himself-- + +"I am little sensible of pity, and if I had my way, I would avoid it +altogether. At the same time, there is nothing I would not do to +relieve an afflicted person: and I believe as a matter of fact that +one ought to go so far as to express compassion for the misfortunes of +such a man, since the unhappy are so stupid that compassion does them +more good than anything else in the world. But I also hold that one +should confine one's self to professions of pity and be very careful +not to feel any. Pity is a passion which is wholly useless to a +well-constituted mind; it can but weaken the heart, and it ought to be +left to people who, carrying nothing out in a logical manner, require +passion to constrain them to do things." + +He seems to paint himself in tones of Prussian blue, but we must +really think of him as of a man timid, and at the same time +preternaturally wide-awake, who was determined at all risks not to be +taken at a disadvantage. When he was an old man, when much communing +with Mme de La Fayette had allayed his suspicion of mankind, La +Rochefoucauld said to Mlle de Scudery, "I hope that clemency will come +into fashion, and that we shall see no more men unhappy." [4] He +professed to found politeness on extreme _amour-propre_, but perhaps +in a still closer analysis he would have discovered its basis in +kindness of heart. He resists the temptation to weaken his own +pessimism, just as in his biting sarcasms about love we may trace a +tender soul still bleeding from the wounds which Mme de Longueville's +levity had inflicted on it.[5] + + [Footnote 4: Mme de Sevigne told her daughter that she was + sure that if one could peep at the Duke and Mme de La + Fayette "when they were alone with the cat," one would find + all the restraints of society flung aside, and see them + without the mask, their cynicism forgotten, mingling cries + and tears over the sorrows of the world. But neither she nor + any third person would ever see their social discretion thus + betrayed, and she concludes, in her droll way, "C'est une + vision!" In another letter to Mme de Grignan (June 6, 1672) + she says of the Duke, "Il connait quasi aussi bien que moi + la tendresse maternelle."] + + [Footnote 5: There was unquestionably a strong vein of + tenderness running through the stoical character of the + Duke, and if we were more intimately acquainted with his + private life we should probably see many traces of it. Such + traces exist as it is. We have Mme de Sevigne's account of + his reception of the news of the Passage of the Rhine. It + was announced to him, on the 17th of June, 1672, at the + house of Mme de La Fayette, in the presence of Mme de + Sevigne, that in that terrible disaster his eldest son had + been dangerously wounded and his fourth son, the Chevalier, + killed. The tears seemed to start out of the depth of his + heart, and they brimmed his eyes, although his self-command + prevented an outbreak of grief. But there was a further + complication. The young Duke of Longueville was also killed + at the Rhine, and he, as a select circle of intimate friends + were perfectly aware, was really the love-child of La + Rochefoucauld. Mme de Sevigne, having given a superficial + account of the incident, characteristically goes on to say, + "Alas! I am telling a lie; between ourselves, my dear, he + does not feel the loss of the Chevalier so much; it is that + of the young man whom all the world regrets which leaves him + so inconsolable." And again she says: "I saw the secrets of + his heart revealed under this cruel blow; and no one that I + have ever seen surpasses him in courage, in honour, in + tenderness, in balance of mind." This is a tribute not to be + overlooked.] + +To understand the wholesome influence which La Rochefoucauld has +exercised on French character, we must keep constantly in sight his +hatred of falsehood. If he is angry and sardonic, it is because he +sees, or thinks he sees, falsehood everywhere masquerading as virtue. +His foremost duty was to pluck the mask from the false virtues which +strutted everywhere through the society and literature of France. +Voltaire recognized nothing else in La Rochefoucauld but this sardonic +misanthropy, this determination to prove that man is guided solely by +self-interest. This Voltaire thought was the _seule verite_ contained +in the "Maximes," and in a measure he was right. The moralist saw +_amour-propre_ as an Apollyon straddling right across the pathway of +mankind; he saw lies flourish everywhere, and proclaim themselves to +be the truth. The conscience of mankind was seduced or browbeaten by +the impudency of self-love. Thus-- + +"We have not the courage to say broadly that we ourselves have no +defects, and that our enemies have no good qualities; but as a matter +of fact that is not far from being what we think." + +He believed not at all, or very faintly, in altruism. He had to sweep +away affected and therefore erroneous suppositions with regard to +morality, and particularly with regard to social motives. He had come +back to Paris, after his long and irksome exile, with a terrible +clear-sightedness, and he saw that society had gone to pieces and that +truth was essential to its rebuilding. He was convinced--and this must +be asserted in the face of his own apparent cynicism--he was convinced +of the existence of pure virtue, but he thought that _amour-propre_ in +the individual, and conventionality (what was then meant by _la +coutume_) in the social order, had made it almost as rare as the dodo. +He wished, by his stringent exposure of the arts of lying, to save +virtue before it was absolutely extinct. He had the instinct of +race-preservation.[6] + + [Footnote 6: It is possible that the conversation of Mme de + Sable concentrated his thoughts on self-love. A contemporary + MS. says of that lady, "Elle flatte fort l'amour propre + quand elle parle aux gens." But egotism was a new discovery + which fascinated everybody in the third quarter of the + century.] + +Let us turn to the few, but profoundly beautiful reflections which +form the constructive element in La Rochefoucauld's teaching. His aim +in edification is to train us to dig through the crust of social sham +to the limpid truth which exists in the dark centre of our souls-- + +"If there is a pure love, he says, exempt from all admixture with +other passions, it is that which lies hidden at the bottom of the +heart, and of which we ourselves are ignorant." + +Unlike Mandeville, our own great cynic of the eighteenth century, La +Rochefoucauld, while calling in question the reality of almost all +benevolent impulses, stopped short of denying the existence of virtue +itself. He would not have said, as the author of the "Fable of the +Bees" (1714) did, that the "hunting after this _pulchrum et honestum_ +is not much better than a wild-goose chase." But he had a strong +contempt for the humbugs of the world, and among them he placed +unflinching optimists. One of the main forms of humbug in his day was +the legend that everybody acted nobly for the sake of other people. +This La Rochefoucauld stoutly denied, but he was not so excessive as +his commentators in his condemnation of that self-love which he +declares to be the source of all our moral actions. He insinuates the +possibility of an innocent and even a beneficial egotism. He says, +"The praise which is given us serves to fix us in the practice of +virtue," and if that is true, _amour-propre_ must be practically +useful. Helvetius, who made some very valuable comments on the +"Maximes" a hundred years later, pointed out that _amour-propre_ is +not in itself an evil thing, but is a sentiment implanted in us all by +nature, and that this sentiment is transformed in every human being +into either vice or virtue, so that although we are all egoists, some +are good and some are bad. + +La Rochefoucauld, therefore, while he takes a very dark view of the +selfishness of the human race, softens the shades of his picture by +admitting that egotism may be, and often must be, advantageous not +merely to the individual but to the race. And here we find the key to +one of the oddest passages in his works, that in which he attributes +his inspiration to two saints, St. Augustine and St. Epicurus! He +says-- + +Everybody wishes to be happy; that is the aim of all the acts of +life. Spurious men of the world and spurious men of piety only seek +for the appearance of virtue, and I believe that in matters of +morality, Seneca was a hypocrite and Epicurus was a saint. I know of +nothing in the world so beautiful as nobility of heart and loftiness +of mind: from these proceeds that perfect integrity which I set above +all other qualities, and which seems to me, at my present stage of +life, to be of more price than a royal crown. But I am not sure +whether, in order to live happily and as a man of the highest sense of +honour, it is not better to be Alcibiades and Phaedo than to be +Aristides and Socrates. + +It would take us too far out of our path to comment on the relation of +this epicureanism to the religion of La Rochefoucauld's day, but a few +words seem necessary on this subject. He says extremely little about +religion, although he makes the necessary and perhaps not wholly +perfunctory, statement that he was orthodox. But the position of a +votary of St. Epicurus had grown difficult. Since the Duke's exile, +the enmity between the church and the world had become violent, so +violent that a man of prominent social and intellectual position was +bound to take one side or another. We may note that the years during +which the "Maximes" were being composed were precisely those during +which Bossuet was thundering from the pulpit his anathemas against +worldly luxury and the pride of life. The period marked at one +extremity by "L'Amour des Passions" (1660) and at the other by the +"Grandeurs Humains" (1663) is precisely that in which the lapidary art +of La Rochefoucauld was most assiduous. The church was advocating +asceticism and humility with all its authority, and was leading up +towards the later phase of the fanatical despotism of Louis XIV.'s old +age, with all its attendant hypocrisy. For the moment, in the +struggle, La Rochefoucauld, though no _devot_, would seem a friend of +the church rather than a foe, and in fact he retained the intimacy of +Bossuet, in whose arms he died. We may be sure that he guarded himself +with delicate care from the charge of being what was then called a +"libertine," that is a man openly at war with the theory and practice +of the theologians. + +It is said that La Rochefoucauld invented[7] the word "vraie," "true," +to describe the character of Mme de La Fayette. His intimacy with this +illustrious lady is one of the most beautiful episodes in the history +of literature, and perhaps its purest example of true friendship +between the sexes. The phrase we have already quoted shows that in +1663 the two great writers were acquainted but not yet intimate. Marie +de la Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette, was in her thirtieth year, La +Rochefoucauld had completed his fiftieth when some cause which remains +obscure drew them together with a tie which death alone, after +seventeen wonderful years of almost unbroken association, was to +sever. There was no scandal about it, even in that scandal-mongering +age. The astute Mile de Scudery, writing to her gossip Bussy Rabutin +(December 6, 1675), says, "Nothing could be happier for her, or more +dignified for him; the fear of God on either side, and perhaps +prudence as well, have clipped the wings of love." Twelve years +before, when Menage had repeated to her some critical remarks about +her novel, "La Princesse de Montpensier," Mme de La Fayette had +replied, "I am greatly obliged to M. de la Rochefoucauld for his +expressions. They are the result of our similarity of experience, 'de +la belle sympathie qui est entre nous.'" + + [Footnote 7: Mme de Sevigne seems not to have known this + when, in writing to her daughter (July 19, 1671), she claims + to have been the first to say _vraie_ when she meant + sincere, loyal. "Il y a longtemps que je dis que vous etes + _vraie_"] + +The famous friends were excluded by their physical conditions from the +activities of life. Mme de La Fayette, who was perhaps something of a +hypochondriac, tossed all day among the pillows of that golden bed +with the extravagance of which the austerity of Mme de Maintenon +upbraided her. La Rochefoucauld, tormented by the gout, lay stretched +at her side in his long chair, and the days went by in endless +discussion, endless balancing of right and wrong, much gossip, much +reading of books new and old, and not a little consultation of artist +with artist. They kept their secrets well, and no curiosity of +successive critics has been able to discover how much of La +Rochefoucauld is hidden in the pages of "La Princesse de Cleves", the +earliest of the modern novels of the world, nor how much of Mme de La +Fayette in the revised and re-revised text of the "Maximes." [8] But we +know that she was no less sagacious and no less an enemy to illusion +than he was, and those are probably not far wrong who have detected a +softening influence from her conversation on the late genius of La +Rochefoucauld. + +In 1675 Mme de Thiange presented to the Duke du Maine a toy which has +long ago disappeared, and for the recovery of which I would gladly +exchange many a grand composition of painting and sculpture. It was a +sort of gilded doll's house, representing the interior of a _salon_. +Over the door was written, "Chambre des Sublimes." Inside were wax +portrait-figures of living celebrities, the Duke du Maine in one +arm-chair; in another La Rochefoucauld, who was handing him some +manuscript. By the arm-chairs were standing Bossuet, then Bishop of +Condom, and La Rochefoucauld's eldest son, M. de Marcillac. At the +other end of the alcove Mme de La Fayette and Mme de Thiange were +reading verses together. Outside the balustrade, Boileau with a +pitchfork was preventing seven or eight bad poets from entering, to +the amusement and approval of Racine, who was already inside, and of +La Fontaine, who was invited to come forward. The likeness of these +little waxen images is said to have been perfect, and there can hardly +be fancied a relic of that fine society which would be more valuable +to us in re-establishing its social character. We know not what became +of it in the next generation. No doubt, the wax grew dusty, and the +figures lost their heads and hands, and some petulant chatelaine +doomed the ruined treasure to the dustbin. + + [Footnote 8: Bussy Rabutin writes to Mme de Sevigne that he + hears that La Rochefoucauld and Mme de La Fayette are + preparing "quelque chose de fort joli." This shows that + before "La Princess de Cleves" was finished the Duke's name + was identified with its composition.] + +No mention of Mme de Sevigne is made in the inventory of the "Chambre +des Sublimes," and yet there is no one to whom we owe an exacter +portraiture of its inmates, nor one who was more worthy to animate its +golden recesses. For the last ten years of La Rochefoucauld's life she +was one of the closest observers of the famous sedentary friendship. +Unfortunately she tells us nothing about the original publication of +the "Maximes," for his name does not occur in her correspondence +before 1668, and does not abound there until 1670. Then we find her +for ever at the Duke's house, or meeting him at Mme de La Fayette's +bedside. He gratified her by warm and constant praise of Mme de +Grignan, whose letters were regularly read to the friends by her +infatuated mother. It is vexing that Mme de Sevigne, who might have +spared us two or three of her immortal pages, although she incessantly +mentions and even quotes La Rochefoucauld, generally refrains from +describing him. She and Mme de La Fayette were his guests in the +country on May 15, and the three wonderful companions walked in the +harmony of "nightingales, hawthorns, lilacs, fountains and fine +weather," or played with his pet white mouse. Such touches are rare, +and Paris seems best to suit what Mme de Sevigne admirably calls "the +grey-brown" thought of La Rochefoucauld. + +In 1671 he had a terrible attack of the gout, accompanied by agonies +moral and physical which filled the ladies with alarm and pity. Better +in 1672, he was able to entertain company to hear Corneille read his +new tragedy of "Pulcherie" in January, and Moliere his new comedy, +"Les Femmes Savantes," in March. He was now, in premature old age, the +venerable figure in the group, the benevolent Nestor of the salons. +Let his detractors remember that Mme de Sevigne, who knew what she was +talking about, wrote that "he is the most lovable man I have ever +known," His sufferings, his disenchantments and disappointments, only +seemed to accentuate his beautiful patience. Just before his fatal +illness (January 31, 1680) Mme de Sevigne writes again: "I have never +seen a man so obliging, nor more amiable in his wish to give pleasure +by what he says." [9] Her detailed and pathetic account of his last +hours, which closed on the night of March 16, 1680, testifies to her +deep attachment and to Mme de La Fayette's despair. + + [Footnote 9: Two of La Fontaine's fables, "L'Homme et son + Image" and "Les Lapins," were dedicated to La Rochefoucauld + in 1668. In the former we read:-- + + _On voit bien ou je veux venir. + Je parle a tous, et cette erreur extreme + Est un mal que chacun se plait d'entretenir + Notre ame, c'est cet homme amoureux de lui-meme; + Tant de miroirs, ce sont les sottises d'autrui, + Miroirs, de nos defauts les peintres legitimes; + Et quant au canal, c'est celui, + Que chacun sait: le livre des Maximes._] + +When Mme de Sevigne, in 1675, received the third edition of the Duke's +book, which contained more than seventy new maxims, she wrote, "Some of +them are divine; some of them, I am ashamed to say, I don't understand." +Probably she would have partly agreed with some one's criticism of them, +"De l'esprit, encore de l'esprit, et toujours de l'esprit--trop +d'esprit!" [10] No doubt, La Rochefoucauld has done his own reputation +wrong by the bluster of his scepticism and also by the fact that he +sometimes wraps his thoughts up in such a blaze of epigram that we are +disconcerted to find, when we analyze them, that they are commonplaces. +Contemporaries seemed to have smiled at the excessive subtlety into +which their long conversations led Mme de La Fayette and her sublime +companion. Mme de Sevigne describes such talks with her delicate irony, +and says, "We plunged into subtleties which were beyond our +intelligence." An example is the dispute whether "Grace is to the body +what good sense is to the mind," or "Grace is to the body what delicacy +is to the mind" should be the ultimate form of a maxim. They sometimes +drew the spider's thread so fine that it became invisible.[11] + + [Footnote 10: The practice of making "maxims," _axiomata_, + encouraged the enlivenment of conversation by the + introduction of topsy-turvy statements, such as "Constancy + is merely inconstancy arrested," in the manner of Oscar + Wilde and Mr. Chesterton.] + + [Footnote 11: La Rochefoucauld was not without affectations. He + spoke airily about his _maniere negligee_ of writing, whereas + no one ever took more pains. Segrais gives very interesting + information on this point: he says that the Duke + "sent me from time to time what he had been working + on, and he wished me to keep these note-books of his for + five or six weeks, so as to be able to give them my + closest attention, particularly with regard to the turn of + the thoughts and the arrangement of the words. Some of + his maxims he altered as many as thirty times." But + when he wrote to Esprit, in 1660, La Rochefoucauld + affected to regard his own writings as trifles thrown off + "au coin de mon feu" The great of the earth have these + amiable and amusing weaknesses.] + +But his clearness of insight was immense, and he was too profoundly +intelligent to be a merely destructive or sterile force. He builded +better than he knew. For instance, courage, it has been alleged, he +denies, and indeed he is so savage in his exposure of braggadocio that +it might well be believed that he refused to admit that men could be +brave. Yet what does he say?-- + +"Intrepidity is an extraordinary force of the soul which lifts it +above those troubles, disorders and emotions which the aspect of great +peril would otherwise excite; it is by this force that heroes maintain +themselves in a state of equanimity, preserving the free use of their +reason through the most surprising and the most terrible accidents." + +This must include the most moving of all accidents, those which call +forth moral and physical courage in the face of national danger, and +are rewarded by _gloire_, by public and lasting fame. And we are led +on to a consideration of the lengthy reflection on the spirit in which +the approach of death should be faced, with which he closed the latest +edition of the "Maximes," declaring that "the splendour of dying with +a firm spirit, the hope of being regretted, the desire to leave a fair +reputation behind us, the assurance of being released from the +drudgery of life and of depending no more on the caprices of fortune," +are remedies which would medicine our pain in approaching the dreaded +goal of our existence. + +We must read La Rochefoucauld closely to perceive why a book so +searching, and even so cruel as his, has exercised on the genius of +France a salutary and a lasting influence. His savage pessimism is not +useless, it is not a mere scorn of humanity and a sneer at its +weaknesses. It tends, by stripping off all the shams of conduct and +digging to the root of action, to make people upright, candid and +magnanimous on a new basis of truth. So we come at last to see the +significance of Voltaire's dark saying of the "Maximes": "This book is +one of those which have contributed most to form the taste of the +French nation, and to give it the spirit of accuracy and precision." + + + + + LA BRUYERE + + +La Bruyere was thirty-five years of age when La Rochefoucauld died, +and twenty when the "Maximes" were published. We have no evidence that +he ever met the former, but he certainly read the latter, and in spite +of his eager denial that Pascal or La Rochefoucauld suggested his +method to him--"I have followed neither of these paths," he says--it +is impossible to doubt that the example of the "Maximes" had a great +deal to do with the form of the "Caracteres." His own disciple, +Brillon, tells us of La Bruyere that, "the author of the work which +this age has most admired was at least ten years writing it, and about +as long hesitating whether he would write it or not." The "Caracteres" +was finished in 1687; Brillon's estimate takes us back to 1667 or +earlier, and the brilliant success of the "Maximes" dates from 1665. +Every author imagines that he loses some dignity by being supposed to +follow the lead of another author, although the entire history of +literature is before him to show that the lamp of genius has always +been handed on from hand to hand. La Bruyere, in particular, was not +exempt from this amiable weakness, but his ghost needs feel no +displeasure if we insist on connecting him with the effort of La +Rochefoucauld. + +It is very amusing to see how anxious La Bruyere is not to seem to owe +anything to La Rochefoucauld. He speaks of his own writings as "less +delicate" than those of the Duke, and in his own opening words he +declares that he has had no wish to write maxims, "which are laws in +morals," as he has no legislative authority. I suppose that in +describing the tone of La Rochefoucauld as "delicate" La Bruyere +really meant supercilious, and deprecated any idea that he, the +typical bourgeois, should seem to lay down the law like the architype +of intellectual aristocracy. He scoffs at the Duke for making his +reflections "like oracles," so short are they and so concise; and he +is quite correct when he boasts of the extreme variety and versatility +of his own manner. He accuses La Rochefoucauld of browbeating his +readers into subjection to his thought; while, La Bruyere says, "for +my part I am quite willing that my reader should say sometimes that I +have not observed correctly, provided that he himself will observe +better." The reader, on the other hand, must not be taken in by all +this, which is very characteristic of La Bruyere's timid +self-confidence. His reputation loses nothing by our discovering that +he owes much to Montaigne and still more to La Rochefoucauld. + +The link is clear, in spite of the foliage with which La Bruyere seeks +to conceal it. It could only be from La Rochefoucauld that the author +of "Les Caracteres" derived that sad disillusionment, lighted up by +flashes of savage wit, with which he expresses his sense of the +defects of human character. It may often be noted that when La Bruyere +speaks of egotism, of the prevalence of _amour-propre_, his pungent +phrases have the very sound of those of his precursor. The truth is +that a strong new book is not read by a young man whose genius is +prepared for its teaching, without its image being stamped upon his +mind. La Bruyere's own experience had already offered to him a banquet +of the bitter fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil when he +met with the "Maximes" of 1665. His conscience and his memory were +prepared, and the truth is that a great deal of La Rochefoucauld's +teaching passed into his veins without his knowing it. This does not +in the least undermine the reputation which justly belongs to La +Bruyere as one of the most original writers of France, or even of +Europe, but it links him for our intelligence with the other great +moralist of his century. + +The author of the "Maximes" was the head of one of the great princely +houses of France. The author of the "Caracteres" was the type of the +plebeian citizen of Paris. If La Rochefoucauld offers us the +quintessence of aristocracy, La Bruyere is not less a specimen of the +middle class. His reputation as an honest man long suffered from his +own joke about his ancestry. He wrote, "I warn everybody whom it may +concern, in order that the world may be prepared and nobody be +surprised, that if ever it should happen that one of the mighty of the +earth should deem me worthy of his care, in other words if I should +ever come into an immense fortune, there is a Godefroi de La Bruyere +whom all the chroniclers place in the list of the greatest nobles of +France who followed Godefroi de Bouillon to the conquest of the Holy +Land. When that happens, I shall descend from him in the direct line." +One would think that a child could perceive this to be a satire at the +profiteers of the age, who invented ancestors, and so a child would +to-day, but in the seventeenth and even the eighteenth century it was +not safe to be funny. In particular, nonsense--the divine charm of +which we now admit--had not been acclimatized, and was looked upon +with grave displeasure. It wrings the heart that when Goldsmith, in a +purple coat, pretended to think himself more attractive than the +Jessamy Bride, his contemporaries severely censured this as an +instance of his "vanity." + +So the fools and fops of La Bruyere's time thought or pretended to +think that he was seriously claiming to be of noble birth. Nothing was +further from his intention; no La Bruyere had taken part in the +Crusades, any more than any member of Charles Lamb's family had been +Pope of Rome. The moralist's father, Louis de La Bruyere, was +Comptroller-General of Rents of the Hotel de Ville of Paris; his +mother was an attorney's daughter. The eldest of five, he was born on +August 17, 1645, in the centre of old Paris, close to the church of St. +Christopher. It is only of late years that this fact has been +discovered, and there are still immense blanks in the life of La +Bruyere during which he disappears from us altogether, engulfed in the +lanes of the Cite, not because of any adventurous mystery, but simply +because of his total lack of adventure. There has scarcely lived a +great man of letters in comparatively recent times about whose life +there is so little to relate as about that of La Bruyere. He is +believed to have gone to school to the Fathers of the Oratory, but +even that is not certain. His knowledge of Greek is thought to prove +it, but, though the Oratorians were admirable Hellenists, surely Greek +could be learned elsewhere. + +When he was twenty, he passed his examination in law in Orleans, and, +coming back to Paris, practised as a lawyer for eight or nine years. +He was concerned in no famous case, it is supposed, since his name is +never mentioned in the gossip of the time. He inherited a competence +from his father, and probably lived an idle life, diversified by a +little legal business of a very mediocre nature. As his biographer +says, he grew more and more "inclined by his temperament to a +meditative existence." When he was in his thirtieth year, a crisis +came. By some means or other, he secured a lucrative sinecure, that of +treasurer of finances at Caen in Normandy. He hated the country and +went down to Caen on the rarest occasions possible. La Bruyere, a +Parisian to the marrow of his bones, says, "Provincials and fools are +always ready to lose their temper and believe that one is laughing at +them or despising them. You must never venture on a joke, even the +mildest, except with well-bred, witty people." Perhaps he had been +trying Godefroi de La Bruyere off on the stolid inhabitants of Caen. +He received a salary, however, which was far from being all paid away +to a substitute, and he rose, in the curious social scale of those +days, from Mister (_roturier_) into Esquire (_ecuyer_). The court in +Normandy was extremely angry with him at periodical intervals, but +apparently could do nothing to assert itself. When it raged, La +Bruyere was like the East in Matthew Arnold's poem, he "bow'd low +before the blast in patient, deep disdain." + +He lived through these quiet years in one apartment after another in +the heart of Paris. Vigneul de Marville saw him "nearer heaven than +earth" in a room which a light curtain divided into two. "The wind, +always at the service of philosophers, running ahead of visitors, +would lift this curtain adroitly, and reveal the philosopher, smiling +with pleasure at the opportunity of distilling the elixir of his +meditations into the brain and the heart of a listener." He was always +at work, but his work was confined to meditation, talk and study. +Sometimes he left his garret, and studied "the court and the town" +from the benches of the public gardens, the Luxembourg and the +Tuileries. There has been an enormous amount of speculation and +conjecture about the central period of the life of La Bruyere, but we +really have only one positive document to go upon. During the illness +of his own footman, he borrowed the services of his brother's man, who +robbed him of money and clothes. La Bruyere put the case in the hands +of the police, who failed to catch the thief. This is the only +definite fact which has rewarded the patience of the investigators, +and we must build round it what we can. We build round it his own +glimpse of self-portraiture (in "Des Biens de Fortune") and find the +philosopher bending over the volume where Plato discusses the +spirituality of the soul, or measuring, with a rapt expression, the +infinite distance between Saturn and Jupiter.[12] + + [Footnote 12: "Vigneul de Marville," to whom we owe some + picturesque impressions of La Bruyere at this time of social + obscurity, was one of the pseudonyms of Bonaventure + d'Argonne, whose real name appears to have been Noel + Argonne. He was a Carthusian who dabbled in literature, and + who towards the close of his career compiled a volume of + "Melanges," containing anecdotes which are often spiteful, + but sometimes useful to the historian of literature. He + seems to have visited La Bruyere in the days of his + comparative poverty, when his mother kept home for the whole + family, first in the Rue Chapon, and later in the Rue des + Grands Augustins.] + +When he is on the point of entering his fortieth year, La Bruyere +suddenly breaks out of the cloud which encompasses him, and is +revealed as professor of history to the Duke of Bourbon, and resident +in the household of the great Prince de Conde. There is no evidence to +show how Bossuet, then Bishop of Meaux, and the most influential man +of intellect in France, became acquainted with the discreet and +obscure treasurer of finances; but it is evident that he was struck by +the vast learning and intelligence of this silent, smiling anchorite. +Fontenelle tells us that Bossuet, who had been tutor to the Dauphin, +"made a practice of supplying to the princes such persons, meritorious +in letters, as they had need of." In 1684, then, we know not why nor +how, Bossuet recommended La Bruyere as tutor to the House of Conde. It +is a matter of ceaseless wonderment, however, that the philosopher +accepted and retained the post. He possessed a sufficient though a +modest competence already, and he exchanged a life of complete +independence for a most painful and trying servitude, hung up between +the insolence of those above and the impertinence of those below him. +The situation of La Bruyere in the Maison de Conde was like that of +Fanny Burney at the court of George III., only worse. Commentators +have expended endless ingenuity in conjecturing what were the reasons +which induced him to enslave himself. + +A careful study of his great book must add to our amazement. No one +ever locked himself up in prison with an exacter appreciation of the +discomforts of captivity. La Bruyere has some remarks about freedom, +which plunge us in bewilderment. "Liberty," he says, "is not laziness: +it is a free use of one's time; it is having the choice of one's own +work and exercise. To be free, in a word, is not to do nothing, but to +be sole judge of what one shall do or not do. In this sense, what a +boon is liberty!" This practical freedom he possessed to the full, +when in August 1684 he accepted bondage to a spiteful monkey of a boy, +a dwarf with a huge head and a dreadful face, to whom he was to +impart, with tears of disappointment and humiliation, the rudiments of +national history. He was immediately responsible to the father of this +infant phenomenon, to Henry Jules, Duke d'Enghien, of whose "useless +talents, wasted genius, imagination which was a torment to himself and +others," Saint-Simon gives so copious an account. We have to think of +our delicate and timid La Bruyere now for years the powerless +plaything of this "unnatural son, cruel father, terrible husband, +detestable master, pernicious neighbour, without affection, without +friends." + +But after two centuries of canonization of the Condes, it has now +become the fashion to denigrate them to an equal excess. The +traditional figure of the Grand Conde, Olympian and sublime, has been +exposed by pitiless documentary evidence. La Bruyere's latest and most +learned editor, M. Emile Magne, gives a terrible picture of the +Prince's meanness and dirtiness; Harpagon in an ostler's jacket, he +calls him, _en souquenille_. But to dwell on all this is to forget +that the great Conde, even in his ugly old age, was haloed by the +glory of having been the first soldier of the world. It was a +privilege, even at the end, to be admitted to his intimacy, and I +believe that we pity La Bruyere more than he pitied himself. It +scandalizes the biographers that the Prince, on one occasion, made La +Bruyere dance a _pas seul_ before him, twanging a tune on the guitar. +I suppose De Quincey would have been complaisant if the Duke of +Wellington had asked him to whistle "Home, Sweet Home" to him. There +is a limit, after all, to the modern theory of the Dignity of Letters. + +Valincourt says that "All the time La Bruyere lived in the House of +Conde, everybody was always making fun of him." Possibly the fear of +appearing pedantic among all these people of fashion and these +tinselled flunkeys made him lend himself to ridicule. They all teased +and mocked him, I suppose, but not, I think, so as seriously to hurt +him, and now, with his book in our hands, the laugh is on his side. +For when we examine carefully we see that his position in the House of +Conde improved as time went on. He got rid of his rivals, the other +tutors; when the Grand Conde died, La Bruyere got rid of his dreadful +pupil as well. We find him no longer "precepteur," but "gentilhomme de +M. le Duc,"--no longer, that is, a mere scholastic drudge, but a sort +of lord-in-waiting. He had probably a large increase of salary, since +in 1687 he seems to have resigned his "charge" at Caen. Instead of +being pinned to the dark apartment in the recesses of the Cite, he now +revolved in ceaseless movement between Chantilly and Fontainebleau, +Paris and Versailles. He became a sort of confidential reader to the +Duke and Duchess, an essential part of the suite. After the first +years, he had a great deal of leisure. He could retire to the security +of a handsomely furnished apartment--upholstered in green--on the +second floor of the Hotel de Conde, opposite the Luxembourg, and he +had another set of rooms at Versailles. The bondage became, I expect, +no real bondage at all. + +But why had he, so long completely his own master, consented to become +the servant even of famous Royal princes? I think that as mothers +accept irksome situations for the support of their children, so La +Bruyere became the serf of the Condes for the sake of his book. For it +is now time to reveal the fact that in this apparently listless, empty +life there was one absorbing secret interest. This was the collection +of the maxims, reflections, pictures, and what not which he had been +quietly absorbing and turning into the honey of more and more +exquisite prose ever since his early youth. I think that La Bruyere +deliberately accepted all that might prove irksome in the captivity to +the House of Conde for the sole sake of his book. He needed to see +more types, and types of a more brilliant and effective kind than he +could become familiar with in his mediocre condition. He knew all that +was to be known about the artizans and the shopkeepers of the Cite; he +wanted to examine the rulers of society, and while he watched them +like a naturalist, they might make what contortions they pleased. How +did one of his contemporaries describe him? "When Menippe leaves his +home, it is for the purpose of studying the attitudes of the whole +human race and of painting them from the life. But he is not merely a +portrait-painter, he is an anatomist as well. Do you see that vain and +arrogant fellow in the midst of his good fortune? He is enchanted to +think Menippe is admiring him. What a mistake! At this very moment +Menippe is dissecting him and preparing him as a specimen for a public +lecture in the schools. Not a vein, not a fibre will escape him, and +from that man's heart he will draw the inmost springs of passion and +expose the circulation of every vice." + +It is time, however, to present the famous book in which all these +investigations were noted, the cabinet where all these butterflies and +less beautiful insect-forms were exhibited. The final title of it is +"Characters; or, the Manners of this Age." It was published in January +1688, but, as is believed, had been begun nearly thirty years earlier, +and slowly finished, the final revision and arrangement dating from +1686 and 1687. The book, like so many of the world's masterpieces, is +short, and a fashionable novelist of to-day could scribble in a +fortnight as many words as it contains. But there is not a careless +phrase nor a hurried line in the whole of it. I do not know in the +range of literature a book more deliberately exquisite than the +"Caracteres." It started, probably, with the jotting down of social +remarks at long intervals. Then, I think, La Bruyere, always extremely +fastidious, observed that the form of his writing was growing to +resemble too much that of La Rochefoucauld, and so he began to +diversify it with "portraits." These had been in fashion in Paris for +more than a generation, but La Bruyere invented a new kind of +portrait. He says, on the very first page of the "Caracteres," "you +make a book as you make a clock"; he ought to have said, "I make _my_ +book," for no other work is quite so clock-like in its variety of +parts, its elaborate mechanism, and its air of having been constructed +at different times, in polished fragments, which have needed the most +workmanlike ingenuity to fit them together into an instrument that +moves and, rings. + +What perhaps strikes us most, when we put down the "Caracteres" after +a close re-perusal of one of the most readable books in all +literature, is its extraordinary sustained vitality. It hums and +buzzes in our memory long after we have turned the last page. We may +expand the author's own mage, and compare it, not with a clock, but +with a watchmaker's shop; it is all alive with the tick-tick of a +dozen chronometers. La Bruyere's observations are noted in a manner +that is disjointed, apparently even disordered, but it was no part of +his scheme to present his maxims in a system. We shall find that he +was incessantly improving his work, revising, extending and weighing +it. He was one of those timid men who surprise us by their crafty +intrepidity. It was dangerous to publish sarcastic "portraits" of +well-known influential people, and there are few of these in the first +edition, but when the success of the book was once confirmed these +were made more and more prominent. It was not until the eighth +edition, of 1694, that La Bruyere ventured to print the following +study of one of the most influential men of letters of that day. +Fontenelle-- + +THE PORTRAIT OF CYDIAS + +"Ascange is a sculptor, Hegion a bronze-founder; AEschine a fuller, and +Cydias a wit--that is his profession. He has a signboard, a workshop, +finished articles for sale, mechanics who work under him. He cannot +deliver for more than a month the stanzas which he has promised you, +unless he breaks his word to Dosithee, who has ordered an elegy from +him. He has an idyl on the loom; it is for Crantor, who is hurrying +him, and from whom he expects a handsome price. Prose, verse, which do +you want? He is equally successful with either. Ask him for letters to +sympathize with a bereavement or to explain an absence, and he will +undertake them. If you want them ready-made, you have only to enter +his shop, and to choose what you like. He has a friend whose only duty +upon this earth is to promise Cydias a long time ahead to a certain +set of people, and then to present him at last in their houses as a +man of rare and exquisite conversation; and, there, just as a musician +sings or a lute-player touches his lute before the people who have +engaged him, Cydias, after having coughed, and lifted the ruffle from +his wrist, stretched out his hand and opened his fingers, begins to +retail his quintessential thoughts and his sophistical arguments.... +He opens his mouth only to contradict. 'It seems to me,' he gracefully +says, 'that the truth is exactly the contrary of what you say,' or 'I +cannot agree with your opinion,' or even 'that used to be my +prepossession, as it is yours, but now----!'" + +The idol of the gossips, "the prettiest pedant in the world," was thus +paid out for his intrigues against La Bruyere in the French +Academy.[13] + + [Footnote 13: The contemporary "keys," which were generally + ill-informed and ill-forming, said that Cydias was + Perrault. But it is almost certain that Fontenelle was + meant. M.A. Chassang has brought together a formidable list + of Fontenelle's activity. He wrote for Thomas Corneille part + of "Psyche" (1678) and of "Bellerophon" (1679); for Donneau + le Vise the comedy of "La Comete" (1681); for Beauval the + "Eloge" on Perrault (1688); for Catherine Bernard part of + her tragedy of "Brutus" (1691), a discourse for the prize of + eloquence given by the French Academy, and signed by Brunel + (1695); and part of "L'Analyse des infiniments petits" for + the Marquis de l'Hopital (1696). This is merely part of the + work turned out of Fontenelle's factory before the death of + La Bruyere. Another candidate for the type of Cydias is + Fontenelle's uncle, Thomas Corneille (1625-1709).] + +There was great danger, or so it would seem to a timid man like La +Bruyere, in affronting public opinion with a book so full of sarcasm +and reproof, so unflinching in its way of dealing with success, as the +"Caracteres." He adopted a singular mode of self-protection. That was +the day of the mighty dispute between the Ancients and the Moderns, +and La Bruyere, at all events ostensibly, took the highly respectable +side of the Greeks and Romans. There had lived a philosopher in the +fourth century B.C., Theophrastus, the successor and elucidator of +Aristotle, who left a book of "Ethical Characters" (_[Greek: HThikoi +charakteres]_), which had been introduced to the Western world by +Casaubon at the end of the sixteenth century. For some reason or +other, the greatest impression had been made by Theophrastus in +England, where there appeared a large number of successive imitations +or paraphrases of his "Characters." In France, on the other hand, +Theophrastus was still unknown to the vulgar, when La Bruyere took him +up. It seems likely that his own collection of portraits and maxims +was practically finished, when, as M. Paul Morillot has put it, he +determined to hoist the Greek flag as a safeguard. He made a French +translation of the sketches of Theophrastus, and he put this at the +head of his book, waving it to keep off the public, as a lady unfurls +her parasol at a cow whose intentions are uncertain. + +The evidences of La Bruyere's extreme caution are amusing. He +hesitated long, but in 1687 he submitted his MS. to Boileau, who was +highly encouraging, and to the poet-mathematician, Malizian, who said, +"This will bring you plenty of readers and plenty of enemies." Finally +he determined to risk the dive, and he took the book to Michallet, the +publisher, saying as he did so, "If it is successful, the result shall +be your daughter's dowry," the said daughter being a little child who +was then seated on La Bruyere's knee. The ultimate success of the book +being prodigious, Mlle Michallet must, by the time she was +marriageable, have become a remarkable _parti_, but the story is not +one which commends itself to the Incorporated Society of Authors. "Les +Caracteres" was published in January 1688, and the critics, with the +veteran Bussy-Rabutin at their head, welcomed it with shouts of +applause. Bussy frankly said, "It must be admitted that having proved +the merit of Theophrastus by his translation, he has obscured the fame +of that writer by what he has done next, for he has penetrated, in his +own portraits, deeper into the heart of man than Theophrastus did, and +has penetrated with even greater delicacy and by means of more +exquisite language." This must have been very gratifying from the +survivor of the great school of Malherbe and Balzac. + +At the age of forty-three, then, previously unknown in the world of +letters, this shy and obscure gentleman-in-waiting to the Princes of +Conde, rose into fame, and enjoyed the admiration or the envy of +whatever was most prominent in Paris. The public which he addressed +was one which we may pause a moment to contemplate. The authority of +the Academic and noble _salons_ was practically at an end, and +intellectual culture had spread to a somewhat wider circle. Those who +governed taste had thrown off many affectations of a previous +generation, and in particular the curious disease of "preciousness." +They were healthier, soberer and slightly less amusing than their +forerunners. But they formed, in the heart of Paris, the most compact +body of general intelligence to be met with at that time in any part +of the world. They were certain, in their little sphere, of their +aesthetic and logical aims. They were the flower of an intense +civilization, very limited, in a way very simple; so far as the +adoption of outer impulses went, very inactive, and yet within its own +range energetic, elegant and audacious. To this world the "Caracteres" +was now offered, modestly, as though it were a summing up of the +moralizations of the last fifty years. The author begins by +deprecating the idea that he has anything new to impart. His trick is +rather subtle; he concentrates our attention on the sayings of an +ancient Aristotelian philosopher, and then, as if to fill up the time, +he ventures to repeat a few reflexions of his own. These he introduces +with the words: "Everything has been said, and we arrive too late into +a world of men who have been thinking for more than seven thousand +years. In the field of morals, all that is fairest and best has been +reaped already; we can but glean among the ancients and among the +cleverest of the moderns." In this insinuating manner, he leads the +reader on to the perusal of his own part of the book, and soon we +become aware how cold and dry and pale the Greek translation seems +beside the rich and palpitating world of the new French morality. + +Whether he perceived it or not--and I for one am convinced that he did +perceive it--La Bruyere introduced a new thing into French literature; +he opened out, we may almost say, a new world. The classical attitude +of the great age had produced splendid manifestations of thought and +form. However revolutionary it pleases us of 1918 to be, we cannot get +away from the perfection of the age of Bossuet and Racine and La +Fontaine and Fenelon. We come back to these solid and passionate +writers after each one of our romantic excursions, not entirely +satisfied with them, as our forefathers were, but with a sense of +their solid glory, with a confidence in their permanent value in +stimulating and supporting human effort. They may not give us all that +they were once presumed to give, but they offer us a firm basis; they +are always there for the imagination to start from. We must not +forget, of course, that in 1688 in Paris these classics of the hour +represented a great deal more than that; their prestige was +untarnished. They so completely outshone, in cultivated opinion, all +else that had been produced since the Christian era, that the Italy of +Dante, the Spain of Cervantes, and the England of Shakespeare did not +so much as exist. If the intelligence was not satisfied by Descartes, +well! there was nothing for it but to go back to Plato, and if Racine +did not sufficiently rouse the passions, they must be worked upon by +Sophocles. In all this, the divines took a particularly prominent +place because they alone presented something for which no definite +parallel could be found in antiquity. It was the great theologians of +the age with whom La Bruyere chiefly competed. + +These theologians were themselves artists to a degree which we have +now a difficulty in realizing, although in the seventeenth century the +Church of England also had some great artists in her pulpits. If +Jeremy Taylor had been a Frenchman, the work of La Bruyere might have +been different. But the French orators lacked the splendour and oddity +of the author of "The Great Exemplar," and we can feel that La +Bruyere, who was instinct with the need for colour, was dissatisfied +with the broad outlines and masses of character for which the French +divines were famous; indeed, even Bossuet, to an English reader fresh +from Fuller and Taylor, seems with all his magnificence too abstract +and too rhetorical. La Bruyere determined to be less exacting and yet +more exact; he would sink to describing emotions less tremendous and +to designing figures of more trifling value, but he would paint them +with a vivid detail hitherto unsolicited. The consequence was that the +public instantly responded to his appeal, and we have continued to +contemplate with reverence Bossuet's huge historical outlines, but to +turn for sheer pleasure to La Bruyere's finished etchings of the +tulipomaniac and the collector of engravings. + +Everyone who approaches an analysis of the "Caracteres" is obliged to +pause to commend the style of La Bruyere. It is indeed exquisite. At +the time his book was published our own John Locke was putting +together his famous "Thoughts on Education," and he remarked on the +"policy" of the French, who were not thinking it "beneath the public +care to promote and reward the improvement of their own language. +Polishing and enriching their tongue," so Locke proceeds, "is no small +business amongst them." It is perhaps not extravagant to believe that +in writing these words the English philosopher was thinking of the new +Parisian moralist. For La Bruyere was a great artist, who understood +the moral value of form in a degree which would peculiarly commend +itself to the lucid mind of Locke. He says, early in his book, "Among +all the different expressions which can render a single one of our +thoughts, there is only one which is right. We do not always hit upon +it in speaking or composing; nevertheless it is a fact that somewhere +it exists, and everything else is feeble and does not satisfy a man of +intelligence who desires to be understood." This search for the one +and only perfect expression was an unfailing passion with La Bruyere. +In another place he says: "The author who only considers the taste of +his own age is thinking more of himself than of his writings. We ought +always to be striving after perfection, and then posterity will render +us that justice which is sometimes refused to us by our +contemporaries." This is an ideal to which Locke, anxious to make +disciples by his regular and sometimes racy use of language, never +attained. La Bruyere, who did not address the passing age, so polished +his periods that all successive generations have hailed him as one of +the greatest masters of prose. + +Voltaire's definition of the style of La Bruyere is well known, but +cannot too often be repeated. He calls it "a rapid, concise, nervous +style, with picturesque expressions, a wholly novel use of the French +language, yet with no infringement of its rules." Fortunately, with +all his admiration of others--and his great chapter "Des Ouvrages de +l'Esprit" is one of the most generous and catholic examples of current +criticism which we possess in all literature--with his modest and +glowing appreciation of his famous predecessors, he did not attempt to +imitate them in the grand manner. We are able to perceive that +Bossuet, who was nearly twenty years his senior, to whom he owed his +advancement in life, whose majestic genius and princely prestige were +so well adapted to dazzle La Bruyere, remained his indefatigable +patron and probably his closest friend. But we do not find in La +Bruyere a trace of imitation of the great preacher whom he loved and +honoured. If we think what the authority of Bossuet had come to be at +the time when the "Caracteres" was published, how hardly its +evangelical science pressed upon the convictions of all Frenchmen, and +particularly upon those of men who accepted it as unquestionably as +did the author of that book, that there should be no trace of Bossuet +on his style is a great tribute to the originality of La Bruyere. + +"There is no pleasure without variety," this same mighty Bossuet had +written in 1670, and his young friend had taken the axiom to heart. We +find him pursuing almost beyond the bounds of good taste the search +for variety of manner. He has strange sudden turns of thought, +startling addresses, inversions which we should blame as violent, if +they were not so eminently successful that we adopt them at once, as +we do Shakespeare's. La Bruyere passes from mysterious ironies to bold +and coarse invective, from ornate and sublime reflections to phrases +of a roguish simplicity. He suddenly drops his voice to a shuddering +whisper, and the next moment is fluting like a blackbird. The gaiety +with which he mocks the ambitions of the rich is suddenly relieved by +the dreadful calm with which he reveals the horror of their +disappointments. He is never in the same mood, or adopting the same +tone, for two pages running. It is difficult in a translation to give +an idea of the surprising element in his style, but something of its +oddity may be preserved in such an attempt as this-- + +"There are creatures of God whom we call men, who have a soul which is +intelligence, and whose whole life is spent and whose whole attention +is centred in the sawing of marble. This is a very simple, a very +little thing. There are others who are amazed at this, but who +themselves are utterly useless, and who spend their days in doing +nothing at all. This is a still smaller thing than sawing marble." + +English prose, which a century earlier had limped so far behind French +in clearness and conciseness, was rapidly catching its rival up, and +in the next generation was to run abreast with it. But if we wish to +see how far behind the best French writers our own best still were, we +need but compare the exquisite speed and elasticity of the +"Caracteres" with the comparative heaviness and slowness of a famous +Theophrastian essay published in the same year, 1688, namely the +"Character of a Trimmer." In the characteristics of a lively prose +artist, we shall have to confess La Bruyere nearer to Robert Louis +Stevenson than to his own immediate contemporary, Lord Halifax. + +The surface of La Bruyere's writing is crisp and parched, but it is +easy by careful reading to crack it, and to discover the coolness, the +softness, the salutary humidity which lie beneath the satirical crust +of his irony. He is primarily a satirist, dealing as he says with the +vices of the human mind and the subterfuges of human self-deception. +He lays bare "the sentiments and the movements of men, exposing the +principles which actuate their malice and their frailty"; he aims at +showing that such is the native evil implanted in their souls that "no +one should any longer be surprised at the thousands of vicious or +frivolous actions with which their lives are crowded." We note him at +first as entirely devoted to these painful investigations, and we are +apt to confound his attitude with that of La Rochefoucauld, the weary +Titan, who sighs contemptuously as he holds up to censure the globe of +human _amour-propre_. But we do not begin to understand the attitude +of La Bruyere until we notice that there always is, in the popular +phrase, "more in him than meets the eye." He is indeed a satirist, but +not of the profound order of the Timons of the mind; his satire is +superficial, and under it there flows a lenient curiosity mingled with +a sympathy that fears to be detected. + +There is a note of sadness, a mysterious melancholy, which frequently +recurs in the "Caracteres," and this produces a constant variety in +its appeal to the feelings. We find the author amusing himself by +detailing the weaknesses of his fellow-beings, but the entertainment +they offer him soon leaves him dissatisfied and sad. He is overheard +to sigh, he is seen to shake his head, as he turns his clear eyes away +from the self-humiliation of men. There is nothing of this in the hard +superiority of La Rochefoucauld, and one of the most important things +which we have to note is the advance in feeling which the later +moralist makes, in spite of his extremely unpretentious attitude. La +Bruyere attains to a reasoned tolerance which neither his immediate +predecessor nor Pascal nor Bossuet reached or had the least wish to +reach. In him we meet, not commonly nor prominently presented, but +quite plainly enough, the modern virtue of indulgence, of tolerance. +Here is a passage which could scarcely have been written by any other +moralist of the seventeenth century:-- + +"It is useless to fly into a passion with human beings because of +their harshness, their injustice, their pride, their self-love and +their forgetfulness of others. They are made so, it is their nature, +and to be angry about it is to be angry with the stone for falling or +with the flame for rising." + +Here is the voice of the man who had lived and who was still living in +the house of that Prince de Conde of whom Saint Simon said that, "A +pernicious neighbour, he made everybody miserable with whom he had to +do." I like to imagine La Bruyere escaping from some dreadful scene +where Henry Jules had injured his dependants and insulted his +familiars, or had drawn out in public the worst qualities of his son, +"incapable of affection and only too capable of hatred." I imagine him +escaping from the violence and meanness of those intolerable tyrants +up into the asylum of his own hushed apartment at Versailles; there +flinging himself down for a moment in the alcove, on the painted +bedstead, then presently rising, with a smile on his lips and the +fright and anger gone out of his eyes, and advancing to the great +oaken bureau which displayed his faience and his guitar. He would +glance, for encouragement, at the framed portrait of Bossuet which was +the principal ornament of the wall above it, and then, listening a +moment to be sure that he was safe from disturbance, he would unlock +one of the three drawers, and take out the little portfolio in which +for years and years he had been storing up his observations upon +society and his consolations in affliction. Presently, with infinite +deliberation and most fastidious choice of the faultless phrase and +single available word, he would paint the Holbein portrait of one of +the prodigious creatures whom he had just seen in action, some +erratic, brilliant and hateful "ornament of society" such as the Duke +de Lauzun, and the picture of Straton would be added to his gallery:-- + +"Straton was born under two stars; unlucky, lucky in the same degree. +His life is a romance: no, for it lacks probability. He has had +beautiful dreams, he has bad ones: what am I saying? people don't +dream as he has lived. No one has ever extracted out of a destiny more +than he has. The preposterous and the commonplace are equally familiar +to him. He has shone, he has suffered, he has dragged along a humdrum +existence: nothing has escaped him.... He is an enigma, a riddle that +can probably be never solved." + +La Bruyere aimed at the improvement of human nature. La Rochefoucauld +had said, "Don't be ridiculous--a blatant love of self is the only +spring of your being." Pascal, less haughty but more overwhelming, had +said, "Insect that you are, doomed to damnation, cease to strive +against your own miserable impotence." La Bruyere's teaching was not +so definite, partly because his intellect was not so systematic as +theirs, but partly because he was more human than either, human with +more than a touch of the modern democratic humanity. His attitude was +the easier one implied in the sense that "there is so much that's good +in the worst of us, and so much that's bad in the best of us" that +there is room, even among moralists, for an infinite indulgence. His +was, on the whole, and accounting for some fluttering of the nerves, a +very tranquil spirit. He is much less formal and mechanical than La +Rochefoucauld, and he seems to study men with less dependence on a +theory. His own statement should not be overlooked; he says, very +plainly, that he desired above all things to make men live better +lives. + +Boileau said that the style of La Bruyere was "prophetic," and I do +not know that any one has attempted to explain this rather curious +phrase. But we may adopt it in the light of more than two centuries +which were unknown to Boileau. More than any other writer of the end +of the seventeenth century La Bruyere prophesied of a good time +coming. He did not speak out very plainly, but it is the privilege of +prophets to be obscure, and their predictions are commonly not +comprehensible until after the event. But we may claim for La Bruyere +the praise of being a great civilizer of French thought; more than +that, he widened human social intelligence throughout Europe. He is +the direct ancestor of the Frenchman of to-day who observes closely +and clearly, who has the power to define what he sees, and who retains +the colour and movement of it. To this day, as may be amply seen in +the records and episodes of the war, in the correspondence of officers +at the front, in the general intellectual conduct of the contest, +Frenchmen rarely experience a difficulty in finding the exact word +they want. These men who arrest for our pleasure an impression, who +rebuild before us the fabric of their experience, descend in direct +line from La Bruyere. It was he who taught their nation to seize the +attitude and to photograph the gesture. + +La Bruyere's express aim is to clarify our minds, to make us think +lucidly and in consequence speak with precision. We have already seen +what value he sets on the right word in the right place. He is the +enemy of all those who shamble along in the supposition that an +inaccurate phrase will "do well enough," and that any slipshod +definition is excused by our saying, "Oh, you know what I mean!" His +own style is finished up to the highest point, and it is brightened +and varied with such skill that the author never ceases to hold the +attention of the reader. He reaches the very ideal of that elegant +wandering art of writing which the Latins called _sermo pedestris_. +Indeed, he gives so much attention to the perfect mode of saying +things that some critics have brought it as a charge against him that +he overdoes it, that in fact his style is more weighty than his +subject. This, I think, is a very hasty judgment, founded a little, no +doubt, upon a certain dread on La Bruyere's part of being commonplace. +He was dealing, as every moralist is bound to deal, with ideas of a +more or less primitive character, to which sparkle and force must be +given by illustrative examples. These examples gave him his great +chance, and he built them up, those exemplary "portraits" of his, with +infinite labour, accumulating details to make a type, and sometimes, +it is possible, accumulating too many. The result is that the +"Caracteres" are sometimes a little laboured; I do not know any other +fault that can be laid to their charge. + +One of the most important qualities of La Bruyere was that he prepared +the popular mind for liberty. He is democratic in many ways, in his +language, where he often borrows words from the _patois_ of the common +people; in his exposure of the errors of the _ancien regime_, its +tyranny, its selfishness, its want of humanity and imagination; in his +hatred of wealth, the scandalous triumph of which had already reached +a pitch which the next generation was to see outdone. In all this, as +cannot be too often insisted upon, it was essential for a reformer to +be prudent. The People had no voice, and that their interests should +be defended was inconceivable.[14] In the next century, after the reign +of Louis XV. was over and speech had, in a great measure, become free, +it was not understood how difficult it was under Louis XIV. to express +any criticism of the feudal order. For instance, there is a long +passage at the end of the chapter "De la Ville," which scandalized the +political reformers of the eighteenth century. It is that which +begins, "The emperors never triumphed in Rome so softly, so +conveniently, or even so successfully, against wind and rain, dust and +sunshine, as the citizen of Paris knows how to do as he crosses the +city to-day in every direction. How far have we advanced beyond the +mule of our ancestors!" La Bruyere was charged, and even by Voltaire, +with attacking the progress of civilization, and with preferring the +rude subterfuges of Carlovingian times to the comforts of 1688. But he +was really making an appeal for thrift and modesty of expenditure on +the part of those bourgeois who had suddenly become rich, as a +satirist of our own day might denounce the pomp of a too successful +shopkeeper, without being accused of denying the convenience of +motor-cars or desiring to stop the progress of scientific invention. + + [Footnote 14: Perhaps the earliest Frenchman to have his full + attention called to the miseries of the poor, was Vauban, + whose benevolence was an object of amazement to his own + contemporaries. Saint-Simon notes that "Patriote comme il + l'etait, il avait toute sa vie ete touche de la misere du + peuple et de toutes les vexations qu'il souffrait." This + would be particularly the case when Vauban was writing the + "Projet d'une dixieme royale," finished in 1698.] + +La Bruyere was the first effective moralist who realized what a +monstrous disproportion existed between the fortune of the rich and of +the poor.[15] If we read the chapter "Des Biens de Fortune" we may be +astonished at his courage, and we may see in him a direct precursor of +the revolution which took a little more than a hundred years to gather +before it broke on France. He describes the great of the earth with a +savage serenity, and then he adds, "Such people are neither relatives, +nor friends, nor citizens, nor Christians, nor perhaps even men. They +have money." There are many such maxims in the chapter "De l'homme" +which must have set people's thoughts running in channels which had +before been wholly dry. La Bruyere was not a political reformer, and +we must not exaggerate the influence of his charming book in this +particular direction. But, as a popular imaginative writer, he took a +long step in the democratic direction. Frenchmen were already touched +in their consciences and beginning to examine the state of their souls +with anxiety; but the teachers of the ascetic revival had been too +uncompromising. Ordinary mortals could not hope to reach the ascetic +ideal of Port Royal, they could only be discouraged by the savage +attacks on _amour-propre_, while in the "Caracteres" they met with a +lay-preacher who was one of themselves, and who did not disdain to +encourage moral effort. + + [Footnote 15: The wonderful passage in which La Bruyere + dwells on the condition of the French peasant of his day + marks a crisis in the conscience of Europe. It occurs in the + chapter "De l'Homme": "We see certain wild animals, male and + female, scattered over the fields, black, livid and scorched + by the sun, fastened to the soil which they delve and stir + with an invincible obstinacy; they have a sort of articulate + speech, and when they stand up upon their feet, they show a + countenance that is human: and in short they are human + beings. They creep back at nightfall into dens, where they + live on black bread, water and roots. They spare the rest of + mankind the trouble of sowing, ploughing and reaping what is + required for food, and accordingly they seem to deserve that + they should themselves not lack the bread which they have + sown." And in "Des Biens de Fortune" he says: "There are + sorrows in the world that grip the heart, there are men and + women who have nothing, not even bread, who shudder at the + approach of winter, who have learned the significance of + life, while others eat fruit forced out of due season, and + compel the soil and the seasons to indulge their + fastidiousness."] + +It was a great advantage to La Bruyere, and a sign of his genius, that +he was able to descend from the pulpit, and walk about among his +readers with a smile, recognizing them as reasonable beings. He is +persuasive; his forerunners had been denunciatory. He may be harsh and +sometimes unjust, but he is never contemptuous to human nature. He +feels that he is addressing a wide public of intelligent men and +women, whom he would fortify against the moral tyranny of the violent +and the rich. For this purpose, though he would tell them their +faults, he would not shut the gates of mercy in their faces. But how +admirably he himself puts it in his chapter "Des Jugements":-- + +"A man of talent and reputation, if he allows himself to be peevish +and censorious, scares young people, makes them think evil of virtue, +and frightens them with the idea of an excessive reform and a tiresome +strictness of conduct. If, on the other hand, he proves easy to get on +with, he sets a practical lesson before them, since he proves to them +that a man can live gaily and yet laboriously, and can hold serious +views without renouncing honest pleasures; so he becomes an example +which they find it possible to follow." + +When we look round for an author of high importance on whom the +influence of La Bruyere was direct, we find the most obvious to be an +Englishman, and our own enchanting "Mr. Spectator." Addison was born +when La Bruyere was twenty-seven; when the "Caracteres" was published +he was an undergraduate at Queen's College, Oxford, walking in +meditation under the elms beside the Cherwell. Addison was not in +France until La Bruyere had been some months dead; there can have been +no personal intercourse between them; but he stayed at Blois for over +twelve months in 1699 and 1700, and during that time he was much in +company with the Abbe Phelippeaux, member of that family of friends +who had so efficiently supported La Bruyere's candidature to the +French Academy only six years before. I do not think this fact has +been noted, but surely it is almost certain that in their talks about +literature Phelippeaux must have described La Bruyere to Addison? +Another contributor to the _Spectator_, Eustace Budgell, translated +Theophrastus and knew La Bruyere's book. Dr. Johnson mentions that the +French moralist is the source of Addison's effort, but English +critical opinion then, and since, has held that La Bruyere wrote +without any of the earnestness of the moral reformer. I have +indicated, I hope, the hasty error contained in such a judgment. + +There is one point, however, on which it must be admitted that Addison +shows himself much in advance of his French precursor, or rather +perhaps we should consider it a proof of the advantage of English +society under Anne over French society under Louis XIV. The delicacy +and sympathy with which women are treated in the _Spectator_ has no +parallel in the "Caracteres." In that volume, the chapter "Des Femmes" +is perhaps the least agreeable to a sensible reader of to-day. It is +crowded with types of pretentious and abnormal womanhood, which it +caricatures very effectively. Addison had manifestly studied it, for +here we see the origin of his coquettes and prudes, with their +"brocade petticoat which rises out of the mines of Peru, and the +diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan." But what we miss +completely in La Bruyere is that cordial recognition of women as the +proper companions of men and the organizers of intelligent society +which is so admirably sustained in the _Spectator_. It was Addison, +and not La Bruyere, who broke down once for all, and finally, the +monkish conception of women as the betrayers of the human species, +which had lingered on so detestably from the Middle Ages. + +The influence of La Bruyere on Steele is apparent, and may have +preceded that on Addison. We may observe that Steele says, in the +general preface to the _Tatler,_ "the elegance, purity and correctness +which appeared in [Mr. Addison's] writings were not so much to my +purpose as... to rally all those singularities of human life, through +the different professions and _characters_ in it, which obstruct +anything that is truly good and great," The similarity of expression +here is certainly not accidental; La Bruyere stood before Steele as a +model when he wrote, for instance, in 1709, Mr. Isaac Bickerstaffs +"portraits" of Chloe and Clarissa, or the "lucubration" on Deference +to Public Opinion. When La Bruyere died, Steele was already an author, +and what is more, a moralist. It is impossible not to believe that he +had been reading the "Caracteres" when it occurred to him that he +might procure himself "a most exquisite pleasure," by framing +"Characters of Domestic Life." + +The ladies may hold it to be an excuse for our French moralist that he +was a confirmed and impenitent bachelor. He thought that marriage +enchained a philosopher, and would have said, in the words of Rudyard +Kipling, "He rideth the faster who rideth alone," Boileau, after a +visit from La Bruyere, remarked that nature had not consented to make +him so agreeable as he wished to be. It seems that he was shy and +gauche, and that he strove to conceal these defects by occasional +outbursts of a dreadful playfulness. There are stories about his +behaviour in the House of Conde, which if they are true seem to carry +eccentricity beyond the bounds of what is permitted even to a +philosopher. Nevertheless, contemporaries report that, in spite of his +plain features and his "look of a common soldier" (a dreadful thing to +say in the seventeenth century), the ladies ran after him. I am afraid +that when they did so, he repulsed them. He says about love none of +the charming things which he says about friendship, such as "To be +with those we are fond of, that is enough; to dream, to speak to them, +to say nothing to them, to think about them, to think of indifferent +things, but in their presence,--all is equally pleasant." Or this: +"Pure friendship has a flavour which is beyond the taste of those who +are born mediocre." Or again. "There ought to be, deep down in the +heart, inexhaustible wells of sorrow in readiness for certain losses." +The tenderness of such thoughts as these may surely outweigh the +dryness of the portraits of Corinne and Clarice. + +The career of our moralist, after the publication of his single book, +was a short one. His startling success as a writer irresistibly +pointed him out as a candidate for election to the French Academy, but +here he was met by the barbed wire of jealousy and exasperated vanity. +He had laughed at too many pretentious mandarins to hope to escape +their resentment. At last, in 1693, but alas! at the expense of a vast +deal of intrigue on the part of his illustrious protectors, he stormed +that reluctant fortress. In his Reception Discourse, he revenged +himself on his enemies by firing volley after volley of irony into +their ranks, and the august body was beside itself with rage. No +pompous Academician, for instance, likes to hear, in the solemn +conclave of his colleagues, that he is so Christian and so charitable +that "writing well may be said to be among the least of his +qualities." La Bruyere summed up his attacks in a preface to the +eighth edition of the "Caracteres" in 1694. He then retired again to +his independence as a crafty old bachelor, and Saint Simon gives us a +pleasant snapshot of him in these latest years, "a very +straightforward man, capital company, simple, with nothing of the +pedant about him, and entirely disinterested." + +He remained the man of one book until nearly the close of his life. It +is thought that Bossuet, who had always been his great exemplar, urged +him to undertake a reply to the heresies of Mme de Guyon and Fenelon, +and that so he was dragged into that very painful quarrel. At all +events, he started a series of "Dialogues on Quietism," in which all +the extreme doctrines of Molinos and his disciples were examined and +ridiculed. On May 8, 1696, La Bruyere dined with Antoine Bossuet, the +bishop's elder brother; after dinner he took out the MSS. from his +pocket, and read extracts to his host. Two days afterwards, after +walking in the garden at Versailles, he had a stroke, and two days +after that he died. He had had no premonition of illness, and the +rumour went round that the Quietists had poisoned him. His body was +exhumed, but of course no trace of poison was to be found. The +"Dialogues," revised and completed by the Abbe Ellies du Pin, were +published the next year. Their authenticity has been obstinately +contested, but, as I confess it seems to me, without excuse. Both +external and internal evidence go to prove, I think, that they are +substantially the work of La Bruyere, and for those who are not +alarmed at theological discussions conducted in rather a profane +spirit, they make very good reading. + +One last word about our amiable author. His great book remains +eminently alive, and wields after two centuries and a half a permanent +influence. When you refer to it, you must not expect a logical +development of philosophical theory. We do not look to find a system +in a book of maxims and portraits. La Bruyere was a moralist, pure and +simple; he awakened sensibility, he encouraged refinement, and he +exposed the vicious difference which existed around him--and which no +one else had seemed to notice--that the possession of more or fewer +pieces of money made between human beings otherwise equal. He had a +democratic philosophy which is sometimes that of Mr. Micawber, +"Celui-la est riche qui recoit plus qu'il ne consume; celui-la est +pauvre dont la depense excede la recette," But he is seldom so prosy +as this. Let us think of him as one who wished to turn his talent as a +painter of still life to the benefit of his nation, and who succeeded +in a degree far beyond his own modest hopes. + + + + + VAUVENARGUES + + +If we had been in Paris on a summer's day in 1744 we might have seen +emerge from a modest house in the ungenteel rue du Paon (Peacock +Street) a young man of less than twenty-nine years of age. It is +improbable that we should have been attracted to him without warning, +for though his expression was very pleasant, he was not +distinguished-looking, and though he was uncomplaining, his evident air +of suffering was painful to witness. He had the gallant bearing of a +soldier and a certain noble elegance, but a shade across his forehead +testified to the failure of his eyesight, and he shambled along with +difficulty on two lame legs. If we followed him he would probably take +us slowly to the Garden of the Luxembourg, where it was very unlikely +that any one would greet him. + +He would presently turn out of the fashionable promenade, to +contemplate the poor and the unfortunate. Sometimes he would stop +those who seemed most wretched, and would try to share their sorrows, +but sympathy on the part of a gentleman was strange, or else there was +something in himself which failed to express his tenderness, for he +complained that the unfortunate always turned away from him. If, at +the moment of such a repulse, we had addressed him, and had +respectfully offered him our sympathy, he would have struggled with +his painful shyness, and would have told us that he felt no resentment +against those who rejected his help. Nothing hardened his heart, and +the lack of response merely doubled his pity. He would assure us, with +the pale smile which was the charm of his anaemic countenance, that +those who were vicious were so by their misfortune, not their fault, +and that of the worst criminals he was persuaded that, if they could, +they would "end their days in innocence." With an exquisite and simple +politeness he would leave us wondering a little who this pathetic +young man, with all the stigmata upon him of poverty and sickness +bravely borne, might be; and there would be none to explain to us that +it was the Marquis de Vauvenargues, come home a broken man from the +wars in Bohemia. + +This inconspicuous personage, who glided almost like a ghost through +less than thirty-two years of pain and adversity, was not merely the +greatest moralist that France produced in the course of the eighteenth +century, but was of all the world's writers perhaps the one who has +lifted highest the banner of hope and joy in heroism and virtue. In La +Rochefoucauld we encountered a representative of the dominant class, +the prince-dukes. La Bruyere was a typical bourgeois. In our third +example of the moral energy of France we meet with a specimen of the +_petite noblesse_, the impoverished country gentlemen who dragged out +a provincial existence in obscurity and ignorance, supported by their +pride in a long pedigree. Luc de Clapiers, whose father was raised to +the marquisate of Vauvenargues in 1722, was born seven years earlier +than that, at Aix in Provence, where his father was mayor. It is a +pleasant touch to be told that his father was the only magistrate who +did not desert his post when Aix was swept by the plague in 1720. +There seems a foreshadowing here of his famous son's high courage. But +it seems also certain that there was no appreciation of scholarship or +literature in the household. No atmosphere less benevolent to learning +can be imagined. The future philosopher went to school at Aix for a +little while, and then his weak health was made the excuse for +cancelling what was perhaps looked upon as a needless expense. He was +thrown upon himself, and what education he secured was the result of +his own desultory reading. + +Vauvenargues never acquired a knowledge of Greek or even Latin,[16] but +when he was about sixteen years of age he came across a book which +absolutely transfigured his outlook upon the world and decided the +course of his aspirations. This was none less than a translation of +the "Lives" of Plutarch, a work which has had a very remarkable moral +effect on the Frenchmen of four centuries. We know not which this +particular translation was, but it would be pleasant to think it was +that made by Amyot in 1559. The effect it had on the temperament of +Vauvenargues must be told in his own words. He says in a letter to +Mirabeau (March 22, 1740)-- + + [Footnote 16: Suard is definite as to this: "Il est mort + sans etre en etat de lire Horace et Tacite dans leur + langue."] + +"I wept for joy while I read these 'Lives' [of Plutarch]. No night +went by but I had spent part of it in talking to Alcibiades, to +Agesilas, or to others. I walked in the streets of Rome that I might +argue with the Gracchi, and when stones were flung at Cato, there was +I to defend him. You remember that when Caesar wished to pass a law +which was too much in favour of the populace, Cato tried to prevent +his doing so, and put his hand on Caesar's mouth to prevent his +speaking? These modes of action, so unlike our fashions of to-day, +made a deep impression on me." + +He attributed to the teaching of Plutarch his introduction to the +master-passions of his brief future existence, namely, his devotion to +a sense of heroic duty and his determination to live up to the measure +of his high calling. In the pages of Plutarch he says that he +discovered "la vraie grandeur de notre ame"; here was exposed before +him a scene of life illustrated by "virtue without limit, pleasure +without infamy, wit without affectation, distinction without vanity, +and vices without baseness and without disguise." This boyish +appreciation is worthy of our attention, because it contains the +future moral teaching of Vauvenargues as in a nutshell. To our great +regret, it is the only positive record which survives of the +adolescence of this great mind, on whose development we should so +gladly dwell if it were possible. In one of his own beautiful phrases +Vauvenargues says, "The earliest days of spring have less charm than +the budding virtue of a young man," In his own case those "earliest +days" are hopelessly sunken into oblivion.[17] + + [Footnote 17: We know, at least, that he taught himself to + write on the "sedulous ape" system, by imitating Bossuet and + Fenelon. He must have been in several respects very much + like Robert Louis Stevenson. His modesty led him to distrust + his own taste, and it is worthy of notice that the + corrections he made to please Voltaire often reduce the + vigour of his thought in its original expression. Voltaire-- + it is beyond conjecture why--cancelled the famous maxim, + "Les feux de l'aurore".] + +How harshly his tastes were condemned at home may be judged by an +anecdote about his father which occurs in the "Essai sur quelques +caracteres":-- + +"Anselme was shocked that his son should show a taste for science. He +burnt the young man's papers and books, and when he learned that he +had gone to sup with certain men of letters, he threatened to banish +him to the country if he persisted in keeping _bad company_. 'Since +you are fond of reading,' he said to him, 'why don't you read the +history of your own family? You will not find any savants there, but +you will find men of the right sort. Do you wish to be the first +pedant of your race?'" + +There were but two alternatives for a lad of his class who had to make +a living, the Church and the Army. For Vauvenargues there could be no +question, he was born to be a soldier. At the age of eighteen he +entered the King's Regiment as a second-lieutenant, and he marched +into Lombardy under the orders of that illustrious marshal-general, +the Duke of Villars, now in his eighty-first year, but still the +unquestioned summit of French military genius. The idea of "following +Hannibal over the mountains" filled our young philosopher with an +enthusiasm beyond his years. He took part in the victories of Parma +and Guastalla, and he was probably with Villars at Turin when that +indomitable octogenarian died in June 1734. The War of the Polish +Succession presently sank into a mere armistice, and until 1736 we +dimly perceive Vauvenargues sharing the idle and boring life of the +officer who, too poor to retire to Paris, vegetates in some deplorable +frontier-garrison of Burgundy or Franche Comte. We know that he was +dissipated and idle, for he tells us so, but his confession is marred +by no sort of priggishness, and it is very important to insist that +this greatest of moralists never exaggerated the capacity of ordinary +human virtue. He pretended to no exceptional loftiness in his own +conduct; he demanded no excessive sacrifice on the part of others. +Suard speaks of the "sweet indulgence" which marked his relations with +those with whom he lived, and he tells us that Vauvenargues "gradually +rose above the frivolous occupations of his time of life, without ever +contracting, in the development of serious ideas, that austerity which +commonly accompanies the virtues of youth.... Vauvenargues, thrown +upon the world directly he ceased to be a child, learned to know men +before it occurred to him to judge them. He saw their weaknesses +before he had reflected on their duties; and virtue, when it entered +his heart, found there all possible dispositions to indulgence." + +"Dispositions to indulgence"--we linger on this phrase, which has an +engaging beauty of its own. It distinguishes Vauvenargues at once from +all the great French moralists who preceded him, from La Rochefoucauld +with his savage cynicism, from Pascal with his contempt of the natural +man. Vauvenargues rejected the idea which had so tormented the great +spirits of the seventeenth century, that the noblest life was a life +of mortification, and he made no demand on the soul to divorce itself +from all human interests as being things naturally vile and +ignominious. He was to come down to us waving an olive-branch, the +most amiable of all idealists, an apostle of tolerance. He says that +he "hated scorn of human things." To this we must presently return, +but we may pause to note it here, as a faint light thrown over the +obscurity of his adolescence. + +The Marquis of Mirabeau was the cousin of Vauvenargues and almost +exactly his coeval. The discovery of a packet of letters which passed +between the young men from the summer of 1737 to that of 1740 has +dissipated in some measure the otherwise total darkness which had +gathered around the youth of our philosopher. Mirabeau (who was to be +the father of the famous orator) was a man of talent, but violent, +chimerical and lawless, "farouche," as he himself put it. Later he was +the author of the redoubtable "Ami des Hommes." This prodigal uncle of +the Revolution, this dangerous and violent "physiocrate" as he called +himself, would seem divided, as pole from pole, from the +gently-reasoning, the benevolently-meditative Vauvenargues. +Nevertheless, they are seen in warm relation of friendship to each +other, and the letters exhibit their characteristics. Mirabeau +shamelessly pours out the catalogue of his shifting and venal loves, +in confidences which Vauvenargues invariably receives with discretion, +unupbraiding, but not volunteering any like confidence in his turn. A +single example must be quoted: Mirabeau, wishing to get rid of a +mistress of whom he is tired, but who is still devoted to him, writes +her a letter of the most studied insolence, cleverly turned, and sends +a copy of it, with infinite fatuity, to his friend. Vauvenargues +replies that he has read out this letter at dinner to his +fellow-officers, who have been greatly diverted by its wit. "But," +said Vauvenargues, "we are sorry" (that is to say, of course, +Vauvenargues is sorry) "for the poor girl, who shows intelligence, and +who loves you." Could anything be a more indulgent, or at the same +time a more definite reproof? The germ of the _Reflexions_ is found in +this passing phrase, so unexpected in a soldier of that time and place. + +An anecdote, preserved like a spark of light in the darkness of those +early garrison years, takes us a step further. The sentiment of +compassion was scarcely known to the early eighteenth century in +France; it was certainly never extended to those unfortunate women +who, as Vauvenargues puts it, "watch for young men as evening begins +to darken." He was himself accosted on one occasion by a girl, whom he +allowed to walk by his side while he gently questioned her. She easily +told him of the wretched poverty which had driven her to vice, and +Vauvenargues, after trying to revive in her some sentiment of modesty, +left her with the gift of a little money. His fellow-officers of the +regiment greeted the incident with shouts of mirth: such behaviour was +unheard of. Vauvenargues replied: "My friends, you laugh too easily. I +am sorry for these poor creatures, obliged to ply such a profession to +earn their bread. The world is full of sorrows which wring my heart; +if we are to be kind only to those who deserve it, we may never be +called upon at all. We must be indulgent to the weak who have more +need of support than the virtuous; and we must remember that the +errors of the unfortunate are always caused by the harshness of the +rich." M. Paleologue, in a very interesting passage, has remarked that +we have to wait a hundred years before there is a repetition in French +literature of this peculiar mansuetude. + +Bearing in mind this capacity for indulgence, for pity, and +remembering how little it was conceived in the age he lived in, we may +look forward a moment to recognize that in his whole teaching +Vauvenargues differs from other moralists, but particularly from his +great predecessors in France, in that he has a constructive object. He +wishes exceedingly to help the unfortunate to live happily, easily and +profitably, and he regards almost the whole human race as more or less +unhappy. His desire, therefore, is not, as that of the +seventeenth-century moralists had been, to put human egotism in the +pillory and to pelt it with rotten eggs, but so far as possible to +encourage and affirm a decent, self-respecting egotism. Vauvenargues +finds the lock of life to be rusty; he touches it with the oiled +feather of his advice, so that the key may turn without resistance, +and without noise. He does not profess to strive after perfection in +conduct, but after improvement, and he is most careful never to +recommend violent means or an excessive austerity; nor does he condemn +or scold, even when his own humanity is most affronted, but he tries to +induce every one to make the best of his relations with other men +during the fugitive and frail duration of their common existence. If +he hated anything--in his universal benignity--Vauvenargues hated a +rigid puritanism. In one place he says, "We believe no longer in +witches, and yet there are people who still believe in Calvin!" + +Vauvenargues was twenty-six years of age when the war of the Austrian +Succession broke out, and swept him into military action. He was +vegetating in garrison at Metz when the armies of Marshal de +Belle-Isle, the gallant and thrice-unfortunate, streamed eastward into +Germany and carried our philosopher with them. The Regiment of the +King, of which Vauvenargues was an officer, reached Bohemia in July +1741. In a night attack of extraordinary rapidity and audacity Prague +was captured, and Vauvenargues took a personal part in this adventure, +which must have cast fuel on the fire of his rising military ambition. +But the conduct of war is all composed of startling ups and downs, and +at the height of the successes of the French, their luck abandoned +them. Relieved by no reinforcements and pressed hard by famine, the +army of Belle-Isle could no longer hold Prague, and on the night of +December 16-17, 1742, began the retreat from Bohemia which is one of +the most noted disasters of the eighteenth century. Nine days later, +what remained of the French army arrived at Egra, but after a march +through thick fog over frozen ground, without food, without shelter, +in a chaotic frenzy of despair. + +Vauvenargues was one of those who never recovered from the agony of +the retreat from Prague. Both his legs were frost-bitten, so that for +the remainder of his life he was lame; his eyesight was permanently +impaired; and he appears to have sown the seeds of the pulmonary +disease which was to carry him off five years later. But his tender +heart endured what were still severer pangs from the sufferings and +death of those of his companions for whom he had the greatest regard. +Among these the first place was held by Hippolyte de Seyres, whose +figure pervades the earliest developments of the genius of +Vauvenargues. De Seyres was a lieutenant in the philosopher's +regiment. He was only eighteen years of age, and Vauvenargues felt for +him the interest of an elder brother and the affection of a devoted +friend. We can trace the progress of the sentiment, in which are fully +revealed for the first time the peculiar qualities of our author's +mind. He does not conceal from himself the weaknesses of the character +of De Seyres, he blames him for his lack of suppleness, of simplicity +of manner, of self-confidence. He found in him a proud and delicate +spirit which exaggerated its own frailties and shrank morbidly from +their consequences. He was anxious that the spirit of the young man +should not be debased by low associations; he did not think the +slightly older officers who surrounded De Seyres to be wholesome +companions for him. The lad displayed a lack of moral force; he hoped +to succeed less by his own exertions than by the favour of others; he +was in despair over his own faults without having the energy to +correct them. It is in writing about De Seyres that Vauvenargues first +defines his central axiom, that the only sources of success are +virtue, genius and patience. He observed the lack of them all in De +Seyres, and his incapacity for expansion made his case the more +difficult to handle. "Son coeur est toujours serre," Vauvenargues +exclaims. But he nourished a deep and ever-deepening affection for +this sensitive lad, and became desirous, almost passionately desirous, +to lead him up to better things from out of the mediocrity of his +present associations. + +It appears certain to me that it was the study expended on the +character of Hippolyte de Seyres and the shock received by his +dreadful death which gave the earliest expansion to the genius of +Vauvenargues and left their definite mark on his writings. I do not +know why this all-important episode seems to have attracted so little +of the attention of those who have written about him. The "Conseils a +un Jeune Homme," which was evidently finished in 1743, is the earliest +complete work of Vauvenargues which we possess; it contains in embryo +the whole of his teaching as a moralist, and it was written for the +guidance of young De Seyres. On the other hand, I think that Gilbert +and other editors are mistaken in attributing the "Discours sur la +Gloire" to the same date and occasion; it seems to me much later in +style, and addressed to a very different person. The note of the +address to De Seyres is accurately given in the exquisite essay +entitled "Love of the Noble Passions." But it appears that the edifice +built up by the tender affection of Vauvenargues was rased to the +ground in December 1742. The young friend so passionately guarded, so +anxiously watched, died under his eyes in the course of the terrible +retreat over the icy passes of Bohemia, a victim to the united agony +of famine, cold and fatigue. Vauvenargues wrote an "Eloge" on his +young friend, which betrays something of the hysterical agitation of +his own soul. Here is a fragment of this strange document-- + +"Open, ye formidable sepulchres! Solitary phantoms, speak, speak! What +unconquerable silence! O sad abandonment! O terror! What hand is it +which holds all nature paralyzed beneath its pressure? O thou hidden +and eternal Being, deign to dissipate the alarm in which my feeble +soul is plunged. The secret of Thy judgments turns my timid heart to +ice. Veiled in the recesses of Thy being, Thou dost forge fate and +time, and life and death, and fear and joy, and deceitful and +credulous hope. Thou dost reign over the elements and over hell in +revolt. The smitten air shudders at Thy voice. Redoubtable judge of +the dead, take pity upon my despair." + +This is a voice we hear, so far as I remember, nowhere else in the +French literature of the eighteenth century. There is a certain accent +of Bossuet in it; it is still more like the note which a group of +English poets were striking. It may really seem to us an extraordinary +coincidence that the "Eloge" on Hippolyte de Seyres should belong to +the very same year, 1743, which saw the publication of Blair's "Grave" +and Young's "Night Thoughts." + +The rhetorical turn of the sentences I have just read was not habitual +with Vauvenargues; it was in this case the mask worn by the intensity +of his feeling, but he confesses in an early letter, "I like sometimes +to string big words together, and to lose myself in a period; I make a +jest of it." But after this outburst of panic grief in 1743 we see no +more trace of such a tendency to eloquence. He became more and more +completely himself, that is to say, very simple intellectually, in a +pedantic age. He adopted, indeed, a certain gravity at which we may +now smile; he did not approve of fairy-tales and fables, on the ground +that anything which came between direct truth and the receptive mind +of man was a disadvantage. "The disease of our age is to want to make +jokes about everything," he complains. + +To poor Vauvenargues life was not a laughing matter. His health had +been completely ruined by the disastrous campaigns in Austria, and by +the hardships of garrison life; and he was feeling more and more +sharply that pinch of genteel poverty which is the hardest of all to +bear. But if he never laughed, this martyr of the soul never ceased to +smile. His perpetual sufferings did not affect his gentle sobriety of +conversation. Those whose privilege it was to see Vauvenargues during +these last years of his brief existence are united in their report of +his magnanimity. Voltaire wrote, "I have always found him the most +unfortunate of human beings and the most tranquil." He was notable for +his "indulgent goodness," his "constant peace," his "justice of +heart," his "rectitude of soul." His conversation, so Marmontel +reports to us, had something more animated, more delicate, than even +his divine writings. The same acute observer noted that in the heart +of Vauvenargues, when he reflected upon the misery of mankind, pity +took the place of indignation and hatred. Sensitive, serene, +compassionate, affable, he tried to conceal from his friends as much +as possible his own pain, and even when it was evident that he +suffered most, no one dared to be melancholy in his presence. + +In the fleeting and impoverished life of Vauvenargues his friendships +were the main adventure. We have mentioned a name which is too +frequently the object of malignity on English lips, the name of +Voltaire. No one would pretend that the multiform energy of this giant +of literature did not take some unseemly directions and several +unlovely shapes. But the qualities of Voltaire must, in the eyes of +any unbiassed observer, vastly overtop his defects. If, however, we +wish to see Voltaire at his best, we must contemplate him in relation +to our soldier-philosopher. As soon as his health had recovered a +little from the horror of the Bohemian campaign, Vauvenargues took the +step of writing to Voltaire, then a stranger, for his opinion on that +crying question, the relative greatness of Corneille and of Racine, a +question to all Frenchmen like that between predestination and +free-will to Milton's rebel angels. This was towards the end of 1743, +when Voltaire, who had reached his fiftieth year, was recognised as +the first living historian and critic in France, and had been recalled +to court through the good offices of Mme du Chatelet. It was, no doubt, +at a happy moment that Vauvenargues' random letter arrived, Voltaire +responded with ardour; Vauvenargues quickly became to him, as +Marmontel says, what Plato was to Socrates, and nothing in the long +life of Voltaire shows him in a more charming light than does his +devotion to the young friend whom he called "the sweet hope of the +remainder of my days." After the death of the philosopher, Voltaire +wrote a brief, but invaluable, account of their relations, which had +lasted, without a cloud, until the death of Vauvenargues. + +He reminded Voltaire of Pascal, whose "incurable disease was consoled +by study," but the elder friend noted a striking distinction; the +eloquence of Pascal was fiery and imperious, that of Vauvenargues was +"insinuating." The powerful physical force of Voltaire was softened by +the suffering of his young companion, for whom "nature had poured out +large draughts of hemlock," and who, "while all his body sank into +dissolution, preserved in spirit that perfect tranquillity which the +pure alone enjoy." Although Vauvenargues was twenty years younger than +his friend, Voltaire succumbed to the gravity of his demeanour; like +the fellow-officers at Arras or at Metz, we smile to find him +addressing Vauvenargues as _mon pere_. One of the philosopher's maxims +is, "Great thoughts proceed from the heart," and Voltaire in a note +has added, "In writing this, though he knew it not, he painted his own +portrait." He found in Vauvenargues "the simplicity of a timid child," +and it seems that he had a difficulty in overcoming his modesty so far +as to make him write down those Reflections which are now placed for +ever among the masterpieces of French literature. It is to Voltaire +that we owe the fact that Vauvenargues found resolution enough to +become an author. + +A typical instance of the mixture of courage and tact in the young +author is to be found in the attitude which he took up towards +Voltaire with regard to the Marquise de Pompadour, without in the +least offending his tempestuous friend. That remarkable young lady, +then still known as la petite Etoile, had succeeded in catching the +King's eye, and was soaring into the political heavens like a rocket, +carrying, among other incongruous objects, the genius of Voltaire in +her glittering train. Voltaire must have boasted to his young friend +that his fortune was made. Vauvenargues surprisingly expresses in his +reply the evil which must be done by great authors who flatter vice +and think to conceal its corruption by heaping flowers over a lie. The +incident is important for us, because it led Vauvenargues, thus +disappointed in Voltaire as he had been disappointed in Mirabeau, to +examine into the sources of the low moral condition of the age. He +attributed it to "le mepris de la gloire," and he set himself to +define this quality and to impress it, with all the force of +repetition, on the dulled consciences of his contemporaries. + +It is extremely difficult, it is well-nigh impossible, to find an +equivalent in English for the word "gloire." It is a French +conception, and one to which our language does not readily, or +gracefully, lend itself. In the mind of Vauvenargues the idea of +"gloire" took the central place, and we may form an intelligent +conception of the meaning he stamped upon the word, by repeating some +of his axioms. + +He says: "The flush of dawn is not so lovely as the earliest +experiences of _gloire_. _Gloire_ makes heroes beautiful." Again: +"Nothing is so essential as renown, and nothing so surely gives renown +as merit; these are things that reason itself has united, and why +should we distinguish true _gloire_ from merit, which is the source of +it, and of which it is the proof?" This moral union of merit, glory +and renown, in triple splendour revolving round each other, was the +main object of Vauvenargues' contemplation, and he admits that the +central passion of his life was "l'amour de la gloire." What, then, is +the exact meaning of "la Gloire," which the dictionaries superficially +translate by "glory,"--a very different thing? + +Vauvenargues starts a new conception of the value of self-esteem, or +rather of the desire of being esteemed by others. The seventeenth +century had poured its vials of contempt over the _amour-propre_ of +mankind, and no doubt that had led to a corresponding decline in the +energy of the nation. Pascal had severely ridiculed the vanity which +he says is anchored in the heart of man, and he actually mocks at the +idea of a desire for renown; expressing his astonishment that even +philosophers have the fatuity to wish for fame. Vauvenargues is +probably thinking of Pascal when he says that those who dilate upon +the inevitable nothingness of human glory would feel vexation if they +had to endure the open contempt of a single individual. Men are proud +of little things--of dancing well or even of skating gracefully, or of +still meaner accomplishments, yet those very persons despise real +renown. "But us," he says in one of his noble outbursts, "but us it +excites to labour and virtue." We note, then, at once that the +_amour-propre_ of the seventeenth century, the sentiment against which +we saw the most burning arrows of La Rochefoucauld directed, was not +the source of Vauvenargues' desire of glory; that with him renown was +not a matter of egotistic satisfaction, but of altruistic stimulus, +awakening in others, by a happy rivalry, sentiments of generosity and +self-sacrifice which might redeem society and the dying world of +France. And this may perhaps at this point be observed as the centre +of his action, namely the discovery that a wholesome desire for fame +proceeds not from our self-satisfaction, but from our profound sense +of emptiness, of imperfection. + +How needful the lesson was, no one who examines the social history of +the first half of the eighteenth century can doubt. Without falling +into errors of a Puritanic kind, we cannot fail to see that opinion +and action alike had become soft, irresolute, superficial; that strong +views of duty and piety and justice were half indulged in, half +sneered at, and not at all acted upon. The great theologians who +surrounded Bossuet, the Eagle of Meaux, had died one by one, and had +left successors who were partly pagan, partly atheist. Art and +literature tripped after the flowered skirts of the emancipated +Duchess of Maine. Looking round the world of France in 1746, +Vauvenargues could but cry, like a preacher in the wilderness, "we +have fallen into decadence, into moral desuetude," but he cried +without anger, remembering that "still the love of _gloire_ is the +invisible soul of all those who are capable of any virtue." + +It was a critical moment in the history of France. After the long and +painful wars of Louis XIV. the army had become unpopular; it was the +fashion to sneer at it. The common soldiers were considered, and often +were, the offscourings of the community. The officers, who had left +their homes too soon, in most cases, to acquire the rudiments of +education, were bored with garrison life, and regretted Paris, which +they made every excuse to regain. They affected to have no curiosity +about military science, and to talk "army shop" was the worst of bad +form. Those who were poor lived and grumbled in their squalor; those +who were rich gave themselves up to sinful extravagance. There was no +instinctive patriotism in any section of the troops. What pleasure can +a man have in being a soldier if he possesses neither talent for war, +nor the esteem of his men, nor a taste for glory? It is Vauvenargues +himself, who had seen all classes of officers, who asks that question. +From his "Reflexions" of 1746 a chapter on "Our Armies at the Present +Moment" was omitted, and not published in its proper sequence until +long after his death. No doubt its searching exposure of the rot in +the military state of France was the cause of this suppression. + +"Courage," he says in this deleted chapter of his book, "courage, +which our ancestors admired as the first of virtues, is now generally +regarded as a popular error." Those few officers who still desire to +see their country glorious, are forced to retire into civil life +because they cannot endure a condition in which there is no reward but +shame for a man of courage and ambition. + +These were prominent among the considerations which filled the mind of +Vauvenargues when, at the age of twenty-nine, he saw himself driven +out of military life by the rapid aggravation of ill-health. His +thoughts turned to diplomacy. He greatly admired the writings of Sir +William Temple, on whom he may have partly modelled his own style as +an essayist; he dreamed of becoming an ambassador of the same class, +known, as Temple was, "by their writings no less than by their +immortal actions." But his inexorable bad luck followed him in this +design. A pathetic letter to the King remained unanswered, and so did +another to Amelot, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. + +After waiting a long time he wrote again to Amelot, and this second +letter is highly characteristic of the temper and condition of +Vauvenargues-- + +"MONSEIGNEUR. + +"I am painfully distressed that the letter which I had the honour of +writing to you, as well as that which I took the liberty of asking you +to forward to the King, have not been able to arrest your attention. +It is not, perhaps, surprising that a minister so fully occupied as +you are should not find time to examine such letters; but, +Monseigneur, will you permit me to point out to you that it is +precisely this moral impossibility for a gentleman, who has no claim +but zeal, to reach his master, which leads to that discouragement that +is noticeable in all the country nobility, and which extinguishes all +emulation? + +"I have passed, Monseigneur, my youth far from all worldly +distractions, in order to prepare myself for the species of employment +for which it was my belief that my temperament designed me; and I was +bold enough to think that so concentrated an effort would place me at +least on a level with those who depend for all their fortune upon +their intrigues and upon their pleasures. It overwhelms me, +Monseigneur, to discover that the confidence which I had based mainly +on the love of my duty, should be so disappointed. My health no longer +permitting me to continue my services in the war, I have written to M. +the Duke de Biron to beg him to appoint my successor. I could not, in +a situation so piteous, refrain from informing you of my despair. +Pardon me, Monseigneur, if it has led me into any extravagance of +expression. + +"I am, etc." + +To this last appeal the Minister for Foreign Affairs did respond in a +brief and perfunctory note, promising to find an occasion of bringing +the talents of Vauvenargues to the notice of the King, but nothing +resulted. Vauvenargues had been living in a dream of military glory, +and had been thirsting to serve his country in the loftiest and most +responsible capacities. His very physical appearance now completed the +bankruptcy of his wishes, for he was attacked with the smallpox, which +disfigured him so badly that, to use his own expression, "it prevented +his soul from appearing in his features." Thus without fortune, or +profession, without hope for the future, half-blind, with gangrened +limbs that tottered under his feeble body, Vauvenargues started on the +steadily downward path which was to lead in less than four years to +his grave. History presents to us no more dolorous figure of physical +and social failure, nor a more radiant example of moral success. + +The alternative now presented itself of a wretched solitude in the +castle of his Provencal ancestors, or a garret, perhaps even more +wretched, but certainly far less solitary, in Paris. In either case it +would be necessary to relinquish all the luxuries, all the comforts of +life. He chose to finish his suffering years in Paris, and in humble +furnished rooms in the street of the Peacock, where he was consoled by +the visits of Voltaire and Marmontel. We find him settled there in May +1745, and seven months later there crept into circulation an anonymous +volume of moral essays, which was absolutely ignored by the literary +world of France. We do not appreciate to the full the Calvary which +Vauvenargues so meekly mounted, unless we realize that to all his +other failures was added a complete disregard of his ideas by the +literary public of his own day. He died unknown, save by two or three +friends, having never experienced anything but languor, disappointment +and obscurity. Under the pseudonym of Clazomene, just before his +death, he drew a picture of his own fortune and character which proves +that he had no illusion about himself, and which yet contains not a +murmur against the injustice of fate nor a breath of petulance or +resentment. "Let no one imagine," this portrait closes, "that +Clazomene would exchange his wretchedness for the prosperity of weak +men; fortune may sport with the wisdom of brave souls, but it has no +power to subdue their courage." + +It is time, however, to examine the actual compositions of our +author.[18] Until his friendship with Voltaire began, Vauvenargues had +not given much attention to verse, but he now began a series of +critical essays on the poets. He says, in the course of these +"Reflexions," that what little he knew of poetry he owed to M. de +Voltaire. His remarks on this subject, however, are more independent +than he would give us to suppose, and they are always worthy of +attention because they illustrate the moral attitude of Vauvenargues +himself. He was not embarrassed by tradition in advancing along his +road through the masterpieces of literature. He was always an amateur, +never a man in bondage to the "authorities;" he seems, indeed, to have +avowed a dislike for general reading: "Pascal avait peu lu, ainsi que +Malebranche," was his excuse. In the case of Pascal, we may question +the fact, but it is recorded that when at last Malebranche was +persuaded to read Descartes' "Traite de l'homme," it excited him so +violently as to bring on palpitation of the heart. Such are the +dangers of a retarded study of the classics. Vauvenargues was no less +inflammable. He met with the tragedies of Racine at a moment when the +reputation of that poet had sunk to its lowest point, and, totally +indifferent to the censure of the academical sanhedrim, he extolled +him as a master-anatomist of the human heart. + + [Footnote 18: The writings of Vauvenargues exist in a + confusion which is not likely to be ever remedied, for the + bulk of his MSS. were burned during the Commune in May 1871. + But much gratitude is owing to Suard (1806) and Gilbert + (1857) for their pious labours. A variorum edition might + even yet be attempted, and although not complete, might at + least be final.] + +In considering the observations of Vauvenargues with regard to poets, +we must bear in mind that he and his contemporaries did not seek from +poetry what we require in the twentieth century. The critics of the +early eighteenth century in France talked about Homer and Virgil, but +what they really admired were Ariosto and Pope. Voltaire, the greatest +of them, considered the "epopee heroi-comique" the top-stone of modern +practical effort; we know what astonishing feats he was himself guilty +of in that species of architecture. But his whole teaching and +practice tended towards an identity of speech between prose and verse, +the prosodical pattern or ornament being the sole feature which +distinguished the latter from the former. His own poetry, when it was +not fugitive or satiric, was mainly philosophical, that is to say, it +did not stray beyond the confines of logic and wit. At the same time, +Voltaire was an energetic protagonist for verse, and he did very much +to prevent the abandonment of this instrument at a time when prose, in +such hands as those of Montesquieu and Buffon, was manifestly in the +ascendant. He earnestly recommended the cultivation of a form in which +precision of thought and elegance of language were indispensable, and +he employed it in tragedies which we find it impossible to read, but +which enchanted the ear and fancy of Vauvenargues. + +The taste of the age of Louis XV. affected to admire Corneille to the +disadvantage of all other rivals, and Voltaire was not far from +blaming Vauvenargues for his "extreme predilection" for Racine. But +Vauvenargues, with unexpected vivacity, took up the cudgels, and +accused the divine Corneille of "painting only the austere, stern, +inflexible virtues," and of falling into the affectation of mistaking +bravado for nobility, and declamation for eloquence. He is extremely +severe on the faults of the favourite tragedian, and he blames +Corneille for preferring the gigantic to the human, and for ignoring +the tender and touching simplicity of the Greeks. It is from the point +of view of the moralist that these strictures are now important; they +show us that Vauvenargues in his reiterated recommendation of virtue +and military glory did not regard those qualities from the Cornelian +point of view, which he looked upon as fostering a pompous and falsely +"fastueux" conception of life. He blamed Corneille's theatrical +ferocity in terms so severe that Voltaire called the passage "a +detestable piece of criticism" and ran his blue pencil through it. No +doubt the fact is that Vauvenargues saw in the rhetoric of Corneille a +parody of his own sentiments, carried to the verge of rodomontade. + +The publications of Vauvenargues during his lifetime come under two +categories. His "Introduction a la Connaissance de l'Esprit Humain" is +a short book, and it is also a fragment. The author had begun to +collect notes for it during his Bohemian campaign, in 1741; but "those +passions which are inseparable from youth, and ceaseless physical +infirmity, brought on by the war, interrupted my studies," he says. +Voltaire has expressed his amazement that under such piteous +conditions, Vauvenargues had the fortitude to pursue them at all. +There seems to be a change apparent in the object he put before him; +he set out, like Locke, to write an essay on the Human Understanding, +but he ended by putting together a chain of maxims. He quoted Pascal, +who had said, "All good maxims are in the world; we have only got to +apply them," but though Vauvenargues takes this dictum as his text he +refutes it. He says that maxims originally "good," in Pascal's sense, +may have grown sleepy in popular use, and may have ceased to act, so +that we ought to rid ourselves of conventional prejudice and go to the +fountain-head, to try all spirits, in fact, and find out what spirits +really are of God. When Vauvenargues began to reflect, he was +astonished at the inexactitude and even self-contradiction of the +philosophical language of his day. He was not, and probably never +would have become, what we understand now as a philosopher. He was a +moralist, pure and simple, and had no more relation with men like +Descartes or Berkeley than a rousing revivalist preacher has with a +regius professor of Theology. + +The only thing which really interested Vauvenargues was the social +duty of man, and to discover what that is he attempted to define +morals, politics and religion. He had an intense desire for clear +guidance, and he waited for the heavenly spark to fall. He said to +himself, before he made it plain to others, that if we are not guided +by _truth_, we fall into the pit. There was a certain childishness in +his attitude in this matter, for he was inclined to regard abstract +truth as the only one worthy of pursuit. That he was advancing in +breadth of view is shown by the fact that he cancelled in the second +edition of his book a whimsical passage in which he urged people who +were studying conchology, to throw away their shells, asking them to +consider "whether glory is but a name, virtue all a mistake, and law +nothing else than a phantom." The "Introduction" is all written in +this spirit; it is a passionate appeal to the French nation to leave +mean and trivial pursuits, and to live for pure and passionate ideals, +for glory gained by merit, and as the reward of solid and strenuous +effort. + +Vauvenargues' attitude to the English moralists has not been +sufficiently examined. So far as is known he never visited this +country, although he desired to do so. In one of his letters he speaks +of intending to consult a famous oculist in London, but this project +was not carried out; his poverty doubtless prevented it. Whether he +knew English is not certain, but he appears to have read Temple and +Locke, possibly in the original, and a reference to a remarkable +English contemporary appears to have hitherto escaped observation. In +the "Introduction a la connaissance de l'esprit humain," he speaks of +a writer who has argued that private vices are public benefits, and he +attempts to show that this is a fallacy. He returns, less definitely, +to the same line of thought in the "Discours sur la gloire," where he +denies that vice has any part in stimulating social action. It is +strange that no one, so far as I know, has observed this proof that +Vauvenargues was acquainted with the celebrated paradox of Bernard +Mandeville, whose "Fable of the Bees" was in 1747 continuing to cause +so scandalous a sensation, and was still so completely misunderstood. +There seems, occasionally, a trace of the idealism of Shaftesbury in +the colour of Vauvenargues' phrase, but on this it would be dangerous +to insist. + +His own views, however, were more emphatically defined, and more +directly urged, in the other contribution to literature published by +Vauvenargues in his lifetime, the "Reflexions sur divers sujets." Here +he abandons the attempt at forming a philosophical system, and admits +that his sole object is "to form the hearts and the manners" of his +readers. Perhaps the most penetrating of all his sentences is that in +which he says: "If you possess any passion which you feel to be noble +and generous, be sure you foster it." This was diametrically opposed +to all the teaching of the seventeenth-century moralists who had +preceded him, and also had taught us that we should mistrust our +passions and disdain our enthusiasms. To see how completely +Vauvenargues rejected the Christian doctrine of the utter decrepitude +and hopeless inherent badness of the human mind, we have but to gather +some of his sparse thoughts together. He says, in defiance of Pascal +and the Jansenists, "Mankind is the only source of our happiness, +outside that there is nothing." Again, "As it is the heart, in most +people, that doubts, so when once the heart is converted, all is done; +it leads them along the path to virtue." He deprecated the constant +checking and blaming of children which was part of the system of +education then in vogue; he declared that it sapped the confidence of +the young, their inherent sense of virtue; and he exclaimed, "Why does +no one dream of training children to be original, bold and +independent?" + +Those who knew Vauvenargues recognized in the purity and sweetness and +severity of his teaching the record of his own conduct. Marmontel +speaks of the "tender veneration" with which all the more serious of +his early comrades in the army regarded him. In his works we trace the +result of a curious thing, experience superseding, taking the place +of, education. "He observed the weaknesses of mankind before he had +time to reflect upon their duties," says a contemporary. His mind, +although assaulted by such a crowd of disadvantages, remained calm, +and free from prejudice; remained gently indulgent to human weakness +on the one hand, rigid in allegiance to his ideal pursuit of "la +gloire" on the other. The noble movements of his mind were native, not +acquired, and he had not been hardened or exasperated by the pressure +of a mortifying theology. He does not take so exalted or so pitiless +an attitude as the classic seventeenth-century moralist. Pascal +scourges the mass of humanity down a steep place into the sea; +Vauvenargues takes each wanderer by the hand, and leads him along the +primrose path. + +A singular charm in the French character lies in its gift for +composite action. Frenchmen prefer marching towards victory in a body +to a scattered effort of individual energy. It was part of the +constructive genius of Vauvenargues to find the aim and joy of life in +a combination of sentiment and action, in a community of rivals +amiably striving for the crown with fellowmen of like instincts and of +like experience. He was of all moralists the least solitary; he had +spent his life as a soldier among soldiers, among those who did their +best, in the midst of hardships, to live a life of pleasure without +reflection. He was no prig, but he had formed the habit of giving +fatherly counsel which was much beyond his years. He observes that +"the advice of old men is like winter sunshine that gives out light +without warmth," but that the words of a wise and genial young man may +radiate heat and glow. His own advice, given first to his +fellow-officers, then to a circle of literary friends, then to France +so long as her classic literature finds readers, was identical. He +hated conscientious subterfuges which equalize good and evil. He looked +upon "gloire" and "vertu" as the two great motive forces of a sane and +beneficent life. In this he was unique; Voltaire notes that +Vauvenargues soared, in an age of mediocrities, _un siecle des +petitesses_, by his refusal to adopt the spirit of the world. He was a +puritan of the intelligence, and for the ideal of Sully or Villars he +put up the ideal of Oliver Cromwell. + +The moral grandeur and spiritual force of Vauvenargues' philosophy +demanded in the disciple a constant exercise of energy and will. Faith +inspired by effort was to be pursued through sacrifice to the utmost +limits of endurance, and with no ultimate reward but _gloire_. This +was, however, modified, as it is in the most strenuous direction of +character in the Frenchmen of to-day, by an illuminating humanity. +Lofty as was the aim of Vauvenargues, nothing could have been more +tender than his practice. We are told that the expression in the eyes +of a sick animal, the moan of a wounded deer in the forest, moved him +to compassion. He carried this tolerance into human affairs, for he +was pre-eminently a human being; "the least of citizens has a right to +the honours of his country." He set a high moral value on courtesy, +and exposed, as a fallacy, the pretence that to be polite is to lack +sincerity. His disposition was easy-going, although his intellect was +such a high-flyer; in pagan times he would have believed in ridiculous +divinities rather than set himself up as an atheist. He did not +believe that excess of knowledge gives firmness to the judgment, and +he remarks that the opulence of learned men often leads to more errors +than the poverty of those who depend on the native virtues of instinct +and experience. He has phrases which seem meant to condemn the +mechanical emptiness of the modern German system of _kultur_. + +Full of ardour for all that is beautiful and good, tortured by disease +and pinched by poverty, but never allowing his personal misfortunes to +affect his view of life, or to cloud his vision of the trinity of +heavenly lights, _merite_, _vertu_, _gloire_, Vauvenargues pursued his +painful life in the Street of the Peacock. He knew his feebleness, but +he refused to let it depress him; "labour to get _gloire_ is not +lost," he said, "if it tends to make us worthy of it." In his curious +mixture of simplicity and acuteness, in his gravity and ardour, he was +morally just like the best types which this great war has produced, he +is like Paul Lintier in France, like Julian Grenfell among ourselves, +meeting the worst blows of fate with serenity and almost with ecstasy, +with no shadow of indignation or rebellion. Some posthumous +reflections have let us into the secret that, as the shadows darkened +around him, he occasionally gave way, if not to despair, yet to +depression, and permitted himself to wonder whether all his effort in +the cause of manliness and virtue had been useless. He had not +awakened the sleepers in France; he doubted that his voice would ever +reach them; he asked himself whether all his effort had not been in +vain. This was the natural inner weakness consequent on his physical +state; he gave no outward sign of it. Marmontel, who watched his last +hours with enthusiastic affection, says that, "In his company we +learned how to live,--and how to die." He lay like Socrates, +surrounded by his friends, talking and listening to the last; he +astonished them by the eloquence and gravity of his discourse. His +latest recorded utterance was, "Fortune may sport with the wisdom of +those who are courageous, but it has no power to bend their courage." +Gently but firmly refusing the importunities of the Church, +Vauvenargues was released from his life-in-death on May 28, 1747, in +his thirty-second year. + +You will not find in the pages of Vauvenargues a distinct revival of +that passion for the very soil of France, "la terre sainte, la douce +France," which inspired the noble "Chanson de Roland" and has been so +strongly accentuated in the recent struggle for Alsace-Lorraine. But +he recalled to the memory of a generation which had grown densely +material the forgotten ideal of France as the champion of chivalry. We +must not forget that we possess in the writings of Vauvenargues merely +the commencements of reflection, the first fruit of a life which was +broken before its summer was complete. But we find in his teaching, +and in that of no other moralist of the early eighteenth century, the +insistence on spiritual courage as the necessary opposite to brutal +force and mere materialism. He connected that high ambition, that +craving for _la gloire_, with all pure and elevated things, with the +art and literature, with the intelligence and beauty of the French +creative mind. He recommended, in that gray hour of European dulness, +a fresh ornament to life, a scarlet feather, a _panache_, as our +French friends say. And the gay note that he blew from his battered +clarion was still sounding last year in the heroic resistance of the +forts of Verdun. + + + + + THE GALLANTRY OF FRANCE + + +The spirit displayed by the young French officers in this war deserves +to be compared in many essential respects with that which is blazoned +in the glorious "Chanson de Roland." It is interesting to remember +that during the long years in which the direct influence of that +greatest of medieval epics was obscured, it was chiefly known through +the paraphrase of it executed in German by the monk Konrad in the +twelfth century. Many years ago, Gaston Paris pointed out the curious +fact that Konrad completely modified the character of the "Chanson de +Roland" by omitting all expressions of warlike devotion to "la douce +France," and by concentrating the emotion of the poem on its religious +sentiment. But the real theme of the "Chanson de Roland," as we know +now, was the passionate attachment of the heroes to the soil of +France; "ils etaient pousses par l'amour de la patrie, de l'empereur +francais leur seigneur, de leur famille, et surtout de la gloire." + +It is a remarkable instance of German "penetration" that in the +paraphrase of the "Chanson de Roland" which Germany so long foisted +upon Europe, these elements were successfully effaced. There was a +sort of poetical revenge, therefore, in the attitude of those who +answered the challenge of Germany in the true spirit of Roland and +Oliver. + +We have seen that Vauvenargues--to whose memory the mind incessantly +reverts in contemplation of the heroes of this war--says in one of his +"Maximes"--written nearly two centuries ago--"The earliest days of +spring have less charm than the budding virtue of a young man." No +figure of 1914 exemplifies this quality of grace more surprisingly +than Jean Allard (who called himself in literature Meeus). He was only +twenty-one and a half when he was killed at Pierrepont, at the very +beginning of the war, but he was already one of the promising figures +of his generation. Allard was looked upon as an incipient Admirable +Crichton; he was a brilliant scholar, an adroit and multiform athlete, +the soul of wit and laughter, the centre of a group of adoring +admirers. This sparkling poet was suddenly transformed by the +declaration of war into the sternest of soldiers. His poem, called +"Demain," created, or rather expressed, the patriotic passion which +was simultaneously evoked all over France; it is really a lesser +"Marseillaise." Not less popular, but more elaborate and academic, is +Allard's aviation poem, "Plus haut toujours!"--an extraordinary vision +of the flight and ecstasy and tragic death of a solitary airman. We +may notice that in this, and many other verses describing recent +inventions of science, the young French poets contrive to be very +lucid and simple in their language, and to avoid that display of +technical verbiage which deforms too many English experiments in the +same class. + +It is not, however, so much by his writings, which are now collected +in two, or perhaps three, little volumes, that Allard-Meeus strikes +the imagination of a foreign spectator, as by his remarkable attitude. +From the first, this lad of twenty-one exemplified and taught the +value of a chivalrous behaviour. In the face of events, in that +corruption of all which could make the martial spirit seem noble, that +Germany has forced upon the world, this attitude of young French +officers at the very opening of the war is pathetic, and might even +lend itself, if we were disposed for mirth, to an ironic smile. But it +should be recorded and not forgotten. It was Allard who revived the +etiquette of going to battle dressed as sprucely as for a wedding. We +shall do well to recollect the symbolic value which the glove holds in +legends of medieval prowess. When the dying Roland, under the +pine-trees, turns to the frontier of Spain, he offers, as a dying +soldier, his glove to God-- + +"_Pur ses pecchiez deu puroftrid son guant_." + +Allard-Meeus at St. Cyr made all the young officers swear that they +would not go into battle except in white gloves and with their _kepi_ +adorned with the _casoar_, the red and white dress-plume. "Ce serment, +bien francais, est aussi elegant que temeraire," he said, and the rest +followed him with acclamation. He was one of the first French officers +to fall in battle, at the head of his infantry, and his mother was +presented by the regiment with his _casoar_ and his gloves, worn at +the moment of his death, on August 22, 1914, and stained with his +blood. Allard offers a fugitive but typical specimen of the splendour +of French sentiment in the first flush of its enthusiasm. + +On March 26, 1917, the Societe des Gens de Lettres in Paris held a +solemn assembly under the presidency of M. Pierre Decourcelle to +commemorate those authors who, during the present war, have fallen in +the service of France. Touching and grave in the extreme was the +scene, when, before a crowded and throbbing audience, the secretary +read the name of one young writer after another, pausing for the +president to respond by the words "Mort au champ d'honneur!" In each +case there followed a brief silence more agitating in its emotion than +any eloquence could be. + +The great number of young men of high intellectual promise who were +killed early in this war is a matter for grave and painful reflection. +Especially in the first months of the autumn of 1914 the holocaust was +terrible. There was no restraining the ardour of the young, who sought +their death in a spirit of delirious chivalry, each proud to be the +Iphigenia or the Jephtha's Daughter of a France set free. It has been +noted since that the young generation, born about 1890, had been +prepared for the crisis in a very significant way. The spiritual +condition of these grave and magnificent lads resembled nothing that +had been seen before, since the sorrows of 1870. They gave the +impression of being dedicated. As we now read their letters, their +journals, their poems, we are astonished at the high level of moral +sentiment which actuated them all. There is often even a species of +rapturous detachment which seems to lift them into a higher sphere +than that of vain mortality. Examples might be given by the sheaf, but +it suffices here to quote a letter from the youthful Leo Lantil, who +was killed early in 1915, in one of the obscure battles of Champagne. +He says, in writing to his parents, shortly before his death, "All our +sacrifice will be of sweet savour if it leads to a really glorious +victory and brings more light to human souls." It was this Leo Lantil, +dying in his twenty-fifth year, whose last words were "Priez pour la +France, travaillez pour la France, haussez-la!" + +A story is told by M. Henri Bordeaux which illustrates the impression +made by these young soldiers. A peasant of Savoy, while ploughing his +fields in the autumn of 1914, saw his wife crossing to him with the +local postman, who had a letter in his hands. He took it from them, +and put on his spectacles, and read that his two sons had been killed +in an engagement in the Vosges. He said quietly, "God has found them +ready," and then, slowly, "My poor wife!" and he returned to his yoke +of oxen. It would seem that the French accepted, without reserve and +without difficulty, an inward discipline for which the world had +formed little conception of their readiness. There is no question now, +since all the private letters and diaries prove it, that the +generation which had just left college, and had hardly yet gone out +into the world, had formed, unsuspected by their elders, a conception +of life which might have been called fatalistic if it had not been so +rigorously regulated by a sense of duty. They were singularly calm +under a constant presentiment of death. When the war came, they +accepted the fiery trial not merely with resignation, but even with +relief. Their athletic stoicism took what fortune offered them, +instead of attempting to rebel against it. Their sentiment was that a +difficulty had been settled. Life had been producing upon their +consciences a sense of complication, a tangle of too many problems. +Now they might, and did, cheerfully relinquish the effort to solve +them. One of the most extraordinary features of the moral history of +the young French officers in this war has been the abandonment of +their will to the grace of God and the orders of the chief. In the +letters of the three noble brothers Belmont, who fell in rapid +succession, this apprenticeship to sacrifice is remarkable, but it +recurs in all the records. "God found them ready!" + +When all is of so inspired an order of feeling, it is difficult, it is +even invidious, to select. But the figure of Paul Lintier, whose +journals have been piously collected by M. Edmond Haraucourt, stands +out before us with at least as much saliency as any other. We may take +him as a peculiarly lucent example of his illuminated class. +Quartermaster Lintier died on March 15, 1916, struck by a shell, on +the Lorraine frontier, at a place called Jeandelincourt. He had not +yet completed his twenty-third year, for he was born at Mayenne on May +13, 1893. In considering the cases of many of these brilliant and +sympathetic young French officers, who had already published or have +left behind them works in verse and prose, there may be a disposition, +in the wonderful light of their experience, to exaggerate the positive +value of their productions. Not all of them, of course, have +contributed, or would have contributed, durable additions to the store +of the literature of France. We see them, excusably, in the rose-light +of their sunset. But, for this very reason, we are inclined to give +the closer attention to Paul Lintier, who not only promised well but +adequately fulfilled that promise. It seems hardly too much to say +that the revelation of a prose-writer of the first class was brought +to the world by the news of his death. + +His early training predicted nothing of romance. He was intended for a +career in commerce, but, showing no aptitude for trade, he dallied +with legal studies at Lyons, and "commenced author" by publishing some +essays in that city. At the age of twenty he joined a regiment of +artillery, and seems to have perceived, a year before the war, that +the only profession he was fitted for was soldiering. Towards the +close of September 1914, in circumstances which he recounts in his +book, he was severely wounded; he went back to the front in July 1915, +and, as we have said, fell fighting eight months later. This is the +history of a young man who will doubtless live in the annals of French +literature; and brief as it seems, it is really briefer still, since +all we know of Paul Lintier, or are likely ever to know, is what he +tells us himself in describing what he saw and practised and endured +between August 1 and September 22, 1914. This wonderful book, "Ma +Piece," was written by the young gunner, night after night, on his +knee, during seven weeks of inconceivable intensity of emotion, and it +is by this revelation of his genius that his memory will be preserved. + +The style of Paul Lintier is one of the miracles of art. There is no +evidence that this youth had studied much or had devoted himself to +any of the training which adequate expression commonly demands. We +know nothing about him until he suddenly bursts upon us, in the +turmoil of mobilization, as a finished author. What strikes a critical +reader of "Ma Piece," as distinguishing it from other works of its +class, is a certain intellectual firmness most remarkable in a lad of +Lintier's age, suddenly confronted by such a frenzy of public action. +There is no pessimism, and no rhetoric, and no touch of humour, but an +obsession for the truth. This is displayed by another and an extremely +popular recent publication, "En Campagne," by M. Marcel Dupont, which +exhibits exactly the same determination to exaggerate nothing and to +reduce nothing, but to report exactly what the author saw with his own +eyes, in that little corner of the prodigious battle-field in which +his own regiment was fighting. Truth, the simple unvarnished truth, +has been the object of these various writers in setting down their +impressions, but the result exemplifies the difference between what +is, and what is not, durable as literature. For this purpose, it is +well to turn from Lintier's pages to those of the honest writers of +whom Dupont is the type, and then back again to Lintier. All evoke, +through intense emotion, most moving and most tragic sensations, but +Lintier, gifted with some inscrutable magic, evokes them in the +atmosphere of beauty. + +A quality of the mind of Paul Lintier which marked him out for a place +above his fellows was the prodigious exactitude of his memory. This +was not merely visual, but emotional as well. Not only did it retain, +with the precision of a photograph, all the little fleeting details of +the confused and hurried hours in which the war began, but it kept a +minute record of the oscillation of feeling. Those readers who take a +pleasure in the technical parts of writing may enjoy an analysis of +certain pages in "Ma Piece," for instance, the wonderful description +of an _alerte_ at 2 A.M. above the village of Tailly-sur-Meuse (pp. +131, 132). With the vigorous picturesqueness of these sentences we may +compare the pensive quality and the solidity of touch which combine to +form such a passage as the following account of a watch at Azannes +(August 14, 1914):--"La nuit est claire, rayee par les feux des +projecteurs de Verdun qui font des barres d'or dans le ciel; +merveilleuse nuit de mi-aout, infiniment constellee, egayee d'etoiles +filantes qui laissent apres elles de longues phosphorescences. + +"La lune s'est levee. Elle perce mal les feuillages denses des +pruniers et le cantonnement immobile reste sombre. Ca et la, +seulement, elle fait des taches jaunes sur l'herbe et sur les croupes +des chevaux qui dorment debout. Le camarade avec qui je partage cette +nuit de garde est etendu dans son manteau au pied d'un grand poirier. +Devant moi, la lune illumine la plaine. Les prairies sont voilees de +gaze blanche. Les deux armees, tous feux eteints, dorment ou se +guettent." + +Lintier has no disposition to make things out better than they were. +His account of the defeat at Virton, on August 22, is grave and calm +in its sad stoicism, it is even harsh in its refusal to overlook any +of the distressing features of the affair. But hope rises in his heart +like clear water in a troubled well, and it is just after this +melancholy set-back that the noble French spirit most vividly asserts +itself. In the very forefront of physical and moral misery, "quelle +emouvante comprehension de la Patrie s'est revelee a nous!" An army +which is instantly and completely victorious can never experience the +depth of this sentiment. It is necessary to have fought, to have +suffered, to have feared (if only for a moment) that all was lost, in +order to comprehend with passion what the mother-country means to a +man. Lying in the fog, soaked with rain, at the edge of the copses +from which the German guns had ejected them, it was at that wretched +moment that the full apprehension came to Paul Lintier that France +comprised for him all the charm of life, all the affections, all the +joys of the eyes and the heart and the brain. "Alors, on prefere +tomber, mourir la, parce qu'on sent que la France perdue, ce serait +pire que la mort." This is a feeling which animates the darkest pages +of his book--and many of them perforce are gloomy; through all the +confusion and doubt, the disquietude, the physical dejection, the +sense of a kind of blind-man's buff intolerably wearisome and +fatiguing--through all this, which the young author does not seek to +conceal, there runs the ceaseless bright thread of hope sustained by +love. + +For us English the book has a curious interest in its unlikeness to +anything which an English lad of twenty would have dreamed of writing. +It strikes an English reader, in comparison with the equally gallant +and hardly less picturesque records which some of our own young +officers have produced, as extraordinarily "grown up." The new +generation which France sent into the war of defence was more simple +and more ardent at the outset than our own analogous generation was. +It was less dilettante and more intellectual. The evidences of +thought, of reasoned reflection carried out to its full extent, of an +adequate realization of the problems presented by life, are manifest, +though in various degree, in all these records of French officers +killed in the months which preceded Christmas 1914. These Frenchmen +did not go out light-heartedly, nor with a pathetic inability to +fathom the purpose for which they so generously went, but they had +given the matter a study which seemed beyond their years. They marched +to the blood-baths of Belgium and Lorraine with solemnity, as though +to a sacrament. + +It must be remarked as an interesting point that this generation had +recovered a sense of the spirituality of a war of national defence. In +simpler words, it had recovered that honest pride which France, in +certain of its manifestations since the war of 1870, seemed to have +lamentably lost. Posterity will compare the serene simplicity of Peguy +and Lintier with the restlessness and bitter disenchantment of the +1880 generation, which arrived at manhood just when France was most +deeply conscious of her humiliation. If we seek for the sources of +this recovery of self-respect, which so beautifully characterized +French character at the immediate crisis of 1914, we have to find it, +of course, in the essential elasticity of the trained French mind. The +Frenchman likes the heroic attitude, which is unwelcome to us, and he +adopts it instinctively, with none of our national shyness and false +modesty. But, if we seek for a starting-point of influence, we may +probably find it in the writings of a soldier whose name is scarcely +known in England, but whose "Etudes sur le Combat," first published in +1880, have been the text-book of the young French officer, and were +never being so much read as just before the outbreak of the war. + +The author of these "Etudes sur le Combat" was Colonel Ardent du Picq, +who fell at the battle of Longeville-les-Metz, on August 15, 1870. He +had predicted the calamity of that war, which he attributed to the +mental decadence of the French army, and to the absence of any +adequate General Staff organization. Ardent du Picq had received no +encouragement from within or from without, and the reforms which he +never ceased to advocate were treated as the dreams of an eccentric +idealist. He died, unrecognized, without having lived to see carried +out one of the reforms which he had so persistently advocated. His +tongue was rough and his pen was dipped in acid; the military critic +who ridiculed the "buffooneries" of his generals and charged his +fellow-officers with trying to get through their day's work with as +little trouble to themselves as possible, was not likely to carry much +weight at the close of the Second Empire. But the scattered papers of +the forgotten Colonel Ardent du Picq were preserved, and ten years +after his death a portion of them was published. Every scrap which +could be found of the work of so fruitful a military thinker was +presently called for, and at the moment of the outbreak of the present +war the "Etudes sur le Combat" had become the text-book of every +punctilious young officer. It is still unknown how much of the +magnificent effort of 1914 was not due to the shade of Ardent du Picq. +Although the name of that author does not occur in the pages of "Ma +Piece," we are constrained to believe that Lintier had been, like so +many young men of his class, an infatuated student of the "Etudes." He +had comprehended the essence of military vitality and the secret of +military grandeur. He had perceived the paramount importance of moral +force in contending with formidable hostile organizations. Ardent du +Picq, who possessed the skill of his nation in the manufacture of +maxims, laid it down that "Vaincre, c'est d'etre sur de la victoire." +He assented to the statement that it was a spiritual and not a +mechanical ascendancy which had gained battles in the past and must +gain them in the future. Very interesting it is to note, in the +delicately scrupulous record of the mind and conscience of Paul +Lintier, how, side by side with this uplifted patriotic confidence, +the weakness of the flesh makes itself felt. At Tailly, full of the +hope of coming battle, waiting in the moonlit forest for the sound of +approaching German guns, suddenly the heroism drops from him, and he +murmurs the plaintive verses of the old poet Joachim du Bellay to the +echo of "Et je mourrai peut-etre demain!" The delicate sureness with +which he notes these changes of mood is admirable; and quickly the +depression passes: "vite notre extraordinaire insouciance l'emporte, +et puis, jamais heure a-t-elle ete plus favorable a la revanche?" + +In defining the particular principles which have actuated the +magnificent French General Staff in the present crisis, Lord Haldane +has dwelt on the fact that the French have displayed throughout "that +moral effect which comes from certainty of purpose and which only +concentrated thought can give." The value which the higher authority +sets on the cultivation of moral enthusiasm is exemplified by the fact +that the French Ministry of War has encouraged the publication of +those personal records, from which we have here made a selection, on +the ground that they carry throughout the army a contagion of energy +and courage. We are far here from the obscure jealousy of thought +which made a military representative of the British War Office the +other day lay down the brilliant axiom "A hairdresser is of more value +to the country at war than a librarian!" Such a man could not exist in +a French community, where, at the very height of hostilities, so +prominent a military authority as Colonel Emile Manceau could pause to +say, "Let us read, let us give much time to reading!" It is a curious +reflection that the present struggle has been, for the French, the +most literary of all wars, the one in which the ordered expression of +clear thought in language has been most carefully and consciously +cultivated. + +This was very far from being the case with the war of 1870, when the +absence of literature was strongly felt during and after the crisis. +The old satirist of the "Iambes," Auguste Barbier, wrote, immediately +after the declaration of peace, a poem in which he rehearsed the +incidents of the war, and commented on the absence from the list of +its victims of a single distinguished writer. He said-- + +_"La Muse n'a pas vu tomber un seul poete_," + +and it was out of any one's power to refute the sinister and prosaic +verse. The contrast with 1914 is painful and striking. In the existing +war the holocaust of victims, poets and historians, painters and +sculptors, musicians and architects, has been heartrending, and it can +never in future years be pretended that the Muses have this time +spared us their most poignant sacrifices. A year ago the _Revue +Critique_, one of the most serious and original of the learned +journals of Paris, announced the losses it had endured. It was +conducted by a staff of forty scholars; by the summer of 1916 this +number was reduced by twenty-seven; thirteen had been killed, eleven +severely wounded, three had disappeared. + +Many writers have asked, and M. Maurice Barres prominently among them, +what is the reason of the fact that intelligence has taken a front +place in this war? What has been the source of the spirit of +self-immolation which has driven the intellectual and imaginative section +of French youth to hold out both hands to catch the full downpour of +the rain of death? There is no precedent for it in French history, and +we may observe for ourselves how new a thing it was, and how +unexpected, by comparing with the ardent and radiant letters and poems +of the youngest generation the most patriotic expressions of their +elders. A single example may suffice. No man of letters has given a +nobler witness to the truth of his patriotism than Colonel Patrice +Mahon, known in letters as Art Roe. His novels, which dealt largely +with modern Russian life, in relation with the French army, were +virile and elevated productions, but he was a man of fifty at the time +of his heroic death at the head of his troops, in the battle of +Wisembach (August 22, 1914), and his tone was not that of such young +men as Camille Violand and Marcel Drouet. To read again the "Pingot et +moi" of Art Roe is to return to a book of the utmost sincerity and +valour, but it was published in 1893, and there is no touch of the +splendour of 1914 about it. + +A figure which stands midway between the generation of Art Roe and +that of the adolescent comrades of a new Sophocles of whom we shall +presently speak, is Captain E.J. Detanger, who seems to be +transitional, and to share the qualities of both. This name has, even +now, scarcely grown familiar to the eye and ear, but it proves to have +been the real name of Emile Nolly, whose romances of modern life in +the Extreme East had been widely read just before the war. Nolly's +earliest books, "Hien le Maboul" and "La Barque Annamite" (but +particularly the latter), gave promise of a new Pierre Loti or a new +Rudyard Kipling, but totally distinct in manner from both. Detanger +was just thirty-four when the war broke out, and he was one of its +early victims, dying at Blainville-sur-l'Eau on September 5. He +greatly distinguished himself by his personal bravery, and the cross +of the Legion of Honour was pinned to his blood-stained uniform on his +last battle-field. The tribute of a fellow-officer to this devoted man +of letters may be quoted here. It is an example of the sudden and +complete transformation which turned artists into soldiers at the +first sound of the bugle:-- + +"Emile Nolly proved a magnificent soldier. He had a youthful, blithe, +fervent and resolute soul; he had the soul of a hero completely +prepared to sacrifice himself with joy for his country. After having +served valiantly and brilliantly in Indo-China, and then in Morocco, +it was with a radiant hope that he set out for the frontier of +Lorraine. 'What does the life of any one of us matter?' he said to me +just before he left. 'All that is essential is that France should +live, that she should be victorious.'" + +Marcel Drouet, who has just been mentioned, was much younger. He was a +native of the invaded department of the Ardennes, and had not +completed his twenty-sixth year when he was killed in the trenches of +Consenvoye, in the Woevre, when he was taking part in the outer +defence of Verdun. He seems to have been distinguished by a refinement +of spirit, which is referred to, in different terms, by every one who +has described him. He leaves behind him a volume of poems, "L'Ombre +qui tourne," and various essays and fragments. The journal of the last +days of his life has been edited by M. Maurice Barres, and is a record +of singular delicacy and courage. We see him facing the dreadful +circumstances of the war, made the more dreadful to him because the +horrors are committed in the midst of the familiar scenes of his own +home, and we find him patiently waiting for the signal to lead his men +into action while he holds a volume of Chateaubriand open upon his +knee. The reflections of Marcel Drouet differ in some respects from +those of his most enthusiastic companions. There is a note of +tenderness in them which is unusual, and which is very pathetic. At +the very close of his brief and heroic life, the thoughts of Drouet +reverted to the historic town in which he was born, to Sedan which +still shuddered in his infancy at the recollection of the horrors of +1870. He thought of the dead who fell on that melancholy field; and +then his thoughts turned to those dear faces which he had so recently +left behind. The following passage, in its simplicity, in its +sweetness, deserves to live in the memorial literature of the war:-- + +"Je pense a vous, mes chers vivants, aux mains des barbares en ce +moment sans doute, mais en le coeur de qui j'ai foi, tant je connais +votre devouement aux choses sublimes. + +"Mais aussi je pense a vous, mon Dieu, qui avez voulu toutes ces +choses pour votre plus grand gloire et pour l'etablissement de votre +justice. Tous ces malheurs, ces tristesses, tout ce sang repandu sont +imposes par vous, mon Dieu, en maniere de redemption. Mais votre +soleil glorieux eclairera bientot, j'en suis absolument certain, la +victoire du bon droit qui attend depuis pres d'un demi-siecle. J'y +coopere de toutes mes forces, de toute mon ame. Et si vous me retirez +de ce monde, o Dieu de bonte, permettez que ce soit pour me joindre a +ceux qui m'out precede dans votre sejour, et dont l'affection +terrestre me fut precieuse. C'est toute la priere ardente que je fais +devant le soleil levant, ce jour de Toussaint que sillonnent deja les +obus semeurs de mort, en cette annee 1914 qui verra retablir la paix +du monde, par l'aneantissement du peuple barbare, et la regenerescence +de la nation francaise." + +In most cases there rests an obscurity over the brief lives of these +gallant young officer-authors, whose nature was little observed until +the flash of battle illuminated them for one last brilliant moment. We +feel a strong desire, which cannot be gratified, to follow them from +their childhood to their adolescence, and to see for ourselves what +impulses directed them into the path of heroism. It is rarely that we +can do this, but one of these poets has left behind him two friends +who have recaptured the faint and shrouded impressions of his early +life. The piety of M. Henri Albert Besnard, who was his intimate +companion, and of that practised narrator M. Henri Bordeaux, who is +his biographer, enable us to form a clearer and fuller conception of +Camille Violand than of any of his compeers. Born in 1891, he was +typical of that latest generation of which we have spoken, in whom all +seemed to be unconsciously preparing for the great and critical +sacrifice. He was born at Lyons, but was brought up in the Quercy, +that wild and tortured district just north of the Pyrenees, where +nature seems to gather together all that she possesses of the +grotesque and violent in landscape; but he was educated at Alencon, +and trained at Vouziers, in the midst of the orchards of Normandy. +Thus both sides of France, the Midi and the Manche, were equally known +to him, but the ceaseless peregrinations which he underwent, so far +from enlarging his horizon, seem to have plunged his soul in +melancholy. At the age of twenty he struck M. Bordeaux as being the +typical _deracine._ + +The letters of Camille Violand and the memories of his friends present +to us the record of a vague and uneasy boyhood. He began quite early +to exercise his mind in prose and verse, but without energy or aim. He +was not fixed in any plan of life. His letters--for he wrote with +abundance, and something undefined seems to have induced his family to +keep his letters--are steeped in sombre and objectless melancholy. He +was tormented by presentiments of misfortune; he indulged a kind of +romantic valetudinarianism. In the confusion of his spirit as he +passed uneasily from boyhood into manhood, the principal moral quality +we perceive is a peevish irritation at the slow development of life. +He was just twenty-one when the death of his mother, to whom he was +passionately attached, woke him out of this paralyzed condition, and +it is remarkable that, in breaking, like a moth from a chrysalis, out +of his network of futile and sterile sophisms, it was immediately on +the contingency of war that he fixed his thoughts. The news of his +mother's death, by a strange and rapid connexion of ideas, reminded +him of his future responsibility as an officer in the coming struggle. +He wrote, in 1913, "Je m'effraie en pensant a cette responsabilite qui +pesera certainement un jour sur moi, car je considere la guerre comme +a peu pres certaine a bref delai." + +Having once formed this conviction, a complete revolution affected the +character of the young Violand. His melancholy ceased; his uncertainty +fell from him; it seemed as though his soul threw off her fetters. +From the close of 1913, when the chancelleries of Europe were still +profoundly unconscious of the tremendous upheaval which was in store +for them, this young man, hitherto so timorous and irresolute, is seen +to be filled with a species of prophetic ecstasy:-- + + _"The boundless, overflowing, bursting gladness! + The vaporous exultation not to be confined! + .........the animation of delight + Which wraps me, like an atmosphere of light, + And bears me as a cloud is borne by its own wind"_ + +This remarkable change of character was encouraged by the military +discipline which now regulated his life, and which he accepted with +rapture and devotion. His mother's one aim had been to make of Camille +a soldier and a Christian, and he became the very type of that +combination. + +To use a striking phrase of M. Henri Bordeaux, the war found Camille +Violand in a state of preparedness. He saw it arrive, not with anxiety +or trepidation, but with solemn joy. His father was placed in command +of a brigade of dragoons, and he himself, at another part of the +frontier line, was given the rank of second lieutenant and a command +which filled him with the pride of responsibility. Three weeks later +he was wounded in the head at the battle of Virton, but not until he +had seen the Germans, after a hard fight, retire before the attack of +his men. "Il a connu l'ivresse de la victoire: il a vu fuir +l'ennemi"--so a friend announced it. He was taken back to the hospital +at Limoges, but the victory of the Marne intoxicated him, and it was +found impossible to hold him back. With a head still bandaged, he made +his appearance once more in his beloved regiment, which was now +fighting in the forest of the Argonne, but on the first occasion on +which he led his men, Violand was wounded again, now in the shoulder. +He was sent far back, into Brittany, to Quimper, where, a second time, +by a subterfuge he contrived to escape from the hospital before his +wound was properly healed. He was absolutely intractable in his +determination to get back promptly to the fighting line: "il etait +comme ca, avec son air delicat et tranquille!" Again brought back, he +was set to training men at Quimper. But he could not endure the +restraint, and his nerves broke down. + +It was found impossible to hold him back, and on October 8 the +military authorities consented to his return to his regiment, and with +the permission was combined the news that he had been nominated for +the cross of the Legion of Honour. The letter in which he announces +that fact to the ladies at home--"mes cheres Grand'mere et Tante"--is +charming in its simplicity. "La croix gagnee sur un champ de bataille, +c'est a mes yeux le plus beau reve qu'un jeune Francais put faire; je +regrette seulement de ne pas l'avoir meritee davantage; mais l'avenir +me permettra, j'espere, de justifier cette recompense, que je +considere comme anticipee." The official notification specifies the +wounds which he had received and the fact that, by the testimony of +all who saw him under fire, the young lieutenant gave evidence of very +great courage and of indomitable energy. That he was, by what he calls +a queer coincidence, the youngest officer of his regiment and its only +member of the Legion of Honour, afforded him an unaffected +satisfaction. + +From this time--the end of October 1914--the letters of Camile Violand +testify to the rapid development of his mind and character. He loses a +certain childishness which had hitherto clung to him, and he expresses +himself with a more virile sobriety. Nothing could exceed the pathos +of his pictures of the terrible life in the Argonne, and we are made +to feel how rapidly the suffering and the responsibility of his +military life were bringing out all the deepest and most serious +elements in his character. There is a remarkable letter of January 7, +1915, describing an engagement in which he lost several of his best +men, and in particular an experienced corporal in whose skill he much +confided. The briefest fragment broken from this pathetic description, +addressed to his father, will give a notion of the tone of it:-- + +"J'etais absorbe par les blesses dans mon poste de commandement et +quand je pus me rendre dans la tranchee ou il etait, il tombait dans +le coma. Ses derniers mots avaient ete: 'Adieu, ma Patrie!' Pourtant, +il me reconnut a la voix, me repondit faiblement. Je l'assistai dans +ses derniers moments. Ce fut bien rapide, bien simple et bien beau. +_J'etais pour lui le chef, ce qui est plus que le Pere et le Pretre +reunis_. Je l'ai bien senti la; quand ce fut presque fini, je +l'embrassai et le quittai pour retourner aux soucis que nous donne +l'ennemi." + +Thus was this lad of three-and-twenty fortified and ripened by the +arduous warfare in the Argonne. He was now spending what leisure the +fighting gave him in a careful study of Homer. We gather that he had +just finished re-reading the "Iliad" when the end came. On March 4, +1915, at Mesnil-les-Hurlus, a ball pierced his heart, splintering in +its passage the cross of the Legion of Honour of which he was so +proud. In his pocket was found his last letter, still unposted, in +which he told his father of a fresh distinction for valour which he +had just received, and in the course of which, with a manifest +presentiment of his approaching end, he wrote, "Je mourrai, si Dieu +veut, en bon chretien et en bon Francais." + +It is not to be denied that ordinary observers were not in any degree +prepared for the heroic devotion displayed by such young officers as +these at the beginning of the war. The general opinion in peace time +was expressed by M. Maurice Maeterlinck when he laid it down that +"courage, moral and physical endurance (if not abnegation, +forgetfulness of self, renunciation of all comfort, the faculty of +sacrifice, the power to face death) belong exclusively to the most +primitive, the least happy, the least intelligent of peoples, those +which are least capable of reasoning, of taking danger into account." +It was the common hypothesis among moralists that, as men's nerves +grew more sensitive and the means of destruction more cruel and +irresistible, no human being would be able to support the strain of +actual fighting. It seemed inevitable that soldiers would rapidly +become demoralized, when exposed to the multifarious horrors of modern +mechanical battle. Nothing, therefore, could have been more surprising +than the temper shown by thousands of young men, suddenly called up +from sedentary and safe pursuits, and confronted by the terrors of +shrapnel and liquid fire and mines and gas, and all the other horrible +ingenuities of an unseen enemy for killing and mutilating. Their +imaginations were unaccustomed to these terrors, it is true, but the +higher faculties of the human mind asserted themselves, and in the +vague collective battle of the trenches these young French officers; +despite the refinement and the security in which they had always been +acustomed to exist, instantly reverted to the chivalrous attitude +which their remote ancestors had adopted in a warfare that was +romantic and personal in its individualism. + +No doubt a not inconsiderable part of the serenity, which is so +remarkably evident in the letters and journals of these young men, was +due to the fact that they had arrived, for the first time, at a +comprehension of the unity of life. There is no tedious alternative of +choice in the active military career. All is regulated, all is +arranged in accordance with a hierarchical discipline, and war becomes +what dogmatic religion is to a weak soul that has been tossed about by +the waves of doubt. It must be also borne in mind that the incessant +dread of invasion, especially in the neighbourhood of the eastern +frontier, had kept the spirits of those who knew that responsibility +would fall upon them, in a state of unceasing agitation. It is a +paralyzing thing to exist under a perpetual menace which nothing can +precipitate and yet nothing can avert. Captain Belmont, in his +admirable letters, speaks much of the "romanticism" which attracted +many of his companions, and of the natural satisfaction which the +declaration of war gave to their restless faculties. The two +sentiments were probably one and the same, and to a poetical +temperament that might well seem "romantic" which filled a less vivid +mind with restlessness and languor. + +It is noticeable, too, that when once the sickening suspense was +removed, and the path of pain and glory lay clear before these +youthful spirits, they grew very rapidly in intellectual stature. They +had found their equilibrium, and no more time and force were wasted in +useless oscillations. Each of them had, at last, the occasion, and +therefore the power, to fill out the lines of his proper +individuality. As M. Henri Bordeaux excellently says, "L'esprit +inquiet ne se contente de rien, le coeur inapaise se croit incompris." +But now these men knew their vocation, and a precocious experience of +life developed in them a temper of meditation. It is extraordinary +what an intelligent philosophy, what a delicate study of nature, were +revealed at once in the writings of these heroic boys of twenty. +Lieutenant Belmont, who fought in Alsace, had spent his infancy and +adolescence in the neighbourhood of Grenoble, and his memory was full +of the rich Dauphine valley, with its great river and its eastern +horizon of the Alps. In the misery of the September nights of 1914, in +the harshness of misty mornings among the Alsatian pines, his thoughts +return to the luminous twilights of his old home under the great oaks +of the Isere, and he expresses his nostalgia in terms of the most +exquisite and the most unstudied grace. Here is a fragment of one of +his letters home (October 1914):-- + +"Les journees sont exquises, tristes et pales, egalement differentes +des crudites de nos idees et des tenebres de l'hiver. L'imagination a +vite fait de s'envoler, a travers cette lumiere adoucie, vers tous les +horizons familiers de la petite patrie, vers la vallee de Grenoble, +paresseusement allongee dans ce bain de leger soleil, au pied des +Alpes deja engourdies, vers les terres rousses de Lonnes longees par +les futaies jaunissantes ou s'abritent les gibiers, tranquilles cette +annee." + +No doubt, the reason why this war has been, for France, so peculiarly +a literary war, is that the mechanical life in the trenches, +alternately so violent and so sedentary, has greatly enforced the +habit of sustained contemplation based on a vivid and tragic +experience. This has encouraged, and in many instances positively +created, a craving for literary expression, which has found abundant +opportunity for its exercise in letters, journals, and poems; and what +it has particularly developed is a form of literary art in which +Frenchmen above all other races have always excelled, that analysis of +feeling which has been defined as "le travail de ciselure morale." +This moral carved-work, or chasing, as of a precious metal, revealing +the rarity and value of spiritual surfaces, is characteristic of the +journals of Paul Lintier, of the beauty of which we have already +spoken. His art expends itself in the effect of outward things on the +soul. He speaks of mysterious sights, half-witnessed in the gloaming, +of sinister noises which have to be left unexplained. He does not +shrink from a record of unlovely things, of those evil thoughts which +attend upon the rancour of defeat, of the suspicion of treason which +comes to dejected armies like a breath of poison-gas. That portion of +his "Souvenirs" which deals with the days of the retreat on Paris is +written in a spasm of savage anger; a whole new temper is instantly +revealed when once the tide turns at Nanteuil. Nature herself thus +endorses his new mood, as he writes "There are still clouds heaped up +to the west, but the blue, that cheers us, is chasing them all away." + +Among the noble young poets whose pathetic and admirable fragments the +piety of surviving friends has preserved, it is difficult to select +one name rather than another. But in the rank of these Rupert Brookes +and Julian Grenfells and Charles Listers of France, we may perhaps +pause before the ardent figure of Jacques de Choudens. He was a +Breton, and was trained for the law on the other side of France, at +Lille. He found that the call of the sea was irresistible, and after +two years at a desk in that dreary and dusty city, he suddenly flung +up his cap and would have no more of such drudgery. To the despair of +his family, he started on the high seas, and explored the wonderland +of Haiti. After various adventures, he was about to return to France, +when the sea again took him by the throat, and he vanished, like +Robert Louis Stevenson, in the Pacific. Having sailed twice round the +world, "beyond the sunset and the baths of all the western stars," a +tired Ulysses under thirty, Jacques de Choudens had just come back to +France when the war seized him with a fresh and deep enchantment. He +entered into it with a profound ardour, and proved himself to possess +exceptional military qualities. He was severely wounded on the second +day of the battle of Charleroi, but slowly recovered, only to be +killed in an engagement on June 13, 1915. His poems, written since war +broke out, have been carefully collected and published by his friend, +M. Charles Torquet. They are few, and they suffer from a certain +hardness of touch; Jacques de Choudens had, as yet, a deeper +acquaintance with life than with literature; but they breathe a spirit +of high and romantic heroism. Let the sonnet called "Autre Priere" be +offered as an example:-- + + "_Terres, fleuves, forets, o puissances occultes, + C'est votre ame qui bat au bleu de nos poignets; + Notre orgueil s'est enfin cabre sous les insultes + Dont, depuis quarante ans, o France, tu saignais. + + Dans le livre ou s'apprend le plus hautain des cultes, + Marque la page avec nos sabres pour signets; + Ceins la couronne d'or qu'en l'An deux tu ceignais, + Car c'est dans notre chair a nous que tu la sculptes. + + France! France! Benis chaque arme et chaque front; + C'est d'ardeur, non de peur, que tremble l'eperon. + Nous sommes tes martyrs volontaires, superbes, + + Sous l'aureole d'or des galons du kepi.... + Nous allons preparer aux faucilles des gerbes, + Puisqu'ou tombe un soldat pousse un nouvel epi._" + +The poet, shortly before he fell, wrote to a friend "Nous +travaillerons mieux apres la victoire, ce que nous ferons ayant ete +muri par la fatigue et les angoisses. La vie est bonne et belle et la +guerre est une chose bien amusante." This is the type of Frenchman who +fights for the love of fighting, who puts above all other happiness +the prize of military honour and glory won in a good cause. We meet +with it in the lyrical effusion of an adventurous poet like Jacques de +Choudens and in the straightforward evidence of a practised soldier +like Captain Hassler, whose "Ma Campagne" is a record extraordinary +alike for its courage, for its vivacity, and for its modesty. + +The peculiar spirit of ardent gallantry to which we have dedicated +these few pages is illustrated, as will be observed, by examples taken +without exception from the first months of the war. It would be rash +to say, without a careful sifting of evidence, how much of this +sentiment survived the days which preceded the battle of the Marne. +France has, in the succession of her attacks up to the present hour, +continued and confirmed the magnificent tradition of her courage. But +it is impossible to overlook the elements which have taken the +romantic colour out of the struggle. No chivalry could survive close +experience of the vile and bestial cruelty of German methods. The sad +and squalid aspects of a war of resistance, fought in the very +bleeding flesh of the beloved mother-country, were bound to be fatal +to "cette bonne humeur bienfaisante" which so marvellously +characterized the young French officers of August 1914. Moreover, the +mere physical element of fatigue has been enough to quench that first +radiant flame. We find it deadening, at last, even the high spirit of +Paul Lintier, and we listen to his confession: "To sleep! to sleep! O +to live without a thought, in absolute silence. To live, after having +so often nearly died. I could sleep for days, and days, and days!" + +These are considerations which belong to a heavier and a wearier time. +As a matter of history--so that in our hurrying times a gesture of so +much beauty may not, because it was so ephemeral, be forgotten--I have +endeavoured to catch a reflection of the glow which blazed in the +hearts of young intellectual officers at the very beginning of the +war. If in the inevitable wear and tear of the interminable struggle, +this beauty fades into the light of common day, so much the more is +there need that we should fix it in memory, since in a world which +savagery and treason have made so hideous, we cannot afford to let +this jewel of pure moral beauty be trampled into oblivion. + + _breve et irreparabile tempus + Omnibus est vitae; sed famam extendere facti + Hoc virtutis opus._ + + + + + BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE + + +The writings of La Rochefoucauld were subjected to accurate and +detailed examination in the edition begun by Gilbert in 1868, and +brought to a pause at his untimely death in 1870. It was completed in +1883 by J. Gourdault. After the lapse of half a century, the short +biography by Gilbert, with which this edition began, naturally +requires some revision, and is open to several additions. An earlier +volume (1863), by E. de Barthelemy, is of a more technical character, +but may be referred to with advantage by those curious regarding +detail. The MSS of Rochefoucauld still in existence--one of these, +known as the Liancourt MS., is in the Duke's handwriting--are +numerous, and may still, no doubt, reward investigation. The best +recent summary is that by J. Bourdeau (1895), published in M. +Jusserand's charming series. There is not, so far as I am aware, any +English biography of the author of the "Maximes." + +The complete works of La Bruyere were elaborately edited in three +volumes (1865-1878) by G. Servois. Much curious information is to be +found in Allaire's "La Bruyere dans la Maison de Conde" (1887), and an +excellent summary in the Life by M Paul Morillot, 1904. But the latest +and fullest account of La Bruyere's career is to be found in M. Emile +Magne's Preface to the selected works (1914). Editions of "Les +Caracteres" are countless. + +The writings of Vauvenargues were collected by the Marquis de Portia +in 1797, by Suard in 1806, by Briere in 1821, by Gilbert in 1857, and +again in 1874; each of these editions added considerably to knowledge. +The only recent Life is that by M Maurice Paleologue (1890). + +The principal volumes referred to in "The Gallantry of France" are the + following:-- + +"Ma Piece" Souvenir d'un canonnier de 1914. Par Paul Lintier. Paris: + Librairie Plon, 1916. + +"Anthologie des Ecrivains francais morts pour la Patrie." Par Carlos + Larronde. Preface de Maurice Barres. I-IV. Paris: Larousse. 1916-1917 + +"La Jeunesse Nouvelle." Par Henri Bordeaux. Paris: Librairie Plon + 1917. + +"En Campagne" (1914-1915). Impression d'un officier de Legere. Par + Marcel Dupont. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1916. + +"Ma Campagne de jour de jour." Par le Capitaine Hassler. Paris: + Librairie Plon. 1917. + + + + + INDEX + + +Academy, French, 91 + +Addison, at Blois, 87,88 + +----compared with La Bruyere, 87 + +d'Ailly, Abbe, 22 + +Aix in Provence, 100 + +Alencon, 155 + +Allard, Jean, 136-138 + +Alsace, 162 + +Alsace-Lorraine, 132 + +Amelot, 118 + +Amyot, Jacques, 99 + +Anne of Austria, 11, 13 + +Anne of England, 88 + +Apemantus, 6 + +Argonne, the, 157 + +d'Argonne, Bonaventure, 61 _n_. + +Arnauld (d'Andilly), 22 + +Augustine, St., 43 + + +Barbier, Auguste, 150 + +Barres, M. Maurice, xiii, xv, 153 + +Belgium, 146 + +Bellay, Joachim du, 148 + +Belle-Isle, Marshal de, 106-107 + +Belmont, the brothers, 140, 161, 162 + +Berkeley, Bishop, 125 + +Besnard, H A., 155 + +Blair's "Grave," 110 + +"Blue Room," the, 8 + +Bohemia, the campaign in, 98, 107, 109, 112 + +Bohemia, Queen of, 33 + +Boileau, xix, 47, 70, 82 + +Bordeaux, M Henri, 139, 157, 162 + +Bossuet, Antoine, 92 + +Bossuet (Bishop),35, 44, 47, 61, 62, 76, 91, 101 _n_. 110, 116 + +Bouillon, Godefroi de, 58 + +Bourbon, Duc de, 61 + +Brillon, 55 + +Brooke, Rupert, 131, 164 + +Brunetiere, Ferdinand, 32 _n_. + +Buckingham, Duke of, 11 + +Budgell, Eustace, 88 + +Burney, Fanny, 62 + +Bussy-Rabutin, 45, 70 + + +Caen, 59, 60, 64 + +Calvin, 106 + +Casaubon, 70 + +"Chambre des Sublimes," 47 + +Champagne, 139 + +"Chanson de Roland," 132, 135 + +Chateaubriand, 153 + +Chatelet, Mme du, 112 + +Chevreuse, Mme de, 14 + +Choudens, Jacques de, 164-6 + +Clapiers, Luc de, 99 _see_ Vauvenargues + +Coleridge, his "Table-Talk," 29 + +Commune, the, 121 _n_. + +Conde, Prince de (the Grand Conde), 19, 61, 63, 64 + +Consenvoye, 152 + +Conti, Prince de, 14 + +Corneille, Pierre, 123, 124, his "Pulcherie," 48 + +Cousin, Victor, 32 + +Cromwell, Oliver, 129 + + +Decourcelle, M. Pierre, 138 + +Descartes, 33, 122, 125 + +Detanger, Capt E J., 151, 152 + +Drouet, Marcel, 151-154 + +Dupont, Marcel, his "En Campagne," 143 + +Duryer, his tragedy of "Alcyonee," 18 + +Dyke, Daniel, his "Mystery of Self-deceiving," 28 + + +Egra, 107 + +d'Enghien, Henri Jules, Duc, 63 + +Esprit, Jacques, 30-32, 50 _n_ + + +Fenelon, 35, 91, 101 _n_. + +Fontenelle, 61, 69 _n_.; described as "Cydias", 68 + +Fresnes, Chateau de, 36 + +Fronde, the, 13, 20, 24 + +Fuller, Thomas, 28, 74 + + +Gilbert, 109 + +Gourville, 18 + +Grenfell, Julian, 131, 164 + +Grenoble, 162, 163 + +Grignan, Mme de, 39 _n_, 48 + +Guastalla, victory at, 102 + +Guienne, 15 + +Guillot, Leon, xv + +Guyon, Mme, 91 + + +Haldane, Lord, quoted, 149, 174 + +Halifax, Earl of, 77, 78 + +Haraucourt, M.E., 141 + +Hassler, Capt, his "Ma Campagne", 166 + +d'Hautefort, Mlle, 11 + +Helvetius, 42 + +Hobbes, his "Leviathan," 33, 34 + +Huet, Bishop of Avranches, 37 + + +Jansenists, 27, 33, 127 + +Jeandelincourt, 141 + +Jesuits, 33 + +Johnson, Dr., 88 + +Jouy, Ernest, 28 + + +Kipling, Rudyard, 152, quoted, 90 + +Konrad, the monk, 135-6 + + +La Bruyere, 55-93; birth and parentage, 58; La Bruyere at Chantilly, + 64; contrasted with La Rochefoucauld, 57, described as "Menippe," + 65, in the House of Conde, 65, 90, at Fontainebleau, 64, Paris, 64; + at Versailles, 64; his "Caracteres," 55-57; 66-72, 76, 78, 83, his + "Dialogues," 92 + +La Bruyere, Louis, 58 + +La Fayette, Mme de, 36, 37, 39, 45, 46, 48-50 + +La Fontaine, 47; "Fables" of, 49 _n_ + +Lagrange, Henri, xiv + +Lamb, Charles, 58 + +Lantil, Leo, 139 + +La Rochefoucauld, Duc de, 3-52, birth and descent, 8, 9; marriage, + 10; his "Letters," his "Maximes," xvi, 4-6, 33,47, 51, 52, 57, his + "Memoires," 9-17, 21, 23-25; his portrait by himself, 22-25 by + Petitot, 19, by Cardinal de Retz, 17 + +Lauzun, Duc de, 80 + +La Vergne, Marie de, _see_ La Fayette, Mme de + +Lille, 164 + +Lintier, Paul, 3, 4, 131, 140-149, 163, 169 + +Lister, Charles, 164 + +Locke, John, 74, 124, 126 + +Longeville-les-Metz, 147 + +Longueville, Mme de, 14, 18, 39 40 _n_ + +Lorraine, 146 + +Loti, Pierre, 152 + +Louis XIII, 8, 9, 13, 14 + +Louis XIV., 84 + +Louis XV, 84, 117, 123 + +Luxembourg (Palace), 23, 64 + +Lyons, 141, 155 + + +Mademoiselle, La Grande, 17, 23 + +Maeterlinck, M., 160 + +Magne, M., Emile, 63 + +Mahon, Col Patrice, 151 + +Maine, Duc du, 46,47 + +Maine, Duchesse du, 116 + +Maintenon, Mme de, 46 + +Malebranche, 122 + +Malizian, 70 + +Manceau, Col. Emile, 149 + +Mandeville, Bernard, 42, 126 + +Marcillac, Prince de, 11, 12, 47, _see_ La Rochefoucauld + +Mirabeau, Marquis de, 100, 103-105 + +Moliere, 48 + + +Nolly, Emile; _see_ Detanger + + +Paleologue, M., 105, 169 + +Paris, Gaston, 135 + +Parma, French victory at, 102 + +Pascal, xviii, 22, 23, 32, 33, 35, 55, 81, 113, 115, 122, 127, 128 + +Peguy, 146 + +Petitot, 19 + +Phelippeaux, Abbe, 87, 88 + +Picq, Col. Ardent du 147, 148 + +Pierrepont, 136 + +Pin, Abbe Ellies du, 92 + +Plessis, Mme du, 36 + +Plutarch's "Lives," 99, 100 + +Pompadour, Mme de, 114 + +Port Royal, 22, 23, 27, 28, 36, 86 + +Prague, capture of, 107 + + +Quercy, 155 + +Quimper,157, 158 + + +Racine, xix, 35, 47, 122, 123 + +Rambouillet, Hotel de, 7 + +Regnier, Henri, 20 + +Retz, Cardinal de, 10, 16, 17 + +_Revue Critique_, 150 + +Rhine, Passage of the, 40 _n_. + +Richelieu, 10-12, 14 + +Roe, Art, _see_ Mahon + +Rousseau, J.J., 38 + +Ruffec, 19 + + +Sable, Mme de, 4, 5, 21, 23, 29, 31, 32. 36, 41 _n_. + +Saint-Antoine, Faubourg, 18 + +Saint-Cyr, 137 + +Saint-Simon, quoted, 79, 91 + +Schomberg, Duchesse de, 7 + +Scudery, Mlle de, 39, 45 + +Sedan, 153 + +Segrais, 35, 50 _n_ + +Seguier (Chancellor), 30 + +Seneca, 43 + +Seven Years War, 106 + +Sevigne, Mme de, 34, 39 _n_, 40 _n_, 45 _n_, quoted, 48-50 + +Seyres, Hippolyte de, 107-110 + +Shaftesbury, Third Earl, 126 + +Shakespeare, quoted, 6, 30 + +Singlin, Antoine, 22 + +Societe des Gens de Lettres, 138 + +_Spectator_, the, 88, 89 + +Spinoza, 33 + +Steele, Sir Richard, 89 + +Stephen, Sir Leslie, 34 + +Stevenson, R.L., 78, 101, 165 + +Suard, 99, 121 + +Sully, 129 + + +Tailly-sur-Meuse, 143, 148 + +Tallemont des Reaux, 22 + +Temple, Sir William, 118, 126 + +Theophrastus, 69-71, 88 + +Thiange, Mme de, 46, 47 + +Torquet, M. Charles, 165 + +Turin, 102 + + +Valincourt, 64 + +Vauban, Sebastien de, 84 _n_. + +Vauvenargues, Marquis de, 97-132; birth and parentage, 99-101; + described as "Clazomene," 121; serves in the Bohemian campaign, 98, + 107, 109, 112, in garrison at Arras, 113; in garrison at Metz, 106, + 113, in Paris, 120, with Villars in Lombardy, 102; his "Eloge" on De + Seyres, 109, his "Discours sur la Gloire," 109, his "Introduction a + la Connaissance de l'Esprit humain," 124, his "Reflexions sur divers + Sujets," 104, 117, 121, 127 + +Verdun, 144 + +Vernulius, 28 + +Verteuil, 19, 20, 48 + +Vigneul de Marville, 60, 61 _n_. + +Villars, Marshal de, 102, 129 + +Violand, Camille, 151, 155-160 + +Virton, Battle of, 144, 157 + +Vivonne, Andree de, 10 + +Voiture, 8 + +Voltaire, 40, 84, 101 _n_, 111-114, quoted, 33, 52, 75, 122, 123 + +Vouziers, 155 + + +Young's "Night-Thoughts," 110 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Three French Moralists and The +Gallantry of France, by Edmund Gosse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE FRENCH MORALISTS *** + +***** This file should be named 19872.txt or 19872.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/9/8/7/19872/ + +Produced by Thierry Alberto, Don Perry and the Online +Distributed Proofreaders Europe at http://dp.rastko.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/19872.zip b/19872.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..491b35e --- /dev/null +++ b/19872.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e02abb --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #19872 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/19872) |