The Ancient Regime

Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. IV. Mme. de Genlis wrote verses of this kind at twelve years of age.]

2241 (return)
[ Already in the Précieuses of Molière, the Marquis de Mascarille and the Vicomte de Jodelet.—And the same in Marivaux, "L'épreuve, les jeux de l'amour et du hasard," ete.—Lesage, "Crispin rival de son maître."—Laclos, "Les liaisons dangéreuses," first letter.]

2242 (return)
[ Voltaire, "Princesse de Babylone."]

2243 (return)
[ "Gustave III," by Geffroy, II. 37.—Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, I. 81.]

2244 (return)
[ George Sand, I. 58-60. A narration by her grandmother, who, at thirty years of age, married M. Dupin de Francuiel, aged sixty-two.]

2245 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Souvenirs de Félicie," 77.—Mme. Campan, III. 74.—Mme. de Genlis, "Dict. des Etiquettes," I. 348.]

2246 (return)
[ See an anecdote concerning this species of royalty in "Adèle et Théodore, I. 69" by Mme. de Genlis.—Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, I. 156: "Women ruled then; the Revolution has dethroned them. . . This gallantry I speak of has entirely disappeared."]

2247 (return)
[ "Women in France to some extent dictate whatever is to be said and prescribe whatever is to be done in the fashionable world." ("A comparative view," by John Andrews, 1785.)]

2248 (return)
[ Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 299.—Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," ch. XI.]

2249 (return)
[ De Tilly, I. 24.]

2250 (return)
[ Necker, "Oeuvres complètes," XV, 259.]

2251 (return)
[ Narrated by M. de Bezenval, a witness of the duel.]

2252 (return)
[ See especially: Saint-Aubin, "Le bal paré," "Le Concert;"—Moreau, "Les Elégants," "La Vie d'un Seigneur à la mode," the vignettes of "La nouvelle Héloise;" Beaudouin, "La Toilette," "Le Coucher de la Mariée;" Lawreince, "Qu'en dit l'abbé?"—Watteau, the first in date and in talent, transposes these customs and depicts them the better by making them more poetic.—Of the rest, reread "Marianne," by Marivaux; "La Vérité dans le vin," by Collé; "Le coin du feu," "La nuit et le moment," by Crébillon fils; and two letters in the "Correspondance inédite" of Mme. du Deffant, one by the Abbé Barthélemy and the other by the Chevalier de Boufflers, (I. 258, 341.).]

2253 (return)
[ "Correspondence inédite de Mme. du Deffant," published by M. de Saint-Aulaire, I. 235, 258, 296, 302, 363.]

2254 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Dict. des Etiquettes," II. 38. "Adèle et Théodore, I, 312, II, 350,—George Sand, "Histoire de ma vie," I. 228.—De Goncourt, p. 111.]

2255 (return)
[ George Sand, I. 59.]

2256 (return)
[ "A comparative view," etc., by John Andrews.]

2257 (return)
[ Mme. Vigée-Lebrun, I. 15, 154.]

2258 (return)
[ Châteaubriand, I. 34.—"Mémoires de Mirabeau," passim.—George Sand, I. 59, 76.]

2259 (return)
[ Comptes rendus de la société de Berry (1863-1864).]

2260 (return)
[ "Histoire de Troyes pendant la Révolution," by Albert Babeau, I. 46.]

2261 (return)
[ Foissets, "Le Président des Brosses," 65, 69, 70, 346.—"Lettres du Président des Brosses," (ed. Coulomb), passim.—Piron being uneasy concerning his "Ode à Priape," President Bouhier, a man of great and fine erudition, and the least starched of learned ones, sent for the young man and said to him, "You are a foolish fellow. If any one presses you to know the author of the offence tell him that I am." (Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," VII. 414.)]

2262 (return)
[ Foisset, ibid.. 185. Six audiences a week and often two a day besides his labors as antiquarian, historian, linguist, geographer, editor and academician.]

2263 (return)
[ "Souvenirs", by PASQUIER (Etienne-Dennis, duc), chancelier de France. in VI volumes, Librarie Plon, Paris 1893.]

2264 (return)
[ De Valfons, "Souvenirs," 60.]

2265 (return)
[ Montgaillard (an eye-witness). "Histoire de France," II. 246.]

2266 (return)
[ M. de Conzié is surprised at four o'clock in the morning by his rival, an officer in the guards. "Make no noise," he said to him, "a dress like yours will be brought to me and I will have a cock made then we shall be on the same level." A valet brings him his weapons. He descends into the garden of the mansion, fights with the officer and disarms him. ("Correspondance," by Métra, XIV. May 20, 1783.)—"Le Comte de Clermont," by Jules Cousin, passim.—"Journal de Collé," III. 232 (July, 1769).]

2267 (return)
[ De Loménie, "Beaumarchais et son temps, II. 304.]

2268 (return)
[ De Luynes, XVL 161 (September, 1757). The village festival given to King Stanislas, by Mme. de Mauconseil at Bagatelle.—Bachaumont, III. 247 (September 7, 1767). Festival given by the Prince de Condé.]

2269 (return)
[ "Correspondance," by Métra, XIII. 97 (June 15, 1782), and V. 232 (June 24 and 25, 1777).—Mme. de Genlis "Mémoires," chap. XIV.]

2270 (return)
[ Bachaumont, November 17, 1770.—"Journal de Collé," III. 136 (April 29, 1767).—De Montlosier, "Mémoires," I. 43. "At the residence of the Commandant (at Clermont) they would have been glad to enlist me in private theatricals."]

2271 (return)
[ "Correspondance." by Métra, II. 245 (Nov. 18. 1775).]

2272 (return)
[ Julien. "Histoire du Théâtre de Madame de Pompadour." These representations last seven years and cost during the winter alone of 1749, 300,000 livres.—De Luynes, X. 45.—Mme. de Hausset, 230.]

2273 (return)
[ Mme. Campan, I. 130.—Cf. with caution, the Mémoires, are suspect, as they have been greatly modified and arranged by Fleury.— De Goncourt, 114.

2274 (return)
[ Jules Cousin, "Le Comte de Clermont," p.21.—Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," chap. 3 and 11.—De Goncourt, 114.]

2275 (return)
[ Bachaumont, III. 343 (February 23, 1768) and IV. 174, III. 232.—"Journal d Collé," passim.—Collé, Laujon and Poisinet are the principal purveyors for these displays; the only one of merit is "La Verité dans le Vin." In this piece instead of "Mylord." there was at first the "bishop of Avranches," and the piece was thus performed at Villers-Cotterets in the house of the Duc d'Orléans.]

2276 (return)
[ Mme. d'Oberkirk, II. 82.—On the tone of the best society see "Correspondance" by Métra, I. 50, III. 68, and Bezenval (Ed. Barrière) 387 to 394.]

2277 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Adèle et Théodore," II. 362.]

2278 (return)
[ George Sand, I. 85. "At my grandmother's I have found boxes full of couplets, madrigals and biting satires.... I burned some of them so obscene that I would not dare read them through, and these written by abbés I had known to my infancy and by a marquis of the best blood." Among other examples, toned down, the songs on the Bird and the Shepherdess, may be read in "Correspondance," by Métra.]

CHAPTER III. DISADVANTAGES OF THIS DRAWING ROOM LIFE.

I. Its Barrenness and Artificiality

Mere pleasure, in the long run, ceases to gratify, and however agreeable this drawing room life may be, it ends in a certain hollowness. Something is lacking without any one being able to say precisely what that something is; the soul becomes restless, and slowly, aided by authors and artists, it sets about investigating the cause of its uneasiness and the object of its secret longings. Barrenness and artificiality are the two traits of this society, the more marked because it is more complete, and, in this one, pushed to extreme, because it has attained to supreme refinement. In the first place naturalness is excluded from it; everything is arranged and adjusted,—decoration, dress, attitude, tone of voice, words, ideas and even sentiments. "A genuine sentiment is so rare," said M. de V—, "that, when I leave Versailles, I sometimes stand still in the street to see a dog gnaw a bone."2301 Man, in abandoning himself wholly to society, had withheld no portion of his personality for himself while decorum, clinging to him like so much ivy, had abstracted from him the substance of his being and subverted every principle of activity.

Among all these social flavorings one is especially abused; one which, unremittingly employed, communicates to all dishes its frigid and piquant relish, I mean insincerity (badinage). Society does not tolerate passion, and in this it exercises its right. One does not enter company to be either vehement or somber; a strained air or one of concentration would appear inconsistent. The mistress of a house is always right in reminding a man that his emotional constraint brings on silence. "Monsieur Such-a-one, you are not amiable to day." To be always amiable is, accordingly, an obligation, and, through this training, a sensibility that is diffused through innumerable little channels never produces a broad current. "One has a hundred friends, and out of these hundred friends two or three may have some chagrin every day; but one could not award them sympathy for any length of time as, in that event, one would be wanting in consideration for the remaining ninety-seven;"2304 one might sigh for an instant with some one of the ninety-seven, and that would be all. Madame du Deffant, having lost her oldest friend, the President Hénault, that very day goes to sup in a large assemblage: "Alas," she exclaimed, "he died at six o'clock this evening; otherwise you would not see me here." Under this constant régime of distractions and diversions there are no longer any profound sentiments; we have nothing but an epidermic exterior; love itself is reduced to "the exchange of two fantasies."—And, as one always falls on the side to which one inclines, levity becomes deliberate and a matter of elegance.2305 Indifference of the heart is in fashion; one would be ashamed to show any genuine emotion. One takes pride in playing with love, in treating woman as a mechanical puppet, in touching one inward spring, and then another, to force out, at will, her anger or her pity. Whatever she may do, there is no deviation from the most insulting politeness; the very exaggeration of false respect which is lavished on her is a mockery by which indifference for her is fully manifested.—But they go still further, and in souls naturally unfeeling, gallantry turns into wickedness. Through ennui and the demand for excitement, through vanity, and as a proof of dexterity, delight is found in tormenting, in exciting tears, in dishonoring and in killing women by slow torture. At last, as vanity is a bottomless pit, there is no species of blackness of which these polished executioners are not capable; the personages of Laclos are derived from these originals.2306—Monsters of this kind are, undoubtedly, rare; but there is no need of reverting to them to ascertain how much egotism is harbored in the gallantry of society. The women who erected it into an obligation are the first to realize its deceptiveness, and, amidst so much homage without heat, to pine for the communicative warmth of a powerful sentiment.—The character of the century obtains its last trait and "the man of feeling comes on the stage.

II. Return To Nature And Sentiment.

It is not that the groundwork of habits becomes different, for these remain equally worldly and dissipated up the last. But fashion authorizes a new affectation, consisting of effusions, reveries, and sensibilities as yet unknown. The point is to return to nature, to admire the country, to delight in the simplicity of rustic manners, to be interested in village people, to be human, to have a heart, to find pleasure in the sweetness and tenderness of natural affections, to be a husband and a father, and still more, to possess a soul, virtues, and religious emotions, to believe in Providence and immortality, to be capable of enthusiasm. One wants to be all this, or at least show an inclination that way. In any event, if the desire does exist it is one the implied condition, that one shall not be too much disturbed in his ordinary pursuits, and that the sensations belonging to the new order of life shall in no respect interfere with the enjoyments of the old one. Accordingly the exaltation which arises is little more than cerebral fermentation, and the idyll is to be almost entirely performed in the drawing-rooms. Behold, then, literature, the drama, painting and all the arts pursuing the same sentimental road to supply heated imaginations with factitious nourishment.2307 Rousseau, in labored periods, preaches the charms of an uncivilized existence, while other masters, between two madrigals, fancy the delight of sleeping naked in the primeval forest. The lovers in "La Nouvelle Héloise" interchange passages of fine style through four volumes, whereupon a person "not merely methodical but prudent," the Comtesse de Blot, exclaims, at a social gathering at the Duchesse de Chartres', "a woman truly sensitive, unless of extraordinary virtue, could refuse nothing to the passion of Rousseau."2308 People collect in a dense crowd in the Exhibition around "L'Accordée de Village," "La Cruche Cassée," and the "Retour de nourrice," with other rural and domestic idylls by Greuze; the voluptuous element, the tempting undercurrent of sensuality made perceptible in the fragile simplicity of his artless maidens, is a dainty bit for the libertine tastes which are kept alive beneath moral aspirations.2309 After these, Ducis, Thomas, Parny, Colardeau, Boucher, Delille, Bernardin de St. Pierre, Marmontel, Florian, the mass of orators, authors and politicians, the misanthrope Champfort, the logician La Harpe, the minister Necker, the versifiers and the imitators of Gessner and Young, the Berquins, the Bitaubés, nicely combed and bedizened, holding embroidered handkerchiefs to wipe away tears, are to marshal forth the universal eclogue down to the acme of the Revolution. Marmontel's "Moral Tales" appear in the columns of the "Mercure" for 1791 and 1792,2310 while the number following the massacres of September opens with verses "to the manes of my canary-bird."

Consequently, in all the details of private life, sensibility displays its magniloquence. A small temple to Friendship is erected in a park. A little altar to Benevolence is set up in a private closet. Dresses à la Jean-Jacques-Rousseau are worn "analogous to the principles of that author." Head-dresses are selected with "puffs au sentiment" in which one may place the portrait of one's daughter, mother, canary or dog, the whole "garnished with the hair of one's father or intimate friend."2311 People keep intimate friends for whom "they experience something so warm and so tender that it nearly amounts to a passion" and whom they cannot go three hours a day without seeing. "Every time female companions interchange tender ideas the voice suddenly changes into a pure and languishing tone, each fondly regarding the other with approaching heads and frequently embracing," and suppressing a yawn a quarter of an hour after, with a nap in concert, because they have no more to say. Enthusiasm becomes an obligation. On the revival of "Le père de famille" there are as many handkerchiefs counted as spectators, and ladies faint away. "It is customary, especially for young women, to be excited, to turn pale, to melt into tears and, generally, to be seriously affected on encountering M. de Voltaire; they rush into his arms, stammer and weep, their agitation resembling that of the most passionate love."2312—When a society-author reads his work in a drawing-room, fashion requires that the company should utter exclamations and sob, and that some pretty fainting subject should be unlaced. Mme. de Genlis, who laughs at these affectations, is no less affected than the rest. Suddenly some one in the company is heard to say to the young orphan whom she is exhibiting: "Pamela, show us Héloise," whereupon Pamela, loosening her hair, falls on her knees and turns her eyes up to heaven with an air of inspiration, to the great applause of the assembly.2313 Sensibility becomes an institution. The same Madame de Genlis founds an order of Perseverance which soon includes "as many as ninety chevaliers in the very best society." To become a member it is necessary to solve some riddle, to answer a moral question and pronounce a discourse on virtue. Every lady or chevalier who discovers and publishes "three well-verified virtuous actions" obtains a gold medal. Each chevalier has his "brother in arms," each lady has her bosom friend and each member has a device, and each device, framed in a little picture, figures in the "Temple of Honor," a sort of tent gallantly decorated, and which M. de Lauzun causes to be erected in the middle of a garden.2314—The sentimental parade is complete, a drawing room masquerade being visible even in this revival of chivalry.

The froth of enthusiasm and of fine words nevertheless leaves in the heart a residuum of active benevolence, trustfulness, and even happiness, or, at least, expansiveness and freedom. Wives, for the first time, are seen accompanying their husbands into garrison; mothers desire to nurse their infants, and fathers begin to interest themselves in the education of their children. Simplicity again forms an element of manners. Hair-powder is no longer put on little boys' heads; many of the seigniors abandon laces, embroideries, red heels and the sword, except when in full dress. People appear in the streets "dressed à la Franklin, in coarse cloth, with a knotty cane and thick shoes."2315 The taste no longer runs on cascades, statues and stiff and pompous decorations; the preference is for the English garden.2316 The queen arranges a village for herself at the Trianon, where, "dressed in a frock of white cambric muslin and a gauze neck-handkerchief, and with a straw hat," she fishes in the lake and sees her cows milked. Etiquette falls away like the paint scaling off from the skin, disclosing the bright hue of natural emotions. Madame Adelaide takes up a violin and replaces an absent musician to let the peasant girls dance. The Duchesse de Bourbon goes out early in the morning incognito to bestow alms, and "to see the poor in their garrets." The Dauphine jumps out of her carriage to assist a wounded post-boy, a peasant knocked down by a stag. The king and the Comte d'Artois help a carter to extract his cart from the mud. People no longer think about self-constraint, and self-adjustment, and of keeping up their dignity under all circumstances, and of subjecting the weaknesses of human nature to the exigencies of rank. On the death of the first Dauphin,2317 whilst the people in the room place themselves before the king to prevent him from entering it, the queen falls at his knees, and he says to her, weeping, "Ah, my wife, our dear child is dead, since they do not wish me to see him." And the narrator adds with admiration; "I always seem to see a good farmer and his excellent wife a prey to the deepest despair at the loss of their beloved child." Tears are no longer concealed, as it is a point of honor to be a human being. One becomes human and familiar with one's inferiors. A prince, on a review, says to the soldiers on presenting the princess to them, "My boys, here is my wife." There is a disposition to make people happy and to take great delight in their gratitude. To be kind, to be loved is the object of the head of a government, of a man in place. This goes so far that God is prefigured according to this model. The "harmonies of nature" are construed into the delicate attentions of Providence; on instituting filial affection the Creator "deigned to choose for our best virtue our sweetest pleasure."2318—The idyll which is imagined to take place in heaven corresponds with the idyll practiced on earth. From the public up to the princes, and from the princes down to the public, in prose, in verse, in compliments at festivities, in official replies, in the style of royal edicts down to the songs of the market-women, there is a constant interchange of graces and of sympathies. Applause bursts out in the theater at any verse containing an allusion to princes, and, a moment after, at the speech which exalts the merits of the people, the princes return the compliment by applauding in their turn.2319—On all sides, just as this society is vanishing, a mutual deference, a spirit of kindliness arises, like a soft and balmy autumnal breeze, to dissipate whatever harshness remains of its aridity and to mingle with the radiance of its last hours the perfume of dying roses. We now encounter acts and words of infinite grace, unique of their kind, like a lovely, exquisite little figure on old Sèvres porcelain. One day, on the Comtesse Amélie de Boufflers speaking somewhat flippantly of her husband, her mother-in-law interposes, "You forget that you are speaking of my son."—"True, mamma, I thought I was only speaking of your son-in-law." It is she again who, on playing "the boat," and obliged to decide between this beloved mother-in-law and her own mother, whom she scarcely knew, replies, "I would save my mother and drown with my mother-in-law."2320 The Duchesse de Choiseul, the Duchesse de Lauzun, and others besides, are equally charming miniatures. When the heart and the mind combine their considerations they produce masterpieces, and these, like the art, the refinements and the society which surrounds them, possess a charm unsurpassed by anything except their own fragility.

III. Personality Defects.

The reason is that, the better people have become adapted to a certain situation the less prepared are they for the opposite situation. The habits and faculties that serve them in the previous condition become prejudicial to them in the new one. In acquiring talents adapted to tranquil times they lose those suited to times of agitation, reaching the extreme of feebleness at the same time with the extreme of urbanity. The more polished an aristocracy becomes the weaker it becomes, and when no longer possessing the power to please it not longer possesses the strength to struggle. And yet, in this world, we must struggle if we would live. In humanity, as in nature, empire belongs to force. Every creature that loses the art and energy of self-defense becomes so much more certainly a prey according as its brilliancy, imprudence and even gentleness deliver it over in advance to the gross appetites roaming around it. Where find resistance in characters formed by the habits we have just described? To defend ourselves we must, first of all, look carefully around us, see and foresee, and provide for danger. How could they do this living as they did? Their circle is too narrow and too carefully enclosed. Confined to their castles and mansions they see only those of their own sphere, they hear only the echo of their own ideas, they imagine that there is nothing beyond the public seems to consist of two hundred persons. Moreover, disagreeable truths are not admitted into a drawing-room, especially when of personal import, an idle fancy there becoming a dogma because it becomes conventional. Here, accordingly, we find those who, already deceived by the limitations of their accustomed horizon, fortify their delusion still more by delusions about their fellow men. They comprehend nothing of the vast world, which envelops their little world; they are incapable of entering into the sentiments of a bourgeois, of a villager; they have no conception of the peasant as he is but as they would like him to be. The idyll is in fashion, and no one dares dispute it; any other supposition would be false because it would be disagreeable, and as the drawing rooms have decided that all will go well, all must go well. Never was a delusion more complete and more voluntary. The Duc d'Orléans offers to wager a hundred louis that the States-General will dissolve without accomplishing anything, not even abolishing the lettre-de-cachet.. After the demolition has begun, and yet again after it is finished, they will form opinions no more accurate. They have no idea of social architecture; they know nothing about its materials, its proportions, or its harmonious balance; they have had no hand in it, they have never worked at it. They are entirely ignorant of the old building2321 in which they occupy the first story. They are not qualified to calculate either its pressure or its resistance.2322 They conclude, finally, that it is better to let the thing tumble in, and that the restoration of the edifice in their behalf will follow its own course, and that they will return to their drawing-room, expressly rebuilt for them, and freshly gilded, to begin over again the pleasant conversation which an accident, some tumult in the street, had interrupted.2323 Clear-sighted in society, they are obtuse in politics. They examine everything by the artificial light of candles; they are disturbed and bewildered in the powerful light of open day. The eyelid has grown stiff through age. The organ so long bent on the petty details of one refined life no longer takes in the popular life of the masses, and, in the new sphere into which it is suddenly plunged, its refinement becomes the source of its blindness.

Nevertheless action is necessary, for danger is seizing them by the throat. But the danger is of an ignoble species, while their education has provided them with no arms suitable for warding it off. They have learned how to fence, but not how to box. They are still the sons of those at Fontenoy, who, instead of being the first to fire, courteously raised their hats and addressed their English antagonists, "No, gentlemen, fire yourselves." Being the slaves of good-breeding they are not free in their movements. Numerous acts, and those the most important, those of a sudden, vigorous and rude stamp, are opposed to the respect a well-bred man entertains for others, or at least to the respect which he owes to himself. They do not consider these allowable among themselves; they do not dream of their being allowed, and, the higher their position the more their rank fetters them. When the royal family sets out for Varennes the accumulated delays by which they are lost are the result of etiquette. Madame de Touzel insists on her place in the carriage to which she is entitled as governess of the Children of France. The king, on arriving, is desirous of conferring the marshal's baton on M. de Bouillé, and after running to and fro to obtain a baton he is obliged to borrow that of the Duc de Choiseul. The queen cannot dispense with a traveling dressing-case and one has to be made large enough to contain every imaginable implement from a warming-pan to a silver porridge-dish, with other dishes besides; and, as if there were no shifts to be had in Brussels, there had to be a complete outfit in this line for herself and her children.2324—A fervent devotion, even humanness, the frivolity of the small literary spirit, graceful urbanity, profound ignorance,2325 the lack or rigidity of the comprehension and determination are still greater with the princes than with the nobles.—All are impotent against the wild and roaring outbreak. They have not the physical superiority that can master it, the vulgar charlatanism which can charm it away, the tricks of a Scapin to throw it off the scent, the bull's neck, the mountebank's gestures, the stentor's lungs, in short, the resources of the energetic temperament and of animal cunning, alone capable of diverting the rage of the unchained brute. To find such fighters, they seek three or four men of a different race and education, men having suffered and roamed about, a brutal commoner like the abbé Maury, a colossal and dirty satyr like Mirabeau, a bold and prompt adventurer like that Dumouriez who, at Cherbourg, when, through the feebleness of the Duc de Beuvron, the stores of grain were given up and the riot began, hooted at and nearly cut to pieces, suddenly sees the keys of the storehouse in the hands of a Dutch sailor, and, yelling to the mob that it was betrayed through a foreigner having got hold of the keys, himself jumps down from the railing, seizes the keys and hands them to the officer of the guard, saying to the people, "I am your father, I am the man to be responsible for the storehouse!"2326 To entrust oneself with porters and brawlers, to be collared by a political club, to improvise on the highways, to bark louder than the barkers, to fight with the fists or a cudgel, as much later with the young and rich gangs, against brutes and lunatics incapable of employing other arguments, and who must be answered in the same vein, to mount guard over the Assembly, to act as volunteer constable, to spare neither one's own hide nor that of others, to be one of the people to face the people, all these are simple and effectual proceedings, but so vulgar as to appear to them disgusting. The idea of resorting to such means never enters their head; they neither know how, nor do they care to make use of their hands in such business.2327 They are skilled only in the duel and, almost immediately, the brutality of opinion, by means of assaults, stops the way to polite combats. Their arms, the shafts of the drawing-room, epigrams, witticisms, songs, parodies, and other needle thrusts are impotent against the popular bull.2328 Their personality lacks both roots and resources; through super-refinement it has weakened; their nature, impoverished by culture, is incapable of the transformations by which we are renewed and survive.—An all-powerful education has repressed, mollified, and enfeebled their very instincts. About to die, they experience none of the reactions of blood and rage, the universal and sudden restoration of the forces, the murderous spasm, the blind irresistible need of striking those who strike them. If a gentleman is arrested in his own house by a Jacobin we never find him splitting his head open.2329 They allow themselves to be taken, going quietly to prison; to make an uproar would be bad taste; it is necessary, above all things, to remain what they are, well-bred people of society. In prison both men and women dress themselves with great care, pay each other visits and keep up a drawing-room; it may be at the end of a corridor, by the light of three or four candles; but here they circulate jests, compose madrigals, sing songs and pride themselves on being as gallant, as gay and as gracious as ever: need people be morose and ill-behaved because accident has consigned them to a poor inn? They preserve their dignity and their smile before their judges and on the cart; the women, especially, mount the scaffold with the ease and serenity characteristic of an evening entertainment. It is the supreme characteristic of good-breeding, erected into an unique duty, and become to this aristocracy a second nature, which is found in its virtues as well as in its vices, in its faculties as well as in its impotencies, in its prosperity as at its fall, and which adorns it even in the death to which it conducts.

2301 (return)
[ Champfort, 110.]

2302 (return)
[ George Sand, V. 59. "I was rebuked for everything; I never made a movement which was not criticized."]

2303 (return)
[ "Paris, Versailles, et les provinces," I. 162.—"The king of Sweden is here; he wears rosettes on his breeches; all is over; he is ridiculous, and a provincial king." ("Le Gouvernement de Normandie," by Hippeau, IV. 237, July 4, 1784.]

2304 (return)
[ Stendhal, "Rome, Naples and Florence," 379. Stated by an English lord.]

2305 (return)
[ Marivaux, "La Petit-Maître corrigé.—Gresset, "Le Méchant." Crébillon fils, "La Nuit et le Moment," (especially the scene between the scene between Citandre and Lucinde).—Collé, "La Verité dans le Vin," (the part of the abbé with the with the présidente).—De Bezenval, 79. (The comte de Frise and Mme. de Blot). "Vie privée du Maréchal de Richelieu," (scenes with Mme. Michelin).—De Goncourt, 167 to 174.]

2306 (return)
[ Laclos, "Les Liaisons Dangereuses." Mme. de Merteuil was copied after a Marquise de Grenoble.—Remark the difference between Lovelace and Valmont, one being stimulated by pride and the other by vanity.]

2307 (return)
[ The growth of sensibility is indicated by the following dates: Rousseau, "Sur l'influence des lettres et des arts," 1749; "Sur l'inégalité," 1753; "Nouvelle Héloise," 1759. Greuze, "Le Pére de Famille lisant la Bible," 1755; "L'Accordée de Village," 1761. Diderot, "Le fils natural," 1757; "Le Pére de Famille," 1758.]

2308 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," chap. XVII.—George Sand, I. 72. The young Mme. de Francueil, on seeing Rousseau for the first time, burst into tears.]

2309 (return)
[ This point has been brought out with as much skill as accuracy by Messieurs de Goncourt in "L'Art au dix-huitième siècle," I. 433-438.]

2310 (return)
[ The number for August, 1792, contains "Les Rivaux d'eux-mêmes."—About the same time other pieces are inserted in the "Mercure," such as "The federal union of Hymen and Cupid," "Les Jaloux," "A Pastoral Romance," "Ode Anacréontique à Mlle. S. D. . . . "etc.]

2311 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Adéle et Théodore," I. 312.—De Goncourt, "La Femme an dixhuitième siècle," 318.—Mme. d'Oberkirk, I. 56.—Description of the puff au sentiment of the Duchesse de Chartres (de Goncourt, 311): "In the background is a woman seated in a chair and holding an infant, which represents the Duc de Valois and his nurse. On the right is a parrot pecking at a cherry, and on the left a little Negro, the duchess's two pets: the whole is intermingled with locks of hair of all the relations of Mme. de Chartres, the hair of her husband, father and father-in-law."]

2312 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Les Dangers du Monde." I, scène VII; II, scène IV;—"Adèle et Théodore," I. 312;—"Souvenirs de Félicie," 199;—Bachaumont, IV, 320.]

2313 (return)
[ Mme. de la Rochejacquelein, "Mémoires."]

2314 (return)
[ Mme. de Genlis, "Mémoires," chap. XX.—De Lauzun, 270.]

2315 (return)
[ Mme. d'Oberkirk, II. 35 (1783-1784). Mme. Campan, III. 371.—Mercier, "Tableau de Paris," passim.]

2316 (return)
[ "Correspondance" by Métra, XVII. 55, (1784).—Mme. d'Oberkirk, II. 234.—"Marie Antoinette," by d'Arneth and Geffroy, II. 63, 29.]

2317 (return)
[ "Le Gouvernement de Normandie," by Hippeau, IV. 387 (Letters of June 4, 1789, by an eye-witness).]

2318 (return)
[ Florian, "Ruth".]

2319 (return)
[ Hippeau, IV. 86 (June 23, 1773), on the representation of "Le Siege de Calais," at the Comédie Française, at the moment when Mlle. Vestris has pronounced these words: