Hugo P. Thieme

“ When La Rochefoucauld entered the society of Mme. de Sablé, he had seen much of life, was familiar with most of the adventures and intrigues of the Fronde and the society of the time; he himself had acted his part in all, and at the age of fifty was ready to put his experience into a permanent form of reflection. His Maxims created a stir, through the clearness and elegance of their character, their fine analyses of man as he was in the seventeenth century, and through their truthfulness and general applicability to men of every country. ”

“ Marvellous aptitudes, a scholarly and rare education, had given to this young woman all the gifts and virtues that made of a woman what the eighteenth century called a virtuoso, an accomplished model of the seductions of her time. Jeliotte had taught her singing and the clavecin; Guibaudet, dancing; Crébillon had taught her declamation and the art of diction; the friends of Crébillon had formed her young mind to finesse, to delicacies, to lightness of sentiment, and to irony of the esprit of the time. All the talents of grace seemed to be united in her. No woman mounted a horse better ”

“ Never diminishing in quality or inspiration, there are surprises in every new work.
No doubt George Sand has, for a generation or more, been somewhat forgotten, but what great writer has not shared the same fate? When the materialistic age has passed away, many famous writers of the past will be resurrected, and with them George Sand; for her novels, although written to please and entertain, discuss questions of religion, philosophy, morality, problems of the heart, conscience, and education,--and this is done in such a dramatic way that one feels all to be true. ”

“ Mme. Geoffrin was too practical and had too much good common sense to be vain. The majority of men were influenced by and favored her, and, which seemed strange, she had few enemies among her own sex. Mme. Necker said: "The old age of Mme. Geoffrin is like that of old trees, whose age we know by the space they cover and the quantity of roots they spread. She has seen all the illustrious men of the century; she has discovered, with sagacity, their peculiarities and their defects. She judges them by their conduct, never by their talents." ”

“ Mme. la Duchesse de Boufflers is beautiful without having the air of suspecting it. Her physiognomy is keen and piquant, her expression reveals all the emotions of her soul--she does not have to say what she thinks, one guesses it. Her gestures are so natural and so perfectly in accord with what she says, that it is difficult not to be led to think and feel as she does. She dominates wherever she is, and she always makes the impression she desires to make. She makes use of her advantages almost like a god--she permits us to believe that we have a free will while she determines us. ”

“ The last years of her life she spent with her daughter-in-law, at Auteuil, where she lived a happy life and received the best society of Paris. When she died or under what circumstances is not known. During the Revolution she lived in obscurity, busying herself with charitable work; she was one of the few women of the nobility to escape the guillotine, "This woman, who had kept the intellectual world alive with her esprit and goodness, of a sudden vanishes like a star from the horizon; she lives on, unnoticed by everyone, and, in that new society, no one misses her or regrets her death." ”

“ It was the age of beauty--a beauty that fascinated and entranced, but the glow of which melted and killed; but this glow also reacted upon them that caused it and they became victims of their own passions--through either jealousy or their own weaknesses. No age was ever more luxurious, pompous, elegant, brilliant, and wanton, yet beneath all the glitter there were much misery and bitter repentance; amongst the violent wickedness there were noble and pure women such as Elizabeth of Austria and Louise de Vaudemont. ”

“ Thoroughly to appreciate Marguerite d'Angoulême's position and influence and her contributions to literature, the conditions existing in her epoch must be carefully considered. It was in the sixteenth century that the charms of social life and of conversation as an art were first realized; all questions of the day were treated gracefully, if not deeply; woman began to play an important part, to appear at court, and, by her wit and beauty, to impress man. From the semi-barbaric spirit of the Middle Ages to the Italian and Roman culture of the Renaissance was a tremendous stride ”

“ From early youth she manifested an immense goodness, a profound tenderness, and a deep compassion for human misery. She rarely became angry, even though she suffered cruelly. Her own law of life and her message to the world was--be good. The only strong element within her, she said, was the need of loving, which manifested itself under the form of tenderness and emotion, devotion and religious ecstasy; and when this faith was shaken, doubt and social disturbances overwhelmed her.
Throughout life her consolation was Nature. "It was half of her genius and the surest of her inspirations." ”

“ Even Richelieu could not, as compensation to him for a favor to her husband, induce her to act as spy on some of the frequenters of her salon.
While not a woman of remarkable beauty, she was the personification of reason and virtue; her unassuming frankness, exquisite tact, and exceptional reserve discouraged all advances on the part of those gallants who frequented every mansion and were always prepared to lay siege to the heart of any fair woman. Her wide culture, versatility, modesty, goodness, fidelity, and disinterestedness caused her to be universally sought. ”

“ Michelet calls her a nonentity, a stage queen with merely the externals--the attire--of royalty, remaining exactly on a level with the rulers of the smaller Italian principalities, contriving everything and fearing everything, with no more heart than she had sense or temperament. Being a female, she loved her young; she loved the arts, but cared to cultivate only their externalities. In this, however, Michelet goes to an extreme; for no woman ever lived who had so great a talent for intrigues and politics as she--a very type of the deceit and cunning which were inherent in her race. ”

“ I wish, to the contrary, that he treat her with gentleness and kindness; and that--above all--he have her brought up in Béarn, and that she shall never leave there until she is old enough to be married to a prince of her own rank and religion, whose morals shall be such that the spouses may live happily together in a good and holy marriage.'" D'Aubigné wrote of her: "A princess with nothing of a woman but sex--with a soul full of everything manly, a mind fit to cope with affairs of moment, and a heart invincible in adversity." ”

“ In November she returned to France, to meet her queen and to suffer death for her sake,--and for this unswerving devotion she has a place in history. She stands out also as the one normal woman in the crowds of impetuous, shallow, petty, and, in many cases, pitifully debauched women of the time. Not majestic greatness, but a direct, unaffected sweetness and consistent goodness entitle her to rank among the great women of France. ”

“ Mme. Scarron seeks esteem, not love. To please while remaining virtuous, to endure, if need be, privations and even poverty, but to win the reputation of a strong character, to deserve the sympathy and approbation of honest persons--such is the direction of all her efforts. Well dressed, though very simply; discreet and modest, intelligent and distingué, with that patrician elegance which luxury cannot create, but which is inborn and comes by nature only; pious, with a sincere and gentle piety; less occupied with herself than with others ”

“ Mlle. de Scudéry, in her novel Cyrus, leaves a fine portrait of her:
"The spirit and soul of this marvellous person surpass by far her beauty: the first has no limits in its extent and the other has no equal in its generosity, goodness, justice, and purity. The intellect of Cléomire (Mme. de Rambouillet) is not like that of those whose minds have no brilliancy except that which nature has given them, for she has cultivated it carefully, and I think I can say that there are no belles connaissances that she has not acquired. ”

“ In Marguerite d'Angoulême contemporaries admired prudence, chastity, moderation, piety, an invincible strength of soul, and her habit of "hiding her knowledge instead of displaying it." "In an age wholly depraved, she approached the ideal woman of modern times; in spite of her virtue, she was brilliant and honored, the centre of a coterie that delighted in music, verse, ingenious dialogues and gossip, story telling, singing, rhyming. Deeply afflicted by the sad and odious spectacle of the vices, abuses, and crimes which unroll before her, she suffers through her imagination, mind and heart." ”

“ No woman at court had more friends and fewer enemies than did Mme. de Boufflers, because "she united to the gifts of nature and the culture of esprit an amiable simplicity, charming graces, a goodness, kindness, and sensibility, which made her forget herself always and constantly seek to aid those about her." She made use of her influence over the prince in such ways as would, in a measure, recompense for her fault, and thus recommended herself by her good actions. She was the soul of his salon, "Le Temple." ”

“ Humanity, what a poor judge you are!"
Shortly after her marriage, Mme. Necker wrote to one of her friends: "My dear, I have married a man who, according to my ideas, is the kindest of mortals, and I am not the only one to judge thus. I had had a liking for him ever since I learned to know him. At present, I see, in all nature, only my husband. I take notice of other men only in so far as they come more or less up to the standard of my husband, and I compare them only for the pleasure of seeing the difference." ”

“ In the preceding age love was declared, it spoke, it was a virtue of grandeur and generosity, of courage and delicacy, exacting all proofs of decency and gallantry, patient efforts, respect, vows, discretion, and reciprocal affection. The ideal was one of heroism, nobleness, and bravery. In the eighteenth century this ideal became mere desire; love became voluptuousness, which was to be found in art, music, styles, fashions--in everything. Woman herself was nothing more than the embodiment of voluptuousness ”

“ In short, Mme. Geoffrin was an intellectual authority, a sort of minister to society, and her salon was the great centre and rendezvous, a veritable institution of the eighteenth century. This seems the more remarkable when we consider that she belonged to the bourgeoisie, and that by dint of her exquisite tact, her almost infallible judgment, her admirable taste in dress, and her keen intelligence, she created for herself a position which was the envy of all Europe. Such women are rare. ”

“ The century did not demand faithfulness to the marital vows; but when a woman had once abandoned herself to love, it required that the attachment be to a man of honor and standing. Marriage was simply a preliminary step to freedom; after that ceremony came the natural election of the heart and mutual tenderness of the beings who could be mated only through the freedom which married life afforded. A superior illegitimate liaison was nothing unnatural--on the contrary, it was but a natural human selection; such was the nature of the affection of Mme. d'Epinay for this débauché Francueil. ”

“ At the suppers and dinners, by songs and plays, at the gatherings where held forth Duclos and others like him, in the midst of champagne, ivresse d'esprit, and eloquence, she was taught and saw the corruption of society and marriage, the disrespect to modesty; in such an atmosphere all trace of innocence was destroyed. She was taught that faithfulness to a husband belonged only to the people, that it was an evidence of stupidity. Manners, customs, and even religion were against the preservation of innocence and purity; and in this depravity the abbés were the leaders. ”

“ There was no longer any mystery, any secret; the lover left his carriage at the door of his love, as if to publish his good fortune; he regularly made his appearance at her house, at the hour of the toilette, at dinner and at all the fêtes; the public announcement of the liaison was made at the theatre when he sat in her box.
There came a period when so-called love fell so low that woman no longer questioned a man's birth, rank, or condition, and vice versa, as long as he or she was in demand; a successful man had nearly every woman of prominence at his feet. ”

“ These were years, about 1780 to 1800, during which women shared the same fate with men; and, consigned to the same prisons, ever resigned and ready to die for principle, they knew how to die nobly. It was truly an age of the martyrdom of woman--an age in which she lived, through almost superhuman conditions, at the side of man. She was all-powerful, triumphant as never before; not, however, through her intellectual superiority as in the previous age, but through her courage. There was not one powerful woman standing out alone, but groups of them, hosts of them. ”

“ The Regency was a period of scandal and wantonness, personified in the Duchess of Berry. The licentious and extravagant, yet brilliant and exquisite, frivolous but charming, intriguing and diplomatic, was represented by the talented and politically influential Mme. de Pompadour. Complete degeneracy, vice with all manner of disguise thrown off, adultery of the lowest order, were personified in the common Mme. du Barry, who might be classed with Louise of Savoy of the sixteenth century, while Mme. de Pompadour might be compared with Diana of Poitiers. ”

“ The finest of these is the one by her friend Mme. de La Fayette, contained in one of the epistolary portraits so much in vogue at that time, and which were turned out, par excellence, in the salon of Mlle. de Luxembourg: "Know, madame,--if by chance you do not already know it,--that your mind adorns and embellishes your person so well that there is not another one on earth so charming as you when you are animated in a conversation in which all constraint is banished. Your soul is great, noble, ready to dispense with treasures, and incapable of lowering itself to the care of amassing them. ”