François de La Rochefoucauld

“ Into this plot Rochefoucauld threw himself with all his energy; his connexion with the Queen brought him back to his old love Mdlle. d'Hautefort, and led him to her party, which he afterwards followed. The course he took shut him off from all chance of Court favour. The King regarded him with coldness, the Cardinal with irritation. Although the Bastile and the scaffold, the fate of Chalais and Montmorency, were before his eyes, they failed to deter him from plotting. He was about twenty-three; returning to Paris, he warmly sided with the Queen. ”

“ Yet it is difficult to assign a cause for this; no book is perhaps oftener unwittingly quoted, none certainly oftener unblushingly pillaged; upon none have so many contradictory opinions been given.
"Few books," says Mr. Hallam, "have been more highly extolled, or more severely blamed, than the maxims of the Duke of Rochefoucauld, and that not only here, but also in France." Rousseau speaks of it as, "a sad and melancholy book," though he goes on to say "it is usually so in youth when we do not like seeing man as he is." ”

“ Irritated and disgusted, Rochefoucauld went with the Duc d'Enghein, who was then joining the army, on a campaign, and here he found the one love of his life, the Duke's sister, Mdme. de Longueville. This lady, young, beautiful, and accomplished, obtained a great ascendancy over Rochefoucauld, and was the cause of his taking the side of Condé in the subsequent civil war. Rochefoucauld did not stay long with the army. He was badly wounded at the siege of Mardik, and returned from thence to Paris. On recovering from his wounds, the war of the Fronde broke out. ”

“ We dislike to be told of our faults, while we only like to be told of our neighbour's. Notwithstanding Rousseau's assertion, it is young men, who, before they know their own faults and only know their neighbours', that read and thoroughly appreciate Rochefoucauld. ”

“ M. Sainte Beuve says, that unless we study this first part of Rochefoucauld's life, we shall never understand his maxims. The bitter disappointment of the passionate love, the high hopes then formed, the deceit and treachery then witnessed, furnished the real key to their meaning. The cutting cynicism of the morality was built on the ruins of that chivalrous ambition and romantic affection. He saw his friend Cinq Mars sent to the scaffold, himself betrayed by men whom he had trusted, and the only reason he could assign for these actions was intense selfishness.
Meanwhile, Richelieu died. ”

“ The Duke de Rochefoucauld died with philosophic tranquillity, at Paris, in 1680, in his sixty-eighth year. This nobleman wrote "Mémoires de la Règne d'Anne d'Autriche," 2 vols. 12mo., 1713, an energetic and faithful representation of that fretful predicament as Macihiavelli with regard to political morality. J. J. Rousseau, who was certainly not free from selfishness, has abused La Rochefoucauld's maxims, and yet, in his "Emile," he observes that "selfishness is the mainspring of all our actions;" ”

“ He was there joined by the Duc de Bouillon, and he and the Duke marched to, and occupied Bordeaux. Cardinal Mazarin and Marechal de la Meilleraie advanced in force on Bordeaux, and attacked the town. A bloody battle followed. Rochefoucauld defended the town with the greatest bravery, and repulsed the Cardinal. Notwithstanding the repulse, the burghers of Bordeaux were anxious to make peace, and save the city from destruction. The Parliament of Bordeaux compelled Rochefoucauld to surrender. He did so, and returned nominally to Poitou, but in reality in secret to Paris. ”

“ Francis, the fifth count, was created the Duke de la Rochefoucauld in 1622, and was father to Francis, the second duke, the celebrated author of the Maxims, who was born on the 15th December, 1613. The principal events of his life are matter of history rather than biography, as he was a leading actor in the numerous and complicated state intrigues which took place in France after the death of Louis XIII., and during the minority of his successor. ”

“ While occupied with party strife and faction in Paris, Madame de Chevreuse left him, and formed an alliance with the Duc de Nemours. Rochefoucauld still loved her. It was, probably, thinking of this that he afterwards wrote, "Jealousy is born with love, but does not die with it." He endeavoured to get Madame de Chatillon, the old mistress of the Duc de Nemours, reinstated in favour, but in this he did not succeed. The Duc de Nemours was soon after killed in a duel. The war went on, and after several indecisive skirmishes, the decisive battle was fought at Paris, in the Faubourg St. ”

“ With the exception that his wife's name was Mdlle. Vivonne, and that she was the mother of five sons and three daughters, nothing is known of her. While Rochefoucauld and his father were at Blois, the Duchesse de Chevreuse, one of the beauties of the Court, and the mistress of Louis, was banished to Tours. She and Rochefoucauld met, and soon became intimate, and for a time she was destined to be the one motive of his actions. The Duchesse was engaged in a correspondence with the Court of Spain and the Queen. ”

“ His son François was the author of the Maxims, and the son of the latter acquired for his house the estates of La Roche-Guyon and Liancourt by his marriage with Jeanne Charlotte du Plessis-Liancourt. Alexandre, duc de La Rochefoucauld (d. 1762) , left two daughters, who married into the Roye branch of the family. Of the numerous branches of the family the most famous are those of Roucy, Roye, Bayers, Doudeauville, Randan and Estissac, which all furnished distinguished statesmen and soldiers. ”

“ A lofty mind always thinks nobly, it easily creates vivid, agreeable, and natural fancies, places them in their best light, clothes them with all appropriate adornments, studies others' tastes, and clears away from its own thoughts all that is useless and disagreeable. ”

“ Lord Chesterfield, in his letters to his son, says, "Till you come to know mankind by your experience, I know no thing nor no man that can in the meantime bring you so well acquainted with them as Le Duc de la Rochefoucauld. His little book of maxims, which I would advise you to look into for some moments at least every day of your life, is, I fear, too like and too exact a picture of human nature. ”

“ 315.—What commonly hinders us from showing the recesses of our heart to our friends, is not the distrust we have of them, but that we have of ourselves. ”

“ With regard to the question whether La Rochefoucauld meant to represent self-love, in its more extended sense, as the motive of all human actions, it seems not altogether fair to charge him with the inculcation of any particular theory or system, in the same manner as if the maxims were formal deductions from a regularly reasoned treatise, instead of being, as they are, unconnected observations on mankind and their actions. ”

“ Rochefoucauld returned to Court, and found Anne of Austria regent, and Mazarin minister. The Queen's former friends flocked there in numbers, expecting that now their time of prosperity had come. They were bitterly disappointed. Mazarin relied on hope instead of gratitude, to keep the Queen's adherents on his side. The most that any received were promises that were never performed. In after years, doubtless, Rochefoucauld's recollection of his disappointment led him to write the maxim: "We promise according to our hopes, we perform according to our fears." ”

“ 28.—Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others. ”

“ Satire is at once the most agreeable and most dangerous of mental qualities. It always pleases when it is refined, but we always fear those who use it too much, yet satire should be allowed when unmixed with spite, and when the person satirised can join in the satire. ”

“ Should it still be considered that La Rochefoucauld presents us with too low a view of human nature to serve the purposes of morality, it should be remembered, in his defence as an author, that the times in which he lived, and the political and moral state of the society of his day, are known to have closely corresponded with the general picture he has offered us, and in this respect may be said to afford him a complete justification. ”

“ 237.—No one should be praised for his goodness if he has not strength enough to be wicked. All other goodness is but too often an idleness or powerlessness of will. ”

“ 14.—Men are not only prone to forget benefits and injuries; they even hate those who have obliged them, and cease to hate those who have injured them. The necessity of revenging an injury or of recompensing a benefit seems a slavery to which they are unwilling to submit. ”

“ XVII.—As if it was not sufficient that self-love should have the power to change itself, it has added that of changing other objects, and this it does in a very astonishing manner; for not only does it so well disguise them that it is itself deceived, but it even changes the state and nature of things. ”

“ He died at Paris on the 17th of March 1680, of the disease which had so long tormented him.
La Rochefoucauld’s character, if considered without the prejudice which a dislike to his ethical views has sometimes occasioned, is thoroughly respectable and even amiable. Like almost all his contemporaries, he saw in politics little more than a chessboard where the people at large were but pawns. ”

“ 398.—Of all our faults that which we most readily admit is idleness: we believe that it makes all virtues ineffectual, and that without utterly destroying, it at least suspends their operation. ”

“ XIX.—The blindness of men is the most dangerous effect of their pride; it seems to nourish and augment it, it deprives us of knowledge of remedies which can solace our miseries and can cure our faults. ”

“ 267.—A quickness in believing evil without having sufficiently examined it, is the effect of pride and laziness. We wish to find the guilty, and we do not wish to trouble ourselves in examining the crime. ”

“ Moralists as well as theologians have been earnest in urging this point, and would appear to have been successful, at least in theory; but when an author like La Rochefoucauld attempts to elicit the same principle from a subtle and penetrating analysis of human actions, the world seems to shrink from the practical application of the theory it had approved. The reason appears to be, that a general statement of a principle, as it concerns no one in particular, comes home to no one more than another ”

“ To a people naturally inclined to think that every possible view, every conceivable argument, upon a question is included in a short aphorism, a shrug, and the word "voilà," truths expressed in condensed sentences must always have a peculiar charm. It is, perhaps, from this love of epigram, that we find so many eminent French writers of maxims. Pascal, De Retz, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, and Vauvenargues, each contributed to the rich stock of French epigrams. No other country can show such a list of brilliant writers—in England certainly we cannot. ”

“ It might with more speciousness be objected to the maxims that they are contrary in their tendency to the spirit of that charity which "thinketh no evil, believeth all things, and hopeth all things;" that we should be more ready to assign an action, if possible, to a good, than an evil motive, and that the low opinion of our fellow-men which we may acquire from La Rochefoucauld's observations, only tends to render our own tempers misanthropic and morose, without in any way conducing to practical morality. ”

“ OR, SENTENCES AND MORAL MAXIMS Our virtues are most frequently but vices disguised.
[This epigraph which is the key to the system of La Rochefoucauld, is found in another form as No. 179 of the maxims of the first edition, 1665, it is omitted from the 2nd and 3rd, and reappears for the first time in the 4th edition, in 1675, as at present, at the head of the Reflections.—Aimé Martin. Its best answer is arrived at by reversing the predicate and the subject, and you at once form a contradictory maxim equally true, our vices are most frequently but virtues disguised.] ”

“ Moral Maxims By Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marsillac. ”

“ 134.—We are never so ridiculous from the habits we have as from those that we affect to have. ”

“ 479.—It is only people who possess firmness who can possess true gentleness. In those who appear gentle it is generally only weakness, which is readily converted into harshness. ”

“ 194.—The defects of the mind are like the wounds of the body. Whatever care we take to heal them the scars ever remain, and there is always danger of their reopening. ”

“ Confidence always pleases those who receive it. It is a tribute we pay to their merit, a deposit we commit to their trust, a pledge which gives them a claim upon us, a kind of dependence to which we voluntarily submit. ”

“ La Rochefoucauld was probably under many obligations in other respects to Montaigne; but it seems difficult to select two writers more dissimilar in their mode of expressing themselves than the rambling, gossiping Montaigne and the precise, sententious La Rochefoucauld. ↑ See Aristot. Rhet. book ii. c. 21. ↑ Montaigne is rather more plain spoken. "We ought to love temperance for itself, and in obedience to God who has commanded it and chastity; but what I am forced to by catarrhs, or owe to the stone, is neither chastity nor temperance." ”