Jean de La Bruyère

“ La Bruyère is not a speculative moralist, but an 13observer of the manners of men, or, as he likes to call himself a philosopher, and above all a Christian philosopher, such as a friend of Bossuet ought to be. He was the first to make morality attractive, and to paint characters in a literary and delicate manner; he does not dogmatise, and above all shows neither personal hatred nor venom; in other words, to use his own expressions, he “gives back to the public what it lent”4 him.
Underneath the literary man people often look for the man, with all his passion, his likes and dislikes ”

“ His father, Louis de la Bruyère, was contrôleur des rentes de la ville, a sort of town-tax collector, whilst his mother, Elizabeth Hamonin, belonged to a respectable family of Parisian burgesses. His grandfather and great-grandfather on the fatherʼs side, declared partisans of the Ligue, were both exiled from France when Henri IV. came to the throne. Perhaps, therefore, the feelings our author entertained for the people may be explained by atavism. ”

“ The criticism of Charpentier, who received La Bruyère at the Academy, and who was of the opposite faction, is in fact fully justified as far as it goes. La Bruyère literally “est [trop] descendu dans le particulier.” He has neither, like Molière, embodied abstract peculiarities in a single life-like type, nor has he, like Shakespeare, made the individual pass sub speciem aeternitatis, and serve as a type while retaining his individuality. He is a photographer rather than an artist in his portraiture. ”

“ Diphilus is a lover of birds, he begins with one and ends with a thousand; his house is not enlivened, but infested by them; the courtyard, the parlour, the staircase, the hall, all the rooms, and even the private study are so many aviaries; we no longer hear warbling, but a perfect discord; the autumnal winds and the most rapid cataracts do not produce so shrill and piercing a noise; there is no hearing one another speak but in those apartments set apart for visitors, where people will have to wait until some little curs have yelped, before there is a chance of seeing the master of the house. ”

“ If he enters any apartments at court, he turns to the right, where there is a large number of people, and to the239 left, where there are none; he bows to those who are there and to those who are not; he embraces the first man he meets, presses his head against his bosom, and then asks his name. Some one wants his assistance in a very easy matter of business; he waits on Theognis, and presents his request, to which the latter kindly listens, is delighted in being of use to him, and entreats him to procure him opportunities of serving him ”

“ Argyra pulls off her glove to show her fine hand, and does not forget to let us have a peep of her little shoe, which makes us think she has a small foot; she laughs at serious as well as at funny observations to show her fine teeth; if she does not hide her ears it is because they are well shaped; and if she does not dance, it is because she is not too well satisfied with her waist, which is not very slender. She knows perfectly well what she is about, with the exception of one thing: she is always talking, and has not one grain of sense. ”

“ The friendship of Bossuet and still more the protection of the Condés sufficiently defended the author, and he continued to insert fresh portraits of his contemporaries in each new edition of his book, especially in the 4th (1689) . Those, however, whom he had attacked were powerful in the Academy, and numerous defeats awaited La Bruyère before he could make his way into that guarded hold. He was defeated thrice in 1691, and on one memorable occasion he had but seven votes, five of which were those of Bossuet, Boileau, Racine, Pellisson and Bussy-Rabutin. ”

“ They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine I have done my worst, may be convinced at their own cost that I can write severely with more ease than I can write gently.” La Bruyère would never have ventured to speak so plainly, and this difference between the French and English author seems very characteristic of the two nations. Compare also Drydenʼs poetic delineation of Buckingham as Zimri to La Bruyèreʼs portrait of Lauzun as Straton. ”

“ They do not, like Jupiterʼs satellites,393 crowd round and encompass their prince, but precede him and give notice of his coming: they rush with impetuosity through the crowd of courtiers, and all who stand in their way are in danger. Their profession is to be seen again and again, and they never go to bed without having acquitted themselves of such an important duty, so beneficial to the commonwealth. They know, besides, all the circumstances of every petty accident, and are acquainted with anything at court people wish to ignore ”

“ At length a man has made his appearance for whom I so impatiently longed, but whom I dared not expect to behold in this age. The courtiers, from delicacy of taste and a feeling of decorum, have applauded him; and what is almost incredible, have left the kingʼs chapel to mingle among the crowd, and hear the Word of God preached by a truly apostolic man.836 The town was not of the same opinion as the court, and in whatever city-church he spoke not one of the parishioners came, and the very churchwardens left their pew ”

“ Some have not even the sorry advantage of having their follies talked about beyond their immediate neighbourhood, and the only spot where their vanity is displayed. They do not know in the Ile that André makes a figure and squanders his patrimony in the Marais.341 If he were only better known in town and in the suburbs, perhaps, amongst so large a number of citizens, who are not all able to judge sensibly of everything, possibly one of them might declare André has a magnificent spirit, and give him credit for his banquets to Xanthe and Ariston, and for his entertainments to Elamire ”

“ The people in Paris commonly ape the court, but they do not always know how to imitate it; they by no means resemble it in those agreeable and flattering outward civilities with which some courtiers, and particularly the ladies, affably treat a man of merit, who possesses nothing but merit. Such ladies never inquire after that manʼs means or his ancestors ”

“ They return with the court, and as they pass through the towns and villages, are proud to be looked upon by the inhabitants, who are all at their windows, as the very men who took the place; thus they triumph all along the road and fancy themselves very courageous. When they are home again they deafen you with flanks, redans, ravelins, counter breastworks,661 curtains, and covert-ways; give you an account of the spots where curiosity led them, and where it was pretty dangerous, and of the risks they ran on returning of being killed or made prisoners ”

“ He insinuates himself into every palace, and does not stop in the middle of an apartment, but goes on to a window-niche or a closet; other people wait to be seen or to have an audience till he has finished his speech, which lasts generally a goodly time, during which he gesticulates much. He penetrates the secrets of many families, has a share in their good or bad fortunes ”

“ Glycera appears commonly in a low and unpretentious head-dress, in a plain morning gown, without any stays, and in slippers; she is charming in this dress, and wants nothing but a little colour. People remark, nevertheless, that she wears a splendid brooch, which she takes special care to conceal from her husbandʼs eyes. She cajoles and caresses him, and every day invents some new pretty names for him ”

“ Living with the Condés at their hotel at Paris, at their country seats at Chantilly and Saint Maur, or when they were visiting the Court, at Versailles, Marly, Fontainebleau, or Chambord, amidst the noble and high-born of the land, without being considered one of them, he had the best opportunity of penetrating the characters of those men who strutted about in gaudy trappings, and lorded it over the common herd, whilst soliciting offices or dignities ”

“ It may be said, and justly so, that the heroic virtues of some great men have been the cause of the corruption of eloquence, or have, at least, enervated the style of most preachers. Instead of joining with the people in rendering thanks to Heaven for the extraordinary gifts it has bestowed on those great men, these very preachers have enrolled themselves among authors and poets, and become panegyrists; they have even uttered more extravagant praises than are found in dedications, verses, or prologues; ”

“ I imagine he must have felt it sometimes hard to be dependent on so fantastic, suspicious, half-demented a man as was the father of his former pupil, above all, after the death of the great Condé, which took place on the 8th of December 1686,32 and also to have disliked being made now and then the butt of courtiers33 his mental inferiors, but aristocratic superiors ”

“ His grief increases, his tears flow abundantly, and he cannot contain himself; he already beholds himself in an official position,792 with a town and country house, both furnished in the same style; he intends to keep a good table and a carriage. “Was there ever a more gentlemanly or a better man than the deceased?” he asks. But a codicil is joined to the will which must also be read, by which Mævius is appointed sole heir, and Titius is sent back to the suburbs to trudge without money or titles. ”

“ Arrias has read and seen everything, at least he would lead you to think so; he is a man of universal knowledge, or pretends to be, and would rather tell a falsehood than be silent or appear to ignore anything. Some person is talking at meal-time in the house of a man of rank of a northern court ”

“ “Horace or Boileau have said such a thing before you.”—“I take your word for it, but I have used it as my own. May I not have the same correct thought after them, as others may have after me?” ”

“ He is an exact imitator of the ancients, whom he carefully31 follows in their distinctness and simplicity of action, and like Corneille, not lacking the sublime and marvellous, the moving and the pathetic. Where can we find greater tenderness diffused than in Le Cid, Polyeucte, and Les Horaces?105 What grandeur do we not observe in Mithridates, lʼorus, and Burrhus!106 Both poets were well acquainted with terror and pity, those favourite passions of the ancients, which the dramatic authors were fond of producing on the stage ”

“ From the inconsistency of a cogitative universal nature with anything that is material, must necessarily be inferred, that any particular thinking being cannot admit within itself anything material; for though a476 universal thinking being does in its idea include infinitely more grandeur, power, independence, and capacity than a particular thinking being, yet it does not imply a greater inconsistency with matter, it being impossible for this inconsistency to be greater in the one case than in the other, because it is, as it were, infinite in both ”

“ In a word, they both carry their heads very high, and are harnessed to the chariot of Fortune, but are never likely to sit in it.
(20.) A courtier who has not a pretty name ought to hide it under a better;394 but if it is one that he190 dares own,395 he should then insinuate that his name is the most illustrious of all names, and his house the most ancient of all others; he ought to be descended from the princes of Lorraine, the Rohans, the Châtillons, the Montmorencys,396 and, if possible, from princes of the blood; he ought to talk of nothing but dukes, cardinals, and ministers ”

“ The State not seldom tolerates a comparatively great evil to keep out millions of lesser ills and inconveniences which otherwise would be inevitable and without remedy. ”

“ If women were by nature what they make themselves by art; if they were to lose suddenly all the freshness of their complexion, and their faces to become as fiery and as leaden as they make them with the red and the paint they besmear themselves with, they would consider themselves the most wretched creatures on earth. ”

“ If it be true that in showing pity and compassion we think of ourselves, because we fear to be one day or another in the same circumstances as those unfortunate people for whom we feel, why are the latter so sparingly relieved by us in their wretchedness? ”

“ A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favour cannot satisfy him. ”

“ An intelligent man neither allows himself to be controlled nor attempts to control others; he wishes reason alone to rule, and that always. ”

“ A man who leaves the court for a single moment renounces it for ever; the courtier who was there in the morning must be there at night, and know it again next day, in order that he himself may be known there. ”

“ There are few wives so perfect as not to give their husbands at least once a day good reason to repent of ever having married, or at least of envying those who are unmarried. ”

“ it is, therefore, most reasonable to value that of our native land above all others, and to submit to it. ”

“ 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. ”