Madame du Deffand

“ Sometimes one just catches the glimpse of a claw beneath the soft pad, a grimace under the smile of elegance; and one remembers with a shock that, after all, one is reading the correspondence of a monkey and a cat.
Madame du Deffand's style reflects, perhaps even more completely than that of Voltaire himself, the common-sense of the eighteenth century. Its precision is absolute. It is like a line drawn in one stroke by a master, with the prompt exactitude of an unerring subtlety. There is no breadth in it—no sense of colour and the concrete mass of things. ”

“ It is important to note that with Madame du Deffand, as with some other French women, extreme freedom of living is quite compatible not only with great refinement of taste, but with a singular delicacy and sensitiveness of moral perception. She has an occasional coarseness of speech belonging to her age, but few people have been more alive to fine shades of affection, of devotion, of spiritual tact. ”

“ Nor was it by any means an untested friendship. Madame du Deffand had nothing to do but think of trouble, she was critically sensitive, knew her own weaknesses, and could not believe that anybody loved her. Often she intimates her complaints, her dissatisfaction, her jealousy. Madame de Choiseul is sometimes forced to treat her like the child she calls her. There are moments when a frank, outspoken word is necessary. But it is spoken with careful tenderness. ”

“ Madame du Deffand, young and beautiful, did not, according to the common belief, succeed in keeping herself uncontaminated by the abounding vice of the age, and it is said that she was for a time the mistress of the regent. ”

“ Madame du Deffand's generation had, indeed, very little in common with that ardent, hopeful, speculative, sentimental group of friends who met together every evening in the drawing-room of Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. Born at the close of the seventeenth century, she had come into the world in the brilliant days of the Regent, whose witty and licentious reign had suddenly dissipated the atmosphere of gloom and bigotry imposed upon society by the moribund Court of Louis XIV. For a fortnight (so she confessed to Walpole) she was actually the Regent's mistress ”

“ It was at Sceaux, with its endless succession of entertainments and conversations—supper-parties and water-parties, concerts and masked balls, plays in the little theatre and picnics under the great trees of the park—that Madame du Deffand came to her maturity and established her position as one of the leaders of the society in which she moved. The nature of that society is plainly enough revealed in the letters and the memoirs that have come down to us. ”

“ Madame du Deffand disputed the point with them. I said nothing. When they were gone, Madame du Deffand asked me on which side I was. I said on her’s. “Then,” said she, “how could you be such a flatterer to them as not to take my part?” “Because,” said I, “you argued only on their duty to the King and Queen ”

“ Madame du Deffand carries the classical ideal to its furthest point. She never strikes more than once, and she always hits the nail on the head. Such is her skill that she sometimes seems to beat the Romantics even on their own ground: her reticences make a deeper impression than all the dottings of their i's. The following passage from a letter to Walpole is characteristic ”

“ The famous queens of society in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries do not seem to have mixed much in miscellaneous assemblies, however brilliant in dress and ornament. They were more exclusive. They reserved their remarkable talents for social reunions, perhaps in modest salons, where among distinguished men and women they could pour out the treasures of the soul and mind; where they could inspire and draw out the sentiments of those who were gifted and distinguished. Madame du Deffand lived quietly in the convent of St. ”

“ The story, of course, went round the salon, to the infinite delight of the savans, who were enchanted at witnessing the military insolence of the Royal Cravatte receive a check from a quarter whence it would have been so little expected. Rumour of the witticism soon reached the ears of Madame du Deffand, who instantly requested that the young abbé might be presented to her. ”

“ As a general thing, however, her complaint is less violent than this and what impresses her in life is not so much its actual evil and misery as its intolerable ennui. I must ask the reader’s pardon for using the French word, which is, perhaps, by this time almost English. No equivalent exactly fits it. “Melancholy” suggests somewhat more of abstract reflection and “boredom” more of irritation with external circumstances. Both these are sometimes applicable, but one cannot get along without “ennui” in discussing Madame du Deffand. ”

“ Madame Geoffrin, “whimsical and cross-grained,” citizen’s daughter, millionaire’s widow, who had the excellent talent of drawing every one out in his own subject, and called her salon “a shop;” Marie de Vichy, Marquise du Deffand, whom Massillon could not convert, who was interested in nothing, and had neither temperament nor romance ”

“ This she acquires by a thousand little arts and offices of friendship, and by a freedom and severity which seem to be her sole end for drawing a concourse to her. She has little taste and less knowledge, but protects artisans and authors, and courts a few people to have the credit of serving her dependents. In short, she is an epitome of empire, subsisting by rewards and punishments."
Later, when he was less disinterested, perhaps, he writes to another friend: "Mme. du Deffand hates the philosophers, so you must give them up to her. She and Mme. Geoffrin are no friends ”

“ All critics are at a loss for the explanation of such a love in a woman of seventy. Was it the result of the lifetime of disappointment of a woman who had constantly sought love but had never found it? Was it, thus, the hallucination of the childish old age of the woman who was physically consumed by incessant social functions and all-night reading? Mme. du Deffand sees in Walpole her ideal, and she gives expression to her feelings, regardless of propriety; for she is childish and irresponsible. To a certain extent, the same was true of Mme. ”

“ Even passion has grown sophisticated and deals with phrases. There is more or less artificiality in the exchange of written thoughts. Mme. du Deffand thinks while she writes, and what she sees takes always the color of her own intelligence. She complains of her inability to catch the elusive quality, the clearness, the flexibility of Mme. de Sevigne, whom she longs to rival because Walpole so admires her. But if she lacks the vivacity, the simplicity, the poetic grace of her model, she has qualities not less striking, though less lovable. Her keen insight is unfailing. ”

“ Tearful, sad, and worn out by humiliations, the young girl had decided to enter a convent. "There is no misfortune that I have not experienced," she wrote to Guibert many years afterwards. "Some day, my friend, I will relate to you things not to be found in the romances of Prevost nor of Richardson... I ought naturally to devote myself to hating; I have well fulfilled my destiny; I have loved much and hated very little. Mon Dieu, my friend, I am a hundred years old." Mme. du Deffand was struck with her talent and a certain indefinable fascination of manner which afterwards became so potent. ”

“ Gallantry and beauty were found in the Maréchale de Luxembourg and the Comtesse de Boufflers. The philosophical movement of the Encyclopædists and Economists was not encouraged at all. Thus, in Mme. du Deffand's salon, we find neither pure philosophy nor religion, nor the air of pedants and déclamateurs; it was a royalist salon without illusion, hence indifferent to all questions. It represented the perfect type of the French model of esprit de finesse,—that is, precision,—and its leader possessed a keen insight into human character. ”

“ Geoffrin to her men of letters.
Mme. du Deffand's friend, le Président Hénault, left the following portrait of Mlle. de Lespinasse: "You are cosmopolitan--you are suitable to all occasions. You like company--you like solitude. Pleasures amuse, but do not seduce you. You have very strong passions, and of the best kind, for they do not return often. Nature, in endowing you with an ordinary state, gave you something with which to rise above it. You are distinguished, and, without being beautiful, you attract attention. There is something piquant in you ”

“ However, to let him see that I was not unqualified to receive benefits, I turned about: “My lord,” says I, “Your Highness is resolved to conquer by your bounty the very gratitude of your servants; you will leave no room for anything but thanks, and make those thanks useless too by their bearing no proportion to the occasion.”
“I love, child,” says he, “to see everything suitable: a fine gown and petticoat, a fine laced head. A fine face and neck and no necklace would not have made the object perfect. But why that blush, my dear?” says the Prince. ”

“ Mme. de Tencin is not an interesting figure to contemplate from a moral standpoint. "She was born with the most fascinating qualities and the most abominable defects that God ever gave to one of his creatures," said Mme. du Deffand, who was far from being able to pose, herself, as a model of virtue or decorum. But sin has its degrees, and the woman who errs within the limits of conventionality considers herself entitled to sit in judgment upon her sister who wanders outside of the fold. ”

“ When I had been down a good while, and found my spouse did not fall into the story again as I expected, I took heart and called for it. “My dear,” said I, “the fall of the candle put you out of your history; won’t you go on with it?” “What history?” says he. “Why,” says I, “about the captain.” “Oh!” says he, “I had done with it; I know no more than that the captain told a broken piece of news that he had heard by halves, and told more by halves than he heard it; namely, of your being with child, and that you could not go the voyage.” ”

“ Having entered a military school in Paris when quite young, and soon after been sent with the French army to India, Antoine Devenant had never dabbled in matters of love. He viewed all women from the same stand-point—respected them for their virtues, and often spoke of the goodness of heart of the sex, but never dreamed of taking to himself a wife. ”

“ Moll Flanders then shall stand as our example of a novel, in which a character is everything and is given freest play. Defoe makes a slight attempt at a plot with the brother-husband as a centre, but he is quite perfunctory, and her legal husband (the one who took her on the jaunt to Oxford) just disappears and is heard of no more. Nothing matters but the heroine; she stands in an open space like a tree, and having said that she seems absolutely real from every point of view, we must ask ourselves whether we should recognize her if we met her in daily life. ”

“ First, she said to him, in answer to what he had said about me, 'I am glad, sir, you are so just to the person that you were with. I assure you she is a gentlewoman, and no woman of thf town; and however you prevailed with her as you did, I am sure 'tis no her practice. You ran a great venture indeed, sir; but if that be part of your care, you may be perfectly easy, for I do assure you no man has touched her before you, since her husband, and he has been dead now almost eight years.'
It appeared that this was his grievance, and that he was in a very great fright about it ”

“ Besides, she told her that her lodger (meaning me) was not a sham lady, but the real wife of a knight baronet, and that she knew her to be honestly such, and far above such a person as she had described. She then added that she had another reason why it was not very possible to be true; “and that is,” says she, “thy age is in the way; for thou acknowledgest that thou art four-and-twenty years old, and that thou wast the youngest of three of thy mother’s children, so that by thy account thy mother must be extremely young, or this lady cannot be thy mother ”

“ He was sensibly moved with this; so he sat down again, and said a great many kind things to me, but still urged the necessity of what he had proposed; all the while insisting, that, if I did refuse, he would notwithstanding provide for me; but letting me plainly see that he would decline me in the main point—nay, even as a mistress; making it a point of honour not to lie with the woman that, for aught he knew, might one time or other come to be his brother's wife.
The bare loss of him as a gallant was not so much my affliction as the loss of his person, whom indeed I loved to distraction ”

“ I told her, yes, and insisted on it, that to do so was to be a gentlewoman; 'for', says I, 'there is such a one', naming a woman that mended lace and washed the ladies' laced heads; 'she', says I, 'is a gentlewoman, and they call her madam.'
'Poor child', says my good old nurse, 'you may soon be such a gentle woman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had two bastards.'
I did not understand anything of that; but I answered, 'I am sure they call her madam, and she does not go to service, nor do house-work' ”