La Grande Mademoiselle

I think [wrote Mademoiselle in 1659], that I can see her now in that shadowy recess, – which the sun never entered, though the place was never left in darkness, – surrounded by great crystal vases full of beautiful spring flowers which were made to bloom at all seasons in the gardens near her temple, so that she might look upon the things that she loved. Around her were the pictures of her friends, and the looks that she gave them called down blessings on the absent. There were many books on the tables in her grotto and, as one may imagine, they treated of nothing common. Only two, or at most three persons were permitted to enter that place at the same time, because confusion displeased her and noise was adverse to the goddess whose voice was loud only in wrath. Our goddess was never angry. She was gentleness itself.

According to the inscription on a stone preserved in the Musée Cluny the Hôtel de Rambouillet was rebuilt in 1618. The mistress of the house consumed ten industriously filled years constituting, installing, and habituating the intellectual groups of her salon; but when she had perfected her arrangements she maintained them in their splendour until the Fronde put an end to all intellectual effort.

When the Hôtel de Rambouillet was in its apogee La Grande Mademoiselle was in the flush of early youth. She was born in 1627. Mme. de Sévigné was Mademoiselle's elder by one year.

When we consider the social and intellectual condition of the times we must regard many features of the enterprise of "fair Arthénice" as wonderful, but its most characteristic feature was the opportunity and the advancement it accorded to men of letters. Whatever "literary" men were elsewhere, they were received as the equals of the nobility in the Salon de Rambouillet. Such a sight had never been seen! Superior minds had always been regarded leniently. They had had their periods of usefulness, when the quality had been forced to recognise their existence, but the possessors of those minds had been treated – well, to speak clearly, they had been treated as they had expected to be treated; for how could the poor fellows have hoped for anything better when they knew that they passed two thirds of their time with spines humbly curved and with palms outstretched soliciting equivocal complaisancies, or inviting écus, or struggling to secure a seat at the lower end of dinner tables by means of heartrending dedications?

Alack! how many Sarrazins and Costars there were to one Balzac, or to one d'Urfé! how numerous were the natural parasites, piteous leeches! whose wit went begging for a discarded bone! How many were condemned by their vocation to die of hunger; – and there was no help for them! Had their talent been ten times greater than it was it would have been equally impossible for them to introduce dignity into their existence. There were no journals, no reviews where an author could present his stuff or his stories for inspection; no one had ever heard of authors' rights; and however successful a play, the end of the dramatist was the same; he was allowed no literary property. How then could he live if not by crooked ways and doubtful means? If a certain amount of respect, not to say honour, were due to his profession, by what means could he acquire his share of it? Any yeoman – the first country squire – could, when so it pleased him, have a play stricken from the roll; if so it pleased him could have the rod laid over the author's back, amidst the plaudits of the contingent which we should call the claque. Was it any wonder that authors were pedants to the marrow of their bones when pedantry was the only paying thing in their profession? Writers who chanted their own praises did good unto themselves and enjoyed the reputation of the erudite. They were regarded as professors of mentality, they reflected credit upon the men who lodged and nourished them. For that reason, – and very logically, – when a man knew that he was being lodged and nourished for the sake of his bel esprit if there was any manhood in him he entered heart and soul into his pretensions; and sleeping or waking, night or day, from head to foot, and without one hour of respite, played the part of "man of letters"; he mouthed his words, went about with brows knit, talked from his chest, and, in short, did everything to prove to the world that he was wise beyond his generation; his every effort was bent to manifest his ability; and his manners, his costumes, and his looks, all proved him to be a student of books. And when this was proven his master – the man who lodged and nourished him – was able to get his full money's worth and to stand up before the world revealed in the character of benefactor and protector of Belles Lettres. In our day things wear a different aspect. The author has reached his pinnacle, and in some cases it may even be possible that his merits are exaggerated.

Knowing this, it is difficult for us to appreciate the conditions existing when the Salon of the Hôtel de Rambouillet was opened. We know that there is nothing essentially admirable in putting black marks on white paper, and we know that a good shoemaker is a more useful citizen than can be made of an inferior writer, and knowing these facts, and others of the same sort, we can hardly realise that only three hundred years ago there were honest boys who entered upon the career of Letters when they might have earned a living selling tallow.

The Hôtel de Rambouillet regulated the scale of social values and diminished the distance between the position accorded to science, intellect, and genius and the position accorded to birth. For the first time within the memory of Frenchmen Men of Letters tasted the sweets of consideration; their eloquence was not forced back, nor was it drawn out by the imperious demands of hunger; authors were placed on a footing with their fellow-men; they were still expected to discourse, but as their wit was the result of normal conditions, it acquired the quality of order and the flavour of nature. In the Blue Room the weary writers were allowed to rest. They were not called upon to give proofs of their intellect; they were led gently forward, placed at a distance that made them appear genial, persuaded to discard their dogmatism, and by inferences and subtle influences taught to be indulgent and to distribute their wisdom with the philosophical civility which was then called "the spirit of the Court," – and the term was a just one; a great gulf lay between the incisive rushing expression of the thought of Condé, the pupil of Mme. de Rambouillet, and the laboured facitiæ of Voiture and the Academician, Jacques Esprit, although Voiture and Esprit were far in advance of their predecessors. Under the beneficent treatment of the Hôtel de Rambouillet the Men of Letters gradually lost their stilted and pedagogic airs. The fair reformers of "the circle" found many a barrier in their path; the gratitude of the pedants was not exhilarating, the leopards' spots long retained their colour, – Trissotin proved that, – but by force of repeated "dippings" the dye was eventually compelled to take and the stains that it left upon the fingers of "fair Arthénice" were not disfiguring.

A glance at Racine or at Boileau shows us the long road traversed after the Salon de Rambouillet instituted the recognition of merit regardless of rank and fortune. Love of intellectual pleasures, courage, and ambitious determination had ordered a march resumed after forced halts; and at last, when the ardent innovators reached the port from which they were to launch their endeavour, recognition of merit had become a custom, and the first phase of democratic evolution was an accomplished fact. Our own day shows further progress; the same evolution in its untrammelled freedom tends to cast suspicion upon personal merit because it unhinges the idea of equality.

"All Paris" of that day filed through the portals of the Hôtel de Rambouillet and passed in review before the Blue Room. Malherbe was one of the most faithful attendants of the Salon whose Laureate he remained until he died (1628). Yet according to Tallemant and to many others he was boorish and uncivil. He was abrupt in conversation, but he wrote excellent poetry and never said a word that did not reach its mark. When he visited the Salon he was very amiable; and his grey beard made him a creditable dean for the circle of literary companions. He wrote pretty verses in honour of Arthénice, he was diverting and instructive – in a word, he made himself necessary to the Salon. But he was too old to change either his character or his appearance, and his attempts to conform to the fashions of the hour made him ridiculous. He was "a toothless gallant, always spitting."

He had been in the pay of M. de Bellegarde, from whom he had received a salary of one thousand livres, table and lodging, and board and lodging for one lackey and one horse. He drew an income from a pension of five hundred écus granted by Marie de Médicis; he was in possession of numerous gratuities, perquisites, and "other species of gifts" which he had secretly begged by the sweat of his brow. Huet, Archbishop of Avranche, wrote: "Malherbe is trying his best to increase his fortunes, and his poetry, noble though it be, is not always nobly employed." M. d'Yveteaux said that Malherbe "demanded alms sonnet in hand." The greedy poet had one rival at the Hôtel de Rambouillet; a very brilliant Italian addicted to flattery, whom all the ladies loved. Women were infatuated by him, as they are always infatuated by any foreign author – be he good or bad! Marini – in Paris they called him "Marin" – conversed in long sentences joined by antitheses. In his hours of relaxation when his thoughts were supposed to be in literary undress, he called the rose "the eye of the springtide."⁵⁰ At the time of which I now speak he was labouring upon a poem of forty-five thousand verses, entitled Adonis. Every word written or uttered by him was calculated to produce its effect. "The Circle," to the disgust of Malherbe, lay at the feet of the Italian pedant, swooning with ecstasy. "Marin's" influence over the first Salon of France was deplorable, and a contemporary chronicler recorded his progress with evident dejection⁵¹; "In time he relieved the country of his presence; but he had remained in it long enough to deposit in fruitful soil the germs of his factitious preciosity."

Chapelain was of other metal. He began active life as a teacher. M. de Longueville, who was the first to appreciate his merits, granted him his first pension (two thousand livres). Chapelain was fond of his work, a natural writer, industrious, and frugal. He went into retirement, lived upon his little pension, and brought forth La Pucelle. De Longueville was delighted by the zeal and the talent of his protégé and he added one thousand livres to his pension. Richelieu also granted Chapelain a pension (one thousand livres) and when Mazarin came to power he supplemented the gift of his predecessor by a pension of five hundred écus.

It was not a common thing for authors to make favourable arrangements with a publisher, but Chapelain had made excellent terms for that epoch. La Pucelle had sold for three thousand livres. He (Chapelain) was in easy circumstances, but his unique appearance excited unique criticisms. He was described as "one of the shabbiest, dirtiest, most shambling, and rumpled of gallows-birds, and one of the most affectedly literary characters from head to heels who ever set foot in the Blue Room." It was said he was "a complete caricature of his idea." Though Mme. de Rambouillet was accustomed to the aspect of Men of Letters, she was struck dumb when Chapelain first appeared. As his mind was not visible, she saw nothing but an ugly little man in a pigeon-breast satin habit of antique date, covered with different kinds of ill-assorted gimp. His boots were not matched (each being eccentric in its own peculiar way). On his head was an old wig and over the wig hovered a faded hat. Mme. de Rambouillet regained her self-command and decided to close her eyes to his exterior. His conversation pleased her, and before he had left her presence he had impressed her favourably. In truth Chapelain merited respect and friendship. He was full of delicacy of feeling, extremely erudite, and impassioned in his love for things of the mind. His keen, refined, critical instinct had made him an authority on all subjects. His correspondence covered all the literary and learned centres of Europe, and he was consulted as an oracle by the savants of all countries. He was interested in everything. His mind was singularly broad, modest, frank, and open to conviction; and while his nature was essentially French, his mental curiosity, with its innumerable outstretching and receptive channels, made him a representative of cosmopolitan enlightenment.

Chapelain was one of the pillars of the Salon, – or, to speak better, he was the pendentive of the Salon's literary architecture. After a time repeated frequentation of the Salon amended his "exterior" to some extent. He changed his fanciful attire for the plain black costumes worn by Vadius and by Trissotin, but his transformation was accomplished invisibly, and during the transition period he did not cease to be shabby and of a suspiciously neglected aspect, even for one hour. "I believe," said Tallemant, "that Chapelain has never had anything absolutely new."

Ménage, another pillar of the Salon de Rambouillet, was one of the rare literary exceptions to the rule of the solid provincial bourgeoisie. He was the rara avis of his country, and not only a pedant but the pedant par excellence, the finished type of the "litterateur" who "sucks ink and bursts with pride at his achievement." He was always spreading his feathers and bristling like a turkeycock if he was not appreciated according to his estimate of himself. From him descended some of the "literary types" still in existence, who cross-question a man in regard to what he knows of their literary "work." No matter what people were talking about, Ménage would interrupt them with his patronising smile and "Do you remember what I said upon that subject?" he would ask. Naturally no one remembered anything that he had written, and when they confessed that they had forgotten he would cry out all sorts of piquancies and coarseness. Every one knew what he was. Molière used him as a model for Vadius, and the likeness was striking. He was dreaded, and people loved literature to madness and accepted all its excrescences before they consented to endure his presence. "I have seen him," said Tallemant, "in Mme. de Rambouillet's alcove cleaning the insides of his teeth with a very dirty handkerchief, and that was what he was doing during the whole visit." He considered his fine manners irresistible. He pursued Mme. de Rambouillet, bombarding her incessantly with declarations. A pernicious vanity was one of his chief failings. It was his habit to give people to understand that he was on intimate terms with women like Mme. de Lafayette and Mme. de Sévigné; but Mme. de Sévigné did not permit him to carry his boasts to Paradise. One day after she had heard of his reports she invited him to accompany her alone in her carriage. She told him that she was "not afraid that any one would gossip over it." Ménage, whose feelings were outraged by her contempt, burst into a flood of reproaches. "Get into my carriage at once!" she answered. "If you anger me I will visit you in your own house!"⁵²

People tolerated Ménage because he was extraordinarily wise, and because his sense of justice impelled him to admirably generous deeds. The Ministers, Mazarin and Colbert, always sent to him for the names of the people who were worthy of recompence, and Ménage frequently nominated the men who had most offended him. Justice was his passion. Under the vulgar motley of the pedant lay many excellent qualities, among them intense devotion to friends. Throughout his life he rendered innumerable services and was kind and helpful to many people. Ménage had a certain amount of money, nevertheless he gave himself into the hands of Retz, and Retz lodged and nourished him as he lodged and nourished his own lackey. Ménage lived with Retz, berating him as he berated every one; and Retz cared for him, endured his fits of anger, and listened to his scoldings ten years. Ménage "drew handsome pecuniary benefits from some other source," saved money, set out for himself, and founded a branch Blue Room in his own house. His receptions, which were held weekly on Wednesday, were in high esteem. The people who had free access to good society considered it an honour to be named as his guests.

Quite another story was "little Voiture," a delicate pigmy who had "passed forty years of his life at death's door." He was an invalid even in early youth. When very young he wrote to Mme. de Rambouillet from Nancy:

Since I have not had the honour of seeing you, madame, I have endured ills which cannot be described. As I traversed Epernay I visited Marechal Strozzi for your sake, and his tomb appeared so magnificent, and the place so calculated to give repose, that as I was in such condition and so fit for burial, I longed to be laid beside him; but as they found that there was still some warmth in me, they made difficulties about acceding to my wishes. Then I resolved to have my body carried as far as Nancy, where, at last, madame, it has arrived, so meagre and so wasted, that I do assure you that there will be very little for them to lay in the ground.

Ten years later he drew the following sketch of himself:

"My head is handsome enough; I have many grey hairs. My eyes are soft, but a little distraught… My expression is stupid, but to counterbalance this discrepancy, I am the best boy in the world."⁵³

Voiture was called "the dwarf king." He was a charming conversationalist; he was a precursor of the Parisian of the eighteenth century, of whom his winged wit and foaming gayety made him a fair antetype; he was "the life and the soul" of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and when the ponderous minds had left the Salon, after he had helped the naturally gay ladies to lift the helmet of Minerva from their heads – and the weights from their heels – he taught them the light laughter which sits so well on "airy nothings." But he had his defects, defects so grave that the critics said: "If Voiture were of our condition it would be impossible to endure him!" He was a dangerous little gossip, constantly taking liberties and forcing people to recall him to his place. Though he was a child in size, he was a man of mature years, and the parents and guardians of young girls were forced to watch him, though it is probable that his intentions were innocent enough. One day, when he was on a visit, he attempted to press his lips to the arm of one of the daughters of the house. That time he "caught it on his fingers"; he begged pardon for his sin; but he did not correct his faults; vanity forbade him to do that, and vanity made him very jealous and hot tempered. Mlle. de Scudéry (who was not censorious) called him "untrustworthy." His literature was like his person and his character. Everything that he wrote was delicate, coquettish, and very graceful, but often puerile. His literary taste was not keen; when the Circle sat wrapt in admiration just after Corneille had read them Polyeucte, Voiture hurried to the author's side and told him that he "would better go home and lock that drama up in his bureau drawer."

Toward the end of his life Voiture dyed both hair and beard, and his manner was just what it had been in his youth; he could not realise that he was not a boy; it was said that he was "tiresome, because he did not know how to grow old."

His irritable disposition made him a trying companion, but to his last day he was the "spoiled child" of Madame de Rambouillet and all the society of the Salon; he was gay, simple, boyish, and natural, and the Circle loved him "because he had none of the affected gravity and the importance of the other men of letters, and because his manners were not precise." More than thirty years after his death Mme. de Sévigné recalled "his free wit and his charming ways" with delight. ("So much the worse," she said, "for them who do not understand such things!"⁵⁴)

Voiture might have lived independently and dispensed with the favours and the benefits which he solicited. His father was a very successful business man (he dealt in wines), but in those days it was customary for literary men to depend upon other men, and "little Voiture," thinking that it was a part of his glory to take his share of the general cake, profited by his social relations, and stretched his hands out in all directions, receiving such pensions, benefits, and "offices" as were bestowed upon all prominent men of letters. His income was large, and as he was nourished and cared for by Madame de Rambouillet, he had few expenses.

Valentin Conrart, the first perpetual Secretary of the Académie Française, was the most useful, if not the most brilliant member of the Salon; he was the common sense of the Blue Room: the wise and discreet friend to whom the most delicate secrets were fearlessly confided, the unfailing referee to whom the members of the Circle applied for decisions of all kinds, from the question of a debated signification to the pronunciation of a word; naturally he was somewhat pedagogical; incessant correction of the works of others had impressed him with the instincts and the manners of a teacher; to the younger members of the Circle he was a most awe-inspiring wiseacre. Conrart bore the mark of a deep-seated consciousness of Protestantism, and whether he was speaking, walking, or engaged in his active duties it was evident that he was absorbed in reflections concerning his religious origin; people who had seen him when he was asleep affirmed that he wore an alert air of cogitation when wrapt in slumber, and when he was rhyming his little verses to Alphise or to Lycoris his aspect was the same. His attitude was logical: he knew that he was a Protestant; he knew that that fact was a thing that no man could be expected to forget. In 1647 he wrote to a fellow coreligionist⁵⁵: "As the world regards it, what a disadvantage it is to be a Huguenot!" The Académie Française emanated from social meetings held in Conrart's house and the serious association could not have had a more suitable cradle.

It is a pleasure to think of that easy and independent home, where guests were met with outstretched hands, where wisdom was dispensed without thought of recompense. Conrart was generous and just, a loyal and indulgent friend who did good for the love of goodness. The wife of Conrart was an excellent and worthy creature, who received dukes and peers and the ladies of the Court as simply as she received the friends of her youth; she was not a respecter of persons and she saw no reason for embarrassment when the Marquise de Rambouillet wished to dine with her. She took pride in "pastelles," cordials, and other household delicacies, which she made and offered to her husband's friends with her own hands.

Vaugelas was timid and innocent; misfortune was his habit; he had always been unfortunate, and no one expected him to be anything else. He was very poor; he had been stripped of everything (even to the pension given him by the King) as punishment for following Gaston d'Orléans. Everything that he did turned against him. One day when he was in great need Mme. de Carignan told him that she would hire him as tutor; she had two sons whom she aspired to educate according to the methods of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Naturally the impecunious Vaugelas thanked God for his rescue. When his pupils were presented to him he found that one of them was deaf and dumb, the other was a phenomenal stutterer, barely able to articulate his name. Vaugelas had been so uniformly unfortunate that his woes had created a nervous tension in the minds of the Circle, and every new report of his afflictions called forth an outburst of hysterical laughter from his sympathisers. The Hôtel de Rambouillet knew his intrinsic value. Fair Arthénice and her company essayed to bring him forward, and failed; he was bashful, an inveterate listener, obstinately silent; in the Salon he sat with head drooping and with lips half open, eagerly listening to catch the delicately turned phrases of the quality, or to surprise some noble error; a grammatical lapsus stung his keen perceptions, and he was frequently seen writhing as if in agony, no one knew why. In a word he was worthless in a salon, – and the same must be said of Corneille. Corneille felt that he was not brilliant, and he never attended the Salon unless he had written something new; he read his plays to "the Circle" before he offered them to the publishers. Men of genius are not always creditable adjuncts to a salon; Corneille was known in the fine world as "that fellow Corneille." As far as his capacity for furnishing the amount of amusement which all men individually owe it to their fellows to provide is concerned, it is enough to say that he was one of the churchwardens in his parochial district; this fact, like the accident of birth, may pass as a circumstance extenuating his involuntary evil. Speaking of the Salon la Bruyère wrote: "Corneille, another one who is seen there, is simple, timid, and – when he talks – a bore; he mistakes one word for another, and considers his plays good or bad in proportion to the money he gains by them. He does not know how to recite poetry, and he cannot read his own writing."

In a club of pretty women ten Corneilles would not have been worth one Antoine Godeau. Godeau was as diminutive in his verse as in his person; but he was a fiery fellow and a dashing gallant, always in love. When he was studying philosophy the German students in his boarding-house so attached themselves to his lively ways that they could not live away from him. The gravest of the bookworms thought that they could study better in his presence, and his chambers presented the appearance of a class-room. He sat enthroned at his table, and the Germans sat cross-legged around him blowing clouds from their china pipes and roaring with laughter at his sallies. He sang, he rhymed, he drank; he was always cracking his funny jokes. He was born to love, and as he was naturally frivolous, his dulcineas were staked out all over the country awaiting his good pleasure. Presented to the Circle of the Hôtel de Rambouillet when he was very young, he paled the star of "little Voiture." When Voiture was at a distance from Paris Mlle. de Rambouillet wrote to him: "There is a man here now who is a head shorter than you are, and who is, I swear to you, a thousand times more gallant!"

Godeau was a conqueror; he had "entrapped all the successes." Every one was amazed when it was discovered that he was a bishop, and they had barely recovered from their amazement when it was learned that he was not only a bishop but a good bishop. He had other titles to distinction (of one kind or another), "and withal he still remained" (as Sainte Beuve said) "the foppish spark of all that world." The only passport required by the Hôtel de Rambouillet was intellect. The Circle caressed Sarrazin, despite his baseness, his knavery, his ignoble marriages, and his ridiculous appearance, because he was capable of a pleasant repartee when in general conversation. George de Scudéry, a "species of captain," was protected by the Circle because he was an author. Scudéry was intolerable! his brain cells were clogged by vanity, he was humming from morning till night with his head high in the clouds, beating his ancestors about the ears of any one who would listen to him, and prating of his "glory," his tragic comedies, and his epic poem Alaric. He was on tiptoe with delight because he had eclipsed Corneille. The Hôtel de Rambouillet smiled upon Colletet, the clever drunkard who had taken his three servants to wife, one after the other, and who had not talent enough to counterbalance his gipsy squalor. But all passed who could hold a pen. Many a scruple and many a qualm clamoured in vain for recognition when the fair creator of the Circle organised the Salon. Nothing can be created – not even a salon – without some sacrifice, and Mme. de Rambouillet laid a firm hand upon her predilections and made literary merit the only title to membership in the Salon. Every one knew the way to the Hôtel de Rambouillet. Every one but Balzac was seen there. Balzac lived in a distant department (la Charente), so it is probable that he knew Mme. de Rambouillet only by letter, though he is named as an attendant of the Salon. Had the Salon existed in this day it is possible that our moderns, who demand a finer mortar, would have left the coarser pebbles in the screen, but Mme. de Rambouillet closed her eyes, put forth her hand, and as blindly as Justice drew authors out of their obscure corners and placed them on a footing with the fine flower of the Court and the choice spirits of the city, with all that was gay or witty, with all who were possessed of curiosity concerning the things of the mind. She forced the frivolous to habituate themselves to serious things, she compelled the pedants to toss their caps to the thistles, to cast aside their pretensions and their long-drawn-out phrases, and to stand forth as men. No one carried the accoutrements of his authorship into the Blue Room, no one was permitted to play the part of "pedant pedantising"; all was light, rapid, ephemeral; the atmosphere was fine and clear, and to add to the tranquil aspect of the scene, several very youthful ladies (the young daughters of Mme. de Rambouillet and "la pucelle Priande" among others) were permitted to pass like butterflies among the thoughtful groups; their presence completed the illusion of pastoral festivity. Before that time young girls had never mingled freely with their elders.