La Grande Mademoiselle

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.

As mixed as the gatherings were, and as radical as was the social revolution of the Salon, the presence of innocent youth imposed the tone of careful propriety. I am not counting "La Belle Paulet" as an innocent young girl, though she too was of the Salon. Paulet was called "the lioness" because of the ardent blonde colour of her hair; she was young enough, and amiable even to excess, but she had had too much experience. She was "a bit of driftwood," one of several of her kind whom Mme. de Rambouillet had fished from the vortex, dried, catechised, absolved, and restored to regular conduct and consideration. Neither do I class "the worthy Scudéry" among young girls. She could not have been called "young" at any age. She was (to quote one of her contemporaries) "a tall, black, meagre person, with a very long face, prolix in discourse, with a tone of voice like a schoolmaster, which is not at all agreeable." Although Tallemant drew this picture, its lines are not exaggerated. It is impossible to regard Mlle. de Scudéry as a young girl. When I say that there were young girls in the Salon, I have in mind the daughters of the house, from whom emanated excess of delicacy, precocity, and decadence, Julie d'Angennes, for whom was created "the garland of Julie," who became Mme. Montausier, Angélique de Rambouillet, – the first of de Grignan's three wives, – and Mlle. de Bourbon, who married de Longueville, and at a later day was known as the heroine of the Hôtel-de-Ville. We must not imagine that a reception at the Hôtel de Rambouillet was a convocation like a seance at the Institute of France. At such an assembly a de Sévigné, a Paulet, a Lafayette would have been out of place, nor would they have consented to sit like students in class discussing whether it were better to say avoine and sarge (the pronunciation given by the Court) or aveine and serge (the pronunciation used by the grain-handlers in the hay-market). Neither would it have been worth while to collect such spirits had the sole object been a discussion of the last new book, or the last new play; but literary and grammatical questions were rocks in the seas on which the brilliant explorer of the Blue Room had set sail and on the rocks she had planted her buoys. She navigated sagaciously, taking the sun, sounding and shaping her course to avoid danger. "Assaults of eloquence," however important, were cut short before they resembled the lessons of the schoolroom. Before the innovation of the Salon, the critics had dealt out discipline with heavy hands. We are confounded by the solemnity with which Conrart informed Balzac of a "tournament" between Voiture and Chapelain on the subject of one of Ariosto's comedies, when "decisions" were rendered with all the precision of legal sentences by "the hermit of Angoumois."56 So manifest a waste of energy proved that it was time for the world's people to interfere, to restrain the savants from taking to heart things which were not worth their pains.

The authors produced their plays or their poems and carried their manuscripts to the Hôtel de Rambouillet, where they read them in the presence of the company, and the Circle listened, approved, criticised, and exchanged opinions. All of Corneille's masterpieces cleared that port in disguise; their creator presenting them as the works of a strange author. When he read Polyeucte the Salon supposed that the drama was the work of a person unknown to them; all listened intently and criticised freely. No one suspected the real author, and when the last word was read, Voiture made haste to warn Corneille that he "would better lock up the play." When the Circle first heard the Cid they acclaimed it, and declared that it was the work of genius. Richelieu objected to it, and the Salon defended it against him. Books and plays were not the only subjects of discussion; in the Blue Room letters from the absent were read to the company, verses were improvised and declaimed, plays were enacted, and delicately refined expressions were sought with which to clothe the sentiment and the passion of love. Great progress was made in the exercise of wit, and at times the Circle, excited by the clash of mind with mind, exhibited the effervescent joy of children at play when fun runs riot in the last moment of recess, before the bell rings to recall them to the schoolroom. At such a time the members of the Circle were marshalled back to order and set down before the savants to contemplate the "ologies." Such was the first period of the reign of the Précieuses, a period whose history La Bruyère gathered from the recitals of the old men of that day.

Voiture and Sarrazin were born for their century, and they appeared just at the time when they might have been expected; had they come forward with less precipitation they would have been too late; it is probable that had they come in our day they would have been just what they were at their own epoch. When they came upon the stage the light, sparkling conversations, the "circles" of meditative and critical groups convened to argue the literary and æsthetic questions of the day, had vanished, with the finely marked differences, the spiritual jests, the coquettish meanings hidden amidst the overshadowing gravity of serious discussion.

The Circle no longer formed little parties admitting only the men who had proved their title to intellect; but the fame of the first Salon de Rambouillet – or, to speak better, the fame of the ideal Salon of the world – still clung to its successor. As children listen to tales told by their grandfathers, the delicate mind of Voiture listened to the story of those first days; Sarrazin the Gross might scoff, but Voiture gloried in the thought that it had all been true; the lights, the music, the merry jests, the spring flowers growing in the autumn, the flashing lances of the spirit, the gay letters from the absent… And well might he glory! there had, in truth, been one supreme moment in the literary life of France, a moment as rapid, as fleeting as a smile, lost even as it came, never to appear again until long after the pigmy body which enshrined the winged soul that loved to dream of it had turned to dust.

The memory of that first Salon was still so vivid that Saint Simon wrote: "The Hôtel de Rambouillet was the trysting-place of all then existent of knowledge and of wit; it was a redoubtable tribunal, where the world and the Court were brought to judgment."

But the followers of Arthénice did not shrink from mundane pleasures. In the gracious presence of their hostess the young people danced from love of action, laughed from love of laughter, and, dressed to represent the heroes and the heroines of Astrée, or to represent the tradesmen of Paris, went into the country on picnics, and enacted plays for the amusement of their guests, playing all the pranks of collegians in vacation. One day when they were all at the Château de Rambouillet the Comte de Guiche ate a great many mushrooms. In the night one of the gay party stole into his room and "took in" all the seams in his garments. In the morning it was impossible for de Guiche to dress; everything was too narrow to be buttoned; in vain he tugged at the edges of his garments, – nothing would come together; the Comte was racked by anxiety. "Can it be," he asked anxiously, "because I ate too many mushrooms? Can it be possible that I am bloated?" His friends answered that it might well be possible. "You know," said they, "that you ate till you were fit to burst." De Guiche hurried to his mirror, and when he saw his apparently swollen body and the gaps in his clothing, he trembled, and declared that he was dying; as he was livid and about to swoon, his friends, thinking that the jest had gone far enough, undeceived him. Mme. de Rambouillet was very fond of inventing surprises for her friends, but her jests were of a more gallant character. One day while they were at the Château de Rambouillet she proposed to the Bishop de Lisieux, who was one of her guests, to walk into the fields adjoining the château, where there was, as she said, a circle of natural rocks set among great trees. The Bishop accepted her invitation, and history tells us that "when he was so near the rocks that he could distinguish them through the trees, he perceived in various places, as if scattered about – [I hardly know how to tell it] – objects fairly white and glistening! As he advanced it seemed to him that he could discern figures of women in the guise of nymphs. The Marquise insisted that she could not see anything but trees and rocks, but on advancing to the spot they found – Mlle. de Rambouillet and the other young ladies of the house arrayed, and very effectively, as nymphs; they were seated upon the rocks, where they made the most agreeable of pictures." The good fellow was so charmed with the pleasantry that thereafter he never saw "fair Arthénice" without speaking of "the Rocks of Rambouillet."57 The Bishop de Lisieux was an excellent priest; decorum did not oppose such surprises, even when the one surprised was a bishop. One day when the ladies were disguised to represent shepherdesses, de Richelieu's brother, the Archbishop of Lyons, appeared among them in the dress of a shepherd.

One of the most agreeable of Voiture's letters (addressed to a cardinal)58 contains an account of a trip that he had made into the country with the Demoiselles de Rambouillet and de Bourbon, chaperoned by "Madame the Princess," mother of the great Condé; Mlle. Paulet (the bit of driftwood) and several others were of the party.

We departed from Paris about six o'clock in the evening, [wrote Voiture], to go to La Barre,59 where Mme. de Vigean was to give collation to Madame the Princess… We arrived at La Barre and entered an audience-room in which there was nothing but a carpet of roses and of orange blossoms for us to walk upon. After having admired this magnificence, Madame the Princess wished to visit the promenade halls while we were waiting for supper. The sun was setting in a cloud of gold and azure, and there was only enough of it left to give a soft and misty light. The wind had gone down, it was cool and pleasant, and it seemed to us that earth and heaven had met to favour Mme. de Vigean's wish to feast the most beautiful Princess in the world.

Having passed a large parterre, and great gardens, all full of orange trees, we arrived at a wood which the sunlight had not entered in more than an hundred years, until it entered there (in the person of Madame). At the foot of an avenue so long that we could not fathom its vista with our eyes until we had reached the end of it, we found a fountain which threw out more water than was ever thrown by all the fountains of Tivoli put together. Around the fountain were ranged twenty-four violinists with their violins, and their music was hardly able to cover the music of the fountain. When we drew near them we discovered a niche in the palisado, and in the niche was a Diana eleven or twelve years old, more beautiful than any goddess of the forests of Greece or of Thessaly. She bore her arrows in her eyes, and all the rays of the halo of her brother surrounded her. In another niche was one of Diana's nymphs, beautiful and sweet enough to attend Diana. They who doubt fables said that the two visions were only Mlle. de Bourbon and la Pucelle Priande; and, to tell the truth, there was some ground for their belief, for even we who have always put faith in fables, we who knew that we were looking upon a supernatural vision, recognised a close resemblance. Every one was standing motionless and speechless, with admiration for all the objects so astonishing both to ear and to eye, when suddenly the goddess sprang from her niche and with grace that cannot be described, began a dance around the fountain which lasted some time, and in which every one joined.

(Here Voiture, who was under obligations to his correspondent, Cardinal de La Valette, represents himself as having wept because the Cardinal was not there. According to Voiture's account he communicated his grief to all the company.)

… And I should have wept, and, in fact, we all should have mourned too long, had not the violins quickly played a saraband so gay that every one sprang up and danced as joyously as if there had been no mourning; and thus, jumping, dancing, whirling, pirouetting, and capering, we arrived at the house, where we found a table dressed as delicately as if the faëries had served it. And now, Monseigneur, I come to a part of the adventure which cannot be described! Truly, there are no colours nor any figures of rhetoric to represent the six kinds of luscious soups, all different, which were first placed before us before anything else was served. And among other things were twelve different kinds of meats, under the most unimaginable disguises, such as no one had ever heard of, and of which not one of us has learned the name to this day! As we were leaving the table the music of the violins called us quickly up the stairs, and when we reached the upper floor we found an audience-room turned into a ball-room, so well lighted that it seemed to us that the sun, which had entirely disappeared from earth, had gone around in some unknown way and climbed up there to shine upon us and to make it as bright as any daylight ever seen. There the dance began anew, and even more perfectly than when we had danced around the fountain; and more magnificent than all else, Monseigneur, is this, that I danced there! Mlle. de Bourbon said that, truth to tell, I danced badly, but that doubtless I should make an excellent swordsman, because, at the end of every cadence, I straightened as if to fall back on guard.