Part 34

[197] This is called _la légitime_ in French.

[198] All commentators are agreed that by Drance the Count de Clermont-Tonnerre, first gentleman-in-waiting of the Duke of Orléans, brother of Louis XIV., is meant.

[199] Montesquieu has developed this idea of the influence of climate on the mind and race in his _Esprit des Lois_, as well as H. A. Taine in his “History of English Literature.”

[200] Arontius is said to be Perrault (See page 14, note 2.) Who Melinda was has never been discovered.

[201] _Phébus_ is nonsensical and exaggerated language, so called after Phœbus, the sun-god, on account of his brilliancy. The poet M. Regnier (1573-1613) had already made use of this word; it was something like the language employed by the Englishman, John Lily, in his “Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit,” etc., published 1578-1580.

[202] La Bruyère says in a note, “They would call them ‘Sir.’” He also, and on purpose, leads the reader astray by using the names of three courtiers who died some time ago: Zamet, a favourite of Catherine de Medici and Henri IV., who died in 1614; Ruccellaï, one of Conciniʼs partisans, who lived till 1627; and Concini, Maréchal dʼAncre, assassinated in 1617.

[203] Some traits of this character apply to Saumery, a gentleman-in-waiting of the Duke of Burgundy, a grandson of Louis XIV.

[204] Such an adventure is said to have happened to a certain _conseiller au châtelet_, Robert de Châtillon. Montesquieu, in his _Lettres Persanes_, describes a similar character.

[205] Theodectes is the Count dʼAubigné. See page 65, note 4.

[206] It was the custom in La Bruyèreʼs time, even among the upper classes, to throw on the floor what was left on the plates or in the glasses. See also the character of Menalcas, chapter xi., “Of Men,” §7.

[207] _Il est au-dessus de vouloir se soutenir_, literally, he is above wishing to keep himself up. This expression seems to be peculiar to La Bruyère.

[208] No suggestion has ever been made as to what person is portrayed as Troïlus; still it seems to have been intended by our author for one of his contemporaries.

[209] A certain boasting Abbé de Vassé is meant, who refused the bishopric of Mans, and died in 1716 at the age of sixty-five.

[210] The authorʼs note says, “A kind of people who pretend to be very nice in their language.”

[211] _Proprement_, in the original, was in La Bruyèreʼs time generally used for “elegantly,” “correctly.”

[212] Oaths were more commonly used by the upper classes in the seventeenth century than they are now.

[213] Cléon is supposed to have been a certain financier Monnerot, who died in prison rather than pay a fine of two million francs, to which he had been condemned by a court of justice.

[214] This personage is said to stand for Constantin Heudebert du Buisson, appointed _intendant des finances_ the same year (1690) the seventh edition of the “Characters” was published. See also page 153, §63.

[215] The _livre parisis_, probably meant here, was equal in value to the _franc_, first coined in 1573, under Henri III. An income of ten thousand francs in La Bruyèreʼs time would represent one of fifty thousand francs now.

[216] The original has _congratuler_, now only used with a ridiculous meaning attached to it.

[217] It is generally supposed Theodemus was a certain Abbé de Drubec, who stopped short in the middle of a sermon preached before the court of Louis XIV.; others imagine it was a hit at the Abbé Bertier, who became bishop of Blois in 1697.

[218] In this paragraph, as well as in the preceding one, some commentators imagine there is an allusion to the President Achille de Harlay, so bitterly attacked by St. Simon in his _Mémoires_. See also page 45, note 1.

[219] Our author says in a note, “Written in imitation of Montaigne.”

[220] The principal antiquated words in this imitation are _estriver_, to strive, to quarrel; _se ramentevoir_, to call to mind, used by Molière in the _Dépit amoureux_ (iii. 4); and _succéder_, to be successful, which, of course, is at present in French _réussir_.

[221] According to all the “Keys,” this paragraph refers to a separation of two old friends, Courtois and Saint-Romain, both councillors of state; but they were still friends when the “Characters” were published.

[222] Some persons, now totally unknown, have been supposed to represent Cleantes: such as a certain M. Loyseau, _receveur général des finances_ in Brittany; a M. de lʼEscalopier, _conseiller au parlement_, and others.

[223] Such a contract was called _les nourritures_ in French legal phraseology.

[224] G ... is supposed to stand for François Vedeau de Grammont, _conseiller au parlement_, or for his father-in-law, Philippe Genoud de Guiberville, and H ... for Charles Hervé, _doyen du parlement_; and the quarrel arose about the right of fishing in a brook. Vedeau lost his case, and was convicted of having falsified certain legal documents. Only a few years before La Bruyèreʼs death he fired at different times on a legal officer and some soldiers who were attempting to arrest him in his house in Paris, killed one and wounded another, was finally imprisoned, dismissed from his office, and banished from the kingdom.

[225] _Lʼoffrande, lʼencens et le pain benit_, in the original. In small Roman Catholic towns there were formerly always quarrels about the sum to be given to the vicar when kissing the “patena,” about the carrying of the censer, and above all, whose turn it was to give a cake to be consecrated by the officiating clergyman.

[226] A _bailli_ was a magistrate who judged certain cases, an _élu_ a sort of assessor of various taxes, and an _assesseur_ an assistant magistrate.

[227] This is an allusion to the society of the Hotel de Rambouillet and to the so-called _précieuses_.

[228] It is generally supposed that here Isaac de Benserade (1612-1691) is meant, who was pre-eminently a court poet, and wrote a great deal of namby-pamby poetry, now deservedly forgotten. His “Character” appeared for the first time in the sixth edition of La Bruyèreʼs work, only a few months before his death, when he was seventy-eight years old.

[229] Our author draws a distinction between gentlemen in town and at court, though he mentions those in town first. The silly novels he attacks were those of Gomberville (1600-1647), of La Calprenède (1610-1663), and above all those of Mdlle. de Scudéri (1607-1701), one of the _précieuses_ of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and author of the _Grand Cyrus_ (1650), _Clélie_ (1665), and of many other works.

[230] It seems to have escaped all commentators of La Bruyère that in his time it was the fashion for the ladies at court to call a spade a spade with a vengeance, and to use very plain and realistic language, whilst the “city ladies” were not quite so daring; moreover, some of the streets, squares, etc., of Paris had very peculiar names, quite unfit for the mouth of any modest woman.

[231] By “silly things,” our author means “plays on words” called in his time _équivoques_ or _turlupinades_.

[232] Marcus Annæus Lucanus, a Latin poet, who died in the year 65, was put to death for his share in Pisoʼs conspiracy, at the early age of twenty-seven.

[233] Claudus Claudianus (365-408), a Latin poet.

[234] L. Annæus Seneca, a stoic philosopher, and tutor to Nero, was also put to death in the year 65 by order of his former pupil.

[235] Hermagoras is, according to all commentators, Paul Perron, a learned Benedictine, and author of _LʼAntiquité des temps rétablie_, etc. The old English translations name, however, also Isaac Vossius (1618-1688), an able Dutch philologist, and a well-known French literary man, Urbain Chevreau (1613-1701).

[236] In 1687, when this paragraph was first published, there was no longer an independent kingdom of Hungary, for three years before the crown had been declared hereditary in the House of Austria, which had ruled Bohemia as well since 1525.

[237] These wars, interrupted by the peace of Nymeguen (1678), were going on whilst our author wrote.

[238] Henri IV. (1553-1610), or _Henri le Grand_, according to La Bruyèreʼs own note, was not the son of the last of the Valois, Henri III. (1551-1589), but after the latterʼs death became heir to the French throne, because Henry IV.ʼs father, Antoine de Bourbon, was descended from the Count de Clermont, the fifth son of Louis IX.

[239] Those names La Bruyère found in the _Histoire du Monde_ of Chevreau (see page 124, note 5); and nearly all of them are so wrongly spelt that it is almost hopeless to discover whom they meant.

[240] In the month of December of the same year this paragraph had been published, Joseph I. (1678-1711), emperor of the Romans, was crowned king of Hungary, in virtue of his hereditary right. See page 215, note 1.

[241] Ninus was the husband of Semiramis, about 2182 B.C., and founded with her Nineveh, of which empire she became queen; she abdicated after a reign of forty-two years in favour of her son Ninyas. All these persons seem, however, to have been mythological, and to have had no foundation in history. The Semiramis of Herodotus lived 810-781 B.C.

[242] The passage in Josephus containing Manethosʼ tradition says, “Mesphratuthmosis drove the Hyksos [or shepherd kings] as far as Avaris [San in Egypt], and shut them up in it. His son Tuthmosis obliged them to evacuate it.” Tuthmosis is really Aahmes, the founder of the 18th dynasty, who drove the shepherd kings out of Egypt. Misphratuthmosis, sometimes written Misphramuthosis, and Alisphragmuthosis, his relative or ancestor, is meant by this name Alipharmutosis, but he has not been recognised in Egyptian records.

[243] Sesostris is the Greek name of the conqueror Rameses II., the third king of the 19th Egyptian dynasty.

[244] Artaxerxes Longimanus, king of Persia, succeeded his father Xerxes I., 465 B.C., and died about 425 B. C.

[245] Cydias is Fontenelle (see page 11, note 1), who was only thirty-seven years old when this paragraph was first printed in the eighth edition of the “Characters,” in 1694, and who became La Bruyèreʼs enemy ever since.

[246] Fontenelle had written for his uncle Thos. Corneille (1625-1709) certain parts of two operas, _Psyché_ (1678) and _Bellérophon_ (1679); for Beauval, in prose, an eulogy on Perrault (1688), and for a certain Mdlle. Bernard, part of a tragedy of _Brutus_ (1691).

[247] Lucianus of Samosata, a satirist and a rhetorician (120-200 A.D.)

[248] The author adds “a philosopher and a tragic poet.” See page 124, note 4.

[249] Plato, the well-known Greek philosopher (430-347 B.C.)

[250] Publius Virgilius Maro, the Roman epic and bucolic poet (70-19 B.C.)

[251] Theocritus, a Greek bucolic poet, who flourished about 272 B.C. Fontenelle had written Dialogues of the dead, as Lucianus had done; philosophical works and tragedies like Seneca, philosophical dialogues in Platoʼs style, and pastoral poetry like Virgil and Theocritus.

[252] Perrault, La Motte (1672-1731), De Visé (1640-1710), and others.

[253] This friend is supposed to have been La Motte.

[254] The right of presentation to nearly all offices at court, or official positions, was publicly bought and sold in Louis XIV.ʼs time.

[255] Commentators, who see allusions everywhere, suppose the “very rich man” was Louvois, whose sons-in-law were the Dukes de la Rocheguyon and de Villeneuve; or Colbert, who became the father-in-law of the Dukes de Chevreuse, de Beauvilliers, and de Mortemart; or, finally, Frémont, keeper of the royal treasury, who married his daughter to the Duke de Lorges.

[256] This lady is said to have been Madame Fleurion dʼArmenonville, daughter of a clothier, whose husband was keeper of the seals and _directeur des finances_.

[257] Those men were the so-called “farmers of the revenue,” nearly all of low birth, and who formerly had been in some trade or business. See page 136, note 2, and page 137, § 15.

[258] Little, silly, ugly rich men were not more rare in our authorʼs time than they are at present; but the commentators will have it that the Marquis de Gouverney and the Duke de Ventadour were meant.

[259] M. de Saint-Pouange, a relative of the ministers Colbert, Le Tellier, and Louvois, and the latterʼs principal secretary, is meant.

[260] Nearly all the great lords had Swiss doorkeepers. Petit-Jean, in Racineʼs comedy _Les Plaideurs_, says also: “Il mʼavait fait venir dʼAmiens pour être Suisse.”

[261] The “Keys” mention several people for Clitiphon, such as M. le Camus, _lieutenant-civil_, or his brother the cardinal, or another brother who was _maître des requêtes_.

[262] In the original there is a play on the word _rare_ which cannot be rendered in English.

[263] This seems to refer to Platoʼs “Timæus” and his “Phædo.”

[264] Jupiter is the largest and Saturn the second largest planet of our solar system. The celebrated Dutch natural philosopher Huyghens van Zuylichem (1629-1695), who discovered the fourth satellite of Saturn and proved the existence of its ring, lived in Paris from 1666 till 1681, and may have met La Bruyère.

[265] The original has _trivial_, from the Latin _trivialis_ and _trivium_, hence the meaning of exposed to the public gaze, “perceptible.”

[266] By these initials are meant _partisans_, a name given to the farmers-general of the revenue. Until 1726, these persons obtained in France, for a fixed money payment, the right of collecting one or more of the public taxes. This system was first inaugurated by Sully (1560-1641), the able finance-minister of Henri IV., out of necessity, in order to raise money; and was continued for more than two hundred years, and the cause of many arbitrary measures and great oppression. The number of these _fermiers-généraux_ was first forty and afterwards sixty, but there were a goodly number of _sous-fermiers_ and many other agents, who were all practically irresponsible. In 1726, a company of capitalists undertook the collection of the greater part of the kingʼs taxes, which was called the _fermes-générales_ or _unies_, and lasted till the first French Revolution. The _ministre des finances_, a name only first given in 1795, was, in the sixteenth and part of the seventeenth century, called _surintendant des finances_, and from 1661 till 1791 _contrôleur-général des finances_.

[267] Sosia in Greek is generally used as the name of a servant or a slave, and Molière gives that name to a servant in his _Amphitryon_; in Latin a farmer of the public revenue was called _socius_, because he was the associate of other similar farmers. It was not at all uncommon in Louis XIV.ʼs time for footmen to rise to the rank of financiers, and La Bazinière, de Gourville, and de Bourvalais, who were all three very rich, as well as many others, might be quoted as examples of this. Two _fermiers-généraux_, Révol and dʼApougny, became churchwardens.

[268] See page 43, note 2.

[269] The wives of a good many farmers of the revenue have been named by various commentators and “Keys.”

[270] The _huitième denier_ was a tax imposed in 1672 during the war with Holland on all purchasers of estates from the clergy.

[271] The “Keys” give several names of financiers, such as Aubert, who at one time was worth more than three millions of francs, and who died in a garret, Guénegaud, and Rémond. The _Chambre de Justice_, a name given to certain committees which were appointed from time to time to inquire into financial malversations and abuses condemned in 1661 the above-named three gentlemen to pay very heavy fines; hence their comparative poverty.

[272] “Champagne” stands for Monnerot. (See page 110, note 2.) It was not uncommon to give such names as _Poitevin_, _Lorrain_, _Basque_, _Provençal_, etc., to footmen, after their supposed native provinces.

[273] Two still Champagne wines. Sparkling Champagne was not drunk till the eighteenth century.

[274] All commentators agree that here the farmer-general George is meant, who bought the Marquisate dʼEntragues and married a daughter of the Marquis de Valençay.

[275] The _taille_ was a kingʼs tax levied every year only on the people and the commoners.

[276] Who Dorus is has not been found out.

[277] The Appian Way, the oldest and best of all the Roman roads, leads from the Porta Cappena at Rome to Capua.

[278] The Lictors at Rome, with the _fasces_, always walked before the Consul or the Dictator.

[279] Some think that here a certain M. de Langlée, _maréchal des camps et armées du roi_, was meant. Others think it was an uncle of the minister Colbert, a M. Pussort, one of the kingʼs counsel of state; but the first was unmarried and had a very wealthy father, and the second, who was also unmarried, and a miser to boot, owed his influence wholly to his position.

[280] The original has _pancartes_, which our author in a note states were _billets dʼenterrement_.

[281] _Noble homme_ was a title which citizens of importance took in all legal contracts, whilst men of less influence, tradesmen and artisans, were styled _Honorable homme_, and _Messire_ was only reserved for persons of rank.

[282] This youth was M. le Tellier, who became Archbishop of Rheims in 1671, when he was only twenty-nine years old, but who already, before that time, received the revenues of six abbeys. (See also page 47, note 2.)

[283] Formerly _six vingts_, hundred and twenty—thus in the original—was as commonly used as _quatre-vingt_.

[284] The first two editions contained a note of La Bruyère, to say that by _médailles dʼor_ he meant _louis dʼor_. This he thought no longer necessary in the other editions; he only wanted to draw attention to the fact that the “youth” received his clerical dues in golden coin, and not by a cheque on some _fermier-général_, who would have taken a discount for cash payment.

[285] This paragraph seems to be a hit at the _fermier-général_ Langeois, whose daughter married the Marshal de Tourville, and whose son was married to a niece of de Pontchartrain, the _contrôleur-général_ of the finances.

[286] Although this remark seems to refer to the Baron de Beauvais, _capitaine des chasses_, to whom the king had given the right of selling the briars and brambles growing on the road to Versailles, the portrait of Ergastus alludes to those men who were for ever advising to tax articles not already imposed, and by whom France became finally ruined.

[287] Berrier, one of the secretaries of Colbert, is said to have been the original of Crito.

[288] This is generally believed to refer to de Pontchartrain, mentioned before, who, for some time, was very pious.

[289] See page 136, note 2.

[290] The old English translations of the “Characters” say this is an allusion to M. Fouquet (1615-1680), _surintendant des finances_, who, kept in prison by Louis XIV. for more than twenty years, had a great many friends and partisans when in prosperity, but they nearly all turned against him in his adversity.

[291] The desire to make oneʼs fortune was so great, that at that time, even at court, it was customary to take money from forgers and scoundrels; thus the Count de Grammont drew about fifty thousand _livres_ from a peculator, and the wife of the son of the king of France received as a present from Louis XIV. the estate of a prisoner who had committed suicide in the Bastile, which was thought to be worth a great deal of money. A similar custom existed also at the courts of Charles II. and James II.; and William Penn was even accused of having become an agent for the maids-of-honour of the court, and of obtaining pardons for a pecuniary consideration, but it is now generally admitted it was another Penn who acted thus.

[292] The “Keys” think that either Nicholas dʼOrville, the confidant of Louis XIV. and Mdlle. de la Vallière, and royal treasurer at Orléans, or Boucherat, _chancelier de France_, and a perfect noodle, according to St. Simonʼs _Mémoires_, were alluded to as the “weak-minded men.”

[293] See page 43, note 2.

[294] A few of the “Keys” give Racine the poet as the original of such a man, but this is very unlikely, for Racine was a friend of our author, and, moreover, had acquired more glory than riches.

[295] Some commentators think that the Marquis de Seignelay, the eldest son of Colbert, is meant here; for after his death, which took place when he was only thirty-nine years old, he is said to have left five millions _livres_ debts; others pretend he left a capital large enough to yield a yearly income of four hundred thousand francs.

[296] Boileau, in his fifth _Epître_, says also: “Qui vit content de rien possède toute chose.”

[297] Jean Fauconnet, _fermier-général des domaines de France_, became also receiver-general of two other taxes, which was very unusual. Our author speaks of “Fauconnets,” to indicate farmers of the revenues in general, though there was only one Fauconnet. In La Bruyèreʼs time the financiers seem to have despised men of letters; but later on, during the Regency and the reign of Louis XV. and Louis XVI., it became the fashion to invite literary men on every festive occasion, and to lionise them—a custom not unknown, even at the present time, and in other countries than France.

[298] Our author had René Descartesʼ (1596-1650) name printed in small capitals, to remind his readers of the persecutions this philosopher had suffered.

[299] _Au denier dix_ in the original.

[300] In former times French Governments often suppressed certain monies or diminished their legal value, and a law to this effect had been passed by Louis XIV. as late as 1679.

[301] Orontes is supposed to be a certain M. Neyret de la Ravoye, who became later _trésorier-général de la marine_, and who married a Mademoiselle Valière.

[302] _En bon français_ in the original; just as we say “in plain English.”

[303] A certain Count de Marsan seems to have made his fortune by marrying first one rich widow and then another.

[304] These different degrees of legal dignity were formerly in French _praticien_, _officier_, _magistrat_, _président_.

[305] Without any proof whatever, the “Keys” pretend that a certain _intendant des finances_, M. du Buisson, was meant.

[306] The miser is supposed to have been a M. Morstein, formerly chief treasurer of Poland, who went to reside in Paris, where he died in 1693; two years later his only son was killed at the siege of Namur.

[307] Thus M. Langlée, a “man sprung from nothing,” as St. Simon calls him, but a first-rate gambler, played for several years every day with the king. See also page 139, note 6. Gourville (see page 137, note 1) gambled with noblemen of the highest rank; and a certain Morin, after having lost large sums of money, was obliged to fly to London, where he managed the gambling table of the Duchess de Mazarin, and is often mentioned by St. Evremond.

[308] Our author says in a footnote: “See the narratives about the kingdom of Siam.” The _zombay_ seems to have been a very profound inclination and prostration of the body. In “A New Historical Relation of Siam by M. de Loubère, envoy extraordinary from the French king to the king of Siam in the years 1687 and 1688, done out of French,” and printed in London in 1693, we find “they (the Siamese) kept themselves prostrated on their knees and elbows, with their hands joined at the top of their forehead, and their body seated on their heels; to the end that they may lean less on their elbows, and that it may be possible (without assisting themselves with their hands, but keeping them still joined to the top of their forehead) to raise themselves on their knees, and fall again upon their elbows, as they do thrice together, as often as they would speak to their king.”

[309] In the French parliaments or courts, councillors were allowed to plead, and justice was administered in the kingʼs name; but these parliaments had no legislative power, and had only to register the royal edicts before they became law.

[310] A game of chance played with cards.