Part 36

[431] This is a hit at the courtiers, who all simulated piety after the king had married Madame de Maintenon and revoked the edict of Nantes in 1685, and when he was wholly governed by the Jesuits. This paragraph first appeared in the seventh edition of the “Characters” in 1692.

[432] _Cheminer_, in the original; a word much employed by the courtiers of Louis XIV.

[433] This country is, of course, the court.

[434] By Harlequinʼs comedies the Italian stage is meant.

[435] See page 174, note 1.

[436] All the “Keys” say this is an allusion to the Cardinal de Bouillon; but the “Keys” are wrong, for his disgrace did not end until 1690, when this paragraph had already been two years published.

[437] Xantippus is supposed to be M. de Bontemps, the son of one of the _premiers valets de chambre_ of the king; but this supposition seems not correct, for he was brought up at court, and was never what can be called “a favourite.”

[438] See page 186, note 3.

[439] See also page 213, § 75.

[440] The court, Versailles, and the mass which Louis XIV. attended daily in the royal chapel are alluded to in the above paragraph. The Iroquois and the Hurons, both tribes of North American Indians, were, at the time La Bruyère wrote, considered as typical savages, and are often mentioned in the literature of the period.

[441] De Bussy-Rabutin, Madame de Sévigné, the Marshal de Villeroy, and the Duke de Richelieu, all describe in their writings the misery they felt on not seeing the king.

[442] This seems to be an ironical allusion to the idolatrous worship the courtiers felt, or at least pretended to feel, for Louis XIV., whom they considered “the image of the Divinity on earth.”

[443] Pascal expresses a similar thought in his _Pensées_, vi. 19, and so do other authors. The commentators mention as known court-wits the Count de Grammont, the Duke de Roquelaure, the Duke de Lauzun, the Count de Bussy-Rabutin, and others.

[444] M. de Bontemps and the Marquis de Dangeau, both of whom we have already mentioned (see page 210, note 2, and page 156, note 2), seem to be meant.

[445] The commentators give the names of several personages, all already mentioned before, such as the Count dʼAubigné, the Chancellor Boucherat, the Archbishop of Rheims, Le Tellier, and others.

[446] All the “Keys” say that M. de Pomponne (1618-1699) is meant by Aristides; but he was still in disgrace when this paragraph was published (1689), and remained so for two years longer.

[447] Straton is undoubtedly the Duke de Lauzun, and his brother-in-law, the Duke de Saint-Simon, admits it. Lauzun had been a great favourite of the king, and had nearly married Louis XIV.ʼs cousin, Mademoiselle de Montpensier, but he was disgraced, imprisoned for ten years, partly reinstated in the kingʼs favour, banished again from the court, and finally sent with an army of French auxiliaries to assist James II. in Ireland, where he was present at the battle of the Boyne. The Duke died in 1723, at the age of ninety.

[448] The first and last paragraphs of this chapter are an epitome of the whole.

[449] Nearly all commentators suppose that Theagenes is Phillippe de Vendôme (1655-1727), _grand prieur de Malte_, a grandson of Henry IV. and Gabrielle dʼEstrées, and one of the most profligate men of his age; but it is more likely that La Bruyère wished to reprove his former pupil, the Duke de Bourbon, who at the time this paragraph appeared (1691) was but twenty-three years old, and addicted to very bad company.

[450] This seems to be an allusion to Louis XIV., who never felt the loss of any of his ministers or officers. The latter part of the above paragraph probably refers to the successors of Turenne, Condé, and Colbert, who had all been dead some time before the year 1689, when it first appeared.

[451] If the Abbé de Choisy (see page 205, note 3) ever told La Bruyère how he was brought up, as he mentions in his _Mémoires_, there can be no doubt he was the original of Lucilius.

[452] In the original, _il se fait de fête_; an expression also used by other authors in La Bruyèreʼs time.

[453] Theophilus is generally believed to have been the Abbé Roquette (1623-1707), Bishop of Autun, the supposed prototype of Molièreʼs _Tartuffe_, and, according to Saint-Simon, “a man all sugar and honey, and mixed up in every intrigue.” The “great man ... scarcely set foot on shore” was James II. of England, who came to France in 1689, two years before the above paragraph was published. The Abbé Roquetteʼs character seems not so black as it has been painted, at least according to M. J. Henri Pignotʼs Life of him, published in 1876.

[454] Compare in the chapter “Of Personal Merit,” § 33.

[455] Telephon, an odd name now, is said to be a portrait of François dʼAubusson (1625-1691), Count de la Feuillade, Duke de Rouanez, and Marshal of France, who at his cost erected a bronze monument to the glory of Louis XIV. on the Place des Victoires in Paris, where it still stands.

[456] Davus is a certain Prudhomme, a proprietor of bath-and wash-houses, with whom M. de la Feuillade lodged before he became a favourite, in whom he had always the greatest confidence, and whose daughter he is supposed to have married after the death of his first wife.

[457] It is even now usual for strict Roman Catholics abroad to celebrate the day of the saint after which they are named, instead of the day on which they are born.

[458] Rinaldo is the Achilles of the Christian army in Tassoʼs “Jerusalem Delivered,” and the rival of Orlando in Ariostoʼs “Orlando Furioso;” the second is the true hero of the latter poem, the third the friend and companion of Orlando, and the fourth the greatest of the Christian warriors except Rinaldo, in Tassoʼs poem, already mentioned.

[459] Among the great there were such names as Tancrède de Rohan, Hercule de Fleury, Achille de Harlay, Phébus de Foix, Cyrus de Brion, etc.; even citizens took grand classical or romantic names.

[460] The original has _côteaux_, most probably because some noblemen only drank certain wines which grew on some hill-slopes, called _côteaux_ in French.

[461] Thais, an Athenian courtesan, mentioned in Drydenʼs “Alexanderʼs Feast;” Phryne was another Athenian courtesan, said to have been Apellesʼ model.

[462] Philipsburg, an ancient fortified town of the Grand Duchy of Baden, had been taken by the Dauphin in 1688, after a monthʼs siege.

[463] Among the citizens who had “become powerful” may be reckoned J. B. Colbert (see page 132, note), whose three daughters married dukes, and whose son married a relative of the Bourbon family.

[464] La Bruyère had, no doubt, experienced this when at the Duke de Condéʼs.

[465] The original has _mal content_, for, during the seventeenth century, _mal_ was more generally placed before an adjective than now; at present _mécontent_ would be used, which, when La Bruyère wrote, had often the meaning of “a rebel.”

[466] Gaston dʼOrléans (1608-1660), the brother of Louis XIII., and even the Prince de Condé were examples of such “great.”

[467] The original has _vertu_, in the sense of the Latin _virtus_, courage.

[468] Thersites, according to the _Iliad_, was squinting, humpbacked, loquacious, loud, coarse, and scurrilous, but he was not a “common soldier,” but a chief. Achilles was the hero of the allied Greek army besieging Troy.

[469] Le Brun (1616-1690), a celebrated painter, was still alive when this paragraph appeared. For Lulli and Racine, see page 46, note, and page 11, note 3. Compare also page 226, § 19.

[470] Achille de Harlay (1639-1712), President of the Parliament of Paris, and descended from an illustrious line of magistrates, is said to have feigned an excess of modesty which was not natural to him. See also page 45, note 1.

[471] This beginning of every English town-crierʼs oration, pronounced “Oh yes! Oh yes!” is merely the imperative of the defective French verb, _ouir_, “to hear,” now seldom used, except in the present infinitive and in proverbial phrases.

[472] Aristarchus also refers to the above President, whose liberality, according to public rumour, was somewhat ostentatious.

[473] Another allusion to M. de Harley, whose “wise saws and modern sayings” were proverbial.

[474] A _cabinet_ was a sort of social circle in Paris, where people generally met to exchange small talk and to hear the news or lectures on all subjects.

[475] See page 19, note 3.

[476] M. de Harlay (1625-1695), Archbishop of Paris, is said to have been the original of Theognis. (See page 46, § 26.) He was the nephew of the President mentioned on the previous page, note 1.

[477] Pamphilus is the Marquis de Dangeau, of whom we have already spoken (see page 156, note 2), and who made himself ridiculous by his excessive vanity. Saint-Simon, in his _Mémoires_, calls the Marquis _un Pamphile_, but our author speaks of _les Pamphiles_, and describes them at three different times, namely, in 1681, 1691, and 1692.

[478] See page 47, note 3. When this paragraph appeared, the Marquis de Dangeau had been already three years a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost. The knights of this order wore a cross hanging from a broad blue ribbon, which were both depicted around their escutcheon.

[479] See page 70, note 1.

[480] Such an official was in our authorʼs time called _le premier commis_.

[481] The original has _il vous coupe_, “he will cut you,” an expression also used by Saint-Simon and Madame de Sévigné; the English phrase “to cut a person,” in the sense of passing by him without pretending to see him, seems almost to have the same primary meaning.

[482] Two celebrated actors of the seventeenth century; Floridor, whose real name was Josias Soulas de Frinefosse, died in 1672, and Mondori in 1651.

[483] See page 240, note 3.

[484] This minister is said to have been Louvois (see page 204, note 2), who liked to have many postulants about him.

[485] See page 164, note 1.

[486] The Rue Saint-Denis was a street in Paris crowded with small tradesmen, and still exists. Our author was nearly always afraid of clearly mentioning Versailles or Fontainebleau, and very often employed only the initial letters and asterisks or dots.

[487] The original _république_, which was inserted for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” is used in the sense of the Latin _respublica_.

[488] During the reign of Louis XIV., the signboards, which were often very large, swung above the heads of the passers-by, and the police tried in vain to reduce their dimensions or to have them fixed against the walls. Sometimes the government interfered in the municipal or provincial elections without any opposition, and sometimes a diminution of town councillors, or a promulgation of a stamp act for legal documents, was violently resisted, and the rebellion had to be quenched by an armed force, as, for example, in Guienne and Brittany from 1673 till 1675.

[489] Taxes are meant here.

[490] Adolphe de Belleforière, Chevalier de Soyecourt, a captain of the gendarmes of the Dauphin, died two days after the battle of Fleurus (July 1, 1690), of wounds received in this battle, in which his elder brother, the Marquis de Soyecourt, was also killed. Both those young men were the sons of Maximilien Antoine, Marquis de Soyecourt, _grand veneur_, who died in 1679, and was the original of Dorante in Molièreʼs comedy _Les Fâcheux_. The name of the Marquis is often mentioned in the lampoons of the times for his reputation of valour in other fields than those of Mars. La Bruyère was a friend of the family, whose name was always pronounced Saucourt, and even sometimes written so.

[491] Dijon, the former capital of Burgundy, had been besieged in 1515 by thirty thousand men, who retired after the conclusion of a treaty of peace which the king, Francis I., did not ratify. Corbie, a town in Picardy, was taken when Burgundy and Picardy were invaded by the Imperials in 1636.

[492] This refers to the League of Augsburg, a coalition of England, Germany, Spain, Holland, Sweden, and Savoy against Louis XIV., with whom they were at war when this paragraph was published in 1691.

[493] Olivier le Daim, first the barber of Louis XI. (1423-1483), became his favourite, but was hanged in 1484, after that kingʼs death. Jacques Cœur, a rich merchant, rendered great services to Charles VII. (1403-1461), became his treasurer, and was accused of peculation; thrown into prison, he escaped, and died in exile in 1461. The characters of both these men were not very well known when La Bruyère wrote.

[494] The Imperial cavalry had a well-deserved reputation for cruelty and rapaciousness.

[495] Another allusion to the battle of Fleurus, won by the Marshal de Luxembourg about a year before this paragraph was published (1691).

[496] This refers to Mons, besieged by Vauban, and taken on the 9th of April 1691.

[497] In the month of July 1690, a rumour spread in Paris that William III. was dead, upon which many people publicly rejoiced, until the news came that the report was false. The “Keys” of the old English versions name for the first and second prince “the Duke of Savoy and the king of Spain.”

[498] The original has _halles et fauxbourgs_, “markets and suburbs.”

[499] The letters T. K. L. stand for Tækely, a Hungarian nobleman who broke out in open rebellion against the Emperor of Austria, Leopold I. (1640-1705), and gained a victory over the Imperial troops on the 21st of August 1690.

[500] At that time the Sultan was Soliman II., who only reigned from 1687 until 1691.

[501] The Grand Vizier Kara-Mustapha laid siege to Vienna in 1683.

[502] A league formed in the Hague against France was called “The Triple Alliance,” and was entered upon in 1668 between England, Holland, and Sweden. Sometimes the treaty formed in 1717 between George I., the Regent of France, and the United Provinces is also called “Triple Alliance.”

[503] Cerberus, a dog with three heads, which keeps guard in the infernal regions.

[504] According to the commentators, two insignificant newsmongers are supposed to be portrayed in Demophilus and Basilides, an Abbé de Sainte-Hélène and a certain du Moulinet, whom some think might have been an abbé or a magistrate, because instead of clothes he speaks of his _robe_ or gown.

[505] Proteus, in the mythology, is a sea-god residing in the Carpathian Sea, who could change his form at will.

[506] This paragraph is the longest La Bruyère has written; it covers between eight and nine pages in the original edition.

[507] An indirect homage to the assumed gravity of Louis XIV.

[508] Most probably this is a discreet allusion to Madame de Maintenon, whom the king had married in 1684, and in whose room generally a Council of State was held.

[509] _Bas de saye_, in the original, is a plaited petticoat worn in Louis XIV.ʼs time by actors in classical tragedies; it owes its name to the Latin _sagum_, a military cloak of the ancient Gauls. _Brodequins_ was the name given to the buskins of comic actors; the tragic actors strutted in their _cothurnes_.

[510] This paragraph only appeared for the first time in the fourth edition of the “Characters,” published in 1689, and disappeared, never to be printed again, two years afterwards. It was probably suppressed for fear of offending either Louis XIV., who had allowed his former favourites, Bussy-Rabutin and Lauzun, to reappear at court (see page 18, note 5, and page 218, note 2), or of hurting the feelings of these two noblemen, above all of Bussy-Rabutin, who, after being admitted to the presence of the King, twice left a court where he felt he was not wanted, and could not obtain any command in the army.

[511] This refers to Cardinal Georges dʼAmboise (1460-1510), Prime Minister of Louis XII.

[512] Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642) is meant.

[513] In politics, La Bruyère was in advance of his age, but not in religious questions. He shared the idea of “the extirpation of heresy,” not alone with almost all the prelates of his time, but with some of the most eminent men in science, art, and literature, who all applauded the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685), and advocated the notion of one religion for the whole State.

[514] This is an allusion to the reduction of the interest on the French debt, and the calling in and recoining of certain monies, a measure which was often taken by the French kings, and even by Louis XIV., who, however, made no profit by it. See also page 152, note 2.

[515] Colbert has been wrongly accused of having made money by those means; an accusation which was also brought against Mazarin, Fouquet, and the _fermiers généraux_, on far better grounds.

[516] Our author had to conciliate Louis XIV. at a time when it was supposed the publication of the “Characters” might make him many enemies. Hence the direct and indirect flatteries he bestows on the king, who prided himself on his complete mastery of details, for which he was praised by some and blamed by others; and amongst these latter must be reckoned Fénelon, who in his _Telemachus_ (Book xvi.) criticises Louis XIV. in the character of Idomeneus. That the king had a talent for mastering details cannot be doubted, and this is even admitted by the late John Richard Green, in his “Short History of the English People,” chap. ix. sect. vii., whose opinion of Louis XIV. I transcribe here, as a corrective of the flatteries scattered on this royal despot by La Bruyère: “Louis the Fourteenth, bigoted, narrow-minded, commonplace as he was, without personal honour or personal courage, without gratitude and without pity, insane in his pride, insatiable in his selfishness, had still many of the qualities of a great ruler; industry, patience, quickness of resolve, firmness of purpose, a capacity for discerning greatness and using it, an immense self-belief and self-confidence, and a temper utterly destitute indeed of real greatness, but with a dramatic turn for seeming to be great.”

[517] An allusion to an operation for fistula performed on Louis XIV. in 1686.

[518] Voltaire, in his _Siècle de Louis XIV._, says: “From 1663 until 1672 every year some new manufactory was established. The fine cloths formerly imported from England and Holland were manufactured at Abbeville.... The cloth manufactories of Sedan, which had almost gone to wreck and ruin, were re-established.” See also page 48, note 3.

[519] Louis XII. was called by the States-General assembled at Tours (1506) the “father of his people.”

[520] Such was, however, the opinion of Louis XIV. himself, who states in his _Mémoires_: “Kings are absolute masters, and naturally dispose fully and entirely of all the property possessed by the clergy and laity.”

[521] This is another flattery intended for Louis XIV., who thought that his ministers got their talents “by virtue of their office.” The word _subalternes_, “subordinates,” seems also out of place applied to such men as Colbert and Louvois.

[522] Louis XIV. was certainly not displeased when his presence awed those who were presented to him.

[523] All those excellent qualities, which La Bruyère thinks are necessary to a sovereign, were those generally attributed to Louis XIV., and which Saint-Simon also ascribes to him in his _Mémoires_.

[524] Another hit at the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

[525] A reference to the royal edicts against duelling.

[526] Louis XIV., from 1667 to 1685, promulgated several laws reforming abuses in civil and criminal jurisprudence, and abolishing certain restrictions on trade, commerce, etc.

[527] To say that Louis XIV. increased by his example the influence of religion and virtue, can only apply to him after his marriage with Madame de Maintenon. See page 258, note 3.

[528] An allusion to the declaration of the liberties of the Gallican Church, published in 1682, and said to be written by Bossuet.

[529] The commentators of La Bruyère do not explain why the subsidies to be granted to the king were lighter in the provinces. Can it be that in certain provinces, called _pays dʼétat_, the subsidies voted by the provincial states were smaller than those voted by the authorities appointed by the king in those provinces not belonging to the _pays dʼétat_, and called _pays dʼélections_?

[530] This allusion must greatly have pleased Louis XIV., who thought himself great as a strategist and as a politician.

[531] Although this paragraph is only half the size of paragraph 12, page 253, there is only one full stop in it in the original, and that is at the end.

[532] The original has _avec_, which, in the seventeenth century, often was used for “in spite of.”

[533] The author adds in a note: “This is not so much a portrait of one individual, as a collection of anecdotes of absent-minded persons. If they please, there cannot be too large a number of them, for as tastes differ, my readers can pick and choose.” The chief traits of Menalcas are based on stories related by the Count de Brancas, who died eleven years before the above paragraph first saw the light (1691); others are said to have happened to the Prince de la Roche-sur-Yon, afterwards Prince de Conti (1664-1709), and to a certain Abbé de Mauroy, chaplain to Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Eustace Budgell (1685-1736) depicts in No. 77 of the “Spectator” “an absent man,” and also speaks of Monsieur Bruyère, who “has given us the character of an absent man with a great deal of humour;” and then prints “the heads” of Menalcasʼ portrait. According to Wattʼs _Bibliotheca Britannica_, Budgell was the author of a translation of La Bruyèreʼs “Characters,” published 1699 and 1702; but in the edition of 1702 there is on the title-page, “made English by several hands.”

[534] Many of the streets in Paris were so narrow when our author wrote, that two people could hardly pass abreast; it was, therefore, the fashion to “give the wall,” as it was called, to persons of a superior rank.

[535] See page 243, note.

[536] The wigs were already worn very long, and completely concealed the ears.

[537] See page 164, note 1.

[538] There was usually only one or two arm-chairs in a reception-room, reserved for the master or mistress of the house, or for both.

[539] It was reported that Brancas, _chevalier dʼhonneur_ of the queen-mother, Anne of Austria (1602-1666), behaved in almost a similar manner to his royal mistress.

[540] Blotting-paper was not invented when our author wrote; even now it is not unusual abroad to find the ink of letters dried with sand, either plain or coloured.

[541] _Balais_ in French, a kind of pale-coloured ruby, so called, according to Littréʼs _Dictionnaire_, from Balakschan or Balaschan, not far from Samarcand.

[542] The king used to hunt at Fontainebleau almost every day in October. See also page 174, note 4.

[543] There existed a great deal of coarseness at the court of Louis XIV. underneath a semblance of extreme polish and refinement, and some of the stories told by Saint-Simon of the habits and customs of the king himself would not bear repeating at the present time, and even be considered disgraceful by the lowest classes of society. As an example of this general coarseness, it will, no doubt, have been observed that it was the usual habit of decent people to expectorate on the floor (see page 277, line 12), as well as to throw there the wine they did not wish to drink; for Menalcas is only laughed at for his absence of mind, and not for his bad habits. See also in the chapter “Of the Gifts of Fortune,” § 83, the character of Phædo, page 161, and in the chapter “Of Society, etc.,” the character of Troïlus, page 106, § 13.

[544] See page 65, note 1.

[545] In the Convent of the Carthusians, then near the Luxembourg, were to be found the twenty-two celebrated pictures of Eustache Lesueur (1616-1655), representing the history of Saint Bruno, founder of that order, who died in 1101. The greater part of these pictures is now in the Louvre.