Part 13 (2/2)
It was frank, often brutally frank, a characteristic due partly to the conversational license of the salons. With its Fontenelle, Voltaire, Piron, etc., it was indeed a happy century. A _bon mot_ was the event of the day and travelled over all the civilized world.
Feeling keenly the need of a guiding principle, the need of a more substantial foundation in education, the women of the century thought and wrote much on that subject; such was, for the most part, the work of the great salons, but in them the philosophical tenets of the age were also discussed. The spirit of criticism thus created and cultivated, which finally spread through all cla.s.ses of society, gradually conquered the new power in the state--public opinion which, at the end of the century, ruled supreme in all its strength and vehemence, defying every effort of the government to stifle it. The highest form of agreeable and intellectual society which the world has ever seen attained to its most complete development in these salons.
Every century has had its specialty: the twelfth had its crusades, the sixteenth its religious struggles, the seventeenth its grand _gout_, the eighteenth its conversation and love of reason, the nineteenth its political struggles; and each one displayed the French pa.s.sion for _esprit_; the eighteenth, however, was, _par excellence_, the century of _esprit_, and it was most remarkably developed in woman.
”Such astonis.h.i.+ngly loquacious people as lived in Paris in the eighteenth century! ineffective, sardonic, verbose, sociable, intellectual, elegant, immoral--grand gentlemen and ladies, with tears for mimic woes and none for actual ones, praise for wit, rewards for cleverness, and absolute ignorance of the destinies they were preparing for themselves;” such is the story of women and society of the eighteenth century. Among these women the salon leaders will be found the most attractive, and the most influential in literature, theory of government, and social and moral development; to the mistresses belongs the t.i.tle of ”politicians.”
_La Menagerie de Mme. de Tencin_ was one of the earliest of the eighteenth-century salons, although, in the strict sense of the word, Mme. de Tencin's salon was of a political rather than a literary nature. Successively nun, mistress, mother, she was one of the shrewdest women of the century. Born in 1681, she early became a nun; but such was the character of her life at the convent that it was not long before she became a mother. In 1714 she abandoned her conventual life and went to Paris, where she rose to influence as the mistress of Cardinal Dubois and of the regent, the Duke of Orleans. At Paris her real activity began; she arrived at that gay capital with no other collateral than a pretty face and an extraordinary cunning, which soon brought her a fortune. Fertile in resources of all kinds, she succeeded immediately, and gained for her nephew the cardinal's hat.
In 1717 was born to her the afterward famous d'Alembert, whom she left upon the steps of the church Saint-Jean-le-Rond; afterward, when he had become eminent and her power was waning, she unsuccessfully used every means at her command to gain his favor and recognition; the father of that child was the Chevalier Destouches.
About 1726, when lovers were numerous and friends plentiful, the death of Lafresnaye occurred at her salon. In his testament he stated that his death was caused by Mme. de Tencin; however, she was too shrewd, cunning, and careful to be guilty of permitting any weak points to appear in her plots, and it was not difficult for her to clear herself of that charge by the verdict of the judges, who considered the accusation a posthumous vengeance.
The great literary men whom Mme. de Tencin gathered about her, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marivaux, Helvetius, Marmontel, were called her menagerie, or her _betes_. Among them, Marivaux received a pension of one thousand ecus from her, besides drawing at will upon the exchequer of an old maid by the name of Saint-Jean. Marmontel, desirous of writing tragedies, took lessons from the famous Mlle.
Clairon--at his friend's expense. To give a correct idea of the character of woman's influence upon the literary style of that century, the words of Marmontel may be quoted: ”He who wishes to write with precision, energy, and vigor, may live with man only; but he who in his style wishes to have subtleness, amenity, charm, flexibility, will do well, I think, to live with woman.”
Mme. de Tencin exerted an immense influence upon the men of her circle, especially socially; for example, she married the wealthy M.
de La Popeliniere to Mlle. Dancourt. She was one of the few really consummate diplomats; later on, she became less a.s.sociated with intrigues, and gave lessons in current diplomacy, with which she was perfectly familiar. Her counsel to her pupils was to gain friends among women rather than among men. ”For,” she would say, ”we do whatever we wish with men; they are so dissipated, or so preoccupied with their personal interests, that to give attention to them would be to neglect your own interests.”
Every New Year's Day the _betes_ of her menagerie received two yards of velvet, to make knickerbockers to be worn at her receptions; this custom was observed up to the last year of the existence of her salon.
Her receptions were among the first of the kind in France. Like the majority of salon leaders, she was an auth.o.r.ess of no mean ability.
Her novels were widely read at the time--_Le Siege de Calais_ and _Les Malheurs de l'Amour_. Her memoirs, throwing light upon the intrigues and plots, social animosities, and general state of the society of the time, are historically valuable. She died in Paris, in 1749.
Among all the great salons, that of Mme. de Tencin was the only one in which gambling was indulged in on a wholesale scale; fortunes changed hands every evening, a large part of the gains always falling to the lot of the hostess, as a sort of ”rake off.” She herself was a professional at the business, and by receiving private information from headquarters, through her famous friend Law, the _controleur-general_, and her lover Dubois, she was able to acquire an immense fortune which she distributed freely among her friends and favorites. Her place among the literary salon leaders depends mainly upon her endeavors to advance the interests of the aspiring young authors who were willing to place themselves under her protection.
After the death of Mme. de Tencin and that of Mme. de Chatelet, who had received many of the celebrities of the time, there remained but two distinguished, purely literary and philosophical salons open in Paris. By right of precedence, the _betes_ should have gone over to the salon of Mme. du Deffand, as she had been established some years when Mme. Geoffrin began to receive at her residence, which gained its first renown through the exquisite dinners served there. But the _betes_ all flocked to the _salon bourgeois_, and consequently a more brilliant gathering never a.s.sembled in a salon; here sat, enjoying the liberal hospitalities, Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Marmontel, Helvetius, Diderot, D'Alembert, Thomas, D'Holbach, Hume, Morellet, Mlle. de Lespina.s.se, the Marquis de Duras, Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne. Here, conversation--which, in the eighteenth century, was not only a discussion or a dissertation, but an art--reached its highest development; the members did not need to be eloquent, to expatiate upon some theory or science; the conversation moved about the members, and they had to be a part of it.
Mme. Geoffrin was born in Paris in 1699, and was the daughter of M.
Rodet, _valet de chambre_ of the dauphiness, d.u.c.h.esse de Bourgogne, mother of Louis XV. When barely fifteen she was married to the wealthy M. Geoffrin, the so-called founder of the celebrated _Manufacture des Glaces de Gobelins_. Through his wealth and his a.s.sociations with people of n.o.bility who bought his ware, she was soon encouraged in her desire to entertain the n.o.bility; and her _esprit_, tact, intelligence, and admirable taste in dress were all effective in bringing about the desired results.
Her career was one of continual successes. When she opened her salon, in 1741, she inst.i.tuted the custom of receiving her friends at table, not only men of letters, but artists, architects, builders, painters, sculptors, all men of genius and prominence. Monday was the day reserved for artists exclusively; Marmontel, who lived with Mme.
Geoffrin for ten years ”as her tenant,” and the indispensable Abbe Morellet were the exceptions who might be present upon that day. From the very beginning she formed the habit of permitting conversation to go just so far, then cutting it off with her famous: _Voil qui est bien!_
Her husband was the _maitre d'hotel_, of whom many interesting anecdotes are told; the best and one that ill.u.s.trates well the appreciation of individuals in those days is the following, which is so admirably told by Lady Jackson that we quote from her: ”For some years, there sat at the bottom of Mme. Geoffrin's dinner and supper table a dignified-looking, white-haired old gentleman, bland in manner, but very modest and retiring, speaking only when spoken to, but looking very happy when the guests seemed to enjoy the good cheer set before them. When, at last, his customary place became vacant, and some brilliant b.u.t.terfly of madame's circle of _visiteurs flottants_, who, perhaps, had smiled patronizingly upon the silent old gentleman, becoming aware of his absence, would, perchance, carelessly inquire what had become of her constant dinner guest, madame would reply: _Mais, c'etait mon mari. Helas! il est mort, le bon homme._ [Why, that was my husband! alas, he is dead, poor man!] Just so little was the consideration shown this worthy creature in his own house! Yet it both pleased and amused him to sit there silently and gaze at the throng of rank, fas.h.i.+on, and learning, a.s.sembled in his wife's salon, and to witness her social success.”
After the death of Mme. Geoffrin's husband, the immense fortune pa.s.sed under her own management, whereupon began her real career as a social arbitress, during which she is said to have tempered both opinions and characters. Thomas said of her that ”she was, in morals, like that divinity of the ancients which maintained or reestablished limits.”
She was a great patroness of arts and her rooms were decorated with pictures by Vanloo, Greuze, Vernet, Robert, etc. She and her salon became, in time, the acknowledged judge and dictator of matters literary and artistic. Whenever a financier wished to purchase a certain work of art, it was taken to her Monday dinner, where the artists determined its artistic value and fixed the price. Her house was a real museum; there the precious Mariette collection was on permanent exhibition.
Besides her Monday dinners to artists and her Wednesday dinners to the literary world, she gave private luncheons to a select few who were especially congenial. At those functions, such celebrities as the Comtesses d'Egmont and de Brionne, the Marquise de Duras, and the Prince de Rohan were frequent guests.
Mme. Geoffrin was shrewd and tactful enough to avoid politics and not to permit discussions of a political nature at her salon--precautions which she observed to keep the government from interfering with her fortune and mode of living. Her salon and dinners became so famous that every foreigner going to Paris had the ambition to be received at Mme. Geoffrin's; when any aspirant was successful in this, she would say to her friends: _Soyons aimables_ [Let us be kind]. She spent freely of her immense fortune constantly seeking and aiding the poor.
Persons who refused to accept her charity found little favor with her; Rousseau was one of these. It was her habit to go frequently to see friends, merely to ascertain their wants and to satisfy them. The Abbe Morellet, Thomas, D'Alembert, and Mlle. de Lespina.s.se (the only lady admitted to her Wednesdays) were given liberal pensions. Upon each New Year's Day, in commemoration of Mme. de Tencin, she sent each Wednesday guest a velvet cap. Her motto was: _Donner et pardonner_ [Give and forgive].
Stanislas, King of Poland, her _protege_, whom she had rescued from the debtor's prison in Paris, and to whom she had shown many favors, upon being elected King of Poland in 1764, said to her: _Maman, votre fils est roi_ [Mamma, your son is king]. Two years later, when she paid him a visit, the leading members of the Polish n.o.bility met her on the road, and the king had a special residence prepared for her.
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