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| author | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2025-12-19 14:11:32 -0800 |
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| committer | www-data <www-data@mail.pglaf.org> | 2025-12-19 14:11:32 -0800 |
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+ display: inline-block; +} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; +} + +.footnotes { + margin-top: 1em; + border: dashed 1px; +} + +.footnote { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + font-size: 0.9em; +} + +.footnote .label { + position: absolute; + right: 84%; + text-align: right; +} + +.fnanchor { + vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none; +} + +.gothic { + font-family: 'Old English Text MT', 'Old English', serif; +} + +.larger { + font-size: 150%; +} + +.mid { + font-size: 125%; +} + +.noindent { + text-indent: 0; +} + +.pagenum { + position: absolute; + right: 4%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; +} + +.poetry-container { + text-align: center; +} + +.poetry { + display: inline-block; + text-align: left; +} + +.poetry .stanza { + margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em; +} + +.poetry .verse { + padding-left: 3em; +} + +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3.0em;} +.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2.0em;} +.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1.0em;} +.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0.0em;} +.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1.0em;} +.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 3.0em;} +.poetry .indent14 {text-indent: 4.0em;} +.poetry .indent22 {text-indent: 8.0em;} + +.right { + text-align: right; +} + +.smaller { + font-size: 80%; +} + +.smcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; +} + +.allsmcap { + font-variant: small-caps; + font-style: normal; + text-transform: lowercase; +} + +.titlepage { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 3em; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.tp { + margin: auto; + max-width: 30em; +} + +.transnote { + background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + text-align: center; + font-size: smaller; + padding: 0.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker img { + max-width: 100%; + width: auto; + height: auto; +} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry { + display: block; + margin-left: 1.5em; +} + +.x-ebookmaker blockquote { + margin: 1.5em 5%; +} + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowp53 {width: 53%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp53 {width: 100%;} + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77508 ***</div> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p> + +<h1>THE WOMEN OF THE RENAISSANCE<br> +<span class="smaller">A STUDY OF FEMINISM</span></h1> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="OPINIONS_OF_THE_FRENCH_PRESS">OPINIONS OF THE FRENCH PRESS.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>“M. de Maulde has exhausted the subject, and gives us a sort of bible +of the feminine life.”—<i>Revue des Deux Mondes.</i></p> + +<p>“Among the numerous writings on feminism which have appeared in +these latter days, none is more complete and entertaining than M. de +Maulde’s.”—<i>Journal des Débats.</i></p> + +<p>“M. de Maulde has written a most captivating volume, which will +remain a definitive monument henceforth indispensable to anyone who +wishes to know the history of the French soul.”—<i>Revue des Revues.</i></p> + +<p>“The question of feminism has been treated in masterly fashion by +M. de Maulde in his fine book on <i>The Women of the Renaissance</i>. And +while he draws the completest picture of French and Italian society in +the 15th and 16th centuries, and groups his finished portraits with +accomplished art, he at the same time marvellously depicts the charm +and the influence of women at that curious epoch.”—<i>République Française.</i></p> + +<p>“It is almost impossible to name a more fascinating book for anyone +interested in history.... We have no idea of attempting to sum it up or +condense it in a few pages; it would suffer too seriously in the process; we +should merely like, without recommending it (which would be superfluous) +to the attention of our readers, to indicate its merit, its charm, and its +opportuneness.”—<i>Correspondant.</i></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Extract from a Review in</span> <i>The Athenaeum</i>.</p> + +<p>“M. de Maulde writes in great detail and with commendable erudition +on the position of women and the feminist movement of the sixteenth +century as it shaped itself in Italy and, later, in France. These studies of +the woman of those days, in all her social relations and in all her activities, +are illustrated with an unceasing flow of anecdote and citation, never more +apt than when employed to characterise that remarkable group who were +imbued with the so-called ‘idées platoniciennes.’... After a really +interesting sketch of the composition of that curious amalgam which finds +its complete expression in the harangue of Bembo ... M. de Maulde +draws many inferences which have a direct application to the feminist +movement of our own day; in contrast, for instance, with the mystical +ardours of Renaissance platonism we hear of the naturalism of John +Ruskin. For this reason the book will, we think, attract a wide circle of +readers; many ... will be delighted by its store of lively and significant +anecdote.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="frontispiece" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/frontispiece.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="tp"> + +<p class="titlepage larger">The Women of<br> +the Renaissance</p> + +<p class="center mid"><i>A Study of Feminism</i></p> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">By</span><br> +R. de Maulde la Clavière</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smaller">Translated by</span><br> +George Herbert Ely</p> + +<div class="epigram-container"> + +<div class="epigram"> + +<p>“The path of a good woman is indeed +strewn with flowers, but they rise behind +her steps, not before them.”—<span class="smcap">Ruskin.</span></p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<p class="titlepage"><i>With a Portrait of the Author</i></p> + +<p class="titlepage">New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons<br> +London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Lim.<br> +1900</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p> + +<p class="dedication"><span class="gothic">To</span><br> +WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY<br> +<span class="allsmcap">EDITOR OF TUDOR TRANSLATIONS<br> +THIS VERSION IS<br> +INSCRIBED</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CORRIGENDA">CORRIGENDA</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="transnote">Transcriber’s Note: These corrections have been applied.</div> + +<p><a href="#Page_8">Page 8</a>, line 21, <i>for</i> Women’s <i>read</i> Woman’s.</p> + +<p><a href="#Page_39">Page 39</a>, foot-note, <i>for</i> precèdent l’amour <i>read</i> procèdent de l’amour.</p> + +<p><a href="#Page_148">Page 148</a>, line 20, <i>for</i> Saint-Marthe <i>read</i> Sainte-Marthe.</p> + +<p><a href="#Page_191">Page 191</a>, line 13, <i>for</i> Joconda <i>read</i> Gioconda.</p> + +<p><a href="#Page_191">Page 191</a>, line 22, <i>for</i> exuberance <i>read</i> encumbrance.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE">TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE</h2> + +</div> + +<p>No mere translator can hope to preserve the style of his +original, and herein M. de Maulde is bound to suffer more +than most writers. There is no one to whom Buffon’s +phrase, <i>Le style est l’homme même</i>, may be more justly +applied. His work is absolutely himself; it derives from +his original personality and his wide and sure learning +an historical value and a literary charm almost unique. +He is a wit with the curiosity and patience of the scholar, +and a scholar with the temperament of the artist. The +sparkle and humour of his conversation are crystallised +in his letters, the charming expression of a large and +generous nature.</p> + +<p>Trained at the École des Chartes, M. de Maulde held +for a few years an appointment in the prefectoral administration. +But his tastes drew him rather to history than +to politics. In 1886 he founded the Société d’Histoire +diplomatique, of which he has been the life and soul, +and which owes its success mainly to his activity and +enthusiasm. He is the founder also of the Congrès internationaux +d’histoire, of which the first was held at the +Hague in the summer of 1898, when official delegates +from all the great countries of the world met amicably +to discuss international relations in the cold light of +scientific history. For many years he has been a member +of our Royal Society.</p> + +<p>But it is above all as a student of the Renaissance +that M. de Maulde takes high rank among contemporary +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>scholars. He has made a close study of that great movement, +in regard both to the internal politics of France +and the origins of modern diplomacy, and to the general +march of ideas and the evolution of manners. The results +of his studies are embodied in a remarkable series of +works, the earliest being a book entitled <i>Les Origines de +la Révolution française au commencement du xviᵉ siècle</i>—a +brilliant picture of French Society at that critical +epoch. This was succeeded by the first part, in three +volumes, of an <i>Histoire de Louis XII.</i>, and this by the +three volumes entitled <i>La diplomatie au temps de +Machiavel</i>. Other works in the same series are two +volumes on <i>Jeanne de France, duchesse d’Orléans</i> and +<i>Louise de Savoie et François Iᵉʳ</i>. In all these M. de +Maulde shows the profound erudition and the just critical +sense to be expected in an historian of the school of Fustel +des Coulanges, together with a literary grace and a lightness +of touch with which the scientific historian is too +rarely endowed. His brief experience of official politics +seems to have left him with an urbane scepticism, a +benevolent irony, which serve only to set off his radical +enthusiasm for great ideas and for the great conceptions +of art. At bottom an idealist, he has interpreted with +insight and humour the aesthetic and spiritualist revolution +of the Renaissance, nowhere more characteristically +than in the present volume.</p> + +<p>With M. de Maulde’s consent the greater part of his +footnotes are omitted—mainly references to authorities +unknown or inaccessible to the English reader, and +useless without the complete bibliography omitted by +desire of the French publishers, MM. Perrin et Cie. +A few notes are added within brackets: for these and +for the Index the translator is responsible.</p> + +<p>The translator is under great obligations to the Baronne +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span>Louise Dupont-Delporte, who, at M. de Maulde’s request, +has compared the proofs of this book with the original +text, and to whose watchfulness and friendly care heartiest +acknowledgments are due. The same task of collation +was undertaken by Mr. David Frew, whose frank, tonic, +kindly criticism has been of the highest value. Thanks +are also tendered to all who in various ways and with +constant kindness have given their assistance in the +course of this work, among whom M. de Maulde himself +has laid the translator under a large debt of gratitude.</p> + +<p class="smaller"><i>August, 1900.</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> + +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">PREAMBLE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Masculinism of Anglo-Saxon countries—Feminism of Latin countries.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#PREAMBLE">Pages 1-5</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">INTRODUCTION</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Italian origin of the Renaissance feminist movement—Protests against + war, force, the materialisation of the religious spirit and the + hollowness of learning—Recourse to the affections—Quest of true + happiness—Idealism: woman chooses the method—“Love and + faith”—Crusade of love—Worship of life and hatred of death—Women + the motive-force of life—Active and tranquillising rôle of + Italian women in the 16th century—Conquest of France by the + new spirit—General sentiment of the new society.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">Pages 6-20</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc2"><i>BOOK I. FAMILY LIFE</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER I<br>MARRIAGE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Marriage, its realist character and its difficulties—The aim of marriage + not personal satisfaction—The girl married blindfold—The father—Marriageable + age—Interviews—Reflections of the father—Ideas + of the bridegroom elect—His physical and moral criterion—His + uneasiness—Final crisis—Ideas of Michelangelo and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span> + Raphael—Marriage ceremonies and festivities—Weddings at + Naples, Florence, and Venice—Behind the scenes—Weddings in + France—Brides’ journeys—Moral aspects.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_I">Pages 21-44</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER II<br>THE MARRIED WOMAN</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The genius of motherhood—Marriage a physical science—Domestic + difficulties—Platonism in marriage—Semi-wives—Wives in name + only—Vocation of women for medicine—Women as sick-nurses—as + doctors—Enfranchisement of women as regards medicine—Intimacies + between women and doctors—Women’s medical collections—Hygienic + rules—Neurasthenia—Woman as home-ruler—The + châtelaine—Her management of retainers—The science of + charity—Principles of great houses.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_II">Pages 45-69</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER III<br>THE CHILDREN</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1. <i>Maternity.</i>—Tendency to small families, its various causes—Marital + misfortunes—How new arrivals were received—Unpopularity of + feeding by the mothers—Children educated by the mother till the + age of seven—Old system of hardening—New system based on + reason. 2. <i>The Boys.</i>—Necessity of developing individualism among + them—Paternal education—Growing influence of the mother—College + life—Greatness and decadence of tutors—Understanding + between tutors and mothers—Excessive production of young men + of fashion—Influence of the new ideas—Decline of the spirit of + toil and discipline.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_III">Pages 70-85</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IV<br>THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Girls brought up solely by their mothers—Old theory of early marriage—Education, + especially physical and moral—Opinion of moralists + and physicians: counsels of Anne of France—Utilitarian system + of Germany—The intensive school: Vivès; St. Theresa; the + Spanish system—The aesthetic school: Dolce; the Italian system—Louise + of Savoy—New theory of late marriage—Protests against<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span> + the realism of education—Tutors of girls—Moral freedom of girls—Protests + against what they read—The story for girls, after Anne + of France—The flirt—The hunt for a husband—Various ideas + on that matter—Coquetry, intrigue, chambermaids—Jean Raulin’s + sermon—Open-air life.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_IV">Pages 86-108</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER V<br>THE HUSBAND, AND THE VARIOUS WAYS OF SLIPPING HIS YOKE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The husband lord and master: his absolute authority—The stick—The + wife’s insignificance—The husband’s grievances against marriage—The + wife’s grievances—Beware love!—<i>Modus vivendi</i>—Women + dowered or not: growth of women’s influence on the dowry system—Practical + philosophy—Unsatisfied affections—Wives separated + or divorced—Widows—Sentimental finery—The wife of a dead + husband—Classical widows: their spirit of order and piety—Gay + widows—Widows’ virtue—Advantages and disadvantages of + widowhood—Re-marriage—Sincerity of women’s praise of + marriage.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_I_CHAPTER_V">Pages 109-135</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc2"><i>BOOK II. SOCIAL LIFE</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER I<br>PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Individualistic and anti-philosophic spirit of France—Flourishing of + the salons—Reign of money: legitimated in Italy—The Roman + programme—French society—Proposed remedies against Christian + socialism—Anne of France—School of Cardinal d’Amboise—Principles + of sentimental sociology—Social <i>raison d’être</i> of platonism—Its + Florentine origin—Development of the doctrine—Intellectual + aristocracy—Platonism a fashionable craze—Discussions on + the real character of love—Cataneo—Eloquent Bembo—Petrarchism—Elevation + of sentiments by platonism—Michelangelo—French + opposition to platonism—Triumph of platonism through + Italianism and feminism—Anne of France—Margaret of France + and her general philosophy.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_I">Pages 137-176</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER II<br>THE SCIENCE OF PLATONISM</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Is platonism dangerous for women?—Double system for catching men: + passion and sensibility—To spread love the end of life and the + secret of happiness—Platonic virtue—Criticism of this virtue in + practice—School of Anne of France—Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo—Philosophic + school—Multiplication and withdrawal of + favours—Love through duty—Love of princesses—The veil of + mystery—Practical recruiting of platonism—Sources of love or + second love.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_II">Pages 177-193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER III<br>THE MISSION OF BEAUTY</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Science consists in extracting the element of happiness from everything, + first of all from oneself—Beauty a social duty—Charm + has no physical rules—Women slight or the reverse; blondes; + the skin, the eyes—Corporeal beauty—Michelangelo and Dürer—Portraits + of women as Venus—Prudence of women—Artists and + their fancies—Jeanne of Aragon—Margaret of France—Receptions + in the morning—The ‘Innocents’—Art of retaining youth, or of + restoring youthfulness—A lady’s toilette—Fashion—Spiritual + significance of colours—Luxury—Architecture—Taste for fine + furniture.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_III">Pages 194-227</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IV<br>THE EMBROIDERY OF LIFE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The science of dining—Table-talk—Balls and dancing: custom of + kissing—Protests of the Reformers—Church—Pilgrimages—Gardens + and country life—Flowers—Pugs and parrots—The + horse—Hunting, Roman and platonist—Hunting philosophised; + Budé and Blondo—Park animals—Nature—Life at watering-places; + pure water; gravity and fun.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_IV">Pages 228-260</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER V<br>INTELLECTUAL RESOURCES</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The library—Curiosity divided and dilettante in character—Taste for + tales, jest-books, romances—The old poets—Music—Instruments, + the human voice—Intellectual music—Harmony—Sacred + music—Chamber music—The orchestra—Discussion on the abuse + of music—The theatre—‘Phaedra,’ Bibbiena—The <i>Calandra</i>—Opposition + to the theatre—French ideas.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_V">Pages 261-283</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VI<br>CONVERSATION</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Art of conversation: its supreme rôle—Women’s triumph—Tone of + conversation—Philosophical spirit—Variety of form—Subjects of + conversation—French conversation—Quips and cranks—Conversational + dallyings—Stories—Dissertations—Gaieties—Correspondence, + its revival—Family letters—Letters in the grand style—Tone + of letters—Some Italian letters.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VI">Pages 284-310</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc2"><i>BOOK III. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN</i></td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER I<br>POLITICAL INFLUENCE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Women remain strangers to the keener activities: war, justice—Women, + political in spite of themselves—Isabella of Aragon—Jeanne + of Aragon—Anne of France—Return from ambition to + love—Restless women—Renée of France—Purely defensive + heroism of women—Ladies of Sienna and Pisa—Isabella the + Catholic—Catherine Sforza—Woman according to Michelangelo.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_I">Pages 311-324</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER II<br>MORAL INFLUENCE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>The good old times—Moral degeneration—Ambition, money—Evil, to + be cured homœopathically as in Italy, or allopathically as in + Germany?—Virtue, must it necessarily be tiresome?—Raphael’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span> + embarrassment—The antiplatonists—Louise of Savoy, Rabelais—The + work of amelioration by two methods. (i) <i>The softening of</i> + <i>virtue</i>—Different systems in regard to marriage; free union; + system of contract; the double marriage—Firenzuola—Marriages + of affection—Secondary platonism, a compromise—Alms without + significance, to lure the human animal—Sipping at love, by + way of Italian dilettantism—The attack—Love a dream—Prayer. + (ii) <i>The ennoblement of vice</i>—Attempt at purification of carnal + love—The Italian courtesans, and their moral influence—Tullia + d’Aragona—Imperia—Venice—Francis I.—French system of the + double household—Diana of Poitiers—Bembo in tears—Infatuation—The + feminising of men—The question of the beard.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_II">Pages 325-371</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER III<br>INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Conquest of men by mind—Army of intellectual women—Isabella + d’Este—Anne of France—Margaret of France: her theory—The + friends and guests of Margaret—Intellectual headquarters of + France—Egerias —Difficulty of this government—Vittoria Colonna + and Aretino—Flatteries and compliments—Supervision of manuscripts—Affection—Pecuniary + aid—Necessity of feminine patronage.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_III">Pages 372-397</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER IV<br>INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE (<i>Continued</i>)</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Results of feminine influence—Literature in praise of women—Pompeo + Colonna—Two schools of taste: passion, sensibility—Castiglione—Literature + of conversation—Fugitive poems—Temples of high + poetry—Literature of poodles and birds—The ancestor of Vert-Vert—Spanish + women—France, Lyons—Accusation of frivolity—German + scepticism—The struggle in France—For or against + women—Timidity of Frenchwomen—Spirit of the prelates.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_IV">Pages 398-421</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER V<br>RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Progress of religious sensibility—Women compared to the moon—Entrance + of the sentimental spirit—Free enquiry at Rome and in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span> + Italy—Philosophic religion—Entrance on the scene of women as + priests, as well as physicians—Religious traditions of women in + France—Decay of faith—Roman liberalism—Situation of the + French clergy—Alliance between women and the aesthetic clergy—Liberal + principles of this alliance—The <i>bibliennes</i>—Aristocratic + religion—Writings of the mystic women: Gabrielle de Bourbon, + Catherine d’Amboise—The mystic writings of Margaret of France, + her ideas—Her relations with the <i>palinods</i>—The mystics—The + mysticism of divided application—Direct communion with God—Smiling + character of the new mysticism—Spiritual petrarchism—Correggio—Vittoria + Colonna—Vergerio.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_V">Pages 422-453</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CHAPTER VI<br>RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE (<i>Continued</i>)</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Scorners of mystic liberalism—The savants—Reproaches addressed to + the liberal party: paganism, materialism—Women’s struggle + against these tendencies—The monks: the monastic spirit—Struggle + against the monks: the pros and cons—Rabelais—Folengo—The + German monks—Rising of the lower clergy against + liberalism and aestheticism: Luther, Calvin—Struggle of the + Reformers against women and liberty of thought—Vittoria Colonna + and Ochino—Direction of the liberal and aesthetic party in France—Margaret + of France and her active rôle—Feminist theory of + Postel—Replies of Luther, the Sorbonne, the theological parties.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_VI">Pages 454-474</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdc">CONCLUSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Total want of success of the feminist movement—Disappointments of + Margaret of France—Reaction against cosmopolitanism and intellectualism—The + spirit of the Pléiade—Love of free air—Margaret + of Savoy—Fall of the Roman spirit—Montaigne—Last + effects of feminism—The triumph of Death—The mistakes of the + Renaissance feminism—Disappearance of the aesthetic system—Sensualism + of the 18th century—The naturalism of Ruskin.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CONCLUSION">Pages 475-503</a></td> + </tr> + <tr class="pad-top"> + <td>INDEX.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">Pages 504-510</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREAMBLE">PREAMBLE</h2> + +</div> + +<p>The woman question—what is more absorbing?</p> + +<p>What do women want? What do they demand? They +have been shamefully neglected. To judge by the code, there +never were such beings on earth. But the code has hallowed +iniquities. The education of women is pitiable. They ought +to know every thing—and are taught nothing. They are +deficient in intelligence—they are too intelligent. They +ought to have their separate careers, their separate circles, +their independence—to be the equals of their husbands, +to be men and yet remain women. They ought to have +votes—that, it appears, forms one element of happiness. +Many people in England are even dreaming of suppressing +marriage; and it must be observed that, as Englishmen +largely expatriate themselves, there is no lack of involuntary +spinsters, who are by no means the least ardent in prosecuting +the campaign. In short, it is a very babel. Everyone +has something to say. The press, the stage, the pulpit, +all resound with these questions—to say nothing of public +meetings, private meetings, at-homes, lectures. The subject +is well-nigh done to death; it has, moreover, a +special tendency to lose itself in mist, and there is no sort +of cohesion in outlook or aim.</p> + +<p>Nowhere is this anarchy more patent than in education. +How are you to tell young girls what they ought to be, +what they ought to learn and think and know, when you +are absolutely in the dark as to what you want to make of +them? Are they to play the same part in life as men, or to +perform public duties, equal, perhaps superior, to theirs, but +different? Are they to marry early, or late? Ought they +to see and know, before marriage, all there is to see and +know? Or is it their blissful privilege to enjoy the pleasant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>things of life in deliberate ignorance of all the rest, and, in +their piping time of peace, to turn the divine hours of youth +to the best advantage? Once married, what is their mission +to be? How far will it profit them to have learnt the whole +art of household management? Should they exercise any +influence out of doors? If so, what? Will their influence +consist in preserving their good looks and their skill in +dancing? Or is their influence to be a serious thing? Is +it to be intellectual, or religious, or moral, or artistic, or +scientific? These questions jostle one another in some +confusion.</p> + +<p>And the confusion is irritating, because it compels us +to grope our way haphazard. The education of girls has +seriously suffered thereby; it has been frittered away, has +bred a habit of easy contentment with superficial ideas +rather than of resolutely, earnestly, thoroughly mastering +what it is proper to know. The mind, like the body, has +its nervous system, and to obtain its full measure of energy +it is needful to husband its resources.</p> + +<p>Now, we may get some light on this complicated problem +if we refer it to experience, or, in other words, apply the +lessons of the past. We often encounter in the world, in +regard to history, and more especially the history of morals, +a singular prejudice in the form of a certain optimism (or +pessimism) which imbues us with the idea that we are +the first or almost the first denizens of the globe—that +all the generations whose blood flows in our veins, whose +feelings throb in our breasts, whose traditions govern our +thoughts, were composed of beings essentially unlike ourselves, +upon whom things must necessarily have made +different impressions. This idea is not absolutely correct; +in reality, we depend on our ancestors to an almost incredible +degree. We are fettered by innumerable bonds +of their bequeathing—bonds of love and hate, and prejudices +of every kind; they hold us in leash as we ourselves +hold our descendants. The generations flit by so swiftly +that they have barely time to transmit life ere they are +gone.</p> + +<p>Especially in regard to the condition of women, the +questions that are agitated to-day with more or less +airiness or vehemence are almost as old as the hills. At +certain periods they have been investigated more closely +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>than at others, and then learning, philosophy, and experience +have said their say.</p> + +<p>The Renaissance was one of the epochs at which these +questions pushed to the front. Like our own age, it was +a period of transition; its conclusions were often very +different from our own, but in some points it bore a +wonderful likeness to the present day. The position of +women then underwent an almost inevitable transformation, +both material and moral. Up to that time women +had been regarded as inferior to men; opinion was built up +on the practical and utilitarian basis still cherished in the +Anglo-Saxon countries: all modes of activity belonged to +the men, while the women’s duty was to remain at home as +domestic ornaments, precious, but fragile.</p> + +<p>Yet society was not wholly averse to granting women +what we call the right to a career. The Salic law was +exclusively a French invention, and the product of special +circumstances; in the political world there was nothing to +prevent the acceptance of aid from women, even in the midst +of the gravest perils. It was a woman—and a woman to +the finger-tips—Isabel of Bavaria, who all but ruined us; +Joan of Arc was our salvation. It is not too much to say +that, in later years, the honour and might of France were +saved by Anne of Beaujeu and Louise of Savoy. The same +thing holds from top to bottom of the social ladder. In +certain towns women might have been seen taking part +in elections in the public square;⁠<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> in many of the châteaux +the lady of the place, in the absence of her husband, fulfilled +the most trying and masculine of tasks, administering +justice, commanding the men-at-arms. Christine de Pisan +speaks of this, not as a right, but as a rigorous duty.⁠<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> Among +the working classes female labour was extensively employed, +at a fairly high rate of pay.</p> + +<p>But no one saw in this, as the opinion of Christine de +Pisan shows, a direct and natural outlet for women’s activities. +A woman was regarded as the subject of her husband, +and his deputy in case of need; hers was not a personal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>part; she was only the shadow or the extension of another +person—a sort of half-man, or, as caustic folk said, an +<i>homme d’occasion, mas occasionnatus</i>—a man marred in +the making. (It must be confessed that this idea is rather +hard on the ladies, and even on us men, more particularly +because Providence does not take us into consultation in +these matters, and all of us, men and women alike, have +the assurance of remaining to the end of our days male +or female as God made us.) On that system, it was +allowable for women in cases of absolute necessity to +perform the tasks of men, though the men could scarcely +offer to reciprocate; if there was no help for it, women +might adopt a trade or profession, but that appeared +undesirable. All the countries faithful to these ideas were +utilitarian countries, where men had incontestably the +upper hand, and where no great need was felt for lofty +flights.</p> + +<p>In the countries of Latin blood and spirit they start +from a principle absolutely the reverse. Women are not +at all “men for the nonce”; in the picturesque words of +good François de Moulins, addressed to his pupil Francis I., +“Never forget that women came from Adam’s side, not +from his feet.” They are not substitutes for men, but +have their own proper sphere. Castiglione has given us +the typical formula in his famous book <i>The Courtier</i>. +“Man,” says he, “has for his portion physical strength +and external activities; all doing must be his, all inspiration +must come from woman.” She is, in his own words, +the “motive force.” One recalls the smiling remark of +the charming Duchess of Burgundy: “I am always +delighted when it is women who govern, because then +it is men who direct.” But according to Castiglione, the +world ought to show the very opposite: men should +govern and women direct; men act, women think, or +mayhap dream. The former should have the material +tasks of administration and practical affairs; the latter +the spiritual and idealist realm. Looked at in this +way, it is obvious how much larger the woman’s part +suddenly becomes, and what supreme importance it holds +in the life of the world. Instead of serving her husband +merely as the material replenisher of his stock and an +under-manager for his affairs, the woman will carve out +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>her own path and enjoy personal freedom, and will be +the better able to lift up her head at home and in society +for knowing that she represents there something more than +the flesh; she will be the soul, the seeker after noble +thoughts—thoughts necessary to happiness, but which the +practical spirit of men scarcely permits them to pursue. +There will be no question (to the great disappointment +of certain modern aesthetes, who after all profit very +largely by the railways and telegraphs) of declaring a +relentless war against industry, manufactures, the business +of administration; this unpleasing but serviceable sphere +must simply be left to men, and upon this sordid earthly +existence must be erected the frail edifice of general +happiness—the true life—a life of enthusiasm, beauty, +and thought; in other words, we must relax the bonds +of the material life, take time to fetch our breath, and +infuse into realism a new and brighter spirit by means +of the love of the beautiful. That is women’s task; in +the words of Ecclesiastes, “Their hearts are snares and +nets, their hands are as chains.” They are the queens +of happiness, and they must compel us to be happy and +to enjoy the happiness necessary to us.</p> + +<p>With this end in view, the women of the Renaissance +formed a league: they accomplished on behalf of the +rights of the heart a sort of <i>coup d’état</i>, the story of which +we are about to relate. Finally, no one was happy after all. +But it is interesting to know why.</p> + +<p>First, let us explain in a few words how it came about +that in a country like France women were able to assume +so important a part. Then, we shall proceed to show how +vast was their effort, how ardent their quest for happiness, +and we shall see why the formula they discovered has not +come down to us.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</h2> + +</div> + +<p>France is a singular country. We are slightly Greek, +half Latin or Ligurian, very Gallic or very German, and +in the West, the country of an intellectual gulf-stream, +we are dreamers—the Celts of M. Legouvé’s enthusiasm. +All of us, whatever our stock, professed in the Middle +Ages to adore women; the author of an old <i>fabliau</i> +makes the Virgin ask of one of our gallant knights the +subtle and searching question, “Is thy lady fairer than +I?” But in practice—in other words, in our home life—we +treated women like animals, with the whip.</p> + +<p>We must remark also that, during the whole course of +the fifteenth century, France had no time for philosophising: +the Hundred Years War and the awful distresses resulting +from it; the iron hand and heavy taxation of Louis XI., +whose rule was regenerative but very severe; then the +Civil War and the Italian expedition—all these circumstances +left us no breathing-space, and are in some measure +the justification of an aftermath of brutality. It was only +in the last years of the century that peace allowed us to +reflect, and then activity, prosperity, and happiness burst +out like a lightning-flash. Louis XI., who had clear and +definite rights over France, had dealt with her like a +strenuous husband; Louis XII., who wedded her by chance, +treated her with the delicate worship of a lover who has +thrown off the every-day concerns of life.</p> + +<p>By what happy chance did the French, till then so apt, +whatever they professed, to value women only on the +physical side, take under the influence of kindly peace and +individual well-being a step further towards the South, +and come to think that women might serve as social guides? +The genesis of these ideas was very remarkable.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p> + +<p>They came from elsewhere.</p> + +<p>During our convalescence, Italy had become transformed. +A great revolution, moral, religious, scientific, and above all +aesthetic, had brought once more upon the arena the two +eternal protagonists—the Roman spiritualists, and the +friends of material force, that is, of imperial Germany.</p> + +<p>Men are in general inclined to the side of force; their +idea of happiness consists in imposing their will upon +others, no matter how brutally, or at any rate in donning a +uniform—they are born fighters or jockeys.</p> + +<p>Women, on the contrary, can only hope to exert direct and +effectual action by the spiritualising of society; and it is +not by handing themselves over to the tender mercies of +men, whoever they may be—husbands, lovers, doctors, +hydrotherapists—or by aping the manners and talk of +men, that they acquire their liberty. They are taken at their +own valuation, provided they accentuate their purely feminine +qualities.</p> + +<p>This was thoroughly understood by the women of Italy, +who managed so well that the crisis turned quite naturally +to their advantage, without any theories whatever.⁠<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Neither +the accepted classics nor Plato gave them any assistance; +they triumphed of themselves, and often at their own cost, +because they accomplished their own education before +undertaking that of others. Many of them, instructed, +stout-hearted, nobly generous, while men were wasting their +activities abroad, consistently embodied at home the superb +saying of Christ, “Let not your heart be troubled”—the +only prescription yet discovered for the cure of neurasthenia. +People poked fun at them, accused them of “wanting to +wear the breeches.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> Italian husbands were no more inclined +than others to fall at their wives’ feet and proclaim +their divinity: they accustomed themselves to them +gradually, almost unawares. It was natural that the disappointments, +vexations and trials of politics or business +should throw them in this direction; what was more fortunate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>and less expected was that, women having monopolised +all that made life worth living, men one day awoke to the +fact that women were the glory of all distinguished families, +and that, thanks to them, life had become an art, a passion.</p> + +<p>They began, then, by shedding a domestic radiance; it +was by filling their own home with light and hope and joy +that they began to quicken the world at large. The science +of happiness established itself under a wholly practical and +empirical form, like the science of medicine; for the heart +needs the ministry of healing, a more difficult and perhaps +more delicate art than that of the body. Where can you +apply a thermometer to test the temperature of the soul? +Moral sufferings have the peculiarity of concealing themselves, +even when physical collapse is the result; they are not +easily diagnosed, and no one understands them: and, further, +they manifest themselves oddly. It is in the pride of life, +when one feels strongest, that one is weak and in danger; +peace is more treacherous than strife, health more perilous +than sickness, strength feebler than weakness. Or, if one is +conscious of the mischief, one despairs of finding the remedy, +which consists of compassion and generosity. Woman’s +medicines are love and hate.</p> + +<p>Love—that is to give something derived from herself; to +act, not through that long-armed vulgar charity (though +this, too, has its merits—and is often very tiresome) which +aims at heading a subscription list or presiding at a public +meeting, but through that modest individual charity which +humbly and quietly diffuses a little affection, cheerfulness, +and enthusiasm. These are the real great ladies; to them, +giving is a necessity, a second nature. They are born +generous. They seek their own happiness in the happiness +of others, without stopping to ask themselves if their conduct +is philosophic.</p> + +<p>Hate! They detest and resolutely combat the elements +of force in which men most delight, but which, as women +believe, produce the worst ills; and these are, the power of +money, the power of war.</p> + +<p>The egotism of wealth they regard as the very source of +materialism, against which they cannot but struggle. On +this point the women of the Renaissance bore the brunt of +a long and skilfully fought battle, which we shall follow in +all its phases.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span></p> + +<p>As for war, that is the arch-enemy against which their +first blows are aimed. The little Italian wars of the Middle +Ages did not resemble the vast hecatombs of to-day, but +they bred a swarm of atrocities, tumults and feuds; war is +less cruel, perhaps, when it is not a mere pastime. To +storm a place at the opening of a campaign is regarded as a +humane act and good tactics, since in the long run it +shortens the struggle; but the horror of it! Naturally, +women are the worst sufferers. In vain do they push their +way through the flames to the feet of some cold stone angel +or some Madonna with her eternal smile; you see poor girls +flinging themselves into the water, and noble ladies going +about serenely and deftly to save what can be saved—their +husbands’ lives or their own fortunes. Many centuries had +passed since St. Augustine had offered his tender consolations +to the victims of the barbarians; they might appropriately +have been offered when the French captured Padua +or the Germans Rome, or even at that obscure assault of +Rivolta in 1509, when an Italian captain devoured the +heart of one of his political enemies, disembowelled the +man’s wife, and made horse-troughs of their corpses.</p> + +<p>Even if we ignore gross infamies like these, war was not +more humane. The historian of Bayard cannot find words +to celebrate the magnanimity of his hero in so generously +respecting two high-born maidens of Brescia who had received +him into their house, tended him and healed his +wounds with the devotion of sisters of mercy. And even in +times of peace military habits were commonly so intolerable +that quiet folk fervently prayed for a war to bring +them relief.</p> + +<p>For centuries sages and philosophers had been expatiating +on the evils of war; councils had attempted to intervene; +but war continued to flourish. The idea of suppressing it +seemed a mere Utopian dream.</p> + +<p>They might have tried at least to stem its flood by an +appeal to the co-operation of moral forces; but, singularly +enough, the more brilliant the fifteenth century in Italy +became in art and intellect, the more its moral forces +appeared to decline.</p> + +<p>Christianity, too often sunk into mere mechanical routine, +teeming with abuses, overloaded with observances, had +practically lost all influence. Side by side with a few +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>clergy somewhat above the rank and file in culture, there +was a crowd of empirics who rarely troubled their heads +with thinking things out for themselves; they discoursed, +not of love or hope, but only of faith—a faith which brutish +men wished to destroy, and the more refined few wished to +vivify, and which was thus doubly imperilled. The common +people were indifferent, and allowed themselves still to +be lulled by the old crooning melodies to which they were +accustomed; they remained Christian from sheer indolence, +like many men of quality; but it was open to question +whether the first shock would not set them clamouring for +a more lively tune—an “air of flutes and violins,” as Heine +said; paradise instead of hell.</p> + +<p>As to learning, the cultured were agreed in recognising +its failure; that, indeed, was beyond question. Men were +tired of reasoning, reading, writing, worrying! Learning +in tragic dismay sought only to prostrate itself before faith; +or rather, men asked themselves whether learning really +existed. Tiphernus, an eminent professor at the Sorbonne, +and in high favour at Rome, confesses that all this learning +so much belauded and paraded seemed to him nothing but +a means of earning a living for professors, a combination of +all the vanities, the technical slang of a crowd of pedants, +critics more or less ignorant, and shameless imitators, who +formed little cliques beyond whose pale there was no +salvation. “To believe them,” he exclaimed, “we are not +equal to the ancients”: then lions forsooth have lost their +ferocity, and hares their cowardice, for Providence shines +for the whole world, and it cannot be that man alone has +degenerated! A league of falsehood! he reiterates. Under +cloak of high culture men conceal their vices, and especially +their idleness. Do what we may, we are progressing: +every one of us is conscious of a forward impulsion. The +pontiffs of reason, who have painfully climbed the steep +ascent, wish to keep everything to themselves, and to +set up their books as a balk to the world, but all in vain; +they will never persuade us that their collapse is that of +nature.</p> + +<p>Tiphernus died about 1466. From that time forth +science was flouted. It gave the world, nevertheless, what +it was destined to give—fire-arms, Greece, many admirable +things—everything but happiness, which it had never +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span>undertaken to provide. And it was precisely on this point +that the great mistake was made. What, men asked, is the +good of learning, money, labour, or even semblances of joy, +if we are oppressed by a life of contention and heaviness? +Why are we born with wits, why should we rule multitudes, +thrill men’s souls, dwell in palaces, if our hearts are +empty? Suppose we wrest Nature’s secrets from her, work +every vein of ore, crop every blade of grass: suppose the +race of men to form one magnificent herd, fat and flourishing, +and even peaceably inclined—what is the good of it all +if there is no joy? All things live by love; the heart +makes itself heard above the claims of work, above the +intellect, demanding for life a recompense, a goal. We perish +for lack of something to love; out of mere self-pity we +ought to bestow on ourselves the alms of life, which is love. +All is vanity save this vanity, for before our birth, until our +death, throughout our whole existence, it bears in front of +us the torch of life.</p> + +<p>Perhaps it might be better if men could be governed +mechanically and reasonably from an armchair in the library +by dint of syllogisms. Unhappily, they love only what pleases +them; they are big, greedy children, listless and lazy if you +talk to them of reason, but ready to break their necks in +pursuit of an illusion. Hence it is very necessary to choose +one’s illusions well, and well to employ them.</p> + +<p>The eternal illusion is love.</p> + +<p>But what <i>is</i> love? That is the real question. If it is a +Petrarchan flower, we crush it under our steel-tipped boots; +if it is a coarse sensation, it crushes us, and we have to +wrestle with it. Thus we must arrive at a new fact—a love +which is neither a beautiful superfluity nor a vile sensual +thing; which, in short, is a direct outcome of the worship +of beauty.</p> + +<p>We must discover a new sensibility, lofty, strong, fruitful, +spiritual, almost sacerdotal, which serves to link minds +together in their common pursuit of a high ideal. To us +French this intricate problem seemed highly discouraging +and perhaps silly, but its importance was recognised in Italy, +the classic ground of love’s quintessences, where even to-day +a candidate for Parliament had better speak of love than of +the sugar bounties.</p> + +<p>The science of sensibility is to most men a fountain sealed; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>they always fancy themselves to be too robust! They march +straight on in parallel lines; military devotion is their virtue; +women alone can serve as a bond of union, soften and beautify +everything, cover with a varnish of glory and disinterestedness +the things that need it. Hence, besides their mission +at home, they may be said to have a social part of the first +importance to play; the more sensible men become to their +social influence, the higher is man’s civilisation.</p> + +<p>Now at the very period when France decided to move, the +women of Italy had long since shown what could be expected +of women in this direction. They often flaunted sentiments +which are open to the charge of audacity or naïveté, primitive +sentiments, à la Botticelli or Perugino, crude to a +degree; there were manifestly many women of young and +fresh affections who opposed to the simplicity of brute force +that charming form of simplicity, that adorable confidence +in the things of life, which the worship of the beautiful gives +to unsoiled souls. They are to the women of the eighteenth +century what Memling is to Watteau. Properly to understand +their spiritual condition we should have to do as they +did—solve the problem of feminism in the feminine way, +be women, and more than women—arch-women.</p> + +<p>The fulfilment of their natural vocation, namely, to look +after the amenities of life, was a pretty extensive office, in +a country where art and taste had so prominent a place. +But they went farther. They inculcated moral strength +through beauty; they dreamt of raising men, of plunging +into their life like rescuing angels. Some critics say that +the intervention of women is always a proof of men’s +decadence, and that when they save us, we are in parlous +need of saving. Unhappily that is our normal state. +Women assuredly represent the Red Cross of society; it is +the duty of us men to be purblind and case-hardened to the +brutalities of life, or even to find a certain happiness therein, +and to remain cold like a sword-blade; women have no +right to escape wounding by the despicable and shameful +things among us. They would prefer, you say, to remain +quietly gathering flowers behind their park walls; that is +perfectly true; they only act from a sense of duty, because +they no longer wish to serve as the stake of battles, because +there is no misery, no injustice, no disgrace for which a +woman of heart does not feel responsible. In fulfilling this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>mission they do not humble us; on the contrary, we can +have no higher ambition than to desire peace, no action can +less degrade us than to bend in respect before the noblest +things in the world—weakness and sentiment. It was the +conviction of all the sons of the Renaissance, and of its +great-grandsons (even the last and most sceptical of them, +like M. Mérimée), that sentiment has higher lights than +reason, and that certain intuitions of the heart unfold to us, +as in bygone days to Socrates, horizons hitherto beyond our +ken—a foretaste of the divine. Tired of spinning round in +the vain and narrow circle of reasoning, these men, sceptics +in their own despite, come to place their trust in sentiment, +in hope and love: they lean upon women who see things +with the eyes of love. In this they find a certain +happiness, and at all events the secret of strength. No +doubt the men of the fifteenth century did not attach to +the idea of number the philosophic importance given it since +their time; it was recognised that in the name of the rights +of intelligence a general should command a whole army, a +professor direct his pupils, a master his workmen; three +robbers united against one honest man, though in the majority, +did not appear to have right on their side; but it is none +the less true that intellectual isolation has always created a +situation of difficulty. “The vulgar may judge me as they +please and take me for what they will,” heatedly exclaims +Tiphernus, the professor of whom we have already spoken; +“let others please the multitude! As for me, I pride myself +on pleasing two or three.” All the clever men who speak so +eloquently are sure to be in bondage to some woman; for, +after all, the approbation of two or three men, howsoever +intelligent, would not carry them very far, while with the +enthusiasm of two or three women one can at a pinch be +satisfied. And thus the work of civilisation is accomplished; +vulgarity, even the vulgarity of common sense, is hidden +under a coating of the ideal, women having a horror of force, +of the law of number, of all that is banal and coarse.</p> + +<p>Such was the atmosphere, absolutely new and somewhat +overheated, in which the influence of women developed and +flourished. The revolution was a profound one: hitherto +the social system had turned entirely on the principle of the +good and the true, from which a practical and utilitarian +morality was derived. The idea of the beautiful was utterly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>mistrusted, and, far from believing in its purifying force, +many people saw in it only a cause of moral enfeeblement. +Men had preached a religion of gloom and manifold observances; +it seemed that there was no mean in life between +the virginal precepts of a catechism of Perseverance⁠<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and the +lowest stages of vice. And now the new generations were +no longer willing to regard earthly happiness as an illusion, +nor the love inculcated by the Gospel as a snare, and flattered +themselves on finding a means of building life upon liberty. +A mysticism, compact of snow and mist, had glorified self-repression, +scepticism in regard to earthly things, the joys of +suffering or at least the quest of happiness through resignation; +and its effect had been to raise a select few to a state +of ethereal perfection, and to unloose the mass of mankind +to an unbridled savagery. The moral pendulum had +oscillated violently between ether and mud, mud and ether, +a condition of instability like that described by M. Huysmans +to-day.</p> + +<p>And on the other hand people wished to live henceforth +under a calm and radiant sky; they talked of taking the +gifts of God as they found them, denying neither body nor +soul, but idealising everything. They contented themselves +with affirming the pre-eminence of the soul; apparently the +science of happiness was to consist in abstracting themselves +from the material and the personal and in going straight +back to ideas. From that time it truly belongs to women +to govern the higher world, the realm of sentiment. They +will lull the appetites to sleep; they will charm men of dull +burdened soul subdued to earth by daily toil; they will +choose out the refined, the buoyant in soul, to form them +into an intellectual aristocracy: the others will at least be +lifted a little above themselves.</p> + +<p>The refined are recognised by their thirst for the ideal. +At first blush one might suppose they will be met especially +among men of the upper classes, or at least among men of +leisure, for these are fortunate in being able to look into +their own hearts and to follow their own bent, and in +opportunities for gaining impressions. They are not deformed +by drudgery, they have bathed their souls in the +great sights of Nature; the Mediterranean, delicious and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>bewitching, has cradled them on her kindly bosom, and has +already accomplished for them half of the task by reflecting +the sky in her feminine smile. But no; for lack of discipline, +the idle tend toward sensuality. Consequently, +women will address themselves more especially to the men +who can work.</p> + +<p>And their scheme will be this. They will interpose, +almost like angels, between heaven and earth; they will +love us and we shall love them; they will gently invert the +order of things, so as to make of life a work of art. They +will efface two of the three blind forces which govern us—Death, +Fortune, and Love. If they do not prevent all failures +and weaknesses, they will cheer and comfort them by means +of a potent elixir, obtained from a God of philosophy, like +physicians who cure by allopathy. So many springs are +creaking and snapping for want of a drop of oil! they will +pour out that drop. So many noble things lack the sap of +life! they will give them that sap, that vitality, that soul. +The sap of love brings grapes from thorns!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Si l’amour fault, la foy n’est plus chérie;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Si foy périt, l’amour s’en va périe.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour ce, les ay en devise liez:</div> + <div class="verse indent0"><i>Amour et foy</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And thereby the transformation, or at any rate the +amelioration, of the world is to be achieved. Men are not, +perhaps, so intractable and brutal as they pretend; by their +own account they would be quite content to accomplish the +journey of life eating and sleeping behind drawn curtains. +We must not believe them. They have shut themselves up +in a bare workshop: throw open the windows, let the sun +stream broadly in, bringing light and warmth and the balmy +breath of nature. The effects of the old system of morality, +with its bolts and bars, have been seen only too often; the +loathing of vice, the noble pride of virtue and aesthetic +intelligence are also forces; and they alone can make of our +terrible abode a truly sacred dwelling, open, free, dear to our +hearts, the monument of human affection and of happiness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span></p> + +<p>Thus, briefly, the conclusion was reached that women can +transform themselves and become the chief element in +human society, that of happiness. Hitherto they had been +understudies to their husbands; they had believed themselves +bound to take an interest in the work, ideas, and +tastes of a man, with no other recompense than the satisfaction +derived from a duty done. They had to issue forth +like butterflies from the chrysalis, and to become women full +of charm, in order to direct the affairs which men believed +they had in their own hands, and in order to fascinate, to +enfold, to struggle if need be, but without violence or parade. +Then they had to rise a step higher, become objects of love, +propagate love, and bring all things into harmony.</p> + +<p>Thanks to these ideas, Italy at the end of the fifteenth +century had taken a marvellous bound towards the beautiful.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>Spain likewise had leapt towards chivalry; it was like +the raising of a curtain, so sudden was the change: women, +hitherto shut up in their boudoirs, appeared in all their +radiance like goddesses.</p> + +<p>France, on the contrary, viewed these new ideas with +profound mistrust, and long rejected them because of their +Italian origin. We knew Italy, but under very false colours; +she gloried in rising superior to wealth and rank, in the importance +of women, prelates, and artists in her life; while +we only knew her through merchants and soldiers. Her +bankers established in our towns—“Lombards,” as they +were scornfully called—passed in the eyes of the people +for men without a country, for birds of prey akin to the +Jews; our knights, still bewitched by the joys of their expeditions, +spoke carelessly only of a people without weapons +and of defenceless women. The French clergy chimed in +with their note of bitter opposition to Rome. And thus +Italy was readily imagined as a hot-bed of pleasure: but +to go there in quest of the philosophic secret of happiness +seemed absurd.</p> + +<p>In the intellectual point of view, Italy created a wrong +impression among us through the persons she sent us: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>professors more or less broken down,⁠<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> exiles more or less +voluntary;⁠<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> + impecunious, ravenous, and pretentious characters,⁠<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> +not very philosophic in their attitude towards their +rivals: all those also who rang the changes on the honour +we had had in beating them, the Stoas, Soardis, Equicolas, +wonderfully assiduous in making Louis XII. out to be a +second Charlemagne (in those days Charlemagne was still +a Frenchman); Caesar Borgia and his brilliant retinue, at +whose brief passage we looked on in contemptuous unconcern. +Because Caesar Borgia did not take our fancy, or +because some of us had met light women on the highway +to Italy, any Italian idea appeared to us a false one; we +shut ourselves up in what Pontanus, Julius II., and other +Italians remaining in Italy called our “barbarism,” and as +we plumed ourselves on our logic, we only abandoned our +antagonism to adopt all the Italian fashions completely and +indiscriminately. To that end, Louis XII. had to oblige by +dying, and Francis I. by reigning; so at least Castiglione, +the master of the new school, formally declared after the +accession of Francis. So it actually turned out.</p> + +<p>Thus women are queens; they move like fairies. “It is +a small thing to say of a woman that she does not destroy +the flowers on which she sets her foot; she must refresh +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>them. The violets should not droop when she passes, but +burst into flower.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p> + +<p>We do not claim that this system is perfect; our aim +is precisely to examine with the utmost care its strong and +its weak points; but it is certain that, to begin with, by the +side of almost all the illustrious men who then flourished in +such numbers, we see the indispensable woman silhouetting +herself, not as tyrant or even director, but as mentor and +guide—as mother, rather, since she brings them forth into the +higher life; or, still better, as light and sun, as reinvigorating, +vivifying warmth: according to the saying of Schiller, “Love +is the sun of Genius.” “Without women,” says Castiglione, +“nothing is possible—neither military courage, nor art, nor +poetry, nor music, nor philosophy, nor even religion: God is +only truly seen through them.” This was no new observation: +Solomon had already said the same thing; but we +must believe there were new conclusions to be drawn from +it, since men hoped to find in it the answer to that vexed +question of happiness which has been put in vain since the +foundation of the world.</p> + +<p>To realise how women transformed themselves, we must +follow their example and open our minds. They had the +courage so to do: they looked life fairly in the face—with +their woman’s eyes, it is true, fine, subtle, and complex; +they looked, and often they did not really understand +their own impressions, vivid, and rather strong than clearly +defined. Often, also, under the impulse of these impressions, +they acted in the genuine woman’s way, with tricks and +reservations, evading the consequences of their own theories, +going round the obstacle they advanced to attack in front. +Their achievements and thoughts are difficult to determine. +We cannot here, as in an ordinary history, be satisfied with +a mere string of facts; we must play the chemist, analyse +these various and complex elements, and seek to evolve a +general formula.</p> + +<p>That formula is this: to live, that is, to love life, to attain +a mastery of life without allowing it to crush or dominate +us. The attainment of this result is well worth the trouble +of deciphering a few women’s hearts, even though the handwriting +should be less clear than our ordinary manuscripts. +In those days they sincerely studied to love life; they loved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>it, rejecting all negations and obstructions, all that overwhelms +and paralyses, scouting death itself! Instead of +yielding to scepticism in regard to things, they wished to +push love to the stage of Stoicism, to lift the heaviest +burdens, to gaze upon the star of consolation which speaks +to us of love eternal.</p> + +<p>Every woman will begin with her own redemption. She +is at first thrown out into the world while still a child, +almost in childish innocence: very soon rigorous duties, +material and oppressive in character, seize upon her: she is, +so to speak, battered and rolled out by very rough forces—the +firm authority of her husband, the idea of obedience, the +trials of motherhood, fruitful in joys, but also in hardships +and cares. Whilst her will is annihilated and enslaved, and +her heart often remains an undiscovered country, she assists +with pain and disgust at the downfall of her flesh—that +flesh which has become the abode of pain, a body of death, +to give birth to life.</p> + +<p>How is the sudden thrill brought about, turning the dull, +torpid larva into the bright butterfly? How do women succeed +in drawing from this essentially human condition something +of the divine, passing from physical production to spiritual +production? These above all are the questions we must +seek to determine.</p> + +<p>It must not be expected that we shall present to our +readers fair barristers, or engineers, or professional scholars, +still less pedants. No; these ladies were simply modest +women, who took their share in the humblest duties of +everyday life, but discovered, apart from charity in the +material sense, the absolute necessity of another charity, +moral charity for moral and spiritual penury, for those +destitute of happiness, so numerous and found everywhere, +even within the walls of the Louvre.</p> + +<p>If they accomplished a revolution, it was a peaceful and +internal one. They piled up no barricades, issued no +manifestos, launched no declaration of their rights as women +and citizens. Though the laws were not generally favourable +to them, they demanded no amendment of the laws; +the same magistrates continued as in the past to deliver the +same judgments from the same benches, politicians still made +their fortunes, ploughmen still followed the plough, +engineers continued to construct bridges and make roads, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>notaries to scan the cause-lists. Nothing was changed, in +appearance, in the material course of the world, except that +a moral power had come into being, and that women, like +the goddesses of happiness painted by Nattier, under the +cloak of indifference had taken into their keeping a +mysterious urn, whence life seemed to gush in a spontaneous +stream, without the help of judges, engineers, or notaries, +yet continually sending out the current essential to the +sweetness and fruitfulness of the world.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I_FAMILY_LIFE">BOOK I. FAMILY LIFE</h2> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="smaller">MARRIAGE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>There are two ways of dealing with the heart of a woman. +You may have confidence in it, believe in it, regard it as +a real element of strength and happiness, uplift and +develop it, touching it then to fine issues in love, religion, +philosophy. These are the lines on which the modern +world proceeds. Or you may treat it as a frail organ of the +body, unruly, incapable of good; you may bind it down, +early and with due care, with all sorts of reasonable chains, +the chief of which, marriage, will keep it fast prisoned, and +reduce it to nothingness and oblivion. This, of course, was +the system of former days.</p> + +<p>Singularly enough, these two systems, contrary as they +are, spring from precisely the same practical starting-point, +which indeed remains the sole point of contact between +them: the principle, namely, that marriage and love are +distinct, and must neither be confused nor blended.</p> + +<p>To Battista Spagnuoli of Mantua,⁠<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> poet and monk, in the +solitude of his cloister, marriage shone with a rosy light. +Cornelius Agrippa,⁠<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> with his utilitarian and paradoxical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span>mind, regarded it as a compulsory conscription of the +German type, with no possible exemptions, or almost none, +and fancied that if men would but go in quest of a pretty +woman instead of being so much absorbed with the proprieties +and the main chance, the result would prove far +more satisfactory. With the exception of these two, and +a few more or less ingenuous or eccentric people like them, +no one believed in the utility or the possibility of love in +marriage. Caviceo’s romance <i>Il Peregrino</i> was considered +sheer perversity, for after innumerable intrigues and adventures +it ends—how? With wedding bells! So that, +according to Caviceo, marriage was to turn out a romance of +cloak and sword!⁠<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a></p> + +<p>It was universally agreed that no idea could be more +absurd, less practical, more detestable, more immoral even. +Marriage was a transaction, an ‘establishment,’ a business partnership, +a grave material union of interests, rank, and social +responsibilities, sanctified by the close personal association +of the partners. To insinuate an idea of pleasure was to rob +it of its noble and honourable character, and to drag it down +into the mire of sensuality. To mingle with it a physical +suggestion was to degrade it; to mingle with it love, the +absolute, great enthusiasms of heart or intellect, was to lay +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>up for oneself disasters, or at least certain disappointment. +“Love-matches turn out badly quite as often as arranged +marriages.” A romance lasts a week, the reality for a +lifetime. No passion can survive the humdrum, the +monotony, the deadweight of matrimonial experience: and +what marriage can hold out against passion? Heart +freedom, the storms, raptures, revulsions to be anticipated +on all sides—what amalgamation is possible between these +and the peaceful domestic life which is looked-to to furnish +forth a very solid, united, and well-ordered existence? A +certain equality is the rule of passion: what it demands is a +perfect union between two persons who are mutually +attracted and whom there is nothing to keep apart. What +would become of married life under these conditions, without +some directing authority, without one to give law to the +other? In regard to marriage, the time-honoured principle, +rigorous though protective, was this: the husband ought +always to take the helm, imbecile, madman or rake though +he be: woman is born to obey, man to command.</p> + +<p>Wedlock then is good solid household bread, not by any +means cakes and ale. It is the modest squat suburban villa +in which you eat and sleep: passion is a church-spire +piercing the sky—the spire we see high above our smoky +roofs, whence on Sundays and festivals our ears are greeted +with the sound of bells.</p> + +<p>To try to import passion into marriage is like trying to +pack a cathedral into one’s bedroom.</p> + +<p>And so marriage is to retain its actual character as a +simple, natural function of the physical life, like eating and +drinking: the husband a domestic animal, presented to the +woman by the usages of society, the accident of birth, and +the terms of the bargain. There is no reason for choosing +him except in so far as he fulfils these conditions. Do +women choose their family affections? Do they select +their father, brother, relatives? The husband also is a +relative, a partner, to whom every possible duty is owing +except that of love. The woman’s duty to him is to keep +house for him, present him with children, nurse him in +sickness, and regard his liberty as sacred.</p> + +<p>In short, at whatever point of view one placed oneself, +marriage excluded every idea of personal fancy; indeed, of +all the contracts of life, marriage was the least tolerant +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>of any such idea. Its traditional character as a business +transaction no one would have dreamed of contesting.</p> + +<p>So far as the woman was concerned, the practical consequences +of this principle were very simple. It was not for +her to seek a husband, but merely to accept the man whom +fate, that is to say, Providence, had destined for her. +Nothing was more ridiculous than here and there to find +some portionless girl, or one who, like Mademoiselle de +Clermont, was no longer in her first bloom, waxing sentimental +and speaking with a sigh of the “unaccustomed +pleasure” of loving the man one married. “This pleasure,” +she says, raising her eyes to heaven like a virgin martyr, +“if it sets at nought human wisdom, is inspired by wisdom +from on high; so fine, so exquisite must it be, that of a +truth it is keener than sorrow at the loss of the loved one—a +commonplace and everyday sorrow.” Whereupon, whatever +sympathy may have been inspired by Mademoiselle de +Clermont’s misfortune, her friends cannot help smiling: +“So you mean to say,” they exclaim, “that a woman has +more pleasure in the embraces of her husband than pain at +seeing him slain before her eyes!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> + +<p>The idea that a young girl should submit passively to be +married was almost the only one on which there was +complete agreement. Everyone was thoroughly convinced +that in adopting any other course she would almost invariably +be committing a folly sure to bring repentance. If +young and unsophisticated, she would allow herself to be +lured and snared by mere illusions from which there would +be a speedy awakening; if she had lost something of her +youth and innocence things were still worse, for then she +inevitably said and thought and did ridiculous things, like +poor foolish Mademoiselle de Clermont. A spinster of +twenty-five or thirty, seized with a yearning for marriage,⁠<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>would be subject to attacks of mental vertigo springing +rather from vanity than from love; one could believe her +capable of the veriest follies and the most surprising +judgments.⁠<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a> That was the opinion of all serious women, +from Louise of Savoy to Anne of France,⁠<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> whether they +were of matter-of-fact intellect, spiritual in their affections, +or somewhat wayward in their imagination. The whole +mechanism of life exemplified this fundamental principle: +a young girl should have “no choice, ambition, or wish” of +her own; “experience, failing God and the Law, proves +to girls the necessity of discretion, and of not marrying to +please themselves; their marriage should be left to their +relatives, or in default of relatives, to their friends.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a></p> + +<p>Very frequently, the “best” marriages were negotiated +by intermediaries more or less obliging, relatives or friends. +Princes and princesses were married through the good +offices of diplomatists. Indeed, ladies and gentlemen of +the Court did quite a respectable trade in match-making, +for a consideration.</p> + +<p>But, after all, the task of marrying his daughter was +essentially and especially one for the father.</p> + +<p>For the most part, the father would be only too glad to +wash his hands of the business. In every case he was in a +hurry to bring matters to a head, and believed that in +losing no time he was acting in the interests of his child. +She was to belong wholly to another household, since it was +a woman’s lot to belong to her husband, and so it was well +for her to enter upon her new life as early as possible, +before she had formed ideas of her own, and at an age when +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>the paternal household would not yet have set its stamp +indelibly upon her.</p> + +<p>In this respect the betrothals, the “marriages for the +future”—marriages, that is, solemnised in infancy for future +consummation—were of great service, and the higher the +position occupied in the social scale, the earlier such marriages +were. Kings have even been known to marry their +daughters two days after birth, but such a compact, it is +true, was in the end declared by the lawyers to be immoral +and hardly serious. Indeed, later on, when the time +for carrying out the bargain came, some princes and princesses +felt constrained to protest against this arbitrary +disposal of their persons. Happily, such engagements were +not of the most stable kind, and, often enough, political +considerations were sufficient to upset them before any harm +was done.⁠<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span></p> + +<p>In distinguished families, betrothal was by no means +unusual at the age of two or three. At this tender age +Vittoria Colonna⁠<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> was betrothed to the Marquis of Pescara.</p> + +<p>Consummation usually took place at the age of twelve. +That was a favourite age with the husbands; though, according +to the best judges, fifteen was the age when the physical +charms were at their best, and the soul was most malleable—a +view dating as far back as Hesiod and Aristotle. +Tiraqueau,⁠<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> the friend of Rabelais, vaunts his exploit in +having wedded a girl of ten. In vain did the French +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>physicians implore the men in mercy to have a little patience, +beseech them to wait at least until the fourteenth year: +they demurred, for it was humiliating for a father to have +a fifteen-year-old daughter on his hands: at sixteen they +would have called it a catastrophe. Champier,⁠<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> one of the +gravest of writers, proposed that after the age of sixteen +young women should be provided with husbands by the State, +on the lines of Plato’s system. Some parents betrayed such +haste to get their girls off their hands that they anticipated the +ceremony, handing them over to their husbands-elect on the +strength of a mere promise of fidelity. It happened at +Milan, among the Sforza family, that a mother, becoming +apprehensive, refused at the last moment to part with her +daughter on such terms, and the matter ended where it +should properly have begun, in a mutual arrangement, the +young lady being formally placed in charge of her husband +to save appearances. But difficulties like these were always +very dangerous. In this case a dispute arose in regard to +the dowry, and blood waxed hot; the bridegroom broke off +the match, and took to wife another girl of the same family, +a child of ten, whom he led off like a horse-dealer returning +with a filly purchased at the fair.</p> + +<p>Sometimes, in great families, the girls were married in +advance by proxy. Certain wives grew to womanhood +without even making their husbands’ acquaintance.</p> + +<p>Urbino is not a great way from Mantua, but the diplomatic +agent of Urbino found it necessary to urge his master, +Francesco Maria della Rovere, a youth of eighteen, to come +on a visit to Leonora Gonzaga, whom he described in the +most alluring terms: “If your Excellency saw Madame +Leonora, and the Marquis’s little mare, you would see the +two loveliest things I ever set eyes on. I do not think +there is in all Italy anyone more beautiful or virtuous than +Madame, and I am sure no king or prince in Christendom +has a mare to match his Excellency’s.” Ultimately La +Rovere yielded like a lord, and set off incognito to see his +wife, a girl of fourteen years and a half, a merry little +creature, pretty, well-bred, and a pupil of the historian +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span>Sigismondo Golfo. She was presented to him at the palace +of Mantua, in the Hall of the Sun. He stepped forward to +greet her, and embraced her in the most correct style; then, +on Cardinal Gonzago remarking loudly that this was a +somewhat frigid demonstration, he went forward again, +caught Leonora by the arms and head, and planted a becoming +kiss upon her lips. And then they sat down and began +chatting on the topics of the day, notably a portrait which +had just been finished.</p> + +<p>To find marriages of mutual affection it would have been +necessary to go down among the lower ranks of the people, +in country places; “good matches were made”⁠<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> as they +danced together at the fair or at the village merry-makings. +But in the great world the future spouses were subjected to +a system of “interviews.” Louis de la Trémoille,⁠<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> who conceived +the eccentric idea of escaping the infliction, found no +other means than to introduce himself into the house of his +prospective wife, Gabrielle de Bourbon, disguised and under +a false name, as they do in the comedies. With a widow, +perhaps, a little less ceremony may have been permissible, +and then—! In one of his diplomatic despatches Bibbiena⁠<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a> +relates with much humour an interview of this sort:</p> + +<p>“To-day there took place an interview between the Duke +of Calabria and the divine lady of Forli.⁠<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Needless to say, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>his excellency was admirably groomed and attired in the +height of Neapolitan fashion. His arrival at Bagnara was +welcomed with a salute of musketry, and he stayed to +dinner. He spent two hours here with the countess, but it is +patent to everyone that Feo⁠<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> has the lady well under his +thumb. His excellency took his leave very well satisfied; +but he was only moderately taken with the countess: he +told me that they joined hands very gingerly, that he +caught some winking and shrugs. And so we are off again, +like a cricket into its hole.”</p> + +<p>The final scene was enacted between the bride’s father +and the bridegroom or his parents. It was remarkably like +any other sort of bargaining: and on this subject an old +author throws a charming side-light: he urges paterfamilias +to bestow as much care on the choice of a son-in-law as on +the purchase of a dog!</p> + +<p>Ah! if the wife is ever to become an instrument of love, +there is no sign of it here! Her father occupies himself +with calculations of the frankest and most practical kind; +he has lived long enough to understand the importance +of questions of money or worldly interests, and on this score +is usually more than a match for his son-in-law. It is all +very well for the preachers to extol virtue naked and +unadorned! The ideal of a self-respecting father is an +eligible elder son, heir to the paternal dovecot, a man of +leisure, or at any rate a “gentleman,” in other words, well-connected, +moving in good society, with fine friends. Trade +he rather looks down on: he has seen so many failures!—so +many substantial traders have taken to setting up as +“merchant gentlemen,” like the Genoese, and have come to +grief! The law, on the other hand, is extremely popular; +in these days there is nothing better than an alliance with +a lawyer. The young man who is waiting for the death of +his father to buy an appointment in the judicature may +hold up his head in any company.</p> + +<p>Having once come to a decision, the father is at no loss +for excellent reasons both for himself and others. “He +plays the guitar well, is a beautiful dancer, a delightful +singer, an excellent writer, a good-looking decent fellow! +He has the promise of a post as Lord High Whipper-snapper +to the King: ’tis a fine thing, a place at Court! given opportunity +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>and a friend, and your fortune is made.”... “He +is a sensible fellow, keeps a still tongue in his head, answers +you only with nods or Italianate shrugs.”... “Oh! it’s all +the same to me. I am a gentleman myself; here’s to all +gentlemen! Zounds! but ’tis expensive, worse luck! Come +now, I’m as good a gentleman as the king. I don’t keep +up his style, to be sure, but, mark you, I hunt when I +like, come and go as I please, bustle about, flog and bawl at +and curse my people, let ’em know I am master; and the +hundred or two serfs I have under me daren’t stir, egad, +without my leave.”... “Tut tut! a little less gilt and +a little more gingerbread! My girl marry a lord and then +forsooth go footing it in the mud to canvass Jacks-in-office +for a flower-girl’s corner or some twopenny-ha’penny matter! +A fig for your gentlemen!”... and so on, with endless +variations on the same theme of utilitarianism pure and +simple. Perhaps the girl is already smitten with a handsome +officer: no matter, she will have to marry some +surveyor from Paris, especially if he holds a good appointment +on the crown lands, because that provides opportunities +of feathering one’s nest. In such matters the fathers relentlessly +enforce their authority, apparently with every right. +The pleadings in a criminal case reveal to us the Biblical +Machiavelism of a well-to-do peasant who had conceived the +idea of getting gratuitous service for ten years from the +candidate for his daughter’s hand and fortune: the period +expires, and then the father with singular bad faith proposes +to exact another ten years’ service; but this time the future +son-in-law rebels, and has the misfortune accidentally to +kill his prospective father-in-law, and this brings him before +the courts.</p> + +<p>The father’s egotism was only equalled by that of the +bridegroom elect. The man who thought of marrying, that +is to say, of taking a wife, was a man of some thirty years +(Plato proposed thirty, Aristotle thirty-five); he had enjoyed +his youth, and was now shutting the door upon it. Why? +Often he was not very clear himself: because the time had +come, he supposed, for doing what everybody did. Celibacy +was not the vogue: “We are no longer in the age of the +vestals,” as Egnatius⁠<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> excellently said. And we discover +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>from various sources that the religious vocation was not +very well understood, even among girls. Luckless preachers +had to toil and sweat to prove that virginity was no crime, +and that a woman might quite fittingly prefer the ideal of a +mystic marriage to the prospect of bearing a man’s yoke +and measuring out the domestic oil. Erasmus writing to +nuns is too courteous not to speak of angels or lilies of the +valley, but in his heart of hearts he thinks it all terribly +old-fashioned, and has not the slightest belief in the virginal +theories of St. Jerome. With still greater reason, celibacy +was not countenanced beyond a certain age. Luther very +honestly regarded it as an intolerable burden, contrary to +nature and the custom of the early church. “It is as +impossible to do without women as without meat and +drink.” And so a man took a wife because he thus fulfilled +part of his duty as a healthy animal; he married because +at thirty years the time had come for making a home and +begetting a family. In reality a man married, in a manner, +impersonally, rather for his family than for himself; and all +that he desired was to complicate his life as little as +possible in marrying, to be able to preserve his tastes, +habits, hobbies, without the incubus of a partner.</p> + +<p>The worst feature of this business of matrimony was that +it was so entirely at the mercy of chance, which made +almost a lottery of it, and it would have been much more +ridiculous for a man than for a woman to yield to a childish +infatuation. The man knew nothing of the girl he was +espousing, either physically or morally. He merely assumed +some likelihood of her resembling her parents, with the +result that he devoted special attention to his prospective +mother-in-law; she was the woman he was wedding. A +young woman without relatives to serve as samples and +guarantees was at a discount in the matrimonial market. +At the best, it is always a leap in the dark, something +like a step into death; it is the burial of the past, the first +sacrifice of one’s life for the preservation of the race; the +Stoic, says Cardan, knows whereabouts he is at his marriage +and his death. A man’s best course is to take comfort +beforehand, to fix his eyes on the object he aims at, to +reflect that the reason, the mind has no great part in it, and +that children are not the offspring of a woman’s brain.</p> + +<p>Moralists had put themselves to much trouble to cheer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>men along this difficult road, and to provide them with a +series of test questions as an aid to matrimony. They +assured a man that he might be quite easy in mind if he +simply verified eight particulars in regard to the girl he +proposed to marry: physically, her age, health, maternal +aptitudes, beauty; generally, her intelligence, education, +family, and dower. Unhappily, this verification was not +easy.</p> + +<p>Physically, he could verify nothing but the young lady’s +age; for the rest, the physicians advised him to look to +her figure and in general to choose the best-grown girl; +but no one can fail to see how vague and fallacious was +any presumption based on that! True, there were the +attractions of her features to judge by; but those were +precisely what the same moralists urged him to distrust: a +serious man, they said, would never build on that sand. In +married life striking beauty is apt to pall, you come to +loathe it, and a pretty woman is rarely clever enough to +bring grist to her husband’s mill—except maybe in trade, +when she serves as a signboard or a trade-mark. Sensible +men preferred plainness; it was only widowers or wealthy +dotards who gave themselves as a last resource the luxury +of marrying a pretty woman. Poor souls! they would do +better to think of their rheumatism, their indigestion, the +dreadful draughts! Such a match was that of Madame +Dixhomme, a very sprightly young woman well known in +society, who bore the name of an old husband, a shining +light of the Parisian bar, who might have been her father! +There is no help for it. These good patriarchs will listen to +no advice, and always count on coming off well. The +world is content to smile, and to look on their attitude as +courageous, not to say heroic.⁠<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> + +<p>So much for the physical aspect. In regard to moral +principles, there was one that was firmly established. The +man who was bringing himself to the marrying point was +haunted by the spectre of feminine independence; the terror +he felt in anticipation of some enforced sacrifice of his tastes +or whims took possession of him and dominated every other +sentiment. So when he set out in quest of a young wife, he +looked for one in his own rank of society, on his own level, so +that she might have nothing to hope for from him, nothing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>to cast in his face, that he might owe her nothing, that +she might have no pretext for riding roughshod over him, +but might resign herself quite contentedly to play second +fiddle, regarding this subordination as natural, just as the +ivy gladly embraces the asperities of the wall it is fixed to. +The husbands wished their wives to take pleasure in resignation +and to fancy that their woes were the source of true +felicity. The first condition towards attaining this end was +that the ladies should not have a higher, nor even a lower +station in society to look back on.</p> + +<p>In a fit of epicurism dashed with respectability you marry +your cook, thinking you are securing careful attentions, a +good table, and a warm bed! Woful mistake! You are +wedding a fishwife, who will treat you after the manner of +fishwives, and overwhelm you with coarse abuse: she will +never tire of telling you you are not man enough for her. +You would not find it much more pleasant to marry a +woman a little too much above you, who, at the critical +moment, would hold you with an admirable curtain lecture, +and, instead of doing her wifely duty, would discourse to +you for the hundredth time on the splendid matches she had +declined, the rage of her family, your poverty,⁠<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> and so forth.</p> + +<p>It is easy to understand with what uneasiness and fatalism +all these considerations, not to mention others, fill the mind +of a man who has reached the age of official paternity. He +hesitates long, and makes up his mind at last with his eyes +wide open, knowing that “in the best of marriages one must +expect at least as much pain as pleasure.” Not that he +would maintain that marriage is a mistake for men, but he +does think that “neither joy nor felicity has part or lot in +such brutishness.” He asks advice from one and another, +and always runs counter to it. Someone tells him of a girl +with money—she will want to rule the roost; of a poor girl—she +will be a drag; a pretty girl—so much the better for +his neighbours; a plain girl—ugh! that offends his susceptibilities. +What does he want, then? A good manager, a +strapping well-built wench: if he talks of consulting an +expert, he is referred to Triboulet!⁠<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He would much rather +have to choose a cow.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span></p> + +<p>It is in this frame of mind that he at last makes his +decision. If in later years he attains to some eminence and +is tempted to-write his memoirs, this business of his marriage +will be one of the episodes he will be able to detail, for +his own justification, with perfect composure.</p> + +<p>A dispensation of Providence was often necessary to bring +him to the point. This dispensation manifested itself under +the most diverse forms. The learned Tiraqueau, of whom we +have already spoken, was struck one day with the fact that +the Greeks and Romans had a very poor opinion of celibacy, +and he culled from Valerius Maximus especially a number of +convincing proofs on this head. Whereupon he crossed the +street and demanded in marriage the young girl who lived +opposite; he found that her name was Marie Cailler, that +she was very well-bred, and that her parents were anxious +to get her off their hands. But Tiraqueau was determined +not to suggest a suspicion that a man of his stamp felt a real +need of marriage, and so he dedicated to his father-in-law and +to posterity the unparalleled account of his actual motives.</p> + +<p>The hand of Providence was sufficiently revealed in the +will of the parents, or in the cash of an uncle from whom +one had expectations, and who, not having himself taken the +trouble to perpetuate his stock, was determined that the +duty should be undertaken by another.</p> + +<p>It is curious enough to see Michelangelo in this rôle of +the preachifying uncle. So far as he was concerned, he +had long held such peculiar ideas about marriage that he +would have nothing to do with it. At a time when he had +come to years of discretion he worked himself up into a fine +fury of indignation against his brother, who, to put an end +to an old and vexatious law-suit, thought of marrying the +daughter of the opposite party. Later, however, he took it +into his head that the name of Buonarotti must not be +allowed to disappear: “the world would not come to an end, +but every living being does his best to preserve his species.” +For this reason his nephew was to marry. But marry whom? +Not money, said the uncle, but a girl of good stock: “to wed +a good, well-bred, healthy woman, is to do a good day’s +work,” and to assure peace and quietness at home.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span></p> + +<p>The idea of a good day’s work did not much take the +young man’s fancy: the prospect of a dowry was more +attractive. But the dowry Michelangelo made himself +responsible for, provided they found for him a niece who +was really adaptable and likely to prove a good wife. A +match was proposed, but after dragging on for a time the +negotiations fell through, to be resumed and to fall through +again. The uncle was content to give the nephew a start, +and kept himself in the background, though he was all the +time setting the bishop of Arezzo at work in the matter. +He knew that the distinguished people at Florence were at +that time in sore pecuniary straits, a circumstance at which +he rejoiced, for it might be expected to help forward his +plans. Ere long, however, the bishop of Arezzo offered a +girl who was no beggar-maid to be wed for charity.</p> + +<p>The nephew’s hesitation being at last overcome, he +obtained an introduction to the Guicciardini, one of the +principal families of Florence, rich in the possession of two +daughters. All went so well that the good uncle was soon +exchanging excellent letters with the girl’s father. But on +the very first occasion when serious business was discussed, +the bridegroom elect discovered with dismay that the style +of the house, which indicated a respectable fortune, was all +a vain show. Old Guicciardini, excellent man, was very +careful to avoid a scandal, and there and then offered his +would-be son-in-law the daughter of one of his friends the +Ridolfi. Kept well posted in these various incidents, +Michelangelo at last became rather bewildered; but to +him it mattered little whether his nephew espoused the +Ridolfi or the Guicciardini provided it was one of the two.</p> + +<p>Finally, the nephew wedded the fair Ridolfi in April, +1553, and on May 20th he poured out all his satisfaction in +a letter to his uncle. Ravished, enchanted, and overflowing +with thankfulness, Michelangelo despatched the promised +dowry with a present of jewellery. In April of the following +year a son made his entrance into the world under the +name of Michelangelo Buonarotti; next year another was +expected, and a third the year after. Michelangelo +signified his approval by a present of 600 golden crowns +(about £2000). That was something like a marriage!</p> + +<p>But Raphael, a man of the world, wedded to his independence, +took a far less simple view of the institution. His +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>uncle, a worthy canon, never spoke to him of a dowry; a +stroke of Raphael’s brush was worth a dowry in itself. +Unhappily, the divine poet of maternal love, the exquisite +interpreter of women, weighed and digested the matter like +a man of sense. He does not cease to thank Providence, he +says, that he has refrained from wedding any of the ladies +contemplated up to the present. To-day (1514) he may +marry brilliantly if he likes; the choice is open to him: a +cousin of Cardinal St. Maria in Porticu, offered him by the +Cardinal himself—a lovely creature, of good family, with a +dower of 3000 crowns, or even more. But “he is in no +hurry”; and indeed, that is the sober truth: men are not in +a hurry; and Raphael never married.</p> + +<p>So it was quite with the feeling that he was fulfilling an +impersonal and family duty that a man ended by espousing +a woman whose attitude was as impersonal as his own. +For the same reason, to consecrate the nuptial transaction +and give it due importance in the eyes of the world, the +marriage was surrounded with an ever-increasing ostentation. +The opening scene was as imposing and brilliant as +the subsequent years of married life were to prove sombre +and colourless.</p> + +<p>At a later date we find the Calvinists up in arms against +these idle gawds, which they style scandalous worldliness, a +“villany.” Nevertheless there was evidently no idea of +glozing over the real character of the contract; but aesthetic +taste, however rudimentary, insisted apparently, if not on +idealising the contract, at least on beautifying it.</p> + +<p>Up to the solemn moment everything has been transacted +between men. The young woman appears on this great +day for the first time in her life. If she has been brought +up according to the old method, many people have scarcely +suspected her existence. Unlike her husband, who is taking +a step backwards, subsiding from youth into maturity, she +is being born into life. There she is, at the door or under +the porch of the church, standing beside her husband, +involuntarily, with no desires of her own, passive—an +offering, as it were, to the race. In this strong light of +publicity she alone seems a little ill at ease, blushing at the +exhibition, agitated at this unknown something which the +rest are so joyfully celebrating. The priest comes down +the nave, just as at funerals, receives the young couple’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>whispered “I will,” sprinkles them lightly as they stand +with a little lustral water, censes them; and then the +procession is formed, to wind its way up to the altar where +the nuptial benediction mass will be sung—a long, noisy +procession, ponderous, gothic, all stiff with velvets, monumental +stuffs and gilded draperies; thirty, forty, sometimes +three hundred persons, none but members of the family; +but in these circumstances of parade and pleasure the +family becomes extraordinarily multiplied. At the head of +the procession, buried under trappings of superb finery +representing a fortune, the little bride is scarcely visible; +she is for all the world like the clapper of a bell. And +verily under that golden robe there is after all nothing—but +a woman.</p> + +<p>They leave the church, and there is no crush; the sight +attracts only a few curious folk, a few halt and blind: in +those days there was nothing to draw the overwhelming +throng without which no modern marriage is complete. +And the procession crawls on, displaying through the town +its festal finery drawn from ancestral coffers, with a majesty +which may perhaps give the impression of an official +pageant, but nowhere indicates the crowning incident in a +love-story. All is significant of a serious, authentic, arithmetical +fact, a practical and substantial fact, a performance +got up for the honour of a family.</p> + +<p>It is precisely this which sends a thrill through all who +take part in the ceremony. Under these huge plumes and +massive carcanets there vibrates a delirious but very real +joy—the old family joy in pomp and circumstance, this, too, +drawn, as it were, out of the ancestral coffers. What man +is there who, however poverty-stricken he may be, dispenses +with magnificence at his marriage? Perhaps this is the +only day—or rather, the only period, for one is not married +in a day—when he will know what luxury is. There is +a truce to care; life shows a countenance all joy and +geniality.</p> + +<p>In the rural parts of France the company only rose from +table to sit down again, or to dance under the elms. Deep +drinking, love, quarrels, broad jests, strange customs, such, +for instance, as the <i>jus primae noctis</i>, or the drinking-match +traditional with the country lads—all this developed a +boisterous gaiety. The bridegroom alone groaned under it, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>for among the middle and lower classes it was the correct +thing to invite to one’s wedding as big a crowd as possible. +The poor man spent his time running from fiddler to +purveyor, ruining himself in presents for his friends and the +bridesmaids; he was expected to show everyone a smiling +face, to receive his guests, have a word for all, crack jokes, +be at everybody’s beck and call, think of everyone but +himself, lucky if at an odd moment he could snatch a morsel +to eat. When night came he had not even the right of +taking his rest; ordeals of every kind lay in wait for him; +and in the morning he was bound to go on laughing, to +receive more visits, and profess himself the happiest fellow +in the world. And then comes the turn of the upholsterers +and house-furnishers.</p> + +<p>“Happily,” he says, “one doesn’t get married every day.” +Divorce will never number him among its supporters.</p> + +<p>Helysenne de Crenne,⁠<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> the great romance-writer, sketches +a somewhat analogous picture of the doings in the great +world.</p> + +<p>On some fine sunny morning, when the birds are enlivening +all things with song, the groomsmen set out in procession +to fetch the bridegroom, and the bridesmaids to escort the +bride. She arrives in a blue robe adorned with pearls, a +diamond coronet on her head. The festivities, extraordinarily +magnificent, last the whole day, concerts and dances +forming part of them; the men hover solicitously about the +ladies; some of them get up a tilting match, ironically +inviting the bridegroom to enter the lists, and his refusal +lets loose a flood of pleasantries.</p> + +<p>At nightfall the couple are solemnly bedded. At this +moment, in France, the fun is only just beginning. The house +seems verily bewitched: not a bolt catches, not a window +but is under a spell; at the most unexpected moment an +avalanche of troublesome visitors bursts into the nuptial +chamber; the couple spring out of bed; the intruders wax +hilarious on the slightest pretext. In her precipitation the +bride has perhaps torn a little rent in her shift; a court is +at once constituted to try the case, and we may imagine the +full-flavoured jests that are bandied about, becoming +indeed a little wearisome.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span></p> + +<p>In Italy the marriage was a more solemn and complicated +affair. The law indeed was compelled to intervene with a +view to limiting the expenditure, in spite of which certain +Florentine marriages cost some £20,000, without reckoning +the presents—and the presents made a heavy item. At Venice +the witnesses, sometimes numbering forty, could not escape +for less than two hundred ducats apiece. The marriage set +the artistic world in motion. Men of letters came flocking +up with inflictions in the shape of epithalamiums, more or +less new, descanting in Grecian style on the theme “is +marriage a necessity?” or farragoes of pedantry, crammed +with allusions to the ancients, full of names like Lycurgus +and Plato, lauding the families of the young couple to the +skies, and comparing the bride and bridegroom to Philip of +Macedon, Mithridates, Dido; eclogues were rained on them, +and apologues, and declamations in Latin verse. All these +were printed, and constituted an authentic memorial of the +event. A painter of repute would be commissioned to +decorate the trunk for the brides trousseau; he would +depict on it a story from Scripture or mythology, or a genre +scene,⁠<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> and this formed another memorial, often charming +and always worth keeping.⁠<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p> + +<p>In the pages of history we find descriptions of so many +weddings that it would be no easy matter to make a +selection. King Alfonso of Aragon, hardly serious as a +husband but a very splendid prince, was married with +a magnificence that was long remembered. On the shores +of the sea, the glorious sea of Naples, tables were set up for +a company of thirty thousand, amid fountains running wine +and pavilions flashing with light. In the neighbouring +forest a hunt was organised for the Court. The Neapolitans +in their enthusiasm invoked the sun to witness that nothing +more beautiful could ever be seen.</p> + +<p>The wedding of Eleanor of Toledo to the Duke of Florence +in 1539 is described with abundant details in a little book +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>compiled for the occasion. There you may read a description +of the triumphal arches, the statues, the dramatic +performances, and find the complete text of the stanzas, +the madrigals and the comedy. The music was printed +separately.</p> + +<p>One may read also the details given by M. Molmenti of +the dazzling pageants at Venice: the official proclamation +in the court of the Doge’s palace, the prolonged and +sumptuous preparations for the festive entertainments, the +canals <i>en fête</i>, the façades of the palaces hung with bunting, +the gondoliers in red silk hose skimming the waves, the +armies of servants in gold-embroidered liveries, the bonfires, +the fireworks, the fifers and trumpeters, the serenades, +dramatic performances, balls, banquets with lavish displays +of gold plate and decorations flashing with all the colours of +the rainbow—it is all like a dream; even Veronese would +have despaired of painting the thousand extravagances of +this feverish life.</p> + +<p>But nowhere do we catch sight of the woman: it is the +man who predominates and plays the leading part. Suddenly +the curtain falls. The girl has become a wife, and +then what crudities! what realism! even in those circles +where delicacy is as a rule pushed to the utmost limits of +refinement.</p> + +<p>Details on so intimate a matter appear to elude the +historian. But though confidences are lacking, we may +surmise the real feelings, the profound degradation of certain +young brides, from the very circumstantial reports of the +ambassadors charged with superintending the arrangements +of royal marriages. These reports, it is true, relate to a very +special society, but it was the highest society, and precisely +that which set the fashion. No one would imagine what +singular details are to be found in these letters.</p> + +<p>Take for instance an incident that happened at the +charming Court of Urbino, perhaps the most exquisite of +all courts. On the morrow of her son’s marriage, the +Duchess-dowager had the door of the bridal chamber flung +open at dawn, and approaching her daughter-in-law, who +bashfully tried to hide under the bedclothes, said to her: +“Well now, my daughter, isn’t it a fine thing to sleep with +the men!” What a compliment from the Queen of +Platonism! No one after this will deny that marriage is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>everywhere stamped with the character of unredeemed +prose.</p> + +<p>That phrase “fine thing” in particular, which on the lips +of the duchess so often denoted the ideal, startles us here +with a singular irony.</p> + +<p>Or again, what a curious chapter of adventures was that +of Bianca Sforza, who as heiress to an immense fortune had +become by proxy the wife of the Emperor Maximilian! +Ambassador Brascha was deputed to the delicate mission of +proceeding to Innsprück to hand the princess over to her +husband, but lo! on arriving they found no one to meet +them but an archduchess. How was he to extricate the +lady from this embarrassing situation?</p> + +<p>Brascha wrote to Vienna, striving in the meantime to put +a good face on the matter, giving balls, and so forth.</p> + +<p>Maximilian was in no hurry to reply, but wrote at length, +asking to see the ambassador. Brascha set out instantly, +taking with him this charming but singular note:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">“Most serene King,</p> + +<p>My lord, I find myself under such obligations +towards your Majesty that I am quite dazed at the love you manifest +for me. I could not if I tried express the joy which floods my soul. +Being unable to testify to it sufficiently in writing, I send Messer +Erasmus Brascha to speak on my behalf: and I beseech your Majesty +to believe him, and I commend myself to you.</p> + +<p>Innsprück, December 26, 1493.</p> + +<p class="center">From Your Majesty’s handmaid,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Blanca Maria</span>, with her own hand.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It was two months before Brascha returned: he was +determined not to return alone. The Emperor was very +much occupied: he entertained the ambassador handsomely, +invited him to festivities, waxed eloquent in praise of the +Sforza family, and even mentioned Innsprück with much +urbanity; but all this did not answer the purpose of the +unlucky Brascha, whose exertions, uneasiness, and distress +of mind may be imagined. At last the imperial procession +began to move: for Brascha it was a moment of poignant +emotion. Poor Bianca had no prudish reluctance in quitting +Innsprück, where she had been so long eating her +heart out, and the union took place on March 9 at Ala. +And on the 10th Brascha wrote, with a sounding sigh of +satisfaction: “At last, thank God, we have got to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>consummation of the marriage, to the confusion of our +enemies. I spent yesterday evening with the king and +queen, and we were deep in conversation up to the time +when, the Court having broken up, their Majesties decided +to go to bed.” Brascha was resolved to make quite sure, +continuing for several nights in succession to assure himself. +At last he breathed freely! Ah! such missions as this +were no sinecures!</p> + +<p>But when the time came for reappearing in public, life +glowed with a new heat and resumed all its exquisite +charm. If by some chance a young bride of princely rank +had to cross Italy to rejoin her husband, she saw along her +whole course nothing but demonstrations of joy, smiling +faces, charming freaks of fancy; to give her pleasure these +affectionate people used their one resource—invention. At +Milan the poet Bellincione and Leonardo da Vinci welcomed +the young wife of Giovanni Galeazzo in a sort of firmament, +in which animated planets circled round her, loading her +with compliments the while. Plato in his raptest moods +never imagined anything sweeter or lovelier than certain +tokens of homage paid by the Italians to a new sovereign +lady. On returning to their domains the Duke and Duchess +of Urbino found, ranged upon a hill-slope, the ladies of the +city exquisitely dressed, and the children bearing olive-branches +in their hands. As soon as the bridal party came +in sight a screen of mounted choristers rose up before them, +accompanied by nymphs in antique garb; dogs started +off in pursuit of hares let loose for them; the hills resounded +with the strains of a cantata specially composed; the +Goddess of Mirth in person descended the slope and offered +the duchess her congratulations and good wishes.</p> + +<p>These affectionate welcomes, this show of cordiality at +least warmed the sick and sad heart of a young wife, and +indicated at the outset her path of safety. Yes, it was a +pious and salutary work to envelop in an ideal world this +timid child of nature who was being consigned to a lord +and master. It would have been barbarous to check this +joy in external things; to show the poor girl from the very +first the cutting of bread-and-butter as the be-all and end-all +of a woman’s life; to shut out from her view all that +lends brightness and colour to the world. On the contrary, +thanks to the smiles with which heaven and earth greeted +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span>her, a woman of intelligence and sensibility entered upon +her mission with a stout heart, in the vague anticipation +that fortune was bound to smile upon her still. Where was +the harm? There was nothing in her hopes to prevent her +from treading the stoical path of destiny and lending herself +to the material functions that devolved upon her. But her +eyes were opened, she perceived the dawn for her of a life +which her husband had long known. It was now her turn +to blossom out; she became conscious of her soul, and +understood that she too was to be entitled to her youth.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="smaller">THE MARRIED WOMAN</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>“Woman, in my judgment, is the stumbling-block in a man’s +career. To love a woman and yet do anything worth doing +is very difficult, and the only way to escape being reduced +by love to a life of idleness is to marry.” There is nothing +new in this reflection, put by Tolstoï into the mouth of one +of his characters.⁠<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a> Such was the theory of the Middle Ages—fatal +love! The new-fledged husband was under no illusion +in the matter: he had married to cure himself of love, or +rather to have done with it for ever, to turn from woman +and towards higher things; he would never have imagined +any connection between his marital duties and his soul. +First and last, wedlock had no romance for him. Marriage +was the worn and dusty highway of materialities.</p> + +<p>Nor did the expectations of the young girl soar any +higher. Shown the simple truth by the solemn personages +to whom she owed her upbringing, sedulously guarded +against any kind of illusion, she knew all there was to know +about her new duties, and in regard to these it was thought +peculiarly necessary to arm her against errors and enthusiasms +that might bring disappointments in their train. +Marriage she had always looked upon as a natural function +with excellent precedents, and she had studied its rules, in +their rudiments at least, so as to be able to guide her steps +intelligently in a career that had necessarily its technical side.</p> + +<p>This was why Champier the physician compiled expressly +for Suzanne de Bourbon—that peerless flower among noble +maidens—a little treatise quite foreign in its nature to what +is in these days called “literature for young people.” Yet +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>it must be confessed that this treatise, frankly physiological +as it is, constituted the best imaginable safeguard against +being swept away on a flood-tide of passion and folly. +Champier lays down, as rigorously as though stating an +astronomical law, various rules for his lady’s guidance in +the most intimate relations of wedded life; prudence, +moderation, and regularity are his text, and he gives point +to his precepts by setting against them a menacing array of +human ills—gout, anæmia, dyspepsia, enfeeblement of the +sight.⁠<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> Prosing preachers of this sort, let us add, addressed +themselves chiefly to the women, and their exhortations +were felt to be necessary and moral in the extreme.</p> + +<p>Marriage being a partnership to perpetuate a stock and +beget children, the wife was naturally expected to accept +without wincing the consequences of the contract—consequences +it was as unreasonable to decry as to extol. All +around her she saw reminders of the high sacredness and +dignity of her vocation: genealogical trees spread their vast +ramifications over the walls, and, while invoking the past, +gravely, almost solemnly shaped for her that gigantic note +of interrogation in regard to the future which distinguishes +man from the brutes: the whole taking deeper significance +and impressiveness from the emblematic figures of Wisdom, +Honour, Reason, with which some artist had illustrated +them. “Marriage is a holy and religious bond; and the +pleasure a man hath of it should be a moderate, staid, and +serious pleasure, and blent somewhat with severity.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> To +attach oneself to this pleasure, to make it the axis of one’s +world, would have seemed beneath contempt. By the favour +of Heaven, a wife could still retain her self-respect and become +a moral and religious soul.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p> + +<p>On these lines the straight path was marked out: in +regard to circumstances, neither revolt nor rapture; between +the two partners, neither love nor hate, but an amicable +understanding, a little stiff perhaps, and wholly practical. +To stray from this path was only to fall into difficulties and +mistakes.</p> + +<p>To what extent this wary walking really availed is a +question upon which opinions have always been pretty +evenly divided. Marriage was the time-honoured target at +which everyone had a prescriptive right to discharge the +shafts of his wit; for all that, marrying and giving in +marriage proceeded apace, and the institution went on perpetuating +itself imperturbably. It may well be believed +that, at an epoch when conversation, free discussion, and a +mania for philosophising were in vogue, no one lost an +opportunity of airing his views on the surprises and the +advantages of wedlock; and indeed it is at this time that +we see the first indication that the shafts of irony were +taking effect, and that the target, after all, was showing +signs of wear.</p> + +<p>Here, too, there emerges more clearly into view a truth +which the reader will already have seen faintly suggesting +itself in the careful and impartial sketch we have endeavoured +to draw of the beginning of life for women: the +truth, namely, that the ascendency of man developed in him +strange principles of egotism. It might be supposed that +married women, handed over, as we have shown, like so +many sheep, would pitifully cry out against their sacrifice, +while the husbands would be abundantly satisfied with the +results of a “deal” (if the word may be allowed) effected at +so little cost to themselves. But such was not the case: +humanity is so constituted that, sunk in abject slavery, with +no glimpse of anything beyond, it will hug its chains; while +the more freedom it enjoys, the keener grows its appetite +for freedom. So long as we are sure of a to-morrow, and +believe that somehow or other our lot may yet improve, the +present does not count: but, for us to love the present, the +future must stretch out before us into the gloom of the unknown, +and this, no doubt, is why Providence imposes on +us the great enigma of death. So it was with marriage. +While the women were content, the husbands railed at it. +Monogamy irritated them. Despite all possible precautions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>monogamy almost inevitably endows the wife with a certain +influence. Polygamy alone, in virtue of the classic principle +<i>divide et impera</i>, can assure to a husband an undisputed +authority, and that is why, at bottom, to many men who +dared not avow it, polygamy appeared the most natural of +luxuries. There are savants, too, who will prove to you +that in many countries it was easy to slacken the marriage +bond, turn it, even, to profitable account; that it was regularly +let on lease for a month or a year. The Babylonians +would rather have lent a wife than an ass.</p> + +<p>With women, on the other hand, we remark a resignation +springing largely from the code of perfect realism by +which their marriage was regulated.</p> + +<p>They find themselves face to face with a fact; what is +done cannot be undone, nor can it be done over again. The +transaction is completed: all that remains is to pay the +price. Once they can think themselves quit of that obligation, +the problem of liberty will present itself to them too, +though not, of course, under the forbidding aspects of those +ideas of divorce, remarriage, polygamy, that are floating in +the air. In the eyes of the women marriage kept its +character as a sacrament: the view that it was a contract +freely entered into between their husbands and themselves +appeared hard to accept, for several reasons. In the first +place, little faith was put in that system of social contracts +of which we are so enamoured to-day. Life was incomprehensible +without a large admixture of fatalism. We are +not, we cannot be, parties to a contract when we come into +the world; but certain laws have already had their way +with us, and to them we continue subject. In marriage, +one of those laws, there is nothing irrational in the accessory +notion of a contract, and yet, even in marriage, with every +imaginable liberty of choice, the real substance of a contract +is not found. Is not this contract specially complicated +with latent circumstances of time, place, motive, which act +unequally upon the two parties? In its very nature it +involves so much that is unknown, so much that is fortuitous, +admits of so many causes of error and instability, +that it barely comes into the category of reasonable presumptions, +much less of contracts.</p> + +<p>Erasmus is astonished that women are still to be found +willing to submit to all the trials of maternity; and indeed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>it would perhaps have been difficult to find such women, if, +before venturing out upon so perilous a sea, they had not +been able to insure themselves against the selfishness of men +by a high conception of duty, stronger and, above all, more +durable than the idea of a contract. They needed no persuasion +to beware of self-delusion, to contemplate marriage +under its most leaden hues; but yet they wished to retain +for it its character as a refuge, rude but trustworthy. They +derided the chimerical theories of Plato on free union; in +short, all things considered, not one of them regretted having +been married in the time-honoured way, since no other means +had yet been discovered of assuring an honourable motherhood. +Unions of policy and position, they very well knew, +do not bring about a fusion of hearts; too often they become +“suburbs of hell.” But what is to replace them? Marriages +of passion and love? As a matter of fact, says a caustic +critic, since as mere men we are no longer of any importance, +or at any rate are all of equal value in the eyes of +women, the question is becoming much simpler: a princess +will be able to marry after her own heart, to wed a prince, +or a peasant, as there is not a pin to choose between them. +Where is the advantage? retorts a sage: love matches turn +out as ill as the others. The only philosophy of marriage +which women must cling to is that in this matter there is +no philosophy. It is useless to attempt to sublimate it; +what they have to do is to make the best they can of it, +and satisfy themselves with a sort of virtuous affection, +in accordance with the unfathomable designs of Providence. +“Marriage,” says Margaret of France,⁠<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> “should not admit of +any objective either of pleasure or of self-interest: all the +same, it is not a perfect state; let us be satisfied with wisely +accepting it for what it is, a make-shift, but reputable.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> + +<p>Thus the conclusion to which women tend to arrive in +their cogitations on married life—and who have a better +right to cogitate?—is that though they may submit to a +husband, they no longer think themselves bound to adapt +themselves to him, to identify themselves with him at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>every moment and in every caprice, or to worship this +fellow-mortal with the same superstitious veneration as of +yore. They see him as he is, a man, with certain qualities, +human, in the nature of things, and certain defects, naturally +far from divine: a physical creditor, whose claim they do not +contest, but are well able to measure.</p> + +<p>At the risk of appearing rash in a matter wherein mathematical +proofs are so difficult to produce, we think we are +justified in asserting that the majority of married women +(we are speaking of women of position) desired to render +their physical subjection as light as possible, regarding this +obligation almost as the seamy side of life, an error of Providence. +And they had so much the better of the position +that, as rumours of the little domestic dramas always got +abroad sooner or later, the ladies were almost certain to +have the laughers on their side, especially in France. The +French refused all rights to the married woman, but they +always took her part, even when she was in the wrong, +precisely because, as they looked at marriage, the husband +represented the government and the wife the opposition. +Domestic squabbles fed the stage, furnishing certain types +which were very popular—to wit, the man who married +too young, or the man who married too old, the latter a +special favourite since the time when good King Louis XII., +sacrificing himself to a dynastic ambition, espoused the lady +he called his “torment.” The husband’s part, then, is in +truth difficult enough to play. If he is intellectual, platonic, +there is no pity for him, people are all so busy finding +excuses for his wife. In regard, also, to a husband who +puffs and blows and is irritably jealous, the “new right” +grants to the wife the fullest absolution. Everyone knows +that a silk dress is not enough for happiness!—and because +a husband is pleased to be deaf or blind, it is not to be expected +that the whole world is to be blind and deaf too.</p> + +<p>On her side, a wife had the right to stand on her dignity +and play the prude. In general, the average worthy man, a +little vulgar perhaps, but a good father and an excellent man +of business, is not a great success in his domestic relations, +and in insisting on what he regards as his wife’s mission, the +bearing of children, he wofully deceives himself. My lady’s +mission is to be the lady of the house: as for him, let him go +to his office and “think himself too much honoured that God +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>has blessed him with such a wife.” If it is a question of receiving +fine fashionable friends, people from Court, madam +has incomparable graces; but any tender approaches on the +good man’s part are sure to bring on a fit of the megrims.</p> + +<p>There were a multitude of good, excellent marriages +which were only half marriages. Appearances were saved +in the eyes of the world, and even in the eyes of the married +couple themselves; they both had the good taste to drift +along without undue strain, gathering merely the natural +fruits of their association. Both enjoyed their liberty: the +wife was unmolested and her own mistress; the husband +travelled, sailed the seas, or went on embassies, striking up +flirtations in his progress from court to court, and doing his +household honour by his successes. Castiglione,⁠<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a> a perfect +type of the man of the world, saw his wife at intervals, and +was always on the best of terms with her; evidently it never +occurred to him to take her about with him, but he always +showed her in the most delicate manner how much he +valued her. At Rome he amused himself by putting into +verse a letter he was addressing to her. It was at Rome, +too, in August 1520, that he learnt of her death in giving +birth to a daughter; just before she died the tender-hearted +woman mustered strength to smile for the last time, and to +dictate one more charming little letter.⁠<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span></p> + +<p>Montaigne has a good deal of pity for the women who +were subjected to these capricious humours: “They are +verily in worse condition than maids and widows. We +want them at the same time hot and cold.” He does not +remark that, for some reason or other—disgust of too pronounced +a materialism, longing for peace and quietness, +coquetry, scorn of sensuality, or what not—the majority of +women only accepted wifehood for the sake of motherhood, +and would be more than satisfied if they could be virgin-mothers; +some considered themselves almost as idols sacred +from human touch. Pope Alexander VI., for all his humour +and his nimble wit, was very far from understanding all +these refinements, and this singular loathing of the flesh. +In 1502 he expressed himself pithily and forcibly, but +vainly, about the amusing opposition of the Duchess of +Urbino, who, when she was offered urgent and incontestable +reasons for the annulment of her marriage,⁠<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> absolutely +refused to exchange her husband for a French husband of +unimpaired vigour, whilst the duke, the cause of this +contention, accepted a cardinal’s hat. Laugh as Alexander +might, with all his keen sense of humour, at what he called +“fraternal magnanimity,” this simple incident at Urbino +contained the germ of an entirely new code. Other ladies +carried the sentiment of ‘fraternity’ to preposterous lengths. +Paul Jove⁠<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a> himself, who belonged body and soul to the +philosophic world, gives vent to his feelings when he records +the remarkable feat of Julia Gonzaga, Countess of Fondi, +who was left a widow after many years of marriage without +having ever yielded on the essential point. Marriage so +understood becomes a mere matter of policy or business.</p> + +<p>We have no wish to dilate on this delicate problem of +bodily emancipation; but it so constantly comes before us, +and it is especially of such vast importance in regard to the +further development of the ideas current in society, that it +is hardly possible to avoid doing so. The preachers, who at +one time had ardently urged the severing of family ties as +inexorably demanded by religion, are now seen proclaiming +from their pulpits, with the same appeal to religion, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>totally different doctrine, and inculcating mortification of +the flesh of quite a novel kind. We know the story of an +excellent pharmacist of Pau “who never had anything to do +with his wife except in Holy Week,⁠<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> by way of penance.” +Even in remote country places it became the vogue to +occupy separate rooms. There was no attempt at disguising +the fact, and a good deal of joking on this casuistical refinement +went on in polite circles. It was one of the points on +which Henri d’Albret was not backward in rallying his wife +Margaret. She flung back the half-laughing, half-angry +retort: “Henri, perhaps the lady whom you think so much +to be pitied might find some solace if she pleased. But let +us dismiss the pastimes in which only two can share, and +speak of what should be common to all.” Then Henri, +taking as was proper a higher tone above these trivialities, +addresses humanity at large: “Since my wife has caught so +well the drift of my remark, and takes no pleasure in a +pastime for the individual.... I give in.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a></p> + +<p>We have often read the eulogies on Margaret of France, +sister of Francis I., and the compliments paid to her +conjugal virtue. There is no reason to gainsay them, but +it is well to note of what stuff her virtue was made. +Henri II. could write: “Without me, she would never have +returned with her husband.” And, in truth, she made no +secret of it.</p> + +<p>One day when someone was relating a scandalous freak +on the part of a faithless husband, Henri d’Albret said to +her with affected tenderness: “I assure you that I shall +never undertake so great or so difficult an enterprise. I +shall not have spent my day badly if I succeed in making +you happy.” And Margaret made the somewhat dry and +aesthetic reply: “If mutual love does not satisfy the heart, +all else will fail to do so.” Towards the end of a certain +December the Princess happened to be a little out of sorts; +whereupon she wrote boldly to her brother: “I got this on +St. Firmin’s day (September 25), as likely as not.” This +recalls a certain bet that M. de la Rochepot made with +Queen Eleanor, wife of Francis I. La Rochepot maintained +that the queen was drawing the long bow—that she was +not really so free with her favours as she gave people to +understand. However, he forbore like a gallant gentleman +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span>to insist, and surrendered to the contrary testimony of men +who had the best reasons for knowing.</p> + +<p>But now, in the midst of this cold, nicely balanced existence, +or these serious misunderstandings even, a heavy +blow falls suddenly in the shape of illness: the husband is +struck down. Instantly a change comes over everything. +Womanly kindness gushes forth as from a natural spring. +The wife’s concern is still, as is always the case in matrimonial +questions, only with the bodily realm, but the soul +breaks through. For the first time the wife asserts herself, +less perhaps out of affection for a man from whom only +yesterday she held aloof, than in obedience to a natural +instinct for combatting material things, pain and disease. +Differences of temperament, character, position, philosophical +views, all drop out of sight: sensibility alone shines forth +triumphant. The house is in commotion, messengers scour +the country in search of distant physicians, the chaplain +sets off to arrange for masses and votive candles. See, at +the bedside of Pierre de Bourbon, the great Anne of France, +once the haughty regent of the kingdom, now fixing her +eyes steadfastly on the sick man, taking no rest day or +night, declining aid from anyone, measuring out potions and +remedies with her own hand, administering the doses herself, +warming the bed, doing for the patient little offices of +infinite delicacy without a touch of constraint; an eye-witness +goes so far as to say that she “made it her delight.” +The wedded wife is not a love-sick girl, a scribbler of verses; +she has no need of imagination, of airs and graces, of +enthusiasm: here she is seen in all her grave nobility. She +is a sister of mercy. The woman who could not pardon a +cross-grained husband resigns herself without hesitation to +a future of poultices, cooling draughts, and rheumatism. +Some there are who endure this lot for long years without +flagging, some who encounter it at the very outset of their +married life. It is their natural vocation.</p> + +<p>The attraction exercised on women by suffering is one of +the most singular phenomena in the realm of psychology. +It is as evident as the attraction of the magnet for iron. +Women are born nurses and doctors, with a passion for +tending the sick, for dedicating themselves with all their +wealth of tenderness, for devoting their delicate fingers to +the binding up of wounds. Between this passion and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span>passion of love there is an intimate relationship; in both +is involved the bestowing of life on man; but in this case +the problem is very simple, presenting none of the moral +complications of love. Matter-of-fact and practical women +are not the least strongly convinced of the vocation of their +sex for medicine.</p> + +<p>So general was the impression in regard to this that a +certain pious author advised that the doors of the medical +school should be thrown open freely to women, that they +should be taught all that men were taught, indeed a little +more (Greek and Arabic), and that they should then be sent +off to the Holy Land to aid in the conversion of the infidels.</p> + +<p>But why not keep in France women so well-instructed? +The reader no doubt has an inkling of the reason: the +physicians are to be reckoned with, jealous guardians of +their monopoly, already exasperated against the surgeons, +apothecaries, and women, “nonentities,” who are meddling +with the care of the children. They are masculine, these +physicians, men to their finger-tips: to kill, or at any rate +to physic one’s fellows, one must needs wear breeches. +“The woman who meddles with our trade is a silly +creature.”</p> + +<p>Women did meddle with it, nevertheless, out of devotion, +and above all out of self-respect. And on this matter we +must take note of ideas absolutely the reverse of those +which prevail to-day.</p> + +<p>To women it would have appeared the deepest humiliation +and the basest servitude to depend on men for the thousand +intimate and special attentions which they so often found +necessary in regard to their health. Undoubtedly they +held that modesty is to some extent a relative term, and +that “intentions” count for something in it. So they +willingly permitted all sorts of friendly, spontaneous, personal +familiarities, so long as they were in good taste; but +even when sick and suffering they were determined to +remain women; and the idea of surrendering their womanhood, +of passing like cattle under the hands and eyes of a +horse-doctor on the mere pretext that the modesty of a girl +or a woman is a remnant of savagery, and that all stand-offishness +in this respect appears almost an insult towards a +practitioner, did not strike them as a matter of course; they +repudiated it absolutely; and, moreover, the Roman, Greek, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>and Arabic ideas, then so fashionable, strengthened their +resistance.</p> + +<p>So far from believing that a man had more rights because +he was paid, or because his senses had become deadened by +constant wear and tear, they regarded both these circumstances +as adding to their humiliation and confusion. For +their special maladies they had recourse to women only, +and the very fact that in such cases physical pain is complicated +with moral pain and weariness of soul, led women +of the world, great ladies, to take up a work of charity of +real delicacy and refinement, to devote themselves to a +thorough study of this class of maladies, so that they might +spare their sisters the unpleasantness of mercenary attentions.</p> + +<p>Nothing could be more gracious or more natural.</p> + +<p>Science at this period was science, and a man was a man. +He was as much entitled to study medicine, and to practise +it, even without a diploma, as to study any other branch of +knowledge—history, mathematics, or chemistry. To have +dragged out a few years on the benches of a school is +assuredly not a bad means of learning, but it is not the only +one, and it ought not to be regarded as warranting for the +rest of a man’s life a positive presumption of his universal +knowledge and impeccability. In medicine, as in other +things, so-called amateurs⁠<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a> have been known occasionally +to bear the palm over professionals. Now, what science can +women more naturally cultivate, what answers better to +their requirements in regard to refinement and equality, +what more legitimately emancipates them? The practice +of medicine was their first conquest, the “great charter” of +their freedom. A number of women, particularly women +of distinction who had charitable hearts and leisure for +study, in a certain sense practised medicine. A celebrated +savant, while gently expressing his regret, dedicated to +Diana of Poitiers,⁠<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> as to a colleague, with a thousand professions +of scientific esteem, a treatise on the diseases of +women.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span></p> + +<p>Except that they watched for the propitious moment for +regaining the upper hand, the physicians gave in; they left +the patient in the hands of a woman, contenting themselves +with writing a prescription on the particulars reported to +them, thus securing at least formal recognition—and their +fees. Even from professorial chairs medicine was +extolled as a lovely and philosophic thing; and in an +official ceremony at Paris a “prince of science” (to adopt +a modern term) declared to a large audience that Nature +has a certain feminine complexion, that she has been +specially bountiful to women and endowed them more +highly than men.</p> + +<p>It should be remarked that if the physicians had the +good sense not to quarrel with the formidable power of +women, but to come to terms, that result was probably +due to the fact that they were themselves in the throes +of a crisis which could not but inspire them with great prudence. +People were up in arms against them; they were +no longer content with rehashing stale jokes;⁠<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a> the sick +expected to be cured. Further, complete discord reigned +in the scientific world; men vied with each other in flinging +about opprobrious epithets like “fool,” “mountebank,” and +“specialist.” Paris remained faithful to the traditional and +philosophic spirit, while Paracelsus burnt the works of Galen +and Avicenna. Many men dismissed medicine as a purely +empirical science with no theory behind it, and capable of +being mastered in six months. The activity in scientific +circles only added to the intellectual confusion. Opinion +went so far as to hold doctors responsible for their actions, +and to maintain that their repute should be strictly proportionate +to their merits.⁠<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> There were not wanting sceptics, +even among women. Margaret of France, in one of her +comedies, brings on the scene a sick man who, after +being tossed about like a shuttlecock between his doctor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>and his wife, is ultimately cured through the prayers of +the cook.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, a real bond of friendship and brotherhood +was in most cases established between the lady and this +stranger who called himself a doctor. It was a sort of +domestic and personal intimacy. Women, as we all know, +are greatly in need of a directing authority; they love also +to be made much of, as certain doctors understood wonderfully +well; like that doctor who never met a woman without +attempting to worm out of her some confidences as to her +health, and when someone expressed his astonishment, +“Aha!” said he, waggling his head, “even well-corked +bottles sometimes have cracks.” In reality, he fancied that +his solicitude would be highly appreciated.</p> + +<p>The doctor who won a lady’s esteem became her friend. +He would write to her asking how she was, and addressing +her as “my sweet princess”; if he learnt of her illness, +he flew to her; if she died, he mourned her. His sentiments +sometimes outran his interests; a noble lady died, +and among her effects were found formidable doctor’s bills +she had forgotten to settle. If in special cases there were +limits to the confidence patients placed in their doctor’s +skill, there remained still a vast enough field for private +friendship, which lent itself only too well to scandal.</p> + +<p>Official recommendations to hold medicine in respect “on +account of its necessity” came from the pulpit. Priests +and doctors gave each other mutual support and divided +the empire between them.⁠<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a> Scholars unearthed the old +story of a medical student who bore himself like an angel +while attending an Aspasia. But in spite of these little +testimonials, ill-natured folk like Ronsard, Brantôme and +others continued with more or less virtuous indignation +to make doctors their butt. Dolce⁠<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> amuses himself by +relating the misadventure of a young husband, who, having +confided to his physician his intense longing to become a +father, was ere long lodging with the courts a complaint +that he had too speedily obtained his wish. The public +was always ready to laugh at stories of this kind. Medical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>science was often considered as an instrument of corruption. +Champier, who practised at Lyons, in good set terms +accuses his fellow-physicians of becoming veritable agents +of demoralisation, and of perverting their patients’ moral +sense.</p> + +<p>So far as medicine was concerned, women showed a +becoming modesty in their ambition. Many medical women +were women of the old school, who acknowledged the +superiority of men. They confined themselves to a well-defined +field of study. As soon as she marries, a woman +will join battle with sickness; by and by she will have +children to take care of, then it will be her duty to preserve +her beauty and charms. Here is a medical field well +marked out for her. On other points she remains subordinate +to men, leaving to them in particular all lofty speculations.</p> + +<p>An eminent, if not the foremost place in the medicine of +the schools was then held by astrology, to which the +physicians, wise in their generation, owed a great part of +their prestige.⁠<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> Assuredly it was not hard to believe, with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>Plato and the Christian church, that the universe does not +end with man, and that above us there is a hierarchy +of supernatural beings, imperceptible to our senses, on +whom we depend, and whose wings sometimes seem to +brush us as they pass: those beings whom Ronsard has +invoked, in verses of so much beauty, as witnesses of his +love:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ailés démons, qui tenez de la terre</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et du haut ciel justement le milieu,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Postes divins, divins postes de Dieu.⁠<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Many physicians held that the noblest part of their art +consisted in penetrating if possible the mystery of the +influence of these supernatural forces.</p> + +<p>Further, how could they but discover, even in the natural +order of material things, a universal harmony, intimate +relations between the health of women and the ocean tides +and the revolutions of the heavens, a thousand bonds—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">D’innombrables liens, frêles et douloureux,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui vont dans l’univers entier de l’âme aux choses.⁠<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">as M. Sully-Prudhomme sings? People who had lost all +belief in the saints had in those days the strongest faith in +heaven and the stars. They believed readily enough that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>though the spirit, coming from God, is free, the vile physical +body depends wholly on the stars—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Aux corps vous donnez vostre loy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme un potier à son argile.⁠<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">These celestial torches govern the universe. In vain man +struggles, suffers, battles, strains all his powers; he is in the +grip of a mysterious destiny.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent2">Ainsi vous plaist, estoilles!...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En vain l’homme de sa prière</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vous tourmente soir et matin;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il est traîné par son destin,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme est un flot de la rivière.⁠<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Ronsard.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Women, particularly sensitive to the mystery of things, +could not close their ears against such lofty scientific +preoccupations. Renée of France implores the aid of the +stars. Margaret exclaims, “their effects are felt in human +bodies.” Yet the surrender was not complete, as one might +be disposed to expect: it is a very remarkable fact that in +spite of their natural impressibility and their genius for +imaginative flights, they did not readily ascribe to medicine +so supernal a glory. To them medicine was a science of +the earth earthy, a practical and experimental science. The +only metaphysical principle they associated with it came +from without; and that was, charity.</p> + +<p>On the other hand they were wonderfully credulous.⁠<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> +One of their passions was to collect strange exotic recipes of +any and every kind. Catherine Sforza, statesman as she +was, spent hours in a private laboratory, receiving a Jewess +who had brought her a universal salve, or verifying formulae +for a celestial water, a cerebrine made of the marrow of an +ass, a magnet intended to compose family squabbles, and a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>thousand other prescriptions of like virtue. One of her +ambassadors sends her a drug chiefly compounded of eggs +and saffron, of which he sings the virtues with a frenzy of +enthusiasm: “I wish to be present when you test it.... +I would not change places with the King of France, so happy +am I in contemplating so admirable a thing; and besides, +your Excellency would not find another man like me: for +courage is required, not to be afraid of spirits; faith, to believe; +secrecy, to betray nothing; and, finally, you need the +instruments that I have; the Universities of Bologna, +Ferrara, Paris, and Rome possess nothing like them.” At +the very moment of going to war Catherine does not forget +to write an order for the jars she needs for her experiments. +Nevertheless, in all these strings of formulae, often so +puerile and collected for collecting’s sake, we detect more +than a collector’s mania: we cannot but see in them the +thirst for the unknown—an attempt to pierce the impenetrable +beyond. This effort, it may be admitted, was not +very scientific. But was that of the most highly accredited +physician any more so? Women accepted the doctrine that +the sun governed the heart and nerves, Jupiter the liver, and +Venus the rest of the organism; but they were superior to +it in so far as they drew no conclusion from it, making +hygiene their chief aim, and limiting their ambition to the +preservation of health and youthfulness.</p> + +<p>In this respect they were successful; women have rarely +been known to retain their beauty in so much freshness up +to an advanced age as these women of the first years of the +sixteenth century. Their activity was unceasing, they +drank deep of life, but never to excess: therein lay their +great secret—a secret that was simplicity itself, and of +inestimable value, as the next generation was to find when, +by dint of defying nature, by crushing themselves under +busks and baubles, exposing the bosom, turning night into +day, or carrying everything to extremes, the world became +peopled with pale-faced, forbidding, white-lipped women. +Ere long a cruel procession of maladies appeared—nervous +attacks, fits of hysteria, stabbing pains at the heart, agonising +births of puny creatures—signalising the return of neurasthenia, +which had seemed buried, but which was to +revive in triumph, and for which no other remedies were to +be found than a return to the life of nature, fresh air, repose, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>renunciation of the habits of the fashionable world, uninterrupted +vegetation.</p> + +<p>In brief, the woman whom marriage has started upon a +physiological career is bent on defending her body and remaining +her own mistress, in face of her husband, her physician—the +whole world.</p> + +<p>She has her work cut out for her. Further, she is beset +under various forms by an irruption of materialities, which +would speedily overwhelm her if she did not know how to +cope with them. She has still to govern the household, to +regulate day by day its eating, drinking, sleeping—the +whole domestic organisation.</p> + +<p>Husbands are all alike; it is in great measure to secure a +house which “goes like clockwork,” that they marry. They +consider it the most natural thing in the world for a woman +to consecrate herself to rounding off their life, to yoke +herself in unmurmuring submission to thankless tasks, like +the domestic drudge described by Solomon, necessary to the +world as food or light: “She seeketh wool and flax, and +worketh willingly with her hands.... She riseth also +while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household and +a portion to her maidens.... She girdeth her loins with +strength.... Strength and honour are her clothing.... +Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that +feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”</p> + +<p>The preachers take pains to show that she shall indeed be +praised, that her ideal is glorious though her lot will be +obscure, and that there is a happiness in housewifely +duty—in feeling that the whole household moves by her +impulse alone. “The wise woman has exalted her house”; +on her wisdom and rectitude has depended the greatness or +the decay of a family. To pull down is the work of fools. +The wise build up, and is not to build up a splendid mission, +say the preachers with growing ardour—to build up happiness +for those one loves, and one’s own happiness in this +world and the world to come? “Favour is deceitful and +beauty is vain!” Look at this massive woman, probably +happy in her own way, a marvel of plumpness, with firm-set +lips and a look of energy and masterfulness, unpoetic but +very wholesome—this matron of Lotto, blind to all indications +that ironical moonbeams are grimacing behind her; +or this superb large-limbed creature, burdened with a cluster +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>of children, whom Holbein presents to us as his wife. These +good ladies, we may be sure, rise at six and retire at ten, and +from dawn till dark their only aim in life is to take the air, +to go to church, to cook and dust and darn. No Utopia +worries them, no philosophic idea ruffles the calm monotony +of their lot.</p> + +<p>The majority of French women were sprung from this +type in its most pronounced form, the rural form, and it was +practically impossible for them to alter. In France men of +rank almost all belonged to the class of landed proprietors, +and the affairs of these proprietors had been for several +years passing through a crisis. Even if their income were +below the moderate figure of three or four thousand livres,⁠<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> +they had to submit to being eaten out of house and home by +a number of traditional functionaries, while on the other +hand the growing needs of luxury and the depreciation of +money seriously embarrassed them. More than one noble, +believing he saw a mine of gold opening in Italy, had joyously +buckled on his sword again, only to return impoverished, +if not in debt, worn out, and soured in temper.</p> + +<p>The country squire bore his straitened circumstances with +rather an ill grace. Rubbing shoulders with the peasants +(and the humblest peasant was a lord in his own eyes) and +with the village authorities; a determined foe to Jews, +financiers, and monopolists; a democrat, persuaded that all +men are equal, or nearly so; resigned moreover to figure as +head of his village, since a head it was bound to have, but +troubling himself very little about the other social magnates; +he shut himself up in his estates like his father and grandfather +before him, among the sons and grandsons of the +people by whom those respectable personages had been surrounded. +He was an excellent man, of bluff manners and +healthy appetite, determined to keep his eldest son waiting +for his inheritance as long as possible, and to disperse the +rest of his family, sending the boys into the Church or the +army, and marrying the girls to his neighbours. He had a +grudge against Louis XII. for giving the landed interest +nothing but fair words: Francis I., who multiplied court +appointments and paid handsome salaries, appeared to him +the right sort of king for agriculturists.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span></p> + +<p>That was the kind of man with whom and for whom the +majority of the women of French society lived. At bottom, +this husband is an idealist; he despises money, and +plumes himself on the fact with a certain smug satisfaction; +but in his home life he frequently acts as an absolute +realist, a cold-blooded calculator. He will readily and +with the utmost chivalrousness admit that women in +general are superior beings, worthy of much liberty; but he +insists on his particular woman remaining on a lower plane +and occupying herself with practical matters. He relinquishes +to her the honour of keeping the accounts, he even +authorises her to negotiate a bargain, or to secure payment +of a due, while he himself hunts, settles disputes among his +peasants, potters about, or does nothing. Montaigne is +eager to avow that he has no concern with business; in his +view it is ridiculous and unjust “that the idleness of our +wives should be fostered with our sweat and maintained by +our toil.” He admits in the most liberal manner the right +of women to work, and does so from pure goodness of heart, +since women delight in managing, and a woman who works +wants no pity! While Madame de Montaigne is keeping +his accounts, planting, reaping, looking after the masons, her +intellectual husband is good-naturedly gossiping about mankind +at large, or tranquilly contemplating the backs of his +books, or dawdling through Italy, on the principle that +travel is the salt of wedlock, poking his nose into everything +on the way, halting at the watering-places, visiting interesting +young ladies; all the time reverencing his wife, oh, so +deeply! He feels that when he returns and finds her among +the haymakers, his love will take a new lease of life: +“These interruptions fill me with a new kind of affection +towards mine own people, and make my house so much +pleasanter a place.... I am not ignorant that true amity +hath arms long enough to embrace, to clasp and hold from +one corner of the world unto another.... The Stoics say +that there is so great an affinity and mutual relation between +wise men that he who dineth in France feedeth his companion +in Egypt.... If I be at Rome ... I hold, I survey +and govern my house ... I even see my walls, my trees +and my rents to grow.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> + +<p>In those days the direction of a household was an admirable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>apprenticeship to philosophy, since it was a point of +honour to maintain a great number of idle people. Thus +Madame de la Trémoille had to rule, feed, and place forty +men, four of whom were attached to her personal service +(chaplain, tailor, groom, and steward), and only three women, +of whom one was a nurse.</p> + +<p>She had to maintain this retinue and give it a stamp of +high respectability and discipline, which was all the more +difficult because the servants were people of some consequence, +there for life, holding places that had been hereditary +for several generations; in other words, the house belonged +to them, in virtue of some indefinable family collectivism.</p> + +<p>Further, people had an ingrained propensity to regard +generosity as the special mark of an aristocrat; and as this +virtue was expected to grow in proportion to rank, it +invariably had the drawback of straitening their means. +Out of an enormous total expenditure, Madame de la Trémoille +had at her disposal only two hundred livres for her +personal use. A prince was often worse off than those who +lived on his bounty.</p> + +<p>Further, this “generosity” did not manifest itself only in +money: it declared itself in affectionate and gracious actions, +which after all involved expense. Thus at Blois no domestic +event took place in the household without the cognizance of +the Duchess of Orleans; she interested herself in the +weddings and gave each couple a present: her children acted +as sponsors; she even looked after her servants’ love-children; +she watched over the aged; any of her servants +or even of their friends who were in trouble were sure of +her sympathy; she interceded with the king to obtain +pardon for a criminal or the remission of a tax: “You will +do both great charity and alms,” she wrote to him, “and to +me a singular pleasure.” Here and there in her modest +accounts there is a little space vacant, importing a surrender +of feudal dues to distressed tenants, a remission of rent, a +cancelling of debt.</p> + +<p>In the account-books of the leading French families there +always occurs a very suggestive chapter, under the heading +of alms. In vain does the charitable spirit in its shrinking +from ostentation draw a veil over the few lines in which the +facts are intentionally summarised. You breathe in passing +an aroma of sweetness, just as in going by a dead wall you +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>divine, from whiffs of their scent, the roses and violets on +the other side. It was the women’s duty to dispense the +alms, and in so doing they obtained, across the arid waste +of material preoccupations, grand outlooks towards the +ideal. A lady of that period was good from pure goodness +of heart; she could let her charity shed its radiance spontaneously, +without effort. She lived in the very heart of +wretchedness: the filthy hovel, instead of shrinking from +her sight and entrenching itself in hateful and inaccessible +suburbs, hung upon the walls of the castle, like a parasitic +plant. What woman could shut her ears against the cries +of wretchedness so near? And charity also was recognised +by the State. Louis XII. devoted to it a total of six +thousand livres, which he increased in 1509 by one thousand +six hundred and forty-two livres; and to ensure a +more conscientious distribution he even appointed, in +addition to his confessor and almoner, a special functionary, +Jacques Acarie, who received the title of “treasurer of the +offerings, alms, and devotions.”</p> + +<p>This fondness for almsgiving the king inherited from his +mother, Mary of Cleves, who was generosity itself. She +did not confine herself to the charitable doles that were +traditional, or almost obligatory, such as the offerings at +Easter or All-Hallows: the present of a robe to the “King +of the château” on Twelfth Night; New-Year’s presents to +a whole village of improvised musicians who came deafening +her with drums, clarions, carols, and cries of “<i>Au guy l’an +neuf!</i>”⁠<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> She went farther afield, to seek out the poor, and +in secret she spent her pin-money in succouring them. +But these private resources were far from inexhaustible. +Like many women, she had a strong predilection for +one special work of charity—the care of women in child-bed. +She organised for them a regular supply of food, +besides giving occasional assistance in money or in kind.</p> + +<p>She took a personal interest also in the Hospital, and +worked with her own hands in a Dorcas society which she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>founded, and which distributed every year in the little town +of Blois five hundred shirts and five hundred dresses.</p> + +<p>In addition to all this there was a long list of “good +works” in a more special sense: little dowries of fifty or +sixty sous bestowed on poor girls, who sometimes bore +notable names, like “Jeanne the Fair,” “Lawrence and +Jeanne de Saint-Prest”; pensions to needy students; alms +to convents; subscriptions to churches. The family of Joan +of Arc had a special right to the bounty of the faithful: +“Perrette de Lys” used to receive fifty sous “to bring up +her own children.”</p> + +<p>Truly charity flourished in France, becoming almost a +new chivalry. Certain men of the world became self-constituted +alms-collectors for a convent or nunnery, under +the name of its “spiritual friends.”</p> + +<p>It cannot be said that France owed anything in this +regard to the example of Italy. The Italians enjoyed large +incomes, much larger than the average Frenchman of +ancient and sometimes crippled fortune; but their expenses +were heavier; they had to give fêtes and buy pictures and +villas. Without wishing to exaggerate the significance of +an anecdote, it is curious enough to compare with the excellent +practices of the French Court a characteristic action +on the part of Julius II. In the course of the expedition +against Bologna, the Pope was told that one of the old +court servants had just lost his only mule. “What did it +die of?” was the Pope’s curt response. “Of the bad water +of Perugia.” “Send the stud-master to me.” Everyone +believed that he was sent for to replace the defunct mule, +but Julius simply said: “Take care they drink nothing but +boiled water.”</p> + +<p>Many great charitable schemes were in operation in Italy, +where refinement and compassion were highly developed; +but the wealthy people of Italy had no great love for anonymous +almsgiving. This was due, no doubt, to the fact that +poverty bears itself more light-heartedly under an azure +sky. In France, where, unhappily, the stars could not fill +hungry mouths, the old traditions, in spite of the seductions +of luxury, were nobly preserved by the women. Anne of +France and Anne of Brittany both received the nickname +of “Mother of Maidens,” in allusion to the dowerless girls +they befriended. Anne of France, who has sometimes been +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>taxed with avarice, contrived to dispense her benefactions +quietly, as cleverly as others trumpeted theirs. At her +expense intelligent children of the lower classes were kept +at their studies until they had taken their degree; orphans +learnt needlework or some trade; widows, cripples, beggars, +poor folk too proud to beg, the broken-hearted, saw unexpected +manna fall from heaven; deserving people were +encouraged, sustained, uplifted, “cherished and nourished” +by an unseen providence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> + +<p>How beautiful, how rare is the art of giving! In our +day we see organised innumerable charitable schemes, “collections” +without number, harvests of good works. But +how many people give for love of giving?</p> + +<p>Margaret of France, too, like a true princess, was generous, +and loved to do good by stealth. In her anxiety not to +appear to curry favour with the people, she refused—in the +blunt phraseology of one of her biographers—to act “like a +mountebank capering on a platform.” “She was wont to +say that kings and princes are not masters and lords of the +poor, but only their ministers.”</p> + +<p>The writer of a moral history must needs explore all +these sweet recesses of a woman’s soul, where so mysterious +a work is accomplished. Later on we shall see the women +bustling about on the public stage, giving the world what it +demands of them. Here, in the silence of the heart, they +act only for themselves; yet, even from the social standpoint, +they will never do a loftier or more efficacious work. +On the rugged path on which so many of the unhappy are +apt to lose their philosophy, is it not well to spread a +soft thick carpet, so that the wayfarers may step more +lightly and be less roughly jolted? This of itself is surely +a genuine work of love, in full accord with the words of +Christ: “To her much shall be forgiven, for she loved +much!” From the very outset of their life, painfully +spelling out the meaning of wedlock, women are, almost +unknown to themselves, winging their flight towards the +ideal, towards love. Here, love calls itself charity, that is +to say, love for the sick, love for the poor, love for all who +are weak and all who suffer.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="smaller">THE CHILDREN</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>Their mission as mothers, thanks to the precautions of +which we have spoken, did not weigh very heavily upon +the women. The tide was set against large families; in +the country, six children were thought an enormous encumbrance, +and as a rule the higher the rank the smaller +the family. There were not a few houses which had no +children at all. Somewhere in Lombardy, indeed, there was +an old law granting exemption from taxes to families of +twelve children, but it did not result in an embarrassed +exchequer.</p> + +<p>The physicians questioned on this phenomenon return +only evasive explanations. Placing themselves as they did +at a special standpoint, they held the women more especially +responsible, accusing the detestable experiments some of +them indulged in with a view to preserving their figure, +such as drinking water or vinegar, eating sour foods, never +setting foot to ground; or a life at high pressure, well +calculated to develop morbid germs and increase nervous +over-excitement; the sort of St. Vitus’s dance which affects +some people; and the thousand other causes of moral and +cerebral derangement. Evidently, in their view, nothing +would be so likely to facilitate motherhood as a life spent +in feeding the pigs and the poultry.</p> + +<p>Yet women resign themselves better than men to the +trials that a family brings upon them.</p> + +<p>When they first recognise their condition, even those who +do not feel called upon to make too much of their duty +heroically accept their lot. No one pities them; it is natural +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>to them to love children,⁠<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a> and if there are moments of +anguish to fear, there are also blissful moments to look forward +to. The husband, on the other hand, is disconsolate; +he regrets everything; he sees in the cold light of reason +the consequences of the event, and his friends agree that he +will reap nothing but worries. A man of fashion collects +pictures, antiques, not children. Some charitable souls +suggest that children assure a kind of survival, are a pledge +of immortality, a security for the continuance of the race; +but, for that matter, a much simpler, surer and more comfortable +way of achieving immortality is simply to write a +sonnet. Hardly any but poor drudges, “chestnut eaters,” +can afford the luxury of being fruitful and multiplying, +because for them, in their kind of work, with their rigorous +enforcement of paternal authority, a swarm of children +represents an immediate increase of earning-power and tools +at very little cost. A middle-class householder, who loves +his ease or is ambitious only to swell his banking account, +has nothing to gain by a large family.</p> + +<p>Among the middle class, then, the budding father is the +subject of sincere commiseration. What cares, what vexations +will be his! He regards himself as bound for some +time to consider the slightest whim of his wife as sacred. +With a flutter at the heart he hies him to the astrologer +to ascertain at least if it is a boy or a girl; and when the +unfeeling stars announce a girl, he still manages to smile.</p> + +<p>One fine day (or fine night, for Nature is whimsical in her +choice), see him, lantern in hand, chilled to the marrow, +shivering, running off to find the nurse; and then what +terrible, what wearing hours follow! In very truth it is +he who demands pity, for Providence, having failed to +foresee these moments for the man, has forgotten to give +him strength equal to them. How ardently he wishes it +were all over! “There is no saint in the calendar,” he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>cries, “but shall have his candle!” The first wail of the +newcomer pours balm on the mother’s heart; but what of +the husband? Can he spare time to admire this shapeless, +unsightly little creature? He seeks nurses for mother and +child, he has the room hung with red, covers the floor with +velvet rugs; if by good luck he falls asleep in a corner, it is +only in his dreams to see a spectral balance-sheet dancing a +frantic saraband. No, he has not his wife’s strength.</p> + +<p>The red room becomes for the young mother a palace of +delight. It was a charity to visit a relative, friend, or +neighbour when recovery was assured, and very few women +would risk losing paradise for such a trifle. And so the room +is never empty. There the lady holds a “regal court,” or +what we, with less enthusiasm, should call a woman’s club. +We may fancy how they chatter, how often the husband is +hauled over the coals, how they cry shame on him. “What! +this shabby dress! He wouldn’t give you this or that? +Ah, the old skinflint!”</p> + +<p>There prevailed in Italy the very amiable practice of +sending all sorts of little presents—flowers, fruit, trinkets, +nicknacks. The young mother was entitled also to a little +tray, painted or chased, of which charming specimens exist, +real works of art. All these presents came in a heap. With +his grave and masculine brush, Domenico Ghirlandajo has +depicted for us a scene at Santa-Maria-Novella: a maidservant +is presenting a cordial on the tray, a friend is +amusing herself with the baby, a high-born dame is making +her entry in great dignity, a message-girl is bringing in a +superb basket of fruit. It is a constant stream of visitors, +wonderfully picturesque.</p> + +<p>As to the husband, he has disappeared among his occupations +and his worries; he reappears a fortnight later, to +return these civilities with a grand dinner.</p> + +<p>The child is to belong to the mother until the eighth year; +an exquisite period in which the heart will expand. It +is as she clasps in her arms this feeble little creature, this +messenger from a new world, that a woman comprehends +love; life appears to her all bathed in a mysterious light, +golden, and warm, and glad. All women, whether cultivated +or illiterate, have this sensation.</p> + +<p>For some time, perhaps for several years, a mother can +thus find the restfulness that springs from happiness, and, in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>making all things minister to her inward joy, she steeps her +soul in a felicity to which she foresees no end.</p> + +<p>No woman, then, ought to deprive herself of the first +smiles of her child, his first prattlings, his divine fondlings, +which Raphael has depicted and which Erasmus considered +so beautiful a thing that he made them a theme for rhetorical +exercises.</p> + +<p>But from the very first the world interposed with tyrannous +hand. In old times a woman had been permitted to +nurse her child; suckling constituted a part of the maternal +functions, approved by moralists and physicians. But now +the fashion had changed; the cry of milk-sellers offering +milk for the nursery was added to the morning din in the +streets of Paris. The smaller gentry and even a certain +number of country magnates⁠<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> sent their children out to +nurse; and to meet this need, human cattle-rearing became +a recognised agricultural industry, which flourished exceedingly, +though it was rather speculative for those engaged in +it, for the children were sometimes left in settlement of the +bill.</p> + +<p>In the great houses, or those of middle station, a nurse +was employed, after satisfying moral and medical tests—a +stout respectable person from twenty to thirty years of age. +She entered the family, and there represented the life of +nature, occupying, to the end of her days if she pleased, +a privileged situation about her foster-child.</p> + +<p>Not infrequently, we must admit, the husband was +heartily at one with the ancient principles, and would very +readily have authorised his wife to dispense with a nurse. +But then some fair friend would take him aside and put him +to shame: “What, he actually means to impose that bondage +upon his wife! Does he not see already how worn out she +is! Ah, he means to compel her to it, and we very well +know why, the miser! Really, who would have thought a +husband had a soul black enough to inflict such thraldom on +a woman, who, thank God, still possesses some attractions!”</p> + +<p>And in that last word there is a world of meaning. A +wife of fifteen or sixteen years, after a year or two of +marriage, had every reason to think that life was not over +for her, and that she still had need of her beauty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span></p> + +<p>Further, etiquette, and in princely houses even politics, +intervened: the convenances were opposed to a mother +taking too personal a part in her children’s upbringing, for +in that case it would not have been worth while to own a +whole regiment of servants. There they were, however, and +their allotted functions must be respected; and so the mother +had to limit her solicitude to a careful superintendence.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, many women ventured to set etiquette at +defiance. The Princess of Orange appears just like any +other woman when she writes so joyfully to her sister-in-law, +Anne of France, that she has just seen her “fair +niece,” who called her “mummy and daddy,” and “gave +her as sweet a welcome in her little baby-talk as such a +baby could.” So, too, Louise of Savoy, when, in 1520, in +the midst of preoccupations of every kind, she recalls that, +thirty-five years before, Francis I. had cut his first teeth +quite unnoticed, “and was not the least little bit ill.”</p> + +<p>Up to the age of seven, the children remained under their +mother’s fostering wing, in a pure state of vegetation. +Moralists and physicians taught that they must be allowed to +develop freely, without having to learn anything, and without +bothering about anything but good air and a regular life.</p> + +<p>The grand principle of education is to let children grow +up of themselves, alone, unaided, without grand theories, +without dogmatism; and to habituate them to rely on nothing—neither +neither fear nor love; to be themselves; and this from +the very earliest infancy. Every being entering life brings +to it his own individuality for development; he has the free +use of his faculties; he observes much, instinctively using +eyes and ears, and his soul reflects his environment like a +celestial mirror. So the mother has only to help him, direct +him, set him good examples.</p> + +<p>This careful attention in early days appears of capital +importance, because then or never is the time to root up any +little weeds one by one as they appear. No strenuous effort +is needed; it is work to be done by a woman’s hand, gently.</p> + +<p>Hitherto it had been imagined that the first thing needful +was to secure a maximum of physical strength, and consequently +to harden a child by means almost cruel, such as an +exemplary self-repression, a life in the open air, freely +exposed to all inclemencies of the weather. If a child wept +he was allowed to weep. He was taken sometimes to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>church, or to see very near relatives, but never to places of +amusement, to the theatre, or to the houses of the wealthy. +To become ever so little accustomed to comfort, idleness, or +an artificial life was considered fatal. People feared to make +a mollycoddle of him, and said to themselves that the army +and the gymnasium in later years would never eradicate ill +habits formed in childhood. They thought only of the +children; the mothers were left out of account.</p> + +<p>The women regarded this system as much too severe, and +one of the first results of their influence was its modification. +Why martyr the children under pretext of hardening them? +What was the good of exposing them half naked to the +cold, or of making little monks of them, and assuming towards +them the airs of a policeman? Was it so great a crime +to show these poor little creatures some affection, to admit +them to some share with their elders in the life they were +bound to know, to form their minds and their manners by +allowing them a place at the card table, or to give them +companions—even at the cost of a black eye?</p> + +<p>The old moralists regarded such proceedings as premature +and far too unsystematic, and refused to hear of anything +but muscle, maintaining that entrance into the world always +came soon enough. Women were to divert education into +another channel. When they come to gain greater power in +the home, we shall find them demanding the right to love +their children, enter into their concerns, live with them, +take pleasure in them, at least until they attain the classic +age of seven.</p> + +<h4>THE BOYS.</h4> + +<p>When the seven years were past, a boy became for his +mother only an object of anxiety or tribulation. He came +under the direct and exclusive authority of his father, who +aimed at moulding him on large lines and turning him at +fourteen, not into a bookish don, nor perhaps a mere ‘pass-man’ +even, but into a man of backbone and individuality, +armed at all points for the battle of life. Our ancestors +had a particular horror of everything resembling enlistment +into brigades, reduction to a uniform pattern. The collegiate +system seemed to them detestable, a make-shift in the worst +sense; Louis XI., though he took care to send the princes of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>the younger branch to college, just as carefully avoided +sending his son there. College, as Montaigne said, was a +“factory of Latinizers,” a “house of preventive correction,” +where men worked like day-labourers (of that period) fourteen +or fifteen hours a day, until their brains were completely +addled and they hated the sight of books; and what, if you +please, was the magnificent result? A smattering of Greek +and Latin, a certain facility in prating about Jupiter, Venus, +Pyramus—without too minute an enquiry, happily, into what +those august names stood for. As to ideas, they did no more +than stuff the boys with a few stock notions to serve for +intelligence,⁠<a id="FNanchor_65" href="#Footnote_65" class="fnanchor">[65]</a> instead of vigorously developing the creative +and original faculties.</p> + +<p>Thus there was general agreement that college was to be +avoided as much as possible, and that a boy should remain +at home. But then came the tug-of-war. If he remained +at home, the mother, who had in all probability centred precisely +on this son all her affection, would claim him as her +care, which is just what the father did not wish; he mistrusted +her, her kindness, her “shows of love.” It was an +axiom that boys must be subjected to thoroughly masculine +management, a life of birching, under the firm hand of the +father; the father had a perfect right to forbid them to see +their mother. How could he succeed in “hardening the soul +and the muscles” of a boy, in giving him a physical and +moral robustness depending largely on the “thickness of the +skin,” if the mother was always at hand, interfering, discovering +that her son had been too hot or too cold, petting +him, commiserating his slightest hardships? That was not +the way to make a man!</p> + +<p>Nowhere was the battle against feminism fought more +resolutely than on this ground. The adversaries of women +may be almost infallibly recognised by this mark, that they +insist above all things on keeping in their hands the education +of men, because they regard this as the direction in +which the influence of women is most manifestly fatal.</p> + +<p>They fear family life because of the freedom which reigns +there, and because they know nothing worse for a man than +a precocious impulse towards sensibility. “When I was +twenty,” growls an old man, “I knew nothing about women; +in these days, infants in arms are further advanced.” That +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>is a proof, someone will say, of superior intelligence, a +guarantee of their virtue. Not at all. Any system, even +college, was preferred to the education of men by women. +From the moment when tenderness and sympathy become +paramount in a house, there is no course open but to get rid +of the boys at any cost.</p> + +<p>But is not this to push rigour a little too far, and uselessly +to lacerate the mother’s heart, this aching heart which +thought it had at last found something to fill its void? The +mothers are not lacking in arguments to support their +claims. They refuse absolutely to acknowledge that kindness +necessarily spells weakness. Has it not been understood +from time immemorial, by people who could least be +suspected of sentimentalism, how important it is to preserve +for a man his refuge in the affection of his mother? Have +not the names of Saint Monica and so many other devoted +mothers always been cited with delight? A rational +education ought not to rely solely on the principle of fear: +it should be the express image of life; and if brutality and +coarseness are to be banished from the world, it will not do +to begin by sowing them broadcast. How many men, nobly +fashioned by the hands of women, have been brought, by +means of love’s training alone, to a perfect perception of +authority, reverence, discipline! Affection has a wisdom of its +own, secret agencies of its own; a mother’s heart can see as +clearly, and obtain as many practical results, as the reason and +the despotism of the father. In this, as in other things, force +is not everything, and another regimen is possible than that +of the “birch,” or indeed of the “filliping,” dear to Montaigne.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France offers us on this subject a pertinent +object-lesson; she cites herself. Her mother, Louise of Savoy, +left a widow, indulged to the utmost the luxury of freely +loving her children. When someone spoke to her of handing +her son over to men, she made answer by installing the bed +of the young Francis in her own room. And the result?</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Fille et filz eut, à elle obéyssans,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rempliz d’esprit, de vertuz et bon sens.⁠<a id="FNanchor_66" href="#Footnote_66" class="fnanchor">[66]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We can understand what deep chords were struck by this +dispute between the fathers and the mothers, and what +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>echoes it set sounding in the whole life of the women. +Separated as they were from their sons by force of custom, +it was natural indeed that, eager to imbue the stern spirit +of men with love and tenderness, they should turn passionately +to the love of their children.</p> + +<p>In the first engagement they were often worsted. The +son went off to college. Montaigne deplores it. It is within +the four walls of a class-room, he says, and by doses of +Greek syntax, that a young fellow is to be taught the +science of life and given that clear philosophic outlook +which comes through history and experience! What professor +will teach him the wisdom of holding aloof from the +world’s Vanity Fair, swarming with upstart mountebanks +and overweening buffoons? His mother would have liked +to extract for him the essence of life, the secret of happiness, +to impart to him the sacred spark of love. But Montaigne +is one of those who regard this as very dangerous; he +believes, in short, that “seeing the world” would be still +more fatal than “preventive imprisonment.”</p> + +<p>In other cases, the father would select a tutor to train his +son, and then the crisis lay below the surface.</p> + +<p>The father always has some hesitation in determining his +course. To begin with, he thinks of the expense, and +though enthusiasts represent that there is no better investment, +he knits his brows. Then he would like to find a +perfect man: a difficult matter. As a rule, he decides on +the recommendation of friends, who have seen their nominee +at work, and are loud in praise of his tact, his manner, his +method, his knowledge; they do not explain that their man +finds it necessary to expatriate himself, but he is still young +(thirty or thirty-five), and is anxious to make a position.</p> + +<p>The candidate himself takes up his pen to speak with +becoming modesty of his humble accomplishments. He +promises to ride out with his pupil, and “engage in any +other exercise that may be desired”; all that he asks is +that he may sleep outside the château and not have to dine +in the kitchen, like some of his colleagues. This is not +enough for the anxious mother; she would like to know if +he is a man of honour and a gentleman. Her mind is set +at rest.</p> + +<p>For a long time these tutors maintained a certain attitude +of reserve.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span></p> + +<p>In his <i>Calandra</i>, Bibbiena gives an example of one who +is completely uninteresting, speaking, acting, and dressing +like the rest of men. But these young fellows were men, +and what is more, men of education, not so foolish as, after +tasting of a life of refinement, to fail long to recognise its +advantages. Sometimes, under a guileless demeanour, they +suffered temptations the reverse of philosophic: Vegio⁠<a id="FNanchor_67" href="#Footnote_67" class="fnanchor">[67]</a> calls +them, without mincing matters, “abominable bucks.” They +learnt by experience how hard it is to get on by zeal and +earnestness, and how easy by other means. They cultivated +literature to some purpose. No one thought any the worse +of Antony de la Salle, the austere tutor of the house of +Anjou in the 15th century, for writing <i>The Fifteen Joys of +Marriage</i> or <i>The Hundred Novels</i>, or of Lemaire’s⁠<a id="FNanchor_68" href="#Footnote_68" class="fnanchor">[68]</a> notion of +elevating the ideas of the young Charles V. by offering him +delicate nourishment in the shape of a <i>Judgment of Paris</i> +of photographic realism—a picture of the future reserved by +heaven for princes and the great ones of the earth. Such +things were read: dissertations on Aristotle were not.</p> + +<p>In proportion as the women posed as patrons of literature, +the tutor type appears in higher relief. The torrent +of invective let loose against them leaves no room for doubt +that the tutors had red-letter days. The dramatists and +the writers of novels do not condone the airs of proprietorship +they assumed in regard to mothers or cousins. They +show you a poor devil of a pedagogue, a dried-up anatomy, +void of personal merit, ill-featured, grotesque, boorish, dying +for love of some fair, rich and distinguished girl, whom he +pesters with glowing love-letters, or with sonnets spiced +with epicureanism. What peals of laughter there are when +he, like many others, comes in due course to taste the rod in +pickle!</p> + +<p>From the moment when Aretino, in his <i>Marescalco</i>, which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>appeared in 1533, revealed the dramatic possibilities of such +a part, the type was fixed.</p> + +<p>Before the tutor appears on the scene you know what you +are going to see: a spectacled pedant, ungainly, loutish, +pretentious, a twaddling bore, full of philology and quotations. +His very features have acquired a mechanical cast +betraying his habit of holding forth on the obvious, as +Montaigne says, or of extinguishing youth by his stupidity, +his “hoggish wisdom,” to adopt the words of Rabelais.</p> + +<p>Then, in virtue of a law of fate, the glory of the tutor +waned and fell. The impulse that went forth towards +liberal studies brought so many rivals into the field that, +unless he opened a private seminary or obtained a professorial +chair, the tutor was ruined. His salary became +diminutive, and, as we know, the man who is poorly paid is +thought little of. He may take all the pains imaginable, +set impositions, rap knuckles, pull ears, but no one is +satisfied.</p> + +<p>“I know no worse blockhead in the world than the +scholar, except it be the pedant.”</p> + +<p>And then the poor “pedant,” full of gall and bitterness, +withdraws into his shell. After a long day of toil and +drudgery, his only pleasure in life is to get back to his +solitary room, and there spend the night in collating notes, +collecting rare phrases, happy turns of expression, or +hammering out verses, love poems addressed to a beauty +whom luckily he does not know, or lyrical verses at a white +heat of passion. And these productions of his heart (such +of them, at least, as Fortune has deigned to preserve) lie to +this day, bundles of them, in the dust of archives.</p> + +<p>Needless to add that the tutor considers himself martyred +by the father. The father, who does not profess to love +him, treats him indeed, more or less openly, as a tradesman +and a nuisance, and interferes when the whim takes him, +finding fault with this and that—the boy’s talkativeness, +his pranks, his bad companions. He would like on the one +hand less severity, on the other more progress. And then +this youngster, who calls him “Sir,” and whom he always +regards as a child, assumes mannish ways and threatens to +follow at his heels: another serious drain upon his purse! +Besides, what is the good of so many courses of study, of +this “bookish swagger”? Can’t he learn everything without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span>such a fuss? What, here is a child we are going to +launch into actual life, and you stuff him with syllogisms, +dates, a world of mere lumber! Did Alexander the Great +learn all these things? He had, grant you, a tutor named +Aristotle; ay, and with a few good moral principles for his +whole kit he conquered the world! True, he respected the +arts and sciences, he praised their “excellence and elegance,” +but was he ever seen to grow pale and bite his nails over a +problem in dialectics? No, indeed!⁠<a id="FNanchor_69" href="#Footnote_69" class="fnanchor">[69]</a></p> + +<p>The tutors were never safe from these annoyances, except +perhaps in the houses of princes or kings, because then they +were important personages, high functionaries, and a numerous +body.</p> + +<p>The mother, on the contrary, made herself the friend of +the tutor, and by this means exercised a perceptible influence +upon him. She surrounded him with affectionate attentions. +They were two natural allies, two feeble and down-trodden +creatures who sought support in high communings which +the husband did not understand. As a man of culture the +tutor leant towards feminism, and he tasted doubly, for +himself and for his pupil, the attentions, the solicitous +benevolence, which a mother throws about the work of +education. The palace of Louise of Savoy at Amboise thus +saw a succession of special tutors who came to imbue +Francis I. with aesthetic principles, and they retained the +pleasantest recollections of their stay. The young princess +indeed spoilt them, pampered them, almost; she had them +at her own table, instead of leaving them to the society of +chamberlains and playactors: she made them talk, and +talked with them.</p> + +<p>In spite of all opposition, the education of men thus +underwent a gradual transformation in cultivated countries. +Instead of maintaining their former attitude of grave +reserve, hardly distinguishable from bashfulness, and of +regarding everybody, especially persons well on in years, +with a distant respect; instead, notably, of showing in their +intercourse with women all the shades of respect from profound +reverence to profound courtesy, the majority of these +young men made their entrance into life without embarrassment +and with the most charming manners. They put off +the armour of social etiquette, they were docile, pleasant, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>graceful in bearing, proficient in the art of pleasing. A +multitude of books on “civility,” an excellent specimen of +which came from the pen of Erasmus, instructed them in +the science of good-breeding, formerly somewhat neglected. +Moreover, as education is always the great objective of men +who desire to exercise a serious influence on thought, they +vied with one another in propounding theories and advocating +each his own system in regard to the direction of +youth, a task which engrossed such men as Cordier,⁠<a id="FNanchor_70" href="#Footnote_70" class="fnanchor">[70]</a> +Sadoleto,⁠<a id="FNanchor_71" href="#Footnote_71" class="fnanchor">[71]</a> Vivès,⁠<a id="FNanchor_72" href="#Footnote_72" class="fnanchor">[72]</a> + Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, to mention only +the chief. We need not follow here their far-reaching discussions, +which are but the development of the struggle +entered upon between the idealistic and the matter-of-fact +spirits. On the extreme frontier of the two realms Zwingle, +established so to speak as a mainguard, defends the German +tactics. Without denying the amenities of aestheticism, he +declares for an education of cloistral severity, for curricula of +the exact sciences and logic, and prefers Hebraists or erudite +Hellenists to elegant Latinists.</p> + +<p>Erasmus, on the contrary, marks out the Roman frontier. +He considers that any effort to direct the intelligence of +children into one rigid channel only has the effect of drying +it up. He appreciates neither the exhibition of truth in its +skeleton state, the system which flourished in the schools of +the Middle Ages, nor the pure apprenticeship to utilitarianism +to which Zwingle inclines. The sentiment of the +beautiful, in his view, offers an immense advantage in life—that +of sustaining and consoling the spirit; in education +there is no other process for widening, refining, elevating +the faculties.⁠<a id="FNanchor_73" href="#Footnote_73" class="fnanchor">[73]</a> The new movement has his entire approval.</p> + +<p>Indeed, he is ready to go very far. Instead of banishing +all thoughts of women from their minds, he is surprisingly +ready to explain to young men that there are two loves, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>good and a bad, and to set them such subjects for composition +as the question “ought a man to marry or not?” +Hütten⁠<a id="FNanchor_74" href="#Footnote_74" class="fnanchor">[74]</a> pokes great fun at the coy professors who so +carefully expurgate the mythology, who would fain drape +the Muses and turn them into angels, or who compare +Diana to the Virgin Mother.</p> + +<p>In reality, as everybody had his own programme of +education, dependent on no one’s theories or whims, all this +fine ardour produced little but modifications of detail. So +men remained faithful to gymnastics and all the sports—riding, +hunting, fishing, tennis, perhaps even to sober +philosophic deambulations in the style of St. Gregory of +Nazianzen. But they held dancing in less abhorrence, and +the love of gaming worked havoc.</p> + +<p>Music triumphed over its detractors, who had been wont +to represent it as directly tending towards effeminacy and +voluptuous impressibility. Now, on the contrary, it was +regarded as a child’s most ennobling avocation and a +precious resource for forming his mind. Instruction in +the principles of design seemed a necessity for men who +were called to live among objects of art, and who, without +some practical experience, would infallibly fall a prey to +pinchbeck.</p> + +<p>However, it is impossible to deny that a too exclusive +development of the emotional side of their nature did +produce, among certain young men, untoward and even +disastrous results. Education had become very wide-spread; +everybody sought after it, rather out of <i>amour-propre</i> +than to supply needs they really felt; and the +result was that there was less anxiety to equip solidly +a few choice minds than to give the mass a superficial +polish. The world was overrun with amiable young men, +patterns of social accomplishment, knowing how to bow, +dancing well, of excellent table manners, primed moreover +with a few tags of Latin or Greek, living in elegant +idleness, and thus the pride of the good merchant who had +the honour of begetting them and keeping the pot boiling. +Their weak point was that they knew too much of life in +their beardless youth: aestheticism had brought them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>neither illusions nor enthusiasm; but they were past-masters +in the commercial valuation of some fashionable +young lady and her belongings.</p> + +<p>At the age of fifteen or sixteen, all these young fellows, +good or bad, took flight in the most diverse directions, and +escaped from their mother for good and all.</p> + +<p>She sees them go! Some, the smartest of them, go to +Court as brilliant pages, all ablaze with gold and velvet: +the others into some château, where they combine the +duties of head-huntsman and stud-groom, and dine in +the kitchen, hoping to be mentioned in their master’s will.</p> + +<p>Others, maintained by a more subtle father, are commissioned +“to attain unto the virtue and honour that knowledge +gains for gentlemen.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_75" href="#Footnote_75" class="fnanchor">[75]</a> Ah! the gay young sparks! +They proceed, at great expense, to establish themselves at +Padua, Bologna, or elsewhere, and there the lore they +gather comes from profound study of Signora Angela’s +ankles or Signora Camilla’s bright eyes. One of these +pious youths, the son of a councillor of Paris, dismissed +post-haste the private tutor accompanying him. So long +as the lad’s purse holds out, the father proves indulgent, +and indeed is secretly not a little proud of his heir’s +escapades. Boys will be boys. One facetious father +addresses a letter to his son “studying at Padua—or +sent to study.”</p> + +<p>Many people attributed the wildness of young men to the +fact that their education was not directed by women.</p> + +<p>Calvin considers that the young men were thrown too +much into women’s society; Henri Estienne⁠<a id="FNanchor_76" href="#Footnote_76" class="fnanchor">[76]</a> charges upon +aesthetic education all the vices of the age. This is going a +little too far: it would be just as reasonable to make the +vices of the age responsible for the bad results of education. +As a matter of fact, notwithstanding a certain measure of +progress, the education of the sixteenth century did commit +errors for which it had to pay. Discipline was relaxed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_77" href="#Footnote_77" class="fnanchor">[77]</a> +It was a common complaint that studies lost tone as they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>became more general;⁠<a id="FNanchor_78" href="#Footnote_78" class="fnanchor">[78]</a> the new education took its pupils +too young, forced them remorselessly through too extensive +curricula, encouraged them to be content with a smattering, +gave them the habit of not going deep into anything, and +made shallow and paradoxical men.</p> + +<p>Two women who were the products of the most opposite +principles, Louise of Savoy and Anne of France, were on +their guard against this error. The one determined to +have her son educated under her own eyes, the other +undertook the education of her future son-in-law—a clear +proof that all women cannot be charged with particular faults.</p> + +<p>However paradoxical the idea may appear, it seems that +the system of education ought to have been more completely +revolutionised. Either the old principle of bringing boys +up so as to make men of them should have been maintained, +or a new one should have been boldly and frankly enunciated, +namely, that it would be well for a boy to be brought +up by his mother, since he is to live with a woman, and a +girl by her father, since she is to live with a man. Of this +principle, however, we nowhere find the slightest hint.</p> + +<p>In this education there would have been something more +intimate, more just, more natural, and perhaps more +profitable. You can tell among a thousand the men who +have been brought up by a serious mother, and the women +brought up by a careful father.</p> + +<p>Unhappily, the social customs of the time raised an +insurmountable obstacle. In addition to the fears of excessive +sensibility of which we have spoken, the rigid family +principle ordained that the son should belong to the family +and not to his mother. He was a man: therefore let him +ride and hunt and be a soldier! It was better to err +through brutality than through tenderness.</p> + +<p>In reality, many mothers exercised but an indirect and +ineffective influence on their sons. The sons were too much +separated from them and left them too soon. Were the +mothers made for the children or the children for the +mothers? Judging from the number of households which were +only held together by the children, one might think they +were made for the mothers; and yet a woman who relied too +much on this support was sure to remain in cruel loneliness.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="smaller">THE EDUCATION OF GIRLS</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>If the sons were destined almost inevitably to disappoint +their mothers’ hopes, the daughters were to compensate for +that disappointment. We must crave pardon for entering +into all these details. It is impossible to set forth the story +of a woman’s heart without first of all plumbing as deeply +as possible the secret of those holy passions which move +women as mothers and as daughters. We started from the +solid ground of marriage after the old style, a mere physical +and rational fact. The sensibility of women begins to +blossom out on coming into contact with physical wretchedness; +it creates the sick-nurse and the alms-distributor; it +is then that the mother is born. Her love for her sons has +nothing but separation to look forward to; but in the love +of mother for daughter a woman’s heart finds another stay. +Here there is no interference to be feared from a third party. +The daughter belongs to the mother, and the father does +not even seek any share in their intimacy: “Women’s +policy hath a mystical proceeding; we must be content to +leave it to them.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_79" href="#Footnote_79" class="fnanchor">[79]</a> Let the father provide the girl’s dowry, +that is all that is required of him. In the formal and somewhat +Philistine society which was the outcome of the Middle +Ages, the several shares of the parents were very clearly +defined.</p> + +<p>But these things which the father knew nothing about +are of the greatest interest for us. We want to know what +went on between mother and daughter, and how the women +of the future were being formed, for then we shall know also +whether the mother was able to fashion for herself a lasting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>joy in her home, and whether she was so well satisfied with +the principles on which she herself had been brought up as +to apply them to her daughter. Later on we shall have to +treat of more momentous questions, of ideas much more +highly artistic and philosophic, but we shall meet with none +from which a more thorough knowledge of the inner workings +of feminine souls is to be gained. In the slightest +question of education all the social questions have their +echoes, as we hear the roar of the ocean in a shell.</p> + +<p>Historians are very far from agreement in the information +they give us as to the manner in which young girls were +educated in those days. An old, but false, proverb runs: +“The mother feeds, the father instructs”; which signifies in +plain language that the mother never instructed, suckling +being the top of her capacity. On the other hand, as the +treatises on education speak only of the boys, or at most of +“children,” and practically never use the word “daughters,” +some historians have concluded that the girls were left to +vegetate and that their education was never considered, +while others, on the contrary, and these not the least important—such +as Burckhardt and Minghetti—have believed +that the girls merely followed the same course as the boys.</p> + +<p>We shall not traverse these two opinions, contradictory +as they are, because they both appear true to a certain +extent.</p> + +<p>The question of education really depends on another +question, of much greater moment, which we have set ourselves +to answer in this book: What ought women’s life to +be? Where ought they to seek their happiness? And at +the outset we are brought face to face with a very troublesome +problem. Is a woman to continue to be married +passively, as we have seen her married—to be left almost a +slave? or is she to be put into a condition of self-defence? +Is she to be made an obedient tool, a mirror of the ideas of +others, destitute of all mind of her own, and all the happier +in knowing nothing beyond the narrow bounds of her bedroom? +or does it seem better to render her an active, +educated creature, with an individuality of her own, capable +of reasoning and acting? Is the mother to remain merely a +temporary guardian, charged with watching over a little girl +for a master of undisputed title, who will form her and train +her after his own fancy, and to whom she will belong at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>earliest moment, even in her first flower? or is the mother +to be at perfect liberty to link herself closely with her +daughter, and, precisely because the girl is one day to be +given to another, to arm her with independence and intelligence, +even although she knows that sooner or later some +portion of this armour must be dropped on the way? There +is the whole question. And on that question depends the +education of girls.</p> + +<p>In the first case (that is if we adopt the time-honoured +theory) the mother was preparing a blank page. She had +little to do except to promote as hardy a vegetation as possible, +a blossoming out into strength and beauty, to maintain +absolutely unbroken quietude, to respect and even prolong +the days of childhood.⁠<a id="FNanchor_80" href="#Footnote_80" class="fnanchor">[80]</a> There is no need here for lengthy +dissertations: the system consisted in proscribing everything +that involved the slightest mental exertion, even in +the form of little pastimes; in preserving an absolute simplicity, +a cloistral existence;⁠<a id="FNanchor_81" href="#Footnote_81" class="fnanchor">[81]</a> in shunning even physical +exercises if they were at all energetic. From the intellectual +standpoint it allowed, on the artistic side, some trifling pieces +of needlework (tapestry, netting, or the like); music, not +suggestive or light, but classical music; as recreative reading, +some elementary books of religion or morality; in +science, some notions of physics, agriculture, medicine, some +philosophical expositions of great moral questions, such as +original sin, the Redemption, the immortality of the soul, +and the Creed in general. That was what had gone to form +the little bride, the robust, sedate, matter-of-fact, shy little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>creature whom at the beginning of this book we saw led to +the altar. She was ignorant, but so much the better: she +was only being born into life, but she brought as her stake +a solid health and a well-balanced character generally; and +at thirteen years, that was a good deal. The husband would +do the rest.</p> + +<p>And it must not be imagined that this system, barbarous +as it may seem to some, was regarded as at all ill-conceived. +It had numerous friends. The learned of the Middle Ages, +from the venerable Egidio Colonna⁠<a id="FNanchor_82" href="#Footnote_82" class="fnanchor">[82]</a> to the illustrious +Gerson,⁠<a id="FNanchor_83" href="#Footnote_83" class="fnanchor">[83]</a> had formed no other idea of women’s needs. Gerson +even enunciated the aphorism (which, however, must not +be pressed): “All instruction for women should be looked +at askance.” In this the philosophers were at one with the +physicians, whose advice was to err on the side of caution. +In support of their position, they invoked the great name +of St. Chrysostom,⁠<a id="FNanchor_84" href="#Footnote_84" class="fnanchor">[84]</a> and that of Lycurgus also, who wished +to prolong the childhood of young girls to the eighteenth +year (and this in Greece), and to devote the whole period to +the care of the body.</p> + +<p>On this system, the mothers could not form close ties +with their daughters, still less enter into their life. One +mother, however, inspired by her ardent devotion to an +only daughter, and at the same time thoroughly conversant +with the actual necessities of life—Anne of France—has +shown to what good account these apparently rudimentary +opportunities might be turned, while paying due respect to +the advice of Gerson and the physicians. She set down her +views in a little work, of a purely practical and intimate +character, designed for her daughter’s use, and written day +by day with a certain desultoriness, according to the line +her reflections or her reading happened to take, and without +the slightest intention of supporting a thesis. This book +imparts to us <i>ex abrupto</i> the secret of her thoughts.</p> + +<p>She pinned her faith to education, not to instruction; she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>desired an education that was spontaneous and in some sort +automatic, which would result, not from a perfect intimacy +between mother and daughter, still less from a sentiment of +equality, but solely from a kindly, frank, and affectionate +association, of such a nature that the mother would colour +her child’s character “as good wine colours its cask.”</p> + +<p>This gentle prescription assumes a wide mental culture to +begin with, and a certain robustness of intelligence. Anne +of France intended the moral and philosophic education of +the girl to be carried out with the aid of Boethius, Plato, +the fathers of the church, the ancient philosophers, and, it +need hardly be said, in conformity with the “Instructions of +St. Louis.”</p> + +<p>On the other hand she did not trouble to develop the +imagination or the emotions: she had a horror of affectation, +of all that appeared to her to smack of the studied, the +conventional, the theatrical: she would not permit it anywhere, +either in dress, in which she rejected false simplicity +and false elegance alike, or in conversation, studies, or +conduct. She loved only the splendour of truth, the +glorification of the real in its noble aspects. It was her aim +to temper the young girl’s soul by instilling into her the +habit of searching enquiry and deep thought, and of building +her reasoning always on clear premises like the certainty of +death or the existence of God.</p> + +<p>From these principles there resulted, not a critical +scepticism like that of Montaigne, Pascal, or Descartes, but, +if one may say so, a vigorous and affirmative scepticism, +that is to say, the absolute, perhaps even harsh determination +to look the facts of life fairly in the face, as serious but +ephemeral matters; and to abstain from giving them +colours, shapes, an import which do not belong to them, +from throwing a false halo about them. As a drowning +man clings to a rope, so Anne of France clung to a precise +and objective morality, which, firmly anchored on religious +faith, defied discouragements and fatigues as well as illusions. +Beyond the restless sea of mundane realities in all their +nakedness, it pointed to other realities, which appeared to +her just as clear, just as positive, and in which she found a +steadfast beacon light.</p> + +<p>In thus basing feminine education on individualism and a +severe conception of the True, Anne feared rather than +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>desired the intrusion of aestheticism. What was required, +in her opinion, was to form strong women, vigorous in body +and mind: she wished to develop strength of will and +stability of character, which are practical virtues. Assuredly +she had no personal scorn for the beautiful: she gave proof +enough to the contrary. She loved an art full of sap and +zest; she was a subtle connoisseur, a royal patron! Delight +in beautiful things was so natural to her that she counted +on transmitting the taste to her daughter. And she was +accomplished in philosophy; she read Plato, a first step +which some of the most confirmed lady platonists neglected. +But she was persuaded that the period of struggle was only +opening for women, and that they must arm themselves to +maintain the fight. She had no bent towards German +utilitarianism—she could not have contented herself with +the studies Luther sanctioned, nor with the elementary +programme of virtue which Calvin found all-sufficient: at +the same time, she had no greater confidence in the +idealism of Rome. The world was not yet perfect enough! +She joyfully hailed the dawn, but did not believe that +the day was yet fully come. Women must not be content +with a dilettante reliance on impressions; they must +make what they love an object of thought, and having +formed their reasoned conception, must seek to realise it. +For them to be queens would be admirable indeed; but +for the present it is enough for them to escape crushing. +What they need is will, and, as a consequence, intellect and +individuality.</p> + +<p>This was a clear enough scheme of life. In Spain the +same ideas obtained so striking a success that people were +not satisfied with the compromise devised by Anne of +France, and with this wholly moral education which would +leave the daughter for a few short years to her mother. +Circumstances were urgent; there was no time to waste; +ideas were at boiling-point: a part of the ancient principles, +the physical and moral repose recommended by the +physicians, was sacrificed, and the children were flung +headlong into the whirlpool. Little girls sucked in Latin +with their mother’s milk; then, the soul being expropriated, +so to speak, for the public good, they were given a tutor at +an age when they ought to have been learning nothing but +how to walk; at seven they were expected to be able to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>maintain a conversation, and at thirteen to have finished +their studies and be ripe for matrimony.</p> + +<p>This programme, so vigorous that at first blush one would +be tempted to think it a mere figment of the imagination, +was not only propounded but largely practised by one of +the most conspicuous men of the time—Vivès, the tutor of +Isabella the Catholic’s daughters. Vivès went to England in +the train of Catherine of Aragon, and in that country of +matter-of-fact aspirations he could still have believed himself +in Spain, so successful was he in rousing the same fire +and enthusiasm for his ideas. His fervour led to a revolution, +or rather, as Erasmus said with a smile, to a “topsy-turvydom” +in high society; the men, who continued to +scour the seas and do business in great waters, fell quite +to the rear, while the young ladies, stepping to the front, +engaged with a brisk rivalry in marvellous exhibitions of +precocity. At thirteen, Lady Jane Grey read Plato in the +original, and Mary Stuart delivered in public her first Latin +speech; at fourteen, Queen Elizabeth translated a work by +Margaret of France, <i>The Mirror of the Sinful Soul</i>. These +wonderfully clever children were not confined to any +particular country, and the same breeze fanned the same +flame from John o’ Groats to Gibraltar. Saint Theresa, who +was born in 1515, is an excellent type of her contemporaries. +Bereft of her mother, and one of a family of twelve, she was +certainly not the object of any special training, but kept +pace with girls of her age; yet at six years she was already, +to use her own expression, “swept away by a violent movement +of love,” and had to be prevented from hurrying to +Africa in the hope of being massacred and winning heaven +cheaply. What singular girls!</p> + +<p>The thing that urged them on was the general fear in +which the husband was held, the pressing need of attaining, +ere it was too late, a good condition of defence and even of +superiority. The rising spectre of marriage fascinated +teacher and taught alike. At ten years of age, to tell the +truth, such personages as Anne of France and Margaret of +France had already disposed of their heart! so that to +overwhelm them with work was believed the best way to +protect them against themselves. “The craters of Etna, +the forge of Vulcan, Vesuvius, Olympus cannot compare +their fires to those of the temperament of a young girl +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>inflamed by high feeding,” cries Vivès. The more effectually +to extinguish these flames Vivès reinforces the regimen of +work with a course of cold water and a vegetable diet, and +this he austerely names “the perpetual fast” of the +Christian life; he proscribes dancing, and counts on serious +studies to preserve them from vanity and to widen the +scope of their intellectual activities. In short, while more +sharply accentuating the scientific note than Anne of +France, he has the same end in view. Like her, he is +convinced, passionately convinced indeed, that it is right to +set a straight course for marriage, having now only a half-hearted +belief in the old ideal of virginity: he has, further, +so rooted a horror of vain sentimentalities, affectations, +romances, poetry, all sensibility real or affected, that he +throws overboard Italian and French for his pupils: he +wishes them to have wills and energies of their own. But +like a true Spaniard, an enthusiast and yet a Stoic, he loves +these warm, ardent natures. He is a little like that lord-justice +who in his official tone interrupted a too pertinacious +advocate, but under his breath bade him continue. He +shrinks from the flames, but sees in them the instrument of +regeneration. These little girls of thirteen, inured to the +reading of Scripture, tricked out with history and ethics, +with Xenophon and Seneca, he sends forth to the conquest +of the world, to fulfil their vocation as women. He hopes +that their initiation into Biblical exegesis will lead them to +construct a philosophical religion for themselves, and that +they will attain a rational appreciation of Catholicism as +the source of justice and knowledge, and the sole panacea +for society. That is the gist of his preaching to the +daughters of Isabella the Catholic. Did Luther himself +probe nearer the heart of the matter, or outline a scheme +more novel and more magnificent?</p> + +<p>Let us complete our portrait of Vivès, and at the same +time that of many a young woman of the new generation, +by adding that he by no means looked down on the practical +knowledge of plain cooking, of domestic economy or the +common medicines. It might be thought that he had no +ardour but for the Bible, and there is no lack of ill-natured +jesters who cast a stone at his Latinist ladies;⁠<a id="FNanchor_85" href="#Footnote_85" class="fnanchor">[85]</a> whereas, on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>the contrary, he spoke up for the kitchen, though to the +detriment of dress and dolls. “What,” he cries, “is not a +hand smutted with coal as good as a snow-white hand that +is open to everyone?” It only needs a father or mother to +fall ill, and he is perfectly happy, for then you will see his +fair Latinist in neat white apron, bringing a cooling draught +she herself has mixed, and bestowing one of those smiles for +which one would gratefully gulp down a whole druggist’s +shop. Here, according to him, is the distinguishing mark of +his system; a practically useful intelligence, and a physical +as well as moral devotion.</p> + +<p>The Italian school drew its inspiration much more directly +from the need of the ideal; it rejected passion as full of +peril and made mere sensibility its goal. But it too pretended +to take its stand on conceptions of absolute truth, +though more elementary ones; and these it did not represent +as intellectual acquirements, because it regarded, not +knowledge, but feeling and judgment, as the end a woman +ought to set before her. The education dear to this school +was above all an education of impressions and enthusiasm, +in which scientific truth only came in to supply ballast and +to prevent an exaggerated serenity, or an over-confidence in +life. In its refinement and elegance this school preserved +as it were an after perfume from the noble city of Rome, +where fastidious and ceremonious prelates, gourmets but not +cooks, let money flow into their pockets through immense +spiritual aqueducts, and set about pouring it away again +in perfect cascades of ostentation. Hands smutty with coal +indeed! A lazzarone would blush at the thought! There +are none but princesses in Italy.</p> + +<p>Dolce, a supreme example of the Italian, took, for the +formation of an Italian woman, the recognised elements: +chastity, modesty, reserve, composure, and a regular study +(this was to be particularly free, with no expurgation) of the +classics and the church fathers;⁠<a id="FNanchor_86" href="#Footnote_86" class="fnanchor">[86]</a> and from all this he would +fashion for you the sweetest creature imaginable.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span></p> + +<p>Idleness and melancholy were his two great foes: he had +no hostility to love. What reason was there to abstain from +carefully cultivating a young girl’s capacity for loving, +seeing that as a woman she would find in it her chief +resource? To reject the thought of love, to avoid the very +utterance of the word, and then, like Vivès, to rack your +brains to create infinite derivatives, was, according to Dolce, +a childish and an untrustworthy proceeding; it would be +much better to face the ordeal frankly, and deaden its +shocks beforehand by anointing oneself with the healing +balm of platonic doctrine, by exhibiting, on the one hand, +the body in its wretchedness, the vileness of earthly love, +and on the other the beauty of love divine and pure. +Women may fall through passion, but they can win salvation +through sensibility, and therefore Dolce nourished them on +the appropriate classics: Virgil, parts of Horace, Dante, +Petrarch, Bembo, Sannazaro,⁠<a id="FNanchor_87" href="#Footnote_87" class="fnanchor">[87]</a> and, more especially, Castiglione. +To his opponents, however, this system seemed over-venturesome; +they reproached him with going half-way to +meet danger, with putting into hands still weak the two-edged +sword which so often wounds lustier hands. To this +objection Dolce returned on behalf of the beautiful the same +answer that Vivès made on behalf of the true. He was convinced +that a liberal education was most surely calculated to +form strong souls, citing in support of his contention Corinna +and a thousand other old-world heroines rendered impeccable +by culture, and, of his own time, the four daughters of queen +Isabel, pupils of Vivès; all four, indeed, equally accomplished +and yet equally unfortunate—but could anyone begrudge +them their misfortunes?</p> + +<p>Thus, according to Dolce, abstract or severe studies were +not for girls: “vain and futile quackeries” he called them, +which could only bring them in subjection to men. “All that +is needed is to awaken and foster the faculties which are in +women.” To rule as with a rod of iron, women need only +remain as they are, with the talents given them by nature.⁠<a id="FNanchor_88" href="#Footnote_88" class="fnanchor">[88]</a> +What is the good of teaching them, for example, the dates +and the nice problems of history? They should be taught +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>to read history, to derive from the accurate narrative of facts +an impression of the poignant emotions and moral struggles +which the historian necessarily indicates with a more or less +light touch, and then, linking these events together in their +minds, to get at the heart of them, deduce the lofty moral +principles controlling them. In philosophy they have no +need of great metaphysical principles; but what is important +for them is to understand that misery exists, that there +is suffering everywhere, often hidden away and yet only too +real. Woman is a fellow-worker with God! It suffices to +lop off the thorns which cumber her; she will shoot up +naturally towards the light, sucking, like a flower, the +earth’s sap, which is love. The corn which is to go to the +mill and make bread needs the plough’s rude toil, a lovely +delicate flower often asks no more than a handful of earth +and a bountiful sky.</p> + +<p>And it was in this way that so many sweet Italian +women blossomed out, almost spontaneously, delighting in +life, themselves the joy and felicity of the world, all compact +of poetry, archaeology, rhetoric, and philosophy—Attic +through and through at thirteen years. The efflorescence +was universal save at Venice, a country half-Germanic, half-Oriental, +where they insisted on keeping the girls immured +until their wedding-day, showing nothing of them but +bundles of millinery on Sundays. And yet there do not +appear to have been more angels at Venice than elsewhere, +and no one succeeded there in resuscitating the type +(henceforth unknown) of matrons hypnotised, as it were, +by their husbands’ frown or the idea of death. Italy +was peopled with fairy-like creatures, who thought nobly +of all men and wore to admiration the double ornament of +fine jewels and a fine intellect. “A little girl,” said Bembo, +“ought to learn Latin: it puts the finishing touch to her +charms.”</p> + +<p>Louise of Savoy brought up her daughter Margaret +according to these Italian principles at a period when +France as yet did not understand them. Margaret blossomed +like a flower: she knew something of everything (too +much indeed), notably of philosophy and theology: she +learnt Latin, Hebrew, Italian, and Spanish; but she could +speak nothing but French.</p> + +<p>At nine years of age, she was wonderfully clever and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>accomplished; at thirteen, she inspired so much admiration +as to be considered “rather Persian than French.”</p> + +<p>The defects of the system were not at once perceived, +though these were developing in women a thirst like that of +Tantalus, exciting a state of restless agitation and nervousness, +which the old doctors of Gerson’s school professed to +guard against and which Vivès fancied he had avoided by +directing their activity towards a definite end. People +were struck only with the immediate advantages. Erasmus +uttered heart-rending plaints about the little girls he was +ever meeting in the Low Countries, poor ignorant little +creatures, thick-lipped, podgy, stuck on high heels so as to +appear grown-up, over-dressed, rigged out with a load +of ribbons and feathers, with all the airs of innocent little +baggages: “I ask myself,” he cries, “if these are dolls, or +monkeys, or girls.” How he would have liked to tear off all +that flummery, and fill their beaks with a little Greek or +French, or even a little Latin!</p> + +<p>A simple fellow said to Margaret: “Men and women +have different functions, but their virtues ought to be equal.” +He was making a mistake; the virtues of women ought to +be superior.</p> + +<p>But if women believe that it is their mission to rule +instead of to obey, or, at any rate, that the obedience +they owe has well-defined limits; if they are no longer +the burden which a father used to get rid of as soon as +possible, and which a husband received as his absolute +property, body and soul; if they desire to count for something; +if marriage is regarded as the union of two persons +equally free, as the close and not the commencement of +education; if the wife is no longer the pupil of her husband, +and it is considered better for her to come to him fully +instructed: then a very natural consequence will inevitably +ensue, whatever may be thought or said: women will marry +later, will insist on exercising a choice as men do, and on +laying down their own conditions: they will in this way +imagine that they have greater freedom and are probably +making a better bargain, for they have become women of +sense.</p> + +<p>The fortunate discovery was made that Lycurgus, in the +main, considered twenty years the best age for marriage: +with the result that in the most aristocratic families, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>those most swayed by tradition, they waited with the most +perfect resignation until the seventeenth year,⁠<a id="FNanchor_89" href="#Footnote_89" class="fnanchor">[89]</a> while ladies +of exceptional courage held that it was “modern style” to +marry much later. Margaret of France was not married till +she was thirty-seven.</p> + +<p>This reform, important as it was, did not end in making +what we should regard as a happy girlhood possible.</p> + +<p>However the Italian theory might wreathe life with roses +and preserve a happy ignorance of physiological problems, it +was not easy for a French girl to reach that point and retain +this beautiful innocence, surrounded as she was by people +who called a spade a spade, idealising things no more than +in the days when she was married as soon as born.</p> + +<p>Girlhood was not a delightful fiction which permits infinite +hopes to be cherished, and keeps realities hidden; it was rather +an apprenticeship; and after all, since the wife has a personal +mission to accomplish in the world, which will consist, so to +speak, in patching and renovating hearts that are rent, this +apprenticeship seems as necessary to her as to a laundress +or a dressmaker.</p> + +<p>The art cannot be learnt more successfully than in maidenhood.</p> + +<p>From the moment this was admitted, it is correct to say, +girls received the same education as men: with this qualification, +that their education was more thorough, because +they made a later beginning in life.</p> + +<p>In the first place, they had male teachers, or even a tutor. +Margaret of France, like her brother, was taught only by +tutors—a singular anomaly at a time when women plumed +themselves on their superiority, and one which we shall not +seek to explain. Humanists with the highest admiration for +woman’s intellect held governesses in horror,⁠<a id="FNanchor_90" href="#Footnote_90" class="fnanchor">[90]</a> and allowed +no discussion about the monopoly of instruction; even in +Spain, the country of learned women, Vivès insisted on +instruction by men.</p> + +<p>And yet the market was not overstocked with women’s +tutors; the part usually fell to more or less second-rate +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>persons, who accepted it light-heartedly enough; even in +princely houses there was considerable difficulty in keeping +a man of real earnestness.</p> + +<p>These young fellows readily transformed themselves into +friends and comrades: Brantôme accuses them of a thousand +irregularities, and goes so far as to match them with the +physicians and apothecaries. Some of them were known, +it appears, to elope with their pupils, but that we must +believe to have been purely casual, and their gaiety to +have taken, as a rule, a more delicate form. Eustorg +de Beaulieu⁠<a id="FNanchor_91" href="#Footnote_91" class="fnanchor">[91]</a> smilingly reminds one of his pupils, now a +staid wife and mother at Tulle, of the time when she raved +about her lessons, and said she would rather go to the +clavecin than to confession. Another pupil of his, the +young Helen Gondy of Lyons, called him in fun “her +Hector,” a title which he accepted on the distinct understanding +that he was not stupidly to die for her, “like the +other Hector.” A third, Mademoiselle de Tournon, conceived +the idea of making a bishop of this excellent, jovial, +amiable professor; but this time Eustorg raised objections, +and declared flatly that he was sure his skull was too thick.</p> + +<p>And so Dolce’s advice was followed; melancholy was +banished. But I am not sure that very fine distinctions +were drawn between the two kinds of love, or that the +young masters possessed the delightful art of developing +only the fancy and the softer qualities. In France and +elsewhere, to all appearance, they rather treated their fair +pupils in masculine fashion, with a fearless handling of +ideas; that at least is the impression we get from +Erasmus’ dialogues, <i>The Girl and the Lover</i>, <i>The Youth +and the Courtesan</i>. Brantôme taunts them with a certain +tendency to make special use of the risky passages in the +Bible and their authors for teaching theology and an elegant +style.</p> + +<p>In this way the young girls attained a perfect independence +of mind. They cannot even be compared with +the American girl of to-day, for the old hardy, somewhat +wild French stock had undergone a wonderful grafting +with Italian refinement. Many of them, having reached +a certain age, pursued their studies with marvellous gusto; +Petrarch and Erasmus they thought rather poor stuff, preferring +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>to work at Poggio⁠<a id="FNanchor_92" href="#Footnote_92" class="fnanchor">[92]</a> and Boccaccio. Their style of +talk was intrepid! Ah! there was no standing on ceremony +with them! Fun was fast and furious.</p> + +<p>They devoured romances, novels and plays: these fine +intrigues, these riotous passions seemed to them to constitute +the ideal life. They were <i>demi-vierges</i>. “With +all these lascivious romances, spotless virginity will be +unknown.”</p> + +<p>To describe the indignation and grief of old-fashioned +people at this sight is impossible. “I would rather see a +girl deaf or blind,” cries Vivès, “than thus overstimulated +to pleasure.” Of course it was pleaded that the artistic +instincts were being satisfied! But all these romances bore +but little likeness to the subtle analyses of our days, which +are sometimes masterpieces of philosophy: they were a +tissue of adventures all equally untrue to life. Vivès did +not understand how, if only from the point of view of taste, +girls of any intelligence could go into raptures over such +extravagances: a knight who is left for dead, but comes to +life on the next page; a hero who massacres a hundred foes +single-handed; nor how they could worship as a demi-god +the author of such trash. He begs the mothers for pity’s +sake to interfere, to take the trouble to glance through a +book before leaving it to their girls; but the mothers are +accustomed to live their own life, and besides, a lady of +fashion has so many occupations! He beseeches the +preachers for help, waxing almost indignant when he hears +them pompously stringing together their platitudes on +dogma instead of boldly attacking questions of living +interest and condemning books that are absurd or of evil +tendency. But the preachers go on preaching.</p> + +<p>Anne of France took a more dispassionate view: she saw +clearly enough that girls ought sometimes to put aside the +church fathers, if only for the pleasure of going back to +them, and she did not despair of finding a practical solution +of the difficulty. Her dream was a very simple one—the +dream that recurs again and again and yet remains but a +dream: namely, to have good romances for young girls, +pure, high-toned stories, replete with the practical philosophy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>of life, and at the same time interesting, dramatic, thrilling. +She has left us a specimen, somewhat archaic indeed, of +what she desired: a historical romance founded on a passage +in Froissart about an unfortunate captain of Brest, one +M. du Chatel, whose son is, with flagrant bad faith, +threatened with death by the English if he does not betray +the town into their hands. This eminently patriotic subject +is the groundwork of a little story, short, simple, illustrated +with a fair number of pictures, and in every way innocuous. +In the opening scene, Madame du Chatel swoons; further +on, however, it is she who, like a true woman, has all the +strength of character, and cheers her trembling husband +with words worthy of a Roman matron, or with magnificent +appeals to the divine mercy, “although,” as she says, +“children are in a special sense the sons and daughters of +their mothers.” (How touching is this claim, interpolated +quite incidentally!) So the story proceeds with alternations +of strength and weakness. On coming to after a long +swoon, the poor mother learns that her son is dead. “God’s +will be done!” she says, without a tear; “may our Lord +receive his soul!” And then she goes and dons her mourning, +and, as soon as she is alone, weeps!</p> + +<p>And here, so please you, you have a story for young girls!</p> + +<p>Unluckily, for a girl of eighteen or twenty life is no +longer “such stuff as dreams are made on,” and as a rule +the romances, good or bad, are at last thrown into the shade +by a certain practical romance in which she must needs play +her part, and which demands her whole attention.</p> + +<p>Not, assuredly, that all this led the young ladies to gild +the pill or modify their first conception of marriage; on the +contrary, the more they considered the matter, the more +they weighed, in as just a balance as men, the advantages +against the disadvantages. Very often, princesses of the +blood royal loved simple noblemen, or even men of lower +rank: they never married them. It was too well known +that love and marriage were two different terms, and that +certain old books, preserved in the libraries, maintained the +theory that married women, “possessing what maids seem +to seek,” should remain at home and never again exhibit +themselves for the pleasure of others, or even for their own. +Formerly a girl of ten years, repressed and secluded, could +picture marriage as a source of “liberty and pleasure”; and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>these blessings once secured are sedulously guarded. You +must be grateful to men for giving you their name and +fortune, of course; but some men are so odd! It is impossible +to take too many precautions. Many an excellent +young man, pleasant enough to all appearance, may turn +out an insufferable husband.</p> + +<p>And so it was with mingled prudence and dilettantism +that these fair sixteenth-century Americans set out in quest +of the Golden Fleece. Little hampered by parents who +thought their whole duty was done when they paid over +the dowry, they learnt how pleasant it was to take life into +their own hands, to show themselves in society, to talk, +laugh, dance, frolic—live, in a word, without a by-your-leave +to anyone. And yet the Latin delicacy and grace +betray themselves in various prejudices: to practise archery, +to pad themselves for a pass with the foils, or merely to +have their photographs taken as naiads—these resources +were not yet open to them! The poor things could only +triumph by their charm and enthusiasm, quite in the Latin +way, at the risk of rubbing off a little of their bloom here +and there.</p> + +<p>Outcries came from the dowagers: What! throw themselves +at men’s heads in that way! how scandalous! and +how silly! Do they think then that men are so stupid as +not to consider serious qualities? For their amusement +indeed they like the coming-on disposition, but not for +marriage: it is Cinderella that attracts Prince Charming. +Anne of France cites an illustration in point: three young +Germans of the highest distinction arrived one day from the +heart of their distant wilds with the sole object of wedding +the three maids of Poitiers, of whom marvellous tales were +told. It was a terrible shock when they found themselves +each face to face with his own fair damsel. The first had +so squeezed her waist that she well-nigh fell inanimate into +the arms of her wooer, who was thoroughly put out; the +second chattered like a very magpie; the third rather +naïvely displayed a sentimentality in the latest mode; and +the upshot was that, with never a word to one another, the +three Germans were soon stride for stride footing it back to +Germany. And Anne’s conclusion is very reasonable: +“Would it not have been better to cultivate a staider +manner?”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span></p> + +<p>But it remained to be proved whether a staider manner +would be right after all, and whether a princess, of however +high descent, could indulge in the luxury of waiting at the +chimney-corner until the man of her dreams was pleased to +appear. Unhappily the contrary was the general belief. +Someone has remarked that if men do not often marry the +girl who pleases them, they do not always marry the girl +who displeases them. And that is just the reason flirtation +held its own.</p> + +<p>The art of flirting is a very subtle one, and yet it is +incredible how little time was required to bring it to perfection. +Everybody had to do with it: even princesses +wanted to fancy that they chose their husbands.</p> + +<p>The young girl “came out” into the world in two ways. +If she had no mother, or her parents found it convenient +to separate themselves from her, there was in France a +patriarchal custom, peculiar to that country, which consisted +in the girl’s entering the service of a “dame” or “demoiselle” +of good repute. So highly was this custom esteemed, that +Anne of France recommended her daughter to conform to it +should occasion arise, although the heiress of the duchy of +Bourbon had certainly no need of entering anyone’s service +to push her way in the world.</p> + +<p>Anne herself, and Anne of Brittany, thus kept “schools of +manners”—a sort of fashionable boarding-school, where the +young men never addressed the girls but on bended knee in +the ancient style, and where the somewhat cloistral austerity +seemed mitigated by the belief that so excellent a place and +so well guaranteed a virtue could not fail to tempt the most +fastidious husbands. But this institution, intended to serve +as a bulwark against the new manners, floated along, on the +contrary, in their current: Catherine de’ Medici’s “flying +squadron,” as it was called, completely lost the character of +a boarding-school, and discharged its functions with freelance +recklessness.</p> + +<p>For the most part, it was at her mother’s side that a girl +set off in quest of a husband. The plan of operations varied +so greatly that no one will expect us to unravel its principles. +All these young girls matched one another in <i>chic</i>. They +never spoke to their mothers without bleating “Madame +ma mère,” or lisping “By your favour, madam,” like so +many well-behaved silly sheep. Many of them were for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>ever showing their teeth: they had a laugh for anything—a +phrase, a fly, a gentleman with a bald head. One laughing +sent the others into fits too, and that was thought remarkably +witty. They were experts in the “sedate management +of their green-blue eyes, full of softness and opened neither +too little nor too much.” They wore lovely dresses—monumental +robes which yet seemed rather an accompaniment +than a vesture for their limbs. Some old folk (Vivès, for +example) professed horror at their ring-loaded fingers, their +pierced ears (a barbarous custom, to be sure!), those light, +delicate touches of the brush with which they did up the +face, and those subtle perfumes wafted from no one knows +where: in all this they saw woful error, and even worse, +rank folly. They sharply reprimanded the mothers, reproaching +them for a multitude of things: for withering +the natural goodness and charitableness of their daughters +by fostering expensive habits; for inciting them to a false +luxury, all vulgarity and tinsel, which is neither comely +nor virtuous, and helps not a whit towards matrimony—at +least it is to be hoped so, for it would be a great +imprudence to depart so far from reality, and to entice a +man into marriage by means of the rouge-pot and sham +charms.⁠<a id="FNanchor_93" href="#Footnote_93" class="fnanchor">[93]</a></p> + +<p>But materfamilias is a lady of fashion, accustomed to +shine in society, and seeing no harm in it; further, she +is too good a mother not to desire success for her offspring, +not to applaud a venturesome flight. She, too, has dreams +of a Prince Charming; she has her enthusiasms, which take +clear and definite shape in her mind as positive hopes. As +for the father, he becomes cantankerous, and considers only +the expense of the game; he is quite of the dowagers’ +opinion, and thinks well enough of men to believe that they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>pay most attention to serious qualities. And so, in order +to compose once for all this perpetual domestic wrangle, +a great wag, Coquillart,⁠<a id="FNanchor_94" href="#Footnote_94" class="fnanchor">[94]</a> proposes to clothe the girls in +parti-coloured dresses, one colour for the father, another for +the mother.</p> + +<p>When a girl makes a successful start, certain mothers are +seized with a sort of fanaticism; we are wrong in calling +it fanaticism: it is really a new outburst of good-heartedness +and the passion for self-sacrifice of which women are +possessed, for, if they reflected, they would clearly realise +that personally they have nothing to gain by a brilliant +match for their daughters.</p> + +<p>Some of them push self-sacrifice to the point of servility; +they efface themselves, walk in the rear, with the meek and +deprecating bearing of a waiting-maid. That is a form of +goodness which the women of former days would not have +understood—Anne of France choked at the mere mention +of it. She had commanded armies, bearded diplomatists, +made men her puppets, checkmated her judges, manipulated +her States-general, set her whole country in a ferment +without a sign of feeling: but here she lost command of +herself: “It is tomfoolery ... it is overweening presumption +in the daughter, and in the mother sheer madness.”</p> + +<p>Kisses, caresses, secret trysts, presents, love-letters, +showers of rondeaus and ballads, stolen glances, songs +more than gay—all this made French flirtation an exquisite +pastime, essentially intoxicating in its charm. The +good, modest young damsel, who would cast down her eyes +in the street, was not a whit shocked at a pretty broad +jest in the company of men:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Aucunes sont, qui, en humbles manières,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avec les folz jouent leurs jarretières.⁠<a id="FNanchor_95" href="#Footnote_95" class="fnanchor">[95]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Bouchet.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">In the evening by candle-light, ensconced in some nook of +the spacious fire-place, young men and girls would sit unceremoniously +on one another’s knees, laughing and talking +nonsense. People who have got past these maidenly frolics +themselves find it more and more difficult to become reconciled +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>to them. Jean Bouchet feelingly describes them in his +book, <i>Les Regnars traversant les voies périlleuses</i>, at a period +when the art was still in its infancy. Young men easily get +absolution: they naturally profit by opportunities of amusing +themselves; and, besides, theirs is the passive part. But the +girls! how venturesome they are, how light-heartedly they +chip, at least in spirit, the poor remnant of their semi-virginity!</p> + +<p>It would be a mistake to suppose that flirtation will in +time lead to the introduction of the love element into +marriage. These damsels are by no means anxious to allow +the principle of earthly love—that is to say, a germ of divorce—to +steal into their married life. Their ideal consists in +falling in love with a man of wealth and established position, +and so far it has a reassuring character, worthy of respect. +At this stage of their life they are working for themselves, +as later they will have to work for humanity. M. Bourget +has discovered in America the different varieties of the +sixteenth-century flirt: the professional beauty; the girl +of ideas, who stumps a platform and stands for the parish +council; the “jolly good fellow”; the girl of well-balanced +philosophical mind; the coquette; the girl of ambitions; all +are ambitious and to some extent coquettish, and even the +philosophical girl gives the ideal only a secondary place.</p> + +<p>But amid this charming round of coquetting and artless +sensibility, passion sometimes flashes out—passion, at once +the great peril of the Latin races and their eternal charm. +One may be convinced that the heart has been subdued by +cold calculation, and that love is laid under a spell by means +of philosophy; but they burst their bonds! And here the +parts are not distributed as one would wish: this generation +is about to inflict a wound on platonism! Often it is the +wife who, instead of serving as an idol, gives herself to love. +In the terrible veins of French and Spanish women there +flows a blood which they do not always succeed in mastering, +the old blood of knights or peasants; they bruise +themselves against the invisible mail-armour of modern +life.</p> + +<p>In the second act you would almost invariably see the +serving-maid appear on the scene—the “confidante” of the +plays, a good soul, as indulgent to everyone as she is to +herself, devoted, and not more thick-headed than becomes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>her, thoroughly convinced that she has something to gain +from every intrigue. The mother has her own affairs and +her dignity to attend to, which keeps her in ignorance of +what is going on; whilst with the maid there are private +conversations, mutual unbosomings, a companionship in +study of the facts of life. Lucky, indeed, if some smart +lackey, let in on the strength of his ingenuous manner, +does not put in his word!</p> + +<p>Saint Theresa thus plunged with masterful strokes into +the swirling tide of existence, with the aid of a serving-maid, +at the age of fifteen. Her father placed her in a +convent, but the walls were no barrier to her: she performed +unheard-of feats, broke through the roof, wrenched away +the gratings. She had to be despatched to a more reposeful +situation—to an uncle stuffed with the fathers of the church, +a man after Vivès’ own heart; from his care she returned +with a passion for religion, and escaped once more, this time +to enter a Carmelite convent in the teeth of opposition. +She was now in her nineteenth year, and her trials, repentances, +revolts were only just beginning; eighteen more years +of struggle were required ere this tempestuous character +was at last soothed definitively into mildness.</p> + +<p>Unhappily, the girls’ little love affairs sometimes had +graver consequences. Plays and novels show us situations +awkward enough: in one of Parabosco’s comedies, the +mother arrives a little behind the fair.</p> + +<p>Laughing, boisterous, pitch-forked into life, the poor +children do not pretend to have the ferocious virtues that +men have not.⁠<a id="FNanchor_96" href="#Footnote_96" class="fnanchor">[96]</a> Is that their fault, since they have been +brought up like men? If they go wrong, it is not from +a bent towards wrong; it is as the birdling errs, buffeted +by the storm on its first escape from the nest. To avoid +risk altogether, they would have to remain for ever under +the mother’s wing, as the early educators wished.</p> + +<p>In the sixteenth century, there were still good people +who wished girls to become deaf-mutes again, and constitute +Our Lady “the guardian and warder of their hearts.” But +such talk was not very effective.</p> + +<p>Wise counsellors and practical preachers who advocated +“retreats,” and knew the world, addressed themselves +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>directly to the girls and sought to touch the chord of self-interest. +The grave Jean Raulin,⁠<a id="FNanchor_97" href="#Footnote_97" class="fnanchor">[97]</a> from the eminence of one +of the most fashionable pulpits in Paris, reasoned with them +somewhat as follows: “To wed a widow, well and good! +There is no fuss, no golden ring, no benediction, but withal +it is a marriage: whilst with a counterfeit young maid +presenting herself at the altar—! Ah! fair ladies, guard +your purity to the very hour of your espousals, whether +you be earthly or spiritual brides! That is the precious +treasure you must at all costs save, and for many reasons: +because of human frailty, according to the words of the +2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, ‘We have our treasure in +earthen vessels’; because of its inestimable value, according +to the words of Ecclesiasticus, chapter xxvi., ‘There is no +price worthy of a continent soul’; because of the irreparability +of the mischief, according to the words of St. Jerome, +‘God can do all things save restore a lost virginity.’”</p> + +<p>Many could not help regretting the free country life, and +fancied that fidelity to a more rigorous system of education +would have yielded better results. Of a truth it would +have been better to make women frank creatures of passion +than coquettes or mere worldlings. But an honest glance +at the life of rural folk was enough to assure the observer +that utilitarianism does not elevate the manners. Yes, seen +from a distance, the ways of country folk seem compact +of smiles and caresses, love and candour: pigs and cows +meet in the meadow or at the fair; lovers too meet, at +church, at a dance, after those winter parties so hotly +denounced by the preachers, nay, every morning and evening +if their hearts bid them; and they can exchange little +presents, meet to scrape the fiddle or twang the guitar, +without anyone finding fault, save perhaps a rival with +whom they are quits for a few rounds at fisticuffs, or at +most a thrust with a knife. A fashionable young girl, you +may be sure, would not be horrified at the exchange of +a few good swashing blows for her; she is apt to regard +life as too tame. It remains to discover whether to reduce +life to its primitive simplicity is really to elevate it. The +idealists thought not.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_I_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="smaller">THE HUSBAND AND THE VARIOUS WAYS OF SLIPPING HIS YOKE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The most troublesome question to be settled in regard to +feminism is that of the authority of the husband. Legally, +the husband was head of the household, an idea which +found ready acceptance among the lower ranks of society, +and which the people applied with its habitual logic. It +won warm approval from Rabelais. Nothing struck men +as more grotesque than a husband suspected of having +allowed his wife to get the upper hand. An artisan of +Bourges, at whom some unpleasant neighbours hummed a +refrain about a woman who thrashed her husband, on that +ground alone brought against them an action for slander.</p> + +<p>In all sincerity, the husband considered himself an absolute +owner, the lord and master, the head and soul of his +wife, that “feminine and feeble creature” whom he condescended +to take to his hearth, and who owed him, in the +name of God and the law, “perfect love and obedience.” +As to the wife, she was, so to speak, stepping into a railway +train driven without her assistance. She had paid her fare, +and wedlock stretched itself rigidly in front of her like +the driver’s footboard, a place for manliness and nerve, but +unromantic in the extreme. What matters to her the +scenery along the line? The rippling sea may chant its +amorous strains, the spring sun may dot the wilds with +flowers, the tempest may sweep through the gorges, but the +track stretches on and on in its direct unswerving course, +with never a thrill, never a smile, unfaltering, unreflecting, +mathematically.</p> + +<p>What was the wife but the principal servant, or the eldest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>of the children? She only addressed her master with the +most profound respect. “Sir,” she would say to him, or +“My good friend.” She was his “wife and subject”; if she +wrote to him she signed, “your humble obedient handmaid +and friend.” But her husband spoke to her stick in hand.</p> + +<p>The stick! that was the only argument the women understood.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Bon cheval, mauvais cheval, veut l’esperon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonne femme, mauvaise femme, veut le baston.⁠<a id="FNanchor_98" href="#Footnote_98" class="fnanchor">[98]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Preachers spoke of the thrashings with a smile. Needless to +say, the police did not interfere. Margaret of France did +indeed think it a little vexatious that a lady honoured with +the king’s attentions like the beautiful Madame de Chateaubriand +should still receive correction of this sort under her +husband’s roof-tree.</p> + +<p>But this was not all: the authority of the husband was +often coupled with the tyranny of the mother-in-law. The +husband’s mother, especially if she was a widow, rendered +life horribly galling and difficult.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the married woman, no matter to what +lengths her husband might carry his ill-usage, knew well +that there was no redress for her anywhere. Unhappy wives +sometimes in the madness of despair fled from their homes +in the most shocking plight, only to be remorselessly dragged +back by their father, brother, or cousins, as a result of the +appalling freemasonry between men. To rely on her own +mother was out of the question for a wife; the two women +belonged to two distinct houses, with a barrier, a great +gulf fixed between them. In the early days of wedlock a +husband, not to appear a tyrant, and because he was in no way +inconvenienced, would allow his wife now and then to visit +her mother; but he contrived that these visits became gradually +rarer, and when he was not at home, a wife careful +of her repose and dignity would never cross her mother’s +threshold without first writing to him: “If it be your good +pleasure, I would fain go.”</p> + +<p>That was a woman’s life. As it was not all smiles and +rosewater, there was good reason for marrying the girls off +early, before they had learned to care one way or another, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span>their equipment being a few simple maxims inculcating +obedience, and some odds and ends of medical knowledge. +Wives who owed their training to Vivès could not but +be very unhappy, according to the principles of marriage held +by Vivès himself. For Vivès not merely approved of early +marriages, he was also one of those who believed that the +wife was created for the husband, and an irresponsible and +inferior being; he looked at the husband as someone to bring +her out. Erasmus, Bouchet, Dolce himself, nay, everybody +had much the same impression.</p> + +<p>The supremacy of the husband was the sacred ark; bold +indeed would be the person who dared lift a hand to it! +So in modern times we have seen aesthetes, like Ruskin, +capable of every possible audacity but that. Ruskin does +not understand women, and yet he has gone out of his way +to exalt their rôle in the world; but, as soon as he comes +face to face with the husband, he loses countenance, his +candour vanishes, his words become cold and colourless.</p> + +<p>How is one to explain this singular phenomenon, that so +many good and even generous-minded men, after expressing +a heart-felt sympathy with the sufferings of women, after +proclaiming their intelligence and their right to live, falter +and hide their heads when the question of liberty at home is +raised? It is not because they believe there is no more +to be said. La Rochefoucauld declares that “there are few +good wives but are tired of their calling,” to which it would +be easy to reply, “There are few good wives whose calling is +not tiring.” But what is to be done? No one is inclined +to go like Plato to the root of the matter and suppress +marriage altogether. Marriage obviously necessitates a +husband; it is a vexatious, clogging, disagreeable necessity, +maybe, but there are no visible means of escaping it. A +wife too is necessary; well, once a man and woman are +united in wedlock, one of the two must needs hold the reins. +There are many reasons, even physical ones, why a woman +should not undertake to earn bread for the family and to +flog the husband. And so the husband retains that right.</p> + +<p>But if we go a little deeper into the psychology of +domestic life in the sixteenth century, we shall note other +important phenomena, pointing to a different conclusion.</p> + +<p>To begin with, investigating facts from the outside, who +was it that complained of marriage? The man; always the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>man. In actual working the woman found compensations, +or at least advantages in it. For her it was a state leading +to boundless possibilities if only she cared to open the door. +The more ardent paladins of feminism, indeed, were often +disconcerted by her outwardly conciliatory attitude towards +it. But the husband, married though he was, could not +forget that setting up an establishment had involved the +turning his back upon life. His chains appeared to him, if +not heavy (to him they were not heavy), at any rate the +sign of a monotonous, unvarying servitude. In the words +of an old ballad, the monk may change his order, the canon +his stall, the official his functions,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">But we that be poor married men</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Can neither go up nor down.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>If we enquire of the spouses themselves, we find that the +disagreements and difficulties rarely sprang from the larger +facts—those that were regarded as irreparable.</p> + +<p>Heaven seems to have taken care to arm us, in regard +to important questions, with a veritable long-suffering. +There are fools, it is true, who seriously think of keeping +their wives under lock and key, not reflecting that no better +means could be devised for making them desperate and +leaving them at the mercy of Tom, Dick or Harry—the first +passing officer. Such men only get their deserts. But +there are also shrewd men who keep their eyes shut to +what it is best not to see: everybody advises them to do +so, or, what is better, gives them every assistance. There +must be a special providence, even, watching over the wives.⁠<a id="FNanchor_99" href="#Footnote_99" class="fnanchor">[99]</a> +A wife, on the contrary, can hardly remain in ignorance +of her husband’s laxities, for these most often manifest themselves +in the broad daylight, and sometimes under his own +roof. Many stories might be told about chambermaids such +as we read of in Scripture, but a little too mercenary, to +be sure: for the courts showed so much generosity in +assessing the damages due in such circumstances that artless +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>little Chloes have been known to bamboozle the judges and +profit handsomely by a mishap that was wholly imaginary.</p> + +<p>In Italy, men of the world had a sure and simple custom, +which consisted merely in buying a young slave-girl. In +the market of Venice, a pretty Russian, a fair Circassian, a +well-built Tartar girl between twenty-five and thirty years +of age would fetch from six to eighty-seven ducats. It +needs no showing how well this institution was suited to +platonism; the most eminent platonists did not disdain it. +The mother of Carlo de’ Medici was a lovely Circassian girl, +purchased in this way by the grave and aesthetic Cosimo. +It would never have occurred to a wife to desert her home +for such a grievance as this; to do so would have made her +a general laughing-stock. She might feel keen inward +suffering; perhaps her heart would close a little more +towards the earth and open out towards heaven; but this +experience would be of use to her, and a woman who was +genuinely an idealist would almost rejoice at it. It would +teach her to show a firm and lofty front to the world, to +live among her ideals, to form a low estimate of men.</p> + +<p>Domestic quarrels really spring from the crabbed sour +virtues, the insufferable respectabilities. Men are hard to +please. One moment they find a wife in the way: the next +they expect her to be perfect. She ought every morning, +as an old author explains, to put on the slippers of humility, +the shift of decorum, the corset of chastity, the garters of +steadfastness, the pins of patience, and so on; but it is by +no means proved that in such a case a husband would not +think his wife a little over-dressed.</p> + +<p>The wife, too, is up in arms about mere trifles—her +husband’s commonplace soul, his narrowness, his materialism, +his egotism, his gross old-bachelor ways. Her real +grievances, to say nothing of her fancied ones, are innumerable. +One woman finds, instead of the “morning dew” of +her dreams, that she has espoused a lumpish lout.⁠<a id="FNanchor_100" href="#Footnote_100" class="fnanchor">[100]</a> Another, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span>brought up in a part of the country where hunting was the +stock topic of conversation, feels aggrieved if her husband +tries to engage her practical interest in literature or music, +the result of which is so complete a discord that the +husband at last packs her off to her father, who promptly +sends her back again. Another lady is wretched because +her good man loses his appetite, and in bed does nothing +but sigh; on this foundation she builds a whole world of +suppositions, and finishes by making life impossible to the +poor man, who is all the time at a loss to know why: as a +matter of fact, he has been worried about an investment. +There are some women odious because of their incessant +chattering, their tempers, their vanity. Many women are +desperately fond of contradicting their husbands, tormenting +them with pin-pricks. At table a husband inadvertently +poured water into his wife’s glass. The lady handed the +glass to a footman, saying hotly: “When it is dry, I will +ask for it back.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_101" href="#Footnote_101" class="fnanchor">[101]</a> These are the things which destroy +domestic happiness, which poison a man’s life (“wine and +women have their poison,” says an old proverb), which +disgust and shrivel the heart of a woman and drive her to +a life away from her home, in pilgrimages or what not. A +man does not need to be a saint to bear with a woman of +easy virtue, but only a saint can endure a wearing woman.</p> + +<p>And so what is wanted in domestic life is a great deal of +prudence and wisdom, and as little as possible of illusions +and passion. Marriage is the most sacred bond in the +world, but only so long as it is not strained. To yield to +the temptation of loving would be fraught with great peril; +that is the forbidden fruit. Champier, a philosophical +physician of the time, calls it fatal: it kills. Leaving out +of account the physical vicissitudes of life, the spirit of man +is too fickle to permit him safely to stake his life on one +head.⁠<a id="FNanchor_102" href="#Footnote_102" class="fnanchor">[102]</a> Of this, Europe had a terrifying proof.</p> + +<p>Philip the Fair was a notorious lady-killer; and his wife +Joanna, like a genuine Spaniard, loved him to distraction. +On one occasion when he was travelling in the Netherlands, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>she worried herself into a sort of prostration. One wild, +bitter night, as November nights are in Navarre, this poor +Joanna, seized with a sudden hallucination, rushed out half-clad +into the courtyard of the castle of Medina del Campo. +People hurried up to her, and the governor stopped her and +ordered the gate to be shut; but the unhappy woman, her +eyes starting from her head, clung to the gate, and no +human strength could tear her away. When morning +came she was still there, panting and shivering, with wild, +sunken eyes. Her mother, Queen Isabella, who was lying +ill at Segovia, despatched an admiral and an archbishop in +hot haste to the castle, but neither the archbishop nor the +admiral succeeded in getting the poor mad thing away from +her gate. They only managed, with great difficulty, to +induce her to enter an adjacent shelter for the following +night. Only the Queen was able to put an end to this +distressing scene, the memory of which thrills Spain to this +day. Yes, La Bruyère has well said: “Women go to +extremes! They are better or worse than we.” There lies +their danger. They would assuredly do well to beware of +their ecstasies, and to keep above or below the husband +with whom it is their lot to live.</p> + +<p>If they are reasonable and resigned, like those of whom +we have to speak, not believing in the necessity of a matrimonial +passion, then the humanists resume their dulcet +strains. They have no intention of bringing about a violent +rupture, but make their appeal to finesse.</p> + +<p>The old type of the hectoring husband, even with his +bludgeon, is no longer a terror. No one is so likely to play +a puppet’s part as the man who fancies he is monarch of all +he surveys. The foolish fellow is so convinced of his +superiority that he never perceives the slender cords by +which he is led. He works like an ox,⁠<a id="FNanchor_103" href="#Footnote_103" class="fnanchor">[103]</a> and his wife calls +him a selfish beast and curmudgeon. She croaks of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>workhouse if things are not going well with him, while if +everything is going smoothly she “cockers and cossets him,” +and then gets, not a beating, but a dress or a blouse. She +has tears or smiles as occasion serves, and, if need be, +practises her blandishments on the friends of the dear man. +She wheedles even Heaven itself, for all that is required to +ensure peace is to bring the shirt that her lord and master +is to wear on Sunday into contact with the altar during +Friday’s mass, and there is no difficulty in that. It is +commonly said that “a woman is easy to manage provided +’tis a man that takes the trouble”; a man is still easier to +manage provided a woman is good enough to take him in +hand. In short, the women had long before this quietly +juggled away this harassing domestic problem. That is +why, despite the bogey of principles, the women thought +highly of marriage. They reconciled themselves to obedience, +so long as they did not obey. For the same reason +the warmest friends of women found no better means of +combating marriage than to defend it. The men alone +girded at it, because, accustomed in their bachelor days to +eat their own cake, they did not easily get into the habit of +working for a little community.</p> + +<p>Erasmus has very cleverly summed up the situation in the +form of a dialogue between a young bride and a matron of +sense and sobriety.⁠<a id="FNanchor_104" href="#Footnote_104" class="fnanchor">[104]</a></p> + +<p>The former makes loud outcry. “What a hell is marriage!” +she exclaims, “what a slave’s business! And for +whom, ye gods! For a gambler, a brute, a rake! ’Twould +be better far to sleep with a pig!”</p> + +<p>The other soothes her. She must take her husband as she +finds him, that is to say, a coarse animal, a sort of elephant, +to be tamed with a lump of sugar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_105" href="#Footnote_105" class="fnanchor">[105]</a> She must appear to give +in to him about trifles, to put up with some of his whims and +eccentricities, and above all to lay in a large stock of good +temper and never be idle or dull, for the husband has a +perfect horror of being bored, perhaps because he is such a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>bore himself, and sulkiness upsets him, especially if he is +sulky. What she must do is to leave him what he has, and +give him what he lacks, those charming possessions with +which the new system of civilisation has endowed women. +She may even add a little affection, and then, one fine day, +she will be struck with astonishment (for men do not shine +at finesse) to see this rough husband of hers at her feet, and, +instead of considering her a nonentity, taking her for the +image of God. From that moment she possesses the affection +she has sought; and the task is not very difficult.</p> + +<p>Truth compels us to add, however, that, apart from this +moral recipe, another circumstance contributed to give the +women greater importance in conjugal life. In France, as in +every country where men are the ruling spirits, they were +not fond of giving the girls a dowry, or at all events they +gave them the smallest possible allowance. When the girls +married, they received a sum representing in a way what +would some years before have been called their “night-cap,” +but what was then styled a “chaplet of roses,” and they +renounced all claim on the inheritance. Accordingly a rich +man did not think it at all extraordinary to wed a girl without +a fortune, since that was the usual thing. Louis de la +Trémoille married Gabrielle de Bourbon on those terms. +Further, there was not the same difference between large, +middling and small fortunes as there is to-day. With an +income of three or four thousand livres, equal to £3000 or +£4000 to-day, a man was thought a nabob. The husband, +then, brought the money, and in addition he guaranteed a +contingent jointure on his own property, so that it was really +a home of his providing that the woman entered. A man in +those days knew nothing of that pride now universally felt +in wedding a millionaire’s daughter from Cincinnati, or even +from Paris.</p> + +<p>To marry money struck people as shameful, almost infamous. +A husband supported on his wife’s income was the +object of heartfelt commiseration, and an establishment so +organised seemed unworthy of the name. No sarcasm was +keen enough for the classical “son-in-law of Monsieur Poirier,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_106" href="#Footnote_106" class="fnanchor">[106]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>the dapper lordling, all genealogy and sport, whose sole +accomplishment is a knack of plunging deep into debt, from +which his worthy father-in-law (who made his money in +treacle) toils behind the scenes to extricate him.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, Monsieur Poirier was highly esteemed in +industrial countries—the Low Countries, for example, while +as to the Italians, they, openly and unashamed, regarded big +dowries as at once legitimate and desirable. They had the +courage of their opinion—for instance, that physician of +Pistoja who had to choose between two girls, one of whom +was warranted a sensible creature, while the other was less +sensible, but richer by three hundred crowns. The doctor +did not hesitate an instant in choosing the richer, for in his +opinion the risks were equal, and the difference pointed out +between them was not worth a few crowns. No Italian was +at all loth to marry a woman who brought him a dowry +large enough to live on. At Florence fifty crowns a year +would almost keep a household of moderate tastes, and a +woman of the lower middle-class as a rule received a dowry +of two or three thousand florins, which yielded an income +of at least a hundred and fifty florins. The Visconti and +the Sforza, by means of dowries which were by all accounts +colossal, got their daughters into the principal royal houses +of Europe. In short, the Italian system continued to exercise +a wonderful fascination even over outsiders, and in starting +on the expeditions to Italy more than one French noble +fancied that a rich wife would be the reward of his prowess.</p> + +<p>It is not very surprising that these ideas at length overcame +all resistance in France. Louis XI., who was a pupil +of the Sforza, did much in this as in other things to snap the +chains of the old traditions. We have elsewhere related how +lightheartedly he made and unmade marriages, with the sole +object of rewarding various adventurers at the expense of +the most honourable families.</p> + +<p>Louis XII., on the contrary, set himself passionately to +oppose these new manners. Although he plumed himself on +his chivalry as much as anyone, he did not admit that the +heat of passion could excuse the abduction of a young girl, +even if she were rich—and in such cases she was almost +always rich. His firmness did not prevent some picturesque +exploits; but the authority of the church, with its strong +weapon the canon laws, lent him aid.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span></p> + +<p>We have moreover had occasion to show elsewhere how +much difficulty Charles VIII. had, after the event, in getting +the legitimacy of his marriage with the heiress of Brittany +acknowledged.⁠<a id="FNanchor_107" href="#Footnote_107" class="fnanchor">[107]</a></p> + +<p>And so it is that, at the epoch of women’s triumph, we find +in France two distinct species of husbands. The first, without +shutting their eyes to the importance of money, refused +to make it the principal question in marriage. Undoubtedly +it was unfortunate if the wife came quite empty-handed, and +in such a case a girl ran some risk of the “pain” of remaining +an old maid or falling into an unhappy plight. The most +insignificant workgirl set her heart on getting a little dower +together, even by methods not altogether innocent,⁠<a id="FNanchor_108" href="#Footnote_108" class="fnanchor">[108]</a> and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>we know that the purses of princesses dribbled out a beneficent +response to this desire. But many marrying men +were quite content to be fobbed off with some sort of +equivalent. Thus Louis XII. created François de Melun +Count of Epinay to induce him to marry Louise de Foix; +and Louis de la Trémoille gave twelve hundred livres to his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>servant, Robert Suriete, to compensate him for the portionless +condition of a pretty girl, Marie de Briethe.</p> + +<p>The other kind of husband, which was destined more and +more to outnumber the first, saw in money, on the contrary, +the real, substantial element of wedlock. Anyone who +thought that a woman would appreciate a sacrifice made to +marry her struck them as egregiously simple. The richer +women are, the better they are, as Montaigne says: there is +no reason why a man should sacrifice positive “commodities” +to uncertain (and not particularly useful) quantities such as +birth, beauty, virtue, wit.</p> + +<p>The ball once set rolling spun along merrily. Especially +in Italy, the exploitation of marriage attained imposing +proportions. Indignant fathers of families protested; the +Venetian senate, composed mainly of fathers, passed various +decrees more and more restrictive, contemptuous and scathing, +but all in vain. The whole class of idle young men of +fashion, and it was a numerous one, avowedly regarded +marriage as a unique means of enriching themselves and +assuring an idle life, a charmingly easy means, too, not +above the level of the meanest intelligence. Guez de Balsac +likened it to a fat prebend which does not require the holder +to become actually a canon, but which does unhappily +necessitate occasional residence.</p> + +<p>This custom does not perhaps indicate very warm feelings +on the part of the young men, but it cannot be denied that +it satisfied the secret wishes of the women and gave a +sanction to the evolution of their ideas.</p> + +<p>From the day when they pay the household expenses, +women consider the parts reversed, and begin by assuming +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>the most perfect liberty. Henceforth no more constraint, +no more subterfuges, no more Judas kisses. They are now, +mark you, equal⁠<a id="FNanchor_109" href="#Footnote_109" class="fnanchor">[109]</a> or superior to their husband in those +material concerns which are the essence of domesticity; +and as moreover they fancy that morally they excel the +men, that they are at once more affectionate, more chaste +and more steadfast; as they are reminded on all sides of the +example of paragons like Cleopatra, they make up their +minds to be Cleopatras too. They consent, out of goodness +of soul, to try their prentice hand on their husbands. They +make him happy, sometimes even in his own despite; they +are going to transform him “from a battered ingot or a base +coin into a new crown piece.” In his heart of hearts the +husband may fret and fume, call to mind the old-time ways, +wonder at his wife’s continual absences from home and her +choice of friends, and at times even try to interfere; but he +is quickly given to understand that my lady is not going to +be held in a leash or shut up in a band-box, that seraglios +exist no longer. She will devote herself to his happiness, +provided he shows himself docile and recognises his incapacity +and helplessness. Ay, and let him reflect: how +could he get on without so virtuous a wife? He would +go into a consumption. She is there, regulating his expenses, +his pleasures, the frets and sallies of his temperament; she +watches like a sister of mercy over his physical and moral +well-being, and it is by this means that the household +represents henceforth a unity, sound, robust, with two bodies, +four arms, and two souls.</p> + +<p>Obviously (to repeat it once more), we have no intention +of enunciating an absolute rule. In speaking of households, +we do not mean that all the households in France were cast +in the same mould, and that everywhere at the same moment +they were all acting precisely in the same way. No two +were alike.</p> + +<p>The truth is that, one way or another, a very large +number of women no longer suffered themselves to be +snuffed out, “trodden under foot,” to use the current phrase. +As to the manner in which their controlling influence +showed itself, that depended on events, tastes, how the wind +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>blew, circumstances. A favourite idea of Margaret of +France, and one which it would have been difficult to get +out of her head, was that women always err by their meek +and quiet spirit, their excess of long-suffering. In vain is +the reply made that more than one woman makes a virtue +of necessity, and that, face to face with a violent creature +threatening to break every bone in her body, a woman +needs all her patience; Margaret protests that she would +rather be flogged than despised. This magnificent declaration +sets some of the company smiling, and enraptures the +women. One pert widow alleges that she loved her husband +so much that if he had beaten her she would have killed +him. “In other words,” retorts Henri d’Albret, “you mean +to rule the roost. Well, I am agreeable, but you would have +to get all the husbands to agree.” Margaret winces under +this intellectual cut; she is put out, for natural as she would +regard it for her husband to take her orders, she dares not +say so. Even she falters, and admits that the man is the +natural head, but not that he has a right to desert or +maltreat his wife.⁠<a id="FNanchor_110" href="#Footnote_110" class="fnanchor">[110]</a> Can this be Margaret? Yes, the words +are her own, and are exactly to the point. Women do lack +decision—and she was the very first to show it!</p> + +<p>Some young ladies, to elude this difficulty, thought it well +to marry a ninny—if not an absolute fool. Worthy folk +were amazed and sang the praises of mind and its attractions, +“the treasures of knowledge,” and asked them what +pleasure they promised themselves. What a question to +ask! Why, since a husband was in question, they promised +themselves precisely no pleasure; nothing but money, or a +name! That was how the Duchess of Medina-Sidonia +married; she espoused an income of sixty-thousand ducats, +with a grandee of Spain. True, this grandee, when paying a +visit to the archbishop, asked very politely to see the +children! There was nothing here to hinder the duchess +from having as much mind as she wanted. But it must be +confessed that this was an extreme remedy, and it would +be preferable for a woman to feel and believe herself able +to mate with a man of intelligence.</p> + +<p>Domestic manners thus underwent a profound transformation. +In humble homes the wife continued perforce to +cook, to make the beds, to wash her husband’s head and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>feet, with no loss of dignity. But in the great houses, it +was no longer common to find hard inelegant matrons who +rose with the sun, were continually chevying the children +and servants, and knew no pleasure but the joy of piling up +well-bleached and well-darned linen on Saturday, the housewife’s +field-day. As Fourier has pointedly observed, disdain +of such mole-eyed habits is the test of a people’s progress in +civilisation.</p> + +<p>It is much more delightful to float through life with +a smile on the lips, and to govern imperceptibly, by means +of a languorous Creole grace.</p> + +<p>Such grace abounded, and many instances of it might be +given. Here is a specimen which seems to us characteristic; +it is a simple little note from Isabella d’Este⁠<a id="FNanchor_111" href="#Footnote_111" class="fnanchor">[111]</a> to her husband, +dictated to a secretary:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="noindent">“My Lord,</p> + +<p>Prithee mock not at my letter, nor say that all women +are poor things and ever smitten with fear, for the malignity of others far +exceedeth my fear and your lordship’s mettle. I should have written +this letter with my own hand, but ’tis so hot that, if it last, we are +like to die. The little knave is very well and sendeth a kiss to your +lordship, and as for me, I do ever commend myself to you.</p> + +<p class="center">Longing to see your lordship,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Isabella</span>, with my own hand.”</p> + +<p>Mantua, July 23rd.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>“With my own hand,” the signature and no more. It is +so hot! But does not this very air of fragility convey a +charm exactly of the kind to subjugate even a husband?</p> + +<p>This charm does enfold him—and it keeps husband and +wife apart! Seen at a distance these distinguished women, +genuinely Stoic at heart under a mask of <i>abandon</i>, in reality +overawed their lords and masters, and, even in their private +intercourse with them, kept themselves shrouded in mystery +and the unknown. Vittoria Colonna’s husband, who took +little pains to be agreeable at home,⁠<a id="FNanchor_112" href="#Footnote_112" class="fnanchor">[112]</a> became so devoted a +lover of his lawful spouse when far away as to compose +in her honour a whole volume of charming verses entitled +<i>A Book of Loves</i>. This book was never published, and has +disappeared. Brantôme keenly regrets its disappearance, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>because, he says, it would have given us an opportunity to +see the poetry of conjugal love, and to know if that ought +to draw its inspiration from platonic sentiments or not—from +celestial love or from love legitimately terrestrial.</p> + +<p>Poor Brantôme! We think we can solve the question +which troubles him. The women of that time were waxing +philosophic, they had set their minds towards acquiring a +good deal of knowledge and yet remaining alive, instead of +minimising themselves, humbling themselves, following behind +like a boat in tow. They had become vestals (if we +may put it thus) in regard to marriage, and considered that +their true mission was to shed abroad the love which +welled over from their quivering hearts; for it is always +the lack of men that turns women into feminists. In the +world they were going to become “goddesses,” and it would +be impossible any longer to live without them.</p> + +<p>Francis I., in a court without women, found himself +getting too proud and despotic; his gardens appeared to +him “flowerless,” so he summoned and enticed young women +to him, and treated them “like goddesses in heaven.” He +shewed them their new mission.</p> + +<p>And yet, what unsuspected depths of loathing rose to the +lips of those divine women! I do not know whether the +number of women sick of their husbands was larger than at +present, but it was large enough. Pride and a high sentiment +of duty in the gaze of the world long watched over +them, like those grand statues of splendid, almost menacing +virtues which the sculptors of former days were fond +of setting before a tomb, at either end of the grave. But +after they had accomplished, unostentatiously, devotedly, +the mission for which men married them, namely, kept the +house in order, loyally studied the master’s comfort, poulticed +and physicked him, borne him children, replenished the +stock (pardon the expression) like good brood-mares, and +humbly occupied the foot of the table, there came a time +when this primary duty was done, and then they sprang up +as though from a sleep, and looking at the sun, enquired of +him whither they must fly to find life. They were born to +sow flowers behind them. Their children were these flowers, +painfully plucked out of their very vitals and flung into the +future. It remained yet to pluck from their hearts, with a +more vivifying joy, immaterial flowers, flowers of love, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span>flowers of happiness, children of the soul, their real children, +for if the woman is a passive being in physical conception, +in spiritual conception she plays another part, she becomes +the active being. The seed is hers to sow.</p> + +<p>By this time they were no longer at the “angelic age,” +as Alfred de Vigny called it, namely, fifteen years. As a rule, +they might confess to thirty, the age when women have “a +spice of the devil,” the age at which one ought to know how +to deal with soul and heart.</p> + +<p>The sort of revolution they brought about was no new +thing. There always had been and always will be women +of thirty years, quite aware of their age; but these were in +addition keen-sighted, psychological women, who meant to +get to the bottom of the phenomenon and measure its intensity +with the eye of a connoisseur, for it seemed to them +that they were entering into life.</p> + +<p>The children, who had been the <i>raison d’être</i> of the home, +were about to go out into the world, or had already gone. +As soon as he could, the first-born son, that dear little boy +whom the mother loved, asked and obtained a little money +and disappeared. Henceforth he was hardly mentioned; he +now had his own affairs, his own pleasures, and when he wrote +it would be a postscript, affectionate but rather concise: +“Madam, I had forgotten to write and say I have learnt +that you have given me a little brother named Guy. I +beseech you, Madam, see him well nourished, for I love him +well.” Sometimes news came that, far away, Death had +rudely snapped the last remaining tie, and from the truly +heroic words which then burst from certain courageous +mothers’ hearts, we see how hardened their souls had become, +and how the noblest and most dearly loved of them +had been compelled, in their thorny life, to form the painful +but admirable habit of sacrificing their affections to the +very uttermost. Gabrielle de Bourbon was announcing to +her officers the death of her only son, killed at Marignan. +Aloud she said: “in this battle that the King has won”; +but in a whisper she added: “which has brought such +heavy woe upon us.”</p> + +<p>That sweet women whose very nature is to love should +go out, when all fails them thus, into the world, like the +bees of God, to gather a little honey and labour for the +common hive, is not very surprising. They prefer “a little +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>love from many to a great deal from one,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_113" href="#Footnote_113" class="fnanchor">[113]</a>—especially +when that one does not love them!</p> + +<p>And so marriage comes to serve them as a refuge when on +their honey-quest. It is like the lodge in which hunters +take up their quarters, to be nearer their game and to shelter +themselves from the weather. The women rejoice at having +it. Nevertheless, before studying these emancipated women +as they play their part manlike away from home, we have +still to examine a final objection of principle, which was +strong enough to hold some of them back.</p> + +<p>Many moralists, even without bias against feminism, reproach +the women with owing their philanthropy to a +horror of marriage; according to them, the mission to the +world upon which the women wished to enter was for them +a means of evading their domestic duties.</p> + +<p>That is not the fact. Without appealing to the obvious +arguments, we wish for no other proof of the women’s good +intentions than their very manifest desire not to carry their +separation from their husbands beyond a certain point. +They did mean to render their bonds lighter, and even +elastic. But, as we have already seen, they defended the +institution of marriage and affectionately tended their +husbands in sickness; and it is certain that they had no +wish to lose them.</p> + +<p>Divorce originated in the masculine countries. It appeared +a step in advance, because hitherto public opinion +had shown itself singularly cruel in regard to separated +wives. There was neither pity nor justice for them. The +husband had no shame in deserting his wife, and it was +always she who was blamed.</p> + +<p>To put a stop to separations, the Senate of Venice, evidently +convinced that as men they were not there for nothing, +prescribed in 1543 a system which was simplicity itself. +All separated women were metaphorically to be buried in a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>heap; they were forced to wear a special costume like lepers, +and were forbidden access to any public place. The clergy +revolted. In the end, the august Senate contented itself +with a milder punishment; it placed the unfortunate women +under the surveillance, not of the state police, but of their +ex-husbands.</p> + +<p>But a time came when the Venetian measures no longer +appeared feasible, and then in the countries where men +ruled opinion it was generally admitted that woman, being +a secondary creature, needed an owner and employer. +Instead of trampling upon her when she found herself +without a master, they deigned to do her so much justice +as to provide her with a new lord. Calvin, generous soul, +permitted her, in case of proved desertion, to take another +mate.</p> + +<p>In the Roman countries, deserted wives were objects +of compassion. But marriage remained indissoluble; there +was no remarriage; and a woman in a country where +women were a force had nothing to gain by placing herself +in a false position. All that Roman charity could do was +to throw open houses of refuge where she might find a +retreat in honour and solitude. The true way of getting +rid of a husband was to keep him.</p> + +<p>Nor did the women, even the more philosophic of them, +find any substantial advantage in being widows.</p> + +<p>Certainly we must make some deductions from the rather +theatrical demonstrations customary at death-beds. The +custom was an old one, dating from the time when it +was agreed that in losing her master a woman lost her +all; these poor women were stricken to the heart-core, and +thrilled with an emotion half comic, half touching. That +was their manner of receiving their liberty; it seemed as +though they had nothing left them but to die themselves, +especially if they were young, and for some time everyone +seemed of that opinion. In lugubrious and lachrymose tones +their friends would remind them of overpoweringly wonderful +examples: Artemisia, who drank her husband’s ashes in +a cup of water; Portia, Cato’s daughter and wife of Brutus, +who, on learning of her husband’s death, finding no knife +at hand, did not seek one but swallowed live coals. Those +who had simply opened a vein or cut their throat, or who had +without ado plunged a dagger in their heart, were past +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>numbering. We can realise what delicacy, what aristocratic +charm there was in the Indian widow’s suttee.</p> + +<p>But for her children, who after reconciling her to marriage +reconciled her to life, Louise of Savoy would have died +on the corpse of her husband; so, at least, Jean de Saint-Gelais, +her chamberlain, assures us, and he was suspected, +only too reasonably, of over-familiarity with the secret +tastes of his mistress. But for her religious scruples the +beautiful Isabella Richisentia had killed herself on the body +of Raymond de Cardoña.⁠<a id="FNanchor_114" href="#Footnote_114" class="fnanchor">[114]</a> Bouchet and Moncetto, nicknamed +Lycurgus, deliberated in great distress of mind whether +they should persuade Mary of England⁠<a id="FNanchor_115" href="#Footnote_115" class="fnanchor">[115]</a> to live, after the +death of Louis XII.; they reminded her of Lucrece, Penelope +and others, and Moncetto wore himself out in speaking +of them to her in every known language and in verse. +But for the young Englishman she espoused only a fortnight +later, Mary, perhaps, would have died.</p> + +<p>As a rule these widows, like reasonable creatures, at last +made up their minds to live, under pressure from those +about them; but it was also customary for them to display +at least gorgeous mourning finery.⁠<a id="FNanchor_116" href="#Footnote_116" class="fnanchor">[116]</a></p> + +<p>Let us first see how they buried their husbands.</p> + +<p>There were quiet women like Anne of France who contented +themselves with the celebration of a very impressive +service, and to all appearance shed no tears, for they spoke +neither of drinking the powdered bones of the dead man nor +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span>of spending the rest of their life in the bed of the dear +departed. Anne of France indeed considered these proceedings +as “useless, unworthy and detestable follies”; the +only mourning that appealed to her was simple, silent and +lasting. But more than once people were staggered at the +quantity of tears women’s eyes could contain. “Vainly do +they tear their cheeks and dishevel their hair; I go off and +enquire of a chambermaid or of a secretary how they were, +how they lived together. We would much rather they +laughed at our death, if they would but smile on us while +we live.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_117" href="#Footnote_117" class="fnanchor">[117]</a></p> + +<p>A Spanish lady, the Countess of Consentana, in officially +notifying her vassals of the death of her husband, signed +herself, “The sad and unfortunate countess,” and, the better +to indicate her distress, she dropped two ink-blots where +her name should have come. The facetious vassals replied +to their “sad and more than very unfortunate countess” in +an address which, in their agitation, they all signed with +enormous daubs and flourishes. Spain smiled, from Bilbao +to Gibraltar.</p> + +<p>So a widow left nothing undone to show how much she +deplored her solitary condition. To this first conclusion we +must add a second not less manifest: almost every widow +strove earnestly to regard her husband as alive, so true is it +that her aim was to act under the shadow of a husband as +little in her way as she in his.</p> + +<p>Of all the species of husbands, the dead husband is the +one who would require the most special monograph. +However little heroic his life may have been, his widow +made it her business to sing his praises in public. A woman +whose married life had notoriously been one of discreet +indifference, if not of discord, would spend her nights and +days in celebrating the glory and the memory of the dead +man. So profoundly would she identify herself with him +in heart that ere long she would develop into the widow of +a great man and rise into a superior atmosphere. The +greatnesses which the deceased perhaps never possessed she +first gave him and then appropriated herself, and in the fire +of this love she was gradually consumed. Besides, sometimes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>she happened actually to have got past the age for +love.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France consoled herself frankly enough for +the loss of the Duke of Alençon; but Vittoria Colonna never +ceased to address sonnets to her captain, and when she was +urged to marry again, her reply was simple: “My husband +Ferdinand, who to you seems dead, is not dead to me.” +Diana of Poitiers manipulated this principle of “beyond the +grave” with wonderful dexterity: she never was a widow. +Her husband was dead, to be sure, but she displayed as her +device an evergreen tree-stem springing from a tomb, with +the words: “Left alone, she lives in him.” As late as 1558, +at the moment of her greatest worldly triumphs, she +remained faithful to him.</p> + +<p>Here, then, we have reached a second and a very important +point: a woman of the world, so to speak, had her +husband’s soul packed in straw (like her china), and in +principle she always considered herself as a wife.</p> + +<p>In regard to the employment of their widowhood the +widows fall into two classes. First there was the widow of +the classical traditional school, who no longer belonged to +the world, but buried herself in her maternal duties or in +charitable work. She was only a survival of the old-style +housewife, of whom a good many were produced even in +the sixteenth century. For example there was Anne of +Polignac, who, in her retreat at Verteuil, where she divided +her time between her children and a splendid library, +amazed the Emperor Charles V. with her well-regulated +and dignified life. Again, there was Charlotte d’Albret, the +widow of Caesar Borgia; she was a little more worldly, and +by nature fond of show, splendid plate, magnificent jewels, +and a large retinue.</p> + +<p>These widows were administrators of the first order; so +far as the interests of the family were concerned, it was an +advantage, as a proverb ran, “for the husband to go first to +earth.” They excelled in getting full value for their money; +sometimes even they were not averse to dabbling in usury: +Charlotte d’Albret rather liked it. It would certainly not +have been safe to reckon on their alleged feebleness; some +of them were of mettle enough to mount the ramparts like +Catherine Sforza. After the death of Grisegonelle Frottier, +various relatives of his conspired to capture by force of arms +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span>the manor of Blanc which belonged to him. His widow, +Françoise d’Amboise, learning of their plot, immediately +appealed to the “picaulx,” a brotherhood of Poitevin knights +who were vowed to protect widows and orphans; and +instead of leaving her cause to the halting march of justice, +she organised an expedition and overthrew her adversaries. +In spite of the rather energetic character of the proceeding, +Louis XI. was touched, and willingly gave his pardon.</p> + +<p>The most of these good widows spent a part of their life +in convent chapels, and it was in this direction that a +breach was made in their spirit of economy, for, according +to pious authors, the devil worms his way through the +vestry door. They would meet there a lay brother, charged +with the duty of nurturing simple souls into fruitfulness. +Beginning by sending some delicious tarts in exchange for +a <i>De Profundis</i>, the ladies would by degrees make up their +minds to found a chapel, then to have it decorated, then to +endow it.</p> + +<p>Or they received charming letters from the good nuns: +“We are poor women whom your departure has left in +distress, and we may say that we have lost all the good of +life.... We are still wearing the cloaks you made for +us, and we are going without pelisses, as our custom is. The +convent has not changed since you left us ... except it be +that we suffer cruelly from cold during the winter.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_118" href="#Footnote_118" class="fnanchor">[118]</a></p> + +<p>Many grave and strong-minded widows, after having +mingled in affairs, took advantage of their widowhood only +to forget a world in which their heart had not found sustenance. +So soon as they had fulfilled unavoidable duties, +it was a pleasure to them to distribute their property and +retire from the world. We can hardly realise how the vision +of a few sweet, peaceful years consecrated to the soul haunted +the hearts of women whom the evil star of too high birth +had flung into political affairs.</p> + +<p>Such was the end Margaret of Austria⁠<a id="FNanchor_119" href="#Footnote_119" class="fnanchor">[119]</a> would have desired.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + +<p>Such was actually the end of two exquisite princesses of +the house of Lorraine: Margaret of Lorraine, duchess of +Alençon, who first connected herself with a hospital, then +with the strict order of the Poor Clares; and Philippa of +Gueldres, who entered the same sisterhood when her son +ascended the throne. She lived with them for twenty-seven +years in the deepest humility, styling herself “a +worm of the soil,” though her companions might continue +to call her “our reverend Mother the Queen.”</p> + +<p>The new generation was to see little of these sublime +modesties. The majority of widows lived in the world; but +what liberty they enjoyed they bought very dear, and on the +whole they had less liberty than wives. They were gay +and did not darken too often the vestry-door; they did +not flaunt the time-honoured widow’s cap, still dear +to Englishwomen—headgear that would disgust anybody +with widowhood. Was that a crime? By no means; and +yet the slightest slip or suspicion of a slip was in them +unpardonable. Men saw in every widow either a naughty +woman or a hypocrite, and they did not shrink from saying +so. A physician was once bargaining for a mule in the +presence of a fair widow, and said he: “I want one that’s +a widow”: and as the dealer did not understand him, he +added: “Yes, a widow, that is, plump, and light on her +heels, and a good feeder.” The saying ran: “If a man +thinks his wife a little too thin, he had better make her +a widow.” A widow was regarded only as so much raw +material; and from the moment when “Goodman Danger” +was no longer at hand, sin itself seemed to lose its sweetness. +Widows were recommended to frequent none but deserted +chapels, to contemplate the crucifix during the night. This +condescending pity sprang sometimes from good-heartedness; +but it was often odious to them, and all the more so because +everyone, even the most confidential servants, fancied they +had a right to throw in their sympathetic suggestions. Anne +of France was indignant at this universal treason, which +shocked her sense of right.⁠<a id="FNanchor_120" href="#Footnote_120" class="fnanchor">[120]</a></p> + +<p>And yet society added one more tyranny. For a widow +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>to marry again was scarcely tolerated.⁠<a id="FNanchor_121" href="#Footnote_121" class="fnanchor">[121]</a> She would have +been just as severely chided for finding a second husband as +she would have been for not finding a first.⁠<a id="FNanchor_122" href="#Footnote_122" class="fnanchor">[122]</a> She would be +sooner forgiven for a frailty, a yielding to temptation, than +for contracting a new tie. What woman was this who had +not had too much of one husband, and was not amply +satisfied? Among the people she was favoured with a +sort of skimmington ride. Margaret of France defied the +prejudice and married again: it was in sooth the deed of a +philosophic woman. But in general, widows were still +chained to their widowhood by various considerations; in +the first place, the practical difficulty of finding another +husband. Men were quite ready to court a widow, but +very few would make the sacrifice involved in marrying +her. A woman no longer young, a “shelled peascod,” who +no longer had anything to give and had settled habits of her +own, was the antipodes of the little maiden of twelve so +much in request. Besides, the widow herself was enjoying +a large and tranquil life, thanks to the jointure of which a +second marriage would deprive her; sometimes the whole +of her husband’s fortune had come to her on condition +that she devoted herself to the children. She held in all +matters the authority which had belonged to the dead man, +and indeed it was not uncommon for the husband expressly +to bequeath her this authority in his will.⁠<a id="FNanchor_123" href="#Footnote_123" class="fnanchor">[123]</a> The drawback +to this life of business management is precisely that a woman +loses in it something of the bloom of her grace and sweetness, +she no longer needs to employ persuasiveness and love since +she has force at her disposal, and the result is that she +becomes a sort of man, and acquires some of the defects by +which she has suffered at the hands of her husband. We +can thus understand quite well that a woman who wishes +to remain a woman will do her best, for her own security and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span>charm’s sake, to live under the fostering wing of a precious +memory, and will cherish with the utmost devotion her (so +to speak) posthumous husband. There lies her real strength.</p> + +<p>The Renaissance woman, then, a woman of essentially fine +grain, and well versed in everything it was her business to +know, was a woman of absolute sincerity, and we must +believe her when she speaks well of marriage. She +considered that institution as perfectly reconcilable with +the fulfilment of a mission in the world, indeed as +favourable, almost indispensable, to it. She had no more +reason to give up marriage than to give up eating and +drinking: it is not this that enchains the soul. The idealists +differed from the utilitarians solely in the belief that one +marriage is enough: the former covered their faces if a +widow, not ethereal enough to satisfy them, went by on the +arm of a new husband; the latter applauded, and fancied +that by this transaction the animal nature was held in +check. But this is of little interest to us. The only result +important to note is that a woman, without ceasing to be a +woman, could win freedom for her affections and her activities +as well as a man. When she had attained that condition of +liberty, she ascribed all the honour to marriage, and blessed +it instead of thinking that she owed everything to herself. +Marriage, like many human inventions, is a contrivance +capable of producing either liberty or tyranny, and women +had simply altered its direction.</p> + +<p>They wielded intimate and domestic powers. Their rival +was not the husband, they came to terms with him; it was +the man who looked after their body or their soul, and to +whom, out of weakness or indolence, they were led to attach +themselves like an anaemic ivy-plant. To mark their place +in this world they had themselves to learn how to obtain +what brings happiness: health of body and of soul. Respected +in regard to the body, it remained for them to gain +self-respect in regard to the soul, and to show that true +Christianity consists in bestowing power and liberty, not in +withdrawing them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_LIFE_IN_THE_WORLD">BOOK II. LIFE IN THE WORLD</h2> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="smaller">THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>Margaret of France said, very incisively: “The defect of +women is timidity.” They are born to fear.</p> + +<p>Women had become habituated to a passive and secondary +part. They desired to escape from it, they felt the need of +activity and a freer air, their wings were growing and they +adored intellectual liberty, at any rate they said so—and +they had in fact already snapped many of their chains; but +when you come to close quarters and exchange confidences +with them, you perceive that they are still held fast by a +multitude of secondary diffidences, by tenuous invisible +threads starting often enough from social conventions of +little or no importance. They are unable to wing their +flight, or they require a man to go first and shew them the +way; or an absolute necessity, an enthusiasm, an impulse of +devotion is necessary to start them off.</p> + +<p>They move at last, not through reasoning, but as the result +of the more or less vague sentiment that while their home-life +has brought them no love, yet they are made for love +and have a love mission to fulfil. A modern aesthetic +writer—but a man after all and only moderately sensible—has +thus explained the appeal of grace as it affected himself: +“I had nothing to love. For me my parents were in some +sort only the visible powers of Nature.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_124" href="#Footnote_124" class="fnanchor">[124]</a> How much more +does this apply to women! They want something to love! +Separated from her family the wife finds in her husband the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>incarnation, in the fullest sense of the word, of the visible +power of Nature, and so it is that the ardent instinct drawing +her towards the light is very complex, much interwoven +with pain and passion; it is a thirst for love almost cruel in +its intensity. Just as the husband wins honour for himself +by means of external activity and public service, so the wife +hears destiny making a similar appeal to her. Around her +there is a life to diffuse, a sweetness to sow, hungry folk to +feed, wounds to dress, a great cry of distress and hardship to +soothe; and act she must. A tradesman’s wife may shut +herself up in the narrow egotism of her back shop. Could a +woman of heart shut her eyes to the profound unrest of +society? Ought she to remain a helpless pawn on the +board, a mere victim? Was she not called to take her +share, as an intelligent and free creature? Willy nilly, she +must step forth from her house—burst her shell and wing +away! At twenty it is excusable to confuse one’s ideals +with life; ten or fifteen years later this illusion has dissolved. +One feels then the need of setting one’s heart upon +some firm, sure, noble spot out of reach of the swirling tide +of existence; and a day thus arrives when every woman +capable of reflecting and of loving throws a questioning look +on what is around her.</p> + +<p>And then, what answer does she get from the great +mystery of life? She sees a gigantic system of force and +matter in interaction, set in motion, working, displaying +itself under the silent impulse of an invisible power, and +having neither existence nor beauty apart from an end +external to itself. The governor of this world is man, +endowed with an intelligence more potent than matter, so +that he finds himself placed here below as the ambassador +of life and the type of beauty. He himself obeys practically +one only motive power, love; he cannot be strongly stirred +save by passion. Thus the whole world obeys the law of +beauty and of love. Truth and goodness form, so to speak, +its skeleton; beauty is its life; love, the instrument of its +life. Certain modern aesthetes, seeking to establish an +antinomy between man and Nature, represent man as a foe +who in employing Nature necessarily violates and deforms +her, whereas left to herself she would be always lovely.⁠<a id="FNanchor_125" href="#Footnote_125" class="fnanchor">[125]</a> To +subordinate man to Nature in this way seems to us untrue +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>and disastrous. Surely the contrary is the case: we may +put anything to wrong uses, but material forces cannot but +gain if we direct them aright. Our part is to live in +harmony with Nature, conformably to the magnificent and +universal law that love grows by spending itself. “Go and +give all your goods to feed the poor,” says the Gospel: that +is nobility! Sow, give: give always! Give the labour of +the arm to the fields as yet sterile; give your heart to +hearts that are dull and dead! Beauty and niggardliness +cannot live together. At one end of the scale there are +those who are incapable of giving, frozen hard, as it were, +against love: at the other are those who in a splendid profusion +of generosity pour out their gifts without taking +count of them: and the whole world lies between. From +the pebble sensible only to mechanical attraction, to the +flower that scents the air, one profound idea holds good, one +great song rises, all mortal things cry in unison, and the +burden of their united voices is, love. Every moving thing +tends to entwine itself about something else, to unite +inextricably with it; all life tends to pour itself into another, +to surrender itself, and thereby it has a second birth, and all +individual vibrations coalesce into one grand note. And, +above this symphony of material things, the heart of man +outpours itself in similar strains in the spiritual spheres +of true life which stretch up to God. The love of man, to +adopt the phrase in the <i>Imitation</i>, is a cry flung out towards +God.</p> + +<p>Love, then, is the ruling principle of the world, a noble, +superb, necessary thing; extending its broad wings it easily +dominates the littlenesses and conventions of life, responds +to all needs, whether of the individual soul or of society, sets +frail hearts athrob with life. But it is obvious, too, what a +strife it is sure to excite, by its double nature, between spirit +and matter—a strife wonderful and delightful and fierce.</p> + +<p>Women are so constituted as to understand this sharp +antagonism between material love and spiritual love—women, +who, at a certain crisis of life, feel so strongly the +contrast between the cruelties and ironies of material +things and the refinements of the heart. They drag +about a body often feeble, suffering, wretched, a misshapen, +bleeding, shamefast body, a pain-stricken body, +born for love and worship, but subdued to the surgeon. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>There comes a time when they would fain forget the animal +and wash it of its impurities if possible; their soul has +become more intensely spiritual. If they shudder at the +recollection of certain physical necessities, through that very +fact the secret of happiness appears to them simpler, more +luminous, less clogged with matter; branded by life, as +certain mystics bore the brands of divine love, with sides +pierced and limbs explored and broken by the hands of men, +they are athirst for love, enthusiasm and worship, they +understand that no intellectual hair-splitting, no doctrinal +analysis, is worth a snatch of love. They know the sweetness +of things. I will go farther: they know the extraordinary +influence of moral forces on physical health; the +body, like society at large, needs to be reinvigorated by soul +and heart.</p> + +<p>The truth strikes upon them vividly by a sort of intuition. +But it is far from being the case that all women are able to +profit by it, because they have to reckon with a thousand +practical obstacles: they require great liberty of mind and a +large share of energy if they are to avoid being restrained by +a host of more or less respectable prejudices, conventions, +and usages. After all, timidity, indifference and frivolity +are very natural things.</p> + +<p>Particularly in France, women needed genuine courage +to assert their resolution to act and take part in social +work, in the midst of a society essentially constituted +to prevent them from giving effective expression to their +ideas—a society that was strenuous, Philistine, utterly +strange to philosophy and imaginative thinking, hidebound +to traditions of very rudimentary common-sense and a proud +simplicity, composed of families desirous of living in their +own fashion under the direction of their head, with no grand +notion of forming parts of one stupendous whole. The king +was the head of the principal family; on this account, men +showed the most artless veneration for his person, but so +long as the army was duly organised and the frontiers +properly defended at the least possible expense, they troubled +themselves very little about their sovereign’s existence. So +the despotic power of the husband was not merely domestic, +but political: the man was lord of the lands and the village +as he was of his wife, and he administered the whole without +stirring up many ideas, in intimate communion with his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>oxen and his oaks. Again and again we find in portraits +the rubicund faces of these honest-eyed country squires. +There was nothing extraordinary or gigantic about such a +man; he was a man of iron, that was all; and beside this +substantial creature vegetated, half-stifled, that fine and +precious flower his wife, sometimes a frail delicate thing +with liquid eyes charmingly veiled, all compact of concentrated +passion, placid tenderness, and impressionability.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, in strange contrast with this individualistic +society which lived in isolation as a matter of principle, +there then flourished at court, in the cities, and in certain +great châteaux an extremely active society, that of the salons. +Effervescent, noisy like fresh arrivals, ceremonious, gilded, +of a refined and factitious elegance, it represented what many +writers called the “theatre of the world”: marvellous +stage scenery, which underwent remarkable transformations +under the shifting play of the side-lights, forming a background +against which the players strutted through their +parts. Who were these actors? Whence came they, whither +were they going? These were questions about which often +enough there was little information and less concern; sometimes +it was thought best to ignore them altogether, for, +thank heaven! it was not to grow mouldy in the depths of +the country that a man intrigued, nor was assassination a +means towards opening a grocer’s shop. Occasionally, and +usually when the curtain fell on a financial act, someone +disappeared, but without tragic accompaniments, and then +(except Semblançay,⁠<a id="FNanchor_126" href="#Footnote_126" class="fnanchor">[126]</a> who was hanged) he reappeared and +went on with the pantomime. There was nothing but +praise for the noble use Admiral de Graville made of his +princely fortune, which was the object of some discussion. +Du Plessis so cleverly extricated himself from the toils +of justice that he could bequeath to us the admirable +Cardinal Richelieu. The Bohiers, Briçonnets, Robertets, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span>Duprats,⁠<a id="FNanchor_127" href="#Footnote_127" class="fnanchor">[127]</a> and many another, small or great, erected in all +security their splendid châteaux, triumphs of art, but a sort +of affront to the old machicolations crumbling in cold neglect +under the moss. In those days Gold was king.</p> + +<p>All this splendour and grace, this brilliant life, which +seemed bound to make everything around dim by comparison, +nevertheless by no means dazzled the common herd, +but at first aroused a feeling of repulsion, if not of jealousy. +Outcries arose. Wealth was apparently losing its character +of a kindly and patriarchal simplicity, to bring into greater +prominence the figures of proud and self-important men who +believed their wealth would purchase everything—virtue, +wit, honour, as easily as a rare picture. A poor man +accordingly was set down as a “soulless body”; the virtuous +man was one who lived in a palace, while the man who gave +a dinner-party was a master-mind.</p> + +<p>To tyranny of this sort there was added the individual or +social misfortunes of a society naturally unstable and continually +recruiting itself by means of speculation. Thence +arose outcries: “You make so many poor folk cry alack! +alack! that we long to see you fall headlong in the dust!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_128" href="#Footnote_128" class="fnanchor">[128]</a></p> + +<p>Gold and pleasure were the deities to whom we owe the +charming eighteenth century. But they lead to revolutions. +This fact came out clearly, too clearly in fact, in Italy, and +compelled men to endeavour to restrain these two great +world forces within wholesome limits. In the fifteenth +century Christian socialism reared its head high at Florence +and Rome, and under stress of its menaces a science of +philosophy came to birth.</p> + +<p>In presence of this social peril, certain men, compelled to +issue from their egotism, pointed out the road for timid +women to follow to avoid vengeful reprisals. Men of affairs, +bankers, notaries and others banded themselves together +with the firm resolution of forgoing business, interests, +ambitions, even their for the most part despotic hopes in +state intervention, of seeking to practise self-devotion, and +of borrowing, if necessary, something of the idealism of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>philosophers and artists, so that they might give a practical +sanction to their high station by working to raise others. +The Florentine people swallowed the bait; at once ardent +and refined, they admirably blended practical reasoning +with ideal aspirations. And so the first step was taken.</p> + +<p>However, it was more particularly at Rome that this +idea, still rudimentary and ill-defined, of purifying life and +pursuing social happiness by means of the tender charm of +the Beautiful made progress. It found there a well-prepared +soil. Intellectual culture and elegance of speech did not +represent at Rome, as they did elsewhere, a mere ornamentation, +they were the very substance of the state. Money +was intellectualised as regards its origin and its end, and +nowhere had men a better conception of an oligarchical +society, a republic regulated by absolute power. The heads +of the church formed a unique world of their own, as little +tainted by the military or frivolous character with which +certain aristocracies were reproached as by the taste for +coarse pleasures natural to some self-made men. They +showed indeed a living example of a true aristocracy, in the +exact signification of the word, that is to say, a body of +men of varied degrees of rank, raised high above the common +run of men by some eminent gift—some by high political +position or distinguished birth, others by a large fortune, +others by great accomplishments, renowned virtue, profound +learning, striking talents. They abhorred cliques and their +pettinesses; to greatness of position should correspond +greatness of ideas. And this splendid aristocracy, thus +composed of the choice flower of society, delighted in tracing +its descent from remote ancestors. It set no store either on +high ancestry (though some were of brilliant descent), or on +a display of wealth (though some had enormous fortunes); +it ventured to connect itself with all the most illustrious +and conspicuous names in the past history of the human +race from the time of the Greeks and Romans: Plato, +Socrates, Archimedes, and Cicero were its ancestors. And +thus, with a strange persistence, it constantly tended to lift +into its own ranks by its example, its doctrines and its +easy accessibility all men who felt within themselves a +spark of genius or talent, or even ambition merely.</p> + +<p>This atmosphere was very favourable to the development +of the theory of social aesthetics of which Castiglione +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span>has etched the principal features. “Luxury must be +opposed, even if we have recourse to law; social life must +be given a moral and governmental goal; to keep the +appetites under, the laws must find effectual support in +custom. The power of a single ruler fosters corruption; but +it has this advantage—that wisdom, goodness and justice +are more easily found in a single individual supported by +strong traditions than in a fortuitous assemblage of obscure +citizens.” What is wanted is to institute a kingship in the +world for which justice and beauty are the qualifications, +and which is thus more real and of a diviner right than any +other. Mammon, that is, the love of gold, the love of power +and pleasure, can only reign in a world of night, when we +have eyes but cannot see, when we have lips from which no +human cry issues, when we are dead to enthusiasm, and +when our whole life consists in eating and drinking.</p> + +<p>In France the socialist danger, presenting itself in a much +less acute form, could not produce the same effects. The +people who were to show their teeth fifty years later were +as yet silent, and there was no anxiety about the future +except among the cultivated classes. Moneyed people bore +themselves with becoming modesty, and remained on the +best of terms with the most notable representatives of the +old nobility. But the nobility, being no longer feudal, was +no longer of much account, and a moral crisis of exceeding +gravity took place in the ranks of this aristocracy based +wholly on birth and fortune. Sheer vanity took the place +of pride; the “smoke”⁠<a id="FNanchor_129" href="#Footnote_129" class="fnanchor">[129]</a> of titles became a more powerful +motive than the love of glory.</p> + +<p>The great financiers almost all became barons, in order to +get above finance; the holders of fiefs became barons, +counts and marquises. Ordinary mortals came to hold +fiefs; the most insignificant dovecot was transformed +into a château. Society moved on a step, and everybody +was satisfied. It was quite a steeplechase in the Italian +style. Pontanus,⁠<a id="FNanchor_130" href="#Footnote_130" class="fnanchor">[130]</a> for all his malicious ridicule of it, had +himself vainly solicited the title of baron. The good duke +of Urbino, a great philosopher whose elevation was of very +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>recent date, employed the assassin’s knife to put out of the +way a girl of the lesser nobility whom his eldest son loved +and wished to marry, and Louise of Savoy warmly approved +of this magnificent implacability.⁠<a id="FNanchor_131" href="#Footnote_131" class="fnanchor">[131]</a></p> + +<p>Pedigrees assumed wonderful proportions. Only those +who had the moral simplicity of Margaret of Austria were +content with the ancient kings of Germany for ancestors; +every Scottish archer, no matter how insignificant, claimed +descent from the ancient kings of Scotland. Louise of Savoy +made a beginning by modestly connecting the French house +with the most ancient of royal dynasties, that of Babylon.</p> + +<p>Some went even farther. They dived into the remote +and shadowy depths of history, the ages of stone and iron, +when some wild girl became their ancestress through a +chance meeting with a savage in a wood, and when five +minutes’ rain instead of sunlight would have been enough +to wash a whole race of men from the page of immortality. +Anne of Brittany was descended from one of the giants +sprung direct from mother Earth. Rabelais with great +gravity presents his hero to us in his exact style as son of +one of the original sons of Earth: “Would to God,” he adds, +“that everyone was as well acquainted with his pedigree +from the time of the Flood!”</p> + +<p>But in reality, under cover of these novel and pedantic +vanities, money, with its brutality and vulgarity and appeal +to vulgar minds, led the dance and dragged the pick of the +nation pellmell after it. The Balsac of the time, Robert de +Balsac, fills a good many pages with examples of the crowd +of worldlings who, as he expresses it, hurried in unbridled, +almost frantic haste on the road to beggary.⁠<a id="FNanchor_132" href="#Footnote_132" class="fnanchor">[132]</a> There are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>voluptuaries, debauchees, spendthrifts, men gorged with +gold, yet athirst for more, tumultuously dashing on and +upwards in frightful torment and agitation towards a will +o’ the wisp; one after another they fall headlong into the +gulf, while the foreground is filled with the eternal procession +moving on with slow pace and clockwork regularity. +Alongside of this mad insolent triumph of gold fierce +hatreds develop, and men begin to speak under their breath +of the horrible triumph of wretchedness approaching, and +can foretell the hour when materialism from below will +make its awful response to materialism from above.</p> + +<p>Women ought to have remedied this state of things. +They ought to have prevented men from becoming besotted +and ruining themselves. Anne of France dared not suggest +to all these idle nobles that they might occupy themselves +with intellectual things, but she was anxious at least to +brace them up by a life of physical endurance. Without +military courage, she declares, the nobility resembles “a +withered tree,” without valour “it is nothing worth.”</p> + +<p>What she was losing hope of, a fraction of the clergy set +themselves to win. There was, among the mass of cassocked +peasants and rochetted aristocrats, a small group of cultivated +men drawing its inspiration from the Cardinal of +Amboise,⁠<a id="FNanchor_133" href="#Footnote_133" class="fnanchor">[133]</a> less audacious than Rome, less retrograde than +Germany. These recognised the traditional merits of military +glory, birth, and money, but would have liked to +reconcile them with the newer virtues, blend them together +into one radiance, homogeneous like the sunbeam, which is +composed of colours so various; they would have liked to +see all these glories combining, as at Rome, into one rainbow-like +effulgence. A monk of Cluny, Clichtoue, begs, beseeches +well-born young men to shun the enervating paths of +infatuation, idleness and vice. He has endless examples +showing the possibility of alliance between literary tastes⁠<a id="FNanchor_134" href="#Footnote_134" class="fnanchor">[134]</a> +and the military life; he reveres the principles of rank so +highly as to discern them in application everywhere, even +among the metals; but he longs ardently to bind into one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>sheaf all the vital forces of society; he is a philosopher, one +may even say a sort of John the Baptist. He proclaims +Plato; he is more scriptural than Luther, and has as much +antique culture as any Roman prelate;⁠<a id="FNanchor_135" href="#Footnote_135" class="fnanchor">[135]</a> to him the future +seems to outline itself clearly. “After virtue,” he says, “a +noble can have no comelier ornament than letters. Philosophy +is not the recipient, but the source of nobility.” He +adjures distinguished men to pay real attention to the social +obligations incumbent on them, under penalty of losing +their rank. He does not disavow the natural pleasure a +man takes in the thought that he has had ancestors and +will have descendants, but to him this does not seem a +sufficient though an honourable aim in life. If no means +are found of uniting the two nobilities, that of the body and +that of the mind, no doubt (in his opinion) the nobility of +the mind will get the upper hand; Solomon, who is not +generally considered a modern or even a socialist, had +already said so long ago: “I myself also am mortal, like to +other men, and am sprung from the terrestrial lineage of the +first man. And in the womb of a mother was I moulded +into flesh. And I also, when I was born, drew in the +common air and fell upon the kindred earth, uttering, like +all men, for my first voice the self-same wail: in swaddling +clothes was I nursed, and with watchful cares. Who among +the kings had any other beginning? All men have one +entrance into life, and a like departure.”</p> + +<p>Clichtoue, however, as well as his friends the Lamennais +and Montalemberts of the period, confined himself to counsels +and prognostics, which indeed the future was in great +part to justify; he had not yet discovered the exact formula. +He had it at the tip of his tongue, but could not give +it utterance; it seemed as though in France the words +‘beauty’ and ‘love’ were no words for a man or a churchman. +These noble and lofty words were to come from a +higher sphere, and from women’s lips.</p> + +<p>It was Margaret of France who at last uttered them, and +they were echoed around her.</p> + +<p>Here we find the remedy so ardently sought for against +materialism, as Jean Bouchet explains it on Margaret’s +behalf: “To purify the world, to eliminate its coarser +elements; to give wealth only the lowest place as a source +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span>of social distinction, and even then only on condition that +the plutocrat lives nobly, that is to say, unselfishly, and +makes noble deeds his constant study.” True nobility is +not a cockade, a label, a name, but a moral reality; “it +springs from the soul, and not from wealth.” Noble and +lofty spirits are recognised precisely by their innate simplicity; +they leave the gildings, the pompous blazonments, to +“the sons of swineherds, sempsters, stockingers, and other +mechanical folk. But those who are illustrious by long +descent reveal their nobility beyond possibility of mistake, +for they have in them something, I know not what, of +naïve goodwill that manifestly separates them from the +arrogant assumptions of false nobles.” Spirited, showy, a +genuine blue-blood, restive under marital authority, but +quivering to her inmost fibres at the slightest appeal of a +refined sentiment, Margaret of France remained obstinately +faithful to these principles, finding in them the pole-star that +guided her steps throughout life. The words we last quoted +were uttered in circumstances which give them a special force, +namely, in the funeral oration of Scaevola de Sainte-Marthe, +who thought he could cast upon the princess’s tomb no +sweeter flowers, none more likely to blossom eternally. +Margaret herself never lost an opportunity of emphasising +with all her force the terrible fear she had of the power of +money.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Aimer l’argent,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sinon pour s’en aider, c’est servir les idoles!⁠<a id="FNanchor_136" href="#Footnote_136" class="fnanchor">[136]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>In regard to those who deal with humanity like brokers, +and believe that happiness is purchasable, she gives vent +to passionate apostrophes worthy of the most ardent +Christian socialists:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ilz ont plaisirs tant qu’ils en veulent prendre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ilz ont honneurs s’ilz y veulent prétendre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ilz ont des biens plus qu’il ne leur en fault.⁠<a id="FNanchor_137" href="#Footnote_137" class="fnanchor">[137]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">And this was precisely what men were aiming at. The military +framework of society was broken; to replace it by a financial +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>framework would have been considered almost criminal; +and that was where the great danger lay. To employ a +comparison approved by Francis I., two cars are running +the world’s course side by side; a choice must be made +between them. One is the car of Plutus, filled with gold, +lechery, vice; the other is the car of Honour and Love, +thronged about by all the virtues.⁠<a id="FNanchor_138" href="#Footnote_138" class="fnanchor">[138]</a> The choice is clear: for +its own happiness, for its own glory, the world must reject +the worship of money, trample on the power of money, and +proclaim the power of virtuous love.</p> + +<p>Thus, little by little, the formula sought for emerges into +view. A wonderful light is thrown on the problem when it +is admitted that to be happy it is necessary to rise above +material things, and establish society upon a philosophy of +love. Life and beauty, they are the true riches! The +feeblest of men, the most hopeless invalids, the vilest outcasts, +woman with her feeble body and ardent soul, are +richer than a nugget of gold, more eternal than the Alps, +greater than the sea and the vast realm of nature, for this +very reason that they have in them life, the true life, +that is, consciousness of life, confidence in life, and love +of life.</p> + +<p>And the same idea that happiness must be sought through +true life, led men to recognise the necessity of considering +the ‘hygiene’ of this life. Medicine, care and pity had +been up to that time only for the ills of the body, for the +gaping, gory wounds that came under the eye; the wounds +of heart and spirit had been forgotten. To render life +sumptuous and brilliant, to fritter it away in a sort of giddy +excitement or intoxication, was the utmost of men’s achievement. +The heart cannot be bought; there is no specific for +healing its wounds; they must heal themselves.</p> + +<p>The art will consist then, in realising as far as may be +the plenitude of life; in other words, in extracting from +Christianity, which is Hope and Charity, an aesthetic philosophy. +“I am the God of the living,” said the Master. If +we combine the sayings on life scattered through the gospels +we obtain a true code of aestheticism, while the sayings on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>love form the warp and woof of the doctrine. On the +morrow of the Resurrection, when the rude fishers chosen +to disseminate the sacred tidings are in utter ignorance of +the event, the Master shows Himself first of all to Love; He +appears at the gates of a mysterious garden by which Mary +Magdalene is about to pass—Mary, a woman pardoned, +glorified, because she loved much, because she sinned +through superabundant kindliness.</p> + +<p>This doctrine of love had not prospered in the world, +where it found briers too deeply rooted, thorns too cruel; it +had become a supernatural and sacred thing, so sublime that +it fled the world and took refuge in the cloister, like a sickly +plant in a hothouse, leaving a free field for vice. Tenderness +seemed to come only from feebleness; every form of art +seemed immoral, all love a degenerate and ill-balanced +thing, and no one realised the need goodness has of intelligence. +The pettinesses of feminine religiosity, encouraged, +unhappily, by a section of the clergy, tended to make divine +love itself ineffectual and almost ridiculous. Yet the author +of the <i>Imitation</i> has defined love as the true source of +activity:</p> + +<p>“Nothing is there in Heaven or earth sweeter than love, +nothing stronger, broader, higher, fuller, better, or more winsome, +for love is of God, nor can it rest but in Him, above +the world created. The lover runneth and flieth, and is alive +with joy; he is free, and nothing restraineth him; he giveth +all for all, hath all in all, because he resteth above all things +in the one sovereign good whence all other goodnesses proceed +and flow. He looketh not to gifts, but raiseth himself +above all to look only to the giver. Love often knoweth +no limit, but its fervour carrieth it far above measure. +Love feeleth no weight, making light of toil, would do more +than it is able, pleadeth no impossibility, because it thinketh +it may and can do all. Wherefore it is strong for anything, +and where he that loveth not doth faint and fail, love doeth +and achieveth many things.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_139" href="#Footnote_139" class="fnanchor">[139]</a></p> + +<p>Why then had not this beautiful religion, this beautiful +philosophy become the religion and philosophy of the +world? Why had they not sent their streams of activity +flowing in ever-widening channels? Men wished to solve +this problem, and restore to the world the philosophy it had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>so misunderstood—to interpret love as it should be interpreted, +through impressions and sensibility, and not through +the intellect. Hence Castiglione’s saying, “God is only seen +through women.”</p> + +<p>This saying, it is clear, does not apply to all women; it +has reference to those who are worthy to exercise an active +influence.</p> + +<p>Natural obstacles oppose themselves to this mission of +philosophically raising the world to nobler ideas by the +social religion of beauty. The French are a matter-of-fact, +practical, sceptical people; between the peasant and his +cattle, the lord and the peasant, there exists a solid and +after all a pleasant relationship. Further, the French are +specially hostile to ideas of an intellectual hierarchy, they +lack sensibility, the beautiful displeases and shocks them, +and when a revolution gives them what they call a moment’s +freedom, they amuse themselves by defacing as many +statues as possible, destroying their cathedrals, burning +their historical monuments with all the enthusiasm of hate +a personal grievance can inspire. Likewise, in regard to +love, modesty, the ideal, and all refined and aesthetic sentiments, +we experience a certain pleasure in scouting them; +when we have won any sort of diploma, that is the use we +make of it.</p> + +<p>And yet, do what we may, lofty things alone can elevate +us: on the mountain-top we breathe a different air from +that in the valley.</p> + +<p>We must raise on heights above us eminent women who +will crucify themselves, if need be, to draw soil-stained men +to them, according to Christ’s words, “I will draw all things +unto me”—women endowed with all that glorifies—money +(to scorn money is the luxury of the rich); a noble blood +clarified on stricken fields, or through intellectual wrestlings, +a spirit original and pure. Christ was at once the +son of kings and the Son of God! This is the consecration +of happiness through a philosophy of emotion and sentiment. +Plato said that what was needed for the happiness of +humanity, was “philosophers who rule, or kings who +philosophise.” Do not believe it! What is wanted is +kings who govern, and women who philosophise. Men +will always imagine that liberty and equality are established +by act of Parliament; philosophy is to them only +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>a means of livelihood. Cremonini, a famous professor, but a +wit, said when he took leave at the close of his lectures: +“All that I have taught you is true according to Aristotle, +but not in an absolute sense: you might as well believe St. +Roch or St. Anthony.” Nifo⁠<a id="FNanchor_140" href="#Footnote_140" class="fnanchor">[140]</a> contradicted himself with +charming serenity, though he allowed no one else to contradict +him. In truth, how were these excellent professors of +philosophy to know that, three and a half centuries later, a +Mabilleau, a Fiorentino, or a Ferri would doggedly set +themselves to unearth their unpublished lucubrations from +the dust of libraries, and throw on them the searchlight of +criticism?</p> + +<p>Men had reached that stage of lassitude and of wisdom +when one understands perfectly how vain, how unworthy of +occupying a thoughtful man, are the vagaries of logic-chopping. +There are only two vital forces: ambition and +love. Anne of France reckons four: beauty, youth, wealth, +and ambition; but these four terms are reducible to the +former two. A doctrine of love, therefore, was necessary, +and it was discovered in Plato.</p> + +<p>Thus there were two masters in opposition, Plato and +Machiavelli.</p> + +<p>Plato is as much a poet as a philosopher, as worthy of +admiration for his impressions and intuitions as for his +ideas. He believes in beauty. It had been said that +beauty was of no account, that it had no place in the +gospels, that form signified nothing except perhaps by way +of symbol, that truth was metaphysical. That error had to +be dismissed. Beauty has a real existence, and plays a +supreme part in this world. God has not disowned it, +Scripture reveals Him as bestowing life bountifully, and as +taking pleasure in man as His own image. Plato in effect +develops this same theory; what is more, he sings the +praises of aestheticism in one of the finest languages ever +lisped by human tongue. It was he then who furnished the +desired formula. With him, men thought only of loving +their fellows, of expelling evil passions by means of pure +love. A sweet breath of spring fanned men’s hearts; it was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>philosophical and Christian. Did Luther conceive a reform +as trenchant, as vital as that? Men went back to that +blessed time when, without employing the quiddities of the +Sorbonne and of German science, Heaven spoke the simple +words to us: “Love one another.” They believed they had +found the secret of rejuvenescence, of re-birth, and there +were men so intoxicated that they went so far as to ask +themselves whether Charity countenanced trade or taxes. +The whole idea is summed up in a single line: power +results in barbarism, civilisation is the product of beauty.</p> + +<p>This formula suits both strong and weak, everyone, +indeed; it belongs neither to men nor to women, hails +neither from north nor from south. The northern peoples, +however, looking at Plato with a purely philosophical and +technical eye, failed to discover it; at Venice, the headquarters +of perfect editions of Plato, and at Paris, where +he was acclaimed as a prophet, an ancestor of Christianity, +where Florentine commentaries on him poured fast from the +press, and where even a neglected commentary of Ficino⁠<a id="FNanchor_141" href="#Footnote_141" class="fnanchor">[141]</a> +was published, no one dreamed of seeking the recipe for +happiness in Plato’s philosophy. So greatly was he distrusted +that the Italian Vicomercati, appointed in 1542 to +the professorship of philosophy at the College of France, +thought it his duty by way of returning thanks to immolate +Socrates in his inaugural lecture.</p> + +<p>It was the Florentines, with their keen appreciation of +the good things of life, who discovered the artistic side of +the platonic life. Women did not count for nothing in their +first deduction, which consisted in so linking the objects +of nature to the human personality that they should form +thenceforth nothing but one long procession of the affections. +At Florence this new religion was observed with tender and +pleasing rites.</p> + +<p>On the anniversary of Plato’s death, the master’s bust +was crowned with laurel by invited guests, and then at a +magnificent banquet spread under the pleasant shade, <i>laudes</i> +and <i>canzoni</i> were sung in honour of the new spirit. Almost +all were poets, and Lorenzo de’ Medici chiefest among them. +They maintained a strict conformity with Christian ideas. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>The young Giovanni de’ Medici, the future Leo X., who was +brought up among them, received at the age of seven +valuable benefices with the ecclesiastical tonsure, and at +thirteen was given the cardinal’s hat. All the leaders of +the movement, Ficino, Pico della Mirandola,⁠<a id="FNanchor_142" href="#Footnote_142" class="fnanchor">[142]</a> Politian, were +honoured with pontifical patronage. Rome also was the +centre of a similar movement; there the academy of Pomponius +Laetus⁠<a id="FNanchor_143" href="#Footnote_143" class="fnanchor">[143]</a> resuscitated the grand days of the republic; +there men breathed as at Florence an intellectual air, light, +keen and eminently free. To the <i>Facetiae</i> of Poggio, +babbled out in a room at the Vatican before a select circle of +jovial monsignors, corresponded the joyous atrocities of +Panormita, the boon companion of Lorenzo the Magnificent. +Everyone smiled, everyone was happy: the very <i>bezants</i> or +golden pieces, the glory of the Medici escutcheon, sparkled +in the sun like flashes of their wit.</p> + +<p>The luscious warmth of the air, shady groves, birds, +gardens, statues, antique marbles, thus played an indispensable +part in the platonic philosophy. A banquet in honour +of the nine Muses served us as a map of this new world; +Marzilio Ficino, chosen by lot, chanted to the glory of +the divine character of love a superb song whose echoes +were long to resound.</p> + +<p>Learned critics have sometimes reproached Ficino with +not sticking close enough to the text of the master, and +with permitting himself outbursts of virtuosity tinctured (so +they say) with Alexandrinism. Likely enough; Ficino was +Ficino, a man, independent, enthusiastic, no fanatic; he +steered for happiness, and whatever his admiration for +Socrates, he did not imagine that that great man had necessarily +said the last word about everything, any more than +he believed men eternally committed to Corinthian capitals. +His dream was of a human dwelling-house, noble, comfortable, +habitable for us all, a living shelter for life! While +pushing out glorious reconnaissances along the roads to +heaven, Plato had clearly left men’s minds undecided on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>some points of great importance to their happiness, and +it seemed wise to supply his deficiency by accepting with +closed eyes the explanations furnished by Christianity.</p> + +<p>A thousand voices exclaim, like Montaigne and Charron, +that the immortality of the soul cannot be proved by sheer +force of reasoning. In any case, how long we have to wait! +cries Margaret of France. For how many centuries have +some who have fallen asleep looked for their awakening!</p> + +<p>The Middle Ages replied to this question with their own +terrible logic. They set us on the edge of the abyss, and +there told us that in this world there is no happiness, but +merely consolations; they linked us with a supreme life +lying beyond us, like those hard, emaciated, immovable +statues incorporate with the stone of cathedrals and themselves +of the same stone. We live, they told us, with +another life than our own, and love with another love; if +we lose one dear to us we may cast flowers on the vacant +chair or the needless cradle, altars of true life! Platonism +prefers to take us for what we are. Not supposing that +Providence sets man upon the earth to struggle against +its own blessings, the platonists believed that in making +religion more lovable they would make the world less +pagan, and that in giving it a philosophical cast they would +make it acceptable to unbelievers. Love seemed to them to +be a reservoir of life, like those noble springs which leap +down in some shady nook of a park, and flow on through a +network of arteries more or less conspicuous, to give life +even to the desert. Soon we shall no longer be; the hours +of our life are sacred: what is the good of ruffling them with +so many disquietudes? It is a law of our life to yearn for +Paradise, and there is nothing to hinder us desiring it in +this present world.</p> + +<p>The study of Plato, then, was entered upon freely, with +the addition of anything that could throw light upon the +doctrines which that great man had founded—the Bible, for +instance, which in the Roman world men prided themselves +on consulting directly; then Arabic and even Mussulman +philosophy, with which it was fashionable to claim +acquaintance. And it was well understood that a quest +pursued with so subtle a magnificence, in scorn of realities +and brutal sensualism, demanded a keen and eminently free +intelligence, a soul at leisure, and a great loathing of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>flesh; otherwise all hope of falling under the exquisite +fascinations of love at once terrestrial and quasi-divine must +be abandoned. That explains why from the outset this +philosophy addressed itself to women and to the salons. +Plato began to be talked about as we in our day have heard +Schopenhauer and other eminent thinkers talked about by +persons who have been at little pains to read them. It was +known that Plato harped on the necessity of love, that his +smile was less forbidding than that of S. Francis of Assisi, +and that his method was dialogue, so naturally dialogues +and conversations became the methods of the new platonists. +From these tender colloquies the vulgar were excluded; +they could make nothing of them; one could not expect +common folk to apprehend the delicate devices by which +love is etherealised and rendered impalpable; from these +they would only have got a theme for gross perversions. +Those who had the gift of knowledge and understanding +ascended the Acropolis like M. Renan, to chant their +canticles in a little temple of their own, whose dimensions +seemed to them sufficient; the aristocratic mystery replaced +the old priestly mystery; so Cataneo whispered, as it were +under his breath, his book on love addressed only to the +priests and temple choristers. Bembo took great care not +to name the interlocutors male and female of the <i>Asolani</i>, +“so as not to scandalise the populace”; all were agreed in +religiously respecting the ignorance of the people, as to-day +we respect the ignorance of young girls. And for the same +reason, again, they made too prodigal a use of that strange +mythological jargon which appears to us in these days so +entirely pathetic. Mythology has its aesthetic advantages; +it is an incarnation of the passions; but that would not +suffice to explain its sickening vogue in a society full of +taste, scepticism and levity, if it had not presented the one +special advantage of furnishing a sort of technical slang by +which the initiated recognised one another, and which sifted +out the vulgar. The princes of wit felt so strongly the need +of such distinctions that before adopting this garb for their +works they began by muffling their own identity in an +antique livery: a Greek or Latin name served them as a +uniform,⁠<a id="FNanchor_144" href="#Footnote_144" class="fnanchor">[144]</a> as when San Severino called himself Pomponius +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>Laetus, the old aristocratic pride yielding before this new-fangled +vanity. Artistic glory donned the conventional +garb; no one had the preposterous notion of lamenting in +Raphael the exquisite interpreter of Madonnas; what was +deplored was the rival of Nature, the painter after the +antique. “Raphael has resuscitated ancient Rome,” exclaims +Castiglione, “he has recalled to life and glory that Rome of +old, that corpse devoured by sword and fire and time.” That +was the language of the courts, the ladies and the princes of +the church; they had said all when they compared Raphael +to the painters of the Augustan age (with whose works we are +not very well acquainted), and when they remembered that the +new Rome was only a degenerate if not a moribund Rome.</p> + +<p>We dwell at some length on a state of mind of such +peculiarity and complexity as this, and from which contradictory +deductions were sometimes drawn, because we find +in it the only possible explanation of the movement about +to arise in France. Platonism was an impression, an essence +of free-thought, purely aesthetic, Christian in principle +though sometimes pagan in its results, warranted platonic +in label and origin though somewhat eclectic in composition; +a mystic incense in the worship of Venus, a subtle aroma +floating in the air both of churches and of theatres; breathed +in assemblies in the city; dominating the effluences of +Nature under the shadow of country villas; open a book, +and one caught a breath of it; even painting and music +strove to interpret it fittingly; at the dinners and dances +and in the thousand avocations of fashionable life it filled +the air; it exhaled as it were an immortal savour of orange +blossoms; this was what they called a philosophy.</p> + +<p>The platonist spirit, as Plato understood it, was often +exactly the opposite. The women and the poets whom Plato +condemned,⁠<a id="FNanchor_145" href="#Footnote_145" class="fnanchor">[145]</a> the prelates who were the heads of Christendom, +were its propagators. They were not greatly enamoured of +Plato’s somewhat socialistic theories. They went to Plato +as we go to Nice, to obtain a little sunshine and escape the +incessant din of controversy. It is a profound saying of +Plato that “those who see the absolute and eternal and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>immutable may be said to know, and not to have opinion +only.” That is what men desired: they would have run +after illusions and even errors if only they made for happiness. +What is the good of pursuing mutabilities? The +wise man clings to that which tranquillises. Others may +wear themselves out with anxiety and restlessness, but he +enjoys his life of placid ease; in the end they die and he +dies, and there is nothing to choose between them.</p> + +<p>Before it could be turned to profitable account, platonism +thus underwent a long and difficult preparation to bring it +into line with the tastes of the day. The work was accomplished +in Italy, whence the product was sent to us in a +finished state. Good Plato, with his rather old-fashioned +eyes, had seen beauty only in man; from one man he passed +to the species, then from the species to the soul, that is, to +intellectual beauty, which to him appeared the only true +beauty. It was necessary to bring this doctrine into line +with the practical doctrine of the special attraction exercised +on man by the beauty of woman. Now Plato, besides giving +man the beauty and woman the love, attributed to love the +secondary character of a sensual and egoistic phenomenon +in which no spiritual element was discoverable save +perhaps the instinct of immortality. Of this very instinct, +however, Plato had an imperfect appreciation, for the +immortality we might hope to gain by replacing our decayed +bodies with the fresh young lives of our offspring, if it +serves the interests of the human race, does not much serve +those of the individual; at any rate, Plato considered it at +once vulgar—everyone or nearly everyone being able to aspire +to it—and incomplete, for transmission and conservation of +life are not the same thing, and only a person very barren +of intellectual resources could content himself with so modest +a glimmer of immortality. A man only survives through +his thoughts. The last shreds of the thoughts of Homer or +Hesiod will live long, and will long cause temples to spring +from the earth; what child of flesh and blood is likely to +bear his father’s glory thus on through the ages?</p> + +<p>The earliest interpreters of Plato, Ficino and Politian, had +departed with no little timidity from his teaching; the one +eclectic and cautious, the other adventurous, they went +nevertheless not much beyond formulating a general +doctrine of love. Ficino exalted love as the supreme wisdom, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>the creator and preserver <i>par excellence</i>; the link +binding earthly things together, and the earth itself with +heaven; the inspirer of great deeds and noble thoughts, a +necessary element of life. He preached the love of love +itself: “The man who loves, loves love above all; love is +sufficient unto itself and finds its goal within itself; it is +true and good and pure.” But in order to bring himself +into conformity with the new spirit, Ficino admitted as +derived from Plato (though as a matter of fact it is not +to be found in his works)⁠<a id="FNanchor_146" href="#Footnote_146" class="fnanchor">[146]</a> a capital distinction upon which +the platonism of the Renaissance was entirely to rest: there +are two loves, different in degree, the one heaven-born and +fixing its gaze upon heaven, the other born of Jupiter and +seeking only to produce a form like him.</p> + +<p>Francesco Cataneo insisted strongly on this invaluable +distinction. Analysing man, he found in him a mind, the +source of true spiritual love, and a sort of intermediate +force hard to define, a “soul or life” whence sensual or, +if the term be preferred, profane love has its being. Cataneo +moreover dealt hardly with profane love, representing it as +bare-footed to indicate its foolishness, lean for lack of +nourishment, and winged, for it is evanescent, dependent on +physical beauty, on “worthless dross”; and it was because +the world knew no other love that the preaching of a +Reformation became necessary. As to women, Cataneo never +ceased to consider them as stones of stumbling; inheriting all +the old prejudices of the schoolmen, he saw in women nothing +but imperfect men created for the sole end of perpetuating +the race, and man ever seemed to him the perfect type.</p> + +<p>But with what warmth, with what passion Bembo, the +Roman prelate and future cardinal, expounds the modern +principles before the charming coterie of Urbino, and, flinging +away the swaddling bands of early days, confesses himself +frankly a feminist!⁠<a id="FNanchor_147" href="#Footnote_147" class="fnanchor">[147]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span></p> + +<p>“The terrestrial beauty that excites love,” he says, “is an +inflowing (<i>influsso</i>) of divine beauty irradiating all creation. +It rests like a beam of light on regular, graceful and harmonious +features; it beautifies this countenance, shining in +it, attracting all eyes to it, and through them penetrating, +stirring, delighting the soul and bringing desire to birth +therein. Love is thus really born of a ray of divine beauty, +caught through the medium of a woman’s face. Unhappily +the senses interpose: a man sees in the body itself the +source of beauty and longs to enjoy it. How deceived he +is! It is not beauty that is thus enjoyed; an appetite +is appeased, and soon comes satiety, weariness and often +aversion. These deceptions and regrets abundantly prove +what an error has been made, for a man must needs have +found joy and restfulness if he had sought the true end, +whereas on the contrary love gives rise to a thousand ills—griefs +and torments, vexation and sullen fits, despondency, +catastrophes even; the heart never attains the limit of its +desires, or perhaps the man is so sunk in sensual love, +declines so far towards the level of the beasts, as to become +incapable of comprehending the supreme radiance. All +these experiences are dearly purchased. Knowledge how to +love comes only in ripe manhood: only the old indeed really +have it, and their skill lies in eluding the impulse of +the senses, in fleeing from all that is vulgar. If he can +do no otherwise, a man must set his face steadfastly towards +love divine, taking reason for his guide.”</p> + +<p>True love, then, is a disinterested love inspired in man +by woman. And therefore Bembo, who was the more +knowing in these things because he had loved deeply, was +still young, and had not yet heard his own clear call towards +love divine, lifts up his voice in a passionate prayer: “O +love, most good, most beautiful, most wise, thou that comest +from divine goodness and wisdom, and returnest thither +again, O thou cord binding us poor terrestrial and mortal folk +one to another, thou bendest the higher virtues to dominate +the lower! Thou dost unite the elements, thou dost perpetuate +the life that perisheth, thou makest imperfection +perfect, thou bringest discords into harmony, thou turnest +foes into friends, thou givest fruit to the earth, peace to the +waves, and to heaven its light of life! O father of true +pleasures, of grace and peace, of lowliness and goodwill, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>O enemy of wildness and pride and slothfulness, thou art +the alpha and omega of all good!</p> + +<p>“Thou dost reveal thyself in terrestrial beauty! Hear +our prayers, lighten our darkness, guide us through the +mazes of this world, rectify the falseness of our senses. +Humbly we beg of thee balmy breath from the spiritual +world, a touch of celestial harmony, an inexhaustible fount +of true contentment! Purge our eyes of ignorance, and +make us to see in its perfection the beauty of on high! +Love is communion with the divine beauty, the banquet +of the angels, immortal ambrosia!”</p> + +<p>It is now time to answer an objection which the reader +has no doubt formulated long ago, and which Bembo very +clearly perceived.</p> + +<p>Assuredly it is woman’s mission among us to represent +beauty, and consequently love, and love is the inspiration +of noble thoughts and great actions. But these are such +old truths that to find them hardly needed so much intellectual +and poetic effort, or the harking back to Plato.</p> + +<p>The learned book <i>On the Nature of Love</i>, in which +Equicola essays simply an enumeration of the different +species of love known since the thirteenth century, resembles +a collection of butterflies. Every colour is there, brilliant +or dull; the sentimental view is there represented in almost +infinite shades, from the magnificent love of Boucicaut, who +served all women for the love of one, the Holy Virgin, to +the art of loving for love’s sake, always fashionable in the +salons, and sedulously cultivated as an excellent prescription +for innocuous emotions and a cheap renown. Men well +knew how to love, to be sure!</p> + +<p>But love is rarely reciprocal; as someone has said, one +loves and the other takes the kisses. So far, it was the +woman who was recognised as the beauty, and consequently +as the loved one, and who took the kisses.</p> + +<p>The novelty of Plato’s system was to transfer the beauty +to men, which ran counter to all accepted notions. To +Bembo this theory seemed intolerable. That women are +capable of loving he firmly believed and rejoiced to believe. +But to give up loving women appeared to him too cruel. +He would much rather give platonism the go-by and +acknowledge the reciprocity of beauty and love. In short, +he fell back on Petrarchism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span></p> + +<p>Michelangelo proclaimed the true modern platonism with +extraordinary ardour in professing a love at once virile and +pure. “I have often heard him reason and discourse on +love,” writes Condivi, “and I learnt from persons present +that he spoke of it no otherwise than may be read in Plato. +I do not know what Plato says, but I know well, having +long had intimate intercourse with Michelangelo, that I +never heard issue from his mouth aught but the most becoming +words, apt to repress the lawless and unbridled +desires that might spring up in the hearts of young +men.”</p> + +<p>Michelangelo said more than once that God is seen in +terrestrial beauty; love is only a hymn to the Creator; “for +if every one of our affections is displeasing to heaven, to +what end would God have created the world?” A great +love makes only for the highest morality, it provides man +with wings for a sublime flight:⁠<a id="FNanchor_148" href="#Footnote_148" class="fnanchor">[148]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy wondrous beauty, image of the grace</div> + <div class="verse indent2">That fills all heaven with glory, to us shown</div> + <div class="verse indent2">By the Eternal Artist’s hand alone,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When time and age have worn it from thy face,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor age nor time can from my heart displace,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">But ever deeplier graven shall it be;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">For in my thought that beauty I shall see</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Which Time’s cold finger never can erase.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">If the soul were not created in the image of God it would +seek after nothing but external beauty; but it does in truth +penetrate beyond this deceptive outer form, to fix itself on +the essential, to rise until it attains the ideal or universal +form: <i>Transcende nella forma universale</i>.⁠<a id="FNanchor_149" href="#Footnote_149" class="fnanchor">[149]</a> Thus beauty +elevates and quickens us into the world of spirits and the +elect. Many of Michelangelo’s verses convey the same +idea under different forms:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The fount that feeds my love is not my heart,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">For though I love thee, yet my love withal</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Is not to heart of flesh and blood in thrall,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But ever yearneth toward a goal apart,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Where no base mortal passion dare intrude,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Nor any guilty thought nor impulse rude.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span></p> + +<p class="noindent">A love without heart! Here indeed is the formula of the +new platonism!⁠<a id="FNanchor_150" href="#Footnote_150" class="fnanchor">[150]</a></p> + +<p>Unfortunately, Michelangelo is a striking and titanic +exception. He can scarcely be considered the head of a +school: and platonism became for the most part nothing +more than a fashionable science, the antidote to marriage; +an intellectual union between a hard-headed, lusty-armed +man and a woman all tenderness and wisdom; the formula +of the government of man by woman. Its origin and its +end remained equally philosophic; in short, it was a sentimental +sociology. If it had been a question of philosophy, +no one could better have represented Plato than Savonarola.⁠<a id="FNanchor_151" href="#Footnote_151" class="fnanchor">[151]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>But Savonarola did not represent the intellect of society; +behind him men thought they caught a whiff of all the +wretched tatterdemalions in revolt at Rome against the +Academy of Laetus, at Florence against the Medici. On +the other hand, Tullia d’Aragona, a courtesan, exercised a +platonic influence through her excellent book <i>On the +Infinity of Perfect Love</i>. Others unceremoniously dismissed +Socrates and Plato as liars and knaves, and yet passed for +good platonists since they extolled the religion of beauty, +and woman as essentially its priestess; and since they saw +in love the chain binding earth to heaven, and the bulwark +against socialism. In short, platonism and feminism are +one and the same. It is quite possible to believe implicitly +in the dogma of love without splitting love in two and +pinning ourselves on an impossible dilemma—matter without +spirit or spirit without matter. This latitude of appreciation +is not to be called materialism, but merely the need of a +material perception in order to arrive at the idea of beauty.</p> + +<p>This explains why the platonist spirit was so coldly +received in France. Platonism was the art of rendering +virtue pleasant and contagious; but in France it was the +conviction that virtue needed to defend itself like the fretful +porpentine.⁠<a id="FNanchor_152" href="#Footnote_152" class="fnanchor">[152]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span></p> + +<p>No one troubled about spiritualising love; the inferior +clergy, parish parsons, applying in every matter a rough-and-ready +system of ethics, drew no distinction between +sentiment and sensation, but proscribed everything. They +summed up the religious life in a multitude of observances +all having for result the subjection of women—a contracted +morality which gave rise to startling inconsequences. It +was pretended that the mere sight of a lady fidgeting about +on her balcony was enough to tell you she was a Frenchwoman.⁠<a id="FNanchor_153" href="#Footnote_153" class="fnanchor">[153]</a></p> + +<p>Anne of France forbade lovemaking between fiancés, the +best, most innocent, most legitimate in the world, just as +strictly as the grossest intrigue; but Louise of Savoy was as +little shocked at the one as the other.</p> + +<p>There was bitter hostility between the two camps.</p> + +<p>Madame de Taillebourg remorselessly turned her back on +her nieces, Louise of Savoy and Margaret of France, as being +tainted with the new spirit. Queen Anne personally led the +crusade in favour of the old ideas; Antony du Four, her +almoner, published semi-officially a collection of the lives of +ninety-one pious women, as a counterblast to the Italian +collections; and he implored ladies not to succumb to the +new contagion, not to run out of their salutary groove, for, +he said, France had never produced “more wise and good +women than at present,” beginning with Queen Anne, “a +bottomless well of virtue.” “Under the mask of science and +philosophy” all these “prating and scribbling fellows” who +wished to give women a great part to play were only seeking, +declared Du Four, to sap their modesty and wreck their +good name.</p> + +<p>In these criticisms there was certainly a modicum of +truth. But they went too far in anathemising the good and +the evil without distinction.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span></p> + +<p>France, like Italy, had its “primitive” women—philosophers, +apostles of the philosophy of love; but their numbers +and above all their influence, owing to the opposition we +have just indicated, were very small. They were women of +admirable endowments and sterling qualities, highly educated, +afire with energy of that somewhat melancholy cast necessarily +developed by contact with a stern world. It is natural +to cite, by way of example, that sometime lady of Beaujeu, +Anne of France, a figure after Michelangelo’s own heart, +grand and severe as a cathedral.</p> + +<p>We picture her always in her capacity as regent—the +politician, soldier, and diplomate upholding the fortunes of +France, and displaying in the greatest difficulties her incomparable +genius. And yet her heart was not in this work; +she filled her part as a family duty, she devoted herself to it +entirely, but it was the cross of her life. As soon as she +could she forsook her toilsome life of affairs, for no other +reason than to return to the life of the affections. She shirked +neither toil nor responsibilities, and understood perhaps more +fully than anyone else the profound and mysterious joy +experienced by lofty souls in impressing their own individuality +widely upon others. But she was only too conscious +that in plying a man’s trade she was acting like a widow or +an elder sister, not like a free woman or a princess, and that +neither politics nor military service was directly conducive to +happiness. She knew that in crushing rebels she would not +make them happy, and that she herself would be the first +victim of her devotion.</p> + +<p>She was right. We know how, in the swing of the +political pendulum, she fell beneath the strokes of Louise of +Savoy,⁠<a id="FNanchor_154" href="#Footnote_154" class="fnanchor">[154]</a> who owed everything to her. Wounded in her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>liveliest interests, in her dearest affections, in the sentiment +of dignity she held so high, she died proudly, as Caesar died, +with her mantle wrapped about her:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Elle attendoit venir l’heure opportune</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que la justice ou Dieu y mist la main,⁠<a id="FNanchor_155" href="#Footnote_155" class="fnanchor">[155]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">as a servant of Francis I. wrote.</p> + +<p>Her coldness then was assumed, but she kept up the +appearance of Stoicism so well that many a man, even +among her friends and admirers, really believed in this +lamentable insensibility. Again, Anne of France had no +love for the vanities, the whole trivial round of court +life; “she dismissed Cypris to Paphos,” for which some +persons found it difficult to forgive her, particularly Octovien +de Saint-Gelais, who nevertheless has extolled her sweetness, +calling her “a second Semiramis, a new Queen of the +Amazons, come to life again to establish peace.” Her +vigorous intellect, her frank and remorselessly sincere +disposition, her way of treating everything on broad +and general lines, puzzled the rude yet feeble folk +around her. The only thing she lacked, as one of her +friends said, was love:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">S’elle avoit un peu de cella,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ce seroit la plus accomplye</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A qui Dieu donna oncques vie.⁠<a id="FNanchor_156" href="#Footnote_156" class="fnanchor">[156]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>She had a large, indeed an immeasurable quantity of “that,” +but she took it seriously; it might well be said that she +did not set “her whole imagination spinning round problems +of sentiment.” She had no idea of bringing imagination +into her affections, but distrusted it; it was through the +soul and the real needs of the soul that she caught glimpses +of the ideal life of which we have just spoken. But having +faith in, rather than enthusiasm for, these ideas, and considering +as she did that the heart’s activities were perfectly +reasonable, beneficent and necessary, she saw no reason +for ruffling, gilding or engarlanding them. She was +somewhat lacking in suppleness, self-sacrificing, of unbounded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>good-heartedness, staid in demeanour, firm in +resolution, but also warm, passionate, loving to devote herself +to others and not doing so by halves. In her heart of +hearts she adored all that a good woman adores—her son, a +poor child whose death almost killed her, her daughter, her +son-in-law, whom she loved as a son; she took an ardent +delight in friendship, and above all in that special, delicate, +tender, profound affection which is only established between +a man and a woman; to win love was her sole ambition.⁠<a id="FNanchor_157" href="#Footnote_157" class="fnanchor">[157]</a> +She buried deep down in her heart an innocent romance +which no historian has related and which even her +intimates appear never to have suspected—a reserve which +paints her to the life! Till the day of her death she +wore a ring on her finger. We have discovered her secret: +the ring was the pledge of her betrothal to a young duke +of Calabria from whom her father had separated her, who +had soon afterwards died, but whom she was never able to +forget.</p> + +<p>This certainly was one of the women most likely to understand +and to promulgate throughout France the programme +of the quest for happiness. She did not believe with Du +Four that a sort of passive naïveté was the ultimate expression +of virtue; she sought another goal, anxious, doubtless, +that love should give a powerful stimulus to woman’s +activities, as it had done for the women of Spain, whose +imagination was filled with Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. +Her friend Champier has rounded off her thought by recalling +Plato’s saying that “the lover is dead to himself and +lives in another.” Deeply read in the church fathers and +the philosophers, she hailed with joy the principle of +platonic love, “the love of which the philosopher speaks, +that is, a love founded on purity.”</p> + +<p>For all her lofty station, however, Anne of France never +found herself able to popularise her ideas in a country +where an idea only succeeds when it becomes a fashion; the +new philosophy had perforce to come like a flood, sweeping +good and evil along with it, and imposing itself by the +authority of the court. That is what happened around +Francis I.; as soon as it became a mark of good taste to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>talk philosophy and occult sciences,⁠<a id="FNanchor_158" href="#Footnote_158" class="fnanchor">[158]</a> + Hellenism,⁠<a id="FNanchor_159" href="#Footnote_159" class="fnanchor">[159]</a> and above +all Italianism, and to adopt ultramontane fashions wholesale, +people chattered about Plato. The king dearly loved the +ladies, and could not despise anything that glorified the +sex. He set some store by “Noble-Heart,” “Feminine +Noblesse,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_160" href="#Footnote_160" class="fnanchor">[160]</a> and other subtle evocations of the old chivalry; +he hoped that platonism might succeed in renewing them, +and requested Castiglione, the oracle of the new school, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>to furnish a pendant to his <i>Courtier</i>, to be called +“The Courtesan.” Castiglione declined this flattering +invitation.</p> + +<p>When Francis I. ascended the throne it was as a member +of a sort of triumvirate, the other two being ladies—“a +single heart in three bodies.”</p> + +<p>Louise of Savoy, aged and old-fashioned, reserved politics +as her sphere, as far as possible; Francis retained the +pageantry, the money, the passages at arms, the material +satisfactions of power; Margaret of France, in the Italian +style, assumed the direction of men’s minds and souls; she +was far more queen of intellectual France than Duchess of +Alençon or Queen of Navarre.</p> + +<p>She so completely identified herself with her brother as +avowedly to borrow from him her whole status, and particularly +her name. People have called her by the most +various names without really understanding why, owing to +the fact that she usually adopted her brother’s name, which +frequently changed. As sister of the count of Angoulême +she called herself Margaret of Angoulême; under Louis XII., +as sister of the Duke of Valois and the heir to the throne, +she called herself Margaret of Valois or of Orleans; as sister +of the king she became Margaret of France, her definitive +name, under which she accomplished her mission.</p> + +<p>For thirty years she presided thus over an amazing +intellectual movement; the whole thinking soul of France +hung upon her smile. She was the incarnation of platonism.</p> + +<p>In one of the galleries of Chantilly, that sanctuary of the +Renaissance, her grand face, with its long, severe, clean-cut, +distinguished features, somewhat hard as though chiselled +out of alabaster, continually smiles upon us and encourages +us. Her eyes are clear and full of fire; her mouth is fine, +intellectual, with something of irony, of benevolence and of +reserve; something at once yielding and defensive, acerbated +and enthusiastic, a singular sibylline countenance, the +enigma of a spiritual governance—the rule of mind and +heart; a woman to the core, attractive and wishing to +attract, but two personalities in one, each interpenetrating +the other, concealing her real self within two or three +inner entrenchments after the old feudal tactics, like St. +Theresa in her “fortresses of the soul.”</p> + +<p>She reigned with undivided sway, with all the powers of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>her affection, with her infinite womanly delicacy, with +triumphant skill.</p> + +<p>She was in very truth a woman of fire, this woman who +wrote to her brother while a prisoner in Spain: “Whatever +may be required of me, though it be to fling to the winds +the ashes of my bones to do you service, nought will be +strange, or difficult, or painful to me, but solace, ease of +mind, honour.”</p> + +<p>And she was loved; men never tired of praising her. +Her name became a household word, and lives on even in +our own day in charming books, like that devoted to her +by a lady of rare genius, chosen by Nature to revive the +traditions of woman’s influence—the Countess d’Haussonville. +And yet we are always wondering what is behind +that smiling countenance at Chantilly.</p> + +<p>Margaret is doubly complex, first as a woman, and then +as a typical woman of the sixteenth century. She is +essentially a woman of her period, and that is why she +cannot but interest us. Her thoughts, somewhat hazy, and +sometimes wrapped in rather odd garbs, are difficult to +co-ordinate because, unlike those of Anne of France, they have +no spontaneity or originality. Almost all of them are +derived from without. Her lovable mind is like a mountain +peak of fair height, with nothing rugged or bleak +about it: it promises no sublime effects, no Pisgah sights; +it pleases and interests us precisely because we can reach +its summit by an easy road, for which many of us are +grateful. Is not that better for poor tired folk than lofty +masculine heights profitless and perilous to scale? It +springs gently from the landscape, like the pleasant +mountains in the heart of France, and while enabling us +to take observation of the sky, keeps in touch with the +earth, and from this standpoint we can contemplate, spread +out like a map, a smiling country and highly decorative +craters. It is the “Belvedere” <i>par excellence</i>. Nowhere +could we judge her period better than from the vantage +ground of her mind.</p> + +<p>But it is very clear that it would be a mistake persistently +to look for in her the peaks and abysses she does not +possess. It has been proved to demonstration that, given +certain circumstances—if, for example, he had only been +killed at the siege of Toulon—Napoleon would have died a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>captain of artillery; and doubtless Margaret of France, but +for the accession of her brother, the wave of feminine +Italianism, and possibly many other circumstances, would +have died wife of the Duke of Alençon or the King of +Navarre, or even less. Yet we can realise better than ever +to-day how vastly important her leadership was. Her +generation was that from which we are sprung, to which we +owe our blood and sinews. Our society is experiencing +almost the same uncertainties and the same attacks; it +needs intelligent and active women as much as ever. +Margaret was less bent on being an exceptional woman than +on fulfilling her part as first lady of France. She played +her part very well; she had her Pléiade.⁠<a id="FNanchor_161" href="#Footnote_161" class="fnanchor">[161]</a> And at her side +she brought up as her successor another Margaret, her +niece, the future Duchess of Berry and of Savoy, who did in +fact continue the tradition—not less amiable, not less +distinguished, but coming later and consequently more +charming still, and above all, more calm and self-contained.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France had never read Plato until towards +the end of her life, and then, when she discovered him, she +believed she had found her guiding star. On the other hand, +she did not permit Boccaccio to be forgotten. Her philosophy, +then, was not very psychological, but it was eminently +social. The theories of Bembo seemed to her to endow +women with a large and beneficent measure of power; and +that was enough. It must be confessed, however, that she +looked at social questions themselves from a somewhat +superior standpoint, and with a necessarily discriminating +favour. She knew but one person, her brother, who even in +the most manifest errors appeared to her the ideal of +perfection, “the true Christ.” Apart from him she loved +none but God, and she adopted as her emblem a marigold +turned towards the sun, indicating her purpose to live and +breathe only “for high, celestial and spiritual things”; +other things, husbands included, seemed to her paltry and +mean. And thus, as a woman of intelligence, she hoped to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>reign through the affections; her most assiduous flatterers +only extolled her heart; even after her death a pious +respect continued to watch over her works, of which a +selection was published. And yet she gave only her +intelligence to the world.</p> + +<p>Her theory of love is peculiar enough. Love of course +appears to her the corner-stone of the social edifice: in +itself it is always good, only becoming bad by the use made +of it. Margaret is eminently platonist in the sense that she +proclaims the existence of two loves, a good and a bad; but +to her the distinction between them is simplicity itself: the +one is man’s love, the other, woman’s; men love with an evil, +earthly love, women alone can love celestially. Sometimes +they chance to allow themselves to be caught in the snares of +men; let them flee then, for “briefest follies are always the +best.” Thus loving is for women. The love of a woman, +established firmly in God and on honour, the same love that +Henri d’Albret styles “hypocrisy or covert malice,” forges a +divine and holy chain. Margaret never tires of expatiating +on the virtues of women’s love, a pure and ardent love, the +instrument and the end of civilisation, the highest form of +human activity, the prayer admirable beyond all other +prayers that a living creature can address to the Creator. +In the nineteenth tale of the <i>Heptameron</i> she gives this +love a very catholic definition, borrowed almost word for +word from Castiglione:</p> + +<p>“I call perfect lovers those who seek some perfection, +either goodness, beauty or grace, in the object of their love, +those who incline always to virtue and have so lofty and +refined a heart that, even at the price of death, they would +not aim at base things that honour and conscience condemn. +The soul was created but to return to the supreme good, and +so long as it is encased in the body, it can only long and +strive for holiness. But the sin of our first parent has +rendered dark and sensual the senses, the soul’s inevitable +intermediary; seeing only through them the visible objects +which approach perfection, the soul hastens to find in +outward beauty, in visible grace and the moral virtues, the +sovereign beauty, grace, and virtue. It seeks them, and finds +them not, and passes by; it essays to mount higher, like +children who, as they grow bigger, must needs change their +dolls. And when at length mature experience shows +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>that neither perfection nor felicity is to be met with +in this world, the soul pants after the great Author and the +very source of the beautiful. But then may God open its +eyes! otherwise it must speedily stray into the paths of +false philosophy. For faith alone can reveal and bestow +what is good, which carnal, natural man by himself never +could attain.”</p> + +<p>Thus the worship of beauty is not necessarily mystical, +but it is a true religion. We come from God, and we return +to God through hope and love much more surely than +through any sort of reasoning. The holy love of the +beautiful, of perfection, purifies the soul better than any +practical efforts, and little by little raises it to the ideal +perception of perfect beauty. The soul then wings its flight +towards God, sustained by faith above unfathomable abysses.</p> + +<p>And so it is necessary to proclaim happiness, peace, +gentleness, joy to men of good will, and even to others, if they +are to be lifted above themselves, their ambitions, their +hatreds, their coarsenesses. What a mistake it is to preach +a religion of terror to poor creatures too wretched as it is!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Oh, que je voy d’erreur la teste ceindre</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A ce Dante, qui nous vient icy peindre</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son triste Enfer et vieille Passion.⁠<a id="FNanchor_162" href="#Footnote_162" class="fnanchor">[162]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Let women learn their duty!</p> + +<p>They are priestesses in the religion of Beauty.</p> + +<p>They must win love, they must themselves love! They +must be balm poured upon aching wounds, the beauty that +soothes, the love that accomplishes a new Passion, taking +upon itself all the sorrows of others. Of old, a great noble +had been recognised by his knowing how to give, and by +his giving, not of his superfluity, but a portion of himself—his +blood to his country, his strong arm or his affection to +his brethren. It only remained to feminise and spiritualise +this superb tradition. Women will give their hearts, +in other words, they will diffuse happiness, fellowship in +the supreme life, life itself! “Love is that which really +makes a man, and without which he is nought.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p> + +<p>Life! Alas! at this word Margaret shudders. She longs +to penetrate the great secret of our destiny. She stoops +over one of her gentlewomen lying at the point of death, to +see if she can catch the passing of her soul! She receives a +lover at the tomb of the lady he came to meet, and with a +tragic gesture cries “She is there!” She loves and preaches +nothing but life. She knows that death is inevitable, but +hopes that this accident may come to her without lingering in +long “suburbs,” and she casts herself with confidence upon +the God of platonism whom she believes in, whom she feels +to be all love. From terrestrial love she expects to escape +at one bound into the arms of the other, the Great Love; +“from the felicity which alone in this world can be called +felicity, to fly suddenly to that which is eternal.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_163" href="#Footnote_163" class="fnanchor">[163]</a> And +thus in her eyes man’s natural end is enfolded in love and +hope resting on faith. There, in the heart of the villages, +covered with moss and honeysuckle, are the humble tombs, +the sacred shelter of those we have loved, clothed all about +with life hard by the radiant crucifix! A sunbeam floods +them in light, like a stream of love from on high. The same +ray penetrates our hearts, telling us that all is not ended, +and that a little joy is still blossoming upon this spot of +earth. Let us leave God to count the flying moments—leave +it to Him in full confidence and peace!</p> + +<p>Like all human things, platonism cannot attain perfection; +it necessarily has little to say in regard to man’s birth and +death. To complete the reformation it would perhaps be +necessary, as Goethe suggests in the second part of <i>Faust</i>, +to discover a means of manufacturing <i>homunculus</i>, in other +words, of effecting human reproduction in some other way +than the old; moreover, instead of being allowed to die, men +might comfortably be translated to other worlds. But, +meanwhile, platonism is the philosophy of the living, and in +truth it is remarkable to see a secular movement basing +itself on such lofty systems, and turning to such noble +account, intellectually, morally and religiously, the natural +desire which the world always has of amusing itself.</p> + +<p>A strange generation was arising. Between 1483 and +1515 Luther, Calvin and St. Ignatius, Rabelais and St. +Theresa, were born pell-mell. And yet, thanks to this +philosophy, everyone wore the livery of happiness. Dagger +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>and poison hid themselves in the shade. Never were the +most agitating problems more cheerfully discussed. Yes; +women know the real value of the visionary and the +immaterial, of something higher than hoards of mere gold +and silver—the value of the riches of the soul. The Latin +world was at this moment becoming a vast workshop of +beauty, the real worker being no longer the digger or the +merchant, the mason or the hodman, but whatever man +lived a life of thought and love. There was extension and +broadening out in all directions; material barriers were +being overthrown; the religion of Beauty was bringing +nations as well as individuals together. And the women, +the ministers of the affections, had for their mission to watch, +to judge, to temper, to develop the faculties of men. They +thought it a beautiful mission. Can we wonder at it? +They burned with the ardour of paladins; they fancied +themselves knights-errant, and displayed devices—<i>Non +inferiora secutus</i>, a masculine hemistich which men had +relinquished, but which Margaret of France resumed, to +show that she bore high her white petals and her heart of +gold: “Love and Faith,” in other words, “Women and +God,” the motto of Madame de Lorraine—a motto full of joy +and charm, for if men love because they believe, and believe +because they love, life becomes an unalloyed delight.</p> + +<p>Between mysticism and debauchery a middle term had +been found, namely, love.</p> + +<p>When women know how to attach men to them by +means of pure love, all individual forces gain vigour, a +nation flourishes, and the people are at peace.</p> + +<p>That, at any rate, was the new conviction.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="smaller">THE SCIENCE OF PLATONISM</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The doctrine we have just indicated never excited any +very determined opposition as a theory; its adversaries reserved +their objections for its practical working. The New +Law, it is true, had redeemed us in love; but the politicians +held the same opinions as the moralists of Du Four’s school. +From Machiavelli to Calvin, many men thought the bludgeon +a simpler and more effectual guide for humanity than +sentiment. At best they would have favoured a sort of +sentimental sociology. They regarded everything else as a +mere philosophic dream—Eden, of which barely a glimpse +had been caught before it was guarded by the angel with +the terrible sword; the burning bush from which issued +the voice of God, but near which Moses dared not kneel for +fear his garments should take fire and the flame scorch his +flesh.</p> + +<p>Assuredly, the practical science of platonism is more +difficult than its metaphysic; it assumes that women have +the knack of cleverly taming men by means of love’s +blandishments, without getting scratched themselves. The +cleverest lion-tamers are sometimes clawed, but they have +been known to die in their beds. Here is the question in a +nutshell: Are women capable of following this tamer’s +vocation and making themselves sufficiently invulnerable? +and secondly: Are men tamable?</p> + +<p>On the first point the friends of the beautiful displayed +the utmost confidence. They made their appeal to women, +sensitive—more than sensitive, refined—fortified by marriage +against materialities, and inspired only with disgust by +the vulgar vice that came under their eyes and even in their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>own circle. As Du Bellay says, Cato’s manners harmonised +perfectly with Plato’s discourses. Margaret of France unhesitatingly +descended into the den and grappled with her +friend Bonnivet.⁠<a id="FNanchor_164" href="#Footnote_164" class="fnanchor">[164]</a> She believed in the invulnerability of +women, as also did Castiglione and many others. The +platonists found no difficulty in justifying their position; +they cited heroic examples of feminine virtue even in the +remotest antiquity, and they met other admirable examples +in the ordinary intercourse of life. Castiglione and Dolce +show us women who in the vilest environments were angels +of chastity. In most cases they were young girls, for +instance a poor girl of Capua (very often cited) who flung +herself into a river to escape a troop of Gascons; a poor +peasant girl of Mantua, who, betrayed by a scoundrel, +drowned herself with a sort of frenzy, flinging away all the +ropes held out to her—a tragic suicide, anti-Christian as +such, yet so Christian in its grandeur of despair that the +Bishop of Mantua proposed to erect a statue to this noble +woman of the people. Unhappily he died before he could +carry out his idea; in those days people fought shy of inartistic +statues.</p> + +<p>Such examples of virtue were not met with only among +the lower classes, which are naturally the most exposed to +danger. All Rome was stirred to its depths by the dreadful +fate of a young gentlewoman who, having been decoyed +into the catacombs of St. Sebastian with the connivance of +a maidservant, strangled herself rather than yield to the +violence of the miscreant who devised the snare. She +might well have been left to rest in the dim twilight of +those silent vaults, where so many pure victims sleep under +the seal of a cross and a dove; but Rome could not leave this +flower of virtue to be forgotten, even in so sacred a spot: the +poor body was crowned with laurel and borne in triumph +like a trophy through the thronged streets of the city, the +same fever of enthusiasm infecting both hovel and palace.</p> + +<p>No, women are not naturally sensual; animalism is +utterly abhorrent to them, and however much their education +may have been neglected, their deepest feelings are +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span>won by a man’s intellectual qualities, his moral authority, +much more than by his physical beauty, a beauty often hard +to trace. When they love deeply, even when they yield +themselves, it is still with a sentiment of reserve and +modesty; it would also seem as if they cannot dispense +with the additional refinement of respect. Man, on the +contrary, as all the world knows, has no sense of shame, +and to get every possible enjoyment, love or no love, +is his only aim. It is to singularly terrestrial Venuses +that peoples and kings, judges and culprits, flock +pell-mell. Is this a reason for despair? Cannot the +obvious feebleness of women, their delicacy, the almost +religious character of their love, become an element of +attraction and power? Women, we are told, deliberately +expose themselves to sharp tussles. That is true. But if +men were platonic, what merit would women have in being +platonic too? And surely no one would impose on men, as +the first rule of intercourse, the obligation of remaining in +marble coldness beside beautiful creatures of passion, whose +very nature is to set their pulses throbbing! “Ah! impossible!” +cries Margaret of France, to whom the mere idea +seems almost an insult. It is wise to recognise danger, but +it would be disgraceful to flee from it! In France, a +country hostile to the beautiful and to sentiment, the women +who preached the gospel of love were, as we have said, +high-born dames, whose very position made them wardens +of men’s souls, and whose nobleness constituted part of the +public patrimony. Maybe they did not believe themselves +predestined to impeccability; but while enjoying a wonderful +store of goodness and benevolence, they were at +the same time proud, high-strung, courageous. Far from +terrifying, peril inspirited them; to shrink from it would +have appeared disgraceful to Anne of France, who represents +prudence incarnate. Women are not so frail as people +are pleased to say. They are only frail when they wish to +be; and then it is duty that guides their steps.</p> + +<p>The real difficulty, then, does not lie in this direction. +The difficulty is to discover a sure method of capturing men. +We have already outlined the two theories; there are likewise +two practical systems.</p> + +<p>The first consists in really devoting heart and soul to the +matter, the second in the mere playing of a part. The first +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>is concrete, actual, full of zest and energy; the second is +nothing but abstractions, coquetry, poses, and never extends +beyond mere sentimentality. Anne of France, manifestly +wedded to the first system, speaks of it with a warmth and +yet with a wealth of circumlocution that show, not only +how much the question interested her, but how troublesome +she found it.</p> + +<p>A woman, she thinks, should not push enthusiasm so far +as to run to meet love; she may wait for it, it comes soon +enough unsought. In spite of her very real simplicity, she +always impresses us as having a touch of pride; and besides, +she was writing for her daughter. But what a noble heart +is hers, how ardent and how generous! She distrusts the +love excited merely by physical beauty, because she regards +it as imperfect, undistinguished, commonplace, of little +stability, subject to all sorts of disappointments and regrets; +but no less—accustomed as she is to deal with things +broadly and grandly—does true love, that which wells up +from the heart and mind, and is only strengthened and +sanctified with increasing years, seem to her precious and +firm. When a man can analyse his love and tell himself +that it depends on some definable beauty, however exquisite—that +of the eyes, perhaps, or that of a charming +manner or an uncommon mind—in this case the love is +slight. But when it takes entire possession of him, when he +knows not how to describe it nor to what to attribute it, +when it surprises him in the plenitude of his vigour, and +keeps him in subjection to another person of whose will he +becomes the mere echo; above all, when it inspires him with +the overpowering consciousness that henceforth his life may +be bounded by no other horizon: then it has a superb +range; it possesses soul and heart; the rest is merely supplementary—a +more complete intimacy, a pledge of affection. +The woman a man most loves is not the one he covets most. +At twenty it is easy to confuse sensations with sentiments; +and that is why true love is not known till later. It is a +gradual unfolding; and then it becomes so ardent as to +bring into play all the impulsive forces of the mind. It is +by this new emotional fruitfulness, by this responsiveness, +so to speak, to the spur, that a man’s worth is measured. +Externally, on their commonplace side, all men are alike; +their souls alone have different physiognomies: a time comes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>when they are stirred to the depths, shaken out of themselves, +and then it is seen that there are great souls and +small. Not too great, however, nor too small; but quite +human! We cannot expect miracles, or look for the perfection +God has reserved for Himself. But sometimes the +reality is better than appearances promise: “’Tis not the +cowl that makes the monk.” We should not be too ready to +take fright at an inconsistency, or to despair of men who err +by excess of genuine sensibility. These are the easiest to +convert.</p> + +<p>Anne of France believes in a method of princely candour. +She objects to any woman, with the best intentions in the +world, appearing to promise what she is firmly resolved +never to grant; in this regard it would be better to retreat +at once, with no false shame, and quietly await another +occasion for giving battle.</p> + +<p>If, on the other hand, love presents itself under reassuring +aspects, it may be accepted. Honourable love is so beautiful, +so full of “benefits and honours”! But precisely because it +is so delightful a condition it is rare, and the devil leaves +nothing undone to poison it, and therefore it is well to advance +with much practical prudence, even with distrust! The world +is so vile! Sweet love has often come to a bad end! In +discussing this tender and mournful psychology, the great +princess would seem, under her mask of impassibility as a +philosophical woman, to utter a cry of pain as though +bleeding from an internal wound: “I have known a knight,” +she says, “who heaped oath on oath of the most sacred +character, even on the holy altars, on the gospel, and who +did not keep them even till the evening.” She is one of +those who, giving the heart, give it wholly, and how perilous +that is is manifest. A genuine platonist, however, she +acknowledges no degrees in honour; there is no splitting it +up; it must be preserved in its entirety: and the primitive, +strenuous, almost naïve lady concludes that chastity does not +consist solely in “saving oneself from the overt act.” +Among the women who skate more venturously near the +danger point there is not one in a thousand, she thinks, but +has lost something of her honour or of her illusions.</p> + +<p>Of this sculptural view of love—majestic, holy, like certain +of Wagner’s harmonies, but necessarily very rare—Michelangelo +is a practical exemplification.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span></p> + +<p>Madly smitten, at the age of fifty-one, with a lady of +thirty-six, whom, however, he did not see till twelve years +later; so mastered by his agitation as to pen two extraordinary +letters—which, incomprehensible as they appear, +Messieurs Milanesi, Gotti and Mézières have succeeded in +interpreting—writing one letter three times over without +making up his mind to send it (it never was sent)—that +was the man known as Michelangelo.</p> + +<p>Why did he love the Marchioness of Pescara! For her +beauty? No. For her wit? No. He loved her because +he loved her: there is no more to be said. He asked nothing +of her. She was the woman of his heart; to her he +dedicated all the fibres of his being. He saw with her eyes, +acted by her inspiration, “no longer conscious of aught but +the memory of her.” And he was happy, and unhappy. +What energy of expression there is in his sonnets when his +vigour bursts out in passionate laments! But for the +most part this vigour seems itself to yield to respect and +enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>A genuine patrician, sweet and unaffected, the marchioness +understood with wonderful intuition the man who was addressing +her, and proved what in such a case a woman may +do with a man. Condivi, who had seen her correspondence, +described it as full of a grave and profoundly moving love; +the fragments which have come down to us indicate a +thousand little tendernesses: “Our friendship is stable, and +our affection very sure; it is tied with a Christian knot.” +And here is the address outside a letter: “To my more than +magnificent and more than very dear Messer Michelangelo +Buonarotti.”</p> + +<p>It was the same with their talks together; love only +served to give their conversation an elevated tone. A certain +François de Hollande, who happened one day to be in their +company, has preserved some characteristic fragments of +their conversation. The marchioness was formulating quite +a scheme of splendid idealism: “Painting,” she said, “better +than any other means, enables us to see the humility +of the saints, the constancy of the martyrs, the purity +of the virgins, the beauty of the angels, the love and +charity with which the seraphim burn; it raises and +transports mind and soul beyond the stars, and leads us to +contemplate the eternal sovereignty of God.... If we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>desire to see for ourselves a man renowned for his deeds, +painting shows us him to the life. It brings before our +eyes the image of a beauty far removed from our experience, +and Pliny held this to be a service of priceless value. The +widow in her affliction finds solace in gazing every day +upon her husband’s picture; young orphans owe to painting +the happiness of recognising, when they have come to +man’s estate, the features of a beloved father.”</p> + +<p>Is not this true love, to love the beautiful, the object of +love to so many besides ourselves? Is not this the enchanting +joy dreamed of by Anne of France, so sweet for a +woman, and lifting a man “beyond the stars”? But this +love is terribly individual and exclusive!</p> + +<p>Twenty years later Michelangelo lost the lady of his +soul. He stood by her death-bed. With reverence and +pity he pressed a long kiss upon her hand, not daring, even +at that tragic moment when Death purifies all things, to +touch ever so lightly that pale cold brow; though many a +time, in truth, he regretted the timidity of his farewell. +Condivi tells us that he was frantic with grief. Night had +closed her wings upon his life; he could never hear the +marchioness mentioned without tears starting in his eyes: +“We had a great mutual regard,” he said; “Death has +snatched from me a great friend.” A great friend! He +became religious; in his robust old age his soul maintained +its fire, like some deep pool which, in the blackness of +night, still reflects the sunset glow. He died at the age of +ninety, and among his papers were found the letters of the +marchioness, and the sonnets he wrote for her—though +cunning pilferers had carried off a portion of these, which, +unhappily, they kept for themselves.</p> + +<p>The other, and more numerous, school of platonists +started from an absolutely different principle. It was much +less individual, and much more sociological. It was cultured, +to all appearance without enthusiasm, keenly sensitive, +wholly of this world, or if it moved at all toward the +ideal it was by many tortuous, obscure and labyrinthine +paths of which it would sometimes be difficult to draw an +accurate map. It was philosophical; its method was to coax +the human animal, to converse with him, to lure him with +smiles and soft words, and to wind about him a multitude +of slender cords till he was reduced to helplessness. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>The method was considered eminently laudable, and indeed +it demanded infinite tact, time and patience; for what was +involved was nothing less than the training of “the other +partner” in habits of refinement and discretion—to content +himself with a few tit-bits of love or kindliness, to refrain +from constantly showing teeth and claws with a cry for his +“reward”—the wolfish cry, the roar of the beast of prey! +A light hand was needed. Men, snared in cold blood, +appeared so commonplace, so much alike!</p> + +<p>The little favours by which men were held captive were +in no way open to censure; they were virtue itself, for the +end justified the means. The art which regulated the dispensation +of these favours may justly be regarded as a +complicated one. It grew out of long habit, and was not +learnt from books; it was the Machiavelism of a special +charity, a supreme devotion, very often the immolation of +self; and it was precisely this admirable feature which +distinguished platonism from coquetry: “O Love!” cried +Bembo, “it is by thee that the higher virtues rule the +lower.” How many of these strange, admirable women +might be mentioned, who devoured men like veritable +Minotaurs, and who, after devouring them, would have +liked to resurrect them for another meal!</p> + +<p>The Marchesa Scaldasole, of Pavia, was one of these +terrible harpies; yet she acted with absolute frankness. +One day, at a ball, she said to a young protonotary named +De Lescun, who was losing his head a little: “You see, I +do as your guards do, who fix a tassel to their horses’ +cruppers, to warn people not to go too near,” and she pointed +to her sky-blue dress: in Italy, blue denoted heavenward +aspirations. Lescun was devoured like the rest. By a +strange freak of fate, he happened to be severely wounded +beneath the walls of Pavia in the famous battle of Francis +I. When he was picked up, covered with blood, he asked +to be carried to the house of his “dear lady and patroness.” +The marchesa received these quivering shreds of humanity +with transports of tenderness, and it was in her arms, +sustained by her loving look and consoled by her pious +words, that Lescun breathed his last.</p> + +<p>I know not how La Rochefoucauld could say: “The first +lover is kept long when no second is taken.” It is the +vice of men not to know when to stop. Nothing grieved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>Margaret of France like the thought that a man, to qualify +as a “man of honour” and a “pleasant companion,” was +expected to kill someone for giving him the lie, and to love +a dozen women. She objected strongly to a happily +settled man, as she says, going prowling over the world, +were it ever so platonically: “it is wisest to remain satisfied +where love has once attached us.”</p> + +<p>The women, on the contrary, anxious to fulfil their social +duty, thought themselves bound to sow love broadcast, to +distribute their favours widely; by that means they protected +themselves against the tongue of malice, though at +the cost of desperately hard work and many embarrassments. +For every man of intelligence and breeding who +knows better than to display too much whimsicality, how +many jealous, touchy, tiresome men there are! A princess +could do no less than be kind to a number of favourites; +Margaret of France loved not far short of a dozen, and the +number was only so small because of the difficulty of finding +recruits for platonism.</p> + +<p>We must remember the idea from which these women +started, which was absolutely the reverse of that which now +prevails. In these days women are careful not to generalise; +they prefer to personalise everything—medicine in the +doctor, religion in the priest, the family in the husband, +love in the lover. The women of the sixteenth century, we +cannot repeat too often, had an ardent faith in things, but +none at all in men; they had no intention whatever of +being in bondage to a man, whoever he was, but preferred +to go straight to the idea, and then to make its interpreter +their apostle, or what they pleased. They were in +love with love, but were unquestionably prone to regard +the lover as of secondary importance, or at the most as the +minister of their cult, not their master. Trustfulness and +self-surrender struck them as delightful, desirable, religious, +almost necessary, when based on a broad principle of +liberty, and when they furnished a goal at which the +affections might aim.</p> + +<p>We must insist also on another most important consideration, +which the reader will already have suspected. These +ladies did not labour for their personal happiness; in most +cases they had no hope of ever attaining it. They discovered +a means of giving life to others, but lacked it for +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>themselves; they had known either too much or too little +of existence. They were dissatisfied—out of conceit—with +everything, perhaps with themselves; they had been +mothers, and were yet maids. For the soul, like the body, +needs to give itself, and on this condition depends its life +and fruitfulness. Now many of these women had shadowy +and inscrutable souls—souls whose pages no one had troubled +to turn; they smothered their feelings, but they had suffered +much, and still suffered. Hitherto they had given only +their body, the poorest part of them, the contaminated part, +the part that is lost in the giving; while the soul is +ennobled and purified by self-surrender. They had perforce +to cut themselves in two, and as maidens to look on at the +ruin of one part of themselves, and nothing was more +painful than this cleavage; philosophers even maintained +that it was an impossible one, and that, when a woman +yielded her body, under obligation or necessity, sometimes +with disgust, she gave nothing, but remained immaculately +a virgin, because the true virginity is that of the heart. +Indeed, a favourite idea of that time was that whatever +vicissitudes the bodily mechanism might undergo, only the +soul could endorse them.</p> + +<p>Here, then, were unhappy dilettanti of love, who, regarding +animal passion as the antipodes, almost the negation, of +true passion, rigorously safeguarded their purity, and +adopted platonism as the channel through which to bestow +their souls on mankind, with a smiling disenchantment, +almost happy in possessing at least the assurance that in +this harmless game there would be only occasional outbursts +of the violence of love. They chose the good part, +sowing broadcast, in a soil often ungrateful, the seeds of a +love of which they had been harshly deprived, and the +fruits of which they hoped probably that others would +gather. Many of them had lovers, but true love comes +only once, and among these charming women, all fire in +appearance, there were some who bore, deep down in their +hearts, an unsuspected burden of sorrow which oppressed +and overwhelmed them. With some of them passion had +never ceased to rumble; some had been seen to become +desperately attached to a man (maybe their own husband), +or even to fling themselves into a nunnery. The most of +them, more sick than those they wished to cure, and faltering +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span>inwardly under the outward charms of their devotion, went +their way, vainly seeking in life’s desert the heart, the one +only heart, sensitive enough to comprehend them. They +steered their way composedly among the billows, in complete +security, alas! and without adventuring anything but +their good sense, at most their good nature, which Anne of +France severely calls their hypocrisy. Ah! how they smart +for this hypocrisy! How much of their life-blood it costs +them! We yearn to strip off their veils, to beseech them +to take thought for themselves and put some faith in +passion! But no, they lead our woful procession like +singing children, and, forcing back their tears like Margaret +of France, they strew a few rose-leaves in our doleful path:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De petits amours à fleurettes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’autres petites amourettes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mesmement de vieilles amours,⁠<a id="FNanchor_165" href="#Footnote_165" class="fnanchor">[165]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Voiture.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">and the sole benefit is reaped by us, or at least by men +capable of enjoying an illusion. Sometimes, in their infinite +goodness, they may give us divine moments that compensate +for the painfulness of life; they succeed in thrilling us with +that magnetic influence which quickens our faculties, sends +our life into a wider channel, makes commonplace actions +seem interesting to us, gives higher relief and brighter colour +to all our surroundings. They do a good work, a pious +work, a social work. And that is why this loveless love +fell especially to the lot of princesses. At first sight the +idea of making love so excessively aristocratic appears +somewhat singular, if not repugnant. What is the value of +distinctions of birth in such a matter? To sincere hearts +they can only raise obstacles to genuine happiness. This +was especially the opinion of Anne of France. Could it be +right to dignify with the name of love or platonism a +wretched coquetry which consisted in attaching oneself to +the most conspicuous women, whoever they were?—for +some were plain, and, what was worse, influential!—so that +this so-called love would oscillate between snobbishness and +solicitation of the kind nowadays practised upon a minister +of state—whose ugliness does not matter. Assuredly it is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>possible to love a plain woman with all one’s heart; such +love, indeed, is said to be the strongest. But how difficult +it must have been in those days for a princess to believe in +a disinterested love! And even supposing such happiness +were hers, could she ever have relied upon it?</p> + +<p>So the love of princesses, which was an essential characteristic +of platonism, sprang in reality from a very special +principle. The princesses (and other great ladies) had no +experience whatever of the sentiment (very masculine and +somewhat modern) that everything was theirs by right, and +that a certain lofty egotism was the natural complement of +a lofty station. On the contrary, they imagined themselves +to be the property of society, so to speak, and not their own—and +further, as they realised that a great name is just as +isolating and paralysing as a large fortune, if not more so, +they considered themselves specially bound to keep their +activities in full play. Their efforts were sweetened by +their pride. That the woman should have the castle and +the man the cottage, that she should be rich and he poor, +seemed to them a good thing: it was the subversion of old +ideas, but the consecration of the idea that was to be. +They found a special charm in material inequalities of +position; it was often distressing to have to raise a man +morally, but it was delightful to raise him in a material +sense; as Balzac has said, “No man has ever been able to +raise his mistress to his own level, but a woman always +places her lover as high as herself.”</p> + +<p>This explains why, in the eyes of all the friends of the +Beautiful at that epoch, every princess was beautiful, in +other words, she piloted the world towards the idea of the +Beautiful. Failing a princess, or a lady of title, or an +eminent woman,⁠<a id="FNanchor_166" href="#Footnote_166" class="fnanchor">[166]</a> a man might content himself with a simple +maid-of-honour; but it would be almost to fail in respect +towards princesses of the blood-royal not to fall in love with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>them, since they were born for that end; and indeed a +certain accent of ardour did not displease them, for, as they +told themselves, “everybody knows that a fortress is only +stormed when it seems hopeless to expect weakness or +treachery.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_167" href="#Footnote_167" class="fnanchor">[167]</a> Nothing flattered them more; in the admirable +words of Alfred de Vigny: “In the purest relationships of life +there are nevertheless things which are only poured into one +single heart, as into a chosen vessel.” This chosen vessel +must be rare and delicately fashioned, all compact of +idealism, intellectuality and tenderness.</p> + +<p>The love of princesses, therefore, however sincere and +intoxicating, manifested itself with crystal purity. When +a poet makes extravagant boast of the beauty of his mistress, +who is sometimes of mature years, we may be quite sure he +means beauty of soul, “which is all-sufficient,” as Margaret +ingenuously says. The only misfortune of the princesses +was often their scant knowledge of the human heart; they +saw too much of the worldly, showy, conventional exterior, +and it was that usually which made them pessimists. But +they exerted a powerful sway. And as their favours, +coming whence they did, had no important sequels, they +were not niggardly in bestowing them. Of what is not a +woman capable who has nothing to fear, either from herself +or from others? In such a case there is danger only for the +man. Certain ladies took men and stirred them up, shook +them as you shake a tree whose fruit you desire to bring +down. And, to tell the truth, they were even taunted with +carrying this science of theirs too far. Margaret of France +in particular has been generally regarded as a consummate +virtuoso; unquestionably she often puzzles us, and gives us +the uneasy feeling that she is making fools of us. She +herself boasted of juggling with the hearts of men, of +“winning her devoted servants,” and of managing them so +well that literally they no longer knew what to make of +her. “The most daring,” she says, “were reduced to +despair, and the most down-hearted saw a ray of hope.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_168" href="#Footnote_168" class="fnanchor">[168]</a> So, +while those who know her story most intimately—Madame +d’Haussonville, M. Anatole France, Madame de Genlis—come +forward as guarantees of her absolute virtue, those +who, like Brantôme, peep at her through the window +regard her as a coquette, which indeed was her mother’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span>opinion. Shall I confess it? I myself, during the years, +now no small portion of my life, which I have devoted to +the service of these adorable women, during the many long +hours spent in delightful intimacy with them, wholly +absorbed in deciphering the enigma of their hearts, have +known and felt these singular perplexities. One day the +ladies have enchanted me, almost given me wings; another, +they have crushed me into the dust: one day I would fain +kiss their hands with all the ardour of a loyal worshipper; +another, long to obliterate their very footprints. Sometimes +I have glowed with pride, fancying myself master +of this fervent love of which they used to speak so well; +and thrilled through and through with their overflowing +enthusiasm I have seen the world become transfigured +behind them, our pale northern mists dissolve in radiant +colour, our sky become translucent—and next day I would +trudge mechanically behind them in utter mystification. +Passion and irony have in turn moved my pen, and having +mutually slain each other, I know not whether anything is +left. And to-day even, when I am seeking earnestly to +lisp the praises of these ladies, when as the prize of serious +and constant effort I beseech of them some positive pledge +of their thought, they flit like butterflies before me!</p> + +<p>Yet they had hearts, large hearts, it is impossible to doubt,—hearts +staunch and ardent; but they shrank from employing +them. They dallied in a dim twilight sensibility, like +that noble lady of Genoa, Thomasina Spinola, who had +broken all material ties with her husband in order to devote +her thoughts to King Louis XII. One day the rumour +spread, falsely, that Louis was dead, and soon it was +reported at Blois that Thomasina was dead also. Thereupon +the official poet recited an interminable elegy. Happily, +both Louis XII. and Thomasina had many years to live. +No one durst smile at matters so eminently respectable, +though Anne of France was indignant; in her opinion love +was dishonoured by such proceedings, and she would readily +have forgiven men for not taking these pleasant comedies +too seriously.</p> + +<p>Strange women! Perhaps they themselves dared not +probe their souls! The artists who painted them must +have dropped their brush and peered into the heart of their +idol, and asked themselves whether it was a Beatrice or a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>Venus they were painting. A strange veil covers their +features; as a skilful artist contents himself with vague +suggestions where a perfect rendering is impossible, so +their souls have deliberately blotted themselves in mist, +blurring their outlines, and throwing us into uncertainty. +These women are frank, and reserved; they attract, and +repel; embrace us, and hold us at arm’s length; allure +us, and alienate us. Now they are like virgin soil, now like +paths too many feet have trod. Their contemporaries were +baffled by them; we too may well fail to comprehend this +platonism—we who see it from afar.</p> + +<p>Such is the magic haze in which Leonardo has enwrapped +his Gioconda. Everything is there, but he tells us nothing +save that this is she. He barely hints at her subtle mind, +her soft, pure flesh; you seem to catch a delicate perfume +floating in the air. The world around her seems sunk in +torpor; the landscape fades away in indefinite and fantastic +suggestions. And the woman dominating it all pursues us +with her complex look—the look that all these women +have; she seems to be several women superimposed—a +succession of appetites, a mingling of languors, thoughts +crowded on thoughts, an encumbrance of flesh. Voluptuousness +and intelligence are there too, held in reserve. She +terrifies us, for she is too richly endowed; she will give +nothing: she is a woman of brains.</p> + +<p>And yet we err in not trying to understand these +women! We do not understand them because we set them +apart, picture them as solitary in their defensive attitude, +shutting our eyes to what engrosses their mistrustful looks—the +cruel welter of humanity around them.</p> + +<p>With Anne of France and Vittoria Colonna we met +Michelangelo. But whom shall we find flocking about +these gracious priestesses of love? Contemptible drones, +ambitious men, empty-headed fools, young fops, youths +anxious to push their way in the world, society clowns, +scholars in the sere and yellow leaf, a whole herd of men +who have their reasons for liking the tame cat’s rôle, and +certainly would never think of love unless someone mentioned +it. Is it in any real sense cheating to cheat such +men? There are sceptics like the excellent Montaigne, +who love in order to find relief from their worries; others +who love for a wager, like Nifo, who went sweethearting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>because it amused Cardinal Pompeo Colonna. There are +pedants and hair-splitters; men who analyse and refine and +talk of social duty—speak too of their love for humanity +at large, for irrational things, for the All-in-all, for supernatural +beings, for the angels. They make love an amusement +like dicing and racing. They tell off on their fingers +the various species of love.</p> + +<p>Nifo amused himself by cataloguing the motives leading +to love or “re-love.” He found fifteen chief motives: (1) +Youth. (2) Nobility (since aristocracy springs from love, +and love from aristocracy). (3) Wealth, a tainted source, +but abundant. (4) Power. It is to this last that he +maliciously ascribes the love of princesses, the best and +most practical of all. Ambitious by destiny, he says, princesses +necessarily yearn for glory; wherefore they are more +accessible than others, and no one renders love graver, loftier, +more substantial. (5) Beauty, a very stimulating factor, +but secondary. (6) The mere rapture of the senses. Alas! +many women, even in the highest stations, must have +owed shameful connections to this cause! (7) Fame. The +thought of hearing themselves sung about, of seeing themselves +in pictures and statues, of being analysed and made +the subject of dissertations, is a strong incentive to love: +women love posterity in this guise. (8) The love of love, +the artistic pleasure in knowing themselves loved, adored. +(9) Elegant love, a matter of gay doublets and a good +stable. (10) Obsequious love, not very amusing, but practical +and very common; a love made up of little attentions, +little symbolic presents, balls and banquets; Nifo had seen +Prince Ferdinand of Salerno win his lady by means of a +ball. And after these principal categories, there come +secondary inducements to love, which, in spite of their +commonness, are constantly successful; fine melodramatic +rages, comprising disdain, jealousy, frenzy—all excellent +investments; or the more peaceable and rudimentary means, +such as entertainments (provided they are intellectual), +flattery (highly recommended), prayer, this too, excellent, +according to the maxim of Martial—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor prayer nor incense e’er did Jove despite.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Lovers have only too many methods to choose from, and +the advantage of these sentiments (generally feigned), is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>that thanks to them anybody, however modest his resources, +can find something to suit him; it is the bazaar of love.</p> + +<p>And thus raw individualism, the mainspring of human +energy, was to become transformed and to tend towards a +collective end.</p> + +<p>Poor women! they were under no illusion about the +superficial effect they for the most part produced; they +knew that perhaps it would all amount to no more than an +outward show of improvement, and that at bottom man +would remain the vulgar and self-seeking creature he was.⁠<a id="FNanchor_169" href="#Footnote_169" class="fnanchor">[169]</a> +This thought confirmed them in their platonism and their +virtue; if there was no better result, they told themselves +that, after all, to awaken mere sensibility was not an absolute +waste of time; that it was a merit to refine vice, to +“polish it up,” to drape it with hypocrisy, to rule men and +impress their intelligence even by indirect means: they +found the occupation every whit as interesting as piling up +household linen or polishing the furniture. They hoped +that the future would justify their devotion. After all +their love was only a means; the end was to pour upon life +a little joy, a little balm, light, power, happiness—to shower +happiness everywhere.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="smaller">THE MISSION OF BEAUTY</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>Before we can make others happy we must draw upon +the sources of happiness in our own nature and in the world +around. It is reason’s ungracious way to show us the +realities of life in the mass, and even in their darker +aspects; it is aestheticism that turns their bright side to +us. Absolute ugliness does not exist, any more than absolute +beauty, and a careful analysis detects an element of +beauty and love in everything. The quest for this element +is women’s work. In moulding us into beings sensitive to the +least manifestation of happiness, they restore us to health.</p> + +<p>Their first duty is to exhibit in themselves every loveable +quality, physical and moral; for platonism is not the +art of loving, but the art of guiding men towards happiness +through love. Their second duty is to make good use of +the elements at their disposal, and force life to yield the +very pith and essence of the Beautiful. Or we may liken +them to conductors of orchestras, who draw unexpected +tones out of space. How noble, how difficult is the task! +Surely there is enough in it to fill a lifetime! What intelligence, +what knowledge, what skill, even to charming +sympathetic accents from a stone, are needed! Platonism +would be narrow and inadequate indeed—would be indistinguishable +from the most hackneyed sentiments—if it +were satisfied with the triumph of feminine coquetry, and +did not extend its mission to the whole of nature.</p> + +<p>To render themselves beautiful and admirable, therefore, +women will have to make the most of their resources. +Whatever their occupation, they can always mingle with it +something of the ideal, or turn it to the glory of their sex, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>even if it is a mere matter of dining or of walking in a +meadow; how much more so if it is a question of the manifold +usages of social life, and more especially of its intellectual +occupations! Through their fostering care all things should +become imbued with a sentiment of peace and love, and tend +in common towards happiness. That is where their talent lies.</p> + +<p>Clearly the method employed will vary according to +circumstances, situation, possibilities, temperaments. Different +women will pursue different aims, and avail themselves +of different weapons; but, in the long run, none was neglected. +While therefore we cannot hope to produce a thoroughly +accurate picture, we shall pass in review the principal circumstances +which provide a lady with her means of action, +starting in logical order with the material and proceeding +to the intellectual facts.</p> + +<p>In the material universe, it is woman’s capital duty to +possess what pleases men; for here we are entering a purely +practical field, and the quest of the ideal is of much less +moment than the skilful dressing of the hook!</p> + +<p>Physical beauty is not an indispensable condition of +pleasing; on the contrary indeed, a certain homely plainness +does not come amiss, platonically speaking. If many +of the celebrated women whom we know only in their +portraits were to come to life again, perhaps we could not +resist their fascinations; but they are dead, and to us they +are plain; their plainness served them as a sort of lightning-conductor. +We may go even farther; true beauty was +held suspect. As Anne of France severely says, it is the most +prejudicial and least valuable grace that God can bestow on +a woman, especially a princess. It is made too much of; +it inevitably jumbles the sentiments, mixing with the purest +an alloy of instability; there is always a risk of its upsetting +the best-laid schemes. A princess acknowledged as a +beauty cannot choose her servitors; she knows neither how +far they will go nor perhaps how far she will go herself. +She seats her empire on very precarious foundations, since +the less sensual love is, the longer it endures. In fine, +women are what they are, and it is impossible to ask them +to change. But any woman who knows her duty may be +asked to practise the feminine art, and this art is called charm.</p> + +<p>Many men do not know the meaning of the word +“charm”; they speak of beauty as savants or as grocers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>might, not as faithful worshippers. If you pull women to +pieces, if you judge them as you would a yard of calico, a +donkey or a slave, you will see naturally but a form of +flesh; you may estimate its geometrical dimensions, count +on your fingers thirty or thirty-six special beauties; if you +profess an intellectual standpoint, you will perhaps go so +far as to measure the cranium, and that will be all. You +will be content as an artist to produce a “semblance of life,” +by dint of scrupulous attention to detail; you will not perceive +what it is that speaks to us, fascinates us. Charm is +not expressed in terms of arithmetic or algebra: it is an art, +perhaps the highest of all arts, because more than any other, +more even than poetry or music, it speaks from soul to +soul; it is a sort of witchery, a woman’s knack, as it were, +of enveloping all around her in an invisible net. It is not +purely intellectual, but avails itself of physical means and +disdains everything in the way of formulae. The Italians, +adoring this delightful art, have vainly devoted innumerable +and often very prolix writings to the attempt to fathom +it. All their reasonings are condensed in this vague sentence +of Firenzuola:⁠<a id="FNanchor_170" href="#Footnote_170" class="fnanchor">[170]</a> “A beautiful woman is one who is +universally pleasing”; and Firenzuola is no better able than +the rest to say why she is pleasing. If we were speaking of +a good housewife, it would be easy to catalogue her virtues: +the talents of a managing woman, a woman who can look +after one’s health, keep the books and train the children, +have often been computed. Of a charming woman, never! +Each one has her own secret. And yet the art of charming +is very widespread. To that art the Italian women owed +their positions as queens of the world (or, to satisfy Montaigne, +let us say the “regents”); they were not superior to +Frenchwomen in beauty of form or in originality of soul, +but among them there were more “beautiful women,” that +is to say, captivating women, than elsewhere. They were +imbued with platonic sweetness, had acquired an indescribable +magnetism, a perfume of human graciousness, so holy, +so all-pervading that it seemed to purify the air and make +the world a temple instead of a hospital: like the precious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>spikenard poured long ago upon the feet of the Saviour, all +soiled with the dust of the world.</p> + +<p>Like all other arts, charm is a gift of nature. The first +rule for a woman is to know herself thoroughly, so that she +may bring her individual gifts discreetly into play, especially +those which affect the man she has in view. It will not +do to let her art appear. A woman’s charm depends upon +her acting spontaneously, even though imperfectly; it is +impossible to insist too strongly on this principle, which +of itself explains the evolution of women’s power in the +sixteenth century. So long as women frankly assert their +personality in their actions, taking counsel only of themselves, +their power never ceases to grow, and produces +excellent results; but when, whether from indifference, +timidity, the instinct of submission, or a mistaken education, +they no longer see in platonism anything but an art to +learn, a lesson to rattle off, a conventional pose, all is over; +men of real virility escape their influence, and deride their +charm as a puerile thing, and the women find no men to +govern but the insignificant herd whom they do not care +a straw for, and who are distinguished one from another +only by the colour of their pantaloons. This is the practical +result of the parallel instituted between true platonism +and the platonism of convention, between Michelangelo +and Bembo, between the vigorous Anne of France, who +was willing to assimilate certain delightful principles of +the new spirit so long as no sacrifice of character or caste +was involved, and the amiable Margaret of France, who +was much more inclined to go over bag and baggage to +the Italian methods, in order to obtain in France the same +results as in Italy.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, apart from originality, which is indispensable, +and diversity, which is essential, it is possible to +mention some elements that go to the making of charm, +consecrated, apparently, by experience or tradition. Of +these, some are physical, some intellectual; for the present +we shall speak only of the former.</p> + +<p>It is a general rule (if we may speak of rules) that the physical +charm of a woman springs entirely from whatever accentuates +her feminine, arch-feminine character. Thus it must +above all express the completest, most absolute sweetness.</p> + +<p>For a long time this characteristic sweetness appeared to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>spring from gracefulness of form and feature: a face of +aristocratic oval; a swan neck, a wasp waist; in short a +general effect of reed-like slightness and fragility, a veritable +mantel ornament, so delicately balanced that to touch it was +more than one dared, and that one was puzzled how so frail +a thing had ever managed to stand on such tiny feet, to +hold out such a poor little hand—a virginal figure of fifteen +years.⁠<a id="FNanchor_171" href="#Footnote_171" class="fnanchor">[171]</a> This wonderfully pure ideal persisted in Spain; but +in Italy one of the first signs of decadence was the preference +for more sensual forms. The Florentines, with their fastidious +ideal of elegance, were almost alone in resisting the current; +good Firenzuola did not yield to it to any extent, and +at most there was at Florence a small section in favour +of muscle and robustness, of whom Michelangelo is the +representative. But at Venice, a fine opulence of flesh, +luminous and warm, wonderfully substantial and soft, “full +of a delicious comfortableness,” carried all before it—a beauty +such as the pagans have celebrated in their lyrics and such +as the East adores: nothing seemed more charming.</p> + +<p>In France, the national spirit, always eclectic and vacillating, +was neither idealistic nor materialistic enough to take +any side in this dispute.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Autant me plaist la grassette,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme me plaist la maigrette.⁠<a id="FNanchor_172" href="#Footnote_172" class="fnanchor">[172]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Ronsard.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The great goddesses who ruled and dominated the classical +epoch, Madame de Chateaubriand, Madame de Canaples,⁠<a id="FNanchor_173" href="#Footnote_173" class="fnanchor">[173]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>Diana of Poitiers, were representatives of vigorous stocks; +an old lusty blood coursed visibly enough through their +veins; but they mastered it as they mastered everything, +diluting it with an effeminacy which had, however, a charm +of its own.</p> + +<p>The colour of the hair and eyebrows always appeared a +characteristic factor in a woman’s expression; without fair +hair there was no charm. According to a twelfth-century +chronicler, the sweet Saint Godeliva of Bruges was called a +“horrid crow” by her hag of a stepmother on account of +her dusky hair; it was to her hair indeed that she owed the +tribulations that won for her the aureole of sainthood. In +all probability the dukes of Burgundy, when they created +the order of the Golden Fleece, were thinking rather of the +charming women with heads like a golden harvest-field +than of the exploits of Jason. It is impossible to imagine +Botticelli crowning Spring with black, or Raphael representing +his Virgins as goddesses of night. The blonde had it +all her own way. And yet even in this matter the fastidious +Florentines did not commit themselves, and had something +to say for the pretty dainty little dark heads that were to +be met in the fields of Umbria. In France the chestnut locks +which set off so many charming faces were greatly admired.</p> + +<p>But there was absolute unanimity in favour of a soft +complexion of creamy white. All men, whatever their +nationality, whether idealists or not—poets and aesthetes, +dandies, elegant or melancholy men, as Firenzuola and +Tibaldeo⁠<a id="FNanchor_174" href="#Footnote_174" class="fnanchor">[174]</a> called themselves—united in praise of the charm +and sweetness of the lily and the rose.</p> + +<p>As for the eyes, they are the very fount of charm; by +their aid heart is linked with heart in exquisite communings, +in them the soul ranges the whole compass of its utterance. +The Italians were particularly fond of speaking eyes, black, +velvety, dreamy or deep; the French, while by no means +insensible to the charm of languorous Creole eyes, much +preferred eyes full of animation and intelligence, and these +were usually of a light grey or brownish colour. On one +point they were almost unanimous: a French girl of piquant +expression and mobile features, all sparkle from eyes to lips, +was the top of admiration.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span></p> + +<p>Such are the few summary and exceedingly vague +notions of charm, from the physical point of view, to +which women could look for inspiration.</p> + +<p>They could choose among these various characteristics, or +they could at least go some way towards them. There is +no mystic virtue in the advice; the important thing is to +succeed; but if a woman lacks any one of the recognised +instruments of charm, it is better to look for another than +to attempt the impossible. Women have been known to +delight men merely by the beauty of a wide intellectual +brow: Mademoiselle de Vieilleville’s charm lay in a sweet +little lisp, and the fair Chanteloup’s in her delicious little +mouth. A pretty pout, a little wanton laugh, lips fine and +so red that a man asks himself “which is the cherry and +which is the mouth?” the carriage of the body, the play of +the features—all these and many other things may become +the “fount of amorous sweets.” All that is necessary is +that in one way or another a woman should enwrap herself +with her sweetness, as with a goddess’s veil.</p> + +<p>Leonardo da Vinci sometimes painted good housewives, +frank and precise in countenance, but he took no pleasure +in them; he hardly regarded them as women: a bold look, +he said, only suits women who are no longer women. +Whenever he was in love with his model he has given her +a modest port, one arm shielding her breast, and he has half +submerged her in a kind of penumbra. In France a trim, +sprightly, noticeably handsome woman was obliged to +disguise herself in an air of languorous affability. The +most stony-hearted of Frenchmen surrendered to “a sweet +and gentle face,” “a sweet look, a sweet bearing, a sweet +countenance.”</p> + +<p>Another quality which idealists regarded as conducive to +charm was a certain stiffness and reserve of manner. +Woman, like the ark of the covenant, was to be worthy of +all respect. She was not thought the worse of if, like a +mimosa, she shrank within herself when the sun’s rays were +no longer there to warm her, and if she was afraid of the +dark. The woman chary of her smile was considered a +delightful creature. In platonist circles they would scarcely +even admire the beauty of the shoulders, and indeed there +were no longer seen flaunted in the streets or churches, +under the eyes of the common herd, certain liberties in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>costume, from time immemorial the despair of preachers—low-cut +dresses, like that of good Isabel of Bavaria, whom +the monk Jacques Legrant admonished from the pulpit for +showing everything “down to her navel”: robes scalloped +at the sides; long-pointed shoes so much in the way that a +woman had to lift her petticoats very high to be able to +walk. Castiglione goes into raptures about the simple little +velvet boot of a lady who, on going to mass one morning, +fancied she had to spring lightly across a brook. Aretino, +naturally an expert in such a matter, declares that no one +has a greater horror of a gratuitous display of her charms +than a courtesan! Refinement and delicacy seemed to +make women more fastidious and more shy, because they +realised their value, and because they wished to be loved, +principally at least, for their soul. And then great ladies, +like everyone else, come in time to the verge of forty, and +their taste and discretion are remarkable. Persuaded that +perfection is always rare in this poor world, they appreciate +the importance of a good appearance, especially in a blasé +society, and they are not unaware how much they owe to +the skill of the dressmaker.</p> + +<p>Here, however, there arises a question on which a few +words must be said, for it not only occupies a certain place +in the history of art, but it commonly leads to what appears +to us a not very correct estimate of the aesthetic rôle of the +women of the Renaissance: the mistake has perhaps been +made of not treating it as seriously as it deserves.</p> + +<p>It is well known that the sixteenth century displayed an +immoderate fancy for Venuses, delighting in them, going +into ecstasies over them, setting them here, there and +everywhere with a sort of intoxication,—like a man issuing +from a too long seclusion into fresh air.</p> + +<p>It must indeed be confessed that the grave, austere art of +the Middle Ages had erred a little in the opposite direction. +The influence of asceticism had generated the absurdly +exaggerated desire to put out of sight the existence of +matter; artists attenuated corporeal forms until on their +canvases the body represented merely a thought; and the +raiment, consequently, in which the body was delicately +and gracefully draped, served as vesture to this thought, +and contributed, so to speak, to immaterialise it. The +influence of Greek art was needed to effect a reversion and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>to set upon physical beauty the stamp of a living art. The +platonist aesthetics contributed in large measure to +strengthen this movement, since it brought into favour the +theory that the human body is the perfect type of terrestrial +beauty, just as the human soul is the queen of the universe. +Thanks to Plato, man, full of wit and love and liberty, +appeared in his single self more intelligent, more free, more +worthy of worship than all the rest of nature; and as the +Bible reveals him also as the image of God, it seemed right to +pay him honour. It cannot then be said, even on this matter, +that to break with the aesthetic traditions of the Middle +Ages necessarily involved breaking with their traditions in +psychology and morals; platonism believed it was merely +developing and amplifying Christian art, gaining for it all +the superb expansion of which it was capable; and consequently, +in the early days, it was often with perfect good +faith and highly spiritual intentions that artists deified the +vital forces of the world in the nude. Michelangelo is +there to prove to us that it was possible to glorify the +human figure fearlessly and unblushingly without weakening +in any way the general conception of vigour and +chastity. Whether he paints men or women, the result is +the same: in bringing his wrestlers upon the scene he seems +to fling at them this old apostrophe of a mystic: “I love +you, not because of your fine garments, but because you +have suffered much.” Who would ever say that his Eve in +the Sistine chapel is yielding, through any languor whatever, +to the suggestions of the serpent! This woman of his +has assuredly strength enough to withstand a serpent +unaided! She goes resolutely to meet the knowledge of +good and evil, with the perfect freedom of an accomplished +athlete, with more determination than curiosity, because she +feels that her body is capable of every endurance; and +besides, no one has yet told her that children are brought +forth in anguish. Michelangelo has clothed with purity +even the lamentable mother of mankind!</p> + +<p>And assuredly when an artist of the same school pushes +the audacity of realism so far as to stretch openly on the +royal tomb in the cathedral of St. Denis nude effigies of +Louis XII. and Anne of Brittany, of Henri II. and Catherine +de’ Medici, he is giving a lesson in morality, lofty, stern, +admirable, and of splendid eloquence.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span></p> + +<p>From this standpoint, the sight of the human form +appeared absolutely conformable to aesthetics and philosophy, +so much so that a whole generation of well-intentioned +tutors, at whom Ulrich von Hütten pokes a +little fun, set themselves ingeniously to explain to young +people the religious significance of nudities. It was on the +same principle that François de Moulins, the excellent cleric +specially entrusted with the moral instruction of young +Francis I., inserted in his manuscripts a picture of the +Graces, and taught his young pupil that Charity is rightly +represented as a nude figure, in order to symbolise her +generosity, or rather to bring it more vividly home to one.</p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary to add that if the spiritualistic and +platonist school derived these noble effects from the new +aesthetic idea, there was another school of artists and +amateurs, much more numerous, which saw in the exhibitions +of the academies only an entertainment of a wholly different +order. We cannot know (and we do not ask) what was +Dürer’s secret feeling when he thought, as even he did, to +imitate Michelangelo; but what can be affirmed is that he +is not altogether successful; he cannot get away from +domesticity; the good ladies he presents to us have nothing +superhuman about them; far from it, they are women just +escaped from their shop-counters (and their corsets!), or +very matter-of-fact bathers, or a statuesque “Fortune,” who, +despite her broad wings, yet appears ill at ease in what +Montaigne calls her “animal’s costume.” The Italian +artists, except for a few of the early ones, have not in similar +cases allowed a like embarrassment to appear. By their +own account, they moved with the greatest ease among these +physical beauties, like perfect aesthetes. Undoubtedly +many of them believed men, and more especially women, to +be the loveliest of created things, and in fact they display +them to us everywhere, with striking ability. Salons, +public resorts, promenades, even the walls of churches and +cathedrals in those days looked more or less like a pseudo-paradise. +The triumph of the flesh was pealed forth with a +brave clarion call. And we must not forget that this sort +of painting formed a capital trade, which brought in both +money and honour.</p> + +<p>By degrees, however, this licence evoked murmurings, +which grew stronger day by day, and as Michelangelo more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>than anyone else had ennobled the practice, by inscribing +above the private altar of the popes the sublimest and most +terrible page of philosophy ever written by painter’s brush, +he was specially marked out for attack. Undoubtedly he +was generally recognised as the responsible enunciator of +this new principle of art, and it is a clear proof of the +general and almost unopposed onslaught on him that the +man most keenly alive to the drift of fashion, Aretino, +ventured to indulge in virulent invective against him upon +this subject. After the Council of Trent, a veritable crusade +was organised with the noble end of purging the churches +of too lifelike anatomies. It is the correct thing, in the +<i>Joanne</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_175" href="#Footnote_175" class="fnanchor">[175]</a> to make merry at the expense of Pope Paul IV., +dubbed by facetious and satirical people with the humiliating +sobriquet of the “breeches maker,” because he +caused some veracious but really unessential details in the +work of Michelangelo to be timidly covered with gauze, +and because he generously presented the Holy Virgin with +the dress she badly wanted. At the risk of incurring the +same reproaches and of becoming a by-word to guide-books +past, present, and future, we shall here confess that it seems +difficult to blame him. The <i>Last Judgment</i>, though +absolutely pure in intention, became for the popes quite a +stumbling-block from the moment they entered upon the +highly legitimate crusade of artistic purification; when in +1573 Veronese was reproached for introducing into <i>Last +Suppers</i> details little tending to edification, he did not fail +to plead the example of the Sistine chapel. There is not a +doubt but that Calvin would have shown himself much +more rigorous than Paul IV.</p> + +<p>This fascination for the symphonic harmonies of the body +was not only an anxiety to the popes; it distressed also the +noble women who wished to constitute themselves directors +of the aesthetic movement, or rather to become the very +incarnation of beauty and love. How far these women, +possessed by the desire of securing the triumph of intellectual +beauty, found themselves compelled to make certain +concessions, is a knotty question to which, as it seems to us, +people have as a rule furnished somewhat too liberal +answers. So far as the men were concerned, there is no +possible doubt about their materialistic tastes; we have, in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>a by no means small number of records and anecdotes, not +to speak of legends, excellent evidence of their partiality for +lifelike representations; they demanded them, insisted on +having them. To satisfy them, art set itself to picture the +unclothed; it is plain that the platonist women had no +option but to rise in revolt. But there exist some Venuses, +sculptured or painted, to which the artist undoubtedly +intended to give the spicy attractiveness of portraits. The +figures show realistic touches, sometimes positive deformities; +there are hump-backed Venuses, emaciated Venuses, +Venuses of mountainous bulk. They invariably wear +beautiful jewellery, a necklace, for example, and have their +little dog beside them. A characteristic detail is that their +hair has been the object of the most sedulous painstaking; +it is a masterly scaffolding of crimped and waved and curled +locks, interspersed with jewels in such a way as to make +quite clear that this is no shy woodland nymph, but a +woman of fashion, a woman of wealth, and even, as far as +that can be shown, of birth and breeding. This class of +figure is admirably represented on certain of Titian’s +canvases, and it is an almost immemorial tradition to take +them as the painter seems to intend, namely, as portraits of +distinguished women.</p> + +<p>Are we to believe that the religion of beauty, in purifying +all things, led women to adopt so extreme a custom? We +do not believe it.</p> + +<p>That would have been the total failure of all their tactics, +and on this point Plato was beaten out and out. Even +in that coterie at Urbino where to cultivate the purest +platonism was the delightful occupation of life, there was +a general smile when one of the company, smiling discreetly +himself, reminded them of the Master’s recommendation +that young girls should practise gymnastics in a +costume of primitive simplicity. Ladies were not at all enamoured +of a troglodytic beauty, and anyone who fancied +that the contemplation of Michelangelo’s or Signorelli’s, +works would turn their heads would have been greatly +mistaken. Julian de’ Medici, on being bantered by his +friends about the way he kept his fair lady out of sight, +humorously replies: “Madam, if I thought her beautiful I +would show her without her finery, as Paris insisted on +seeing the Three Goddesses; but in that case she would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>need to be attired by those divinities themselves; and +since ’tis thought she is pretty, I prefer to take care of +her.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_176" href="#Footnote_176" class="fnanchor">[176]</a></p> + +<p>Platonist women felt extreme repugnance for anything +resembling publicity or vulgarisation—anything likely to +come under the common gaze. One day, at a ball, a young +girl seemed a prey to a gloomy pre-occupation from which +nothing could rouse her, and her friends wore themselves out +in vainly conjecturing the reason. At last they got the key +to the mystery: “I was pondering,” she said, “a notion +which haunts and worries me, and I cannot rid my heart of +it. All our bodies have to rise at Judgment Day, and stand +naked before the judgment seat of God, and I cannot bear +the distress I feel at the thought that I too must appear +stark naked.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_177" href="#Footnote_177" class="fnanchor">[177]</a></p> + +<p>It cannot be denied, of course, that there exists a certain +number of Olympian portraits. But these have nothing to +do with platonism, and further, many of them were executed +without assistance from the model.</p> + +<p>When a fashionable woman was having her portrait +painted, she did not pretend to patience, and would not sit. +Proof enough, surely! The artist had to dash off a hurried +sketch with the speed of a present-day photographer; the +portrait was afterwards worked up from this sketch in the +studio, and a succession of replicas was made from it. It is +obvious that, getting possession of fashionable ladies’ heads +in this way, the artists had every opportunity of making an +ill use of them, and supplying them with a costume not +bargained for.</p> + +<p>Nowadays the fun would strike us as in rather doubtful +taste; but women were in those days so good-natured and +quick-witted that they were the very first to laugh at a +sorry jest of this kind, especially if their personal rank +placed them above suspicion, and still more if the portrait +was pretty and flattering.</p> + +<p>The poet Michel d’Amboise relates how he gallantly +offered the lady he idolised a portrait of herself as Venus. +The fair damsel looked at the object with not a little +pleasure; but as it was necessary for the sake of principle +to reprimand the painter, she asked him where he had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>managed to see her in this unusual guise. He replied, like +a genuine courtier:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">J’ay ta façon sceue par celuy</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui est à toy trop plus qu’il n’est à luy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_178" href="#Footnote_178" class="fnanchor">[178]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">“Indeed!” she cried. “But he has never seen me either.”</p> + +<p>We owe to Ronsard, to whom it was an every-day affair +to be in love, a description of the lover’s method. He goes +to Janet Clouet,⁠<a id="FNanchor_179" href="#Footnote_179" class="fnanchor">[179]</a> and requests a portrait of his lady-love +with every possible charm. Actually he has seen no more +of her than the graceful oval of her face and her lithe swan-neck, +but that does not prevent his describing the rest of +her, and bespeaking for the portrait, with the fullest confidence, +the most ravishing details. Clouet sets to work +there and then on a very charming portrait, which will +perhaps not be a very striking likeness after all.</p> + +<p>In such a case (from a sentiment that sufficiently explains +itself), when the desire was to do homage in some way to +the presumptive beauty of some particular lady, the most +elementary idea of discretion prompted the artist to idealise +her features a little, with the result that, the features being +all there is to guide us, we may say that pictures of this kind +are not, strictly speaking, portraits; they are ideas, <i>arrière-pensées</i>, +illusions more or less transparent. If tradition +could be trusted, how many portraits should we have, for +instance, of Diana of Poitiers? That noble lady herself +commissioned a fair number of Dianas, which may pass for +symbols, for the glorification of her name and work. But, +without speaking of likenesses that are more than doubtful, +among all those which M. Guiffrey has so ably catalogued, +even those signed by the most illustrious names, we do not +find one that is really a likeness. This defect might be pardoned +in the enamels, even those signed by Leonard Limosin,⁠<a id="FNanchor_180" href="#Footnote_180" class="fnanchor">[180]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>but what excuse can be made for Jean Goujon?⁠<a id="FNanchor_181" href="#Footnote_181" class="fnanchor">[181]</a> Look +for instance at the superb Diana in the Louvre: done +for Anet, it triumphantly challenged all heaven to surpass +this human beauty, synthetised in one vigorous woman, +one true divinity, monumental, imposing, of commanding +port between her deer and her hounds, in no wise voluptuous—a +remote cousin of Michelangelo’s Eve, though degraded +to rule over forests and dogs and men. Clearly it was the +châtelaine’s own wish to glorify her creed, her ideal, her +patroness; Jean Goujon has deified her, sung her praises, +interpreted her; and yet we have no difficulty in recognising, +from certain realistic touches, how careful he is to +remind us that he was celebrating a terrestrial divinity. +Is this a portrait? No. It is enough to compare this +statue with the authentic likeness of Diana of Poitiers on +medallions. If Jean Goujon has suggested anything of the +duchess’s beauty in the head, it is with a restraint well +calculated to baffle us.</p> + +<p>Besides the portraits on canvas or in marble there were +also others, pen portraits, which were all the rage; and +indeed in after years we find painters complaining of the +competition thus set up against them by writers. Though +portraits of this kind were necessarily less agitating, people +amused themselves by seeking physical details in them; it +was a feast for fine wits to “blazon,” as they said, this or +that part of the body, and it may be that certain <i>blasons</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_182" href="#Footnote_182" class="fnanchor">[182]</a> +were less anonymous than they seem. This special art has +given us one celebrated portrait which has not ceased to +pique the curiosity and stimulate the sagacity of critics. The +philosopher Nifo, a welcome guest in the house of the young +Jeanne of Aragon, where he justified his presence by platonically +courting one of the ladies-in-waiting, wished to offer +the princess, with the orthodox dedication, a concise treatise +on the Beautiful, and, to give his folio a certain piquancy, +he inserted in it a portrait, complete, circumstantial, ruthless, +a study in pathology and anatomy, of all the endowments +visible and invisible of the young lady to whom the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>book was dedicated. In accepting the dedication, the +princess took upon her shoulders the responsibility for the +work. How could she approve of this dedication?—a +remarkable problem which commentators have endeavoured +to solve in every way but the right one. To us, at any +rate, the explanation is very simple.</p> + +<p>All the critics have set out with the idea that Nifo was +rashly indiscreet—a position difficult enough to defend, +since a liberty officially sanctioned is one no longer, and, if +fault it was, there is no trace of absolution. Now what was +this alleged impudent fellow? A fortunate and braggart +lover, say some. Can we conceive this old simpleton, forsooth, +hideous, gouty, a mountain of flesh, a trifle ridiculous—who +was overjoyed at courting a waiting-maid +(who laughed in her sleeve at him)—boasting thus publicly +of a conquest over the impeccable virtue of a young girl of +eighteen, the pearl of Italy! That would have been no +occasion for self-glorification: if the conquest had been +really his, the book would have appeared without dedication.</p> + +<p>Bayle has offered another explanation, still more amusing: +he has simply translated by “médecin” Nifo’s honorary +appellation of “Medici,” and founding on this little slip of +his, he takes occasion to thunder against physicians who +abuse the confidence of their fair clients. Even so, there +would still have been no liberty! Besides, Nifo was not a +physician, and even if he had been, he would not have found +himself much further on; for ladies, as we have shown, +had no belief in the neuter sex of the experts who tended +them, and were wonderfully ready to regard them as +veterinary surgeons rather than philosophers. They always +drew a distinction between the nude and the unclothed! +Nifo simply ventured on the same pleasantry as Michel +d’Amboise and Ronsard and all the second-rate idealists, +ready to pay intellectual adoration to a woman, and yet +susceptible to her physical charms—if only like a fish on a +baited hook. He ascribes to his platonic princess, but in an +aesthetic and abstract sense, a beauty well calculated to +increase the number of her courtiers and shed lustre upon +her philosophical activity; he acts like a good lieutenant +and henchman, rendering her a philosophical service of +which she cannot but show herself sensible. Those who +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span>have the patience to read Nifo will find later in his book an +explicit corrective, the strict necessity of which, however, is +by no means obvious. In another chapter, to remove all +misapprehension, he enlarges with fervour on the moral +virtues of Jeanne of Aragon, putting in the forefront the +two which seem to him the most salient—the beauty which +attracts, enflames, enraptures, elevates men; the modesty +which serves her as breastplate and armour: “In these two +points,” he cries, “you eclipse all other women!” Poor +Nifo! Even of Phausina Rhea, the waiting-maid to whom +he declared his love without any beating about the bush, +he knew nothing but her chignon! And it was just this +perfect, if a little vexatious, security that gave such a zest +to his pleasantry about the princess.</p> + +<p>In the seventeenth century also, a century of masculine +predominance, people fancied they were deifying men, and +especially princes, by representing them nude. La Bruyère +was compelled to laugh when at a street corner he contemplated +the head of the state, the grave Louis XIV., posed as +a stone Apollo. The idea may be as ridiculous as you +please, but who would ever dream of being disturbed at the +sight? Did La Bruyère himself imagine for a single +moment that Louis XIV. had taken the trouble to leave +an authentic torso to posterity?</p> + +<p>Margaret of France, however, who was all soul, had a +singular idea in regard to this subject. She was patently +shocked at the mere thought that anyone could say he had +admired some Italian princess or duchess lying in the most +voluptuous simplicity in the midst of a beautiful landscape, +set off by drapery that only half covers her. To this +fascinating, but as she thought degrading, spectacle she +resolved to oppose another—the spectacle of the soul. The +project occurred to her, it is true, at an age when all her +charms but those of the soul were dead; she had herself +painted, therefore, like the others, before a landscape on +which the sun is rising (or setting), and in front of a curtain; +but instead of lying at length, she stands erect. She is clothed +in her shift, transparent enough indeed, but carefully fastened +about the neck, and, to give greater point to the interpretation, +she is admiring herself in a little hand-glass, in allusion +no doubt to her book <i>The Mirror of the Soul</i>. She wears +neither necklace nor jewels; a few ordinary trinkets negligently +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>placed on her toilet-table alone indicate her quality. +Her whole body in its tender austerity is a revelation of her +soul. And the moral effect of this representation appeared +so lofty that this little portrait was treasured in the +princess’s family as her true likeness, the portrait at once +authentic and piously esoteric.⁠<a id="FNanchor_183" href="#Footnote_183" class="fnanchor">[183]</a> Margaret thus drew from +art its ethical teaching, and gave a lesson to ladies who rely +too much on mere beauty of form.</p> + +<p>Such is, we believe, the key to the enigma. To win their +triumph platonist women do not fling away their weapons, +as someone has wittily said; they lay them by.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, in the second half of the century, when +platonism had disappeared along with feminism, the scruples +of the women underwent considerable modification. A +compromise was effected; the body was, so to speak, cut in +two. The lower part remained inferior, but the upper, the +bust namely, was regarded as superior and of a beauty that +might fitly be exhibited. At the end of the century we +have portraits of great ladies conforming to this new fashion. +Perhaps also, out of a spirit of mischief, people amused +themselves by distributing under this form portraits of +ladies who enjoyed almost a public reputation for beauty, +such as Gabrielle d’Estrées and her sister. The more +masculine society becomes, the more do women become +fleshly. And we should only have to point out another +instance of this phenomenon if we were not convinced that +the fashion of which we speak sprang up in an atmosphere +of semi-platonism. Diana of Poitiers, apparently, was +delighted to exhibit her bust, and indeed it is this peculiarity +which led M. Vitet to believe that he recognised her in a +family portrait of Henri II., at present in England, which +includes all the royal family, namely, Henri II., Catherine, +his official wife, Diana, spouse of his heart, and his children. +We have not had the opportunity of seeing this portrait, and +consequently cannot verify M. Vitet’s conjecture. But we +think we have sufficiently proved that, even from the +purely aesthetic standpoint, the platonist ladies did not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span>depart from the practical principles of conduct they deemed +the best and most profitable; the solitary example of Diana +of Poitiers, who cannot be cited as a thorough platonist, +does not strike us as sufficient to prove the contrary.</p> + +<p>It is true that sometimes the ladies had to yield to the +exigencies of their time, and tolerate, on the part of the +men about them, customs and a style of talk in which they +could take no pleasure. They had to do so or risk being +neglected and causing often worse evils.</p> + +<p>The intimacies of family life sanctioned in those days +truly astonishing liberties. Thus, on the morning of +Innocents’ Day in December, a man would consider himself +entitled to surprise in her bed a lady of the family, or a +woman of the household (generally a young woman), and +to administer a slap with the open hand, which was called +“giving the innocents.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_184" href="#Footnote_184" class="fnanchor">[184]</a></p> + +<p>In one of the stories of the <i>Heptameron</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_185" href="#Footnote_185" class="fnanchor">[185]</a> a husband +gravely announces to his wife “that he means to go at +daybreak and give the innocents to her waiting-maid, to +teach her not to be so lazy,” and the good lady is blissfully +unsuspicious.</p> + +<p>In vain did the women most liable to such treatment +have recourse to all sorts of subterfuges—sleeping elsewhere +that night, or rising at dawn; escape was almost impossible. +Margaret of France knew all about it; for all her demureness, +Clément Marot wrote a scrap of verse expressly to +threaten “to give her the innocents” and “see that comely +body.” Her nephew Charles of Orleans made merry at her +expense because, “having risen too late” on Innocents’ Day, +he impudently made up for it next day with his poor aunt +and another lady: “I won’t tell you just now,” he wrote, +“all that I saw.” His letter tells a good deal as it is. It is +not surprising that a princess habituated to such buffooneries +strove at least to raise their level a little.</p> + +<p>As there was no help for it but to exercise their charm +on man the brute by such proceedings, the women displayed +neither pedantry nor affectation. Besides, if the +sensualists thought only of the body, women thought only +of the soul; and here, under a new form, we again trace the +idea that in giving heart and mind and soul to the man of +her choice a woman had really given him all that was +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>dearest, most precious to her, all that constituted her +personality, and that the rest had only a secondary importance. +She had lent her material person to a husband who +had not troubled himself about fathoming her soul: why +then should she think of refusing favours of no consequence +to the man who had really gathered the early blossom of +that soul? Just as the most trifling familiarity disgusted +her when it sprang from a vulgar material motive or was +forced, so the greatest seemed to her legitimate and even +pleasant if it was spontaneous, if it consecrated a genuine +affection. The lady who, while taking her bath, would +have thought it more seemly to dismiss her maid, did not +fear to receive there in all honour a visit from a gentleman.</p> + +<p>Why should distinguished ladies have deprived themselves, +at the levee they held on rising and retiring, of the +pleasure of an intimate bedside conversation with their +lover? In their eyes it had exquisite advantages: first, the +very intimacy of the conversation; then the intellectual +and emotional relish it imparted to the purely physical +operations of the toilet; finally, for the favoured visitor, +there was the tiny reward of platonic love, the little personal +token, the special bond which no one else had. Margaret +of France tells us explicitly that she could not have insulted +a man of position and a friend of the king, like Bonnivet, +by excluding him from her “dressing and undressing”; that, +further, there was no harm in Bonnivet’s “taking this +opportunity to increase his affection,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_186" href="#Footnote_186" class="fnanchor">[186]</a> seeing that platonic +love consists precisely in loving up to the very verge of the +forbidden.</p> + +<p>In short, women genuinely platonic used their physical +beauty as a first means of developing their charm. In this +respect they were at odds with the mystics, who regarded +the body as a negligible quantity and an encumbrance; but +they were still more sharply divided from the sensualists. +Their idea was to deify the body, enshrine it, so to speak, +and glorify it as the vesture of the soul, the servant of the +heart. Platonists of a lofty flight pushed this idea as far as +possible: Michelangelo so closely identified soul and body +as not even to admit that the face could have wrinkles +when the soul had none; so great was his enthusiasm for +the beauty and youthfulness of Vittoria Colonna’s soul, that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>he had that strange artist fancy never to perceive a line on +her face. He himself, when a scarred and battered +octogenarian, never felt withered; to his last day he never +ceased to ascend with shining countenance the altar of the +Beautiful, like those priests who bow hoary heads before +the altar of the Eternal Beauty, the Eternal Sacrifice, as +they invoke “the God who rejoiced their youth.” He has +sometimes been twitted with having represented the Virgin +as a woman of thirty, even after the death of Christ; he did +so, it is true, and to him nothing appeared more natural. +To him such a woman was always thirty. On this point +Anne of France did not quite agree with him; it was one of +her favourite maxims that a woman had much better accept +the inevitable with a stout heart; conceal nothing, dress to +suit her age, and persuade herself that wisdom is worth as +much as beauty. But Margaret of France could not bring +herself to believe that a few marks of physical deterioration +dim the radiance of a woman’s moral beauty or impair her +charm. That such is not the case was the assured conviction +of these noble princesses. Unhappily it was not easy +to persuade men so. La Rochefoucauld retorts: “There +are few women whose worth survives their beauty.” To +men a woman no longer exists if she can say: “When I +was younger”; every possible defect is then laid to her +charge; she is found to be ugly, jealous, washed out, +viperous. Wisdom may be worth as much as beauty, but +what can she do with her wisdom? In Italy a woman was +reckoned to have reached the wisdom stage at thirty, and +Anne of France only consented as a great favour to allow +her another ten years.</p> + +<p>Apart from any sort of notion of coquetry, it was therefore +of the greatest importance to a woman, from a mere sentiment +of her duty and her mission, never to be forty; the +theory of charm would not have been complete without the +addition of the science of never growing old.</p> + +<p>This accessory science was, so to speak, a traced copy of +that of love; it also had its two schools: the school of truth +and candour, the “honest skill” which consists in keeping old +age at bay; and the school of cleverness and subtlety, which +seeks to recover the lost youth, to employ a little trickery, +to repair time’s ravages—“a perpetual optical illusion,” as +Erasmus calls it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span></p> + +<p>The first demanded much forethought and prudence. +From the earliest years of wedlock, with no immediate +cause for alarm, it was an unremitting mortal struggle +against a foe as yet imaginary. The wife found her weapons +in solemn tomes and in the prescriptions she herself had +collected. A firm opposition to her husband formed part of +her scheme. As to special modes of treatment, they comprised +aromatic baths, massage, and so forth, means which +were very restrictive and mundane and tiresome, but +wonderfully effective.</p> + +<p>A lady of that period could write in all pride and truthfulness, +“Women remain almost always young.” There +were some who, when close upon seventy, still merited the +good opinion of connoisseurs.</p> + +<p>Others allowed themselves to be lulled asleep in the joy +of youth, and only awoke under the stroke of some sharp +warning; but then they sprang erect to their full height +like a wounded tiger, and there was no act of unquenchable +courage they did not accomplish. They had their teeth +drawn, their skin scraped till it bled, they reduced their +colour by dint of gulping down sand or cinders. They were +heroines of unselfishness!</p> + +<p>But if, alas! decay proved in the end irresistible, and they +had to resort to sham, how disastrous was the result! +Around a made-up face ill-natured folk saw nothing but +shams—sham tapestry, sham bronzes, sham conversation; +art and platonism alike were banished:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ostez luy le fard et le vice,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vous luy ostez l’âme et le corps.⁠<a id="FNanchor_187" href="#Footnote_187" class="fnanchor">[187]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Ronsard.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The dressing-room became like a universal factory of +pinchbeck. On the door might have been written the +dictum, in general so utterly false, of Cennino Cennini:⁠<a id="FNanchor_188" href="#Footnote_188" class="fnanchor">[188]</a> +“Art consists in creating, or at least in persuading men that +that which is not, is.” Let us drop the subject.</p> + +<p>It is evident, on the contrary, that the honest art of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>dressing played an important part in practical platonism, so +long as it was not carried too far.</p> + +<p>Since women were messengers of joy to the world, it +followed that this mission must be declared by outward +signs. What more natural than to give a princess a magnificent +trousseau! It was not a luxury, it was the implement +of her profession. Anne of France was sure that simplicity +had been formerly pushed too far: everyone, she said, ought +to maintain his rank and perform his duty in it; the world +has a right to what belongs to it, that is, to everything +save a woman’s heart: to neglect to study appearances, to +cultivate false simplicity, is to commit an “unseemly and +most dishonest” act. To dress must be considered a duty.</p> + +<p>A simple little “mirror of the soul,” like that of Margaret +of France, was not sufficient for an apostle of beauty. +Mirrors of every kind and style, hollow or pyramidal like +factory chimneys, circular, angular, in columns or spirals, +rightly absorbed her attention every morning and gave her +a philosophical and serious conception of her person. It +is not at all to be wondered at that the lady whose +appearance was to thrill the world should begin by setting all +this machinery in motion.</p> + +<p>The care of the complexion, and especially of the hands, +naturally took some time to begin with, not to speak of +hygienic attentions. A delicate little touch with the brush +on the face is quickly given, but it demands wonderful skill: +it is nothing, and it is all.</p> + +<p>But the hair required an exemplary patience. Remember +what we have said about the infallible charm of light hair. +At Venice Veronese never met a brunette! When a +brunette was mentioned everybody understood that she was +a woman who had given up dyeing and all pretensions to +beauty! That is why the Roman ladies, whom Tertullian +reproached with flaunting “barbarous colours,” and why our +modern artists in hair-dressing, have never discovered any +more beautifully effective recipes for golden tresses than +those furnished by Marinello⁠<a id="FNanchor_189" href="#Footnote_189" class="fnanchor">[189]</a> or Cennini to many a convinced +devotee of platonism. The Venetian blonde, with her +beautiful, glossy, golden-brown locks, enjoys even to-day a +renown so much the more legitimate in that Nature has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>never succeeded in imitating her.—When the hair had +received its golden hue, it was spread at length in the +sunlight to dry, and then began the real operation of the +day—the grand masterly operation of hair-dressing.</p> + +<p>In France, singular customs in regard to this matter had +long prevailed. A lady would run a comb through her +hair, probably quite perfunctorily, slip on a hood, which she +would keep on the whole day, and trip off to Mass. This +was still common as late as Anne of Brittany’s time: that +good queen herself was faithful to the hood to her dying +day.</p> + +<p>By Heaven’s favour, Mary of England brought Louis XII. +beautiful fair locks, quite genuine too, and the fashion of +wearing hats. Then, despite the invectives of a few insignificant +people like the poet Coquillart, the feminine +head-dress attained altitudes more and more complicated: +crimpings came in, and curling irons, paddings of false hair, +huge coils stuck with jewels in the Italian fashion. The +quest of intellectual charm displayed itself in some ladies +by an artificial broadening of the brow; to become philosophic, +it sufficed slightly to shave off the hair in front and +pile it up high behind. The hair-dressers, who had now +become men of substance and repute, lengthened their showcases, +and invented those charming wooden heads which we +have not ceased to admire.</p> + +<p>That the hair-dressing operation lasted three hours need +not surprise us; but how mortally tedious these hours +would have appeared without the help of conversation! +The fair patient settled herself accordingly, garbed in a +chemisette of fine linen, cut pretty low at the neck and in +no way impeding her movements; and that was the hour +when she showed her heart to her friends.</p> + +<p>She had then only to dress herself, that is, to put on a +wide-sleeved cloak of damask, with a very low, square-shaped +opening in which the waiting-women slipped a +plastron, usually red; this they laced with care so as to fit +the figure exactly; if necessary they inserted an artificial +bust, and remorselessly tightened the waist.</p> + +<p>In the great old-world houses, the last of these evolutions +was superintended by the master of the robes in person. +Saluting with a low bow, he announced the costume for the +day. The serving maids, aided by the squires, busied +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>themselves about the lady, and packed her into a doughty +accoutrement of crimson and cloth of gold, a sort of clumsy +casing, a veritable strait-jacket, treacherously supported +since the close of the fifteenth century by busks or whale-bones, +the furtive origin of the corset. Around her neck was +thrown a necklace of gold, rubies, emeralds or diamonds, +and on her head was set a sort of tiara.</p> + +<p>Not one of these details is unimportant, since the whole +performance had a lofty aim. And this is just the opportunity +we have been waiting for to judge the women; or +rather, their dress passes judgment upon them. Will they, +we ask, have the courage to make their clothing expressive +of their own individuality, to render their garments in some +sort living and personal, or will they, with mere vulgar +coquetry, copy and wear the costume that may be seen +trailing in any street? The courage to indulge an individual +taste in dress seemed a thing of no consequence; it +is, really, a great and a rare virtue; it stamps a woman at +once, shows if she has a soul above her tailor, if she has +self-knowledge, if she reflects, if she has a feeling for art, if +she is determined to show the world her own intelligence, +her own beauty. Hands all round for liberty and truth! +Anne of France and many others rebelled against the craze +for a slim figure, stifling in summer, freezing in winter, +regardless of the claims of physical health, and even seeking +to conceal the signs of motherhood. How they wished that +aestheticism would lead them back to the Greek art, that +is to say, to wide flowing garments, dignified, comfortable, +healthy, elegant! Or, as Louise Labé⁠<a id="FNanchor_190" href="#Footnote_190" class="fnanchor">[190]</a> poetically besought, +that women, instead of fastening themselves in a strait-jacket, +would condescend to resemble a leaf-cone, which +opens spontaneously to bear its fruit! But no; the only +approach they made to Greek art was that they sought to +indicate the lines of the figure through close-fitting casings, +but the casings were whalebone and artificial. Health, even +life itself, was of no account; to graces which, however imperfect, +had all the attractions of naturalness they preferred +a stuffed and padded ideal. For alas! with the majority +of women, a dialogue of Plato could not hold a candle to a +conversation with a dressmaker. Fashion was omnipotent; +under Louis XII. there was nothing but high-starched neck-ruffs; +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>under Francis I. nothing but low-necked dresses cut +square in front, and boldly gored to a point behind.</p> + +<p>The philosophic spirit, untrammelled by physical barriers, +manifested itself in the internationalisation of fashions.</p> + +<p>It was known throughout western Europe that a fashion +adopted by Isabella of Mantua was one to be followed, and +that the ladies of Paris were adepts in matching bright +colours, and ridiculously concealed their faces under thick +veils. It was the acme of good style to dress one day like +a Frenchwoman, the next like a German, Italian or Greek.</p> + +<p>The platonists somewhat resented this vulgar application +of their ideas; that was not their conception of cosmopolitanism. +To weld the minds of men, to introduce into men’s +hearts far and wide the truly refining leaven of affection, +fraternal concord and tenderness, by means of the common +love of the beautiful—that they could applaud. But masquerades +like these—what a mockery! In this matter, +however, their authority was ineffectual; a stronger was +required. Francis I. knit his brows when Spanish mantillas +made their appearance at his court; he had his own reasons +for not being fond of them. He said that he believed himself +among a rout of devils. This one saying accomplished +what no arguments would ever have succeeded in doing: +the Spanish frippery was packed away in the wardrobes +until the political sky changed.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the intellectual preoccupation made its +way, and people were willing to pay regard, up to a +certain point, to Plato’s principle that the soul rather than +the body is to be clothed: in other words they proclaimed +a correlation between the colour of the petticoats and the +state of the soul. Everybody knew that there are physical +harmonies which hold absolutely; that sober tints suit the +pale, dull colours people of bilious complexion, and bright +tones faces inclined to ruddiness. But people rarely thought—they +did not trouble to think—that there might be for +souls a similar harmony, much loftier, of much greater +importance, and much more necessary to observe; for the +complexion may be improved by a touch of the paint-brush, +while the soul must be kept as it is. M. Jules Lemaître, +whose genius is thoroughly French and whose opinion it is +always a pleasure to quote in matters of good sense, has in +our own time this quaint idea: “Our fathers, who wore +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>lace and feathers, coats red, blue, dove-coloured, apple-green, +and soft-hued lilac, could not but feel more disposed to joy, +seeing each other blooming like flower-beds. If fashion +should some day make us walk the streets in purple silks, +we should forthwith be rescued from doubt and despair.”</p> + +<p>That is philosophically true. It must be remembered that +we cannot isolate ourselves; we are dependent in a high +degree on the world around us. The inward joy we seek to +create needs an external joy for its support; the sun, the +blue sky, the luxuriance of flowers, the clearness of the air, +the boundless gaiety and infinite cordiality of Nature quicken +and penetrate us; a grey sky and a dull horizon will never +kindle glowing reflections in our soul.</p> + +<p>It is needful and right that men, and above all women, +should display an infectious joy and vitality also, that we +should not have to puzzle out the real person under the +tasteless guise of a vulgar fashion-plate, cut from a price +list and flung over the shoulders. Everyone should make +his dress a palpable expression of his life and joy, like the +flowers and birds and fruits. The Catholic religion intuitively +seized on this profound truth; it retained and +developed, with the pageantry of its ceremonies, the gold-embroidered +copes flashing with sombre brilliance, and all +this red and white and blue the purpose of which is to make +us forget that these celebrants singing as they move are +men, and to represent them to us as the very flower of our +ideas, as the essence of our tenderest prayers and affections. +Of this admirable demand for the embellishment of life we +have preserved only one melancholy symbol, mourning. +Men, with their customary suits of solemn black, may be +said to carry everywhere with them the idea of disenchantment, +of the awful paltriness and the perpetual mournfulness +of the soul: there is nothing of a man about them; they go +about the streets like the scattered parts of one huge machine.</p> + +<p>And this self-abnegation has nothing to do with material +questions of comfort or economy; there is no woman so poor +that she cannot, if she wishes, rise above her wretchedness +by means of these external symbols. Such at least was the +opinion of the sixteenth-century women. To them every +colour spoke of the soul and to the soul; it was the ensign +of one’s spiritual fatherland, or, to use a modern metaphor, a +railway signal-light; white, the line is clear! it signifies +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>a heart free as air, a soul unappropriated or at any rate +overflowing with youthfulness; green, it is springtime with +the soul, in the full vigour of sweet acknowledged hopes; +red, an utter despair! The cloth of gold, the golden jewels +then so much in vogue, represented the rich glow of sunlight, +the spacious joy of life! Whoever wished might approach +and find warmth and gladness. Celestial blue meant to the +Italians soft ethereal happiness; to the French, a tender and +fortunate love. Black was regarded as melancholy: yet this +colour, incapable of fading, symbolised constancy, firmness, +and had its friends in consequence. Why restrict it to mourning, +as though our feelings for our dead are alone eternal? +Margaret, who loved and encouraged the use of black, +protests:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le noir, souvent, se porte pour plaisir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et plus souvent que pour peine et tourment.⁠<a id="FNanchor_191" href="#Footnote_191" class="fnanchor">[191]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">However, people generally preferred not to take their +pleasure in black. Rabelais allowed in the Abbey of +Thelema none but brilliant costumes: he wished to have +one colour a day, and that the days should be told off as +white, pink, yellow, red, green—never black.</p> + +<p>Thus the sartorial art, in spite of little encouragement, +itself came at last to exhale a perfume of life and the ideal. +Unhappily it had a cruel, powerful foe, which was incessantly +to check its aspirations and keep it in perpetual bondage to +materialism. This foe was the vulgar passion for sumptuous +display, the terrible taste that substituted a mere ostentation +of wealth for a garb expressive of art and sentiment.</p> + +<p>The French never recovered from that fever.</p> + +<p>When Charles VIII. found himself face to face with the +court of Ludovico Il Moro,⁠<a id="FNanchor_192" href="#Footnote_192" class="fnanchor">[192]</a> sinking under the weight of +golden shoulder-knots and jewellery, a thrill shot through +the French army.</p> + +<p>From that time it was vain for the preachers to join +hands with the philosophers and demonstrate the infinite +vulgarity of luxuriousness and its deplorable moral effects; it +was vain for the legislators to enact laws; the die was cast.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span></p> + +<p>People were dazzled, fascinated by wealth: they knew +not nor wished to know what wretchedness it cloaked, how +many women, and some of the noblest of them, ruined themselves +in their vanity, how many others lived by expedients +that would not bear the light.⁠<a id="FNanchor_193" href="#Footnote_193" class="fnanchor">[193]</a></p> + +<p>Assuredly, magnificence had a glory of its own: there +was no lack of gazetteers to applaud to the echo the marvels +seen on great occasions: “Signorina Bulcano, in white cloth +with gold trimmings and a golden girdle; her Excellency +the Countess Maddaloni in red velvet; her Excellency the +Countess du Rugo, in red cloth with large gold necklace.” +There is this to be said, indeed, that these chroniclers, +superior in this respect to some of ours, were destined to +come down to posterity.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, this was inevitably the death of platonism, +the ruin of all it loved and all it desired. A fine thing +to characterise a lady by the cloth or velvet with which +she garbed her bust or limbs! In this profound decadence +of taste people came to see some good in the general worship +of close-fitting garments, for, now that women were nothing +but dolls, it was certainly better that they should appear +jointed. And what seriousness could be expected of, what +noble idea or worthy aim could be suggested to, a woman +who was a slave to her gloves, her hats, her jewels, who +spent part of her day in close confabulation with her dressmaker +or jeweller?</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Cest anneau est du temps passé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ce ruby est mal enchassé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ce saintureau n’est pas fort gent.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ma troussoire n’est que d’argent,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">J’en veuil une batue en or....⁠<a id="FNanchor_194" href="#Footnote_194" class="fnanchor">[194]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">and so on indefinitely: that was how she talked; she was +no longer her own, she was a slave. Satan in the pit of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>hell was bewailing, it seems, the fact that he no longer +saw rustling about, as formerly, dresses “open down to +the waist”; and he cursed platonism! He might make +himself easy, there were still most melting sights for him! +And his colleague Lucifer sets himself to cheer him, showing +him the league of vanity mounting to the assault of the +Beautiful, the almost invincible might of money, combated +and proscribed above, triumphing and swarming on all sides +under the most pitiful forms of jealousy and coquetry: among +good housewives, who have neither grasped nor retained +anything of the new ideas but an instinct for rigging +themselves out to play the countess or the duchess—among +kitchen wenches who deck themselves in fallals and furbelows +in apish imitation of their mistresses.</p> + +<p>Unhappily, the king went over to the side of vanity; +official France allied itself with the most dangerous adversaries +of Roman philosophism and intellectual splendour: +with the Milanese, whose tinsel and fripperies amused all +Italy; and the Venetians, a people of large expense. The +struggle was thus fought out between sensuous gratification +and aestheticism. It did not alarm the platonists: they +were prepared for it; as Castiglione says: “There are fools +everywhere.”</p> + +<p>But this was of all battles the most arduous, because the +dividing line between coquetry and a woman’s duty to be +pleasant was not always very clearly marked. A few +exceptional persons had the gift of admirably combining +the two tendencies; these as a rule were Italian women. +At a celebrated ball given by the court of France in 1518, +two ladies, Italian both, were queens—queens of beauty and +of charm; the one, Clara Visconti Pusterla, devoted to +white, made a brilliant figure with her silver embroideries +and ropes of pearls; the other, a sister of Count Borromeo of +Milan, was a dazzling apparition in cloth of gold and +diamonds. Yet it was felt how secondary and precarious +were successes of this external kind, and how wrong it +would be for women to regard them as the real basis of +their influence. They were only one means.</p> + +<p>The fashion in regard to dwelling-house and furniture +followed almost the same rules as that of costume; for in a +well-ordered house everything harmonised with the people +inhabiting it. The house is, so to speak, a magnificent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>garment, the garment defending our existence against the +weather, the night, the intrusions of external life. Here, +too, symmetry of arrangement and studied designs are of +little moment: the house should exercise a charm, and there +are ugly houses which are infinitely pleasing.</p> + +<p>A house is pleasing when its appearance is original and +homogeneous; when its inhabitant has lovingly put into it +something of his own individuality, when it is not merely +a classical and regular arrangement of stones erected on +some vacant spot, or a gimcrack toy with pretentious and +purposeless decorations; it pleases if serious thought has +gone to the arrangement of its parts, if it has projections, +angles, recesses judiciously contrived, and making it, so to +speak, a living, breathing thing. This is the first rule: a +masculine purposefulness.</p> + +<p>The second and the feminine rule is that the house should +present a great aspect of pleasantness, an appearance of +amiability. It is of vast importance that it should not +clash with the landscape; it should fuse with it, espouse in +some sort circumambient nature, so as to radiate an influence +far beyond its actual site. This harmony results as a rule +from mutual accommodations; a gloomy house, for instance, +will not be planted in a smiling landscape; in a wooded or +rugged but spacious locality a man will set an extensive +abode, without fantastic decorations, a house which +dominates outbuildings and approaches; no gildings, no +polychrome effects will be thrown up against a leaden sky: +a church will not be constructed in the style of a hammam, +nor a stock-exchange in the form of a Greek temple. The +house, whatever it be, must smile, with a frank and loyal +smile, speaking through its façade and its approaches to the +good folk who pass, and beaming on them a look of +friendliness.</p> + +<p>In the interior, to furnish it, that is to say, to render it +habitable, all smiles and happy memories,—this again is to +enlarge oneself, to complete oneself: and it is here that +woman’s art is absolutely indispensable. A human dwelling +in the nature of the case can make no claim to a proud +immortality. Every passing season attacks and tends to +destroy it; whilst the objects of nature renew themselves +unceasingly by the automatic movement of their latent +vitality, it is needful for us at every moment more or less +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>to reconstruct our shelter, under pain of seeing it crumble +and fall before our eyes. It is like one of the fruits of our +life. Thus, while it should be as solid as possible, while +reminding us of the persons with whom it has successively +lived, it must show itself supple and give expression to our +present life, if only by fleeting suggestions, corresponding +to the various impressions of our existence, and dying when +we die.</p> + +<p>It was in this direction that the fine taste of prelates and +ladies gave itself free and glorious scope. A lover of the +beautiful is so keenly conscious that everything about him +ought to be the manifestation of some flash of thought! A +chair, a couch, a piece of tapestry, all must speak to us and +exhort us to live the life of the heart, without allowing +ourselves to be crushed or numbed. At Rome, the home +of this dominant spirit, and even at Naples, the rays of its +influence extended almost inimitably; and it so well +attained its object that a people wonderfully sensitive, +amiable, enthusiastic, ignorant of physical wants, became +enamoured of these glories of high culture of which, however, +it barely caught the reflection, and attuned itself to +them. Men hoped the time was at hand when all mankind +would delight in beauty, they fancied that they were born +to live under glorious ceilings, among palm-trees, gushing +fountains and marvels of art. To this day the humblest of +flymen dilates with pride in the artistic treasures of his +city. And how diplomatically Isabella of Mantua went to +work to surround herself with splendid objects! What care +Vittoria Colonna took in the mere ordering of a casket! +They appreciated equally the charm of collecting antiques, +diamonds, pictures, pottery, plate; the sole desideratum was +that the object of their quest should be beautiful or rare, +the expression of an artistic idea or an evocation of the +past, that it should add to the Attic charm of life, play its +part in the cultivation of taste; in a word, that it should be +loved. Life thus, in its superb radiance, assumed a grandeur +and delightfulness of which we too caught the secret, +in those days when the palaces at Rome still had their galleries, +the villas their delightful rows of oleanders, the ruins +their majesty. It was a genuine and glorious sumptuousness, +well calculated to elevate men’s minds! No wonder +that the desire of sharing in it spread through the world, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>and that, unchecked by natural divisions, men’s hearts were +simultaneously possessed by one grand impulse towards +beauty. This embroidery of life contributed in large +measure to the sentiment of the brotherhood of man which +then declared itself, and which appeared so singular; to-day +we do not truly realise its importance, because, thanks to +the mechanical lessening of distances, all men have become +neighbours (and unpleasant neighbours at that): a varnish +of uniformity has spread itself over everything; milkmaids +and princesses often read the same books, wear almost the +same hats, marry at the same age and with the same ideas. +But in those days it was an absolutely new thing, when +national diversities and individual liberties were so strongly +accentuated, to create a harmony of ideas and a fellowship +in love, of which the women were the natural harbingers.</p> + +<p>Enter the palace of Margaret of Austria at Brussels, and, +if you do not find yourself back in Rome or Florence, yet +you will at once perceive that the remarkable mind of a +princess has there gathered together all that gives charm to +life: a vast library, well supplied with romances, history +and poetry; furniture of priceless value, stately busts, brilliant +mirrors, portraits of all the princes and princesses of +the time, and by their side the portraits of notorious fools: +a medley of life and ideas; various pedigrees of the house of +Austria, a trophy of Indian feathers of brilliant colours, +fierce shaggy heads of wolves, broad fans, glistening armour, +crystals, priceless caskets, medallions, majestic chandeliers, +articles in jasper and adamant; on the walls, admirable +Flemish tapestries spangled with gold or silver; on the +floor, warm, thick-piled carpets; here and there valuable +pictures in profusion. The visitor’s curiosity, solicited on +all sides, knows not at first where to stop to admire. And +these various objects, individual as they are, become animate +and dwell together in a sort of high, grand, collective existence: +the one mind which discovered their affinities seems +to permeate them, sets them vibrating in unison, and thus +penetrates the soul of the visitor.</p> + +<p>Through this great science of intellectually adorning the +material conditions of life a first result was obtained: men +loved life. Sadness concealed itself, joy kept the whole +world dancing to its merry pipe. It was impossible to be +anything but gay and amiable. If it chanced that someone +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>was to be buried, it was with full orchestral accompaniment, +amid the twinklings of a thousand tapers, and with a ceremony +quite lyrical. If perchance a man desired a melancholy +funeral, he would do well to say so in his will and prescribe +the number of candles; but most often men set their hearts +on dying gallantly, and did not dream of depriving their +friends of an honourable entertainment or of economising +on behalf of their heirs.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="smaller">THE EMBROIDERY OF LIFE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>Meanwhile, there is a life to live, there are things to do! +A woman must get happiness from the exercise of all her +activities, both spontaneous and enforced—even more than +from her drawing-room or her jewels. We propose to pass +in review as large a number of these occupations as possible, +to show that, small or great, there is not one but appears to +a woman a source of joy and glory if she mingles love with +it. Everything she does, however infinitely humble, be it +kneading bread for her husband or washing his feet, is +vivified with a transfiguring radiance whenever the spirit +of abnegation animates her toil, whenever she reflects that +this husband is not the sole man existing in the world, nor +a sort of domestic drill-sergeant, but represents the eternal +idea sounding in every heart. We have already seen these +noble women in days of trouble quivering with devotion at +the bedside of their sick husbands; it is the same in days of +happiness. They find strength in abstraction; the things +that surround us so marvellously change their aspect, contract, +expand, according as we take them for what they are +or glorify them with thoughts of higher things—thoughts, +not idle fancies, whether roseate or gloomy, whether too +brilliant in prospect or too distressing in reality. It is +chiefly in domestic life that abstraction is useful. The +woman must steep her hands in beauty, fill her eyes with +love, and then look at things courageously and truthfully. +Everything, even vice itself, appears frigid, vulgar, and +commonplace to materialists; women ought (yes, ought, not +merely can) to render everything warm and gay—even virtue.</p> + +<p>Let us take haphazard some of the doings which most +strikingly exhibit them—their eating, walking, country +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>habits, Sunday occupations. From each of these they are +able to strike the sacred spark. We shall see how everything +is transfigured in their hands.</p> + +<p>First then, their eating. Nothing is more material in +itself, and nothing better lends itself to spiritualisation.</p> + +<p>A house was characterised by the way in which a formal +dinner was managed; this was the touchstone of true style. +On the table was placed the massive and weighty silver +plate, the family treasure which the mistress of the house +kept under lock and key, and which was worth a fortune. +The plate of some families was valued at a million francs. +On days of high festivity the table blazed with ponderous +gold, but they were content with silver for private dinners.</p> + +<p>The regulation of the menu was rightly regarded as a +matter of such difficulty and importance that men of the +highest merit made it their study to lay down fixed principles +on the subject. Fulvio Orsini⁠<a id="FNanchor_195" href="#Footnote_195" class="fnanchor">[195]</a> has acquainted us with all +the best traditions of ancient Rome. Platina,⁠<a id="FNanchor_196" href="#Footnote_196" class="fnanchor">[196]</a> the Raphael +of the tribe, published under the auspices of Cardinal +Roverella a treatise which may be cited as a perfect model.</p> + +<p>In countries strange to the new ideas, men thought only +of their palates, <i>os sublime</i>, in the ironical phrase of Brandt.⁠<a id="FNanchor_197" href="#Footnote_197" class="fnanchor">[197]</a> +In Germany guzzling, at rare intervals but in enormous +quantities, was the only joy. So late as the end of the +century Montaigne asked a former ambassador in Germany +how often he had been obliged to get drunk in the service +of his sovereign, and the ambassador reckoned up with all +gravity, and declared that he had got off with three +occasions, all told.</p> + +<p>The French traditional practice was the same. Fairs, +markets, pilgrimages, weddings, baptisms, funerals, anniversaries, +meetings of gilds or corporations all served as +pretexts for village gourmandisings characterised by enthusiastic +drunkenness, and often enlivened with brawls in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span>which both sexes took part. At the end of one of these +feasts we find the wife of the gild president dealing most +energetically with a toper who had called her an “old +witch.” The châteaux were no less fond of high feeding.⁠<a id="FNanchor_198" href="#Footnote_198" class="fnanchor">[198]</a> +Historians ought to consult the kitchen account-books! +Without them they will never succeed in arriving at well-founded +judgments; we know no human document more +convincing, none which enables us with more certainty to +reconstruct a bygone mode of life. Unhappily the old +kitchen books of France reveal a deplorable spectacle; it is +one long procession of herds of oxen and flocks of sheep, +innumerable poultry, rabbits and partridges by the dozen, +small game in hundreds, and pigs in disgusting profusion. +The whole of the delicacies consists, even in the most +distinguished houses, of a few cloves or sticks of cinnamon +to make hippocras of. As to the wine, it is wine of the +current vintage drawn from the cask! Caesar Borgia must +have been greatly surprised one Friday, in the winter of +1498, while staying with Madame de la Trémoille, to see +filing in a course of two hundred and fifty fish. The +next day, again a fast day, the avenues leading to the +château were thronged with carts loaded with fish, in +honour of the visit of King Louis XII.; in particular +there arrived seven hundred and fifty eels. This was in +Rabelais’ country. Further, in regard to tutelary geniuses +of the table, they were acquainted with none but +appalling spectres—Dame Gout,⁠<a id="FNanchor_199" href="#Footnote_199" class="fnanchor">[199]</a> Madam Gravel, or my +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>Lady Apoplexy, to whom they gaily made their salutations.⁠<a id="FNanchor_200" href="#Footnote_200" class="fnanchor">[200]</a></p> + +<p>Then comes philosophy to preside at their feasts with +salutary effect. It teaches men that dining is a spiritual +function. The table becomes idealised. Much thought is +devoted to its decorations, to regaling the eyes with the +sight of beautiful birds in their charming many-hued +plumage—peacocks, storks, or small and pretty birds strung +on skewers. The mistress of the house shows her art in +having the daintiest courses served on gold and crystal—things +which while tickling the palate content the mind; +first dessert, composed of fruits and sweetmeats, then compounds +of eggs or fish, light dishes, in which pistachios, +pepper, ginger, rosemary, thyme, peppermint—everything +that has sweetness or aroma insinuates itself and figures in +manifold combinations. Just as in Plato’s <i>Symposium</i>, +people take their places at table not to eat but to talk, +because conversation can have no warmer, more cheerful, +more restful setting. Often in the platonist system some +incomparable lady presided, and everything centred in her; +from her eyes “rained love,” that is, in the words of the +guests, “meat and drink, ambrosia and nectar.” She set +the pitch; there was a cross-fire of witticisms flashing +over the table like fireworks, or else wit fluttered lightly +about amid a subdued hum of laughter. With one consent +these were voted delightful hours. Men fuddled themselves +with talk: “’Tis my greatest vice,” confesses Erasmus.</p> + +<p>This art became so well acclimatised at the court of +Francis I. that it soon became the joy of France. Margaret +of France writes enthusiastically about those dinners at +which they used to “fill themselves with words more than +with meat.” French wit, which always owes a little to +good cheer, sparkled quite naturally.</p> + +<p>In Italy they were at fault in using aesthetic means too +freely to support the dinner. They durst not trust simply +to conversation, but employed music, a proceeding which +appeared rank heresy in France. King Alfonso of Naples, +indeed, long regarded as the pastmaster of good living, +complicated his dinners with all sorts of refinements; after +the first courses, the ears were enchanted with harmonies +soft as the breeze of Capri blowing over the sparkling, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>rippling sea; or else there were mimes, the <i>pulcinella</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_201" href="#Footnote_201" class="fnanchor">[201]</a> and +roars of laughter. Then his guests returned to the table and +remained till the moment when, their heads swimming with +the strong and generous fumes of Falernian, they removed +the plate and withdrew.</p> + +<p>In Germany the whole day was spent at the table, with a +licence that was often gross, and with all that old mediaeval +gaiety of which the <i>Table-talk</i> of Luther has preserved an +excellent specimen. Yet the Rhine is not so broad nor the +Alps so high but that such customs soon appeared disgusting +and lamentable when compared with the politer modes +which were spreading through the world. Many writers +endeavoured to polish these table manners by publishing +manuals of etiquette and collections of <i>bons mots</i>. If they +did not establish the complete art of conversation they +indicated its rudiments, and indeed their success was +sufficient to necessitate in 1549 a recasting of the fourth +edition of the classical collection of Gastius,⁠<a id="FNanchor_202" href="#Footnote_202" class="fnanchor">[202]</a> and the suppression +of a certain number of pleasantries which seemed +out of place “in view of the distresses of the time.” Thus +the art of table-talk became so popular that even in +Germany people endeavoured to cultivate it; but sprightliness, +which is its very salt, remained till further orders a +distinctively French quality.</p> + +<p>The ball and the dance, though much more aesthetic in +themselves, were a great deal more difficult to idealise, +because in them the sensuous element bulks more largely. +Here, however, there was no need to exaggerate, and to +proscribe dancing would have been absurd. What could be +more ridiculous than the jealousy of certain husbands +(husbands do not stand sufficiently in awe of ridicule!). +And it was so useless, too. A woman who has her wits +about her is never at a loss for a pretext for going to a rout; +there is always a young girl at hand who needs chaperoning. +Someone, indeed, mentions a young matron of Louise of +Savoy’s own court, who, to save an old husband an apoplectic +fit, had the heroism to immure herself at home; but this is +dead against the spirit of sociability. Why forge useless +chains? Vivès himself, who is not open to suspicion, agrees +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>that “dancing is a very natural accompaniment to the +pleasures of society and the table.” But there is dancing +and dancing. The ideal of platonist joy and happiness +would be a free and thoroughly intellectual dance with a +calm and delicious rhythm, a dance that would add a pleasure +to life, the dancer in light floating drapery, bare-footed, bare-headed, +ungirt, in the sweet air of springtime, on a smooth, +soft lawn among jasper and coral, under the long-leaved +palms, amidst the scent of roses and pine-trees—an intoxicating +dance the pure motion of which harmonises with the +vast music of Nature, the cooing of doves, the mighty +arpeggios of the sea. The woman who, alone or hand in +hand with her companions, abandons herself to this exquisite +charm, this magical sweetness, who associates herself with +all things in this imponderable rhythm—does she not +represent a goddess of happiness, and does she not come to +incarnate for us the divine charm of Nature?</p> + +<p>In practice the dance hardly attains this ideal; yet, even +confined within the walls of a room and reduced to a social +art, it can still meet the high demands of moral fellowship +and become for women an instrument of the most legitimate +charm. The Italians especially excelled in giving it a solemn +air of sentimental gravity; some of their fêtes are remarkable +in history—for example, the ball given at Milan by +Francesco Bernardino Visconti on October 15, 1499, in +honour of the conqueror, Louis XII., or, in point of magnificence, +the subscription ball got up by the household +servants of Venice in February, 1524. These were memorable +triumphs of art. But this high significance of the ball +was never understood in France. When people gave a ball +they troubled themselves very little about posterity, but a +great deal about a certain number of trifling present joys; +and these made women descend a little from their pedestal.</p> + +<p>There was in particular one peculiar custom, eminently +pleasant in itself, but not very celestial, and lending itself to +abuses. This was the custom of kissing.</p> + +<p>Well-bred men in every country used respectfully to kiss +a lady’s hand.⁠<a id="FNanchor_203" href="#Footnote_203" class="fnanchor">[203]</a> The Italians did so with fervour; if required +they would have kissed the feet; and a man had to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>be a German to stigmatise as idolatry the kiss applied to +the toes of the Pope! Italian women disported with this +kissing with perfect grace and all sorts of little refinements. +At a casual meeting they confined themselves to a +pleasant handshake; but tête-à-tête with a man they +wished to honour, they would be the first to kiss his hand, +fondly, and without any of those affectations of bashfulness +which sometimes inspire such bitter afterthoughts. It was +a charming and very natural custom; but in France it took +quite another complexion. Men, being the masters, knew +nothing of fine shades and nice distinctions; the having to +greet or take leave of an agreeable woman was sufficient +pretext for kissing her lips, and the motive they alleged for +this proceeding was that it struck them as being “amiable +and sweet.” In the ballroom it was another story; every +dance-figure ended in a kiss, and if we must add that it +was complicated with wild and giddy horse-play, it must +be remembered that a French ball was racy of the soil. +Like a genuine Frenchman, Louis XII. felt it his duty at +Bernardino Visconti’s ball to kiss one after another all the +ladies presented to him, in other words, every woman in +Lombardy.</p> + +<p>Ah! if the platonists and the true friends of women had +been heeded, things would have been different! They were +scandalised at such spectacles, which poisoned their intellectual +joys. Years before, Petrarch had risen against +customs that much less affected their position: what would +he have said if he had come to life again! The worst of it +was that these French manners were like the little leaven, +and Castiglione notes that the leaven was creeping into +Italy—Castiglione, who had seen the time when a man durst +not even take the hand of his partner! As to Vivès, he +dashes off a picture of dances and kisses with his Spanish +impetuosity: “What is the meaning of so many kisses? +Of old time it was lawful to give a kiss only to one’s +relatives; now ’tis a general custom, in Burgundy and +in England, to kiss whomsoever a man pleases.... As for +me, I would fain know what means so much osculation.... +What is the use of these many leaps that girls make, held by +their companions under the arms so that they may kick the +higher? What pleasure do these grasshoppers take in +torturing themselves thus and remaining the greater part +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span>of the night without wearying of the dance body and +soul?”</p> + +<p>The question was more than once raised as to what extent +good manners authorised, or rather obliged, well-born women +to offer their lips to all and sundry, and to lend themselves +to promiscuous capering.⁠<a id="FNanchor_204" href="#Footnote_204" class="fnanchor">[204]</a> This question was much debated: +in general the most sensible folk considered that they could +not absolutely avoid the custom, accepted as it was in good +society, but that it was possible to practise some reserve; +for example, to present the cheek instead of the mouth. +Montaigne pities with all his heart the women “who have +to lend their lips to any Jack with three lackeys in his +suite”; but so trivial a subjection seemed to him, by its +very triviality, to be of no consequence: “A high price adds +a flavour to meat!” He holds rather with those who saw +in it a simple act of courtesy, to which an honest woman +could have no possible objection, or at most so insignificant +a favour that there was nothing to make a fuss about. We +are bound to add, however, that this was not everyone’s +opinion; and there were not wanting dilettantes who by +no means regarded this favour as so unimportant; Ronsard +in all frankness considered it delightful and took infinite +pleasure in it.⁠<a id="FNanchor_205" href="#Footnote_205" class="fnanchor">[205]</a> As to Melin de Saint-Gelais, on one occasion +when he had won a dozen kisses at forfeits, he swore that it +was not half enough: “Twelve is too few, compared with +the infinite.”</p> + +<p>Here again fashion was more than a match for philosophy; +and, barring a few isolated exceptions, kissing and dancing +carried all before them. Examples come from all sides: +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>from the court with its licentious masked balls, and from +the heart of the provinces; witness that singular strike of +the ladies of Aix in Provence. The courts having interdicted, +on the score of modesty, the dance known as the <i>volta</i> (a +sort of cancan), these ladies at once threatened to betake +themselves <i>en masse</i> to the pope at Avignon, and their +affrighted husbands had to obtain the annulment of the +decree.</p> + +<p>The platonists and their friends knew the world too well +deliberately to open a campaign against abuses they could +not destroy. They confined themselves to bewailing them. +It struck them as deplorable to see men amusing themselves +hour after hour in cutting their clownish capers at the +expense of honest women. They considered it absolutely +ridiculous to pretend to forbid men in the ordinary intercourse +of life to smirch by word, look or gesture a lady +who pleased them, while at a ball everything was permissible.</p> + +<p>The remedy, they thought, would be found in giving +women more serious and more elevated tastes; they believed +that a woman habituated to really noble ideas would know +how to set herself high enough to win love without yielding +to the caprice of the first comer.</p> + +<p>The Huguenots pursued a different policy, and did not +shrink from attacking with all their force every kind of +dancing: it would seem that they did not dance at all. +They spoke of animals coupling, of disastrous confidences: +“Look,” cries the good Daneau⁠<a id="FNanchor_206" href="#Footnote_206" class="fnanchor">[206]</a> with horror, “look at this +lady with her head high, vaulting, whirling, swinging herself +about, making a clatter with her feet.” That was what you +saw at the ball: could anything be more ridiculous? But +what most strikes him is that she leaves her modesty and +her mantle together in the-hands of the lackeys in the +cloak-room. “There any man may run his eye over the +ladies as they stand, even with their husbands or mothers, +and may choose any woman he pleases, in other words, the +woman who excites his lust: those whom the eyes have +chosen the hands clasp, and the men, as though already +in the thrill and enjoyment of their desires, kiss them, hug +them, lead them through the room; the young fellows exert +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>themselves to appear lively and gay, so as to entertain and +caress with a thousand tricks and approaches the girls they +hold, and the girls show no reluctance to respond in kind. +In the <i>volta</i> there are regular tricks for making one’s +partner bound and rise so high that the calves, even the +thighs are shamelessly exposed and prostituted to the eyes +of the throng. The dancers go up and down, lose sight +of each other, then find themselves close together again; +and when they meet there are oglings and caperings, +redoubled gaieties, all showing how their hearts are bounding +with joy at seeing themselves once more so near the +accomplishment of their desires. Every kind of dance gives +opportunity for discovering ways of pleasing, seeing, touching +one another more familiarly; and all this goes on to the +strains of all sorts of instruments.”</p> + +<p>The Huguenots, it will be seen, did not mince their words. +But dancing was never a whit the worse. According to the +feminists it was in itself neither evil nor ridiculous; the art +consisted in idealising the play of the limbs, as the work of +the digestion had been idealised; and they were agreed +that, the brain being in this case farther away, the task +was obviously more difficult.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, women readily gave up anything that +was not congenial to sensibility: gaming, for instance. With +their husbands gaming was a frenzy; mature men, boys, +busy men, idle men, everybody gambled. At the gaming +table all distinctions of rank disappeared; a great lord +would borrow a hundred crowns from his barber. What +was a gaming-hall? A place where not a word was uttered +save as an exclamation or an oath. The ladies permitted +a game of draughts, chess or trictrac, but would hear of +nothing else. They preferred the embraces of which Daneau, +Vivès and the husbands complained.</p> + +<p>For ladies of middle station a usual means of exercising +their charm to the best advantage was to go to mass, especially +on a Sunday, to the “church parade”; that served them +instead of a drawing-room.</p> + +<p>We have nothing to do here, of course, with their religious +sentiments, but only with their visible devices for captivating +men. They went to church as to a common haunt +or a family reunion. God is the good Father who collects +His children about Him once a week. Sunday is the day +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>consecrated to lofty impressions, to the enjoyment in common +of the things that constitute life—the day of beauty, the +day of music, lovely frescoes, and displays of the latest +fashion. The sanctuary was treated with an affectionate +familiarity, against which the preachers had long been +protesting in vain.</p> + +<p>In the northern parts indeed this familiarity was accompanied +with very objectionable scenes, and the clergy were +at great pains to restrain its abuses. At Tournay, for +example, it appeared very disagreeable to the cathedral +clergy to serve every year as lay figures in the grotesque +procession of the Holy Innocents, and afterward to be +abbots of misrule in taverns; they obtained the suppression +of the festival in 1489. But the coarse merriment was not +scotched; everybody, the principal personages of the town +included, made common cause with the children dispossessed +of so venerable a privilege; and in 1498 the agitation took +the shape of a nocturnal kettle-drumming which gave great +concern to the Parliament of Paris.</p> + +<p>In the south there was no need to fear such eccentricities; +the church was the temple of the Beautiful because it +belonged to the women. The congregation gathers in a +motley, swaying, chattering crowd; it takes some time for +every lady to succeed in settling her finery on her cushion, +in a convenient place for seeing and hearing well. Then +there arises a confused hum of gossip more or less discreet, a +sound of stifled laughter, a rustling of cushions: “There is no +better place for a chat than church”; it is for all the world +like a concert of “magpies caught in a snare.” Ladies call +each other by name, “Jeanne, Catherine, Françoise.” A +lady who comes late tries to skip in before another who +arrived early. The orchestra can barely drown all these +noises; the opening prayer is delayed. Many men standing +in the aisles fancy they are on ’change, and talk over their +affairs; at one time dandies used to come hawk on fist or +dog at heel: others, motionless like machines, are meditating—who +knows what? Nothing at all, probably. Some are +watching the many-coloured undulations in the nave—the +crimped hair, the dainty hats. They quiz a handsome blue +bodice with yellow strings and green sleeves, cut very low. +The ladies have a wonderful talent for sitting stiffly erect, +posing in such a way that they show their profile or half-profile +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span>to the best advantage, their eyes sparkling, and +sometimes stealing a wicked little side-glance. That is what +they call high mass; those are the accessories of a fashionable +confessional.</p> + +<p>In this way a fine philosophic equality establishes itself +with the utmost perfection at the steps of the altar, far +more successfully than in any palace; all cliquishness even +disappears; a woman who has toiled all the week at her +spinning-wheel displays her charms by the side of the lady +of rank, moved by the same sentiment of elegance, idleness, +and art. For anyone with the least spark of sensibility or +love of the beautiful, church becomes the land of dreams, +the starting-point for every elevating influence. The Gothic +church, with its lofty, light, graceful columns, lifts the soul +into a sort of mystic accord; there is something warmer, +more human, more genuinely intimate about the Italian +church; women high or humble experience there a sensation +of unmixed delight. They contemplate with tender +trustfulness the imperturbable Madonna who has already +seen the passage of many generations, and who continues +to regard them from her nook in the wall with her woman’s +smile—that smile of infinite sweetness, of lingering and +universal pity, directed towards the children and the dead, +towards all who suffer and love, weep and laugh, a smile +like a sweet-savoured incense of purification and grace. +The Italians loved the magnificence of their temples—the +marbles bathed in sunlight, the shadowy arches where +the soul could unbosom itself without blasphemy, and all +those little secluded chapels in which every man found his +own saint, and came to offer up his poor, trembling, fainting +heart as the whole <i>ex-voto</i> of life. In these hidden +splendours, in the charm of mystic music soaring amidst +paintings and sculptures, gilded ornaments and exquisite +perfumes, midway between the past and the future, there is +a wonderfully soft and voluptuous pleasure. It is with +profound philosophy that Caviceo lays the scene of the +first interview between his hero and heroine in the +shade of an altar; assuredly, in wrapping itself with this +veil of refinement and modesty, love puts on a sacred +character. So the church becomes, in its wealth of compassion, +the haven of refuge for pure and sensitive souls, and +even for some others. Anne of Rohan gave tryst to her +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>lover in the chapel of Amboise;⁠<a id="FNanchor_207" href="#Footnote_207" class="fnanchor">[207]</a> a young girl of Orleans +with Machiavelian cunning made a Franciscan friar her +catspaw to attract the student she loved.⁠<a id="FNanchor_208" href="#Footnote_208" class="fnanchor">[208]</a> Pontanus +depicts the prolonged meditations of the Neapolitan ladies, +long after the last of the candles had been extinguished in +the dusky nave.⁠<a id="FNanchor_209" href="#Footnote_209" class="fnanchor">[209]</a> A thousand incidents of this sort might +be cited: Francis I. in the church of Amboise pursuing a +charming girl with his devotion;⁠<a id="FNanchor_210" href="#Footnote_210" class="fnanchor">[210]</a> Panurge, whom Rabelais +sets to dog the footsteps of a noble lady, piously offering her +holy water, slipping inflammatory love-letters into her hand +during mass, and playing the most impudent tricks to attract +her attention; the poet Crétin, furious because at Lyons the +church services are turned to account almost exclusively by +young fops and paunchy bankers.</p> + +<p>Pilgrimages also were capable of becoming a source of +exquisite emotions for artists in happiness. The author of +the <i>Imitation</i> has said that to be often on pilgrimage is +seldom to be a saint. Indeed, at the moment when the +indulgences were pronounced, the church porches were +quite invisible behind the smoke from the cookshops or the +booths in the fair, and an old author complains that you +could not even catch sight of your friends. But how these +gross indulgences were transfigured by the aesthetic spirit! +What ravishing effects it derived from them!</p> + +<p>It was no longer paintings or sculptures that troubled +hearts and pure hearts gazed upon: they penetrated the +clear heavens above. Blessed are the pure!</p> + +<p>The sweet, tender Isabella d’Este set out thus to transport +her soul across the plains of Umbria, towards the calm +and glorious homes of peace and art, Loretto and Assisi. +It was early spring, when the days were clear and sunny; +every morning after mass the little caravan resumed its +march with its picturesque escort, piously, tranquilly, ideally. +During the Easter festival it made a halt with the Duke and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span>Duchess of Urbino in the delightful palace of Gubbio, +smiling down from amongst its gardens and fountains.</p> + +<p>The woman who has been able to live these hours of pure +enthusiasm is conscious of accomplishing a large part of her +dream. She is within sight of reconciling two opposing +forces, the forces of Nature and the forces of the human +heart, and forming out of them a love in harmony with +Plato’s thought and Raphael’s brush.</p> + +<p>In their dealings with Nature, the platonists sought +above all to elevate and sentimentalise it; they did not care +for it masculine and stern, but wished it feminine.</p> + +<p>They did not ask it to express itself in vast horizons, in +a display of wild vigour. Untamed Nature displeased +them; it struck them as a tyrannical mechanism which +would keep moving and straining itself without definite +purpose, whilst it should be influenced and controlled +by human thought. On the contrary, the more supple +Nature became,—the more docile, urbane, almost affectionate—the +better she answered their expectations. +They did not appreciate the <i>objects</i> of Nature; but they +valued a beautiful sunny day, a beautiful horizon, the +flowers which scent the air, the glistening, rippling, soothing +sea, the buds bursting with sap and life, because this life is +one with man’s. Plato has indicated the need he felt of +such a setting in the celebrated prologue of the <i>Phaedrus</i>, +where Socrates and his friend, strolling along the bank of +the Ilissus, seat themselves near a temple of the Muses, in +the shade of a lofty plane-tree, on one of those velvet +swards in which every footstep leaves its trace. Stirred +by the fierce heat of the glowing sun, life buzzes and +sings on all sides; the murmur of water mingles with the +chirp of grasshoppers and innumerable confused dronings; +odours of all kinds fill the air, and life is quaffed in deep +draughts; but amid all these myriad voices blending into +one grand symphony the mind of the philosopher reigns +supreme.</p> + +<p>Man, then, must in no way be considered the enemy of +Nature; he is her friend and master. Nature speaks to us, +and we speak to her, and are subject to her influence in the +highest degree. Not merely do climate, temperature, the +beauties of the scenery exercise a paramount influence +upon us, as the monks so well understood who loved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>extensive horizons and noble summits, but it may be said +that there is not a tree or a plant but influences us by its +vicinage. The love of Nature emits a radiance like the +love of a woman, like all love, though in a less degree. It +is good then and right not to neglect so important a source +of emotion. Nature herself delights us because she smiles +on us and we feel she loves us,—because a higher power +settles her proud rocks and governs her volcanic fires. +How pleasant it is (especially in warm countries) to shape +for ourselves in the broad world, too vast for us, a private +and particular nook: to send our very selves, as it were, out +through the woods by straight paths which make our will +felt far away; to give the flowers what forms and tints we +please; to impress our character upon everything; thus we +banish all savour of imperfection and ugliness and allow +nothing to be seen but uniformity and affection; for, in the +words of a man of that time, if you go into the country, it +is not to “descend from light into the gloom.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Salut! palais, jardins, paradis de délices,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dont les beaultez font ignorer les vices.⁠<a id="FNanchor_211" href="#Footnote_211" class="fnanchor">[211]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Under these circumstances, ladies, philosophers, and prelates +considered the country a perfect setting for the +intellectual life. They there got deeper, intenser spiritual +enjoyment than in the city (though city life in those days +was not such a rush and bustle as it is to-day). The dread +hours of solitude will themselves contribute to this pleasure +if you know how to bring a delightful egotism unobtrusively +into play; they will enable you to recall many fleeting +thoughts, to ruminate on them, feast on them for your +sole pleasure, in the spirit of the sublime preoccupation of +Lucullus when he chanced one day to be dining alone: “Is +not Lucullus entertaining Lucullus to-day?” We find, +then, in the country the same <i>mise-en-scène</i> as in the town—the +same furniture, the same plate, but ranged under the +luminous ceiling of a summer sky; the same dances, but by +the light of torches and the stars.⁠<a id="FNanchor_212" href="#Footnote_212" class="fnanchor">[212]</a> All Nature breathes and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>thinks: the trees, artistically shaped, hang their sombre +drapery behind statues; charming walks wind or disappear +among labyrinths of laurel, thyme, and rosemary; a cascade +leaps lightly and with musical bickering from a tiny +artificial rock, and speeds away swiftly but noiselessly into +the miniature presentment of a well-mown meadow. Or if +the owner’s wealth is equal to measuring itself royally +against Nature, he adorns the landscape with splendid +villas, the glory of Rome, like the Este villa at Tivoli, a sort +of proof before letters of Versailles, so moving still in the +spectral life of its deserted groves, its silent fountains, its +shattered marbles.</p> + +<p>We must note, too, the singular phenomenon that the +urbanity and bountifulness of Nature appeared to these +lovers of beauty a thing of course. Nature is loved for +herself only in countries where she plays the step-dame. +Lombards, Frenchmen, Englishmen, on leaving the smoky +scenes of their daily toil, did not shrink from a life in the +depths of a dull place in the country, or from intercourse +with the rustics; they might be seen any day chatting and +whiling away an idle hour with the farmers on the village +green. At Paris people were passionately fond of natural +flowers, the annual consumption of which was valued by +statisticians at fifteen thousand golden crowns; even the +University preferred them to paper garlands.⁠<a id="FNanchor_213" href="#Footnote_213" class="fnanchor">[213]</a> The people +of the south, on the contrary, spoilt children of a soil which +yields fruit of itself, trampled roses and violets beneath +their feet with never a thought of gathering them. The +Italian painters used to adorn manuscripts with elaborate +golden scrolls; the ladies framed their faces in gold and +pearls, and valued flowers only for the delicate softness of +their perfume; many of them strewed lilies and roses and +violets about their bowers, as the quintessence of sweetness. +But everyone abhorred a country life. Castiglione has only +one word for the existence of gentlemen-farmers: “It is +indecent.” As for Margaret of France, she could find no +stronger abuse, no more expressive appellation for a froward +heart than: “O rough heart, rural and bucolic.”</p> + +<p>Nor would one expect to find a liking for animals among +the platonists. Ladies valued only the boudoir pet, the +little affectionate, obedient animal, their very own, which +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>meekly took their kisses and upon which they lavished +without misgiving a portion of their tenderness: a bird for +instance, or a pug. I say <i>a</i> pug, for there was seldom more +than one. What was the good of a troop of shaggy animals +however graceful, like those which fill the canvases of +Veronese? A lady much preferred her one little lapdog, +which she carried on her arm against her heart, took to bed +with her, and had painted in her own portrait. “Love me, +love my dog.” Titian’s Venus of the Prado is nude, but +she keeps the indispensable ornaments—a pearl necklace, +a musical instrument, and a little dog. Margaret in writing +to M. de Montmorency⁠<a id="FNanchor_214" href="#Footnote_214" class="fnanchor">[214]</a> tells him gaily that she is +looking after her niece’s “belongings,” that is, “her parrot +and her daughters.” The death of the darling bird or the +little pug was a cruel event. What tears were shed! So +faithful a little dog! How many men might have learned +a lesson from him! Friends could hardly venture to speak +of the fleas of the demised, or the hair that he dropped all +around, or the other objects which his mistress might +perhaps find for her affection.</p> + +<p>People did not care for flocks and herds, except perhaps +as a distant ornament of the landscape. The King of +Naples and the Cardinal of Amboise kept peacocks and +stags. Anne of France founded a sort of Zoological Garden +in which she acclimatised turkeys and bred parrots. But +that had nothing to do with aesthetics.</p> + +<p>From country life we naturally proceed to the grave +question of the utility of physical exercises for women—a +question much more difficult to decide than appears at first +sight. Suppose a number of old-style French châtelaines, +sun-baked, inured to the inclemencies of the weather, +dashing huntswomen, had been asked to relinquish violent +exercises like hunting, fencing, boxing, tennis, on the ground +that to indulge in them was to waste their charm? They +would have ridiculed the idea. And yet, after mature +deliberation, the Urbino coterie decided that these exercises +were altogether incompatible with the feminine temperament.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span></p> + +<p>One had to come to Lyons to find a pretty and clever +woman like Louise Labé posing as Bradamante or Marphise, +and boasting of her riding and her skill with the lance. Every +well-born Italian woman detested such mannish ways. +When Charles VIII. arrived at Naples, the princess of +Melphi, to humour the barbarian’s tastes, presented to him +her daughter on horseback, but mounted in such a manner +“as not to do wrong to her sex.” Here there is a problem +in pure aesthetics. Not that women like Isabella d’Este +and others are deficient in energy; when need arises they +will give proof of an extraordinary vigour; Margaret of +France, in her passion for serving her brother, bestrode a +horse and galloped to the Spanish frontier with a speed and +endurance that the postal service has rarely attained. But +if, impelled by strong feeling, they accomplished feats like +this, they did not boast of them. What charm would +Margaret with all her heroism have for us if we had to see +her flying with loose rein astraddle on her nag? It is +impossible to cite a military woman of a more energetic +temperament than Catherine Sforza: when did she shrink +from sleeping on the bare ground and passing her nights in +the open air? Yet this was the lady who, when she had a +minute’s peace, solemnly dispatched a Jewish old-clo’ man +to her neighbours, to discover for her a certain down for +bed-ticks which was reputed exceptionally soft.</p> + +<p>The very decided disfavour in which physical exercises +were held by women had its counterpart among the men, +and very largely diminished their ardour for anything in +the way of sport or athletics. Even at the court of Julius +II. a young cardinal was mercilessly chaffed because, instead +of showing his visitors his books, coins, or pictures, he +hurried them off to a jumping-match in his garden! In +France the taste for violent exploits utterly died out, at +least in court circles. When ladies were by, there was +much talk, in language borrowed from the romances, about +the virtue of arms and the nobility of valour, and as they +spoke the striplings brandished inoffensive swords. Tournaments +were in favour as a show adapted to captivate ladies’ +eyes, and purely decorative—barring accidents! Some in +silver habits, others in red, green, and blue, the combatants +would make a few passes, and when they had done, the +victor, followed by his pages, galloped all round the fine-sanded +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>lists, to receive his meed of applause. After all, the +ladies had little appreciation for this relic of barbarism; +they did not see the philosophic necessity of equipping oneself +with lance and steed to run the <i>grand prix</i> of life; in +their view that prize was called “repose and sovereign +joy”; and that is not won at a gallop.</p> + +<p>The question of the chase gave rise to somewhat various +opinions. Hunting, like war, gave man pleasure; to him +it was a noble and sacred occupation, since its end was +the shedding of blood,—a point in which it displeased +the platonists. But, on the other hand, man is a born +fighter, and he should only be encouraged to work off his +combativeness against animals created precisely to be +slaughtered by him. There is nothing criminal in the +trade of butcher, and it is far better to kill an ox than a +man, a boar than an ox. The chase was thus a valuable +expedient.</p> + +<p>But in an age of such exquisite refinement, when the +infinite sweetness of the Beautiful came at length to +penetrate men to the very marrow, people became more +fastidious, and asked themselves if any brilliant idea could +be derived from the chase, or if it was not a sufficient +concession to the animal spirits to ramble about casually, +to take the air without excuses, and to go out riding under +the eyes of the ladies, even though too manifestly like a +groom exercising his cob. Perhaps that would have been +better.</p> + +<p>But the chase was popular at Rome.</p> + +<p>The hunts in the Roman Campagna were of old renown. +The deer there was reputed very fleet, and the boar a +particularly tough customer; the hounds belonged to those +idolised and sagacious breeds which could not be bought at +any price, and whose whelps were begged for by princesses +and potentates with absolute servility.⁠<a id="FNanchor_215" href="#Footnote_215" class="fnanchor">[215]</a> Further, in default +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span>of military pomp, the glory of the chase, material as it was, +seemed essential to the political interests of the papacy,—and +consequently to the interests of religion,—with respect to certain +eminent personages more accessible to such arguments +than to those of theology; and it must not be forgotten that +the Roman prelates, unfortunately for themselves, were +politicians as well as devotees of art. While closely allying +themselves with women, they had to reckon with men. The +hunt organised by Paul II. for Borso d’Este in 1471 has +remained justly celebrated in the annals of the church. It +was therefore less a question of slaying animals than of +saving souls, and it may be said that in this respect the +chase conduced towards a spiritual end.</p> + +<p>The great Popes of the Renaissance, however, were somewhat +lukewarm in cultivating it. Alexander VI., though an +excellent horseman, was but an infrequent and inexpert +huntsman. Julius II. went out into the rich vinelands +rarely, if at all; for, born of a sea-faring stock, he preferred +to cast his nets into the deep like St. Peter. Leo X. rode +more, owing to threatenings of obesity; he hunted with +application and brilliance, and with his habitual love of +perfection, but without that quality which makes hunting +an art, that indefinable something which hunters call the +“sacred fire” or the “devil may care” spirit, and the friends +of the Beautiful call love. He was a Florentine, and manifestly +did not regard the hunter’s rôle as a fine one; he +could not imagine that to spur a horse was to stimulate one’s +ideas. To men of his stamp Nature was, so to speak, truly +feminine; they would have liked to put her under glass. +On the other hand, a number of prelates revived the chase +with their enthusiasm; they portrayed it in their poetry; +they brought to it all their gravity, urbanity, and decorum. +When the ancient walls of pagan Rome or the limestone +benches of the Coliseum were blushing under the first rays +of dawn, or when the old triumphal arches were looking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>young again under the smile of the Sabine mountains, a +brilliant procession set the pontifical flagstones ringing +under their horses’ hoofs. Look at these great figures who +are passing. Here is the proud Catherine Sforza; Tebaldeo, +the poet skilful in following the forest tracks; Pontanus, the +methodical huntsman, the taciturn philosopher; the pride of +Venice, the sprightly Bembo, somewhat excited, for he wishes +to “stick” the boar and cut off its head, and therewith to do +honour to the Virgin of the woods, “in verses which will go +down to posterity.” Here is the fair Lucretia Borgia, “the +glory of her race,” and, in close attendance, Ercole Strozzi, +just writing for her his great poem called <i>The Chase</i>, +a medley of venery and politics. Who next? Here is the +omnipotent Ascanio Sforza, vice-chancellor of the Roman +church, all impetuosity, full of the boyish animation which he +will retain through the most cruel trials till that day +when he goes to his long rest in the church of Santa Maria +del Popolo. Behind him comes cardinal Adriano Castelli, +the witty diplomatist who wins all hearts, the admirable +humanist who is going to celebrate this chase. These ladies +and prelates sing the praises of Diana; it seems to them +that the noble goddess in person is guiding their long +cavalcade among the tombs, in the impressive silence of this +great Roman desert where long aqueducts (odd vegetation!) +lend sombre decoration to the landscape.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Her broidered chlamys she has raised;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her golden locks float in the breeze,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The purple buskins reach her knees;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her gilded quiver’s ringing sound</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wakes echoes in the woods around.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ascanio, courteous, debonair,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rides close to show her every care;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Collects the troop, on Lybian steeds,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And harks them forth to doughty deeds.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>View halloo! The boar is started at the foot of the hills, +the hounds are off, the hunters scatter and gallop up hill and +down dale, dogged and indefatigable. Presently, shouts, +bayings, howls of wounded dogs! All is over. Cardinal +Ascanio appears, with flaming eye and flaming cheeks, his +coat red, his knife redder still, near the boar dripping red. +This is the epical, the intoxicating moment. The hounds +tumble over each other, the whippers-in bestir themselves, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>the hunters come panting up from all directions. Suddenly +all is hushed; as if by magic an exquisite repast is served; +the sweet measured tones of guitars, the voices of singers, +the plaudits of the banqueters alone wake the languid +echoes, while huge flagons of a generous wine go round. +Then Cardinal Castelli rises, and in his elegant Latin +recites a Pindaric ode in honour of the victorious huntsman, +“the empurpled senate’s glory and grace.” Nothing could +be more piously orthodox or more delightful than this +hunting ode. The Cardinal recalls how the Redeemer, +“true religion’s lord and emperor,” has put vain deities +to flight and given solace to perishing humanity, bringing +life and strength and joy. Ascanio responds with this +invocation:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O Dian, virgin goddess of the woods and groves,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or whether it behoves</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To hail Proserpina, light of the glooming sky,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lucina, Hecate, or e’en</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of the dim nether world the woful queen,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dictynna else, or Trivia—whosoe’er</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dost to my swinking hours apply</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy constant care,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thee in my heart I hold eternally!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Evening creeps on, and the shadows extend. Soon the +joyous clatter of hoofs is re-echoing along the Sacred Way; +these are the masters of Rome, whom the shades of Tiberius +and Constantine salute in the darkness.</p> + +<p>While at Rome the chase was thus allying itself with +poetry, in France, as may be surmised, it followed no such +bent. The good Louis XII., ruling with circumspection, +would not have been hard put to it to give his exploits +a character of seriousness and tranquillity, for his health +obliged him to hunt in a litter, and more often with hawks +than with hounds; indeed, even at the kennels of Blois the +spirit of poetry modestly crept in; the court poets, not +having at their disposal the Roman mythology, or the +shades of Tiberius and Constantine, extolled the royal +hawks and hounds. They honoured with a charming +epitaph the venerable Chailly, doyen of the pack, and a +model of probity and honour, who, after having followed +the king even to war, had peacefully finished his course at +the feet of Queen Anne. They sang also of the famous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>falcon Muguet, the terror of herons, “little of body but +wondrous full of courage”:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Trois passetemps parfaits a eu Louis douzième:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Triboulet et Chailly, et je fus le troisième.⁠<a id="FNanchor_216" href="#Footnote_216" class="fnanchor">[216]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">But all this fine poetry only celebrated the mettlesomeness +of the animals; it did not protect the game from slaughter; +it left hunting with its primitive characteristics, which +continued to wound the finer feelings, and snuffed out the +faintest glimmer of the spiritual life.</p> + +<p>One man was found, with the heroic determination to +reform the French style of hunting in the Roman direction. +This man was Guillaume Budé, generally known as the +founder of the College of France, but as good a hunter as a +Hellenist, and in this regard as worthy of renown.</p> + +<p>Budé is a brilliant example of the intellectual development +of many men of his generation. Come of a line of +high officials, he went through the usual experiences: a +tutor, fashionable masters, a special Greek tutor, one George +Hermonymos, brought direct from Lacedaemonia to teach +him to lisp the Greek alphabet at the remuneration of five +hundred crowns monthly; but Lefèvre d’Etaples⁠<a id="FNanchor_217" href="#Footnote_217" class="fnanchor">[217]</a> did not +succeed in making a philosopher of him, nor Fra Giocondo⁠<a id="FNanchor_218" href="#Footnote_218" class="fnanchor">[218]</a> +a mathematician. Then, after lolling for a while on the +long-suffering benches of the Orleans University of Law, +Budé resigned himself to run in the paternal grooves; apart +from hunting, he was not known to have any accomplishment +or passion except fishing. So he went to Rome as +secretary to an embassy at the time of the election of +Julius II. This proved the turning-point of his life. The +aesthetic splendour of Rome struck him and held him spellbound; +he experienced the electric shock, the complete +change of view which the sudden revelation of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>spirit of beauty has from all time occasioned in choice +minds. He came back a changed man. He became an +apostle of beauty; he resigned his diplomatic appointments, +and his office as secretary to the king; he even refused +a comfortable retreat on the bench, in order to devote himself +to that noble intellectual life, the radiance of which had +filled his soul.</p> + +<p>He gave up everything except hunting. And it was +then that he had to face the trying problem that rose in his +mind with peculiar intensity—how to spiritualise the chase.</p> + +<p>The solution he arrived at was of the most original kind. +He has communicated it to us in the form of a conversation, +real or imaginary, between himself and King Francis I. +This dialogue attained a measure of popularity; written +in Latin (following the Roman fashion), it had the honour +of being translated by the great court translator, Louis Le +Roy, and in our time has been re-published by M. Chevreul.</p> + +<p>Budé’s idea was wonderfully simple, and nicely calculated, +he thought, to make an impression on Francis I. The king +was not very clever, but he was very willing to learn, and +had great confidence in the new ideas, particularly those of +his friend.</p> + +<p>Budé merely suggested the adoption of Latin as the +language of venery. At first sight, Francis did not quite +catch the piquancy of this proposal; however, he made no +opposition; and discovered on reflection, indeed, that it hit +the mark admirably. Certain persons were agitating for the +suppression of Latin in law proceedings, with the professed +object of rendering them more comprehensible: here was an +excellent means of silencing the agitators, by showing them +that Latin, if it can serve for the slang of the turf, can serve +for anything.</p> + +<p>History does not relate whether Francis halloed his +hounds in Latin verse; but the seed dropped by Budé +was not lost, and another scholar, Michelangelo Blando, +the commentator on Aristotle and Hippocrates, took up the +same subject as a second study. In a learned Latin +treatise on hunting, Blando shows how important it is for +the huntsmen to be men of literary culture; for their benefit +he investigates every branch of canine lore from the earliest +times: breeds, regimen, maladies, training—on all these +points he admirably collects the various threads of tradition. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>Nor does he forget the lives of the most illustrious of +hunters down to and including Francis I. Among these, +naturally, he makes honourable mention of a number of +noble ladies who were ardent devotees of the chase, and +with whom the sport almost always meant a dedication of +their virginity; for example, the fair Atalanta, who disdained +marriage; Calixto, daughter of a king of Arcadia; +Arethusa, daughter of the Centaur Hippochrome; Amimone, +a Breton nymph, daughter of Danaus; and a thousand other +vestals whom it is unnecessary to recall, says he, “being +household words with all hunters worthy of the name.” +After such an enumeration, one might indeed be tempted to +believe that, for women at any rate, the chase elevates the +soul and has platonic virtues.</p> + +<p>But, all this notwithstanding, the lady artists in charm +did not think it deserved either encouragement or sympathy +on their part. In what respect had this sport any moral +efficacy? It had, on the contrary, the disadvantage of +giving a woman a somewhat masculine appearance, of +diluting in her all that constitutes the essence of platonic +sweetness.⁠<a id="FNanchor_219" href="#Footnote_219" class="fnanchor">[219]</a></p> + +<p>Riding to hounds was no longer indulged in, except by +some few over-energetic and rather old-fashioned ladies like +Margaret of Austria, who was so proud of her stuffed +wolves’ heads; or Anne of France, a passionate and classical +huntress, whom one of her faithful henchmen, the seneschal +of Normandy, enthusiastically styles the “grand mistress” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>of this “glorious trade”; but whom he calls also its last +representative. Anne hunted in the same way that she did +everything; coldly and methodically she with her own eyes +examined the trail, and gave the word to hark forward; +then she set off with her dogs, and suddenly warming to +the work, grew animated and vociferous, and smartly +handled her hunting-spear. Such ways as these have +caused her to be always wrongly judged, even by her closest +friends, and have given her a reputation for mannishness, +whereas in her heart of hearts she was infinitely feminine, +and femininely philosophic.</p> + +<p>The large majority of her contemporaries would have +been careful not to imitate her, and if they resigned themselves +to the chase, it was for some good reason. Personally +they went in for little else than hawking. It was indifferent +to them whether men rode out and effected more or less +slaughter; but they loved the associations of the hunt—the +delightful evenings, favourable to flirtation (when the +hunters were not too hungry or sleepy); the succeeding +days of tranquillity, when the unconstraint of country life +allowed them to rise early and come down into the fresh air +without stopping to do up their hair or their complexions, +but with clear, rosy cheeks; to hurry through a hunter’s +mass, and then start gossiping in the shade on the respective +merits of dogs and birds until it was time for breakfast. +In short, to platonist ladies, the less hunting there was, the +more genuine and admirable the chase appeared. If men +absolutely insisted on spilling blood, why not get it over +quickly? Why not fill their parks with tame stags and +one fine morning go out and massacre a few? But for +pity’s sake let there be no more talk of their Red Indian +stratagems, or of competing in instinct with the animals! +“Tell me,” cries Margaret of France, “is the capture of a +stag fit work for a prince?”—he might as well turn mason +or hind!</p> + +<p>They came to the conclusion that, if they did not wish to +live in the kennel, there was nothing for it but to give up +hunting, and this was more logical than Budé’s or Blando’s +attempt to imbue huntsmen with lofty and fantastic ideas +which would never make a good sportsman.</p> + +<p>Like all human things, the charming theories we have +just indicated had their dark side. The habit of suppressing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>nature, of making her all grace and attractiveness, of +embellishing and transfiguring her, is pretty sure to lead to +the loss of any real knowledge of nature. A landscape is +transformed into a drawing-room. Lemaire de Belges and +others discourse to us of nothing but branches gently +swaying, rustling leaflets, the waning autumn, huts in +which mock shepherds in sham goat-skins listen to the +moaning of the winter wind with a ravishment which it is +difficult not to fancy humbug too. If only this mawkish +sentimentality always led to the ideal! But no; the coy +Phillises sport their demure little tricks at all hours but +the lover’s hour, when perhaps they would not be out of +place.</p> + +<p>The fleshly Venetian school, with its feeling for colour +and its somewhat pagan naturalism, much more successfully +expressed man’s relations with Nature. It opens for us not +a mere garden bower, but a huge factory of sensuous +pleasure, whence ascend a thousand high-soaring aspirations +and a penetrating effluence. Giorgione and Titian have +wonderfully rendered the poetry of these love-filled horizons. +From the smooth sea, or the foaming billows, or the flowery +meadows depicted by their pencils, loud voices speak to us; +and nothing but the old, imaginative mythology is wanted +to personify all the unknowable and unknown unions +whence we feel that the physical world is every day +drawing its life and its overmastering thirst for renewal. +The epicureans let themselves drift along aimlessly, resting +on their oars,⁠<a id="FNanchor_220" href="#Footnote_220" class="fnanchor">[220]</a> and do no more than sing their little part, +hardly audible in this colossal orchestration. The platonists, +on the other hand, will not allow themselves to be seduced, +and combat nature even while caressing her, preferring to +keep her too much in subjection rather than to yield her +too much obedience. Nature untamed or sensual would +slay man, they think. She is a slave, meant to be subject +to us, meditating revenge, and eager to suck or shed our +blood; and she is set among the slaves.</p> + +<p>Finally, a word must be said about a life which held a +place midway between country life and city life, namely, +the life of the watering-places, both inland and by the sea. +In France the fashion was difficult to introduce, good +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>society preferring the large and comfortable existence of the +country house; but to take the waters was all the rage in +Italy.</p> + +<p>Except at church, there was no scene where people could +better meet together, or take one another more seriously +without hypocrisy. A public bath represented the ideal of +equality. You go in, cut a figure, and come out again, +and Jack is as good as his master. It is an open drawing-room, +in which people who elsewhere are strangers to one +another, acquaintances, and bosom friends all have one +idea—to distil their soul drop by drop into the ears of +kindred spirits, like the neighbouring spring.</p> + +<p>The difficulty with which the custom became acclimatised +in France has been attributed to very various causes. +Following an old tradition, many preachers so late as the +16th century inveighed against the habit of bathing. Out +of thirty women who go bathing, says one, not one can call +herself pure. “O fatal laving, prolific in elements of death!” +exclaims another. “Ye women who stew yourselves,” says +Oliver Maillard,⁠<a id="FNanchor_221" href="#Footnote_221" class="fnanchor">[221]</a> “I summon you all to the stewpots of +Hell!” The Calvinists went to still greater lengths of +indignation, and more than one physician, even, thought well +to adopt a cautious attitude. At the end of a long treatise +on hygiene, Gazius says: “I have still to speak about the +baths, and I shall do so briefly, for the custom of bathing +does not exist among us, and further, it is a pleasure which +is not devoid of danger; perhaps it would be better not to +speak of it, lest I should appear to recommend it. For myself, +I have never taken a bath, and I am none the worse for +it, thank God!” However, Gazius, not to come to logger-heads +with the ancients, or the Arabs, or his colleagues, goes +so far as to acknowledge that cold water is in use “in very +distinguished countries”; for his part, he sees nothing +objectionable in a douche followed by brisk friction or +massage.</p> + +<p>But we must get to the bottom of this matter, a question +of morals rather than hygiene.</p> + +<p>We have unexpectedly come upon principles which we +recognise as old acquaintances. Neither preachers nor +Calvinists were willing to admit that any consideration of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>utility could induce a self-respecting woman to strip herself +of all, or nearly all, her clothes, either in the open air as in +ancient times, or in one of those public bathing establishments +which were cried every day in the market-places +between the artichokes and the cheese,⁠<a id="FNanchor_222" href="#Footnote_222" class="fnanchor">[222]</a> and where +the authorities winked at certain familiarities. Many +historians have concluded outright that Calvinists and +preachers had a horror of water; but this is not strictly +accurate; they recommended baths at home. Thus the +council of Basle passed a canon inviting persons to set bath-rooms +in their houses. The platonists fell in the more +heartily with the council’s recommendation in that they +treated their bodies with sacerdotal attentions, so to speak, +and that no refinement appeared to them unreasonable in +forging the weapon of delightful love. Some discriminating +women preferred dry methods to water—powders, pastes, +scraping of the skin, which enabled them to say “that +they did not wash their hands”; but the majority owed a +great deal to water, and the room devoted to this work of +regeneration was a sanctuary. The little bath-rooms of the +18th or the beginning of the 19th century, hung all round +with mirrors, are familiar to us. The idolatry of the 16th +century was less blatant but not less ardent; Raphael himself +decorated Bibbiena’s bath-room, and, as we know, the +subject chosen by the charming prelate for his frescoes was +the story of Venus and Cupid.</p> + +<p>In one of her most amusing letters Madame de Sévigné +bewails the necessity of taking shower-baths at Vichy, +which she regarded as a “humiliating” situation to be in. +To give herself courage, she conceived the singular idea of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>keeping her two maids with her, so that she might “see +familiar faces.” At the same time, she got her physician, a +man of parts, to conceal himself behind a curtain, so that she +might chat with him during the operation.</p> + +<p>We do not know what the impressions of Madame de +Sévigné’s descendants are, but we know that her ancestresses +were on this point extremely fastidious. Margaret of France, +not to lose sight of the story of the chaste Susanna, had it +embroidered on a table-cover.</p> + +<p>We get an idea, then, of the cautious attitude adopted in +regard to hydrotherapeutics. But on the other hand the +friends of antiquity restored water to a place of honour; +scholars proved that the Romans had been devoted to it; +the higher clergy became its apostles. George of Amboise +and his brothers multiplied the spas at Rouen, Blois, Gaillon, +Clermont, as the pope did at Rome.</p> + +<p>In regard to mineral springs, there appeared, under the +auspices of the pope and the Venetian senate, a large folio +official guide,⁠<a id="FNanchor_223" href="#Footnote_223" class="fnanchor">[223]</a> which explained that there were waters for +all sick bodies as there were saints for all sick souls,⁠<a id="FNanchor_224" href="#Footnote_224" class="fnanchor">[224]</a> but +that no one should venture to them without seeking advice +in the proper quarter.</p> + +<p>A person wishing to go to the waters would consult a +physician. If he was a specialist like Savonarola, he would +look at everything with aquatic prepossessions, and commence +his patient’s initiation at home with baths of various kinds—baths +of oil, of wine, of milk, of fire, of compressed air. +One fine morning he would announce that mineral waters +were spoilt in transit, that he was tired of making the patient +drink stale water, and he would then dispatch him to some +natural spring.</p> + +<p>Most of the Italian springs, at any rate such as were much +frequented, had the good taste to flow in or near a city, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span>thus people were likely to meet familiar faces, if only among +the regular visitors. Under Louis XII., the city of Genoa +revolted because its French captain, the Sire de Roquebertin, +instead of attending to business, tiresome certainly, passed +his life at the waters of Acqui.</p> + +<p>A lady of distinction, however, first of all secured a good +escort to keep her company; Margaret of France, for +instance, carried her whole party off to Cauterets. Then +she had to listen to the parting exhortation of her doctor, a +punctilious and intelligent man, who apparently had no +excessive confidence in his colleagues or his fair client, and +who catechised her and made her read the folio. He +mentioned eight enemies lying in wait for her—headache, +insomnia, and the rest;—he instructed her how, by watchfully +studying her little secret vices and never for a moment forgetting +her digestion, and so on, she would put them to +rout. Then he carefully consulted the horoscope, the direction +of the wind, the temperature, his chart of epidemics; +he assured himself as to the character of the year (for +there were some years in which the waters killed off the +invalids or made them worse), and finally he pronounced +the <i>exeat</i>.</p> + +<p>Flinging off this wet blanket with his terrestrial visions, +the patient sped away. Pity if it was towards Porretta, +near Bologna, a very popular haunt but dreadfully purgative. +However, the spirit of Beauty can idealise everything, +and an agreeable poet, Battista of Mantua, undertook to +show all the moral and aesthetic satisfaction to be got in +drinking three glasses of a laxative water, and then leaving +Nature to herself.</p> + +<p>He describes this regimen in admirable verses:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Far from the bed and all its joys,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">You go and come and eke advance</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In the slow measure of a stately dance,”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">and so on.</p> + +<p>In fact, the idea of becoming young again, the thought of +gaining new freedom of mind, new warmth of heart, new +suppleness of the bodily frame by sacrifices so slight, of +seeing the wrinkles vanish of themselves, in short the +pursuit of beauty as a bounden duty, threw the glamour of +poetry over many things, and was well worth the self-imposition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>of twenty-one days of hardship. For all that, +fashionable people preferred the bathing-places to the spas.</p> + +<p>Life at such places presented the admirable advantage +that people could there enjoy the most perfect liberty. +Nowhere were there better opportunities for seeing one’s +friends, for intimate conversation, for deriving real profit +from companionship. It was that which made this life so +precious. A man who had followed in the train of the +princess he loved had absolutely nothing to do but to +devote himself to her, for he put up with the rubbings and +purgings only as a sop to his conscience. What delightful +opportunities between two glasses of water to improve the +mind or tell stories! Many collections of <i>Novelli</i> originated +near a spring. It was during a season at Lucca, in April +1538, that Vittoria Colonna made the acquaintance of +Carnesecchi, the adventurous theologian, and launched out +with him into the abstrusest religious speculations. Everyone +followed his own bent, and the gentlemen who did not +love husbands were less irked there than elsewhere.</p> + +<p>We shall not go so far as to say that platonism exercised +undivided sway over the bathers;⁠<a id="FNanchor_225" href="#Footnote_225" class="fnanchor">[225]</a> but to have a place at +all was something gained. There is no indication that a +much purer virtue reigned north of the Alps among the +virtuous races. The goings-on at Baden in Aargau scandalised +even Brantôme. A Florentine,⁠<a id="FNanchor_226" href="#Footnote_226" class="fnanchor">[226]</a> who thought life at +Florence pleasant enough, has related his impressions at +Baden with a naïve stupefaction; he was dumbfounded the +very moment he arrived. The beautiful platonism of his +own province, flanked always by jealous husbands and +<i>impedimenta</i> of all sorts, appeared to him mere food for +babes, a phantom, a faded flower, an unsubstantial pageant, +beside those Piccadilly manners. But they did not offend +him: “Bravo!” he cries, “who wouldn’t be platonic, since +Plato preaches the community of women? Here the +husbands take everything, absolutely everything, in good +part! How wonderfully sensible of them! These Germans +don’t rack themselves for suspicions, they enjoy the present.” +And then, Florentine as he is, he goes on to describe the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>charms of Baden with genuine enthusiasm: the handsome +streets in which never a sign of infirmity is to be seen +(Baden was recommended to childless women); exquisite +fine ladies; men in cloth of gold and silver; somewhat +exotic beauties sprung from God knows where, attended by +a lackey and one or two waiting-maids; here and there a +few noble abbesses of reasonable piety.... What a +whirl! It is one mad race for pleasure!</p> + +<p>Serious people who take care of themselves and desire a +cure, have two or three baths a day, living like so many +ducks. For ordinary folk there are common swimming-baths +of wonderful picturesqueness, but every respectable +hostel possesses one bath for men, and another for women, +with a gallery to which men are admitted in their dressing-gowns. +To describe the gaiety that reigns there is +impossible. There is chatting and laughter, eating and +drinking, dancing in a ring; the gentlemen fling down +coins which the fair bathers catch with the tips of their +fingers or in their linen chemisettes, with much contortioning +and struggling. Sometimes, when the company are +on intimate terms, they end by fraternising in a single +tank, which is much more amusing, and pleases the +physicians, because nothing ensures more conscientious +bathing. <i>Honi soit qui mal y pense!</i></p> + +<p>In the evening a broad meadow serves as a casino; there +is more dancing and singing: and these amusements are +mingled with various pastimes such as the game of <i>balle +à grelots</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_227" href="#Footnote_227" class="fnanchor">[227]</a> which leads to all sorts of horse-play.</p> + +<p>That is Baden.</p> + +<p>One singular fact is brought out. Platonism was regarded +as nothing if not complex and elaborate, and indeed it +believed itself to be such; antiplatonism, on the contrary, +affected airs of the most complete simplicity: yet whenever +the two are confronted, it is platonism that proves the +more ingenuous.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="smaller">INTELLECTUAL RESOURCES</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>It is all very well for a woman to be beautiful, to lend +grace to the world, to diffuse sweetness and light; but this +would be but a vain show if she did not with jealous care +nourish in herself the flame of love of the Beautiful. +Castiglione, who liked to give a mathematical precision to +his definitions, tells us: “Woman must nourish herself on +the life of the world and the life of the arts”—thus in +appearance relegating the aesthetic life to a second place; +but he is very careful to add: “She must occupy herself +with literature, music, painting, dancing, and entertaining”; +in other words, the heart must reverse the parts, and in the +conscience secret preoccupations must come before visible +occupations, His view is logical. How could women +govern the world if they were in reality its slaves? The +first necessity for a lighthouse is a light.</p> + +<p>Further, we ourselves have a right to ask where these +ladies think of leading us. Their art consists in pleasing us +and in indoctrinating us with their principles. To please is +their secret, with which we do not meddle; it is of little +consequence to know if Lucretia Borgia cut out her own +dresses, where and by whom Mary Stuart had her hats +made, or if women always please by what pleases their +husbands. But when they speak of ruling our intelligence, +it becomes of very great importance to know how they will +deal with us.</p> + +<p>The intellectual provision of the Renaissance women consisted +chiefly of impressions of art, in accordance with +Castiglione’s prescription. In this, painting (still more the +inferior manual arts—lace-making, embroidery, tapestry) +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>held the lowest rank, on the principle universally accepted +in the platonic world that the less an art needs the co-operation +of the senses to touch the soul, the greater is its +excellence. Music stood higher than painting, because it +directly transmits an impression; vocal music in particular +represents almost the speech of soul to soul, with but an +insignificant admixture of materiality. Poetry was the +supreme art, the truly aristocratic thing; no one would +have dreamt of comparing it to painting or any manual +art. The poet with one stroke paints soul and body; in +Ronsard’s words, “he paints in the heavens.”</p> + +<p>To lay in her stock of happiness, a woman will begin by +living in close communion with the Beautiful. Sciences are +useless to her; she has little taste, and still less time, for their +cultivation. But just as she finds breakfast a necessity, so +she ought every morning to give her soul nourishment, if it +be only one sip of the beautiful. Louise of Savoy on +rising used to read a psalm, “to perfume her day,” as she +put it. These few moments’ reading were sufficient to flood +her soul with a radiance to light her through the day.</p> + +<p>Further, reading is a duty having special claims on +women. Not only is there always some new thing to learn, +some new chord to touch, but the intellectual life demands +a constant outgoing of energy,—I will venture to say, a continual +“education.” Could a tree flourish and bear fruit if +it refused to suck up its sap? How long would it be before +it stood a bare skeleton against the sky?</p> + +<p>Thus, with complete independence of mind, as great as +her material liberty but much more difficult to acquire, a +woman will supply herself with spiritual food; she will seek +Beauty in truth stripped of all conventions. The real foe to +women’s freedom is not this or that man, but themselves, +because of their frivolity, their inconsequence, and their +innate passion for the superficial; in other words, for the +conventional or fashionable. They need a real force of soul +to go deeply into anything; they are perfectly happy in +yielding to the glitter of a thought which, though obscure +at bottom, is dazzling on the surface. When the taste for +precision has not been carefully instilled into them in childhood, +they run a great risk of wasting their minds in habits +of cursory curiosity, like many men of the world.</p> + +<p>Books played a prominent part in the psychology of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>Renaissance. They were regarded as the highest type of +luxury; a house was characterised as much by its library as +by its plate. Among the ladies, Anne of Brittany, Louise +of Savoy, and many others are essentially deserving of the +name of bibliophiles, nobly loving the beautiful books with +beautiful miniatures produced for them. They were even +accused of reading them. In that epoch, the artistic aroma +exhaled from a fine edition seemed necessarily to accentuate +the written thought, just as music accentuated the uttered +thought. We have become wiser; we have discovered that +beautiful books are herbariums in which ideas must be left +to dry, for their better preservation.</p> + +<p>There was no lack of scoffers to make mock of this +“bookish sufficiency.” “What a heap of books!... +These folk must surely mean to carry the world on their +backs! What a frittering away of intellectuality!” And, +indeed, Margaret of France not only believed in books, but +doted on them; to her a library seemed a sanctuary.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Tant y en a que le seul remembrer</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et les nommer n’est pas en ma puissance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais il faisoit beau voir leur ordonnance ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et du scavoir qui est dedans</div> + <div class="verse indent0">J’en laisse aux folz craindre les accidens ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Des livres fiz ung pillier, et sembloit</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que sa grandeur terre et ciel assembloit.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_228" href="#Footnote_228" class="fnanchor">[228]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We writers think it natural enough that people should +buy our books, keep them, and even cut a few pages; if it +is women who show us this attention, we do not complain. +We dig away in darkness under the soil, labouring like a +miner with his pick; why should we complain that above +us, in the bright sunshine, someone sifts and mints our +metal, and circulates part of it through the world?</p> + +<p>It is even a not wholly disagreeable surprise to meet in +an odd place here and there one’s own ideas, which have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>flitted away and found warm foster-parents in people who +have so far adopted them as to believe them their own. +Sometimes it is another writer who is good enough to +saddle himself with them thus, and in that case our feeling +is not perhaps unalloyed pleasure; but if it is a reader, man +or woman, we are well rewarded. Often, too, our idea as it +goes round has altered in feature, and if it now and then +appears to us enfeebled, it also happens sometimes to have +gained strength.</p> + +<p>Everyone cannot be a writer! ‘Amateurs’ have a rôle of +their own, which is not that of ‘stickit’ authors—a rôle +of synthesis, generalisation, criticism, support, sanction!</p> + +<p>The end we pursue—thought, namely, and truth—can +only be attained by the aid of conversation,—only if distinguished +and enthusiastic women set themselves to distil +from our books any good they may contain, and to diffuse +its essence around them.</p> + +<p>From this almost indispensable collaboration between +pure learning and its popular interpretation results a +vigorous life. As Madame d’Haussonville has so well said: +“An eager desire for knowledge possessed the entire sixteenth +century. The quick and supple intellect of the +women was carried away in the general current. Erudition +was the passion of the age, not that cold and microscopic +erudition which arises in ages of decadence, and which is +often only the useless lumber of scholastic pedantry, but an +erudition living, intelligent, and animated”—animated, that +is by aestheticism.</p> + +<p>By the side of exquisites like Bembo, laborious students +like Lefèvre d’Etaples, Hebraists, and exegetists cultivating +their little patch with dogged tenacity, there were brilliant +minds, perhaps more brilliant than profound, but unprejudiced, +who synthetised particular studies and started them +on an unlooked-for career. For the Hebraists, exegetists, +philosophers, and historians of every description, the spread +of intelligence would of course have been fatal; but it was +the <i>raison d’être</i> of a lady whose mission was to put in +circulation the results of her individual study.</p> + +<p>Thus the aim which women had to set before themselves +in their reading was twofold: first, a personal, aesthetic +aim, the reinvigoration and refreshment of their own souls; +secondly, an aim relating to their apostolic mission, the art +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span>of understanding men’s souls, then of charming and leading +them by means of conversation.</p> + +<p>But it is impossible, by merely scanning a man’s bookshelves, +to form an idea of the man. In great houses, the +king’s, for example, some of the books were inherited, others +were presents, others were books that no gentleman’s library +could have been without. Francis I. bought the Italian +novelties, Bembo, Pontanus, and Politian. In reality his +chief reading was the Arthurian romances.</p> + +<p>The princesses had also, besides the books of the hour, +books that they had been obliged to buy or accept, books +left to them—those which were kept “for their backs,” as +Montaigne said. The bookshelves made a brilliant display +in a spacious gallery adorned with the choicest objects of +art. The bulk of the library usually consisted of books on +the elements of religion, history, and morals; it also contained +romances, poetry, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and books +with engravings, which too often replaced those charming +manuscripts of which Louise of Savoy was one of the last +protectors.</p> + +<p>The books that were read were treatises on history, +especially Roman history, and on practical medicine.⁠<a id="FNanchor_229" href="#Footnote_229" class="fnanchor">[229]</a> But +custom varied.</p> + +<p>Certain ladies, like Anne of France, browsed on the early +fathers, the philosophers, and the moralists. Many, while +loving studies of this kind and calling themselves highly +philosophic, preferred to have their food peptonised, and to +be furnished with ready-made convictions which only +required ventilating and disseminating in conversation. A +number of Italian treatises proffered themselves for this +little service, the best of which was Castiglione’s book, <i>The +Courtier</i>. To name Castiglione is to name the Bible of +platonism, the code of aestheticism, the Machiavelli of anti-machiavelism; +Castiglione was in the hands of every +woman who meditated on the ideal.</p> + +<p>From a purely aesthetic standpoint the classics were in +favour, except Virgil, to whom only the Mantuans remained +faithful, probably from local feeling. Ovid, who speaks +so well and so much about women, ranked very high. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>He had been popularised in France by the translations +of Octovien de Saint-Gelais and André de la Vigne; +illustrated editions went off rapidly, even though the +engravings were old. In the very highest artistic spheres, +people swore by Cicero.⁠<a id="FNanchor_230" href="#Footnote_230" class="fnanchor">[230]</a> In Margaret of France’s circle the +favourite names were Terence and Cicero, Castiglione and +Boccaccio.</p> + +<p>On the reading days, which were principally (we are +bound to say) the grey days of existence, when one feels +abandoned by God and men, when one is left to “one’s own +devices,” people rather sought for light entertainment, if +possible gently emotional, or at any rate lively, cheering, +affecting. The Bible was very useful for getting glimpses +of Heaven without having to run to a monk or a parson, +for an intelligent woman cared for nothing lower than a +bishop. If they wanted psychology, they went to poetry, +novels, romances. A mere sonnet, a little story, very short +but with movement and savour, would suffice to cure a +casual fit of dumps; in more complicated cases they took +up some voluminous romance, which engrossed the attention +for long hours and reflected life for the nonce in warm and +sunny hues.</p> + +<p>The literature of the Renaissance was well provided +with <i>Nouvelles</i> and <i>Facéties</i>, answering all the demands for +spiced and piquant reading made even by the platonist +ladies.</p> + +<p>They revelled in such works with no touch of coyness; it +was a mark of breeding to discuss them, laugh at them, and +quote from them. Often some courtly abbé, the spiritual +director of these ladies, and soon to be a full-blown +bishop, undertook explanation or translation.</p> + +<p>Some persons have questioned whether the custom of +reading narratives so strongly spiced did not in the long run +obliterate the moral sense, especially among women. Brantôme +maintains that this was the cause of all moral obliquities. +Margaret of France did not believe it; her faith in +art was so ardent that she regarded it as a proof of mental +vigour to face all sorts of literature without blenching. +Her friend Marot told her so with a smile, for in the contest +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>between flesh and spirit he held with the flesh; he mentions +a select list of the works reputed the most naughty, and +adds:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tout cela est bonne doctrine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et n’y a rien de deffendu!⁠<a id="FNanchor_231" href="#Footnote_231" class="fnanchor">[231]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Margaret, brought up on Saint-Gelais and Boccaccio, was +in truth inoculated. Further, like some other women of +narrow mysticism, she was not afraid of contrasts;—soul and +body in opposite pans of the scale, Petrarch as a corrective +to Boccaccio, and vice versa. Good humour and gaiety +were part of the platonist hygiene, and ladies took them +where they found them. Coarse pleasantries did not amuse, +as a German⁠<a id="FNanchor_232" href="#Footnote_232" class="fnanchor">[232]</a> who had spent great pains in writing a <i>Eulogy +of Baldness</i> frankly confessed. “We are ridiculous even +when we write of serious things, but we are never gay. +When we try to be jocular it is, in the words of the proverb, +like setting an elephant to dance.” Professed humorous +writers are such bores!—a crusty old philosopher like Nifo, +to wit, or that excellent La Perrière, a friend of Margaret, who +dedicated his lascivious verses, his <i>Hundred Considerations +of Love</i>, to a clerk in the Woods and Forests!</p> + +<p>There was no help for it, ladies had to return to Boccaccio, +since amusement was his monopoly! The chance discovery +of a by no means remarkable unpublished fragment of +Boccaccio covered Claricio of Imola with glory, and was +published at the expense of a Milanese Maecenas, Andrea +Calvi, under the auspices of Leo X. and Francis I. Castiglione +and Margaret were not disposed to attack such a +renown: their ambition was to eclipse it. Margaret had a +fresh translation of Boccaccio made. She herself, as we +know, was ambitious to imitate the master; and to do so +was really a profitable business: by donning Boccaccio’s +mantle Firenzuola became a dignitary of the church, and +Bandello became bishop of Nérac; while a common saddler, +Nicolas, gained the favour of the king. The test of skill +was to tell true stories under transparent pseudonyms. +Yet Louise of Savoy was almost as fond of the Acts of the +Apostles.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span></p> + +<p>The Facétie had a less brilliant fate. Poggio and Cornazano, +always dear to the ladies, handed down many of their +stories to imitators like Domenichi, Delicado, Boistuau, who +in their turn passed them on to Shakespeare, La Fontaine, +and others.</p> + +<p>The old romance continued in high favour—a favour that +was so far merited in that the romance combined with the +sentimentalism of chivalry sufficient spiciness to induce a +good lady to leave it lying on her table. Women doted on +the venerable romance of cloak and sword,⁠<a id="FNanchor_233" href="#Footnote_233" class="fnanchor">[233]</a> long, diffuse, and +heroic; it had long ago captured Italy. It delighted +princesses by its idealism, and peasant girls by its flavour of +mystery and marvel. When the efflorescence of humanism, +aestheticism and the new ideas was at its height, the +<i>Romaunt of the Rose</i> made its reappearance, and year in, +year out men saw defiling past, as though resuscitated by +some terrible incantation, all the old knights of ecstatic or +sorrowful countenance, the champions of the Holy Grail and +of Melusina—Lancelot of the Lake and Perceforest, Fier-à-bras +and Percival, Ponthus, Meliadus, Pierre de Provence, +all that Gothic world which was believed to be dead and +buried. With them they brought their friends and relatives—<i>The +Fair Elaine</i>, <i>Theseus</i>, <i>The Destruction of Troy</i>, <i>The +Doughty Hector</i>, <i>Oedipus</i>, <i>Alexander the Great</i>, these +worthy, up to a certain point, of rubbing shoulders with +Plato; but also <i>Baudouin</i>, <i>Le Grant Voyage de Jherusalem</i>, +<i>La Conqueste de Trébisonde</i>, in an age when people troubled +themselves very little about Crusades! Even the Italians +went mad over Charlemagne. It was like an electric spark—a +reciprocal attraction. France lost her heart to Italy, +and Italy opened wide her arms to France; the women of +the south, the men of the north. In vain did the platonist +men ridicule the event; in vain did their spokesman, Pulci, +at the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the sanctuary of platonism, +empty the vials of their wrath and give the paladins a +terribly hot time of it; nothing could stem the tide, and a +romance—a shockingly bad one—entitled <i>I reali di Francia</i>, +became the germ of a whole new literature.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span></p> + +<p>Men succumbed to this craze because the women drove +them to it. Besides, nations, like widows, love the dear +departed. Since chivalry had ceased to exist, people naturally +swore by nothing else. The more our activities decline, +the more we gloat over the memory of past excesses. +Charlemagne, then, filled the horizon; doting looks were +cast at rusty old sword-blades, and while works of quite +charming beauty left women almost unmoved, spectres had +only to appear, to vanquish them. Sometimes these showed +themselves naked and unadorned, in all the strange dignity +of their powerful frames; at other times an intelligent editor +paid some attention to their toilet, smartened them up, +decked them with little rosettes of pink or blue. How +many times was <i>Amadis</i>, perhaps the most famous of these +romances, thus tittivated! No one remembered that France +had given it birth; it was re-imported into France by way +of Spain and Italy through a translation of Herberay des +Essarts, with fabulous success: “Any one who spoke ill of +the Amadis romances would have been a hissing and a by-word.” +Out of four books it grew into a dozen; it might +well have lengthened itself indefinitely, like some law-suits +in our own time.</p> + +<p>These old romances are to-day scarcely known except by +scholars. If we open any one of them at hazard—<i>Lancelot +of the Lake</i> for instance, one of the most classic⁠<a id="FNanchor_234" href="#Footnote_234" class="fnanchor">[234]</a>—we find +that the colouring is crude. Side by side with mystic +virginities we see the reek of coarse appetites. Wives +and maidens have blood in their veins, and, like all persons +of rather primitive education, do nothing by halves; her +husband has only to turn his back for a moment and queen +Guinevere is feeling her way towards a reconciliation with +Lancelot (bearded like the pard), and the gallant knight +has no need to supplicate to get the window opened. +Sir Gawain holds very brief parley with the daughter of +the king of North Wales, when he surprises her extended +on her ermine couch in a virginal but ravishing deshabille! +Arthur very quickly forgets Queen Guinevere amid the +solace brought him in his cell by a damsel “courteous and +fair of speech.”</p> + +<p>As it mixed in the best platonist society, the old romance +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span>of chivalry picked up more refined manners. King Arthur +ends by gathering about him a noble enough company; +Roland leaves Charlemagne in the lurch, to hasten after his +well-beloved; and (horror of horrors!) Angelica philanders +prettily with a Saracen page! The old torrential romance +ended like the Rhone—fell into a tranquil lake.</p> + +<p>And yet the dignitaries of the church invariably denounced +it, and had the courage to break with the women +on this point. They countenanced neither the old masters +nor the new—the eloquent Cataneo, the gay Boiardo. +Nothing disarmed their opposition—neither the success of +romances like <i>La Célestine</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_235" href="#Footnote_235" class="fnanchor">[235]</a> nor blandishments. When +Ariosto offered to Cardinal d’Este his masterpiece packed +with dithyrambs in honour of all the Estes past, present, +and to be, the amiable prelate said to him: “Where on +earth did you get all this nonsense?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_236" href="#Footnote_236" class="fnanchor">[236]</a></p> + +<p>In short, women who read, read what spoke of love: that +was what they set store by. Philosophy spoke of love—they +were philosophers; romances, facéties, novels, poetry +spoke of love—they sipped also of that philosophy. But in +some cases it was philosophy that bred the spirit of love, in +other cases it was the spirit of love that led them to +philosophy; and from this wide differences resulted.</p> + +<p>The first class were coldly sentimental,—but no real sway +is exerted through coldness; they lived in the absolute,—but +the absolute lends no governing force. They lost touch +with things, they had nothing of the communicable warmth +which makes apostles. They were princesses, sacred beings, +to be admired but not touched.</p> + +<p>Plato had not evolved a practical rule for happiness, and +his best friends agreed that his social ideas presented many +chimerical sides.</p> + +<p>But the ladies who learnt their philosophy from love +were the ardent, active women who knew that the world is +swayed by passions, good or bad, and that the secret of +feminine power lies far more in that than in any amount of +reasoning. Reason may produce an artless blissfulness, but +passion has lynx eyes. Love is not reasoned out or manufactured, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>it is a give and take; life also is only a perpetual +exchange, and happiness comes from life, while Plato seeks +it in self-contemplation and egoism. To act on another, one +must be acted on; to make others happy we must gain +happiness through others. An illogical process? What if +it is? Nothing is more illogical and more relative than +happiness, since it has to do with us. That is for many +women the science of life, and they love romances as a +pictorial philosophy—not cold precept, but a living force—a +philosophy in which the heart cries out instead of +patiently suffering dissection.</p> + +<p>Books appealed to the feelings. Poggio tells the story of +a worthy man, a merchant and a Milanese, and therefore +doubly unemotional, who almost died of grief after reading +about the death of Roland: yet Roland had been dead seven +hundred years! Much more were women justified in showing +their sensibility!</p> + +<p>So, when they read, they attached the highest value to +the external forms which produce impressions: they were +affected more by these than by ideas. The wife of +Guillaume Budé declared that she loved her husband’s +books, not for their contents, but because she regarded them +as his offspring. Women adored magnificence of expression—the +rhetoric, the rhythm, the “gay trimmings” of style; +poetry seemed to them the supreme enchantment, because +it answered at once to their personal craving for “sensibility” +and to their mission, which consisted precisely in +sowing a little charm in life, that is, in garnishing life +externally with a little poetry.</p> + +<p>However, what they called poetry we should rather call +music. Poetry in those days was only a perpetual libretto; +there was rhythm and cadence in the arrangement of the +words, and the impression they gave was a musical one. +Perfect clearness was not insisted on; the thought was +allowed to remain in semi-obscurity, like a melody flowing +uncertainly through a strain of music, rather betrayed than +revealed by the harmony. Our great Lamartine, with his +lofty but indefinite thought, has been regarded even by us +as the first of poets. On the other hand, the aim of musical +melody was boldly to seize all these words, to give them a +precise value, intensity, brilliance, and force. The employment +chiefly, or indeed exclusively, of human voices brought +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>this quality still further into prominence; the delicate +modulations of the voice, thrown out with matchless skill, +seemed to outline the very soul of the singer, like traceries +against the sky.</p> + +<p>The admirable inspirations of Vittoria and her predecessors +will never cease to touch us. In that old idealistic +music there lies a whole intangible world; our vows, our +love, our poignant sorrows, our prayers gush forth in it like +a fountain, flash like a bursting rocket in the sky: “God +has given us nothing more pleasant, nothing more sweet,” +exclaimed a poet: “music is a messenger from heaven, the +solace of all our woes.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_237" href="#Footnote_237" class="fnanchor">[237]</a></p> + +<p>The sonnets of Petrarch were set to music and sung; +they had indeed been composed for that purpose. Teodoro +Riccio furnished an accompaniment to the famous romance, +<i>Italia mia</i>, and Ciprian van Rore one to the sonnet, +<i>Fontana di dolore, Albergo d’ira</i>. Ronsard, too, wrote his +sonorous rhymes for music; Baïf, as is well known, went so +far as to propose to turn writing into a sort of notation, +and when his academy was instituted, composers of music +and even mere singers were admitted on equal footing with +poets. The art of music consisted in giving to thought all +the external beauty of which it was capable. Philosophers +counted metrical music (in other words, poetry) or vocal +music as a part of philosophy. The art thus intellectualised +became quite a religion. In his painting of Parnassus at +the Vatican, Raphael shows us Apollo singing like an +ancient bard. In all the pictures of Paradise that we have +seen we have never found a palette, or a sculptor’s point, +or even a rostrum or an inkstand; nothing but direct and +pure communion with God through contemplation and +music. And what could be more delicious than the little +choirs of angels which Giovanni Bellini’s imagination placed +at the feet of his Madonnas, like an incense of homage from +the world! Melozzo gives a queen an organ as her emblem,⁠<a id="FNanchor_238" href="#Footnote_238" class="fnanchor">[238]</a> +and Titian one to his Venuses. Music would seem to have +been the very breath of happiness.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span></p> + +<p>The common people themselves were strangely enamoured +of intellectual harmonies. In Italy a number of poets spent +their life in the market-places, like Homer. Aurelio Brandiolini, +for example, who sang in the squares of Verona the +praises of antique heroes, went on, stimulated by popular +applause, to execute veritable <i>tours de force</i>, such as singing +in verse the thirty-seven books of Pliny’s <i>Natural History</i>. +The celebrated Bernardo Accolti wandered from town to +town giving recitals in the principal squares. The moment +he arrived, people flocked about him, business was suspended, +far-distant shops were shut, lights began to appear on the +balconies, and the police hastened up to keep order. +Making way through the crowd by favour, the notables +formed up round the poet as a guard of honour; and then, +under the lamp of some sleeping Madonna, amid breathless +silence, the poet’s voice arose towards the starry sky, singing +love to the accompaniment of a guitar.</p> + +<p>Nothing more truly characterises the period than this +popular passion for musicians, poets, and buffoons. Far +from becoming degraded by contact with the mob, poetry +seemed thereby to gain in breadth. A pure Virgilian named +Andrea Marone (Virgil’s surname) never felt at ease unless +sitting on a stone post; in that position inspiration seized +him like an ancient sibyl or a fakir; his veins dilated, drops +of sweat stood on his brow, his whole being expressed itself +in gestures which gave emphasis to his song, lightning flashed +from his eyes; it seemed as though a part of his individuality +left him and shed itself upon his audience like a rain +of fire.</p> + +<p>Almost all women were fond of music, for men were very +accessible to ear-charming sound. Even in France, in spite +of the poverty of aesthetic education, the villages harboured +a surprising number of harpists and taborers. The duchess +of Orleans patronised at Blois a crowd of more or less +official “gitternists,” fiddlers, and trumpeters, without +reckoning strolling guitarists, always sure of a warm +welcome. Like all the princesses she had her private band, +and also two taborers, magnificent in their crimson badge,—so +magnificent that during her lyings-in she had them +to play at the foot of her bed. It was a great sorrow to +her to have to dismiss, from a prudent motive of economy, +the ducal choir and even one of the taborers; Pierre de +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span>Vervel, once her master of music, always remained her +friend.</p> + +<p>We have in a former volume shown Louise of Savoy, a +cithara in her hand, surrounded by a harp, an organ, and a +complete orchestra. Louise Labé approved of young girls +devoting to music the best part of their time. It was +incomprehensible how any lady who possessed this divine +means of fascination⁠<a id="FNanchor_239" href="#Footnote_239" class="fnanchor">[239]</a> could neglect it; when a Mademoiselle +de Hauteville had to be pressed to display her magnificent +voice, her false modesty was censured as a sort of professional +error. Mary of England, accompanying herself on +a guitar, used to sing of a morning to Louis XII., her +doddering old husband, and the poor prince felt himself +revived, such “wondrous pleasure did he take therein.” +Margaret of France, who has left us thousands of verses, +evidently betook herself to poetry as nowadays we go to +the piano, to let her thoughts wander at large; instead of +singing with her lips, she sang with her pen. It is highly +probable that many ladies abandoned themselves thus +to their inspirations, half music, half poetry.</p> + +<p>Sometimes people had too much of it. It was irritating +to meet certain people perpetually humming a refrain. As +soon as you entered a drawing-room, you saw an instrument +looming menacingly before you, and you had to perform. +And then, how many amateurs would do better to muzzle +themselves than to go quavering out their little songs!</p> + +<p>Music also was charged with enervating effects; some +went so far as to call it an art of decadence, and maintained +that the ancient Medes had perished through love of music. +Castiglione almost gets into a passion on this subject. +“What! Music effeminating! But, I ask you, were not +Alexander, Socrates, Epaminondas, Themistocles musicians? +Lycurgus was almost one! Did the harp prevent Achilles +from shedding blood—if that is what you are driving at? +Effeminating! Why, without music how can you praise +God? What would comfort the sunburnt labourer at his +plough, the peasant woman at her wheel, the sailor in the +storm, the traveller on his weary way, the nurse in her +tiring night-watches by a cradle? Music, on the contrary, +is the charm of life—its light, its sunny grace! No art +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>responds better to the demands of our emotional nature, +none more liberally brings us vivid and various impressions. +It softens, calms, penetrates us, it moves, indeed enraptures +us; it raises us to heaven with the rapid, vehement, urgent +beating of its wings!”</p> + +<p>Castiglione almost regards music as love itself: they were +to him such nearly related terms that we cannot be sure but +that in his opinion song was more excellent than love.</p> + +<p>In regard to what was expected of it, namely, a little +happiness, music was a performance of feeling rather than of +skill. Notes a little venturesome or even imperfect were +pardoned if they blended, and had resonance and passion. +People would boldly attack and smoothly carry to its +conclusion a two-part fugue. The ideal was to hear in +a drawing-room a pure and mellow voice, supported by +a single lute; or rather to see the voice, for the lute, not +an ungraceful instrument like the piano, seemed a living +thing, and became one body with the fair singer; it was one +personality thrilling with song.</p> + +<p>To idealists of the very highest order, Flemish, French, +and German music was far superior to Italian music, because +it expressed ideas, whilst Italian music barely went beyond +sentiment or even sensation. Rome herself fell a willing +victim to the northern races.⁠<a id="FNanchor_240" href="#Footnote_240" class="fnanchor">[240]</a> Among many distinguished +and often admirable artists, the great figure of John of +Ockeghem,⁠<a id="FNanchor_241" href="#Footnote_241" class="fnanchor">[241]</a> who died at Tours in 1495, stands out as that of +the old master who more than anyone else ennobled his art.</p> + +<p>His successor, Josquin Desprez, a Fleming trained in +the same school (the very name of which has been lost +in the loss of its tradition), and a member of the choir +of Sixtus IV., became a Roman by adoption, and only +left Rome in 1508 to proceed to Ferrara. Josquin was a +stickler for correctness and perfection, skilful in linking +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>discords and in combining independent parts. From the +dim arcana of a sanctuary his profound inspiration rose into +the clear light of day, blossoming out in soft and brilliant +colours. His phrases are like many-coloured curves of light +shot into space, describing their several parabolas without +confusion and without clashing; there is white and green +and red, but they all spring from the same flame.</p> + +<p>Many Italians censured, as fit for dreamers and doctrinaires, +the exclusive employment of the human voice. They +wished to have at least one instrument: the bass viol +(developed into our violoncello), or the viol, from which the +famous Amati, about 1540, derived the violin. It is a viol +that Raphael places in the hands of his singers, who seem to +identify themselves with the instrument with a passionate +ardour.⁠<a id="FNanchor_242" href="#Footnote_242" class="fnanchor">[242]</a></p> + +<p>In the smaller courts chamber-music was cultivated. +Happy states! Nothing took precedence of the quest for a +good musician; dilettantism reigned supreme. The court of +Ferrara was practically a conservatoire; it had a celebrated +orchestra, from which Caesar Borgia borrowed violinists when +starting for France. Care was taken that the performance +of music should take place in the most favourable circumstances +and amid the profoundest respect; there was no +question of being stacked in a hall, too hot or too cold, +of being tight wedged and sitting askew to hear music by +the hour. Lorenzo Costa depicts a very different concert-hall. +Peacefully reclining on a grassy lawn, beneath the +shade of light-foliaged trees, sheltered from sun and breeze, +the ladies form the centre; they are discoursing of pure +love. Their own sweetness seems to envelop everything. +They are crowning a lamb or an ox with flowers; the +landscape seems to spread life out into almost boundless space, +intersected by a sheet of limpid water as blue as the sky. +In the middle some persons are unobtrusively performing +music or writing verses. No one pays any attention (so +profound is the spell!) to a troop of soldiers in the distance +repelling an incursion, nor to a handsome chevalier, a solitary +and elegant figure, occupied in daintily killing a reptile, nor +to certain groups which have wandered away beneath the +leafy shade, towards the extreme verge of platonism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span></p> + +<p>Purely instrumental music, the music of a full orchestra, +appealed to the commoner feelings; it served for dinners and +dances, as in the banquets depicted by Veronese. It represented +the voices of nature. It was best understood on the +water, and then the most staid and stolid of people found it +one of the joys of life. It was the delight of pleasure-loving +nations: “Abolish music, and we must e’en fall to +prayers.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_243" href="#Footnote_243" class="fnanchor">[243]</a> At Venice, as soon as the old cupolas, the tall +statues and the long façades—decorations for a dance in +motley—became blurred in the evening haze, the city +seemed to swim in music: a thousand bells chimed out the +<i>Ave Maria</i>; jangled sounds of serenades and concerts rose +from the palaces, the alleys, every nook and cranny; the +sea sent back its response; noisy parties lightly skimmed the +glistening surface of the Grand Canal; illuminated barges +splashed their oars under a window, with an orchestra or +band of singers. Strange intoxication! Many pious Italians, +like Alberto Pio, thought it so delightful that they loved to +transfer it into the churches. Why not? These thrilling +symphonies did not follow the sacred texts very closely, it +was said; they were not always of the highest class. “You +hear the boys whinnying, the tenors bellowing, the counters +braying, the altos bawling, the basses scraping the bottom +of a well,” and in all this the Puritans could see no trace of +deep religious feeling, “no well-modulated pronunciation, +the perfect enunciation which brings the words home +to the soul.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_244" href="#Footnote_244" class="fnanchor">[244]</a> It was a deafening, stupefying music. But if +it is necessary for our happiness that senses and emotions +should be appealed to simultaneously, why say no?</p> + +<p>Even dance music may ennoble the dance and become an +element of enthusiasm, peace, and joy. This was admirably +expressed by one Madame de Sillé. A canon sitting beside +her was laughing at the sight of men leaping about, while +another was bursting his lungs blowing into a hollow stick. +“What!” she said, “aren’t you aware then of the power of +music? The sound from this stick penetrates the mind, the +mind directs the body, and these buffooneries are the expression +of the soul! Would you prefer to play at tennis?” +The canon held his tongue, more especially as he caught +oblique glances in his direction, and had premonitions of +being dragged into the dance by way of reprisal. Even from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>all this racket of the dance—from the harps, lutes, organs, +manichords, checkers, psalteries, rebecks, guitars, tabors, bass +viols, flageolets—a measure of expression was demanded. +The harpist whom Mantegna shows us setting the Muses to +dance is throwing his whole soul into his work; he is +leading the dance.⁠<a id="FNanchor_245" href="#Footnote_245" class="fnanchor">[245]</a></p> + +<p>Here we should properly say something about the drama, +but we shall treat it briefly, seeing that in those days it was +very far from displaying the same activity as at present. In +particular, the women’s share in the drama was only that of +a section of the public. It was above all the art of the +prelates, who devoted as much care to altering its character +as the women did to preserving the old romances. Thus the +two great forces of platonism were pitted against each other—the +prelates eager to advance, the women anxious to hang +back.</p> + +<p>The drama with its modern tendencies took possession of +Italy in the 15th century, and Rome was almost its birth-place. +Pomponius Laetus, officially licensed to produce the +plays of Plautus and Terence, died a few days after +Savonarola. The ashes of the monk had been scattered +to the winds; but all Rome was eager to accompany the +remains of Laetus to Ara-Coeli, since it was a work of +true piety to increase the joy of life.</p> + +<p>The palm for dramatic art was, with one consent, awarded +to Bernardo Dovizio da Bibbiena, who had the happy notion +to shake off the yoke of translation and to write a new +piece in imitation of Plautus—the <i>Calandra</i>.</p> + +<p>Bibbiena⁠<a id="FNanchor_246" href="#Footnote_246" class="fnanchor">[246]</a> is one of the best types of this prelatic world, +which after all cannot be dissociated from the world of +women. He belonged to the inner circle of Leo X.’s friends, +having been brought up with him, though the son of a +peasant. He had a spirit and verve which, according to +Paul Jove, “carried the gravest of people off their feet.” +He was supremely in his element at the table. Moreover, +he was one of those astonishing men who live at the +same time a life of toil and of pleasure. On becoming a +cardinal he displayed vast activity—acted as legate, +preached a crusade, and died at fifty. He has left a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>goodly number of treatises, poems, and letters; but it was +the drama that made him famous.</p> + +<p>It is impossible to describe the stir the first representation +of his <i>Calandra</i> made at Urbino, the home of platonism. +Everything was planned with the care and skill of perfect +“amateurs.”</p> + +<p>The stage represented stucco monuments and other scenic +illusions executed by such artists as that age afforded. The +auditorium, which was not marked off from the scenery, +represented fortifications, and the spectators lolled there at +their ease on excellent carpets, amid lustres and garlands of +flowers. The orchestra, placed out of sight, was heard now +on one side, now on the other.</p> + +<p>Nor had the organisers neglected any means of strengthening +the play itself by a great variety of spectacles—a prelude +played by children; a prologue; four pantomimes +between the acts, representing the story of Jason, with bulls +made of stuffed hides, their nostrils flaming, Venus +surrounded by Cupids, Neptune drawn through the flames +by fantastic monsters, Juno encircled by a flight of birds +so natural that even Castiglione, who had had them made, +for a moment believed them to be real. These pantomimes +were danced through in the cleverest fashion, with wonderful +mechanical effects. At the close a Cupid recited some verses, +concealed viols gave forth a ‘song without words,’ and a +quartette of voices concluded with a hymn to Cupid.</p> + +<p>And after all, if the ladies had not actually the direction +of this platonic entertainment, they lost nothing thereby; it +was dedicated to them, and the whole performance had for +its aim the glorification of ideal love. Such a representation +assumed an elevated and almost solemn character, similar in +kind to the performances at Bayreuth in these days.</p> + +<p>Was the <i>Calandra</i> a masterpiece? No. The plot +turned upon the difficulty of distinguishing between two +twins, brother and sister, who changed clothes as circumstances +demanded; from this Bibbiena derived risky +situations, broad jokes, and a complicated dénoûment. But +it achieved an immense success. It was represented again +at Urbino in 1513, and afterwards at the Vatican on the +occasion of a visit from Isabella d’Este. On that supreme +stage its licenses came under the fierce light of criticism, and +scandalised some of the cardinals; but on the other hand it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>was so magnificently interpreted, it was so excellent “in +dramatic elegance, in wit, well-knit construction, and gaiety,” +that the enthusiasm was unbounded. The marchioness +Isabella did not rest till she had organised a similar +performance, an event which took place in 1520. From +that time innumerable editions popularised the <i>Calandra</i>, +which was chosen many years afterwards by the town +of Lyons for its festivities in honour of Catherine de’ +Medici.</p> + +<p>The drama of the time attained its highest perfection at +the Vatican under Leo X. The skill of the actors, all men +of fashion, their sober Attic style, without a trace of the +mere craftsman, made the drama an artistic delight. As yet +no women appeared on the stage. Their parts were sustained +by men, and in this connection we must present +to our fair readers a young prelate named Tommaso Inghirami, +who was the coryphaeus of female parts at the court +of Leo X. A Florentine and an intimate friend⁠<a id="FNanchor_247" href="#Footnote_247" class="fnanchor">[247]</a> of the +pope, who, as everyone knows, had his own portrait painted +along with Inghirami by Raphael,—so perfect a writer that +Erasmus calls him “the Cicero of the age,”—Inghirami +could have taken one of the most notable positions in this +illustrious generation if his amiable and indolent dilettantism +had not led him to believe that writing books was carried to +excess. He was satisfied with shining in conversation, and +in that he was inimitable: Bembo and Sadoleto constantly +speak of him with enthusiasm, and, moreover, in one of the +most appreciative but critical societies that ever existed, he +won for himself as a conversationalist a European renown. +If he had not the extraordinary gaiety of Bibbiena, he spoke +with dazzling passion, wit, and fire; his large coal-black +eyes have an astonishing power: looking at them, one feels +light flashing from his soul.</p> + +<p>He had an ardent love for the theatre. One day, when +playing the part of Phaedra in the <i>Hippolytus</i> of Seneca +before Cardinal St. George, he so captivated the spectators +by his distinction, and especially by his passion, that the +name of “Phaedra” became inseparably fastened to him. +He was a preacher, the learned librarian of the Vatican, the +dignified Bishop of Ragusa; but, for all that, from one end +of Europe to the other he was no longer known except +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>as “Phaedra,” or at most “Thomas Phaedra.” Only, the +name was masculinised: thus Erasmus wrote: “I knew +and loved <i>Phaedrum</i>.”</p> + +<p>Unhappily, about 1505, letters from Rome spread a +deplorable piece of news: Phaedra is putting on flesh, +Phaedra is big. “So much the better,” retorts Bembo +in Greek, “we wish she may have twins!” The portrait +in the Pitti Palace shows him to us, indeed—this superb +platonist type of the pseudo-woman—as by no means a +slender man. There is no doubt he had been handsome! +His eyes continue to flash and throw their unabated fire +towards the ceiling; he still has his fair, plump hand, +his fine mouth; and yet, seated at his table, he no longer +looks anything but a handsome prelate.</p> + +<p>Radiating from Rome under the auspices of ladies like +Isabella d’Este or connoisseurs like Ludovico Gonzaga, +bishop of Mantua, the dramatic art reigned nobly in the +courts and castles of Italy, without losing anything of +its elegant and artistic cachet. It adapted itself to all +circumstances with marvellous flexibility, ranging from +the opera-ballet played in the open air⁠<a id="FNanchor_248" href="#Footnote_248" class="fnanchor">[248]</a> to genuine comedy +and tragedy. But, like the Novels and Romances, it +assumed a licentious and even cynical character, which +everybody regarded as natural. Thus at Turin, in the early +days of Lent in the year 1537, a comedy of the most daring +kind was performed: “How warmly the ladies here received +it!” exclaims an eye-witness. At Foligno, the pontifical +prefect, a certain Orfino, superintended in person the +staging of <i>Marescalco</i>, an extremely light production of +Aretino; and soon after the performance this worthy pillar +of pontifical “tyranny” wrote to the author, begging another +piece of the same stamp. The <i>Ruffiana</i> of Salviano and +many other pieces of a salacious turn won tempestuous +applause. Some people took alarm and declared the theatre +to be a hotbed of immorality. The Senate of Venice, by +decree of December 29, 1509, forbade any performance, even +the recitation of an eclogue in a private drawing-room, +under penalty of a year’s imprisonment and exile, “irremissible,” +in the wording of the decree. (However, in a +secret addendum, the Senate reserved the right of pronouncing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>the penalty, and by a large majority.) In spite +of this, the <i>Calandra</i> was performed at Venice in 1524 +without any difficulty arising.</p> + +<p>The Italian drama, lacking the support of the ladies, had +little success in France.⁠<a id="FNanchor_249" href="#Footnote_249" class="fnanchor">[249]</a></p> + +<p>They lived there on the old Mysteries. The performance of +these was usually got up in a convent, or by a city; and, +unlike the Italian drama, it retained a character of patriotic +and moral instruction rather than of a work of art.⁠<a id="FNanchor_250" href="#Footnote_250" class="fnanchor">[250]</a> Thus +we find Louis XII. bestowing a pardon on an <i>impresario</i> +guilty of some criminal peccadillo, on account of his excellence +in his profession.</p> + +<p>Italianists and French platonists respected this tradition. +In 1506 the town of Amboise got up a performance before +Louise of Savoy of the Mystery of the Passion, “the most +beautiful that could be discovered.” A priest played the +part of Christ; the performance lasted a week, and was so +successful that two years afterwards M. de Longueville +wished to repeat it at Châteaudun, and engaged in a somewhat +acrimonious correspondence on the subject with the +functionaries of Amboise, whom he accused of purloining +the copy. This performance was very costly; the town +took five years (which seemed an enormous period in those +days) to liquidate a debt of four thousand livres contracted +on the occasion. It does not appear that Louise of Savoy, +who was then residing at the château, contributed in any way +towards the expenses, as M. de Longueville did at Châteaudun; +but she certainly did not disapprove of it; and towards +the middle of the century it was again in the presence of a +thoroughly platonist woman, the second Margaret of France, +that the last known representations of the art of the +Mysteries are said to have taken place.</p> + +<p>With all her daring on other points, the first Margaret +maintained a remarkable attitude of reserve in regard to the +theatre. She contented herself with experiments in an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span>intermediate style of drama,—religious comedies, a sort of +Italianised ‘morality,’ easier to produce and not so long-drawn-out +as the ancient Mysteries, yet neither very pious, +nor very amusing, nor much calculated to take the public +by storm. The result was that the drama long retained traces +of its original character. So late as the 18th century +Voltaire dedicated a tragedy to the pope, and fumed at not +being able to get it performed at Geneva. The only cosmopolitan +kind of piece was that of the farces, knockabouts,⁠<a id="FNanchor_251" href="#Footnote_251" class="fnanchor">[251]</a> +harlequinades, carnival drolleries, to which the most illustrious +platonists of Florence attached their names.⁠<a id="FNanchor_252" href="#Footnote_252" class="fnanchor">[252]</a> +Harlequin and Punch were always a success in France: +“They have something that sets you laughing without +being amused”; but they introduced nothing new. The +French farce had long been flourishing on the boards; +the Italian was only a competitor.</p> + +<p>To sum up, the women of the Renaissance, as we see, did +not try to be savants or blue-stockings. They skimmed the +cream off books and works of art so as to get what suited +their mission, that is, something to talk about and to go +into raptures over. They did not rise to what was called +“humanism,” like the prelates; they stopped short at +loving intellectual beauty more than plastic beauty; they +cultivated a literature of sentiment and passion, and took +a keen delight in beauty of form. They behaved as instructed +women, and above all as women of feeling, as +women who wished to please, nobly faithful to their single-eyed +pursuit of elevated love.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_II_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class="smaller">CONVERSATION</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>We come at last to conversation.</p> + +<p>This was the goal, the sanctuary of happiness, nay, bliss +itself. All that we have hitherto spoken of led up to this +all-engrossing object, for love was the supreme end, and +speech is the vehicle of love. A circle of men about a lady, +and she talking or making them talk,—this was the supreme +and final formula of life.</p> + +<p>Conversation, then, was the great art of the platonists, +infinitely greater than painting or sculpture, greater than +music, poetry or oratory, because it alone established real +communication between soul and soul, it alone was privileged +to body forth a whole realm of unexpressed emotions which +would freeze at the end of a pen or pencil, and which music +itself would render but ill. Words that well up with the +eloquence of spontaneity possess an indescribable vital force +impossible to analyse; innumerable details contribute to it—the +inflection of the voice, the gesture, the expression of the +eyes, the movement of the lips, the play of all the features. +A mineral water taken at its source has, as every one +knows, singular virtues which are impoverished if it is +carried to a distance, and which the most skilful chemist +cannot restore. So also the fount of human intelligence +must be drunk at its source. If need be, it is well worth a +journey.</p> + +<p>Without women there would be no conversation. For a +man who thinks he can converse without wearing the feminine +yoke there is nothing but to go off by himself like Cardan, +that intolerable chatterbox, who, though the author of two +hundred and fifty-five volumes, had the audacity to publish +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>a book <i>In Praise of Silence</i>. “Never,” he exclaims, “am I +more truly with those I love than when I am alone.” Our +opinion would rather coincide with that of the amiable +emigré whom his friends urged to marry the object of his +passion, and who answered, “But then, where should I +spend my evenings?” To draw a man out and show him +what he is capable of, it is necessary for a woman to throw +out the bait; an ambition to please, an instinct of sympathy, +a thousand fleeting intangible nothings, veritable +microbes of sentiment, will do the rest. But we do not +hesitate to add that, without men, women would hardly know +how to talk. Men have often inveighed against the loquacity,⁠<a id="FNanchor_253" href="#Footnote_253" class="fnanchor">[253]</a> +the backbiting,⁠<a id="FNanchor_254" href="#Footnote_254" class="fnanchor">[254]</a> the imprudence, the frivolity, the paltry +and scandalmongering spirit of the rudimentary and inartistic +conversations that women engage in when left to +themselves; this kind of conversation can no more be called +conversation than certain intrigues can be called love, or +than daubing a house front can be called painting a +picture.</p> + +<p>Certain of women’s little defects remain defects or become +virtues according as the women know or do not know how +to make use of them. Gossips, the women who can think +and talk certainly are, and they plume themselves on the +fact. That can only be called a defect in those who have +nothing to say. Margaret of France confesses that when +she opened her mouth, it was long before she shut it again.⁠<a id="FNanchor_255" href="#Footnote_255" class="fnanchor">[255]</a> +Sometimes, however, women are troubled with a certain intellectual +timidity arising either from their education, as +their friends say, or from their temperament, as their enemies +maintain. They easily make up their minds, but can +seldom give you their reasons; their intellect clings like +ivy to some principle reputed substantial, in other words, +one that is affirmed by their neighbours, or is traditional, or +is ingrained from childhood; and the slightest breath of +raillery only attaches them to it the more closely.</p> + +<p>This disposition would be fatal to a writer. To write +one needs the power to think for oneself and to give virile +expression to one’s thoughts, at the risk of getting a name +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span>for paradox or eccentricity; but for conversation nothing is +less necessary; on the contrary, the trite is eminently +serviceable. Conversation serves to test current ideas; it +gives them so to speak a stamp, a hall-mark, a label, and +women understand its utility all the better because they +largely avail themselves of it and acquire their convictions +through it. On the other hand they possess as the gift of +Nature that which is the very life of conversation,—facility +of assimilation without the necessity of going to the root +of the matter; the ability to express quickly, clearly and +copiously the impression of the moment; a feeling for fine +shades; skill in fitly garbing their thoughts, and in maintaining +them with the necessary unction, grace, and warmth. +No more is needed.</p> + +<p>The age in which we live, priding itself on its practical +spirit, has neglected this art of conversation. We have +almost entirely lost the feeling for it because of its unpretentiousness, +and we declare it unimportant on the ground +that we are no longer platonists and can no longer find in +mere phrases the supreme felicity of life. Yet it is an art +of eminent utility in regard to the charm of existence,—a +genuine and highly intellectual art, an art that in the 18th +century was one of our national glories. By their witty +conversation the ladies of the house of Mortemart did more +to make their race illustrious than all the artists and all +the soldiers. Saint-Simon has given us an excellent description +of the talent of three of them, who boasted neither +of mysticism nor perhaps of philosophy—Mesdames de +Montespan, de Fontevrault, and de Thianges: “Their court +was the centre of wit, and wit of so special and fine a +savour, yet withal so natural and pleasant, that it came to +be noted for its unique character.... All three possessed +it in abundance, and appeared to impart it to others. This +charming sympathy of theirs still delights us in the survivors +of those whom they bred up and attached to themselves; +you could tell them among a thousand in the most +miscellaneous company.” That was the goal aimed at by +the 16th-century women, since it made men immortal, and +gave them a full life on earth meanwhile—since, in a word, +it was happiness.</p> + +<p>We could scarcely realise the empire certain women +exercised if we neglected to take into account their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>wonderful conversational powers, and judged them merely +by their writings, or by their letters even. Justly or +unjustly, the writings of Margaret of France met with +no success. Marot, in complimenting his dear princess on +them, had recourse to an evasion of no little ingenuity: +“When I see your poems only, I marvel that people do +not admire them more; but when I hear you speak, I +veer completely round, amazed that anyone is so foolish +as to marvel thereat.” Like many others, Margaret held +sway through conversation.</p> + +<p>Some cross-grained people imagine that to women talking +is the easiest thing in the world, that friends spring up +around them spontaneously, that the art reduces itself to +finishing their toilette by lunch time and then letting their +tongues wag till evening. It is extremely simple, they say. +Simple! They think it sufficient then to fling their doors +open on certain days, and to deal out here and there among +their guests a few formal and chilling inanities! “Men are +so scarce that when you have them you should rate them +very high,” said Anne of France, very justly. Simple, not +to rest satisfied with the mere glitter of small talk, but to +take full possession of one’s visitors, to form a warm nest +of friends! It is a heavy task. If in these days women no +longer exercise any serious influence, is it not to some extent +their own fault? A superficial and cramped education has +often rendered them incapable of effort. They are afraid of +a conversation on broad, serious lines; they will not be +bothered with it. But to form a set, a woman must belong +to herself no longer, she must belong to her friends; conversation +is her bread of life, to adopt an expressive phrase, and +she does in fact become so habituated to her part that she +cannot do without it; she <i>must</i> talk, if only with her +husband. Mary of England used to talk to Louis XII.—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Soubz le drap couvert d’orfebvrerie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui reluisoit en fine pierrerie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Passions temps en dictz solatieux</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et en propos plaisans et gratieux.⁠<a id="FNanchor_256" href="#Footnote_256" class="fnanchor">[256]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span></p> + +<p>Bereavements and misfortunes only render conversation +more necessary. Emilia Pia,⁠<a id="FNanchor_257" href="#Footnote_257" class="fnanchor">[257]</a> proscribed, stripped of her +all, and persecuted, could not appear in the streets of Rome +without an adoring throng of prelates and admirers, just as +there was never more laughter and gossip than in the +crowded cells of the Reign of Terror.</p> + +<p>A well-bred man considered himself literally entitled to +command the conversational abilities of women. In this +connection a very curious misadventure befell some judges +of the Parliament of Paris who in the course of their duty +went to hold assize at Poitiers. In the heart of the 16th +century, when everybody went the pace, and the air was +charged with moral electricity, there was still found one town +where the women would have believed, as they did three +hundred years earlier, that they were lost if they opened +their doors. Jean Bouchet,⁠<a id="FNanchor_258" href="#Footnote_258" class="fnanchor">[258]</a> loyal Poitevin as he was, has +described the boisterous amusement with which France +heard that some bashful ladies answered these poor judges +through a peep-hole with a <i>Non possumus</i>. The ladies +of Paris themselves sent a petition to their “colleagues” at +Poitiers, begging them not to let their husbands die of +dulness. The ladies of Poitiers replied with blushing +cheeks: “’Tis not our way at Poitiers.” They hugged +the tradition of dulness.</p> + +<p>At Lyons, which on the contrary was a modern town, +squire Sala, chancing to be at his window one fine spring +morning, perceived in the street three ladies to whom +he was related, going on pilgrimage to St. Irenaeus. To +dash after them and make them promise to call in on +their way back was the affair of a moment; and then he +was a happy man, sure of a pleasant day. We are no +longer, you perceive, at Poitiers. The ladies return; they +dine gaily with their cousin, and pass into the library; +and then, during a desultory conversation, one of the fair +guests mechanically opens a Bible at the book of Kings. +Nothing more is needed. What a charming subject! The +lady avows that she loves to lie back in a cosy chair +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>and read the history of the kings of France; everyone joins +in the conversation and cites some notable fact about +royalty; and thus the procession defiles past—Alexander, +Agis, Brennus, Caesar, the Merovingians, the classic heroes +(Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon), divers kings of France, +Louis surnamed the Fat, Philip the August, the noble St. +Louis, all the princes of the 15th century; finally Sala +promises to relate a story of Francis I. Unhappily it is +long past the hour for separating, for tearing themselves +from this intoxicating pastime; and, to tell the truth, when +they got home these ladies found that their husbands had +put the lights out.</p> + +<p>If this was bondage the ladies took it in very good part, +and the men left nothing undone to soften it for them. We +have all known men expert in the manipulation of feminine +conversations, and deriving from them a large measure of +influence; for instance (to speak only of the dead), Monsignor +Dupanloup,⁠<a id="FNanchor_259" href="#Footnote_259" class="fnanchor">[259]</a> or in a different kind M. Mérimée, that waif from +the 16th century, who combined with extraordinary scepticism +an incurable impressibility, and, while free in mind +and heart, was always leaning on a woman! The men of +the 16th century became charmers. A political exile from +Milan, fresh from a milieu of women—the physician Marliano—acquired +an unprecedented influence in the Low +Countries by the mere attractiveness of his conversation; +people vied with each other in praising its suavity, its +“heavenly ambrosia,” its “honey,” its “sweetness.”</p> + +<p>Men moulded by the hands of Italian ladies could be +distinguished among a thousand; they could talk about +anything and everything. Many writers of eminent ability +would have gained much by being less serious.</p> + +<p>No one could help succumbing to this charm; and in +truth it is easy to believe that the platonists sought +happiness from conversation, futile as it was reputed to be, +since they were constantly saying: “I was happy, we are +all happy.” Cardan himself recalls with enthusiasm the +time when he was supposed to be studying medicine at +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>Venice: “I was happy.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_260" href="#Footnote_260" class="fnanchor">[260]</a> Ever the same word! People +cultivated their happiness.</p> + +<p>“Ferrara,” says Lamartine, “resembled a colony from +the court of Augustus, Leo X., or the Medici; cultured +princes—princesses who were heroines of love, poetry, or +romance,—cardinals aspiring to the papacy—scholars—artists—poets +half knights, half bards—met there every +evening, in the splendid halls of Ercole d’Este, in town or +country.”</p> + +<p>At Urbino, the conversations were broken by riding-parties, +hawking expeditions, balls, sports, music; life +resembled a kaleidoscope, but wit slipped into every pattern +as the necessary element of beauty. The duke was in bad +health and used to retire early. After his departure the +evening flew by delightfully: the young duchess “seems a +chain holding us all pleasantly together,” said Castiglione. +There was no standing on ceremony; she was always the +centre of a circle composed of men or women alternately as +chance directed. In addition to the regular group, the +company pretty often included some accomplished stranger, +some scholar or artist who happened to be passing through. +They spoke freely to the ladies on a footing of friendliness. +As the evening drew on, some went off for dancing or music, +the others continued to start discussions or tell stories +enlivened with transparent allegories. In summer this +brilliant reunion was held in the garden.</p> + +<p>Our pictures of society in olden times may often give +the impression that only wolves, lions, wild beasts, or else +strutting cocks and clucking hens served as models. But +to paint this polished society of Urbino, so enthusiastically +bent on happiness, we should need colours no palette +contains,—transparencies of the Grecian sky, the indigo +of certain seas, the liquid azure of certain eyes. For +more than a century the court of Urbino was regarded as +the supreme exemplar; in the 17th century the Hôtel de +Rambouillet was still striving to make itself a copy of it; +unluckily such things as these are not easily copied.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span></p> + +<p>It would be difficult enough to deduce from the conversations +at Urbino a series of rules for the art. No +programme was pasted on the walls. But still we may note +certain principles: a remarkable good-fellowship, ranging +from perfect courtesy to affectionate familiarity; a real +sentiment of equality, genuine equality, springing from an +exact appreciation of the various degrees of worth, and +consequently in that sense aristocratic; finally and especially, +freedom, the most absolute openness of mind, the absence of +ambitions and pretensions, at any rate so far as appeared; a +joyous skilfulness in playing on the surface of things, or in +striking out into the vastest regions of thought without +effort or constraint.</p> + +<p>Throughout Italy a somewhat Ciceronian and Attic +beauty of form played a highly important part in conversation. +Men were distinguished by their dignity of style +and by a high-bred refinement free from the slightest taint +of the stable. We can only judge of their manner of talk +indirectly, through their letters; but an idea of it may be +gained from the letters of Bembo, Castiglione, and others, +in which a lady could see how to win men’s hearts +while retaining all womanliness of style, and how much +affection—whether it be called love, friendship, or simply a +good understanding—gains by displaying itself delicately. +Women played the part of judges: they were permitted, if +need were, to stand on their dignity, to be silent or to +speak freely at pleasure; but no man could succeed without +a highly suave manner; merit had to be shown by some +external mark: “Merit is not enough unless prolific in the +outward graces on which the praiseworthiness of actions +depends.” But appearances were sometimes sufficient. +Even in their portraits, men like Castiglione retain a something +infinitely engaging and attractive—a bloom on the +lips, a softness in the eyes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_261" href="#Footnote_261" class="fnanchor">[261]</a> When at Venice we come upon +portraits of men all energy and self-assertion, the inference +is that the women must have lost their empire; and we do +in fact see opposite them portraits of passive women, all +softness and sensuousness.</p> + +<p>And these tender lips that opened only to speak to +women, these caressing eyes, do not deceive us. The prattle +of these men was impregnated with a dove-like gentleness, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>an adoration, in appearance wholly spiritual, for the +beautiful. Castiglione, an eminently graceful, caressing, +and persuasive talker, spoke with fluency, with something +of flabbiness and redundance, perhaps—a sort of perfumed +talk, with nothing of “French filthiness,” as he said. +Vittoria Colonna wrote a charming letter to Paul Jove, in +which she spoke with great enthusiasm of “her” divine +Bembo. Paul Jove lost no time in passing this letter on to +Bembo. “I send you,” he writes, “a letter from your lady-love, +the most illustrious marchioness. It is very pretty, +and speaks of you, and I send it you at once without any of +that resentment which rivals are so apt to feel, for I am +fully assured that Her Excellency’s love for your lordship +is in all points like to my own love for her, that is, +celestial, holy, altogether platonic. Her Excellency is +come from Ischia to Naples with the other noble dames; +I mean the serene Amalfia and the superb Vasta, with +the Francavila, a mirror of virtue and verily a matchless +beauty.”</p> + +<p>Apart from the graces of manner, the charm of these +relations between the ladies and the prelates sprang from +their perfect skill in effacing their own personality, in +suggesting that what they were giving was pure soul—for +suggestion was enough. A boor will strut about, listen to +his own voice, arrange his smile, select his words with a +view to effect—little absurdities, much less easy to endure +than a really serious fault. It was by their overweening +though unconscious self-conceit that the inferior clergy +made themselves so odious in Renaissance society; the +monk would talk of nothing but his order, the parish parson +fancied that no service was so attractive as his, and that +good music was not to be heard except in his church.⁠<a id="FNanchor_262" href="#Footnote_262" class="fnanchor">[262]</a> +They had better have been less virtuous—and less fatiguing.</p> + +<p>Conversation can glide along like a shallow stream. A +pleasant talker is not always capable of writing or painting +profundities; there is something more beautiful than a +picture, and that is the face of the woman watching him +and enjoying his talk. In those days they ridiculed—and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>not without cause—certain brilliant talkers clever enough +to win a wide-spread renown (without ruining their health +by profound study of Horace or Virgil) by nothing in the +world but talking on every subject in the same airy way—appearing +to have forgotten half they knew and to know half +they had forgotten—able to bring in without false modesty +a stanza pat to the occasion. Such talkers are in reality +very second-rate, and it is not long before they get +into difficulties. Sometimes abstruse subjects crop up +without warning in a drawing-room, and then the conversation +takes a course which gives opportunity for judging +men. At the instant when it appears to be merely disporting +itself on the surface, shining in full view, it takes a +sudden plunge, rises again, starts on another flight and again +plunges; to follow it demands an intellectual force and +suppleness that cannot be improvised. We can see this from +the portrait Castiglione draws of the duke of Urbino. The +duke, notwithstanding his habit of keeping early hours, +was a good talker, like his guests; his speech was bland, +polished, fluent, and picturesque; he brought down his bird +with one shot. But under this appearance of ease and +readiness he possessed an unequalled fund of information. +He could reel off long passages from all the classical writers, +particularly from Cicero. He spoke ancient Greek perfectly, +and lived by choice in intimate fellowship with the Greeks—with +Lucian, and more especially with Xenophon, whom +he called “the Siren of antiquity.” “We used to call the +duke,” adds Castiglione, “a second Siren.”</p> + +<p>Ancient and modern history, geography, the learning of +the East, were familiar to him. He died at thirty-six, after +a long and very painful illness; he had studied his complaint, +and watched the slow-paced approach of death, +knowing perfectly that neither the pleasant climate of +Urbino nor the most assiduous attentions would retard +it by an hour. And yet, even under the burden of his last +anguish, he retained full possession of his intellect, with its +charm and flame and serenity. His friends pretended not +to have given up hope: “Why envy me so desirable a +blessing?” he said to them gently. “To be freed from this +load of terrible suffering—tell me, is not that a blessing?” +At the very last he turned to Castiglione and recited to him +one of the finest passages in Virgil. He died talking. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>Thus, with noble colloquies like these, radiant with natural +kindliness, men lulled even pain asleep.</p> + +<p>Philosophy and love were naturally frequent subjects of +conversation. People sought by their means to refine their +sentiments, to analyse themselves, to set themselves ingenious +problems to be investigated at leisure, to spiritualise +love. For example:</p> + +<p>“Is it easier to feign love than to dissemble it?—<i>Answer</i>: +Yes, because a voluntary act is always easier than an involuntary +one.”</p> + +<p>“Is it more meritorious for love to lead the wise to folly +than fools to wisdom?—No; it is better to build up than to +destroy, and you can build nothing on folly.”</p> + +<p>“Is excess of love fatal?—Galen says yes; indirectly, +through disease.”</p> + +<p>“Who loves the more easily?—Woman, because of her +fickle nature.”</p> + +<p>“Who can best dispense with love?—Woman.”</p> + +<p>“Which is easier, to win love or to keep it?—To keep it.”</p> + +<p>“After perseverance, what is the best proof of love?—The +sharing of joys and sorrows.”</p> + +<p>“Which is the stronger, hate or love?—Love.”</p> + +<p>“Can a miser love?—Yes, love can destroy avarice.”</p> + +<p>And so on.</p> + +<p>Bembo, in a little book dedicated to Lucretia Borgia (for +three years the object of his passionate admiration), has left +us an account of three days of conversation which followed +a wedding. After a charming fête, in which young maidens +furnished with tuneful viols had chanted hymns for and +against love in turn, three noble damsels remained in discourse +with three gentlemen on a flowery lawn, amid marble +fountains and well-trimmed groves.</p> + +<p>One of their number, selected as the detractor of love, +conscientiously makes the most of its bitternesses, despairs, +tears, revolts, catastrophes. A discussion ensues, so searching, +so touching, that at times real tears are shed. The +people who are perpetually at a white heat and flaunt a +salamander as their emblem come in for some ridicule. +But with what warmth the friends of love take up the +defence of this divinity, who is represented as nude because +he is devoid of reason; as a child, because like Medea +he inspires eternal youthfulness; and torch in hand, because +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>in his school there is much burning of fingers! It is towards +this little torch that the whole world flits and gravitates +like a swarm of moths, while the divine archer speeds his +shaft at the heart of his victim.</p> + +<p>Love, they add, is strength and life. When a man loves, +he has no fear of death. One of the company even declares +in his excitement that he invites death, and when the rest +twit him with being beside himself, he persists, and +explains his subtle languor; he invites death, but does +not desire that most miserable condition! In spite of the +extreme gravity and conviction with which these questions +of the heart were always handled in Italy, the company +cannot here repress a smile. But the speaker sees nothing +and waxes warm; his martyrdom is only too serious; the +flame of love can only be extinguished in a “lake of tears.” +And another makes answer: “When you see in famous +sanctuaries a heap of votive offerings bearing witness to the +innumerable perils of the sea, do you go and deny that +these perils exist, or resign yourself never to set foot on a +boat? You do not, I trow. Well, we must likewise accept +love’s crosses with resignation.” And thereupon he glowingly +describes its advantages.</p> + +<p>At the end of three days, a hermit closes the discussion +with a short and sedative discourse on the vanity of the +world!</p> + +<p>Naturally conversation, even in Italy, did not always soar to +such altitudes. It passed easily from a vast subject to a pin’s +point; to make bricks without straw was a mark of talent! +It was not everyone who had the wit to frame an original +remark about the weather, and follow it up with a brilliant +firework display of paradox! What did the idea matter, so +long as the shaft flew home? They would just as soon +concern themselves about the canvas a picture was painted +on! They expatiated at leisure on a large subject; but no +one dwelt on trifles; they laughed, wept, sparkled, they +were pleasant and gay, elegant, coquettish, artistic;⁠<a id="FNanchor_263" href="#Footnote_263" class="fnanchor">[263]</a> and all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>that they said was excellently expressed, with a sure, keen, +delicate touch. Conversation took a feminine stamp which +it had never had in olden times; it was the art of paying +honourable court to a lady.</p> + +<p>The French did not approve of conversation taking this +sentimental and emotional turn. They talked to amuse +themselves, for laughter’s sake. To laugh was their chief +concern; it was a mark of taste to take everything with a +laugh, even affairs of the heart; and any genuineness of +sentiment was sure to appear ridiculous, whereas in Italy a +false sentiment strove to appear genuine. Moreover, to +speak of serious things, to appear in any other character +than that of an absolutely useless and incapable man, far +above (or below) everything literary, was unfashionable. +On the other hand the French appreciated the unexpected, +a crispness of phrase, the sword-play of wit, smart retorts.⁠<a id="FNanchor_264" href="#Footnote_264" class="fnanchor">[264]</a> +Conversation was a duel. The Frenchmen of that time were +inimitable in verve and wit; they had a really unrivalled +ease and sprightliness of manner. When the Italians tried +to imitate them, they only succeeded in losing their suavity +and making themselves look foolish.</p> + +<p>At the court of Francis I. talking and flirting were +subdued to no platonic considerations. If a man was +inspired with a good thing, he said it frankly and bluntly +and with much gesturing. As La Bruyère observes: “It +costs women little to tell what they do not feel; it costs +men still less to tell what they do feel”;⁠<a id="FNanchor_265" href="#Footnote_265" class="fnanchor">[265]</a> and the more +crudely the latter expressed themselves, the more they were +looked upon as right good fellows. A woman of the world +would listen to anything, and reply with her “yes” or “no,” +without ever taking offence.</p> + +<p>The more the domination of man asserted itself, the more +pronounced this liberty in word and action became, and +women came to think that they could employ no better +means of getting even with men than to adopt the language +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>of the barrack-room, and make frequent quotations from the +grossest books. They made men a present of their garters. +Naturally the men were very well pleased, by no means +detesting women of so facile a disposition. A German +would entertain the young lady next him at table with tomfoolery +of the coarsest description, prating, for instance, +about heavy drinking, or low-necked dresses, or a woman +showing her leg or hunting for fleas: or perhaps, to appear +intellectual, he would maintain that evil has no real existence, +but is only a human invention. Another would allow +fun to be poked at his wife or fiancée. Rabelais and Hütten +were the shining lights of this class of talkers. Even +Savonarola, in his character of a monk of the people, sometimes +went very near the border line; here and there in his +sermons there are phrases at which a salted skipper would +blush.</p> + +<p>Italian platonism was no enemy to laughter; it was quite +the other way. In the evening after dinner (the time when +in these days men are lighting their cigars), men who +had wit and gaiety and no cares (three conditions for which +the cigar alone would hardly be a sufficient substitute), +laughed without stint and told pretty warm stories as a +relaxation from the ideal; but as the ladies were present +and no one would have dreamt of doing without them, form +was always more carefully studied. Platonism was nothing +if not fastidious, correct, and ceremonious; and a platonist, +even when retailing a broad joke or when there was no +occasion to put himself about, did not cease to employ +exquisite phraseology.</p> + +<p>The French, on the contrary, laughed somewhat boisterously +after dinner, or on one of those oppressive afternoons +when the dull sky seems to seize us like mice in a trap. +Our passion for broad wit has never allowed itself to be +cooled by the exhortations of moralists⁠<a id="FNanchor_266" href="#Footnote_266" class="fnanchor">[266]</a> or preachers. Nor +were ladies more successful in selecting subjects for conversation; +they had either to leave us to our own devices and +be regarded as nuisances, or to pitch their tune to the same +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>key. An awkward dilemma for them! They faced the +music, and contented themselves with declining to laugh +when the jest displeased them; but in their hearts they +preferred a lady’s man who knew how to show them tenderness +and respect.</p> + +<p>Conversation is naturally composed of dialogues. Whenever +it attains a certain height, contradiction is necessary to +keep the ball rolling. Some one has said that contradiction +is woman’s forte, and in this connection La Fontaine retold +the old fable about the drowned woman whose corpse, from +sheer perversity, insisted on floating up stream.</p> + +<p>That may be true of worn, untutored women, good +housewives to whom the artifices of taste are a sealed book. +The woman of fashion, preferring to profit by all her +privileges, hovers over a conversation, mingling with it +only to throw out a suggestion, a criticism, a reflection, an +argument, or to give a finishing touch. Margaret, for +instance, launched this aphorism in the midst of a discussion +on love: “Women of large heart yield rather to the spirit of +vengeance than to the tenderness of love.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_267" href="#Footnote_267" class="fnanchor">[267]</a></p> + +<p>It was often a man who had to devote himself to this duty +of contradiction; intellectual epicures took rather kindly to +the little amusement, and acquitted themselves with at least +every appearance of conviction. It was even a mark of +genuine dilettantism to maintain now one idea, now the +contrary, like Filippo Beroaldo,⁠<a id="FNanchor_268" href="#Footnote_268" class="fnanchor">[268]</a> who has recorded two of +his declarations, one in favour of drunkenness, the other +against it. The question of the merits and defects of women +furnished in France an inexhaustible theme for social +debate, and there was no lack of disputants on either side. +In Italy this subject was less popular, because the ranks of +the anti-feminists were thinner. At Urbino, however, +Fregoso⁠<a id="FNanchor_269" href="#Footnote_269" class="fnanchor">[269]</a> threw himself into the ungrateful task of attacking +women, and valiantly depicted them as imperfect animals +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span>of no intrinsic value, whom it was impossible to compare +with men, upon whom only modesty and self-respect had +any restraining power, and whose few merits were a purely +artificial endowment.</p> + +<p>Yet, as it was impossible to be always engaged in +dialogues or debates, there was a large field for clever +retailers of anecdotes and stories grave and gay, and the +talent was cultivated to perfection by certain men of the +world. Among these witty story-tellers we find another +member of the Mortemart family, Aimery de Mortemart, +and the name of Germain de Bonneval used also to be cited.</p> + +<p>Story-telling in Italy was conducted with the same +gravity and method that were carried into everything. A +“queen” was first elected,⁠<a id="FNanchor_270" href="#Footnote_270" class="fnanchor">[270]</a> and she called upon each member +of the company in turn. The stories very easily verged +towards salaciousness, but art ennobles everything! Firenzuola +dedicated a collection of such stories to the memory +of an idolised lady whom he calls his Diotima, his Monica, +his Vittoria Colonna.</p> + +<p>In France, story-telling ranked high among social amusements, +filling up the interval between mass and vespers. +Everyone had fair notice of his turn to speak, and made +provision accordingly, whetting his own invention on what +fell from the lips of others. The <i>Heptameron</i> is, so to +speak, nothing but a succession of conferences (without the +platform and the glass of water), at which each person +present contributes his mite to the discussion. Sometimes +the remarks are rather free; when the anecdote is likely to +overstep the recognised limits, the speaker saves himself by +a gentle preliminary precaution:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Si ce n’estoit que j’ay peur d’offenser</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La netteté de vos chastes oreilles.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right"><i>Des Périers.</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_271" href="#Footnote_271" class="fnanchor">[271]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Margaret of France, who was not specially bashful, “could +tell a capital story, and could laugh, too, when she heard one.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span></p> + +<p>Another art which was still highly appreciated—a very +elegant, charming, and widely cultivated art—was that of +impromptu verse-making—a pastime for prelates and men +of keen literary tastes. Leo X.⁠<a id="FNanchor_272" href="#Footnote_272" class="fnanchor">[272]</a> + and Octavien de Saint-Gelais⁠<a id="FNanchor_273" href="#Footnote_273" class="fnanchor">[273]</a> +practised it with eminent success.</p> + +<p>Boutrimés, or “<i>ventes d’amour</i>,” though somewhat antiquated, +contributed a share to the entertainment. A man +gave a lady, or vice versa, the name of some flower, and a +response had to be made in verse of as epigrammatic or +complimentary a turn as possible. As aids to improvisation, +manuals of polite rhymes were published.</p> + +<p>Such was happiness! Conversation in its various forms +was the port to which the barque of life made under full +sail, trimmed with all the safeguards, manœuvred with all +the dexterities which we have described! And the difficulties +were compensated by the satisfaction derived from +bringing souls into communion one with another, from +closely uniting them, welding them in one enthusiasm of +affection. Such a result is beyond the attainment of +writing. Genuine exquisites like Inghirami thought writing +was overdone, and if they employed the pen it was from +necessity, or at most to preserve for posterity the conversations, +the tales, the sonnets that pleased them; when a +work involving time and labour was asked of them, they +wrapped themselves in an air of austere solemnity, like +people going to a funeral. All these brilliant talkers lived +quiet lives out of the public eye, seldom shifting their +quarters, with none of that moral trepidation in which the +railway and the telegraph keep us: they were light-hearted +but not shallow, with something of oriental insouciance, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>never forgetting that man has but one life on this nether +world, squandering their wealth of wit in lavish profusion, +with no attempt to economise it in order to sell specimens +to an innominate mob. They enjoyed to the full the exquisite +pleasure of letting their ideas float off at the mercy +of chance; their thoughts took flight and were seen no +more, it is true; they burst like bubbles in the air; but +there remained the wherewithal to shape others like +them.</p> + +<p>And here was the great sphere of women. Their mission +was to cause this happiness to blossom, to tend it, nurture +it, turn it to fitting use—to make these bubbles a source +of good.</p> + +<p>This duty like every other had stern laws. It was not +enough to be a “queen” by election, or even by birthright, +to fancy that the goal was attained.</p> + +<p>Women’s sway only imposed itself by dint of patience, +tact, and a nice regard for detail, and above all at the cost +of genuine self-denial. How many little trials and crosses +had to be endured! To make herself agreeable to the +starched Spaniard and the boastful Neapolitan; to listen +resignedly while a Frenchman discoursed about his hunting +and his limited income, or while a Milanese or Genoese +prated about his business; and then with all gentleness, +with a woman’s instinctive subtlety, almost by stealth, to +select among these men—to hold by an unconstrained and +loyal welcome those in whom she perceived some merit, and +to bind them to her by speaking their own tongue—wisdom +to the wise, piety to the pious, practical interests to the +practical, gaiety to the young—and thus to set them all on +the path towards the desired perfection—what a task for a +woman! However, all that she needed in the rudimentary +stages of this education was to plant herself securely on her +own rudimentary gifts—in other words, to avoid scandal +and tittle-tattle. But how difficult her task became when +she had to deal with men of parts, of warm affections, of +ardent temperament! Then, no doubt, it became interesting, +and the woman herself was reaping a profit which amply +repaid her trouble. “Ladies,” cries Champier, “if you must +take pleasure in hob-nobbing with men, choose at least +those who can improve you and guide you.” There was no +question now of retiring to the Aventine, and fancying +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>themselves constantly in mortal peril⁠<a id="FNanchor_274" href="#Footnote_274" class="fnanchor">[274]</a>; a lady had to hold +herself erect and tighten the rein on these unruly men—to +know the power of a word, a gesture, a flash of silence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_275" href="#Footnote_275" class="fnanchor">[275]</a></p> + +<p>To retire to the Aventine! That would be criminal! +Speech is necessary to one who would minister to a mind +diseased.</p> + +<p>Conversation was not merely a pleasure. If they strove +earnestly after the Beautiful, it was because the reign of +beauty is the most effectual assurance of the reign of truth +and goodness. Does anyone imagine that a woman can +shut herself in her drawing-room, and that all she need do +is to show herself beautiful, amiable, sweet, intelligent, +tender to the men worthy of forming her circle? No one +thinks so. Woman rules because she redeems. To direct +or actively to engage in works of charity, to send money to +the wretched, without looking out of doors to see what men +are actually suffering or dying—this would be the absolute +negation of the social aim of conversation. Through conversation +a woman comes into living touch with realities. +She must show herself as real flesh and blood to the +wretched; she owes them her smile, her beauty and her +grace; aye, it is her bounden duty to be beautiful, amiable, +gentle, intelligent, tender for the sake of those whose lot is +solaced by no ray from heaven. She must welcome the +poor and lowly, and though she may not be able to speak +to them in Plato’s language, she must none the less tend +them with the supreme medicine of the Beautiful, enter +into their interests and their troubles, talk with them, +shower on them her manna of hope and patience, and—if +she have it—light.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we shall now be asked how many women +attained to these altitudes in the apostleship of beauty, +and if we can cite many who attempted to put their +ideas into practice. Assuredly, we can. In spite of the +somewhat too artistic cast into which social intercourse was +thrown by platonism, more than one woman found in her +own heart a commentary which neither Ficino nor Bembo +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>ever knew. In France we may mention Anne of France as +one who was thoroughly convinced that conversation was a +duty to society at large. In Italy, ladies of the highest +rank, like Isabella d’Este and Vittoria Colonna, slightly +intoxicated with Beauty, consorted almost exclusively with +princes and prelates and men of culture, and in this regard +the Renaissance is perhaps rightly accused of over-refinement; +yet they possessed in a rare degree the talent of +diffusing around them an atmosphere of sweetness. At +Urbino, a provincial court of no little exclusiveness, even +the stalls of the handicraftsmen were lapped in a delicious +air; Raphael grew up like a natural plant; a thousand +trivial incidents in the life of the place give us glimpses of +grace and amiability. The influence was indirect, but very +powerful.</p> + +<h4>CORRESPONDENCE.</h4> + +<p>It would seem logical to consider correspondence as the +complement of conversation—as talk between persons at a +distance. But it was not so; talk it might be, but in +writing, and consequently no one was very fond of it; +people distrusted it because of the risks involved. Yet +certain intellectual women of the 16th century displayed +amazing activity as letter-writers. While one might have +supposed them to be wholly engrossed with their rouge-pots +or their friends, their intelligence and vivacity actually +carried them away; the pen appeared too lumbering a +vehicle for their impatient thought. In the letters of Julia +Gonzaga, for instance, it is often evident that the lady took +the pen from her secretary at the third or fourth line and +finished the letter herself, rapidly, and without troubling +her head about grammar, handwriting, or decorum.⁠<a id="FNanchor_276" href="#Footnote_276" class="fnanchor">[276]</a></p> + +<p>To the student of handwriting, letters betray many little +philosophic secrets which are well worth attention. The +handwritings of the 16th century (for the most part +illegible, particularly in France) are large and free, highly +nervous and characteristic of the writers, released from the +methodical and commonplace style of former days. The +strokes are fine and distinguished, sometimes a little +angular, displaying all sorts of vagaries, abbreviations and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>flourishes. What a “mirror of the soul” is the close and +tangled handwriting of Margaret of France, or the gaunt, +nervous, firm, aristocratic, jerky, disorderly style of the +duchess of Etampes!⁠<a id="FNanchor_277" href="#Footnote_277" class="fnanchor">[277]</a></p> + +<p>The style of Vittoria Colonna is clear and plain, somewhat +masculine in character, but equally nervous and +irregular, with a multitude of abbreviations and splotches. +A mere glance at the letters of these influential women fills +one with pity. Poor souls! At what a cost of secret +torment, distress, and agitation did they mould happiness +and peace for men! Looking at these human documents, +these nervous handwritings, one asks oneself if those sages +are right who assure us that to bestow happiness on others +one must needs possess it oneself. Was it at the cost of His +happiness, or at the cost of His blood, that Christ redeemed +us? I may be deceived, but I sometimes fancy that I see +in these handwritings as it were a drop of blood. It was +otherwise with the men: they were happy. Castiglione’s +writing has a graceful, tranquil movement; his pen ran +lightly and cursively; and if sometimes the strokes seem +laboured, it is due to an affectation in his manner of joining +the letters. Bembo placidly retains the old style, stunted, +heavy, and sprawling.</p> + +<p>The tone of the letters confirms the casual glimpses we +have already obtained into the social relations of the time. +People troubled little about family letters; these were +simple and short, of the “dutifully affectionate” order, +and composed of almost stereotyped commonplaces. Hardly +anything is referred to in them except the material affairs +of life—business, medicine, health, domestic events;⁠<a id="FNanchor_278" href="#Footnote_278" class="fnanchor">[278]</a> the +sentimental part is dismissed very briefly—probably because +family sentiments are necessarily sincere.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, letters written to friends, which were +very numerous in Italy, were charming, tender, and graceful, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>ending often most prettily: “Your little sister ... who +loves your lordship as her own soul—Isabella, with her own +hand.”</p> + +<p>These last words, “with her own hand,” were not unnecessary, +for a fashionable lady, not pluming herself on a +telegraphic style, was obliged on principle and out of regard +for her dignity to leave as much as possible to the pen of +her secretary. Unhappily the secretary, not caring to serve +as a mere scribe, pays attention to style, and touches up his +periods, so that, failing an actual autograph, it is impossible +to be sure what in a lady’s letter was really her own. +Moreover, a lady of any position knew that her letter would +be shown about, perhaps even transcribed or published. +Bernardo Tasso, Aretino and many another were not startled +when they saw books made out of their letters or of letters +written to them; and the most interesting letters of Vittoria +Colonna appeared early in the 16th century. It may be +said then that letters came midway between conversation +and books. In a lady’s letter there was nothing directly +from the writer but the signature and the one or two autograph +words preceding; in spite of which, the letters of the +marchioness of Pescara and of Isabella d’Este form very +pleasing and characteristic collections.</p> + +<p>After a visit from Isabella, the duchess Elizabeth of +Urbino addressed this note to her: “I know not how to +cure myself of the regret your ladyship’s departure has left +me in. Methinks I have not only seen a dearly loved sister +leave me, but that my very soul is gone. I must needs +write you ever and anon, and make shift to say on this +paper what I would fain say with my lips; if therein I could +clearly express my sorrow, I am very sure ’twould be so +potent as to cause your highness out of compassion to turn +back. If I feared not to be a burden to you, methinks I +should not hesitate myself to follow you. Neither thing is +possible; my sole resource is to beg your highness to think +of me as often as I bear you in my heart.”</p> + +<p>Many examples of this delicate and sweet—almost too +sweet—graciousness might be cited. Emilia Pia, for instance, +one of the Urbino set, writes almost as she speaks, +with great liveliness and humour, and always with equal +vivacity whether the subject be toilet specifics or philosophy. +The men have the same charm, and sometimes +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">[306]</span>think themselves entitled to employ the same exquisitely +tender formulas. Brocardo calls Marietta Myrtilla “my +very sweet and dear little sister ... my sweet and matchless +little sister, loved as my own soul,” and signs himself: +“Thy sweetest, sweetest Brocardo.”</p> + +<p>The terms in which a well-bred man could, indeed was +expected to, address a fashionable lady, may be seen from a +letter from Castiglione, then ambassador in Spain, to Vittoria +Colonna.</p> + +<p>“I have felt,” he says, “so much joy in the victories of +the marquis that at first I would not write a letter—a letter +is so vulgar a thing! One writes letters about events of no +importance. I had thought of fireworks, fêtes, concerts, +songs, and other vigorous demonstrations, but reflection +has shown me that these are inferior to the concert of +my own affections; and so I am come back to the idea +of a letter, convinced that my marchioness will be able +to see what I have in my soul, even though my words fail +to express it.” And he dilates on this talent of the divine +marchioness for penetrating hearts, and for reading there +what the lips fail to utter, and then congratulates her on +the delight which she cannot but feel. “And as to my duty +towards your highness, seek, I beseech you, the testimony of +your own heart, and give it credence, for I am sure your +heart will not lie to you on what not only yourself, but the +whole world, sees shining through my soul, as through the +purest crystal. And thus I remain, kissing your hands and +humbly commending myself to your good favour. Madrid, +March 21.”</p> + +<p>Two years afterward he wrote in regard to the death of +her husband: “Calamity has fallen upon you like a deluge. +I durst not write to your highness at first, for I deemed +you had died with the marquis; to-day in all verity and +admiration I hold that the marquis still liveth in you.”</p> + +<p>Do we need other specimens of these gracious and somewhat +ultra-refined letters? Here is a letter from Castiglione +to the famous Marchesa Hippolyta Florimonda Scaldasole: +“Most excellent lady, if your ladyship were as pleased to +know you dwell eternally in my memory, as ’twould be +infinitely delightful for me to dwell in yours, I should be +keenly desirous of giving you proof of it in this letter, since +for the moment I can do it in no other way. But as your +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">[307]</span>ladyship has shown the world, along with your many other +wondrous gifts, that you are a woman valiant in fight, and +not only beautiful, but warlike also like Hippolyta of old, +I fear me lest you be somewhat puffed up with pride, and +somewhat forgetful of your servitors—and I would not +have it so. Therefore have I made bold to write to +you, and to pray Messer Camillo Ghilino, my very dear +friend, to speak on my behoof, and to tell you that in +Spain, as at Milan and at Pavia, I am your man; and that, +when I had come to Pavia, whither the army led me, those +walls, those ramparts, those towers, that artillery, all those +things spoke to me of your highness, knowing that behind +them you were all aglow with the thought of combatting so +great a prince as the King of France. You have gotten the +victory, and now and henceforth no one will be so daring-hardy, +I trow, as to fight with you. Deign to believe him, +lady, as myself; and I beseech you, if you be not of all ladies +the least loving, bid me to be at Milan and where you are. +Messer Camillo will be able to tell how different it is to be +in such sweet company as your ladyship’s and to be in +Spain. I kiss your hands, and ever commend myself to +you, deeply desiring to know that this <i>benedictus fructus</i> +be reaped by a husbandman worthy of it. Toledo, June 21, +1525.”</p> + +<p>After all, there was a necessary resemblance between a +letter and a conversation. In Italy, the note of tenderness +is always dominant, flattering and caressing even when gay. +Some of Bibbiena’s letters are full of deep feeling, and yet it +is impossible to mention a more jovial man: his fun bubbled +over at the slightest provocation. Isabella d’Este once +scolded him for no longer visiting Mantua. “How,” retorts +he with affected indignation—“how have they managed to +drop into those dainty little ears so many gross accusations +against me?... Here I see your daughter, who appears to +me the very image of that serene highness her mother. +Tell me again I am a lecher, and by God it shall be true as +Gospel! Would you have me swear otherwise?... Most +devoutly do I kiss your hands, and to my dear lady Alda I +commend myself a thousand times.” The amiable prelate +was at that time assiduously courting Signorina Alda +Boiarda, maid of honour to the marchioness; and, as usual, +the mistress was not altogether pleased.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">[308]</span></p> + +<p>Another charming custom in Italy was for a lady to recall +herself to the recollection of her friends by means of a little +present. Vittoria Colonna sent her portrait to Bembo, +accompanied by a few verses from her own hand: “Verses +pure and dainty!” cries Bembo, “that touch the heart far +more than a mere letter.” On another occasion she charged +one of her friends, who was going to Mantua, to convey to +the marquis “a friendly and sympathetic” greeting, with +some small token of her regard. The friend thought he was +doing right in offering a basket of roses, and the marquis +lost no time in sending his respectful thanks direct to the +fair donor. And then Vittoria formally apologised in very +affectionate terms that her messenger had “honoured him so +little” as to offer so modest a souvenir.</p> + +<p>Truth to tell, Frenchwomen showed much less feminine +grace in this matter, which explains our dwelling on the +charm of their Italian neighbours. The most Italianised of +them could not attain this seductive charm. In all the +correspondence of Margaret of France you will not find one +letter recalling those we have just quoted almost haphazard. +Margaret did indeed sedulously strive to attain that charm, +as we cannot but perceive, but her languishings resulted in +little else than prolixity. It will not do to strain one’s +talent.</p> + +<p>Renée of France, though she became duchess of Ferrara, +never acquired the Italian trick; she continued to write with +French brevity. Diana of Poitiers and the duchess of +Etampes amaze us by the almost arid precision of their +style; they might have given points to the most dry-as-dust +of attorneys; there is never a sign of a gust of passion or of +love’s finesse. The rising generation of Henri II.’s time +came nearer the attainment of a pleasant style. The king’s +two daughters, Madeline and Margaret, wrote excellent +hands—easy, graceful, even, with a uniform slope, the letters +broad and clear, the whole style very distinguished; and +they employed pleasant and engaging forms, phrases of +genuine affection, especially in their family correspondence.⁠<a id="FNanchor_279" href="#Footnote_279" class="fnanchor">[279]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>But they too were at their best in short notes, and their +most pleasing letters are always very brief. The higher +charm remained the secret of Italy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_THE_INFLUENCE_OF_WOMEN">BOOK III. THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN</h2> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I<br> +<span class="smaller">POLITICAL INFLUENCE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The foregoing pages will have enabled the reader to see +how little the platonist women sought to exert a direct +influence in affairs. They aimed rather at moral and social +influence. In no sense were they women of action, believing +likely enough that the course of events would become +modified naturally when men had changed. Conforming +to the aphorism, “Woman is supreme only as woman,” +they devoted themselves to the skilful development of the +sources of their superiority, leaving their inferiorities carefully +in the shade. They avoided all masculine modes—the +rustic sort of sexless unattractive women, most at home +in the stables, strong-minded creatures who looked for a +love they never inspired; they studiously left to men the +keen-edged activities of life—law, politics, military service, +all the needful barriers against social inundation. Louise +of Savoy was almost the only woman who so far cherished +the old ideas as to regret that she was a woman; who loved +to play a part in politics, and whose intelligence and energy +won praise in terms that recalled the great women of the +past, notably Blanche of Castile. She was a realist of the +old type, who had lovers as a matter of course, but gave +scant thought to winning hearts: thus wholly differing +from the new order of women. And yet, by a singular +chance in the working of the old laws of monarchical +succession, the world has perhaps never seen more women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span>called to till the places of men in the sphere of statecraft. +After all, monarchy is not a principle of pure reason: it is +incapable of mathematical demonstration: it is a principle +springing wholly from sentiment. Its advantage lies in +this—that in a world of tragic pettiness it gives a nation +something to love.</p> + +<p>Many women played important parts in these masculine +struggles, among which they were thrown in their own +despite. The period was one of constant turmoil, and they +had no opportunity of enjoying a life of quiet secluded +happiness.</p> + +<p>Among them was that unhappy mother, Isabella of +Aragon, who was persecuted by Ludovico il Moro, the +uncle, and, as some said, the assassin of her husband, and +held captive in France by Louis XII.—a luckless, warm-hearted, +valiant figure who, in the effort to win Milan back +for her son, maintained a desperate struggle with the whole +of Europe.</p> + +<p>Then too there was Jeanne of Aragon, that beautiful +sunny-haired woman, with features of rare distinction and +sweetness, in her day the idol of Nifo and the prototype of +beauty. She had married Ascanio Colonna, a soldier of +fortune who had brought his affairs to a desperate pass. +Poor woman! On every side she saw blank desolation. +She had just lost her eldest son by a sudden death when +creditors began to harass her and drive her second son to +ruin; and from the magnificent windows of the Colonna +palace, where she was imprisoned by order of Pope Paul IV., +she saw the pontifical troops marching by on the way to +seize her castles. She could endure it no longer. One +morning she disappeared, no one knows how, but probably +in disguise: at one of the gates of Rome she found a horse +ready saddled, and she performed the astonishing feat of +riding to Naples without drawing rein. At Naples she +became the centre of a cruel strife: her husband had her +son arrested, and the son denounced the father. Ascanio +fell, struck by an unknown dagger. And when his charming +wife, whose golden hair had never a fleck of grey, came +in her turn to die, they must bury her with her husband, +and could find for the shuddering tomb no inscription but +the touching words: “A great-hearted woman, a very +loving wife.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span></p> + +<p>In a higher sphere even Margaret of Austria was but a +genuine woman, an admirable mother who never had any +children. Compelled by family duty to rule the Netherlands +during the long minority of her nephew Charles the +Fifth, through all those years of toil and difficulty she set +but one aim before her, the preservation of peace. She was +good, benevolent, intelligent, but not happy: “Twice +married and yet a maid,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_280" href="#Footnote_280" class="fnanchor">[280]</a> as she said, then the widow of +the handsome Philibert of Savoy, she would have preferred +the ‘tiniest grain’ that satisfied her heart’s craving to the +dignities that were poisoning her life; and she made no +secret of it. On her tomb she ordered to be set this striking +emblem of disillusionment: ‘<i>Fortune, Infortune!</i>’⁠<a id="FNanchor_281" href="#Footnote_281" class="fnanchor">[281]</a></p> + +<p>And the great Anne of France, ‘the lady of Beaujeu,’ +condemned to an attitude of ‘knitted brows’ and drawn +sword as a means of reassuring her good subjects and +keeping the bad in awe, that haughty, ambitious, close-fisted, +masculine woman, as she was called by those whom +she had reduced to a proper sense of the duty of prompt +obedience—no one was in reality less like the cold statue +she appeared in official life. It was enough to watch her +features in the hour of strife, and of triumph even; they +twitched and quivered, and were only controlled by a +visible effort.⁠<a id="FNanchor_282" href="#Footnote_282" class="fnanchor">[282]</a> A modest, it might almost be said a humble +woman, she was constantly a prey to self-distrust, never +acting without advice, almost heart-broken at her victories, +for her one dream was of quenching animosities; caring for +nothing but peace, justice, and a well-ordered State, and +carrying her loathing of extreme ideas to the point of +appearing obtuse.</p> + +<p>When her brother was able to assume the government she +disappeared from the scene, quietly, with the least possible +display, happy to seek retirement at her splendid place at +Moulins, amid all she held dear. She had conceived so little +taste for political life that she gave her daughter a forcible +recommendation to avoid its mazes: “Mind your own business,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>she said; in other words, keep strictly to your own +part, and if duty demands a temporary withdrawal, resume +it as quickly as possible, and be egoistic enough to make +the winning of love your sole quest.</p> + +<p>Such was the attitude towards civil emancipation and +the careers proper to men that was taken up by women of +the highest distinction, whom glory might well have led off +in the wrong direction. La Rochefoucauld could hardly +have had them in mind when he enunciated the unsound +maxim: “There is no renouncing ambition for love.” To +renounce ambition was all that these women desired, or +rather their ambition was love itself; when the chances of +life forced them upon the stage, their one desire was for a +man to lean upon. Diplomatists, of necessity psychological +folk, were under no delusion in the matter; when they had +dealings with a princess, forthwith we see them on the look-out +for the man or men behind. “Giacomo Feo appears to +me the pivot of the State,” wrote Prudhomme, ambassador +at the court of Catherine Sforza; the poor man had just +made the discovery that Feo’s will was law. The great +trouble of Anne of France was that she could find no +support in her husband, a man of complete integrity and +excellent disposition, but unstable as water.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, among women of but average intelligence, +there were busy bodies with a lust for notoriety, +parade, admiration, always ready to interfere in anything +and everything, to the utter despair of serious workers. Of +these Renée of France, duchess of Ferrara, may serve as an +example. Born a daughter of France, she considered that +her insignificant husband had been too highly honoured in +wedding her, denied him her bed, lived in her own circle, +and entered into diplomatic relations on her own account. +Not that she had any definite political aims: her method +was the simple one of pulling in opposite directions to her +husband, which at a distance gives her conduct a look of +inconsistency. Did she hold with Rome, or Geneva? She +would receive Ignatius Loyola in the morning, Calvin in +the afternoon, and anyone else when the fancy took her. +To her France was all in all; but the French government +had only to request someone to cross the frontier for her to +receive the exile with open arms. In somewhat limping +verse Marot acknowledged her grant of a pension (diminutive, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>it is true) which entailed upon him no duties but those +of a lover:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Mes amis, j’ai changé ma dame;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Une autre a dessus moi puissance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Née deux fois, de nom et d’âme.⁠<a id="FNanchor_283" href="#Footnote_283" class="fnanchor">[283]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Re-born indeed both were, and it may even be said that +their life was a constant succession of re-incarnations, in +creeds and amours of hues as shifting as the chameleon’s; +for Marot notoriously proved faithful to nothing but his +pensions. Neither of them had any part or lot in platonism. +Marot chose to become its recognised flouter; Renée was +merely a woman of a restless spirit, without any solid abilities. +In public ceremonies she appeared at her husband’s side; +within their own doors she was perpetually at odds with +him: an exasperating woman indeed, dead to the finer +feelings. The duke of Ferrara was not master in his own +duchy. One day he banished one of the most obnoxious +of his wife’s ladies, a Madame de Soubise: the lady instantly +proceeded to arrange an interview between the +duchess and the King of France, and it was with the +utmost difficulty that this menacing combination was +prevented from becoming an accomplished fact.</p> + +<p>The duchess had a lover, by no means of the platonic +order, in the son-in-law of this Madame de Soubise. He +was a M. de Pons, a scion of a family which enjoyed the +singular privilege of rendering services of this nature to +royal ladies. Again the duke of Ferrara had much ado to +stifle scandal in this direction. Having recourse to the +time-honoured method, he sent M. de Pons on a mission to +France, with sufficiently general instructions, which found a +natural reflection in the vagueness of the official despatches. +But the private letters of the duchess to the ambassador +were explicit enough in all conscience. She tells him, for +instance, that she is giving the hospitality of her bed to +the little poodle he had left behind at Ferrara, fondling it +and kissing it, “since,” she adds, “I have no one else +here now.” Now, mark the complexity of this feminine +diplomacy! Attached to the service of our gay ambassador +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>was a spy in the duchess’s pay. But this was matched by +the fact that her own letters were intercepted and read in +the “dark closet” of Ferrara, with the result that the duke +lost whatever remnant of doubt he may perchance have +nourished, but had the charming consolation of locking up +in his archives the journal in which she set down her +doings and secret thoughts for the sole benefit, as she +imagined, of her absent lover. The inevitable outcome +of this game of cross purposes was the impossibility of +foreseeing when the mission of M. de Pons would be +concluded. But it would argue great simplicity not to +imagine that the duchess also had her “dark closet”; and +in fact, she had arranged for the interception and perusal of +letters addressed to the lucky Pons by one of her own ladies +of honour, letters which, like hers, embodied a private diary, +and were as ardent as her own. It remains only to add +that Pons had left at Ferrara a lawful wife (the inspiration +of Giraldi’s muse) who loved him with equal warmth and +devotion, and bore him beautiful children. But all things +come to an end, even diplomacy when there are more +reasons for concluding negotiations than for commencing +them. So it came about that M. de Pons returned, and the +duke philosophically shut his eyes and stopped his ears +until the day when he took the liberty of turning the key +on the daughter of France whom he had been so much +honoured in espousing.</p> + +<p>The duchess of Ferrara belonged to a school which was +unhappily of large extent, and was in great measure the +cause of the ruin of feminism: the school namely of women +who were somewhat intoxicated with their power, and who +forced their way by hook or crook into politics and life. +In France more than one woman of this sort might be cited +from the reign of Henri II.</p> + +<p>Serious women, however, very clearly saw that if they +were to avoid a fall they must take only an indirect part in +affairs. When the great sculptor Sansovino appeared on +the point of sinking under a moral crisis, it seemed quite +natural that Aretino should appeal to his young wife to +come to his aid! There you have the woman’s rôle! Vittoria +Colonna, likewise, restrained her husband in the flush +of an intoxicating and perhaps perilous triumph, by a letter +which has justly remained celebrated: “Not by the greatness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>of your domains or titles, but by your virtue, will you +win the honour which your descendants may make their +boast. For my part I have no desire to be the wife of a +king; I am the wife of the great captain who has vanquished +all kings, not by his valour merely, but by his +magnanimity.”</p> + +<p>Such was the language of a philosophical woman, accustomed +to take lofty views of things, and to live in the +atmosphere of the Beautiful, that is to say, a life of mingled +serenity and strength. Her reserve of energy, lying hid +under a wealth of kindliness, could only show itself in +times of difficulty: “The tongue is feminine, the arm is +masculine,” said an old Italian proverb.⁠<a id="FNanchor_284" href="#Footnote_284" class="fnanchor">[284]</a> The tongue directs +the arm; there are circumstances in which the tongue may +sustain the arm, but that is not its chief duty.</p> + +<p>Woman’s part, it is admitted, is to act as a moderating +influence in joy or grief. We shall therefore not dwell upon +that point, but confine ourselves to answering a question of +some delicacy. Women have been reproached with misusing +their powers, and with holding men too much under +their thumb.</p> + +<p>To loathe war, to advocate perpetual peace, conciliation, +hatred of everything resembling an appeal to force, is +admirable enough; but this advocacy itself has its limits. +Is not war also a salutary thing? Does it not brace up +nations sunk in the torpor of bourgeois materialism? War +has a nobleness and beauty of its own. And indeed, are +we to degrade men into carpet knights, jousting in cap +and feather before a court deliciously feminine? Horses, +standards, heraldic devices, the sheen of armour, the clash +of weapons, the din of clarions and trumpets, of flutes and +hunting-horns and all the instruments that stir the blood,—inspiriting +as all these are supposed to be, and well as they +may symbolise courage, are they sufficient to preserve the +masculine virtues? Love is often enervating. Where will +the army be,⁠<a id="FNanchor_285" href="#Footnote_285" class="fnanchor">[285]</a> what will become of the country, if women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>carry us up with them into the clouds? Mantegna replies +by showing us Samson and Delilah,⁠<a id="FNanchor_286" href="#Footnote_286" class="fnanchor">[286]</a> Botticelli with his +picture of the cupids stripping Mars of his armour as he +lies sleeping by Venus’ side.⁠<a id="FNanchor_287" href="#Footnote_287" class="fnanchor">[287]</a></p> + +<p>But we have already given the true answer.</p> + +<p>Certainly woman’s place is not in the camp. The virago +has no vogue: men do not fight women nor take them +prisoners. Women do in truth loathe war. But when the +war is noble they become its advocates. War is a noble +thing when it is waged in self-defence, when honour and +life and liberty are at stake. Then, be sure, women are not +lagging in the rear. Beatrice d’Este with a stout heart +dragged Ludovico il Moro to the camp facing the French; +and there, showing him an army quaking for all its cheers +at that solemn hour the eve of battle, she set the feeble +heart of her husband beating in time with her own. In +November 1502 the ladies of Urbino besieged the ducal +palace with offers of their jewels for the purpose of repelling +Caesar Borgia. At Sienna, the women, led by ladies of the +highest rank, set to work to carry baskets of earth upon +their heads, and, what is still more extraordinary, they +agreed to perform this service systematically under the +orders of three lady captains recognisable by their satin +petticoats. One young girl pushed her enthusiasm to such +a length as to disguise herself in a soldier’s uniform in order +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>to pass the night on the ramparts. Monluc⁠<a id="FNanchor_288" href="#Footnote_288" class="fnanchor">[288]</a> himself, that +hardened old warrior, waxed enthusiastic in praise of such +notable courage, and promised eternal glory to these fair +ladies. And was not Anne of France familiar with the +camp? Have we not told the story of that Françoise +d’Amboise who raised a troop to repel a band of brigands!</p> + +<p>But to fire a woman’s heart a just cause is needed, otherwise +she execrates war. Clever people may talk as they +please,—praise the Amazons of Georgia, the ancient Ligurian +women who tilled their fields, or recall the visions of Plato +in the fifth book of the <i>Republic</i> or the seventh of the <i>Laws</i> +on the military and political aptitudes of women: these are +paradoxes which influence no one. Maria Puteolana, who +attained the rank of captain in the Italian army, was +laughed at; and, to tell the truth, the military inspiration +of certain heroines at critical moments was regarded as +purely adventitious. It came to St. Catherine of Sienna +“by the riches of grace”; to Joan of Arc “by divine grace, +by mystery divine.” So strong was the belief in Joan’s +saintship that it brought her to the stake. She resembled +Deborah and Judith; her story was repeated in the most +insignificant hamlets, and all France gave ceaseless thanks +to God for so clearly manifesting Himself through the feeble +arm of a woman, a shepherd-lass: “<i>sicut populum tuum +per manum feminae liberasti</i>.” But this was only an +additional stanza in the love litany (long enough already) +lisped by poets and the faithful to the Virgin of Virgins: a +love-poem, but at the same time a malediction on war and +the spirit of conquest.</p> + +<p>When men spoke, even in favourable terms, of the women +who had been thrown by the force of circumstances among +tragic incidents like these, it was as though they were +celebrating a sort of suicide. Castiglione has devoted verses +charged with real emotion to the memory of a young girl +who was mortally wounded at the storming of Pisa in 1499, +at the moment when she was leading on the defenders. +She was carried away dying, he says, and as she lay upon +her mother’s bosom, she exclaimed that her country owed +her no other bridal! “Virago,” he adds, wiping his eyes. +The last word on these military women was said by a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span>woman, the charming Isabella Villamarina, who was resolved +to don man’s clothes and start for the army like the wife of +Mithridates, with no thought of fighting, but to be with her +husband, the prince of Salerno, whom she madly loved. +But the prince insisting on her staying at home, it occurred +to her to pass the whole of the day in bed, hoping to see +her husband in her dreams!</p> + +<p>It was not simply by dint of philosophical reasoning that +women avoided active and masculine occupations. They +were well aware that they had everything to lose if they +lived the life of men. Men rode rough-shod over them. +Such women as an evil star did actually fling into the +vortex—and these were rare—were invariably women of a +robust and sensuous type.</p> + +<p>Could a more striking example be cited than Catherine +Sforza, a luckless princess perpetually condemned to stand +on the defensive, and on this account fated to remain on the +outskirts of the world in which she might have played so +lofty a part? A notable woman, endowed with nature’s +most prodigal and magnificent gifts; tall, strong, good-looking +enough, with a clear, superb complexion; in speech +warm, forceful, impulsive, her voice ringing out for the +most part like a trumpet call, but capable also of enchanting +caresses. There was nothing theatrical in her wonderful +force of mind, which asserted itself in grand outbursts on all +occasions, as when, for instance, she wrote to her sons from +the depth of her dungeon in the castle of Sant’ Angelo, +bidding them not to be concerned for her. “I am habituated +to grief,” she said; “I have no fear of it.” Or on that other +occasion, the day of the storming of her capital, when the +boldest of the French, forcing their way into the innermost +entrenchments, succeeded finally, after unheard-of exertions, +in capturing her, like a lioness caught in a snare. Here we +have the reverse of the medal: strip her of her armour and +she is a woman, one of the feeblest of her sex. Catherine +exhausted all her vigour in politics: she was swayed by +her senses; almost unknown to herself she imparted to all +about her the unquenchable thirst for sensual pleasure by +which she was herself devoured. Her first three husbands +died by the assassin’s knife. The magnificent Ordelaffi, one +of her foes, would never have wrested the county of Imola +from her by mere force of arms; but to vanquish the woman +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>herself by the magnetism of the senses was but the sport of +an afternoon. And when Catherine, hopelessly entangled +in these toils, heard the people discussing her, the lioness +roared: sentences of imprisonment and the strappado were +the outward and visible signs of her love. The scene +changes; the amiable Ordelaffi gives place to a lover more +worthy of her. Before the virile force of this man, threatening +constantly to sell his soul to the devil, and (a more +serious matter) the state to the Turks, Catherine is subjugated: +she marries him. Feo becomes an odious tyrant: +denunciations, persecutions, tortures are his wedding gifts. +As was to be expected, Feo fell stabbed to the heart under +the very eyes of his sovereign, and then Terror spread her +vampire wings, and the silent prisons swam with holocausts +of blood.</p> + +<p>Were we wrong in saying, at the outset, that under the +exquisite charm of life’s manifestations, the brute in man +was struggling all the time! Possibly it was imagined that +in muzzling the brute, women were obeying a natural +instinct, and that there were certain sensualities and bestial +horrors little to be feared in regard to women brought up in +an atmosphere refined almost to rarefaction. According to +Nifo and others, all that was wanted was to encourage +recourse to the platonist theories. And yet here we see, in +appalling contradiction, this great figure of Catherine Sforza +dominating her epoch, as though to show to what a pitch +the intoxication of masculine women could rise. For at +bottom she was a woman of an excellent heart—this +Catherine who died under the name of Medici; a genuine +sister of mercy, thoughtful, generous, diligent in feeding the +poor in time of famine, and, when an epidemic was raging, +marvellous as a sovereign and a sick-nurse! And how +lovely she was! How well she knew, in the intervals of +her frenzied existence, how to enjoy life, when she gave +herself up to the beauty of her flowers, the charm of her +gardens, the delight of seeing her splendid drove of cattle +peacefully grazing in her parks! Dogs never had a more +tender protectress. She evoked her people’s enthusiasm +and applause when, riding in a red skirt at the head of her +huntsmen, like a legendary fairy, and reining up her horse +with her delicate scented hand, she smiled upon them all, her +beautiful white teeth flashing between her full ruby lips.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span></p> + +<p>What did she lack, then, to make her in very truth a +woman? Only womanliness, and the exquisite power of +using love as a quickening instead of a destroying spirit. +With her, it was quite useless to assume airs of ethereality. +The style she needed is that which we find in the letters of +one of the men she loved, Gabriele Piccoli. This Piccoli +served her as ambassador, and one day Catherine scolded +him for making too free a use of poetry in his despatches. +Upon that, he lost his head; he felt that his heart was all +aflame, “boiling over” he says; he was beside himself with +exultation, speaking of his Divinity, his Hope, anxious to +take flight and abandon everything in order to live “under +the shadow and in the confidence of his princess”; then, +with a sudden transition, he reports in the most precise +terms various diplomatic schemes, not a little complicated. +In reality, the letter is that of a man speaking to a woman of +forty, and seeing her as she was, good-hearted and tender, +yet vigorous and virile. Why did he love her? Because, +all said and done, she intoxicated men. In the evening she +would dance like a mad thing,⁠<a id="FNanchor_289" href="#Footnote_289" class="fnanchor">[289]</a> and next morning go on +a pilgrimage: a strange wild creature. She ended by +marrying a Medici, a man of delicate, idealistic, almost +effeminate temperament. There is nothing so strange as the +colloquy which took place between her and Savonarola. +She had written to the monk to request his prayers, and he +replied in a charming letter, of mingled serenity and strength, +in which he takes high ground in rebuking her life. This +letter is dated June 18, 1497, the very day on which all the +churches in Florence were thundering with the papal proscription +launched against him. Ah! how tragic, how +impressive an encounter was this, between two souls +equally belated, though in a different sense: the pure monk +face to face with death: the woman, born too soon or too +late, the prey of destiny! The French formed an excellent +judgment of this woman of bronze and thunder, who had +ceased to be a woman: they called one of their most +formidable pieces of artillery “Madame de Forli.”</p> + +<p>There was one woman, perhaps, who diffused through the +camps a real chivalrous enthusiasm: but this was in Spain, +and faith and fatherland were concerned. Isabella the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>Catholic ordered that she should be buried on the battlefield +of Grenada, wrapped in the broad folds of her royal mantle, +as though to preach lessons of valour even after her death. +To this day her great soul appears to hold sway in Spain.</p> + +<p>She was a wonderful mixture of different kinds of heroism. +She was brave and resolute without a touch of the virago. +After a night spent in dictating orders, she would tranquilly +resume a piece of church embroidery, or, like Anne of France, +the practical education of her daughters. In her own +private affairs she was plain and simple, in public she was +all ostentation. She was a conversationalist of the first +order, and loved to attack high philosophical questions, +here and there dropping into a discussion some original +phrase, some bold and clear-cut thought, while her deep +blue eyes lit up and darted upon her company a certain +glance of warmth and loyalty the renown of which still +clings to her name. A strange woman! ardent like Anne of +France, guileless, straightforward, somewhat starched perhaps, +but all heart for her friends, so fond a mother that +she died of the loss of her children, so thorough a woman +that she declared she knew only four fine sights in the +world: “a soldier in the field, a priest at the altar, a +beautiful woman in bed, a thief on the gibbet.”</p> + +<p>No king could ever have exercised the same ascendancy. +Spain is too proud a country! A Spaniard to whom you +speak of an army will tell you with perfect coolness that it +consisted of 3000 Italians, 3000 Germans, and 6000 soldiers, +that is to say, 6000 Spaniards. Isabella and Anne of +France were of a style which could only succeed in Spain or +France. Castiglione himself shrinks in awe before such +figures, declaring that he knows nothing like them in Italy.</p> + +<p>Michelangelo showed himself to be less pessimistic, and +has constantly endowed his women with ideal traits of +greatness of soul. His <i>Virgin</i> of the Casa Buonarotti, with +the profile of a Roman matron, holds herself erect and looks +straight before her with the forceful eye of a woman who +would dare anything in defence of her treasure, this feeble +little man to be, gathered so close to her breast that but little +of his back is visible: in very truth, <i>fructus ventris tui</i>.</p> + +<p>Every lady must have seen the exquisite <i>Pietà</i> in +St. Peter’s at Rome.⁠<a id="FNanchor_290" href="#Footnote_290" class="fnanchor">[290]</a> It is the finest monument ever erected +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>to the honour of the sex. Overwhelmed by the tragedy of +Savonarola, Michelangelo has given utterance in that +picture to the cry of his soul: he makes his appeal to +women in the name of Christ.</p> + +<p>On her knees, with simplicity, without sensible effort, the +Mother bears her dead Son—a cruel burden! Her wide-flowing +drapery, her beautiful form, the purity of the lines +of her face, all reveal so great a force of soul that the fact of +her appearing as youthful as her son causes no surprise. +But the Christ is not, for His part, pressing heavily upon her. +Though He is dead, one feels that He still lives, from the +love which speaks forth from His wan, worn features: by +the power of love He has vanquished divine Death, a death +He sought, and almost loved. And the pure, grave mother, +filled with a profound compassion, seems yearning to bring +Him forth a second time, into a complete imperishable life: +hers is an impersonal type, not representing this or that +woman, this or that mother:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le corps, enfin vaincu, recule devant l’âme,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et la terre, ayant vu cette Vierge et ce Dieu,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Va comprendre l’Amour et respecter la Femme.⁠<a id="FNanchor_291" href="#Footnote_291" class="fnanchor">[291]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Michelangelo exalts the eternal woman, sustaining the +Man of Sorrows by the strength of love. He has left us as +his final bequest, as it were, the symbol of all the strenuous +women of the fifteenth century, who had just run so +glorious a race in Italy, and who saw from serene heights +the suffering they themselves never felt—the ancestors of +Vittoria Colonna and Margaret of France. And yet he had +no wish to exaggerate. When he came to paint the <i>Last +Judgment</i>, he no longer set woman in the foreground, like +the naïve old masters; he placed her respectfully in the +rear, giving her an attitude of humility, suppliance, and +compassion, because, even for him, woman was before all +things the incarnation of sweetness and kindliness, and +because, in those dread hours when it is for power and +justice to pronounce the final doom, every woman must +needs stand in the shade.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II<br> +<span class="smaller">MORAL INFLUENCE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The moral purification of society is assuredly one of the +conditions of happiness; hence it was one of the chief +ends of platonism. The 16th century, unfortunately, was +one of the most corrupt periods known to our history, an +undisputed fact from which some people have concluded +that art was the cause of moral decadence, because art in +itself is unmoral, and never acts otherwise than as “a +stimulus to debauchery.” These good paradoxical souls +had ancestors as long ago as the 15th and 16th centuries—ancestors +who held the same theory and saw in aestheticism +a fatal blight to humanity. They refused to acknowledge +the idea of the beautiful: and the belief that a careful +observation discovers some trace of beauty everywhere—that +even in the mind of a criminal there are sometimes +uncommon, indeed splendid faculties, unhappily turned to +evil—seemed to them, as it seems to their successors to-day, +a miserable error calculated to lead mankind to perdition. +Platonist women and the Roman world saw in it, on the +contrary, a pledge of regeneration and civilisation.</p> + +<p>We have already said that the world needed no further +urging on the downward path; love was only understood +apart from marriage, and all that remained to settle was +whether this love should remain material or might possibly +become spiritual.</p> + +<p>All the contemporaries of platonism who regretted the +“good old times” (and in France they were many)—Marot, +Rabelais, Collérye nicknamed Roger Bontemps, Coquillart +the sworn foe of the fashionable world, “bucks” as he +called them—all these clearly explain their position; they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>lamented the disappearance of love “<i>à la française</i>,” a +whole-hearted love without qualifications and periphrases; +a love that was very pleasant if not very moral. And as to +the folk who believed that virtue was corrupted by the +salons, they had only to stroll through the fairs, look in at +the rustic festivities and balls, and chat with one or two +tavern wenches or a village “old wife,” or even to penetrate +into some of the country houses. In Germany, where +morals retained their antique savour, it cannot be pleaded +that Dr. Faustus, with the little crippled love who waits on +him, or the coarse bourgeois Venuses of Wohlgemüth or +Albert Dürer, existed only in imagination!</p> + +<p>The first contact with Italy, so far from purifying these +manners, only brought about the exaltation of sensualism; +one of the most popular of French writers, Octavien de +Saint-Gelais, had no scruple in raising a statue to +“Sensuality.” The French saw in Italy only the pagan +side of the Renaissance, that of the Malatestas⁠<a id="FNanchor_292" href="#Footnote_292" class="fnanchor">[292]</a> and others, +and, as often enough happens when the field of contemplation +is so narrow, they perceived nothing but the more +striking and startling phenomena—the flash of daggers, the +poison bowl; so much that an excellent young man, Louis +de Beauvau, who had wedded a young person of humble +rank against the wishes of his family, and repented of it, +profited by the expedition of Charles VIII. to get together +a fine collection of poisons as he went from town to town. +Certain Italians who had come to France were regarded as +so many jinnish heralds of moral anarchy. “The only way to +escape women is not to see them at all,” exclaims one of +them, Andrelini. In truth, it was not long before Italian +society presented a lamentable spectacle of decomposition; +observers felt painful heart-burnings and overwhelming +disgust. “This is too much,” cries Palingenius, dubbed +the Star of the Renaissance: “let me flee away to some +peaceful, solitary shore.”</p> + +<p>From the year 1515 onwards the court of France +advanced boldly along the same path, dragging the country +with it. “Paris is a fair city to live in, but not to die in.” +What a pass things had come to! When five years had +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>elapsed, Lemaire, who had been one of the prophets of the new +order, paints the situation in terrible colours, demanding as +remedy a convocation of the Courts of Love. Charming +tribunals, indeed: but what good would they serve? In the +forefront of this corrupt and putrid society the official poet +shows us his young king, with his coarse sensual lips wrinkled +in a hideous smile, “consumed by women” body and soul.</p> + +<p>Free love flourished. The saying, “In case of love, one +dame doth not suffice,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_293" href="#Footnote_293" class="fnanchor">[293]</a> answered to the accepted axiom on +the fickleness of women. The noblest of ladies declared +themselves “lieutenants of Venus.” It was love in its +basest form, a matter of trade and barter, cold as ice; +nothing was wanting to its degradation—diplomatic +husbands, women who were “merchandise for kings,” but +a merchandise which proffered itself! It is alleged that +Louis XII. in his decrepitude knew not in Italy how to +defend the virtue of which he was so tenacious. The +excellent Margaret of France was amazed when a young +girl of good family did not rush to sacrifice herself to a +caprice of her brother.⁠<a id="FNanchor_294" href="#Footnote_294" class="fnanchor">[294]</a> Young or old, it made no +difference. Women were known to get up bogus law-suits +for the pleasure of corrupting the judges. Others, with +greater attractions, flocked to the favourite or the minister +of the day; others, more numerous, threw themselves at the +moneyed men, as rivers rush to the sea. No one would +guess what shameful shifts masked some lives that seemed +a brilliant round of music and receptions and play; or +what a singular population of waiting-maids, pimps, and +procuresses of all ranks, forced their unwelcome services +upon a respectable man—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Piteulx comme ung beau crucifix!⁠<a id="FNanchor_295" href="#Footnote_295" class="fnanchor">[295]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Vice was everywhere the same, except for some trifling +shades. If an Italian and a Frenchman told the same story +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span>of an honest woman seduced by means of gold, they practically +differed in nothing but the tariff; the Italian lady +exacts a thousand crowns and disappoints the purchaser, the +Frenchwoman asks only a hundred and faithfully keeps her +word. When the matter comes to light, the Italian husband +is very deferential to the seducer, but poisons the lady; the +French husband contents himself with sending her home to +her parents for a time.</p> + +<p>We must not be understood to believe that honest women +no longer existed: on the contrary, there were still many. +The only difficulty was to find them, because they kept out +of sight, or, at any rate, were too apt to regard the exercising +of an influence as beneath them.</p> + +<p>Good women are often passive, incredulous, or at least +resigned in regard to evil. Many of them, brought up on +the ancient principle of subjection and abnegation, would +ask nothing better than to shut eyes and ears with the +quasi-felicity of mummies petrified in an eternal sleep, and +to decline to believe in evil. There the evil is, under their +own roof, touching them closely, wounding them: yet still +they smile and smile, wishing to appear crowned with roses, +and doing their best to fancy they are happy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_296" href="#Footnote_296" class="fnanchor">[296]</a> What +delightful reasoning, and how precious to feeble and timid +women who would fain eschew strife, and love always!</p> + +<p>Vittoria Colonna, for instance, feigned sleep one night +while her husband, by her side, indulged in wild +antics that pained her deeply. Nifo relates, with the +perfect serenity of an egoist, an incident that happened +to himself. He had shut himself up in his study to write a +<i>Thesserologia astronomica</i>. After some days his wife grew +anxious, and employed all kinds of stratagems to induce him +to relax the rigour of his seclusion. Not succeeding, poor +woman! she went in search of a young lady in the neighbourhood, +of whom she knew her husband was enamoured, +and whom, after she had given her a piece of her mind, she +brought back with her. She shut the two up together, with +the simple happiness of a faithful dog, flattering herself on +having discovered the solution of the puzzle. But no, Nifo +remained glued to his <i>Thesserologia</i>. Then the good woman +lost her head, vowed herself to saints innumerable, made +pilgrimage after pilgrimage, and gave many a votive offering. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>Three months afterward, Nifo, when he had written his +last line, issued tranquilly from his tomb, and condescended +(so he assures us) to raise his wife from her depression.</p> + +<p>Devotion of this kind was apparently not rare among the +women of old. There was indeed a classical little story +which passed from hand to hand about a Madame de +Varambon. Monsieur de Varambon (so the story ran: we +must do him at least this justice) was a thrifty fellow, and +his wife was grieved to know that his mistress’s apartments +were rather poorly furnished. She ended by going herself +to look after the furnishing, in profound secrecy. This +story excited the hilarity of men every time it was told; +some of them regarded Madame de Varambon as an old +humbug; others, as a poor godly old soul;⁠<a id="FNanchor_297" href="#Footnote_297" class="fnanchor">[297]</a> and that was +the sole reward of her virtue!</p> + +<p>Apart from this bent of women themselves for submission +and seclusion, we must note also that Frenchmen formed themselves +into a sort of league, by no means chivalrous, against +women who got “talked about.” If a woman was talked +about, it seemed a necessary deduction that there was something +bad to say about her, and the mere fact of a lady +acquiring any sort of public reputation, though entirely to +her honour, apparently gave everyone the right to fling mud +at her. This was one of the most formidable obstacles to +the moral influence of women. It seemed to many people, +in short, that there was no choice between virtue starched, +prosaic and wearisome, or no virtue at all: that it consisted +for women in the simple devotion to an ideal of family duty—in +which, however, they did not always find happiness, +and which religion did not always succeed in beautifying, +for the family affections are terrestrial, and doubtless will +not survive the earth. Husbands maintained this position, +finding it convenient. Vice and virtue in all their coarseness +(there is a coarseness of virtue) were each shut up, so to +speak, in a water-tight compartment: “to each his calling”; +no compromise, no nuance, no degree was acknowledged; +virtue is always represented by Titian and others with +harsh malevolence as uncouth and ill to look upon, while +opposite her they represent the true woman as an embodied +caress.</p> + +<p>Untrue and untenable as this distinction was, no one +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span>cared to seek a way out of the dilemma, not even the +moralists. Lotto as well as Titian represents the virtuous +woman as a goose-girl, in conflict with Venus! And indeed +the singular comparison in course of time penetrated to the +core of platonist society, though it was softened down like a +much attenuated echo. Raphael, then a charming boy of +twenty, fresh moulded by the tender hands of two princesses, +was conscious of the same thing in his <i>Vision of a Knight</i> +in the National Gallery.</p> + +<p>To him also the grave woman holding a sword and a +book seems a timid creature; he leaves her in the background +as though unwilling to show herself, and limns +behind her only a rocky steep and a church spire soaring +into the sky. The other lady, on the contrary, graceful in +form and feature, stands out distinctly before lovely meadows +sloping down to a swift-flowing stream. What does she +hold? A flower, no more. This is love indeed, but eminently +tender, eminently reasonable, almost ineffectual. +Raphael was so young!</p> + +<p>Why then, even in the eyes of this delicate-minded stripling, +does virtue keep this character of ungainliness and +frigidity? Were there in his day none of those women of +sound mind and steadfast soul who, while knowing how to +leave men undisturbed in their pride, how (so to speak) to +respect them, knew also how to stimulate them to set happiness +above the woes of life? It is not even the lash of +passion we are speaking about; great love has some +trenchant quality that cleaves a way through materialities; +it is purification <i>par excellence</i>; it would remove +mountains and still the waves. Happy the woman who +has once encountered it, thrice happy she who has been +able to recognise it and seize it ere it passed! For it has +but one defect, its exceeding rarity; and if the moral regeneration +of society were absolutely dependent on it, a +woman would do better to fling up the struggle, encase +herself in triple brass, mystically shut her eyes to evil, +await a miracle, and hope for nothing on this earth but the +repentant tears of her husband!</p> + +<p>We are speaking merely of women of vigour, made to +support and guide men—the women whom men style +“dragons.” They are a species which achieves little +success in the world; men regard them as somewhat too +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>masculine, and are constantly making fun of them, especially +when there are good reasons for so doing. At Naples, for +instance, one of these dragons—Doña Maria d’Aragona, a +respectable mother of seven—created no little amusement +because (so the story ran), in her desire for a large experience, +she had wished to live with her husband three years +as a wife, three as a sweetheart, and three as an enemy. +Men do not understand such women; it is a sense they are +deficient in. These women were out of date,—women of +the 15th century, of the time before Savonarola. They +remind one of those old, high, rugged ramparts which +perforce crumble away, and to which we prefer a spick-and-span, +vulgar boulevard, blocked up with gingerbread +stalls.</p> + +<p>And yet the moral influence of women, from a social and +general standpoint, did make itself felt, especially in Italy. +“You must not judge men from the crust,” as Anne of +France very well said. The opposing parties were so little +divided from each other that it is not easy to distinguish +them; there were materialists who did not scorn the ideal, +and idealists by no means unsympathetic to the material, +and it was that which gave an opening to the moral +preacher.</p> + +<p>For instance, Nifo, whom we have mentioned as a personal +foe to Plato, had begun by fighting against Thomas of +Aquinas in the materialist camp; but on being shown his +folly by the Bishop of Padua, a prelate of parts, he changed +sides with a great flourish of trumpets, fell lustily upon his +master Pomponazzi, and became a Roman count with the +name and the arms of the Medici: to his own satisfaction +and delight, for logical minds love success. And by and by +we discover him, folios in hand, falling at the feet of female +beauty with surprising agility,—quite eclipsing Victor +Cousin, whose passions were of the mere milk-and-water +order and very much behind the times. Renan, who has +left us an excellent appreciation of Nifo, reproaches him +with the somewhat wobbly character of his doctrine; but +this is the very thing that interests us. If men were not +inconstant, platonism would have no further utility. Nifo, +in short, was a converted character. If men are bent on +fighting, we must not complain that a woman’s hand can +sometimes draw them into the crack regiments.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span></p> + +<p>This means, someone will say, that the conscience and +the lofty deductions of a serious or even a distinguished +man depend on the rustle of a petticoat or the colour of +certain eyes? Even so; if the woman stands for more +than a petticoat and two bright eyes, if she really has a +heart, ardent and vigorous affections in which the man’s +spirit finds refreshment, what could be more natural or +moral?</p> + +<p>Look at Nifo again. Ugly, hideous, untractable as he +was, he completely changed his tune under the influence of +a few artificial (perhaps too artificial, indeed!) courtesies; if +he retained some of the claws of the primitive man, some +thorns of the wild stock which it was so difficult to graft, +what does that prove but that under a woman’s fingers the +roughest bushes burst into brilliant flower? Nifo even +came to wear almost the same moral livery as Bembo. He +speaks of Plato only with respect, and of materialism only +with disdain as a not very formidable doctrine from which +good taste and spiritual refinement cannot but preserve +women; he pretends to go as far as the “imaginatives” in +the direction of sociological love; he adopts in principle +Plato’s theory of love as an intermediary between the +Creator and the creature; “beauty—aye, I gladly confess +it—is that which produces love.” His only weakness (a +very natural one) is that he cannot arrive at the Absolute, +as Socrates understood it, without traversing this earth; that +he prefers to vague, immaterial, supersensual dallying with +love the personal encounter of two living beings. On this +head the meanest logicians do not allow themselves to be +silenced. They unreservedly, enthusiastically recognise the +religion of beauty and love, and its admirable effects on +society and the world; but at the same time they are not +quite at one about definitions. They pause in a sort of +numb fascination before a pretty little piece of piety who +suddenly pretends she forgets her body and is only a soul; +they are like Dante in Purgatory, when he opened his arms +and clasped nothing but air. They do not prostrate soul and +body in adoration before a shadow, a reflection, a transient +gleam of beauty; it seems good to them to love a particular +woman in virtue of a special affinity, or a need of settling +down; and in these circumstances they would in good sooth +think it great folly to torture themselves under the fallacious +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span>plea that sweet love if gratified is slain. Love, they say, is +one and indivisible, not too base nor too divine: “You may +cite me your heroes, your saints, your angels: you may +explore the whole realm of antiquity to unearth types like +Socrates and Anaxarchos (or, if you please, Xenocrates, who +spent a whole night in tranquil admiration of Phryne): +everything is possible. I myself furnish a magnificent +example in loving Fulvia without any base desire. But +these are masterly achievements of saints or philosophers, +and St. Jerome shows a keen insight into humanity when +he ordains that men shall either regard all the Lord’s +virgins with a generic affection, or shall not love any of +them. Horace maintained that with greybeards the flesh is +dead; St. Jerome replies: ‘You say that the flesh is dead, +and I tell you that the devil is eternal.’ Love must be +distinguished from friendship.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_298" href="#Footnote_298" class="fnanchor">[298]</a></p> + +<p>In France it was another story. Men were much more +self-assertive. We do not find them appealing to these circumlocutions +or these tender ironies. The annihilation of +matter would have struck them as almost an outrage. +Among them things took an entirely different complexion +from that which we have indicated in the feminist society of +Italy. Being the masters, they regarded love as indispensable, +and beauty as always good: “If we thought ladies +were without love, we should long for death”; only, adds +Erasmus, “they grant women nothing but from love of +sensual pleasure”; and the more highly placed they happened +to be, the more natural it seemed to them to degrade +love. “To gratify a prince”—we know what that means; +there is no question here of an elevated love like the love +which fills princesses’ dreams.</p> + +<p>The moral conflict on this point was in France acute. +When Margaret essayed to purify the society of her court +by a leaven of beauty, her entourage checked her, refusing +to allow any effort towards embellishing human life with +the ideal. These men held too closely to the old logical +and realist spirit. They loved Plato, but truth still more. +They did not realise that their brutal realism had the effect +of throwing women off at a tangent, for a religion of some +sort is always necessary; to save themselves from men, +women of high birth and noble bearing, carried away by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span>an enthusiasm in some sort heroic, attained to a mystic conception +of a life of pure sensibility.</p> + +<p>But then what is the beginning and what the end of the +dream? Without touching on the cruel questionings of +philosophy about the reality of our physical perceptions, or +on many of the ambiguous phenomena, where does the +vision begin in the moral life, if life involves so many +fancies, illusions, loves, gleams, which act upon us but have +no real existence?—so many vague aspirations, admirable +but unsubstantial? To fall headlong from a height into an +abyss is a violent experience which kills too quickly; the +mystic vision is only possible on condition of coddling the +soul within the four walls of a convent; out in the world it +falls and is lost: that was the opinion of the logicians. +When Margaret relates with what energy of virtue she +escaped the realistic assaults of Bonnivet, and how, at the +cost of a few scratches, she has reduced him to the cold +comfort of the Ideal, her husband is the first to laugh, +saying: “If I had got so far, I should think myself disgraced +to fail of attaining my goal.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_299" href="#Footnote_299" class="fnanchor">[299]</a></p> + +<p>It is a cynical saying, and raises a general protest; but +Henri d’Albret explains it very placidly, and we cannot +give the gist of his retort better than in the following +sentence of M. Bourget: “You have the morality of life, +without having the morality of the heart.” Henri rejoices +to see his wife keep up appearances, but, from the moral +standpoint, he finds no great difference between her and +himself, except in practical conduct: “She and I are both +children of Adam and Eve.” He laughs and sneers at the +nebulous philosophical aspirations of the princess, and is +not the only man who has got this strange impression that +the sins of the spirit and the sins of the flesh are equipollent. +“A fortress which parleys is half won,” says with feigned +good-humour one of the speakers in the <i>Heptameron</i>, +appearing to forget that Margaret as an inveterate gossip +had readily accepted the sobriquet of Parlamente.⁠<a id="FNanchor_300" href="#Footnote_300" class="fnanchor">[300]</a></p> + +<p>Not merely did the adversaries of platonism accuse it of +being only moral in appearance, but this very semblance of +morality, resting on a misapprehension, seemed to them an +hypocrisy that aggravated the fault. They regarded platonism +as evil and wanting in seriousness; Louise of Savoy, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span>an inveterate kill-joy, at once sour and sympathetic in +regard to pleasures she is past enjoying, inveighs bitterly +against love that is only skin-deep—the vanities and tricks, +the husk and chaff of love that is simply a comedy in +which two actors show their skill; she prefers a fault without +scandal to a scandal without fault. However, the issue +seems to her perfectly clear: “Either you love, or you do +not. If you love, why impose on yourself the torment of +Tantalus? If you do not, why impose it on others?” She +would rather succeed in a piece of folly than fail in a +virtuous action, however logical and practical.</p> + +<p>She has a way all her own of squelching the fancies +of her daughter; she allows them to swell and swell, and +then gives the merest little pin-prick. Someone speaks, +for instance, of a queen clever enough to impose seven years’ +preliminary probation on her lover: “Then she didn’t wish +to love or be loved!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_301" href="#Footnote_301" class="fnanchor">[301]</a> If someone feelingly exclaims: +“When love is strong, the lover knows no meat and drink +but the look and voice of the loved one,” she retorts that +she would much like to see how he looked on such fare!⁠<a id="FNanchor_302" href="#Footnote_302" class="fnanchor">[302]</a> +At the conclusion of a droll story, a maid of honour who +is a little over-excited declares that she would rather be +flung into the river than live in intimacy with a Franciscan; +and Louise replies with her placid smile: “Then you can +swim well?” The other retorts in great irritation: “I +know some who have resisted more prepossessing men than +a Franciscan, without blowing their own trumpets about +it.” Louise, laughing more than ever, replies, “Still less +do they beat the drums about what they have done and +granted.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_303" href="#Footnote_303" class="fnanchor">[303]</a> She is a sceptic and a logician; with all her +boldness of speech, she is never over-paradoxical. Moreover, +she applied her principles to herself, and had such a +way of encouraging her daughter’s lovers that they quite +naturally paid their addresses to her. At the opening of +the <i>Heptameron</i>, for instance, one of Margaret’s numerous +admirers, furious to see his princess receive a passionate +declaration with laughter, hies him to the mother.</p> + +<p>Almost everybody in France shared the views of +Henri d’Albret and Louise of Savoy. Platonism sprang up +among thorns. And so far from there being any bias +in its favour, there awoke a reaction against the finnikin +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span>absurdities of bygone days,—for instance, against the +“bashful knights” who sported furs in summer, and +summer cloaks in winter, in order to give ocular demonstration +that “love was all-sufficient.” That sort of mysticism +struck men as sickly. They preferred frankness and +vivacity,—the frothy sparkle of champagne to the sugared +liqueur, golden, soft, limpid, heavy, old in bottle, which +bore the Italian label. Rabelais, who is our Michelangelo, +takes great care not to dive into the mysteries in Ficino’s +way, or to pile up a heap of folios after the example of +Nifo. Look at him, with his learning and his consummate +intellect, sitting before a dish of peas fried in fat, seized +with inextinguishable laughter as he thinks of the “celestial +and priceless drug” of Plato’s <i>Symposium</i>, and deriding all +the Picos della Mirandola past and future in the person of +Messire Pantagruel, who maintains against all opponents +9764 conclusions, some of them highly platonic, on “the +philosophical cream of encyclopaedic questions,” on “the +platonic idea, hovering dexterously under the orifice of +chaos.” Rabelais dedicates his <i>Life of Gargantua</i> to topers +and the gouty.</p> + +<p>And then you hear the loud chant, the babel noise, of +gold, of Plutus, rising above and drowning all other sounds. +Artists no longer cling to the old shabby studio in which +they strove after the ideal: they have now come to dwell +in palaces, and some there are whose art consists in coining +false money or running after the philosopher’s stone—if not +in worse occupations. Even where men are wistful and +dream, in the heart of melancholy Brittany, the poor human +soul, compared by a preacher to a runner started upon the +long race for eternal life, halts and stoops at every moment +like Atalanta, to pick up apples of gold.⁠<a id="FNanchor_304" href="#Footnote_304" class="fnanchor">[304]</a></p> + +<p>Thus the battle was joined on all sides at once, and the +struggle was fierce. Among so many ingratitudes, so many +keen-pointed shafts, women needed a proud courage to +continue imperturbably spreading through the world the +spirit of love, the religion of beauty.</p> + +<p>They did not succeed in subduing mankind at large, nor +in directing their moral energies. That dream had to be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span>relinquished. They resigned themselves to the thankless +task of individually doing what little they could do +through their sympathy and tenderness. This was all they +could give, and it cost them dear, for it too often involved +concessions, many bitter and secret tears, a love mingled +with disgust, an unavoidable duplicity!</p> + +<p>They had perforce to content themselves, then, with this +measure of success. To show clearly in what this success +consisted, we shall divide our brief account into two parts; +for their sensibility was exerted in two directions. Under +their influence virtue and vice became each an art: their +defects and excesses were moderated. On the one hand the +over harsh virtues were softened, or, if we may coin a +word, de-austerified, and endowed with a cheerfulness of +aspect they had formerly lacked; on the other, vice was +ennobled, and the gap between vice and virtue thereby +diminished. In brief, women tried to make life beautiful +rather than good, and piously to rehabilitate everything +which had possibilities of beauty, in virtue of the principle +that the Beautiful <i>is</i> good and purifies all things.</p> + +<h4>1. THE SOFTENING OF VIRTUE.</h4> + +<p>The principles already established are, briefly, as follows: +happiness resides in love, love consists in self-surrender. +Of this there are several modes: one may surrender body +and soul, or soul alone—or nothing at all! To give the soul +is the true platonism; to give nothing is the false. The +surrender of the body is the time-honoured sacrament of +marriage.</p> + +<p>How did they set about reconciling these various elements? +In a manner that was simplicity itself.</p> + +<p>We have said that marriage had become a human and +reciprocal contract, concluded with a definite object between +two fellow-creatures; and logically there was no reason +why it should not have ended as it began, by mutual +consent, that is, in the community of women⁠<a id="FNanchor_305" href="#Footnote_305" class="fnanchor">[305]</a> according +to Plato’s idea.</p> + +<p>But on the contrary the platonists, who looked for no +poetry in the prose of wedlock, regarded one marriage as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span>quite sufficient, if not excessive. Further, the institution +was an ancient one; it was a matter of use and wont. To +maintain the organisation of society and the foundations of +aristocracy, it was necessary to retain the formula and +merely to draw from it the moral consequences implied in +the principle of equality of rights.</p> + +<p>Up to that time the morality of marriage had been +regulated by the authority or even the caprice of the +husband. A bastard (provided he was begotten by the +husband) had almost the status of a legitimate child; in +many cases he was bred at the paternal hearth, away from +his mother, under the charge of his father’s wife; and in +Italy he very easily secured legitimation,⁠<a id="FNanchor_306" href="#Footnote_306" class="fnanchor">[306]</a> and, if other heirs +failed, carried on the family. What was much worse than +deceiving his wife, the husband believed he had the right to +neglect her. From that time forward retaliation appeared +to be the guiding principle; instead of remaining head-nurses, +of adopting children from heaven knows where, of +toiling to efface all signs of the caprices of their lords and +masters, women “unhappily married” no longer saw the +necessity of fettering themselves, of refusing their share of +happiness, of carefully guarding what was despised.</p> + +<p>Luther gave material fixity to this principle by permitting +divorce; he maintained marriage, but at the same time +allowed re-marriage; in other words, he retrograded as far +as possible towards the manners of the past. In case of +default, even involuntary, on the part of one of the contracting +parties, he thought it quite right to replace +“Vashti by Esther.” We know what fortune attended +these ideas. Melander,⁠<a id="FNanchor_307" href="#Footnote_307" class="fnanchor">[307]</a> when blessing a “duplicate” +marriage of the Landgrave of Hesse, proceeded to say that +everything in this world wears out, and that monogamy +had had its day. A book of extremely liberal views +attributed to Bugenhagen⁠<a id="FNanchor_308" href="#Footnote_308" class="fnanchor">[308]</a> adduced examples of bigamy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>among the early Christians. Polygamy met with some +support; near the end of his life, Ochino⁠<a id="FNanchor_309" href="#Footnote_309" class="fnanchor">[309]</a> became its +advocate.</p> + +<p>The platonists, however, allowed no retouching. The +ancient doctrine that the body, with all its weaknesses and +infirmities, received with marriage an indelible brand, as in +former days convicts were marked, after all seemed to them +to be salutary, since the end of marriage was obedience to +the physical law “increase and multiply.” But, the law +once fulfilled, by what strange aberration did they wish to +bind souls to this abandoned body, truly a derelict of life? +So far as heart and soul were concerned, the community of +women (or rather, the community of men) seemed a moral +reality, constituting indeed the clearest distinction that +could be drawn between mankind and the animals. This +“spiritual libertinage” was condemned. Calvin flouted +it and preferred divorce—a singular taste, not very refined, +eminently worthy of countries where fleshly love was cultivated, +with rope-ladders and without platonism.⁠<a id="FNanchor_310" href="#Footnote_310" class="fnanchor">[310]</a> Wedlock +has its good points, but, as everyone knows, it is never +supremely delightful; love ought to be a delight and a +religion. The wife, stepping forth in her turn into life, has +a right to think a little about herself and her highest needs, +to cultivate her heart and soul, to blossom out and complete +herself. “Complete herself!” some one will say: +“then ’tis a question of a subsidiary marriage?” Yes, but +of a marriage wholly moral, in which the carnal concessions +are purely aesthetic and ostensible,—in which she boasts (so +far as essential points are concerned) of a platonism as +perfect in regard to her lover as in regard to her husband.</p> + +<p>In the year of grace 1523, a young lady of the Roman +aristocracy, whom history names Costanza Amaretta, pretty, +refined, and pious, made a journey of devotion to Florence +for the Easter festivals, and there met her ideal in the shape +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span>of a cultivated and distinguished man named Celso. They +lived together under the same roof in perfect chastity. +When Easter was past, they set out with four kindred +spirits for a country house of Celso’s, and there, in the joyous +spring weather, among the cypresses and tufted pines +and early flowers, this idyllic society of platonists gave +themselves up to the delights of poetising and philosophising +at large. Costanza, elected queen of the coterie, unbosomed +herself to them. She had been married when very +young, as the custom was, to a man of business with little of +the ethereal in his composition—a man of eminently practical +mind, and manners almost intolerable. With him she had +contracted no real moral ties. “But for this man’s desire of +having children by me—for he thought me beautiful—we +should have felt nothing but hatred for each other.” In +Celso’s company, however, the path of virtue seems to +Costanza covered with roses instead of thorns, and hence to-day +her eyes are opened to the truth, she perceives with +perfect clearness the moral utility of the platonist distinction +between the two kinds of love, the one bestial, matrimonial, +fraught with peril, a thing of this world, perishable,—the +other celestial, life-giving, a foretaste of Paradise, a +love that enraptures the soul and fills it in truth with a +radiance divine.</p> + +<p>Perfect lovers thus found perfect pleasure in making an +offering, but not a sacrifice, of their flesh—in deliberately +lifting themselves above gross physical rules and living +delicately as angels incarnate. Castiglione with extravagant +eulogy reminds us of the wonderful feat accomplished by two +of these dilettanti of love, who spent six months in +conjugal intimacy and perfect continence; that was what +he calls love, the ideal existence, pure beauty! There was +even, at Milan, a religious order devoted to the mutual +edification of the sexes on these lines, but after a time the +archbishop decreed its dissolution.⁠<a id="FNanchor_311" href="#Footnote_311" class="fnanchor">[311]</a></p> + +<p>Truth to tell, we do not know exactly how far this species +of platonism extended; it is a land difficult to map out; in +such matters no statistics are available, and even in these +days when we can reel off the number of bushels of wheat or +dozens of eggs France can produce in any month, there is no +official return on the virtue of women.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span></p> + +<p>But we are not indisposed to believe that the platonic life +<i>à deux</i> numbered more adepts than might be imagined. So +many women of loveless heart aspired to the happiness of +finding for it some safe repository, and regarded the body as +so much dross, infinitely inferior. The example of Judith +struck them as not only above criticism, but sublime. If +one had groaned under the burden of the first marriage, +surely it was all the more needful to set the second upon a +pedestal, and so to preserve above everything the illusions, +the dreams, the anticipations, however vague, which bring +us out of moral and physical distress into light and life! +The young platonist lady, all soul, who lived in the arms +of her lover and relinquished nothing but her soul, fancied +that she was realising a holy and religious dream; love, +which purifies all things, wafted her in peace and confidence +towards the celestial spheres; for faith, hope, love—what are +they but the sheet anchors of the soul? That was her +whole position. If by this means she could enter into fulness +of life, was she so very foolish in availing herself of it?</p> + +<p>Unhappily, love sought as a rule only its own abasement, +and the mission of these fair apostles declared itself rather +in aggressive sallies than in spiritual edification. Platonism +had to come down a peg, and to meet the demands of +men it had to turn distrustful, descend to trivialities and +deceit,—to place reliance on artifice. Thus was born a new +species of platonism—more popular, and more open to criticism +in point of morality.</p> + +<p>This secondary art of platonism was hardly known +beyond the borders of Italy; it demanded a patience and a +consummate suppleness which we do not possess. The +impatience of Frenchmen in matters of love was proverbial; +they would rather seize than woo; they would boil and +chafe, utterly unable to appreciate the wily tactics of Ovid +or Martial, very often expecting to begin at the end +without any preliminary finessing, and making flirtation +altogether impossible. And Frenchwomen, too,—must we +confess it?—were but poor hands at the game. Some of +them caught fire instead of winning love without loving, +and there were young girls like Mademoiselle de Piennes +who wrung their hands before the whole Court in despair at +a lover’s desertion. The French were so constituted; they +applied principles they did not possess, while the Italians +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>excelled in holding principles without applying them. And +thus, whatever else they did, the former were not very +successful in finding salvation through chimerical ideals, and +virtue had infinite trouble to convince them of her intoxicating +charm: they could not manage to persuade themselves +that stones and arabesques are man’s proper sustenance, but +remained faithful to the realities they knew through the +senses. Everything else was only ridiculed, and, as few +women are insensible to mockery and a cutting phrase, the +ladies were sometimes led where their own hearts would not +have taken them.</p> + +<p>Platonic love, then, was regarded in France as a complicated +business. The women had to confess that no means +had yet been discovered of crystallising the things of life +apart from the dispensation of Providence which has given +us bodies, nor of curbing men by the mere vision of the +ideal.</p> + +<p>So, as we have seen, Margaret of France strove to make +her body the transparent vesture of her soul. We have +seen, too, what tender familiarities the ladies authorised at +their morning toilet, and at other times.</p> + +<p>Modesty to them consisted not in the more or less brutal +systems of the “all in all or not at all,” but simply in +remaining women.</p> + +<p>Chary of making a confidant of doctor or chaplain, +because unwilling to subject themselves to either, they +valued the man who regarded them as women and had eyes +only for them; as a reward for his exclusive attentions they +certainly thought they owed him some little privilege +beyond what they allowed to others. It was they who +were the doctors, the confessors, or rather the rescuers; +they sprang into the water to save the drowning man. +To save him by bestowing on him the true gift, a little +of themselves, appeared to them a good, a moral, a meritorious +work! This was far, you perceive, from the +commonplace, masculine handshake which women nowadays +grant to all and sundry! Seriously, they fancied they +were thus winning heaven; their own hearts constantly +heard echoes of the sweet strains of Plato’s <i>Phaedo</i> or +<i>Crito</i>; his exquisite distinction between soul and body +made music in their ears, and the familiar spirit of Socrates +bound them to an immaterial world, whispering his +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span>counsels and intuitions.⁠<a id="FNanchor_312" href="#Footnote_312" class="fnanchor">[312]</a> They saw no harm in bestowing +their indulgent favour, their smile, and a little more. It +was enough for them “to hold fast unto the end,” and +to remain firm as rock on the essential; they were innocent +of “false scruples,” and would have thought it cruel and +ridiculous to torture a man by refusing him “familiarities +that Nature has permitted to beauties,” now that this +small change cost them so little, and above all touched +them so little. Ah! that was not where the temptation +lay! At the bottom of their hearts, how they despised +the shallow, insignificant men who, with their large and +canting talk of love and sentiment, could be caught like +gudgeon with this paltry physical lure!</p> + +<p>The critics of a certain lady went so far as to accuse her +of “losing all shame,” because when receiving one of her +friends, as she lay in bed in the morning, she tolerated not +a few familiarities, “without any offence to my honour,” as +she observed. She replied with heat that she saw in her +conduct nothing but what was excellent; her friend would +esteem her doubly for having seen body and soul united +in her “in one strain of chaste beauty.” As to the danger +of this familiarity, listen to her subtle and delicious reply: +“The man I love, the man I dread is not he; it is another +who has laid siege, not to my body, but to my soul. Ah! +if I did not keep a rein on my heart, it would long ago +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span>have spoken to me in favour of the other man!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_313" href="#Footnote_313" class="fnanchor">[313]</a> This +is the cry of the fastidious woman who dreads only the +rape of the mind! We do not discuss her moral scheme, we +pass no judgment; we confine ourselves to relating.⁠<a id="FNanchor_314" href="#Footnote_314" class="fnanchor">[314]</a> Her +end was to make herself loved, and in a manner which +would be worth the trouble.</p> + +<p>It is not hard to believe that the bounds were sometimes +overstepped: some men abused their privileges, especially +with regard to princesses of literature like Louise Labé;⁠<a id="FNanchor_315" href="#Footnote_315" class="fnanchor">[315]</a> +and sometimes it happened, indeed, that cries a little too +genuine broke from the lips of women, and were heard +above this tender, philosophic poetry, and this scorn of +earth. Yet many women, in their devotion for spreading +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span>pure happiness, for holding men captive lest they sold +themselves, would often have preferred that conversation +should be the sum total of their intercourse, and that their +friends should be content to dip in their eyes and their +soul.</p> + +<p>Their aim was to reduce everything to conversation; +they had little love for a contemplative silence, for songs +without words: conversation allowed opportunities of +probing, caressing, penetrating the soul, turning it inside +out without the least inconvenience and with many +benefits. Among close friends they showed their art by +getting someone to sing to them the old cantilena, “I +die of thirst beside the gushing fount”; sometimes they +held under their eyelids a large unsuspected tear. They +made a hungry man forget his food; “they contented their +lovers with words, promised a reward, and deferred it till +to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>The Italians, as we have said, delighted in tasting love thus +at leisure in little sugared sips; they were not gluttons like +the French: they appeared born, not to construct railways +or to inflate balloons, but simply to love, to love loving, to +nourish themselves on futilities and surprises, to sing +always the same meaningless song. They cut marvellous +figures at the feet of those women “before whom desire +burnt away like candles at a shrine”; they glossed over +realities, as if they really believed more in happiness that +came from the unknown than from the known, as the great +scorner of women, La Rochefoucauld, has well said; to such +an extent that the inexhaustible springs of the heart +were sufficiently depleted, so far as they were concerned, to +spare them the risk of embarrassment from love, and to +enable them safely to find the recreation necessary to the +overtaxed human mind. Happy creatures, these men without +a care! The narrow world in which they fluttered +seemed too big for them, and their long wings touched +the ground; they were young, yet old; they were gay with +brilliant, yet faded colours; a woman could take their arm +in complete confidence that all would end where it began. +Life was for them one aimless flirtation, a mere battle of +flowers.</p> + +<p>Love, as thus carried to extreme perfection in society, +came in for no little mockery. No one was under any +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span>illusion as to the impossibility of finding in it a secret +source of strength and life; it was a mere avocation, a little +intellectual pastime—with no overpowering demand on the +intellect.</p> + +<p>The Italian “cicisbeo” or “death of love” became a sort of +amiable spectre, a harmless necessary cat; he was practically +non-existent to his friends, and had the right of not answering +his letters. Sweetly scented, with a well-hosed leg, a +rose in his hand and a flower at his ear, his lips pursed up, +his bearing graceful and gallant, at his heels a lackey whose +duty was to flick off the least speck of dust—there you +have him, always the same, whoever the object of his +passion. All he troubled about was rightly to place his +glances and sighs, his nods and salutations, and when he +had been rewarded with a gracious smile or an arch +look, he would go off humming to indite a sextain or a +madrigal.</p> + +<p>The mawkish execrable creature! more womanish than +women, a woman spoilt in the making, a half-woman! +Sticking like a shadow to the lady of his thoughts, his +functions were to carry her lapdog, her prayer-book, or +what else she pleased. At her house he installed himself as +the centrepiece of her receptions, kept the conversation +alive, and overwhelmed the husband with affectionate attentions.</p> + +<p>He was a hypocrite, a rakish fop! In the Roman aristocracy +he usually took the shape of a sanctimonious recluse; +at Naples he was a man of energy and go; at Venice a man +of mystery; in Lombardy he had the joyous self-assurance +of the North;⁠<a id="FNanchor_316" href="#Footnote_316" class="fnanchor">[316]</a> at Florence he was a vivacious talker, responding +to the challenges of silvery voices with audacious +quips. He took everything as it came; he had not an +ounce of sincerity: his cleverness consisted first in adapting +himself entirely to the beloved object, in abdicating all +individuality, in being hers and hers alone; secondly, +in proceeding platonically and without passion, with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span>extreme prudence, trusting to suavity and tenderness, +always securing a line of retreat, and striving above all +to melt the obdurate heart. In all this part of the +programme the eyes often were better servants than the +tongue.</p> + +<p>This point rounded, every man for himself! An eclectic, a +hot lover, an abstract philosopher, a symbolist, an idealist—let +him be any of these if his heart bids him. He is a fine +talker; well, ’tis a great talent, which will permit him to +turn to account a thousand little incidents, but will often +(let him not deceive himself) lead to only superficial successes. +A wary woman holds fine talkers in awe; with them, she +thinks, there is all the making of domestic broils; she knows +how indiscreet they are, and she smiles on them and keeps +them at a distance, knowing that this is the way to set +them proclaiming her virtue abroad. Often she prefers +a taciturn, above all a bashful man, “a lenten lover,” as +someone said, easy to feed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_317" href="#Footnote_317" class="fnanchor">[317]</a></p> + +<p>But it is impossible to enumerate all the eccentricities +that were part and parcel of this flirtation. The ridiculous +became the rule: it was an afflicting spectacle for human +dignity. Old men cut capers, young men lost their heads, +the witty turned imbecile, the imbecile set up for wits. +What a masquerade! The lugubrious blubbered about +their love, sighed in prose and verse; the sincere embraced +a whimsey—adopted a colour, for instance. One of these, +having vowed himself to green, so strictly embargoed the +rest of the spectrum that not only was everything on him +green, even to his shirt-buttons, but he ate out of none +but green plates, drank out of none but greenish glasses, +never rested till he had discovered green bread, and made +green meadows and groves the exclusive burden of his +song.</p> + +<p>Happily, conversation somewhat raised the level of this +extravagant and lamentable affectation. Surrounded by a +circle of friends, a man would amuse himself by launching a +graceful declaration concealed in an aphorism or a double +entendre; it sometimes happened that a lady who had +never entered the speaker’s head fancied that hers was the +heart aimed at, and that was provocative of fun. Or +perhaps they would linger out the pleasure of a tête-à-tête +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_348">[348]</span>reel off their witticisms⁠<a id="FNanchor_318" href="#Footnote_318" class="fnanchor">[318]</a> and amiable compliments, and +unravel little puzzles in sentimental casuistry. Sometimes +they reached the stage where the tête-à-tête that was really +delightful was one in which neither said a word.</p> + +<p>Here some one will stop us and ask whether all this did +not have an end. Bless you, no! An end was in no wise +necessary; genuine platonic romances never end.⁠<a id="FNanchor_319" href="#Footnote_319" class="fnanchor">[319]</a> And +what years and years they may last! A clever woman +excels precisely in spinning them out; if she feels that the +fire is burning low, she has a thousand means of fanning +it into flame—a word, a tender gesture,⁠<a id="FNanchor_320" href="#Footnote_320" class="fnanchor">[320]</a> a little present, a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_349">[349]</span>gracious act here, a secret gentleness there, a touch of +jealousy; and then she suggests that you should recommence +the little game—church, the park, sighs, tears, oaths. +And thus you may go on for ever.</p> + +<p>There are, however, some romances which do end, well or +ill. As a rule the event is announced by rolling clouds and +a lightning-flash. The majority of men only enter the +platonic life with the idea of an early departure, and +implicitly believe that in the life of every woman—even +though she be a “dragon”—there is one inevitable, irrefragable +hour. Psychologists, philosophers, poets, preachers⁠<a id="FNanchor_321" href="#Footnote_321" class="fnanchor">[321]</a> +all have repeated <i>ad nauseam</i> the saying of Ovid: “A chaste +woman is she whom none has tempted,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_322" href="#Footnote_322" class="fnanchor">[322]</a> or, as La Rochefoucauld +and La Bruyère will phrase it later: “An insensible +woman is she who has not yet found the man she must +love.”</p> + +<p>The lady affects not to see the storm brewing; she +bears up against it gallantly; gentle banter is her cue; she +declares that talk of love is very pleasant to her, but ’tis +well known among decent people what that word signifies; +there is no question of a coarse, sensual love, but only of +amorous discourses. The man gives himself up to demonstrating +his love anew; his plaints become louder, his tears more +copious; his lady-love never gets to sleep o’ nights without +hearing serenades or “Spanish lamentations” beneath her +window, or sighs that would seem belled out by some +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_350">[350]</span>familiar spirit, but which are really a performance got up by +obliging neighbours, for a consideration. All day, at church, +in the ballroom, in the street, under the thin disguise of +masks, he is here, there and everywhere, never out of her +sight.</p> + +<p>One morning the maid announces to her mistress that the +gentleman is at the door with something most urgent to say—here +he is, indeed, pushing past the girl; and he will be +eloquent, you may be sure. Or he resorts to the grand means +of melodrama—false keys, rope-ladders, narcotics, sorcery, +lying confessions of apostate monks; or to the stale and +hackneyed devices of comedy; he enlarges eloquently on his +high qualities, proffers a thousand services, and even opens +his purse; full of promises the while, erecting beautiful +castles in the air. One will employ menace, another will +boldly haggle and argue with father or husband. What a +warmth of language, what sighing and sobbing, what fretting +and fuming! “Fulvia being come on horseback to see me, +I straightway feigned a superb wrath, as though her action +seemed to me that of too forward a minx. And this fine +choler of mine was of great avail in my courting.” There +are some who carry the fortress by dint of lavish praises, +superlative verses, outbursts of jealousy. Others by continual +dropping wear away the stone.</p> + +<p>If a princess had the idea that her rank would prove a +sufficient rampart against this final assault, she had to find out +her mistake, especially in France. Why should not the man +she loved—the dear good fellow!—after so many labours, +and discreet frenzies, and stratagems, and covert approaches, +expect an advancement he so well deserved?</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A bien servir et loyal estre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De serviteur on devient maistre!⁠<a id="FNanchor_323" href="#Footnote_323" class="fnanchor">[323]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>“Madam,” proudly says one of the young nobles of +Margaret of France, “when our mistresses stand on their +dignity in halls and assemblies, seated at their ease as our +judges, we are on our knees before them; we lead them out +to dance with fear and trembling; we serve them so +sedulously as to anticipate their requests; we seem to be +so fearful of offending them and so desirous of doing them +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_351">[351]</span>service that those who see us have pity on us, and very +often esteem us more simple than foolish,” and sing the +praises of ladies able thus to win service. “But when we +are by ourselves, and love alone doth mark our looks, we +know right well that they are women and we are men, and +then the name of liege lady is converted into sweetheart, +and the name of servitor into lover.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_324" href="#Footnote_324" class="fnanchor">[324]</a></p> + +<p>And it need not be supposed that in such circumstances +they remained satisfied with words or menaces, even in +dealing with ladies of the most exalted station. There were +violent characters who stuck at nothing, like Bonnivet! It +also happened at critical moments, even in the most platonic +of circles, that love turned into rage. “Unico Aretino,” one +of the Urbino talkers, upset by what he thought a piece of +base ingratitude on the part of the charming duchess +Elizabeth, got so beside himself with anger as to call his +sovereign lady “Urbino’s traitress, witch, trickster.” (Aretino +was an exceedingly clever man, but after all he was only the +fourth part of a prelate; he filled at Rome the fourth-rate +office of “apostolic abbreviator,” and pretty badly at that; +but as he afforded the Sacred College a deal of amusement +he was licensed to indulge in all sorts of jocularities.) He +never forgave the duchess, and even after her death pursued +both her and her daughter with persistent rancour.⁠<a id="FNanchor_325" href="#Footnote_325" class="fnanchor">[325]</a></p> + +<p>The ideas of men in these matters simply beggar imagination. +They fancied that they erred on the side of +bashfulness, that they suffered wrong when ladies suggested +“reckonings,” to use their term. They thought it would be +ridiculous to die of despair like the heroes of romance, and +that it was “folly and cruelty” to praise the beauty of a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_352">[352]</span>fountain to a poor, thirsty fellow and then kill him because +he wished to drink.⁠<a id="FNanchor_326" href="#Footnote_326" class="fnanchor">[326]</a> “Whom will you get to believe,” +cries Henri d’Albret, “that we ought to die for women, who +were made for us, and that we should hesitate to require of +them what God bids them give us?”⁠<a id="FNanchor_327" href="#Footnote_327" class="fnanchor">[327]</a> That was the conclusion +that must be expected: everyone knows, in Calvin’s +words, whither “all roads” lead. So a woman was neither +surprised nor panic-stricken in the hour of battle. She had +taken or ought to have taken her precautions; her first +care, as we have said, was to distribute her favours. She +went forth to the fight with a gallantry which some old +fogies called impudence; her sins were no longer sins of +omission, like those of her grandmothers. And that she +often triumphed there is no manner of doubt. Margaret of +France, at the turning-point of the battle, is found as firmly +fixed on principles as Anne of France. Billon assures us +that in Normandy, a land of pretty women, where he would +not care to go bail for a single man, he would not hesitate +to name a very large number of women whose virtue he +could guarantee with every confidence. Assuredly there +existed stainless women,—just the women to play with fire!</p> + +<p>But did they always come off scatheless? No one will +believe it.</p> + +<p>Further, it must be remarked that the point of view of +casuistry had changed. The body was, so to speak, the +sign-manual of the soul; just as the base, passionless, +sensual vice prevalent in the world seemed ignoble and +disgusting, so it was remembered that love had a purifying +power. The merciful words of the Gospel were recalled, +and, remarkably enough, it was those who were most +rigorous in regard to themselves who showed the most +indulgence towards an error springing from sincere affection.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France spreads her nets, like the Gioconda, +but for the good of others, for she knows whither the mist-enveloped +paths lead; she cannot tear her eyes from the +vast and gloomy background of life, and all that passes +in front of it inspires her at times with cruel loathing. She +loves mankind, but without the least touch of fetishism; to +look aloft and not believe in any individual man is the +condition of her love; her sole consolation is the thought +that Italian morals are worse than French. Her approval +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_353">[353]</span>of a German husband, who had the fantastic notion of +locking his wife up along with the skeleton of her lover,⁠<a id="FNanchor_328" href="#Footnote_328" class="fnanchor">[328]</a> +was so exaggerated that all her friends were compelled to +laugh. And yet, when pulled up short about the ethics +of love, and asked if the sin is venial or worse, she gets a +little muddled. Assuredly, nothing is more “untuneable +and harsh” among the joyous strains of the divine concert +than the frailty of the flesh: “truth compels us to condemn +it”; but is there any need to get huffy, to decline to see any +extenuating circumstances, because the spiders web that +has been centuries aweaving is rent by one dab of the +paw—because, in spite of all the cooings and flutings, +no one has succeeded in turning men into big babies +instead of villains, or even (I go this length) because in the +heat of the battle some women may have lost their heads +and gone over to the enemy? Is the conclusion inevitable +that the outcome of platonism is necessarily evil—more +evil than anything else?</p> + +<p>How stood the fashionable ladies who rebelled against +platonism?... On the principle that “the honour of a +man and that of a woman are the same,” and that a +wife, whether from love or vengeance, has a right to the +same independence as her husband, it was the husbands’ +game to wink at things. Far from making an outcry and +playing the Othello, they meditated philosophically on their +own position⁠<a id="FNanchor_329" href="#Footnote_329" class="fnanchor">[329]</a> and the virtue of silence, and, drawing in +their horns with something of fatalism, could not find fault +with their wives for “using their power” as they themselves +did. It was rare for a husband to kill his wife; wedlock +had become a stagnant pool of mutual indulgence, in which +unlawful love was but an incident so long as it left no more +trace than a pebble cast into the surface slime, or a bird +flitting through the air. As to believing that Lauras or +Beatrices could still exist, not only did the sceptics deny it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_354">[354]</span>outright, but they even declared that if Laura or Beatrice +were to revisit the glimpses of the moon, great would be +her disillusionment.⁠<a id="FNanchor_330" href="#Footnote_330" class="fnanchor">[330]</a></p> + +<p>The only matter that Louise of Savoy troubled about was +to keep things dark.⁠<a id="FNanchor_331" href="#Footnote_331" class="fnanchor">[331]</a></p> + +<p>Can we wonder that, in an atmosphere so saturated with +immorality, many even of the best-intentioned women +allowed themselves to drift with the tide, or that Salel, the +Attic friend of Margaret, represents them even on the shore +of Acheron as still enchained to ungovernable love, and +imploring pardon for their tyrant?</p> + +<p>When they succumbed, it was with a sublimity of passion +which the world almost always misconstrued. “The fortress of +the heart, where honour dwells, was so battered that the poor +lady granted what she was never a whit inclined to refuse.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_332" href="#Footnote_332" class="fnanchor">[332]</a> +“You mean to say, then,” says a lady, “that all is lawful to +those that love, provided no one knows?” “In good sooth,” +replies the other, “’tis only fools who are found out.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_333" href="#Footnote_333" class="fnanchor">[333]</a> Their +love, fashioned out of dreams, thus dissolves into reality. +Pure women, platonists armed at all points, let themselves +go from a spirit of gentleness (“for pity in their spirits +rules”), from a tenderness of compassion, out of charity +toward others, if not for themselves. They are almost +martyrs of love or kindliness, since their kindliness goes +such lengths as to be taken for love, just as their love, +reserved as it is, may be taken for kindliness. Unlike the +anti-platonists, though they may perchance be surprised +into a fault, they surprise no one, they commit no follies. +It is the fault of poor human nature that platonic love does +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_355">[355]</span>not remain always a “stork love,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_334" href="#Footnote_334" class="fnanchor">[334]</a> as Montaigne calls it. +There is never a battle but some dead and wounded are left +on the field. Pity the dead by all means, but the survivors +are already inviting those who have never sinned to cast +the first stone!</p> + +<p>A woman “so cozened,” concludes Castiglione philosophically, +unquestionably merits such indulgence as is +accorded to <i>messieurs les assassins</i>. She was toiling, as +Michelangelo said, “to lift souls to perfection. Sensuality +slays the soul.”</p> + +<p>And hence Margaret of France, in her profound yearning +to blot out and pardon the sins of the world, is herself +inspired with a tender, helpful tolerance. Assuredly +the wounds she observes are deplorable, but they do not +necessarily point to absolute frowardness of heart; they +may result from a “naïve folly,” from “the misfortune of +loving not wisely but too well”; in other words, from an +over-abundance of natural goodness, the very consequence +of our organisation. The perfect being would clearly be an +androgyne; but we are imperfect beings, an odd mixture, +godlike, and yet profoundly, lamentably human. The +power of love</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent14">vient de la divinité,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et son tourment de nostre humanité.⁠<a id="FNanchor_335" href="#Footnote_335" class="fnanchor">[335]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>We seem to hear this spotless woman crying to God: “O +Christ, Christ of the Magdalene, gasping and crucified, how +Thou didst suffer, how Thou didst love! This streaming +blood, these wounds gaping eternally,—these are the handiwork +of the hate of men, whom Thou didst bid to love one +another with a pure heart. Thou wilt not pardon their +hate! Thou wilt not pardon their fierce lust of wealth, nor +their pride and naughtiness of heart, nor their wild anger, +nor their shameful sloth of soul. Thou wilt pardon nothing +but the error of love, the error of a moment, since this is +but the overflow of the goodness Thyself hast given, the +wofulness of too great love!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_356">[356]</span></p> + +<h4>2. THE ENNOBLEMENT OF VICE.</h4> + +<p>The second moral effect of the theory of beauty and love +was still more pertinent than the first. It consisted in an +extraordinary levelling up of purely terrestrial and unlawful +loves. From the principle, with which we are already +acquainted, that the virginity of the heart survives the +professional ordeals in which the heart has no concern, +we shall find that moral deductions were drawn, in Italy +and even in France, so important that we cannot pass them +by in silence.</p> + +<p>In Italy, among the women whose trade was pleasure, +there was formed an aristocracy so real that some of them +presided over salons, were part and parcel of the court +world, and truly merited the name of “courtesans.” Their +bearing was irreproachable, their distinction extreme; we +are bound to say, indeed, that, apart from their origin, they +were absolutely indistinguishable from virtuous women—except +that perhaps their manners were a trifle more +correct.</p> + +<p>Their high influence is explained by the fact that in the +official world of Rome there was a plentiful lack of women. +Etiquette required that none but birds of passage should be +seen at court, a restriction which gave cruel but entirely +honourable pain to the heart of more than one platonic +prelate. It was believed for a moment that the half-sister +of Leo X., Philiberta of Savoy, was about to take up her +abode at the Vatican: “God be praised!” cried Bibbiena +exultantly, “all we lack is a court with women!” This +happiness was not realised; women continued to be conspicuous +by their absence. We see how it was that, in +the supreme sanctuary of human glory, in the Eternal +City that served as beacon to the world, the Ninons de +l’Enclos,⁠<a id="FNanchor_336" href="#Footnote_336" class="fnanchor">[336]</a> for want of better women, fulfilled in their own +way a singular apostolic mission by playing the part of +court ladies, and by magnificently entertaining the pick of +poets, savants, artists, prelates and diplomatists, at a period +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_357">[357]</span>when every man plumed himself on bearing one of those +labels and on sporting it about some petticoat.</p> + +<p>Bewitching pictures of the receptions of these ladies have +been bequeathed to us; many a poet who knew the world +chiefly in this quarter has vaunted with enthusiasm the +aroma of grace pervading their noble salons, the honour of +admission to them, the relations established there, the +superb fêtes which consecrated their charm and set a seal +upon the connection. This was no new thing; Socrates +and Pliny testify how keenly the society of ancient Greece +and Rome had felt the need of guidance by women more +deeply experienced in life and more naturally active than +high-born ladies are likely to be. To name these ladies +Ninons de l’Enclos, however, would be to give a very imperfect +and mean idea of them, for their influence was at once +moral and intellectual. Doubtless they could pretend to no +virginity but that of the heart, but since that was the +better part, they honoured pure love quite as conscientiously, +if not more than others did. Energy of a very special +and sincere kind impelled them to react strongly against +the scorn of a world they had an equal right to scorn; and +further, they felt the necessity of stopping their ears if they +were to save themselves from blank hopelessness, and of +setting up noble illusions about themselves.</p> + +<p>Several of them were genuine patricians, whose only +possible reproach was a tincture of pride. One would +flaunt her descent, which she possibly traced back to the +Colonna or even the Massimo⁠<a id="FNanchor_337" href="#Footnote_337" class="fnanchor">[337]</a>; another would modestly +sign herself “Roman patrician.” The entrée to their salons +was particularly difficult; some of them imposed somewhat +rigorous conditions, insisting for instance that a man should +mount guard for two months with the Swiss at the palace +gate, or should pay his devoir on his knees. The style of +their houses and appointments left nothing to be desired; +they maintained an extreme decorum. It is not for us to boast +of their virtue: their talent consisted in being as virtuous +as possible and getting rich more particularly by way of +legacies; it would have been a great mistake to deal with +them cavalierly. Tullia d’Aragona, who thoughtlessly +allowed some rather broad pasquinades to be addressed to her, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_358">[358]</span>was unfortunate enough, on a visit with which she honoured +the court of Ferrara, to turn all the gentlemen’s heads. But +the most diverse ordeals found her inflexible; she rejected +with indignation the miserable offer of a golden necklace +worth three hundred crowns. The daughter of another of +these ladies had been so excellently brought up that she has a +place among the martyrs of virtue and patriotism; she slew +herself to escape the importunities of the governor of Sienna.</p> + +<p>They were queens of elegance, and never a brunette +among them. At their houses people discoursed most +excellent music. They were great dancers. They were the +happy owners of fine jewels, fine pictures, fine statuary; on +their tables might be seen the newest books, choice editions, +sometimes adorned with a manuscript dedication in verse. +They knew Greek and Latin; they corresponded with their +absent friends in gracious and affectionate letters, Ciceronian +in style, and with no lack of wit. In conversation +it required very little pressure to tap a bountiful spring +of elegant extracts from the classics—most often got second-hand +from Petrarch or Boccaccio—or even, on occasion, a +learned disquisition on Roman archaeology. Sometimes +they shot out a phrase in the high pietistic fashion of the +day. What lady of recognised position could have written +more charming sonnets than Imperia or Veronica Franco?</p> + +<p>They excelled in keeping wit in play: Aretino confesses +that, without an incentive of this sort, he would have been +good for nothing. Occasionally some poor devil was +graciously permitted to give a taste of his quality, but, +as a rule, the mistress of the house preferred to inspire +men who had well-lined purses. Yes, it was a grave +and distinguished society, and if sometimes the conversation +touched on subjects but indifferently mystical, what immaculate +drawing-room but was open to the same reproach?</p> + +<p>On saints’ days these ladies went to pay their devotions at +the neighbouring basilica, and if they were not very devout +they were at any rate beautifully dressed. Their accustomed +air of good breeding and conscious dignity, which +drove many ladies to despair, gave them genuine rank, and +made them the indispensable ornaments of important +festivities. Thus several of them lent lustre to the +magnificent reception given in 1513 by the Cardinal of +Mantua to young Federico Gonzaga, then in his fourteenth +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_359">[359]</span>year, as he passed through on the way to Rome. In +truth, there were some who behaved exactly like high-born +dames, and were pre-eminent in all deeds of devotion, +whole-hearted love, and even disinterestedness. Poets +innumerable have vouched for their virtue. Vittoria +Colonna and Michelangelo dedicated sonnets to them.</p> + +<p>Not infrequently they ended their days in the odour +of piety, and were buried in the churches⁠<a id="FNanchor_338" href="#Footnote_338" class="fnanchor">[338]</a>; to this day +prayers are offered in the shadow of their tombs. Michelangelo +wrote an epitaph for one of them. Others prosaically +married men of the world, and these ladies, as a rule, took +rather a superior pride in their virtue and their coat-of-arms. +A clever woman of the time philosophically hit off the +subject: “Life is a comedy: so long as the last act is +successful, the whole piece is fine.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless these interesting creatures necessarily had +their detractors. They have been accused of trickery and +deception. With all allowance for the prejudice of their +enemies, it cannot be denied that eccentricities here and +there gave a handle to the slanderers. The lady, for +instance, who wore slippers covered with diamonds, and +made men kiss her feet (like the pope), alleging that +her foot too was beautiful enough to merit adoration, +was considered to have overstepped the bounds. But with +the general public, and even with connoisseurs, such dainty +exactions did not produce the same astonishment that they +would produce to-day. The religion of beauty touched +such deep chords that the beautiful appeared always beautiful +under all forms, so much so that in certain Italian collections +of “Lives of illustrious women,” saints and courtesans stand +cheek by jowl.</p> + +<p>Men professed for these ladies the same veneration and +idolatrous respect as for a princess; they plied them with +the same sighs, the same verses, the same little tendernesses. +The game cost a little dearer, but in reality they were not +unwilling to regard a courtesan’s drawing-room as more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_360">[360]</span>moral than certain reputable drawing-rooms, since a man +was not likely to meet a ridiculous husband there, or +embarrassing young cousins of both sexes, or certain +fashionable girls whose tongues had a tang. And it was +much less compromising.</p> + +<p>Was there a moral advantage in elevating what had +till then been so degraded? For a long time it was +sincerely believed there was, and this belief was held +almost throughout Italy. On this point it is sufficient to +read a very curious letter addressed by some unknown +person, concealing himself under the pseudonym “Apollo,” +to the witty and eminently virtuous Isabella d’Este. It +is dated Ferrara, June 13, 1537, and refers to a visit then +being paid to the city by Tullia d’Aragona. It runs: +“There has just arrived here a very pretty lady, so staid in +deportment, so fascinating in manner, that we cannot help +finding in her something truly divine. She sings all +sorts of airs and motets at sight; her conversation has +matchless charm; she knows everything, and there is +nothing you cannot talk to her about. There is no one +here to hold a candle to her, not even the Marchioness +of Pescara.” An ambassador exceeded even these rhapsodies, +and wrote gravely to his government that he was +composing his despatches under the eye of this pretty +woman, who assisted him with her advice.</p> + +<p>Tullia d’Aragona, who was, we may remark, very proud +of the noble blood in her veins, thus played Egeria to the +most exalted personages, and they had no hesitation in +comparing her to a mother of the church like Vittoria +Colonna, or in placing her even higher. She justified this +enthusiasm, not only by her physical beauty and her wit, +but by real moral qualities. She proved that the spirit of +the beautiful elevates the basest things, and if she did not +turn Trappist, if she continued to live the life she was born +to, she brought to it a contempt of money which was itself +a purifying virtue. This admirable creature, after holding +all Italy spellbound by the charm of her velvety eyes, died +in destitution; she gave instructions that she should be +buried in the quietest way beside her poor mother in the +church of Sant Agostino, where she had endowed masses; +her belongings had to be sold by auction, and they realised +twelve crowns and a half.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_361">[361]</span></p> + +<p>Imperia attained even a higher place than Tullia, and we +are compelled to believe that the aegis of virtue, like +charity, can cover a multitude of sins, since we find Sadoleto, +the type of sincere piety, singing the praises of this amiable +woman, and Raphael setting her, so it is said, at the foot of +his Parnassus in the apartments of Julius II.</p> + +<p>We do not know (and it is almost better so) what Imperia +had done to excite so general an enthusiasm: she died at +twenty-six! All that we know is that August 15, 1511, the +day of her death, was observed at Rome as a day of public +mourning. On her tomb was engraved an epitaph in the +purest lapidary style. The poets, maybe with a very +subtle irony, lauded her to the skies as a new goddess of +Latium: we hardly need to repeat these fine phrases. +“Our fathers mourned the Empire (<i>Imperium</i>); we mourn +Imperia. They had lost the world: we have lost our hearts, +our very selves.” “The whole city was moved when this +young deity was snatched away on Tiber banks,” exclaims +Vitalis—“the whole city, even the old pagan walls, even +the <i>fasti</i> of the consuls!” “No longer is she beneath this +marble,” cries Silvanus; “henceforth she holds her place +among the constellations, she will guide our fleets.” But +Silvanus becomes a little mixed in his mythology, and in +connection with the new star unaccountably couples the +names of Julius II. and Jupiter.</p> + +<p>For all this glory and honour, Imperia and her kind +inevitably became rather burdensome, and the most aesthetic +of the popes, Leo X., struck them a fatal blow when he +expelled them from Rome in 1520. They took refuge at +Venice, despite the heroic opposition of the senate.</p> + +<p>But at Venice they lost all their peculiar charm: +Venice, the metropolis of pleasure, “the foam of the sea,” +set its stamp upon them. Venice was the earthly paradise +of matter-of-fact folk like Brantôme and Aretino. The +latter wrote to an amiable lady: “You cannot picture these +water-parties in the open air, these coaching expeditions on +<i>terra firma</i>, these secluded groves, these banquets, these +unaccustomed consolations.... From your windows you +will have a panorama of musicians, singers and buffoons,” +a tempest of pleasure. “You would fancy yourself a queen.” +But at Venice such queens did not govern, as at Rome; +men added them to their collection, that was all.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_362">[362]</span></p> + +<p>Thus disappeared one of the most striking curiosities of +the platonist society,—the one which has left the most +vivid memories. It was only possible under the caressing +warmth of the Roman sky.</p> + +<p>Leo’s decree evoked loud cries of distress, and the loudest +of all came from the French, who, though they had never +understood this art of harlotry and had made great fun +of it, thought it a capital thing all the same. Rome, they +as good as said, was no longer Rome: “How doleful +the Jubilee will be!” cries a pilgrim: “what shall I do in +Rome now?” Du Bellay, while a melancholy guest of the +gloom-beclouded city, apostrophised this new ruin in well-known +verses. (O Rome, sad, tender Rome, to whom every +passing generation must needs bequeath a new triumphal +arch, new catacombs!) Many years later, distinguished +travellers like Henri III. and Montaigne did their best to +hunt up the last of the courtesans.</p> + +<p>We cannot but confess that the attempt to rehabilitate +the demi-monde and to employ it in the heavenward voyage +strikes us as extremely venturesome; the younger Dumas, +like a true Frenchman, was not bold enough to persevere. +Our ancestors felt the same qualms: unhappily, it was not +from virtuous scruples. They recognised the work accomplished +by platonism, so bent were they on transfiguring +love through coquetry,⁠<a id="FNanchor_339" href="#Footnote_339" class="fnanchor">[339]</a> and so hopeful, in the interests of +humanity, of rendering virtuous women more come-at-able. +But when it was suggested to them, as necessary to complete +their work, that they should render come-at-able women +more virtuous, they were steadfast as rock.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_363">[363]</span></p> + +<p>They discovered another way of giving an aristocratic +stamp to things that could not be spiritualised. We are +bound to touch upon it, because this also throws back a +vague reflexion of platonism; besides, in approaching these +delicate problems in morality, which it is so expedient to +look at dispassionately, we have no intention of dedicating +our work to girls.</p> + +<p>It was sought to blend the idea of an immaterial union of +hearts—an idea borrowed from platonism, and one whose +beauty and importance were not disputed—with the other +idea that such a compact must necessarily be sealed by an +absolute and unreserved intimacy, or it would remain +chimerical and oppressive. This idea the French could +not part with; and consequently there arose the notion of +what may be called a second marriage, supplementary +to the authorised marriage—a union <i>de facto</i>, recognised, +acknowledged, declared, and so highly honoured that one +would be tempted to call it an eighth sacrament. Similar +unions, recognised by the world, were still known at the +end of the 18th century, and even under the Restoration +during the early years of the 19th, having survived the +worst trials of the Revolution, the Emigration, penury, +and exile, to say nothing of the still more ruthless test of +time.</p> + +<p>This custom of giving publicity to secret unions was not +a direct outgrowth of platonism; yet platonist women looked +on it by no means unfavourably. In the first place, they +thought it rather lucky that their husbands, enjoying an +irregularity in some sort regularised, more highly respected +their wives’ dignity, quiet and health.⁠<a id="FNanchor_340" href="#Footnote_340" class="fnanchor">[340]</a> Secondly, we have +already shown how little platonism there was in morals +under Francis I., and what unbridled licence reigned at +court. Melin de Saint-Gelais portrays the king as a +cock in a hen-run—or as a sun in a firmament of stars, +amid Canaples, star of the morning; the lovely Saint-Paul, +star of evening; Diana, the crescent-moon; and many other +stellar beauties eager to shine—Helly, Rieux, Tallard, +Lestrange—who, if their names were not mentioned, “would +have thought it strange.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_364">[364]</span></p> + +<p>Francis I. said plainly that a man without a mistress was +only a nincompoop. In that case was it not a mark of +progress to arrive at the institution of a regular mistress, +recognised and with no rivals? Margaret of France would +have been only too glad to see her brother fix his affections +prudently on some eminent lady, who would rank next the +queen and might be called the queen and “mirror of all +propriety.” That explains, no doubt, the affectionate, obsequious, +humble welcome she gave to the duchess d’Etampes, +whose reign seemed for a moment likely to be lasting. She +wrote for this noble lady the <i>Coche</i> or <i>Débat d’Amour</i>, a +little treatise intended to prove that, apart from pure +platonism, there can still exist a laudable love; and in the +presentation copy Margaret, the king’s sister, had herself +represented, in complete black, before the queen of the day +in all the brilliance of her beauty and her jewels, and +saying to her: “<i>Plus vous que moy</i>”; in other words, +“You are more than I.”</p> + +<p>With a like feeling of feminine delicacy, perhaps somewhat +exaggerated, Veronica Gambara, who was probably +virtuous and quite certainly platonic, went into raptures +over the good fortune of the “siren” who succeeded in +holding for some time the volatile heart of Aretino; the +words of Laura and Beatrice rose instantly to her lips, as if +the ideal were on the point of attainment.</p> + +<p>Henri II. showed himself a platonist in this sense; his +double establishment did not constitute an infidelity. He was +faithful to two wives, one official, responsible for perpetuating +his dynasty and acting for him in affairs, after the old +tradition; the other personal, to satisfy his heart as a man.</p> + +<p>Diana of Poitiers, it must be admitted, besides her beauty +which long retained its ripeness, had all the qualities for +beguiling and captivating a lofty heart—birth almost as +good as the queen’s (who was only a Medici), wit, warm-heartedness, +self-devotion. She has herself explained, in +excellent verse, how her position, false as it seems to us, +was born of a genuine passion. One fine morning, she tells +us, a young Cupid in all his fresh, light-footed, bashful +youth came roaming in her neighbourhood, filling her +mantle with marjoram and jonquilles, casting a spell upon +her. She resisted, shutting eyes and ears against him, though +she felt her heart melting; she would listen to no promises, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_365">[365]</span>no oaths. He held out to her a wonderful laurel wreath, a +queen’s crown. “No,” she replied, “better far be good than +a queen,” and yet she felt herself “thrilling and trembling.”</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Et comprendrez sans peine</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Duquel matin je prétends reparler.⁠<a id="FNanchor_341" href="#Footnote_341" class="fnanchor">[341]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Love did not speak her false: he offered her a kingdom, a +great part to play, and kept his word, as the walls of the Louvre +testify. To all her contemporaries the position of Diana +appeared magnificent, divine. Du Bellay has sung of it as the +most beautiful of marriages, the marriage of true minds:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Dieu vous a fait entre nous</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme un miracle apparoistre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Afin que de ce grand Roy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’une inviolable foy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vous peussiez posséder l’âme,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et que son affection,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par vostre perfection,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Brulast d’une sainte flamme.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les Roys monstrent aux humains</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De Dieu l’exemple et l’image.⁠<a id="FNanchor_342" href="#Footnote_342" class="fnanchor">[342]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>To the French, this was the perfect type of platonism, at +once practical and sacred.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Vous avez acquis le cœur de toute la France.⁠<a id="FNanchor_343" href="#Footnote_343" class="fnanchor">[343]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">And Ronsard is not less explicit:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Seray-je seul, vivant en France de vostre âge,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sans chanter vostre nom, si craint et si puissant?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Diray-je point l’honneur de vostre beau croissant?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Feray-je point pour vous quelque immortel ouvrage?⁠<a id="FNanchor_344" href="#Footnote_344" class="fnanchor">[344]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_366">[366]</span></p> + +<p>In spite of all these dithyrambs, it is very clear that the +platonism of Diana of Poitiers is a sign of decadence. It +was the ideal of platonist women to be loved for their soul; +men’s ideal being the opposite, there had been a compromise.⁠<a id="FNanchor_345" href="#Footnote_345" class="fnanchor">[345]</a></p> + +<p>The compromise, indeed, was greater than they were +willing to admit, even in Italy, and in the purest centres of +platonism. Our readers are already acquainted with the +charming Bembo, the quintessence of platonism, the admirable +chiseller of phrases, the secretary of Leo X., the friend +of everything beautiful, noble and aesthetic, the magnificent +collector, the apostle of Plato and Petrarch, of Boccaccio +and Dante, the idol of the ladies, in short, one of the men +who clung to the skirts of princesses, parading their everlasting +sentimentalities under the most perfect, exquisite, +elevated form. We have a moving letter of his. Among +that numerous bevy of princesses who nourished him on +ethereal glances from their bright eyes, there was one he +loved, the Morosina, a pure and charming woman, to whom, +as Monsignor Beccadelli has said, “he had the good sense to +devote himself,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_346" href="#Footnote_346" class="fnanchor">[346]</a> and who had given him, in the most +common, everyday fashion, a goodly number of children. +He lost her. The unhappy man was stricken to the core; +his whole being bled. What a state in which to find the +divine Bembo, the prophet of the celestial felicities! Death +has plunged a knife into his heart. Love—yes, he too had +loved. He unbosoms himself to one of his friends, Gabriele +Trifon. We were struck with surprise when we first came +upon the letter; it was the intimate revelation of a soul; +a Bembo of real flesh and blood, grief-stricken, palpitating. +“You,” he writes, “have softened the anguish which overwhelms +me, in speaking to me as a man, not as a philosopher +platonic and divine.”</p> + +<p>He adds that he has sought to reason with himself, to +preach himself lessons of wisdom, to find relief in his passion +for work; but the most delightful book slips from his hand. +Between the book and his eyes the sweet image re-appears +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_367">[367]</span>to him in a mist of tears; and as he makes this confession, +tears gush out afresh and soil the paper, his heart is stripped +bare; the whole man is before us. “I have lost the dearest +heart in the world, a heart which tenderly watched over +my life, which loved it and sustained it neglectful of its own; +a heart so much the master of itself, so disdainful of vain +embellishments and adornments, of silk and gold, of jewels +and treasures of price, that it was content with the single and +(so she assured me) supreme joy of the love I bore it. This +heart, moreover, had for vesture the softest, gracefulest, +daintiest of limbs; it had at its service pleasant features, +and the sweetest, most graciously endowed form that I +have ever met in this country. I cannot forbear lamenting, +I cannot but curse the stars that have deprived us of enjoying +each other in so innocent a life.”</p> + +<p>What a singular underside of platonism! What a warmth +of grief! Where is all the platonic paraphernalia—the +beautiful ladies all smiles and ice, the careless disdain of +physical beauty, the adoration of social life, the horror of +solitude? Where are the many-faceted phrases, the philosophic +dissertations? Bembo has turned pious like all the +unhappy; he will not accuse Providence unjustly; though +it has snatched happiness from him, he gives thanks for the +happiness enjoyed. But sentiments are not snapped in a +moment—sentiments “which with time have rooted themselves +so deeply in our humanity that ’twould seem +impossible to eradicate them.” He writes, effusively, thanking +the friend whom he knew to have been bound by genuine +friendship “to this beautiful and precious lady.” He speaks +of the children; he will care for them, since he is their father, +and because ere she died the Morosina, having fulfilled her +religious duties, had faintly whispered these words, which +pierced his soul like a hot iron: “‘I commend our sons to +you, and beseech you to have care of them, both for my sake +and for yours. Be sure they are your own, for I have never +done you wrong; that is why I could take our Lord’s body +just now with soul at peace.’ Then after a long pause she +added: ‘Rest with God,’ and a few minutes afterwards +closed her eyes for ever, those eyes which had been the clear-shining +faithful stars of my weary pilgrimage through life.”</p> + +<p>Ah, these tears! They had hearts, then, these fashionable +platonists. Never in any of his fine discourses has Bembo +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_368">[368]</span>touched us, nor even (if we may say so) rejoiced us as by +this simple stifled cry, these tears of solitude. He is prone +upon the earth, having lost the wings that bore him on from +flower to flower.... Four years after the death of the +Morosina, we find that, despite his good resolutions and the +counsels of his friends, he is as profoundly crushed as on the +first day. He seeks consolation from poetry; he has begun +a canzone on the death of his “fair and good Morosina”; he +has finished the first strophe and sketched out the second, +and he sends these still formless attempts to his intimates, to +show them all that his feeble faltering hand can accomplish.</p> + +<p>To sum up, the great moral movement of platonism +resulted in a wide dissemination of sensibility, and a general +softening—a softening of virtue and vice, of women and +men. This was no small thing; there is certainly an +advantage in cutting the claws of men but scantly idyllic, +and in doing nothing rather than in doing ill.</p> + +<p>This softening was often only external, and not without +an admixture of hypocrisy. But why deplore it? For men to +appear worse than they are is no proof that they are better. +Men showed signs of sensibility, even though they knew +little of love. Under a mask of amiability and tenderness +their egotism remained intact; they talked of contemplation, +of devotion, of the worship beauty required,—without conviction, +it may be; but then they might have employed their +time worse, and they unconsciously contributed to spread +salutary ideas. One of those ridiculous creatures who spent +their lives in haunting their idols like a shadow, perceived +with horror that on entering a church his lady refused alms +to a beggar. He was so deeply shocked that one of his +friends had much ado to prove to him, while chafing him +back to life, that the beggar was ill-bred, importunate, +impudent, and unworthy of assistance. Here at any rate +was a man of sensibility.</p> + +<p>But an untoward thing happened. In cultivating sensibility +to the utmost, women enfeebled men instead of forming +them. Anne of France undoubtedly foresaw this danger +when she so ardently commended vigorous and matter-of-fact +occupations, and uttered a warning against the abuses +of the religion of beauty. Many other ladies, unhappily, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_369">[369]</span>genuine artists in refinement, took a complacent pleasure in +the very perfection of their conduct, with the result that +always ensues in such cases: their art became degraded, and in +sinking into a matter of routine, came to ruin. In true love +there is, as it were, an outpouring of one’s nature, a vivifying +joy, a sort of intense feeling which strengthens; but in love +in the more vulgar sense there is a spurious and meretricious +poetry which enervates. An old French proverb ran: +“When the woman rules the man, he hasn’t much will of his +own.” This the anti-feminists repeated, with too much +reason. “Ah yes!” cries Nifo, “’tis in good sooth a fine +dream of yours. What a magnificent moral state if all men +loved one another! No more war, no more crime!... But +is that the result you have obtained? You have distilled I +know not what mawkishness. Where are the energetic, +young-witted, happy, high-minded men born of your affections?” +And what was the age of love which was to spring +from this generation?</p> + +<p>We cannot impute to platonism the creatures of watery +blood and hang-dog look who were to form the nucleus of +the court of the Valois—these Panurges, false from top to +toe, who had early wasted their substance physical and +moral—these young tired-eyed voluptuaries whom Lotto +paints so well, too weak to pluck the petals of a rose, their +hand on their heart as though to point out the source of the +mischief. But alas! we cannot but ascribe to sheer gallantry +the mob of carpet knights, pale-faced, gilded cap-a-pie, gay +ornaments of tourneys, sleek and fawning, ready like Ariosto +to sing imaginary exploits, “provided that beauty, which +every hour robs them of some fresh portion of intelligence, +leaves them enough for the fulfilment of their promise.” +They are rigged out as elaborately as the ladies, if not more +elaborately (save that instead of displaying the bosom they +display the leg), with flying plumes; in winter, smothered +under furs; in summer all unbraced, not being able to endure +even a loose garment; loaded with diamonds, so that you +would take them for walking showcases of the king of +Naples or the duke of Berry. They are philosophical, in the +sense that they soar high above ideas of patriotism, and +prove it by disguising themselves in costumes of all +nations, the Turks included. They are learned, that is +to say, they think it smart to stuff the French language +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_370">[370]</span>with heteroclite words, as though eager to tear from it +its pith and heart, and make this also a delusion and a +snare, as universally acceptable as blonde wigs and padded +busts.</p> + +<p>The great, wonderful reform effected by platonism in the +higher ranks of society was—that the men, copying the +ancient sages and the orientals, let their beards grow! Up +till then, no man could pretend to style unless he shaved, or +even, for the sake of greater perfection, depilated his chin; +there had been one cry of horror when Cardinal Bessarion +appeared with his beard at the court of Louis XI. But now +that Castiglione, the Roman prelates, and the high platonist +society sported the philosophic beard, there was a sudden +craze for going unshorn among the young snobs of Louis +XII.’s court,—the Bonnivets and others.</p> + +<p>This reform, strange to say, excited between the higher +and lower clergy one of the most acrimonious disputes with +which we are acquainted. Vicars and curates belaboured +the bishops with texts against the beard. The prelates +parried with abstruse disquisitions; they claimed that a +good beard did no offence to honour and probity; they +sifted the sentiments of the ancient Romans in regard to +the beard and found them in sympathy with their own; +they made out that the apostles had never dreamt of +shaving, and proved to demonstration that a decree of a +council of Carthage, appealed to by the lower clergy, was +an interpolation, and in any case was of no authority, the +infallibility of the Church not dating back so far; and a +decree of Alexander III., which they were also clamorous +about, applied only to the hair of the head.</p> + +<p>For the other part, to say nothing of the beard of Julius +II.,⁠<a id="FNanchor_347" href="#Footnote_347" class="fnanchor">[347]</a> one only had to turn over the leaves of church history +to find on every page bearded saints, sometimes of high +eminence; bearded hermits, strangers alike to the care of +the body, to Plato, and to women. The dispute occasioned +a terrible waste of eloquence, erudition, vivacity, irony and +earnestness. It was of the highest importance, and bore on +the most sacred interests of what some eminent personages +called platonism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_371">[371]</span></p> + +<p>And now it cannot fail to be asked by what strange and +cruel logic a century, cradled at its birth in the idea of +the beautiful, of love and happiness, was to become a hotbed +of hatred, the arena in which the most savage animosities +were implacably to contend. Must we believe that in +throwing down the barriers of a rigorous code and invoking +liberty we must inevitably bruise ourselves against force, +rendered thereby freer and more ferocious? That would be +a sad and disheartening conclusion, for then we should +have to consider human progress as a perpetual recommencement, +seeing that, though the lawless rise insurgent +against tender hearts, though gospel wisdom warns us of +the eternal despotism of the violent, there are still found +and will ever be found among us incorrigible wretches, +hungering for sympathy, and unable to live without a ray +of love.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_372">[372]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III<br> +<span class="smaller">INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>Women approached intellectual questions in the same dilettante +spirit as questions of affairs; and this dilettantism +was their chosen method. It was waste of time to speak +to them of discoveries, creations, speculations, ventures, +struggles—of the scientific furniture of life, of all the irksome +material tasks on which the intellectual existence +itself is based. They sought only to crown the edifice with +happiness, which does not concern those who clear the +ground.⁠<a id="FNanchor_348" href="#Footnote_348" class="fnanchor">[348]</a> La Bruyère fancied he was saying a very cutting +thing when he declared that “women are cured of +idleness by means of vanity and love”; it is really very +amiable; would to heaven the same might be said of certain +men! Women are cured of idleness by sentiment; they +reason with their feelings. You must not ask them to +pry and delve into the stubborn heart of things; they look +at the bright surface, and penetrate what yields to the +touch. And by this simple method they perceive things +that escape the microscope, things that defy analysis, +thanks to an intuitive impressionability which enables them +to see rather than to know, and which would be wholly +admirable if it were never misused. Further, they have a +marvellous and mysterious talent for expressing their enthusiasm; +a phrase feelingly quoted by a lady strikes our +mind with a quite peculiar force when we afterwards come +upon it in the pages of a book. Again, they love the men +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_373">[373]</span>who love what they love. How strong and firm a bond is a +common love! And how delightful to make mind the +handmaid of love, and perhaps even to make love the handmaid +of mind! To live happy, what does it matter whether +you have an exact knowledge of a peacock’s or a nightingale’s +anatomy? Similarly women do not want you to pull +words to pieces and set them in accurate alphabetical order, +but to place them in a living order, so as to draw from +them their vital force. As they ascribe everything to +love, and believe the establishment of a balance in human +affairs absolutely necessary, so they think also that their +duty in intellectual matters is to foster men’s productivity, +their beautiful art is concerned with men. Hence +they do not trouble to investigate very profoundly the +secret significance of surrounding nature; it is of little +moment to them whether an artist seeks to reproduce +natural forms with photographic fidelity—which is in any +case impossible—but they insist on a general resemblance, +they require the artist to indicate how a tree or a landscape +reflects itself in man, and what impression it produces. +In a word, they charge themselves with the +mission of elevating our views, whether by developing by +means of artistic sensibility the ideas that lie in germ in +material nature, or by constantly renewing our thoughts by +means of a liberal philosophy.</p> + +<p>The Italian women who at the end of the 15th century +devoted themselves to this intellectual programme were +legion; or rather, they all did so. There was no maiden, +however modest her station, who did not consider herself in +a measure responsible for the future, and who did not make +real preparation for becoming the intellectual queen of a +salon, or of some sort of home of her own, while her +husband attended to his external occupations. And when +her parents were happy enough to detect in their little +daughter the mysterious spark of the beautiful, far from +mistrusting it, they welcomed it with rapture as a sacred +gift of Providence and left nothing undone to develop it. +Signorina Trivulzi, a spoilt child of fortune, was in all +seriousness thus “consecrated” to the Muses at the age of +fourteen.</p> + +<p>Impressionability is a gift of nature; but that does not +imply that there is no need to strengthen it by means of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_374">[374]</span>an earnest intellectual culture. People were only too +well convinced of the necessity of this precaution when +they saw women who were impressionable and nothing +else spinning round like weathercocks. The Italian +ladies of the classic generation had known how to take +a firm stand and a steady hold on life, so that they +united to perfection the eminently becoming qualities +of solid intelligence and modesty with an ardent impulse +towards beauty in its philosophic, religious, or artistic +form.</p> + +<p>If examples were necessary, our only difficulty would be +to choose among women like Cassandra Fideli, Costanza +Varano, Isotta Nugarola, and many another worthy of +honour. There is little risk in our indicating among the +queens of the period Isabella d’Este, marchioness of +Mantua.</p> + +<p>Isabella, who was born in 1474, and died in 1525, belongs +in time to the earlier generation, of whose characteristics +she was thoroughly representative; that is to say, along +with a transparent soul, a heart full of passion, and a quick +intelligence, she retained virtues which were to become rare—individuality +of mind and sureness of taste. She was not +one of those impressionable women who are inevitably +caught by the glamour of established reputations, and who +urge men on to achieve a noisy notoriety; she could form +her own estimate of things, and become the originator +rather than the follower of a movement. She travelled +frequently and to good purpose; her friends and agents, +scattered as far as the East, kept her informed of every +event which might have any bearing on the cult of beauty, +such as the bringing-out of notable books or fine editions, +the works issued from great studios, excavations, sales of +collections. At the sale of the celebrated Vianelo collection +at Venice in 1505, she followed with the liveliest emotion +the bidding for a certain <i>Passage of the Red Sea</i> by Jean +de Bruges, which she passionately coveted, and which +Andrea Loredano remorselessly ran up to a hundred and +fifteen ducats. An antique Venus which much occupied +her thoughts happened unluckily to be in too good hands—those +of Caesar Borgia; but Caesar was not immortal, and +one day the Venus rejoiced the heart of a new owner, the +duke of Urbino. Before long Cardinal d’Este had willy-nilly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_375">[375]</span>to gird up his loins in pursuit of it. (What a lucky +windfall the sack of Rome in 1527 was to collectors!) The +marchioness, at the moment, emptied her purse, indeed, rather +more than emptied it,—always pretty easy to her; she had +to charter a boat to carry off all her treasures, but alas! the +boat was seized by some rascally pirates, and was never +heard of again! For all these little vexations, those were +glorious days! One person’s calamity was another’s opportunity, +and as the result of the growth of culture, a stone +newly unearthed, a well-turned verse seemed diamonds of +happiness.</p> + +<p>Isabella was a royal, frank, delicate patroness of +the human intellect. She cherished in undisturbed +harmony around her the <i>Sleeping Cupid</i> of Michelangelo +and a choice collection of antique statues; she +covered her walls with the works of Mantegna, Costa, and +Correggio; Leonardo da Vinci and Titian were her portrait +painters; she herself painted her soul in two words: +“Neither by hope nor by fear.” As an ideal for life and +an emblem for her house, she commissioned of the great +idealist master Perugino a <i>Combat between Love and +Chastity</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_349" href="#Footnote_349" class="fnanchor">[349]</a> and wished to arrange its composition to the +minutest details; but poor Perugino, whose soul was as +simple and unspoiled as his head was thick, got a little +befogged in so intricate a scheme, so utterly unlike his +usual Madonnas; and for all his good will, perhaps he did +not on that occasion produce his masterpiece.</p> + +<p>In France, the notable women of the generation of Isabella +d’Este did not plume themselves on playing a similar +part; they rather avoided it, whether because as partisans of +physical activity they feared to carry too much dilettantism +into life, or because circumstances did not strike them as +favourable. Queen Anne of Brittany, in spite of her surname +of “refuge of learned men,” never regarded art as +anything but a royal and magnificent superfluity. Anne +of France made her court a veritable nursery-garden of +literary men and artists; many works of real magnificence +were added to the library at Moulins; but Moulins did +not radiate an influence like Mantua. It was only the +next generation that saw the appearance of women of +the Italian type, those queens of the intellect of whom +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_376">[376]</span>Mary Stuart was to leave us the enchanting memory—Mary, +to whom Ronsard could say without undue +exaggeration—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le jour que vostre voile aux vagues se courba,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et de nos yeux pleurans les vostres deroba,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ce jour, la mesme voile emporta loin de France</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Les Muses qui souloient y faire demourance.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Depuis, nostre Parnasse est devenu stérile;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sa source maintenant d’une bourbe distile ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son laurier est séché, son lierre est destruit!⁠<a id="FNanchor_350" href="#Footnote_350" class="fnanchor">[350]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Then the taste for pure art and the influence of the +South towards preciosity came in with a flourish of +trumpets. The first French Renaissance, in close contact +with rural traditions, had devoted itself mainly to the +development of force of intellect. It had attached only a +secondary value to the worship of form and to external +beauty; persons who composed verses, like Charles of +Orleans, did not proclaim the fact. Classical relations +were established with ancient Rome, the city which drove +its iron into the soul and left indestructible landmarks on +the soil of France. A ready assent would have been given +to the saying of Seneca: “There is only one art that is +truly liberal and makes a man free, and that is the study of +wisdom; all other arts are base and puerile.... I cannot +give the name of liberal arts to painting, statuary, and the +decorative arts.”</p> + +<p>This prejudice was persistent, with the result that, even +while yielding unreservedly to the religion of beauty, +people could not bring themselves to grant the plastic arts +the same pre-eminence as in Italy. Moreover, even in Italy, +painting had had much difficulty in securing a footing: +many people at any rate gave sculpture the preference, that +being plastic indeed, but less decorative, more scientific, durable, +and complete. The comparison served as a theme +for <i>jeux d’esprit</i>. Some people amused themselves with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_377">[377]</span>defending the superiority of painting, by calling God the +first of painters, the sublime decorator; others carried the +paradox to the point of demonstrating that painting is +necessary to war, if only for drawing up plans or making +sketches; that it evoked the enthusiasm of the greatest +conquerors, like Alexander the Great, and Demetrius, who +relinquished the siege of Rhodes rather than risk setting +fire to a district of the city where a picture by Protogenes +might have perished in the flames. In reality the Italians +were fond of painting because they found in it one of the +most tender and delightful forms of poetry. Castiglione +well expressed this feeling to the sculptor Cristoforo +Romano: “It is not my friendship for Raphael that leads +me to prefer painting: I know Michelangelo, I know you, +I know all these masters! But I find in painting a marvellous +charm; it has its plays of light, its chiaroscuro; it +demands as much skill in design as sculpture, and offers +special difficulties in regard to foreshortenings and perspective. +It gives us the colours of reality; it renders +more satisfactorily the flesh, the eyes, the sheen of armour, +the delicious golden hues of hair, the radiance of love. It +alone can speak to us of Nature, reproduce for us the starry +skies, the hurricanes and tempests, the rosy dawn, the earth +and sea, hills and woods, meadows and gardens, rivers, cities +and houses.”</p> + +<p>Among the French, on the contrary, the triumph of +aestheticism led to the lowering of the plastic arts in +general esteem; painters, sculptors and architects no longer +received the same personal and affectionate support from +high-born ladies as formerly from Anne of France or Anne +of Brittany; they lost caste at the court of Francis I., and +gained nothing but higher wages; they were treated rather +like house-decorators or upholsterers. People applied to +art the general principle: Seek ye first intellectual beauty. +All were agreed that thought must be worshipped in its +highest possible purity; and as thought nevertheless needs a +material vesture, poetry was its fitting garb, as “daughter +of the skies”; and consequently the movement followed a +bent almost exclusively literary and philosophico-poetical. +It is hardly necessary for us to say that we are here confining +ourselves to the sphere of feminine illusions. No one +disputes the beneficial effect of mountain air on certain +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_378">[378]</span>complaints; but it would be exceedingly tiresome if all +mankind were condemned to live on the summit of the +Righi.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France set herself in opposition to these +Alpine ladies, who took such delight in the ever-receding +altitudes of the intellect. She was driven to adopt this +attitude of temerity partly by her position. As sister of +the king, she had to fill the part of “queen of the sex,” and +so far as higher matters were concerned, it appeared natural +and right that her brother should follow her advice.⁠<a id="FNanchor_351" href="#Footnote_351" class="fnanchor">[351]</a> This +explains why the poets so decorously did homage to her: +“heroine of the age,” they called her, “mind and knowledge +in person ... flower of flowers, the choicest of the choice +... less human than divine.”</p> + +<p>Apart from the inconveniences of too lofty a station, +Margaret suffered from those arising from her training, +having like many women the misfortune of being particularly +sensible to influences; her flights are often those of someone +else. She remained unswervingly faithful to the habits +of her childhood, in other words, to a brilliant and sceptical +environment, in which ready wit was regarded as the +supreme gift, and liberty consisted in seeing everything, +reading everything, hearing everything from a detached +eminence, superficially, and without caring for anything in +particular except the satisfaction of a sense of form. The only +dogma tenaciously held was the pre-eminence of women, +and it was an accepted maxim in that society that one +woman of real accomplishment conduces more effectually to +human happiness than all the lumber of sciences and all the +litter of books.</p> + +<p>Margaret was thus a philosopher, generous and variable, +sceptical and enthusiastic, somewhat visionary, because the +speculative spirit spells freedom and distinction. But she +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_379">[379]</span>was lacking in that ballast of serious studies⁠<a id="FNanchor_352" href="#Footnote_352" class="fnanchor">[352]</a> which, after +all, alone permits the development of one’s personality.</p> + +<p>Thus lost in the clouds, unstable and vacillating, in reality +she took no one intellectual party under her wing; she +smiled on everything that was beautiful or pleasant, in other +words, on every means of acting on men. She was fond of +the music of that period, a wholly psychological art with +very little to tickle the ears of the groundlings, but speaking +to the soul; she loved any product of the intellect provided +the setting was worthy of the gem—ribald stories if they +were witty, the drama, lofty speculations on the emotional +life, thoughts of divine love, the religious contemplation of +God. All these manifestations of the soul, so little alike, +she regarded as forming a single philosophic chain, a chain +of beauty leading up to God. This idea enabled her to link +together conceptions which appear to us disconcerting in +juxtaposition, and which her contemporaries themselves +were at a loss to reconcile.</p> + +<p>Her patronage was above all an art, the art of playing +upon the human intelligence as on the finest of keyboards, +as on a magnificent and genuinely divine instrument, and of +drawing from it the grand harmonies of which it is capable, +the tones with which the Supreme Artist has endowed it. +Here she strikes a grave and profound note, there a note +shrill or thin; she sets men vibrating. “What!” she seems +to say, “they say that love deadens! No, no! People of +feeling may find their joy in their own natures, but that +does not hinder them from finding it outside themselves.” +Bouchet and Rabelais, two men of the traditional school, +were dependents of Margaret, as well as Charbonnier and +Marot, the poets of the day, or Du Bellay and Ronsard, the +poets of the morrow. Surrounded by Catholic prelates, +herself the intellectual lieutenant of a king hostile to the +Reformers, the princess interested herself in everything: +Lefèvre d’Etaples and Vatable discussed the Bible with +her, Nicolas Mauroy translated the Psalms for her; Jean +Brèche translated Plutarch, and Le Masson, Boccaccio. Her +own intellect volatilised itself, and was content to perfume +the atmosphere.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_380">[380]</span></p> + +<p>It was the same in regard to persons; she admitted to +intimate fellowship with her the most diverse personages +provided they were able to love; and freedom of sentiment +was apparently the essential condition of life. Moreover, +the intellectual life had not yet assumed the rectangular and +rigid forms under which we know it; and as people were +particularly eager for impressions, they were on their guard +against all the checks by which we so cleverly destroy them. +A ruined wall was a ruin, moss and neglect were part of its +being; no one dreamt of scraping it, ticketing it, surrounding +it with an iron fence and a ring of pebbles. An ancient +monument showed itself as it was, covered with all the vegetation +which gave, so to say, artistic expression to the life of +succeeding generations; no one dreamt of rebuilding it as it +originally stood; objects of art <i>were</i> objects of art, which +people left in the places they were made for, well in view +and fittingly displayed, instead of carting them away and +piling them up in gold frames and lifeless desolation on the +walls of a museum.</p> + +<p>To understand the intellectual dilettantism of Margaret +we must steep ourselves in these ideas of liberty and life, +which are so alien to our modes of thought, and which even +then were on the point of disappearing. Margaret loved to +make an emotional impression on others, but she was not at +all anxious to guide their reason, any more than she was +anxious to be guided herself. Her zest for liberty, pushed +to its extreme limit, went almost as far as anarchy. What +a singular intellectual harem was hers! Here was a gay +dog whose humour had a touch of obscenity; there was a +dear friend, the protonotary D’Anthe, author of witty trifles +particularly wanton, for instance the <i>Blason d’une jeune +fille</i>, which we could hardly venture to reproduce; or again, +in an entirely different direction, the oppressively virtuous +Lavardin, a mighty fang-extractor, whose special duty was +to expurgate improper books; or the squeamish La Perrière, +who was a century behind the times, apologised for employing +the names of mythology, and had the worst of all +defects, that of being a bore. These various minds, working +symmetrically, produce somewhat the same effect as +those many-paned mirrors set revolving by an invisible +hand, which might flash for ever without luring an eagle, +but are very serviceable for catching larks. The defect of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_381">[381]</span>this society was that it attracted second-rate personages, +pushing men, notoriety hunters. Moreover, platonist society +had always a strong tendency to degenerate into snobbery; +it had too much worldliness of character not to suit drawing-room +intriguers and men who knew how to get on in the +world. Platonism knew nothing of the modest and intelligent +men who kept in the background to enjoy the human +comedy. This defect amused Castiglione: “To be learned,” +he said, “you must belong to the learned set.” The result +was sometimes amusing blunders; through being attributed +to the wrong author a poem or a piece of music would be +received with hearty applause, but afterwards, when better +informed, the applauders would hiss, or vice versa. It is the +same with everything: wine is good or bad according to the +label; Castiglione guarantees he will present you any fool +and get you to believe him a genius.⁠<a id="FNanchor_353" href="#Footnote_353" class="fnanchor">[353]</a></p> + +<p>Margaret of France had a taste for notoriety, and sought +to bring together all the men who could voice the various +opinions of France. She showed them so much affectionate +attention that each believed himself to be the favourite, +and every cause looked on her as an adherent; to this day, +after three centuries and a half, the witchery of the princess +remains so potent that everyone loves her and lays claim to +her; the platonic think she was a platonist, Rabelaisians +rank her as one of themselves, Protestants call her a +Protestant. She contented herself with disseminating love, +with reconciling and discreetly moderating bitter differences +without ever bemoaning those which had brought suffering +to herself. It is a singular thing that at a distance she +is sometimes taken for a domineering, masculine blue-stocking, +one of those women who shake men as the wind +shakes the trees, stripping them of leaf and blossom; whereas +near at hand she was all softness and loving-heartedness. +The most ardent declarations brought no frown to her brow +(and left her heart untouched); she pardoned them, laughed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_382">[382]</span>at them, sometimes received them with a smile of pleasure. +Thus a nobody named Jacques Pelletier permits himself to +call her “the half of my soul,” and boasts of her “bitter-sweet +favours,” by which he means tender and coy. But +Margaret for all her bashfulness does not care for bashful +men; she prefers energetic and robustious men who set the +pulses beating, who even make themselves tiresome and +are not incapable of follies. A certain M. de Lavaux swears +he will die if she does not take pity on his martyrdom; she +promises him an admirable <i>De Profundis</i>. The amiable +Hugues Salel praised her pretty hand in extremely graceful +little verses;⁠<a id="FNanchor_354" href="#Footnote_354" class="fnanchor">[354]</a> she sends him a pair of scented gloves and a +bracelet. But she never forgets Marot; beyond the tomb, when +all follies are over, she still proves her sympathy for him.</p> + +<p>Apart from this spirit of love you will probe the depths +of her soul in vain; there is nothing else to be found.</p> + +<p>Margaret has photographed herself in her dressing-gown, +surrounded by her intimate friends, in the <i>Heptameron</i>;⁠<a id="FNanchor_355" href="#Footnote_355" class="fnanchor">[355]</a> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_383">[383]</span>the authenticity of the portrait is guaranteed by herself +and her daughter. And what strikes one most forcibly +in her doctrine is a pretty style and an excellent solicitude +to avoid dulness.</p> + +<p>Her gospel was, in heaven God, on earth Francis I.; after +them the Beautiful, in which she believed with all her +heart as the source of all goodness and all truth. So far as +happiness was concerned, she boldly steered for love, which +she regarded as the port for the Good and the True. But +she had little faith in passion, and confined herself to +drawing a most careful distinction between sentiment, +which she praised, and sensation, which she condemned; +her system was built up on casuistry. She thought that a +woman might frankly accept the offer of a virtuous and +perfect love; if the man secretly harboured any carnal +design, so much the worse for him! Having never loved +deeply herself, while on the other hand she had heard so +much talk of love, she believed that love was not fatal and +that a woman was by no means bound to push charity to +the point of absolute self-sacrifice. But remember, she did +not commingle the ideas of love and marriage, which were +absolutely distinct. As no one can love God without first +loving one of His creatures, her design was to lure men +thus towards the perfect love of God, and then towards a +mystic and philosophical contemplation of the Godhead.</p> + +<p>Unluckily, she did not reach her goal, or even get within +sight of it. Not for want of ardour: it may well be said of +her: “Woman is a flame flaming for ever.” For Bonnivet, +“even in their ashes” lived her “wonted fires,” lighting up in +him the happy memories of youth. She spoke with fervour, +overwhelmed the sceptics with biting taunts or lofty +deductions, stimulated the timid by a cheering word, a +flight of sentiment. But she wore herself out in this perpetual +skirmishing; what she lacked was the will and the +intellectual power to effect a sharp, decisive stroke.</p> + +<p>As for those on whose conversion to the system of beauty +and love she uselessly spent her strength, she got little +satisfaction from them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_384">[384]</span></p> + +<p>Attached to her car she dragged along two lovers, who +ought to have been the apostles of her philosophy. In +reality these very men resisted her.</p> + +<p>One of them, the steward Jean de Montausé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_356" href="#Footnote_356" class="fnanchor">[356]</a> an excellent +type of official, gallant, frank of speech, amiable in manner, +and infinitely courteous, never succeeded in realising the +transcendent and virtuous object she had in view. Learning, +he finds, is turned to bad uses: religion he respects on +principle, without studying it deeply, and laughing in his +sleeve at certain mysteries; but virtue he recognises in +Madame de Montausé (he is married), not elsewhere. How +Margaret exclaims at him may be imagined! Louise of +Savoy takes Montausé under her wing.</p> + +<p>The other lover, Nicolas Dangu, bishop of Seez, possesses +all the princess’s affection. He follows her to watering-places, +sentiment oozing at every pore. He has good sense, +modesty, and so eminently conciliatory a spirit that he does +not deny intelligence to monks and the common people; he +even has a profound admiration for the genius of certain +malefactors. What a delightful creature is the genuine +platonic prelate, so polished, so amenable! How tender, +how honeyed, how bland! But he too opposes an almost +insurmountable obstacle to her philosophy in practice; he +dares not love her love, think her thoughts; he <i>does</i> think, +but it is of dying of love, and he has a thousand ways of +doing that. He is always dying; he would die rather than +say a foolish thing or betray a secret; he dares not put +woman’s love to the test, for fear of finding it wanting; if +it proved real, he would die of joy. He gets angry with +Henri d’Albret, but personally seems quite content with +what he has <i>not</i> got; he is the perfection of wisdom and +prudence! Yet he gently insinuates that too coy a virtue +may become cruel. Margaret is a little troubled; she replies +that before she can trust men she requires good sureties, +and meanwhile she forgives Dangu’s rash speech because he +speaks well of women. That is all she has been able to get +out of him, the perfect platonist! But that also is all she +gives him.</p> + +<p>This social governance, then, does not go to the heart +of the question at issue, and does not even convert those +who from the first were apostles of the dawn, still less the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_385">[385]</span>indifferent, the soi-disant serious men of the world who are +met with almost everywhere. The <i>Heptameron</i> presents us +with several types, eminently true to life, who clearly show +that conversation is not to be relied on to propagate the +philosophy: a trim little widow, Madame de Longray, +infatuated about her dead husband and very bewitching to +other women’s husbands, a veritable scatter-brain in all +purity and honour; Mademoiselle Françoise de Clermont,⁠<a id="FNanchor_357" href="#Footnote_357" class="fnanchor">[357]</a> a +plump little soul, a bit of a goose, who loves naughty +anecdotes, but is extremely shocked at the naturalistic +theories of Henri d’Albret and Louise of Savoy; the +hoary Burye, who has lost all his illusions with his teeth, +convinced by experience of the necessity of platonism, +without feeling the want of a brand-new deity expressly +manufactured for him; Mademoiselle de Clermont calls +him “Old Father Virtue.” Then there is the mother +of the famous Brantôme, Anne of Vivonne,⁠<a id="FNanchor_358" href="#Footnote_358" class="fnanchor">[358]</a> the <i>fin +de siècle</i> woman, a friend of canons, but a foe to monks; +virtuous in principle, but so kind, so very kind! She cannot +understand how a woman can live without being loved; +she can refuse nothing to anybody; she has a warm affection +for St. Magdalene.</p> + +<p>“Saffredent,” a well-preserved white-headed beau, cannot +make head or tail of all the new theories, and does not mean to. +They humiliate him. Do people take him for a mummy, a +valetudinarian, a blown-out salamander—for one of those +golden-tongued Italians who are all tongue and nothing +else? For a dull student with no wants beyond his water-bottle +and his cook? He is a knight, esteems only valour and +daring and integrity. His speech is like a clarion-call; +true virtue, he maintains, consists in loving according to +the law of nature,—in loving one woman with all one’s heart +rather than in idolising thirty-six on paper. Use is better +than abuse. At this unkind and clinching phrase there is a +general outcry, and Madame de Longray sighs.</p> + +<p>Philosophy limits itself to these extremely superficial +passages at arms. Margaret takes pleasure in them; she +resembles a blue, transparent sea, chafed and rippled +by the sportive breezes, every moment glistening and +changing form; but the wind is not set nor the sunlight +steady.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_386">[386]</span></p> + +<p>She has left us a large number of writings, in which we +might at least hope to find or to seek for a more definite +groundwork of ideas.</p> + +<p>M. Le Franc has devoted himself to the difficult task of +examining them all, and in these, again, he has found something +of everything—philosophical mysticism, solemn farces, +pious impieties, moralities half moral, aristocratico-democratic +diversions. The only note common to all is a profound +sense of the emptiness of things—which has nothing in +common with happiness! Sometimes through the most +magnificent fantasies one catches sight of a big rolling tear. +Margaret tells us that she knew three lives: a life of love, an +intellectual life, and a life of contemplation. But she is lost, +as it were, in the desert of her thought, and when her god +on earth, the big, jovial, sensual Francis I., dies, she breaks +down altogether, and falls back almost desperately upon +religion with its terrors.</p> + +<p>Life is an instrument of vulgar joy, which exalts only +those who humble themselves; Margaret’s mistake was in +wishing to remain always on the heights.</p> + +<p>Her maxim was to distinguish flesh from spirit, “darkness +from light,” and to love love for love’s sake: “Thy +love loves thee.” But, apart from the fact that these ideas +were not absolutely her own, and that the second already +denotes a declension from platonism, we are disturbed on +perceiving here and there a strange finger-mark. Margaret +had for her private secretary and collaborator a sort of +scoundrel, a demon of wit, but one who believed in nothing, +not even in his “Minerva.” On reading the <i>Mirror of the +Soul</i>, her first work, and one which betrays the prentice +hand, Bonaventure des Périers at once perceived that there +was a place to be filled about the author; he plied her with +entreaties, and with puns, and thus became a lieutenant of +platonism. The princess showed him infinite kindnesses; +in his <i>Cymbalum</i>, in which he flouted the only principles +on which men were still at one—the existence of God and a +few truths of elementary morality—Des Périers was mean +enough to hold her up to ridicule; he represented her as +seeking to imbue poets with a “chaste and divine” spirit, +and sending to Pluto (with a <i>u</i>) to ask at once for news of +the painter Zeuxis and for patterns of tapestry.⁠<a id="FNanchor_359" href="#Footnote_359" class="fnanchor">[359]</a> Margaret +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_387">[387]</span>forgave everything; she granted the villain a “prison” in +her house, and tried again to improve him by setting him +to translate the Dialogues of Plato. But Des Périers, not +finding in them the secret of happiness, escaped for good +and all by suicide in 1544, and Margaret once more showed +her pity by patronising a posthumous edition of his works. +That was the man who had doubtless a most intimate part +in the composition of writings which he heartily despised, +and which he called a “Pactolus of verse and prayer.” He +boasted of being their “miscreator,” and in offering one of +them to the author he said, with matchless impudence, “Here +is your immortal book, and you will find my faults there.”</p> + +<p>Thus, if you come near Margaret of France, who appears +to govern everything, you find nothing but a mere dilettantism, +a manifestation of intellectual epicurism, which +influences either ideas or the expression of them. She fixed +her eyes not on truth, but on happiness.</p> + +<p>As a guiding force Diana of Poitiers showed more +precision and vigour.</p> + +<p>Having innumerable reasons for leaning less towards the +Medici, with more physical beauty than Margaret, more +highly endowed in respect of will, she did not devote herself +exclusively to the cultivation of the intellect; she loved all +the arts, the plastic included, in the good old way. She had +a pretty skill in poetry, and appreciated books, especially +beautiful manuscripts and fine bindings. She had in her +library the Bible, the church Fathers, and books on mystic +theology, alongside of her favourite romances, particularly +the <i>Amadis</i>, which she recommended to the King; to these, +as an eminently practical woman, she added books on medicine +and natural history; no philosophy to speak of; a copy +of Politian, a few treatises on history and geography, a +Plutarch, a fair amount of poetry. For her, Philibert Delorme +built Anet, Jean Goujon wrought sculptures for it, Jean +Cousin, Leonard Limosin, and Bernard Palissy decorated it. +She was in fact a French counterpart of Isabella d’Este, a +marvellous type of the “lady art patron.” Without aiming +at the quintessences of pure love, she really and practically +laboured to elevate the cult of beauty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_388">[388]</span></p> + +<p>Women who feel within themselves the power to bear on +the sacred torch and to draw minds directly towards the +idea of the beautiful certainly ought not to hesitate. But +after all, to appreciate art in its practical results, to criticise +it, to support it by one’s approbation, is a very noble end, +and one suited to any woman, however retiring. History and +experience show that these practical influences are often the +most effective. This secret society, that religious association +accomplish more by simply living their creed day by day +than by all your dogmatic teaching. What extraordinary +power might not women wield if they were all animated by +one spirit urging them towards a common end! And what +a noble end—to sustain in the world the healthful principles +of beauty, to fill the life of men really and truly with things +they can love! To assign to art this social mission, to carry +out in regard to it this magnificent part of “patron,” would +be to vivify it! Vivify! Let us say rather save it from +itself and its abuses! Art would speedily come to ruin if +the whims, fads, and prejudices which creep into the studios +were not held in check by the necessity of reckoning with +the individual and original judgment of experts.</p> + +<p>Alas! this is an evil of our present-day society,—this +awful slough of commonplace in which we are floundering—a +cause or an effect of our moral degeneration and our utter +depravity of taste. Big houses built to a specification, +decorated at so much a yard, invisibly heated on some patent +system you never heard the name of, peopled by lackeys +whom you don’t know and only see when they open the +doors! Dolly women, clothed by their tailors, a pattern or +a copy of their neighbours, with the habits of their callers, +the ideas of the men they know, and the conversation +of their grooms,—with nothing of their very own; not +women at all! People in olden days were so thoroughly +persuaded of the real social necessity of forming “amateurs” +that the old Italian educators of the fifteenth century +wished men to be brought up with that end. How much +more women, who have leisure and an inborn refinement! +It is very easy to demand that an object, however simple +and unpretentious one may suppose it, should bear a stamp +of originality and good taste. Is it not at least possible to +insist on simplicity in all things, to banish tinsel and brummagem +and all our horrible pretentious magnificence?—to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_389">[389]</span>seek breadth instead of narrowness?—to give ourselves the +pure free air of the Beautiful?—and further, to put writers +and artists in a position to express wholesome things with +sincerity, in other words, to see things healthily? It would +be foolish, deplorable, fatal to ask them to express what they +do not feel; but they must be made to feel what they are to +paint. There is here an important task to accomplish, and, +to a certain extent, an easy one. Everyone knows how +sensitive mental toil, particularly if excessive, makes the +man who devotes himself to it. Taine goes so far as to +consider us the direct products of the influences that encompass +us! It is certain that we borrow much from our +environment, that the dulness or cheerfulness of the sky, for +instance, tinges our thoughts with very different colours; how +much more does the sadness or joy of those whom we love? +We must create then for art a good moral atmosphere. And +when Castiglione writes: “God is only seen through women,” +he is not wrong in crying up this spy-glass of his, he understands +the need of which we have just spoken; it is as if, +on entering a cathedral, he were inviting us to look into +the <i>bénitier</i>, as if he were showing us a picture in a +mirror. There are women’s souls, clear, thrilling, passionate, +which reflect things with a distinctness and a vividness of +colour that would otherwise be unsuspected. And without +launching out into speculations as lofty as those of Margaret +of France, mere “women amateurs” can play an artistic part +of the first order.</p> + +<p>As a rule, Egerias have less need of a transcendent intellect +than of an ample provision of good sense, tact, and +above all patience, for they may look forward to struggling +against terrible temptations.</p> + +<p>The intellectual and artistic tribe of the Renaissance was +no better than any other. It teemed with crotchety species; +it included the usual specimens—the pedant, the man with +a grievance, the ingenuous prig, the strutting peacock, the +matter-of-fact aesthete always on the look-out for a place or +a pension. The proud were always the best, and the least +troublesome. Play their cards never so carefully, women +found this society difficult to rule; in general, to govern +well you have only to make your subordinates discontented, +but here you can only reign on condition of satisfying +them.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_390">[390]</span></p> + +<p>The first step in the intellectual tutelage consisted sometimes +in doing little material services, in a quite friendly +and natural way (for you can’t live on love). To give “a +few crumbs from her table,” to aid the friends of her friends, +to look after orphans,—nothing was simpler or less remarkable +in a lady: many men would have done as much. +Bembo, badly treated by a farmer who owed him two hundred +and thirty ducats in “broad gold,” did not hesitate a +moment to tear Vittoria Colonna from her celestial preoccupations, +to beg her to deal with this little matter. To +venture on this ground, however, demanded no little caution. +Aretino has shown how easy it was to make a simple expression +of friendliness an opportunity for self-advertisement +and extortion. What a perfect master he was! Titian +applied to him for assistance in disposing of a certain +<i>Annunciation</i> which was hanging fire. This was how +Aretino proceeded. He issued a flaming advertisement, +which fairly hooked the Empress Isabella of Portugal, who +raked up from her husband’s cash-box the sum demanded, +two thousand crowns. Aretino instantly unmasked and +offered to her “sacred and renowned Majesty his inkpot and +pens”; in plain English, asked for a pension. What a fine +tooth-puller he would have made!</p> + +<p>This Aretino fluttered about Vittoria Colonna, whom he +sought to capture through her vanity. “Read my books,” +he writes to her; “read the <i>Courtesan</i>: you will see if +your praises were not always at the point of my pen.”</p> + +<p>Everybody knows how deeply impressed Aretino always +was by the honours of the marchioness, and when his style +is defective, there is abundance of will to make up for it. +“I have always known you to be of a generous spirit, a +magnanimous nature, an active mind, an absolute virtue, a +noble faith, a good life. If it were not so, I would have +told you.”</p> + +<p>That was the beginning of the oddest of correspondences. +The lady naïvely thought that she could content the monster +with fair words; but he undeceived her by the present of a +highly seasoned book, with an explicit request for commendation +and money. So far as commendation was concerned, +Vittoria thought the request very natural; but the excuse +for asking money she thought rather thin. However, she +promised sixty crowns, and even fancied she was only acting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_391">[391]</span>the great lady in at once sending him thirty, accompanied +by some gentle advice. Aretino, in his turn deeply +wounded, did not quarrel with “the most excellent lady”; +he confined himself to dotting the i’s. “I have to consider +the tastes of our contemporaries,” he said; “amusement and +scandal are the only things that pay; people burn with +concupiscence, as you burn with an inextinguishable angelic +flame; for you sermons and evensong, for them music and +the play!” Why write serious books? He had sent one +to Francis I. five years before, and was still awaiting +acknowledgment; he had just addressed his <i>Courtesan</i> to +the king, and by return of post received a gold chain: +“after all, I write for my bread.”</p> + +<p>Vittoria’s purse remained shut. Our fine gentleman +would have liked to return the thirty crowns; unluckily he +had spent some of them, and he sent back only some +epigrams. The marchioness suggested that he should give +the balance to the poor, hinting that no worldly pelf was +worth as much as the love of God. In consideration of a +recommendation to the duchess of Urbino, Aretino condescended +to keep what was not already spent. “I too,” he +writes with his habitual impertinence,—“I too am a +virtuous and Christian beggar, and deserving of your alms; +I do not think the poor of Ferrara, of whom you speak, so +poor that you cannot assist one of the poor here, since for +you it suffices to be rich in spirit through the grace of +Christ.”</p> + +<p>This little dialogue will show whether women needed an +angelic soul to influence for good rarely-gifted men on whom +pure love had no hold. But lofty motives must have +sustained them; there was really some truth in Aretino’s +plea; yes, fortune and glory are only reached by devious +paths. Little sketches and dialogues in the taste of the day +paid Aretino very well, without great labour on his part; a +bookseller in the Rue St. Jacques at Paris made his fortune +merely by retailing them, and in the simplest way. He +would sell to a lady a book more or less licentious, +and as such books are never lent, by and by another lady +was sure to pay him a visit. “Madam, here’s one that’s +much worse,” whispers the good man in his half Italian +jargon, slipping into her hand another very expensive book. +It was just the same in the artists’ studios; Ledas and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_392">[392]</span>Venuses went off like hot cakes, but Titian’s <i>Annunciation</i> +gathered dust on the easel, and Carpaccio had infinite +difficulty in selling at so much a foot a religious picture +which he considered one of his best.</p> + +<p>In France, the position was for a long time not quite so +bad, in the sense that the men of letters, excellent fellows +who mixed little with the world, esteemed themselves +infinitely lucky to receive after solicitation an ecclesiastical +benefice which made them independent. One historian +becomes incoherent in pouring out his gratitude because a +good book, the fruit of many years’ toil and travel, has +secured him a life-annuity. But this patriarchal simplicity +also disappeared in the end. Publishers had to cater for +the public, and one curious affair shows us how they +taught authors their trade.</p> + +<p>Vérard, the famous publisher whose magnificent productions +are still a joy to connoisseurs, had agreed to publish +in 1500 a book by Jean Bouchet, entitled <i>The Foxes +traversing the Perilous Ways</i>. The author was already +received at court, the book had an excellent title, piquant +and suggestive. Nevertheless, Vérard began by erasing +the name of Bouchet, and substituting that of Brandt, a +German as well known to the French as the Scandinavians +are to-day, and whom, moreover, Bouchet had sought to +imitate.</p> + +<p>The young poet durst not complain; however, when he +read the volume in print, he noticed that Vérard had +unceremoniously cut out entire passages, replacing them +with passages pillaged from right and left. Bouchet seized +the occasion and commenced an action: whereupon Vérard, +utterly surprised at so much virtuous indignation, came to +terms like a lord; he paid over a good round sum, and +asked for no receipt.</p> + +<p>Still, this sort of thing was rudimentary, and, apart from +the question of private morals, harmless. What was much +less inoffensive was the passion of the authors themselves, +once they had learnt their cue, for the novel, obscene, or +sensational effects which alone secured the attention of the +public. They speedily got level with the Italians. Ulrich +von Hütten gave an admirable send-off to his <i>Epistles of +Obscure Men</i> by surreptitiously putting manuscript copies +in circulation. Bonaventure des Périers almost attained to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_393">[393]</span>Aretino’s skill. The alleged official destruction of his +<i>Cymbalum</i> justified a clandestine second edition, which of +course was priceless. “Let us write some vile thing,” he +says in one of his dialogues, “and we shall find a bookseller +who’ll give us ten thousand crowns for the copy.” That is +true; the public only buys and circulates and really cries +up the books it contemns. Many notorious books of that +time, which we take seriously to-day, probably had no other +origin.</p> + +<p>An author, indeed, has a perfect right to desire to live at +the expense of his readers. But, after all, he must beware, +in matters of art, of commercial inducements, and the more +indifference, weakness, and unconcern the good public displays, +the more one ought to thank the distinguished +women who undertake to oppose the high bids of naturalism +or extravagance. They do not always succeed; they +are sometimes the dupes of noise and fashion; let us forgive +them for what they have given us, for the sake of what they +have spared us. In these days, people are ready enough to +abuse the old system of patronage, which they charge with +subverting the dignity of man; to seek something from the +State, from a member of the Government, seems natural +enough, but many writers would think themselves humiliated +by submission to any social patronage—which, however, +society is not eager to offer. In the 16th century, +among intellectual circles, men were republicans even in a +monarchy: they were not enamoured of the idea of the +State. And private patronage, in spite of its imperfections, +often served as a home for meditation, a shelter for independent +men who preferred high thinking to popular +applause; if it proved deadening, it was only on mediocre +minds. When we see what circumlocution, and what subtle +diplomacy the most influential princesses had to employ to +gain admission to Raphael’s or Giovanni Bellini’s studio, +we have no further misgiving as to the disadvantages of +patronage. For a lady to send a poet in distress “a +little sugared solace” as Des Périers said, and with so +much discretion that the source of the gift remains +unknown, or to express her sympathy in the form of a +costly present—in this we see nothing to impair the +dignity of man; indeed, to be frank, it appears to us +delightful.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_394">[394]</span></p> + +<p>Moreover, patronage did not confine itself to a purely +material and administrative support, as the State necessarily +does. Besides sending a present in season, the ladies were +still more ready to distribute the small but not less precious +coin of tendernesses and compliments. We are here returning +into their proper domain, and an intellectual man +capable of withstanding this influence would be a rarity. +The lady author who praises a writer smacks a little of +her trade; Veronica Gambara, after overwhelming Aretino +with rhapsodies, cries naïvely, “Praised by you, I shall +live a thousand years!” It was “Kae me, I’ll kae +thee.” But from a genuine lady of rank, eminent and +bountiful, who asks for nothing, one charming phrase, even +though it be qualified and far from flattering, is glory, and +a glory that can be solicited without humiliation. “They +say I am an aristocrat,” wrote Taine, and he was, as we all +are who pretend to lead men’s minds. That is why we need +this sybaritism,—need to be sustained and perchance guided +by a smile. There is hardly a philosopher or poet of the +16th century whose pages are not illuminated and gladdened +by the smile of some high-born lady.</p> + +<p>How can we analyse this smile? We could not without +seeing it, and we only know it very indirectly. We divine +it under an infinitely caressing word; in a pretty diminutive, +“my little sister,” “wifie”; in an affectionate superlative; +Vittoria Colonna calls her friend Dolce “Dolcissimo,” and +speaks to him, with a quite natural grace and without +apparent exaggeration, of his “divine sonnets,” for which +she has not words enough to thank him; with her friend +Bembo she permits herself to gush forth familiarly in artless +enthusiasm. What a curious litany is the correspondence +addressed to that “very magnificent” rogue Aretino, who +highly valued the honour done him, and took all possible +advantage of it! The writers are the marchioness of +Mantua, with her grace and reserve; Mary of Aragon, +“the sovereign marchioness of Avalos,” on particularly good +terms with him because she has not altogether given up +hope of turning him into a monk; the duchess of Urbino, +warm, gushing, who calls him “my magnificent most loving +lover”; then the good ladies who have lost their hearts to +the man of the hour, who take him as he is, a scoundrel +but famous, and who write to him as the “fount of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_395">[395]</span>eloquence, astonishing, admirable, miracle of nature, most +virtuous, (yes, you are!) most wise, my father, my +brother.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_360" href="#Footnote_360" class="fnanchor">[360]</a></p> + +<p>The relations of a lady with her protégés were established +by slow degrees, or simply through her chancing to hear +of a work that bespoke her practical interest. The lady +learns through her secret agents that a book is about +to appear, in prose perhaps, perhaps a history; she wishes +to have the first peep at it; the author, taken by surprise, +makes excuses with profound modesty, but sends his manuscript +all the same; and the ice is broken, the circuit is +complete. The connection will continue under various +forms; the writer tells her in confidence of his various +works, then in his turn begins to beat the coverts for talents +of hers that are lying concealed. In return the lady +announces his work <i>urbi et orbi</i>, and takes his friends +to her heart. A real intimacy is set up between them, sometimes +so entirely spiritual that they never even see each other. +Thus, before publishing his <i>Courtier</i>, Castiglione submitted +the manuscript to Vittoria Colonna under the seal of the +profoundest secrecy. Vittoria kept it rather a long time, +and when at last she had to return it, she excused herself +very prettily, being still, as she says, only half-way through +the second part: she omits to add that she had lent it +rather indiscreetly. She has no suggestion to make, except +perhaps that he should not give the names of the ladies +whose beauty he is praising in a book intended for the +public. Otherwise she applauds everything with all her +soul: the freshness of the subject, the refinement, elegance +and animation of the style. She is horribly jealous of the +persons whose words are quoted in such a book, even if +they are dead. As to the passages on the virtue and +impeccable chastity of women, she adores them and considers +herself, as a woman, honoured by them; but on this +point she prefers not to say all that is in her mind.</p> + +<p>With Michelangelo she exercises the same supervision; +she begs him, in a charming note, to send her a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_396">[396]</span>crucifix he is working at, and to come and have a +chat.⁠<a id="FNanchor_361" href="#Footnote_361" class="fnanchor">[361]</a></p> + +<p>Far from dissembling the patronage of which they were +the objects, the writers and artists boasted of it. In all +sincerity they believed women to have been created and +sent into the world to inspire them with intelligence. If +they had their portraits painted seated in their studies, it +was not in the midst of a litter of books, weapons, or +carpets, nor even with an air of deep thought or abstraction; +it was simply as natural men, writing beside a little Cupid +who serves them as tutelary deity. It was accepted without +question that a woman’s hand must shake the bough to +set the mind winging its flight. “My mind, my strength, +my Pallas, is Lydia,” exclaims Catti.⁠<a id="FNanchor_362" href="#Footnote_362" class="fnanchor">[362]</a> + Antonio de Gouvea⁠<a id="FNanchor_363" href="#Footnote_363" class="fnanchor">[363]</a> +declares that he had no suspicion of what was in him till +the fair-haired Catherine of Bauffremont discovered him as +one discovers a treasure under the snow: “I should have +thought the snow cold, but lo! it was fire.” Michelangelo +sings the same song in every key: “Through your fair eyes +I see a tender light which my blinded eyes could not have +seen.... Wingless, I fly with your wings; through your +quick spirit I am unceasingly uplifted towards heaven.... +I have no other will than yours; in your soul my thought +has birth; my words are moulded in your mind. I am like +the moon, who never shines in the sky but as reflecting the +brilliance of the sun;” and he adds this profound saying: +“O Lady, who by fire and water refinest and purgest the +soul for happy days, ah! grant me to return never more to +myself!” That was the simple method by which many +women in those days directed the minds of men.</p> + +<p>We must not exaggerate: we do not pretend that you +must everywhere <i>chercher la femme</i>, that without her +nothing is possible, that she has confiscated the key to all +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_397">[397]</span>human learning. On the contrary, she has done little for +the exact sciences; she has contented herself with piercing +the heavens or clambering in somehow or other. But the +great kindred of impressionable beings, every man who has +lived by beauty and sought after happiness, from philosopher +to artist, from talker to poet, every man capable of +feeling an emotion, has owed much to women. “Emotion, +which is only an accident in the life of man, is it not +woman’s whole existence?” And in such a matter, can a +better judge be found? Woman is freer from prejudice +than man: “she does not need to give abstract reasons for +her enthusiasms: her passion, her pity well up spontaneously +while man is still discussing and deliberating. And +in so doing, she almost always sees more truly.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_364" href="#Footnote_364" class="fnanchor">[364]</a></p> + +<p>Women are the eternal guardians of the Beautiful, and +it cannot be said that in this respect the Renaissance +introduced any absolutely new idea. Long before, noble +châtelaines used frequently to shelter under their roofs the +churchman employed to illuminate their Books of Hours, +and princesses encouraged the ballad-monger and the +image-vendor. Women have always cultivated their souls! +But it was a new thing to devote this fervour and enthusiasm +to a religion of beauty. In other directions, the +women have been condemned; but their aesthetic influence +has seemed legitimate; and, in a word, “the works they +patronised, the châteaux built for them, have endured, +when the doughty deeds of knights on the battlefield have +hardly left a trace.”</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_398">[398]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br> +<span class="smaller">INTELLECTUAL INFLUENCE (<i>Continued</i>)</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The influence of women declared itself in certain well-marked +results. In the first place, it led to the germination +of what may be called a technical literature: that is, of +works intended to prove the legitimacy and necessity of +feminine sway.</p> + +<p>The classical type of this literature is Boccaccio’s book, +<i>Of Illustrious Women</i>. Boccaccio lived in a backward age, +which is the excuse for certain epigrams of his; but he +remained none the less the women’s favourite writer, because +he had had the courage to ransack antiquity, to quarrel +with Virgil, to extol Dido, and to collect for the first time +a multitude of immortal examples—Cleopatra, Lucrece, +Semiramis, Sappho, Athaliah. Nothing, therefore, was safer +than to republish, amplify, and imitate his work in every +shape and form, and the opportunity was not lost, God +knows!</p> + +<p>In addition to this Boccaccian literature, which was +already extensive, we must note the appearance of a +numerous family of semi-philosophical, semi-historical +writings, devoted to the glorification of the reigning sex; +winning causes never lack defenders. The names of Bruni, +Portio, Lando, Domenichi, and many others would certainly +merit a page in the annals of feminism; Benedetto da +Cesena specially demonstrates the honour and virtue of +women, Capella their excellence, Luigini their beauty. The +feature common to the most of these works is that while +claiming to be very lofty, abstract and impersonal speculations, +they are all the time aimed more or less covertly at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_399">[399]</span>heart of one woman in particular. If Firenzuola discourses +like Plato himself, it is because he has the countess of +Vernio as his ideal. Nifo compiled his treatise <i>On the +Court</i> under the auspices of the prince and princess of +Salerno, but his ardour was more especially inspired by +the charms of Phausina Rhea. Ravisius Textor wrote his +<i>Memorable and Illustrious Women</i> because there happened +to be one Jeanne de Vignacourt, wife of President Gaillard. +We ourselves ought to have conformed to this fascinating +custom and to have inscribed a lady’s name on the title-page +of this book; but we are writing for fair readers of the +20th century.</p> + +<p>Except in size, the books we allude to were as like as +two peas. Chénier might well have called them “old +thoughts new versified.” To see one is to see a thousand. +The upshot of them all is the equality, if not the superiority, +of woman in regard to man. To give an idea of them it +will be enough to mention one, of no great renown (it has +never been printed, and no complete manuscript exists, to +our knowledge), but linking the names of two personages of +the first rank. It was written for Vittoria Colonna by +her cousin the famous Cardinal Pompeo Colonna, vice-chancellor +of the Church of Rome.</p> + +<p>The Cardinal begins by very gravely preparing to crush +under a weight of learning various anti-feminist propositions, +almost all drawn from the antiquated repertoire of +the Middle Ages; for instance, is woman an imperfect +animal, an inferior being, unfit for public duties, good for +nothing but to gad about and commit indiscretions? Is it +not the custom, even in everyday talk, to say “men” when +meaning the human species? Are not the Bible and Plato +agreed in teaching that man is the prototype of creation, +the receiver and the transmitter of life? Having settled +these and a few other questions, the cardinal proceeds to +his demonstration of the merits of womankind.</p> + +<p>He finds it much to the point to invoke evidence from +the pagan world. He sets defiling before us the Sauromathian +women, the warrior Amazons, the women of the +Balearic isles, every one of them esteemed equal to three or +four men in the exchanges of war; the Lycian dames, +through whom nobility was transmitted, and the Celtic +ladies, who exercised the functions of diplomatists and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_400">[400]</span>arbitrators. On this evidence he declares himself an out-and-out +feminist; an advocate for the admission of women +to all occupations; gymnastics and military service, commended +by Plato, have no terrors for him; he would have +been an enthusiastic apostle of cycling for both sexes. If +some timorous objector hints at the moral perils of launching +women into public life, he almost angrily laughs the objection +to scorn, zestfully seizing the occasion to show what men +are good for when left entirely to themselves. His type is +the strong woman, sure of herself and cased in the armour +of her modesty, the energetic woman who fends off the light +strokes of stratagem as well as the heavy strokes of violence, +the woman who is generous and just, with something of that +young Spartan captive who had the force of soul to feign +love for her vanquisher and to persuade him with her +caresses that she was endowed with a marvellous secret of +invulnerability, and who thus got her head cut off. +“Heaven above!” ends the cardinal suddenly, “where could +one find a more accomplished type of strength and +magnanimity than yourself, O Vittoria! It is you, you, O +ideal of noble virtues, who sustained your husband, guided +him, exalted him!” Pompeo has so many things to attend +to that he excuses himself from here working out this +theme; he begs the marchioness to accept his modest little +work, the homage of an ardent and sincere affection.</p> + +<p>We are bound to add that women showed themselves +duly grateful; this kind of literature was not love’s labour +lost, and many insignificant men found in it the road to +success. A Bohemian, half magian and wizard (common +enough in those days), a soldier as well as a “doctor in +both faculties,” Cornelius Agrippa, was elected professor of +Cabala at the University of Dole. Not long afterwards he +dedicated to his sovereign, Margaret the regent of the +Netherlands, a bulky book on the <i>Preëminence of the +Feminine Sex</i>, a learned and convincing work, though in +places somewhat gross. The chaste Margaret was no more +shocked than Vittoria Colonna appeared to be angered at +some indecorous details in the work of cardinal Pompeo. +She obtained a good appointment for Agrippa, and later on, +though a good deal had happened in the interim, she gave +him the title of imperial historiographer to Charles V.</p> + +<p>Apart from these special productions, which in date +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_401">[401]</span>almost all belong to the early days of the decadence, the +influence women exercised on intellectual productivity ran +through two very different channels.</p> + +<p>The primitive Frenchwomen, who loved breadth and +vigour, the women of passion, mistrusted works of mere +imagination; they sought for truth. Philosophy and history +were their intellectual pabulum, owing to their taste for the +clear light of truth, however solidly, even heavily expressed. +To become wrapped up, entangled, lost in art and mawkish +sentiment appeared to them the proof of inferior minds; +to them the supreme art was to be without art; they loved +the beautiful simplicity and impressiveness natural to minds +that have mastered the subjects with which they are dealing, +and are masters of themselves.</p> + +<p>But these women were not numerous, and are soon lost +sight of. Nor were there many men capable of meeting +their views.</p> + +<p>History and philosophy had their charlatans who brought +discredit on them sooner or later—pedants, perpetrators of +futile and vapid euphuisms, not to speak of fantastics and +high genealogists like Féron, who carefully describes the +armorial bearings of Adam.</p> + +<p>Lemaire de Belges, who worked constantly under the eye +of grave women and dedicated to them all his writings of +whatever description, even a <i>Treatise on Ancient and +Modern Funeral Ceremonies</i>, is one of those who carried +erudition too far. He has a superb equipment of learning, +which he displayed with a magnificent and conscientious +tediousness; how could Margaret of Austria, Anne of +Brittany, and Claude of France distrust a person of so +excellent an appearance! Lemaire loses no opportunity of +rendering homage to the sex; if none occurs naturally, he +invents one. He cites only women of beauty and intelligence. +In the service of Anne of France he extols honour +and virtue: with Anne of Brittany he sings the past history +of her realm;⁠<a id="FNanchor_365" href="#Footnote_365" class="fnanchor">[365]</a> and when all is said and done he was +nothing but a dull courtier. And yet he made his mark.</p> + +<p>Philosophy comes better out of the ordeal. It was not +divorced from literature, and, like the literature, it wore a +pleasing and cheerful aspect. Laughter was then the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_402">[402]</span>fashion, even in the most serious clubs. The Florentine +academy flourished under the title of the “Academy of the +Damp,” each of its members bearing the name of some fish; +and when, as pretty generally happens, its founder, Lasca, +was expelled, he established another academy, under quite as +facetious a name, the “Academy of Bran,” the Dellacrusca.⁠<a id="FNanchor_366" href="#Footnote_366" class="fnanchor">[366]</a></p> + +<p>We have shown what an unrivalled position philosophy +obtained in the society of that epoch; many people preferred +it to history because they fancied they were more certain of +finding truth in it. They found it also of very practical +utility; thanks to some familiarity with the ideal, more than +one philosophical husband could say, “All is lost, save +honour.” From the moment when the women began to +subsist on philosophy, there was a run upon theoretical +wisdom. Happy the man whose academic discourses suggested +a comparison with Plato, or merely with Pythagoras! +Philosophy bore everywhere the torch of happiness; it gave +props to faith, and represented Paradise as the sum +and crown of aesthetic joy; the noble bishop Guevara +exclaims with enthusiasm, “God was the first lover in the +world; it is from him that we have learnt to love”; and +grave professors on formal occasions waxed eloquent on the +mystery of love. Cornelius Agrippa opened a course of +lectures on Plato’s <i>Symposium</i> with this declamation: “I +come to expound to you the doctrine set forth by the +divine Plato in his <i>Symposium</i>, on love. My discourse has +Love for its author and cause; I myself, inflamed by the +beams of love, preach Love to you. Far from here, far from +this respectable lecture-room, let others, stuck fast in the +miry paths of the world, creatures of Bacchus or of the god +of gardens, trample this divine gift, love, in the mud, like +dogs or swine. You, my pure men, votaries of Diana +and Pallas, hail to you! Come and lend attentive ears to +this divine mystery.”</p> + +<p>Filippo Beroaldo goes farther; he undertakes “without +false shame” to expound to his young pupils the philosophy +of Propertius: “Yes,” he exclaims with fervour, “we shall +give praise to love, the one god laudable above all things, +pre-eminently laudable; we shall show you that the poetry +and the poets of love consort with the gravest professors, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_403">[403]</span>and that this sort of poem is worthy to serve as subject for +a public and complete course in a university of letters.” +And forthwith we see him occupied for a whole year in +drawing a distinction between the work and the writer, +conformably to the aphorism of Catullus, that a poet may +perfectly well pass for a decent, chaste, and pious man, +though his works may not have the same reputation, provided +they have salt and wit. Ovid also had said: “My +pen is lascivious, but my life is not.” Beroaldo insists very +strongly on this tutelary principle, and to add force to +his demonstration he casually reads the broadest passages in +Plato and the Scriptures: “Yet,” he adds proudly, “everybody +reads the Bible.”</p> + +<p>In addition to disseminating thus the doctrine of Love, the +religion of the Beautiful naturally delighted in beauty of +form, and gave a very decided lead on this point also.</p> + +<p>In the first place, it brought into high favour a kind of +literature which, for brevity’s sake, we shall call the literature +of conversation. There is nothing surprising in this, +since conversation served at once as a means and an end, +and appeared to be the realisation of Platonic happiness. +Those who had the misfortune to be writers took at least all +possible precautions not to show it, and certainly many +authors of the dialogues, novels, and various narratives of +the time committed them to paper only to keep a permanent +record of actual conversations, or at any rate because, in +temporary distress for want of someone to talk to, they +found themselves reduced to taking up their pens to keep +themselves in practice. The critics of our day, who prefer +to say their say by themselves, in the form of lectures or +articles, are disposed to see in this dialogical method a trick +of rhetoric; they regard the dialogues of Plato in the same +light, and we see very learned platonists quoting indifferently +the thoughts of the various speakers as the thoughts of Plato +himself, without remarking that in the same dialogue the +different speakers give sincere expression to different ideas. +The majority of 16th century dialogues are real conversations,⁠<a id="FNanchor_367" href="#Footnote_367" class="fnanchor">[367]</a> +and claim to be more or less accurate notes of both sides, +with the perfect liberty of movement impossible in didactic +exposition. Bembo, in his capacity as an eminent talker, +has accepted the responsibility for more than one written +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_404">[404]</span>dialogue. And thus, the practice was quite the reverse of +that which obtains in our drawing-rooms to-day, where, if +the conversation happens to rise above the commonplace, we +borrow our ideas from the morning’s leading article or the +last successful play; in those days the drawing-room made +the book—a system extremely favourable to the influence of +women.</p> + +<p>The masterpiece of this literature of conversation is unquestionably +the <i>Courtier</i> of Castiglione, of which more +than eighty editions or translations are known, and which +retained almost undiminished popularity for more than a +century.</p> + +<p>In proportion, however, as women fell into mere fashionable +sensibility, the literature they inspired became an art of +form rather than of thought, and soon there was no longer +room for anything but poetry. Poetry flooded everything. +We are not speaking here, of course, of the high heroic +poetry intended for robust appetites: people revelled in +the luxury of a beautiful musical phrase which soothed +without awakening emotion, in a sort of splendid unreality, +in glittering frivolities calculated to give a fillip to conversation.</p> + +<p>There was high honour for the improvisatore who, in the +decorated hall of the château, whilst in the streets there +arose a vague hubbub of music, song, or passing feet, could +on the spur of the moment chisel or crystallise a happy +thought, and shoot out his little verse, light as an arrow, +brilliant as a sky-rocket. Such a man was fêted everywhere, +and saw a welcome smiling in every eye. Into a +goblet of rare crystal he poured, as it were, but one drop +of elixir, but it was an elixir that exhilarated; he was +master of his world. With a tender or witty verse a man +could do anything. A phrase of Bembo’s is very typical. +When Vittoria Colonna had just lost her husband, +he told her that the flood of sonnets on that occasion +had reconciled him to the age! Vittoria Colonna herself, +whose ideas were of quite a different order in theological +matters, wrote to a prelate: “I received your letter this +morning, and in your madrigals I saw the force of +truth.” Poetry was so much a maid of all work that +a luckless ambassador, at his wit’s end for a new way +of asking for his arrears of salary, ended by addressing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_405">[405]</span>a dispatch in verse to his sovereign, Margaret of Austria. +Another dropped into poetry in his dispatches with +the simple object of paying court to his princess. A +business agent, instructed to send some information to +Vittoria Colonna, declares that, writing to so illustrious +a lady, he hardly knows what he is about, and that he +cannot refrain from writing in verse: hitherto, he says, his +higher faculties have been dormant, and the name of the +marchioness has roused them to activity. Admirable effect +of feminine influence, galvanising even auctioneers’ clerks! +Ladies wrote in verse to their children, sent their friends +verses—sometimes, it must be confessed, borrowed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_368" href="#Footnote_368" class="fnanchor">[368]</a></p> + +<p>In all this wealth of poetical production the sonnet ranked +as the most profitable, because, thanks to its terse and +sparkling form, it did well in a glass case among a woman’s +little love trophies. It admirably hit the tastes of the ladies; +it was short and concise, it centred on one idea, and allowed +the most diverse and fugitive sentiments to find expression.</p> + +<p>In these days we cannot really understand the success +which certain occasional verses met with, for example, the +rhapsodies of Molinet⁠<a id="FNanchor_369" href="#Footnote_369" class="fnanchor">[369]</a> whenever Margaret of Austria took +her walks abroad. These gems of other days have the +same effect on us as pearls removed from their settings, +lying robbed of all their lustre on a dealer’s counter. For +that matter, they never had the glow of passion; all that +was asked of them was to show a certain uniformity of +sparkle, and they were strung one after another in the +belief that so many languidly gleaming brilliants would in +the long run form a pretty set. What charming and unexceptionable +ornaments were the waggeries of Saint-Gelais +or of Michel d’Amboise, or the “Hundred and Five Love +Rondeaux” published by M. Tross, or the <i>Hecatomphile</i> +(<i>i.e.</i> the hundred loves), and so many more!⁠<a id="FNanchor_370" href="#Footnote_370" class="fnanchor">[370]</a> Such writers +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_406">[406]</span>had ringing in their ears an air from Ovid⁠<a id="FNanchor_371" href="#Footnote_371" class="fnanchor">[371]</a> or Petrarch, a +mawkish air, with all the sublimity of commonplace, +already utilised a thousand times; and they continued to +grind out the song of the “exquisite” bard of Laura, to steal +from it, comment on it, torture it, raising their eyes to +heaven like Greuze’s girls; and so they thought themselves +deities. “I hope,” cries Aretino, with a burst of laughter, +“that the soul of Petrarch is not tormented in the other +world as it is in this!” They were a long way from the +vigorous inspirations craved by Pompeo Colonna. Some +repining souls made secret reservations against the seductive +force of this sensibility. Vittoria Colonna and Isabella +d’Este kept a corner of their heart for Dante; but what +could they do to stem the tide? They tried, very clumsily. +In France a league of terrible pedants was formed,—“skimmers +of Latin,” who, to separate themselves from the +vulgar, employed a sort of pretentious and intolerable jargon. +In Italy, Spagnuoli shouted himself hoarse in thundering +against the Franco-Italian alliance, and all in vain. +Capilupi,⁠<a id="FNanchor_372" href="#Footnote_372" class="fnanchor">[372]</a> still less adroit, committed the unpardonable folly +of finding fault with the women. At bottom he was right.</p> + +<p>It was women’s duty to warn the world off so disastrous +a reef. Unhappily, in consequence of that eternal timidity +and that want of energy which were to kill their influence, +they allowed themselves to be utterly bewitched. It was +written that they should be able to conquer, but not to +profit by victory: that, once mistresses of the world, feebleness +would regain the upper hand; that being no longer +under the spur of passion, they would come to a stand +before a sweetstuff shop.</p> + +<p>The masterpiece of these pretentious confectioneries was +a monument of verse erected to the glory of some particular +lady.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_407">[407]</span></p> + +<p>Jeanne of Aragon was during her lifetime the object of a +deification of this sort, in which the Academy <i>de’ Dubbiosi</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_373" href="#Footnote_373" class="fnanchor">[373]</a> +at Venice proceeded according to the forms employed at +Rome in the ceremony of canonisation. There was first a +preliminary decree, then a discussion on the proposal made +by some member to share the apotheosis between the +exquisite Jeanne and her sister the Marchesa dal Vasto; +then a decree, based with great parade of learning on the +opposition of Roman pontiffs in bygone days to Marcellus’ +project of dedicating a temple to Glory and to Virtue in +conjunction, and enacting that the honour was to be reserved +for Jeanne alone, and that it would be enough to offer +incense to the Marchesa dal Vasto in sundry allusions.</p> + +<p>The temple was erected. It was in the purest Renaissance +style; cosmopolitan, artistic, feminist. Its contents were +pretty enough: Ruscelli celebrated the charming, adorable +and divine Jeanne in respectable verse. But that only +shows how the finest things suffer most when reality +is replaced by sham. Miscellaneous heaps of poems in all +languages known or unknown, Hungarian, Hebrew, Syriac, +Slavonic—what was it but sham? In reality, the truly +artistic idea was absent.</p> + +<p>There was also, especially in France, a whole literature +dealing with poodles and little birds, which was not lacking +in charm, and above all in sensibility, for it was generally +elegiac. Saint-Gelais, Eustorg de Beaulieu and Marot, like +Catullus, mourned sparrows, such as that of the unfeeling +Maupas:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Las, il est mort (pleurez-le, damoyselles),</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le passereau de la jeune Maupas;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ung aultre oiseau, qui n’a plume qu’aux aisles,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’a dévoré: le congnoissez-vous pas?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">C’est ce fascheux amour ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">... Par despit, tua le passeron,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand il ne sçeut rien faire à la maistresse.⁠<a id="FNanchor_374" href="#Footnote_374" class="fnanchor">[374]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_408">[408]</span></p> + +<p>Vert-Vert,⁠<a id="FNanchor_375" href="#Footnote_375" class="fnanchor">[375]</a> whose misfortunes touch us to this day, was a +direct descendant of the parrot of Margaret of Austria, +which, having been allowed to die during the absence of its +mistress, was consequently regarded as having died of +despair. Du Bellay has devoted some of his most exquisite +verses to the memory of a little dog.⁠<a id="FNanchor_376" href="#Footnote_376" class="fnanchor">[376]</a> In short, as we see, +all these writings were inspired by a sentiment of tenderness, +in the manner of Berquin⁠<a id="FNanchor_377" href="#Footnote_377" class="fnanchor">[377]</a> or Florian. The Cardinal +de’ Medici loved to style himself “the knight errant.” +Under the dainty hand leading them, men seemed like +meek and gentle sheep, somewhat emasculate perhaps, +incapable of a strong diet, but polished, sweet, gracious! +Twit them with losing their claws, they reassure you! If +their interests or their pride are ever so little touched, they +are still masters of a pungent rhetoric! Listen, behind the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_409">[409]</span>scenes (or even before), to Politian, that charming angel,⁠<a id="FNanchor_378" href="#Footnote_378" class="fnanchor">[378]</a> +calling an obscure antagonist named Mabillius, “scurvy +knave, carcase, lousy dog,” and so on.</p> + +<p>But let us finish our portrait of women from the intellectual +point of view.</p> + +<p>They did more than rub their faithful friends to a fine +polish: they were gradually drawn on and impelled to take +up the pen themselves, cherishing the secret idea of enabling +the public to profit by the treasures of their sensibility.</p> + +<p>To write a book, even in verse, is not a crime. But how +was it that the women did not understand that in coming +like professionals before the public they were precisely +breaking away from their own system?</p> + +<p>They could, it is true, invoke the example of Spain, +where women displayed their learning openly and unabashed. +But the position of Spain was altogether different; +there the women in question were ladies of lofty imagination, +who threw themselves with extraordinary energy into +regions of pure erudition; brilliant and famous women of +high rank—the marchioness of Monteagudo, Doña Maria +Pacheco de Mendoza, the pretty Isabel of Cordova, far +richer in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew than in worldly possessions; +Catherine Ribera, the bard of love and faith; the two +“professors” of rhetoric at the Universities of Salamanca +and Alcala; Beatrice of Galindo, who taught the queen +Latin; Isabella Rosera, who preached in Toledo cathedral +and went to Rome to convert the Jews and to comment on +Scotus Erigena before an array of dumbfounded cardinals; +Loysa Sygea, again, the most illustrious of them all, an +infant prodigy to begin with, then a Father of the Church, +who could speak the most outlandish tongues. These were +women full of sap and energy, whom no one was astonished +to see taking by main force the first rank in the spheres of +literature, philosophy and theology; but were they really +and truly women? or rather, did they bring any new thing +to humanity? Were they apostles of happiness? No, they +advocated the claims of reason as men did, perhaps better, +perhaps worse—that is all. The ideal of France and Italy +was different: it demanded more discretion. Women might +be quite as accomplished; the knowledge of Latin was so +widely diffused among them, even in the depth of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_410">[410]</span>country,⁠<a id="FNanchor_379" href="#Footnote_379" class="fnanchor">[379]</a> as to be quite a matter of course; many grappled +with Hebrew; some people went so far as to say that rhetoric +was a virtue as necessary to them as chastity, if not more +so. Only, everybody was steadily faithful to the maxim +that women ought to rule by charm rather than intellectual +accomplishment; and if it was necessary to arm them for +the strife, their supreme skill would always lie in appearing +unarmed, in keeping their minds free and winsome, preserving +unsoiled all the bloom of their excellent education, +remaining great ladies and “amateurs.”</p> + +<p>Ought the women, at the time when the ultra-refined +shrank from appearing in print as a lapse from taste, as +what Montaigne called an “idle business,” to have descended +into the arena and addressed themselves to the heart of the +commonplace and heedless man in the street? Ought they +to have done violence to their thought by printing it? You +may address the public in regard to the stern things of life, +draw your logical deductions from truth, hammer out your +arguments, discuss history, philosophy, theology, everything +that is of iron and rock. But sentiment has graces which +only flourish well under glass; the true women of the +Renaissance were like orchids, choice and rare and delicately +perfumed, which close their petals at the first breath of air. +The same modesty which defended the purity of their bodies +against every indiscreet eye, and which smiled only on +friends, seemed to envelop their souls. They were not displeased +to hear themselves called the depositaries of “good +doctrine,” or even to see jestingly attributed to them +some pretty work which obviously they had not written: +Aretino was a very clever and amusing flatterer when he +made the actor in the prologue of one of his most spicy +comedies ask if the author of the piece were not Vittoria +Colonna or Veronica Gambara. But the most accomplished +and instructed woman of the world, Margaret of Savoy for +example, never tired of boasting of her “divine goodness.” +Noble ladies did not take up the pen, any more than a good +housewife needs to handle a broom; they readily dictated +even private letters, with the splendid indifference of +Talleyrand, who, we may say in passing, knew his business +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_411">[411]</span>very well. If they are ever caught writing, it was +for mere amusement, when they were tired of painting, +carving, working tapestry, playing the harp, singing, maybe +of dancing and riding; then they thought of their souls, if +they had time; they would read a psalm or a story; or +to “escape idleness,” to banish an idea that oppressed and +persecuted them, they would artistically chisel their idea in +the form of a sonnet. Thus understood, poetry is the +divine art, and very few women have been able to resist it +from the moment when it appears to them the same thing +as painting a fan!</p> + +<p>Margaret of Austria delighted in etching in little poems +her recollections of the trials of her life, and (in absolute +privacy) did not even disdain to address some epistles in +verse to her devoted friends or her functionaries. The +amiable Graville, the fair Chateaubriand, so dear to +Francis I., excelled in this pastime, and when we see +Suzanne de Bourbon herself contributing her share, we may +well believe that the fashion was general. But between +that and proclaiming oneself a poet there was a wide gulf, +and when this was crossed, it was the beginning of decadence, +because the exquisite freshness and simplicity of the +art soon gave place to affectation. To women of simple +artless charm succeeded blue-stockings like Madame de +Morel and her three daughters, or Madame des Roches. +Women writers arose, and the Academy of the Valois found +it quite natural to admit them.</p> + +<p>Lyons was the capital of feminine poetry, and certainly it +is there that we can best appreciate how and why the +women fell into the unfortunate mistake of becoming +professional writers. It was not wholly their fault: they +only succumbed to the temptation when they could no +longer exert their influence otherwise.</p> + +<p>Lyons was the city of wealth and pleasure and elegance, +the rival of Paris in fashion, the “Florence of France.” It +was often the headquarters of the court.</p> + +<p>Anne of France, as sovereign of the surrounding country, +had at first exercised there a very direct influence; and +afterwards Margaret of France went there more than once, +and gladly, as into a friendly land.</p> + +<p>The ladies of Lyons, envious of the “great and immortal +praise” their neighbours of Italy had acquired, were desirous +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_412">[412]</span>of making their influence also felt on men, and of doing +honour to France in the present and the future. It was +nothing but music and poetry, poetry and music.⁠<a id="FNanchor_380" href="#Footnote_380" class="fnanchor">[380]</a> Margaret +of France smiled broadly at the universal babblement. Up +to a certain point, save for the somewhat excessive development +of sensibility, nothing was more legitimate or natural: +the husbands acted as archivists, piously classifying their +wives’ papers and cultivating their reputations. But a +time came when it appeared calamitous to leave to husbands +alone the care of so many treasures. Du Moulin, +Margaret’s secretary, ventured to aim a blow at feminine +modesty: at the express request of her husband he +published the works of Madame Pernette du Guillet, +recently deceased, taking good care to indicate his intention +of thus paying collective homage to “so many fair and +virtuous ladies of Lyons.” He encouraged others to make +similar confidences.</p> + +<p>The somewhat tame and sublunary verses of Pernette du +Guillet were not particularly flattering to the husband who +had so well preserved them. Pernette avows in all sincerity +that she had never known happiness; how could she have +known it? She divided her abilities among so many +things. She spoke all languages, played every instrument, +and was beautiful in addition. The sentiments she expressed +oscillate between a tender sensuousness and +bitterness of soul.</p> + +<p>Louise Labé, the glory of Lyons, did better service for her +cause. The list of her virtues would fill several pages. +Fair, rich, and well-bred, a singer, a dancer, a horsewoman, +and an Italianist, she drew in her train such a flock of +admirers, commentators, panegyrists, biographers, and +glossarists that her death did not quench the enthusiasm, +but occasioned a perfect mausoleum of poetry.</p> + +<p>There has been endless discussion in regard to this +fascinating woman. Many a lance has been broken in regard +to her virtue, of which the late M. de Ruolz was formerly +the self-constituted guarantor and paladin, but against +which, since his time, two erudite writers, themselves +natives of Lyons, Messieurs Gaullieur and Gonon, have +brought heavy batteries to bear. But that little concerns +us, for we do not claim Louise Labé, even theoretically, as +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_413">[413]</span>one of the glories of pure platonism; she is too self-confident +and cock-a-hoop, has such airs of swagger and +mock languor; she smacks of decadence. And yet, though +she did not, like Pernette du Guillet, make the slight effort +needed to defer publication till she was dead, she does +affect a modesty which is itself unpleasing. It was not +her husband who impelled her to appear before the world, +it was her friends; they insisted, swore to “drink the +half of the shame”; and then, “not to take the plunge +alone,” she dedicated her book to another lady, Clémence of +Bourges.</p> + +<p>These simpering affectations apart, Louise was sincerely +convinced of the benefits of feminine domination, and one +feels that in boldly facing publicity she was obeying a sentiment +of duty. She resolutely encounters the enemy, like a +brave captain who dashes out of cover to rally his disordered +troops. She conjures women not to allow themselves to be +despoiled of the “honest liberty” so painfully acquired—liberty +to know, to think, to work, to shine. Happiness!—she +no longer deludes herself with the idea that she can +promise it with certainty, or at least she has awakened +from the dream of attaining the absolute; but she tells +herself that “one can at least sweeten the long voyage.” +She does not lose sight of the fact that it is women’s +function to diffuse sweetness and poetry, to mitigate unsociabilities, +to inspire men with energy. The experience +already gained does not strike her as discouraging; quite +the reverse; the intellectual life takes from day to day a +more splendid amplitude, and this amplitude results from +the action of women. The moments of all great intellectual +vitality are marked by love. So said Louise Labé.</p> + +<p>Tullia d’Aragona, who sustained the same theory in other +terms, was one of the few Italian women who did not fear +to be reputed authors, probably because her place was +already only on the fringe of society. In general she employs +few circumlocutions, but goes straight to the point with a +vigorous eloquence. Her poems, almost all addressed to +men, deal with subjects of the gravest kind, particularly +with religion. Tullia had the inestimable advantage of +knowing humanity from top to bottom. Beside her, Calvin +and Ochino are as innocent as babes, and she taunts them, +not unfairly, with dealing their blows blindly without +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_414">[414]</span>distinguishing between what is serious and what is +harmless. Her own wisdom is wonderful! The poet +Arrighi cannot help exclaiming, “Vittoria Colonna is a +moon, Tullia a sun.” She celebrates pure love in the true +lyrical and forceful strain, as “the magnificent, the admirable +madness which alone produces great enterprises.” Whilst +immaculate women like Vittoria Colonna and Veronica +Gambara too often stifle us with languorous sensibility +(“When I was a happy lover, I exhaled the harmonies of +my heart in calm and pious accents”), Tullia, who has long +ago lost this tranquillity and these religious illusions, knows +that will and action are needed; she does not ask for the +impossible, but on the other hand she valiantly excommunicates +Boccaccio with his “villanous novels,” before +whom the coy ladies of fashion bow their faces to the earth. +In a dialogue with two gentlemen, she discourses on love in +quite a platonist key; she investigates its casuistry: “Is +the end of love its limit? Is it better to love or to be +loved?” She prefers to be loved, this fair artist, because in +loving we are acted on by the motive force, while in being +loved we exert it. Women who have really loved will +perhaps be of a different opinion; nevertheless there in one +line we have stated the great contention of the time. The +art of women ought to have been to make themselves loved +and to constrain men to love; they were often caught in +their own toils; they loved, and consequently instead of +receiving they gave. “The heart has reasons reason never +knows.”</p> + +<p>These few notes on the literary work of women suffice to +show that, on the whole, feminine literature, except in Spain, +sprang from love, to return to love again. No great +influence in the intellectual crisis of the Renaissance can be +attributed to these various writings; they scarcely did +more than develop more or less intuitively the platonist +philosophy.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, women exercised an enormous intellectual +influence through their individual and personal +action, especially in Italy. They carried their charm into +quarters which the mediaeval theologians, so ready to style +themselves the “doctors of the poor,” never penetrated,—namely, +among the poverties of the heart. They overlaid +life with that varnish of wonderful, singular sweetness +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_415">[415]</span>which has never been wholly rubbed off; they intellectualised +society, and, in a country essentially marked +out as a prey for gold and luxury, they delayed the +moment when men were to be estimated merely by the +gilding of their ceilings or the thickness of their carpets.</p> + +<p>The effects of their work north of the Alps are not very +easily measured. Resistance there was too strong; the +masculine world was not easily won over; men growled, +for it seemed to them that women were plucking their souls +out, or wishing to degrade them, in proposing that they +should submit to—what? a sort of intellectual goodness. +They refused to hear women and intellect spoken of together. +The Germans recognised no intelligence in them +apart from their domestic duties. What the Italians called +intelligence a German would call tittle-tattle, trickery, the +spirit of contradiction. They rejected such gratifications, +and had no intention of allowing Delilah to shear them. +They would readily have declared, like an arrogant character +of M. de Curel, that there is nothing in the world but +egotism, and that the egotism which creates life is of more +worth than that which employs itself in providing life with +consolations. As to poetry, forsooth, they were tempted to +receive love serenades with a bucket of water. And if the +Italians sneered at them as barbarians, “brainless people,” +they would answer them on the day of battle by demonstrating +how far mere brains and sensibility served a nation. +Erasmus dubbed “any man who was honest and learned” +an Italian; precisely, but what had the Italians come to +with their beautiful ideas? They wrangled, but they no +longer fought.⁠<a id="FNanchor_381" href="#Footnote_381" class="fnanchor">[381]</a> “Don’t talk to me of the Venetians,” said +Louis XII.; “they don’t know how to die.” To know how +to die—that is life.</p> + +<p>Virile, stern, frugal, poor, rustic often to boorishness, +Germany in this way kept up against the intellectual +paradox the old disdainful warfare of the empire against the +priesthood, and once more the gulf was dug out between +body and mind, between matter and spirit, force and +liberty. From the banks of the Rhine a furious hail of +missiles was directed against the fragile aspirations of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_416">[416]</span>Italianism. Brandt published his famous <i>Ship of Fools</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_382" href="#Footnote_382" class="fnanchor">[382]</a> +reissued seventeen times between 1494 and 1520, a work as +much translated, copied and imitated in the Germanic +world as Petrarch was in the Latin world; a pungent and +unjust work in which defile, as in a booth at the fair, all the +little grotesques which bring joy to mind and heart—not +merely, needless to say, old Turk’s heads like the physician +or the astrologer, but new types—the spectacled scholar, +busy nursing his own reputation under colour of Plato or +Menander; the man of the world, oiled and curled indeed, +but a wit, a lover, a giddy-pate, and a firm believer in the +black art; no one is missing, not even the explorer, at a +period when the world was dreaming of free exchanges and +the demolition of frontiers, the age of Columbus and Vasco +da Gama. In the greater part of these adventurers the old +German sees only arm-chair travellers or tap-room oracles, +and among the genuine travellers he anticipates Sterne +in distinguishing idle loungers, curiosity hunters, liars, +braggarts, conceited puppies, windbags, travellers in their +own despite, travellers fleeing from justice, felons, the +innocent and unfortunate traveller, the traveller for his +own amusement. Hardly any is forgotten but the sentimental +traveller.</p> + +<p>As to the poets, needless to say whether a genuine +German scoffs at these “gentlemen in <i>-us</i>,” a sort of intellectual +Tartarins, who in actual life lead old and even +wealthy women to the altar.⁠<a id="FNanchor_383" href="#Footnote_383" class="fnanchor">[383]</a></p> + +<p>And thereupon heads grew hot, and men pointed to the +decadence of morals, the desertion of the country, the +flocking of people into the towns, and they laid the blame +on Rome, the head of the movement—Rome without a +rudder, without a compass, drawn helplessly along by the +new spirit through which she was to perish.</p> + +<p>Some years later, when in spite of everything the rising +tide at last made its force felt, the opposition changed front. +People began to twit Italian learning with superficial +ostentation. A love for books was laughed at. Ptolemy +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_417">[417]</span>Philadelphus was a wonderful man, to be sure, to collect +forty thousand volumes at Alexandria! An ass might just +as well load himself with guitars and set up for a musician! +That may be admitted; but they did not stop there; and, +notwithstanding all we know of the violences of party +spirit, we cannot help feeling somewhat astonished when +we hear a man like Marot contemptuously flinging the +epithet of “ignoramus” at the Rome of Leo X., or +Melanchthon talking of Italy as “Egyptian darkness, a +prey to the worst enemies of literature and study.” That +seems the very last accusation that might have been +expected.</p> + +<p>These German ideas were half French too, and consequently, +in the hot give-and-take of battle, imperial Germany +and papal Italy, in spite of some shrewd blows, +maintained their positions well enough, whilst France, +caught between two fires, was shattered. At the very +gates of Lyons, the sweet city of feminism, the Germanists +and Huguenots brutally replied to all the poetry of the +women with the jest of D’Aubigné: “When the eggs are +hatched, the nightingale stints his song.”</p> + +<p>In addition to many earnest men and almost all politicians, +believers in authority and even in force, Italian +dilettantism found other ardent adversaries in France in +the champions of the old <i>gauloiserie</i>, who continued to +dote on naturalism naked and unadorned, the syntheses or +analyses of the flesh. They felt insulted that anyone +should wish to impose on them a strained and uncomfortable +Petrarchism with the idea of toning them down. +However, Petrarchism did not effect very much, and it was +assuredly not guilty of softening certain crudities and of +replacing by its mawkishness the twaddle of illustrious +nobodies like Jean Picart, Etienne Clavier and others.</p> + +<p>Hence, in so disturbed an atmosphere as France then +was, we should be led to conclude that the influence of +women was negative, in the scientific sense of the word. +Their work was like M. Pasteur’s. The soul of man was +stirred, agitated, overwhelmed by a host of imperceptible +microbes; the women did not furnish an infallible specific +for preserving the health, but sought to sterilise the noxious +germs, to make the air pure and the water clear.</p> + +<p>Even after the squalls of the 16th century it cannot be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_418">[418]</span>said that no vestige of their effort remained. For it is the +characteristic of France to be a complex and accommodating +country, where nothing triumphs, but everything succeeds, +where nothing abides, but nothing is lost. To this very +day, an hour’s carriage drive through Paris takes you +through the last four or five centuries of our history. The +feminism of the 16th century brought down and deposited +a new stratum of traditions: nothing more could be expected.</p> + +<p>The violence of the opposition prompts us also to find +some excuses for the timidity we have pointed out in high-placed +women. Women genuinely frank and fearless could +only be found in humbler life. We have seen how much +difficulty Margaret of France, called to live in a circumscribed +and select society, had in determining her precise +whereabouts, since she met with nothing but contradiction +around her. When her scared platonism came at last, about +1540, to formulate as in Italy definite principles of guidance +through the pen of Héroët de la Maisonneuve, and a heated +contention was the result, Margaret prudently tacked about, +and smiled, now upon Héroët, now upon his adversary La +Borderie.⁠<a id="FNanchor_384" href="#Footnote_384" class="fnanchor">[384]</a> + And yet the rein was felt,⁠<a id="FNanchor_385" href="#Footnote_385" class="fnanchor">[385]</a> and in her circle it +became necessary to sing of love in a more philosophic key. +The fierce Des Périers himself, type of the man who loves +to bite, saw himself reduced to translating the <i>Lysis</i> of +Plato, under the insipid title, “The Quest of Friendship.”</p> + +<p>The victory thus remained a moderate and indecisive one, +somewhat out of proportion to the great enthusiasm displayed. +The fine triumphant treatises on the excellence and +transcendent merit of women, those sacred stones, relics of a +forgotten worship, deserted dolmens, were almost all Italian. +Margaret showed some displeasure when she heard women +ill-spoken of; but she did not inspire glorious rhapsodies, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_419">[419]</span>like Vittoria Colonna and many others. In France free +discussion on the merits and demerits of women continued +rife.</p> + +<p>Such wrangling was indeed an old French social pastime: +everyone said his say, with perfect liberty to change his +mind, and a host of well-worn sentiments more or less +amusing were bandied about: “Eve was a woman, God +made himself man! There are no women among priests. +It is very seemly to sleep alone. I have never been in love +or married, thank God!” In the 15th century people +succeeded for a moment in believing that the intellectual +level of their little pastime might be raised till it at last +attained the Italian perfection; a Norman named Martin Le +Franc, whom his duties as secretary to Felix V. had made +half a pontiff, at one moment threw out the grand phrase +which was to set Italy on fire: “Women are the apostles of +happiness, because they are the apostles of universal and +necessary love.” A few little academies or <i>puys d’amour</i>,⁠<a id="FNanchor_386" href="#Footnote_386" class="fnanchor">[386]</a> +scattered here and there in Picardy and Flanders, caught +eagerly at the idea, but without deriving from it anything +better than an encouragement to the flowery verbosities of +dead-and-gone chivalry, which they plumed themselves on +continuing. Then came the wild outbreaks in Germany to +give the finishing stroke, and when Brandt and Geyler⁠<a id="FNanchor_387" href="#Footnote_387" class="fnanchor">[387]</a> +became the idols of public opinion the French feminists +blushed and turned tail. No more monuments were erected +to the glory of women, and even a masterpiece of our art of +engraving, an absolutely charming <i>Ship</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_388" href="#Footnote_388" class="fnanchor">[388]</a> that appeared about +1500, was devoted to their disparagement. It is a series of +little pictures, representing, to begin with, the inevitable +Eve, and then coquetry, music, dinners, perfumes, love. The +author does not go so far as to say that all these things are +unutterably wearisome to him, but he insinuates that in his +opinion it is useless to look for any serious idea among +such frivolities.</p> + +<p>The French were quite ready to admit that women had +certain moral qualities, like goodness and devotion; a +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_420">[420]</span>woman who had only one shift would give it away, they +knew. A writer puts into Eve’s mouth a cry of sublime +self-sacrifice at the moment of her expulsion from the +garden: “Slay me,” she cries to Adam: “perhaps God will +restore you to Paradise!” And yet it was to her that he +owed his expulsion. But the great majority of Frenchmen +very unjustly believed frivolity, inconstancy, lack of originality +to be defects inherent in the sex, and not merely the +result of an unfortunate education. If accomplished women +quoted Plato or St. Thomas they were laughed at, no one +would believe that they had an opinion of their own, but +declared that they had got some one to coach them, that +“the doctrine was no deeper than their lips, that they had +no naturalness, that they disappeared under art.” A woman +was believed to be afflicted with the radical incapacity to +acquire an individual idea. Montaigne, who nevertheless +boasts of being platonic and anti-epicurean,⁠<a id="FNanchor_389" href="#Footnote_389" class="fnanchor">[389]</a> sums up all +these old prejudices in flatly refusing to regard woman as +anything but a pretty animal. Virtue (the woman’s, that +is; Montaigne has different ideas) is corporeal fidelity: his +ideal is Anne of Brittany weaving tapestry in the conjugal +bedroom. Montaigne reluctantly admits that feminine +coquetry may end in ennobling love, but without changing +its destination: “You can do something without the graces +of the mind, but nothing without bodily graces.” Thus, +when Roman and papal society claimed for women the +absolute right to have done with paint and powder, it fell +foul of a host of preconceived ideas.</p> + +<p>Frenchwomen did not firmly enough assert themselves. +Their services were accepted for domestic tasks, often +delicate and difficult, which necessitated much intelligence, +but were considered servile or at least inferior. Further, +when they endeavoured to rise above this state of bondage, +they were checked, sent back to their idleness and frivolity, +persuaded that it was no duty of theirs to defend the great +causes men too often deserted; and they believed it. Here +is a mass of useless men, says the world: go to, let us +match them with useless women! But was it not a mistake +thus to bury them alive, so as to prevent their being +too much in evidence? Was it right to inflict on the half +of the human species a malaise the more terrible because +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_421">[421]</span>for the most part the victim was unable to account for it? +A woman who had all that is apparently necessary for +perfect happiness, and who nevertheless was sick and +unhappy by reason of the emptiness of her life, exclaimed: +“I feel I lack something. In my soul there are faculties +stifled and useless, too many things that are undeveloped +and of no service to anyone.” How many like her have +there been at all times—women of deep, vacant, ever virgin +souls, who suffer through not giving themselves, and live +in maiden meditation, fancy free! And why? For the +sole profit of the selfishness of men! “No, this ought not to +be,” warmly rejoined a convinced spiritualist: “if men +complain of seeing themselves equalled or surpassed, more’s +the pity: they have only themselves to blame. ’Tis that +they are unworthy of their women!” This was not the +speech of a Frenchman, but of a Roman prelate, Giovanni +Monti, secretary to the pope.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_422">[422]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V<br> +<span class="smaller">RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>The great effort that we have sought to portray resulted +finally in a profound religious revolution; starting from a +crisis in belief, it led to a transformation of Christianity +through the ministry of women.</p> + +<p>In reality, feminism exalted the soul rather than the +woman. Woman is born to cling to somebody; if man fails +her she seeks a stay in God. It was thus inevitable that her +religion of beauty should end in a mystic marriage, in a +great dramatic act of religious sensibility, in a development +of charity and hope on the basis of definite dogma, in the +skilful interpretation of impressions of the unseen by means +of external signs.</p> + +<p>That women would fling themselves passionately into +religious sensibility was only to be expected. This is their +way.⁠<a id="FNanchor_390" href="#Footnote_390" class="fnanchor">[390]</a> Leaving out of account those who are never happy +out of church, women love to fancy themselves queens by +the grace of God. The incomprehensible, which irritates +men, fascinates them, and they experience a singular joy in +rummaging the mysteries. As we have already said, at the +moment of the religious crisis a courtesan proffered the most +judicious advice on the direction of ecclesiastical affairs.</p> + +<p>In the Church, to mistrust the intrusion of women was +a peremptory tradition, and indeed the ecclesiastical world +may well be considered the citadel of anti-feminism. +Religion had taken a logical and theological bent; it recognised +only one morality, applying to noble ladies and +eminent intelligences the rules taught to plainer folk. Erasmus +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_423">[423]</span>repeats approvingly the maxim of St. Paul: “Christ is +the head of man, man the head of woman; man is the image +and glory of God; woman the glory of man.” With the Church +Fathers it had been a long-established custom (going back +to the wisest of the wise, Solomon) to compare women, and +even the Virgin, to the moon. From sacred literature this +comparison passed into profane literature, which employed +it in season and out. Rabelais declares that women play hide +and seek with their husbands, as the moon with the sun; +Boccaccio and Brantôme revive the old proverb about the +virtue of women needing to renew itself every month like +the moon. One poet decries the moon, pale like woman’s +love; another adores her, pure like his well-beloved.</p> + +<p>The platonists were well content with this phantasmagoric +comparison, which represented to them in all likelihood +a whole world of freshness and domestic joys.</p> + +<p>Dolce himself deems that the moon is feminine. “At +night,” he says, “she streams through every chink and +cranny, spite of blinds and shutters; she inspires the +imagination of husbands.” In France, during the period of +the fair Diana’s ascendency, the moon quite eclipsed the sun; +the king sported a device of interlaced crescents.⁠<a id="FNanchor_391" href="#Footnote_391" class="fnanchor">[391]</a> But the +Church did not go so far. It excluded women from the +priesthood; its tradition granted them nothing except +personal piety, or at most heroism like that of St. Catherine +of Sienna of unfading memory. In order, therefore, to +secure a place in an absolutely new order of ideas, women +had to wash their hands once for all of eminent dogmaticians +and subtle moralists, and to effect a complete change.</p> + +<p>Many enlightened minds in the Church itself called for +this renovation.</p> + +<p>The weariness and disgust generally felt in regard to +certain trivialities in religious observance, to the apologetics +and the frigid ethics of the time, had caused the spirit +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_424">[424]</span>of faith and faith itself almost entirely to disappear; and +thus the Beautiful easily became the guiding principle +of theology. Only, some people sought their theology in +abstractions, others in the joys of art. The fall of Savonarola +precipitated the movement in the direction of art. His +friends were downhearted. Michelangelo clave to the Man +of sorrows, the crucified Christ, “as a skiff to the harbour”; +his faith became confidence, and dogmatic theology had no +further interest for him.</p> + +<p>So far from feeling itself harmed by this breath of +philosophy, Rome, ancient and eternal, regarded itself as +invigorated thereby. “I am a Christian platonist,” had been +the saying of the early platonists. Too proud to have any +love for the petty arguments and the material extravagances +of every-day religion, these philosophical prelates wished to +establish the authority of the Church on the liberty, not the +anæmia, of the conscience.</p> + +<p>The new philosophy declared itself to be more Christian +than that of Aristotle, and bowed before the official dogmas, +like the priest before the altar, declaring itself “unworthy”—before +dogmas of almost insolent authority, stern, inexorable, +but modified by tenderness. The new religion +was the philosophy of the Lord’s Prayer. It sufficed to +recite the Paternoster in the spirit of love harmonising with +it; regarding God as the good Father, who gives life because +He is life,—God, the celestial and ideal, whose will should +be done because it is the very essence of love to seek its +motives in the will of the beloved one. We love, not +the idols of the world, silver and gold, but love and mercy; +our daily bread is sufficient for us, love has loosened +in us the springs of ambition; filled with tenderness and +dignity, foes to intrigue, we have to spread abroad in the +world this same tenderness and the tolerance it implies; +may God in like manner pardon the evil we may do. We +beseech Providence not to put temptation in our way, so +that we may be saved from falling!</p> + +<p>God is all love and all life. It is not His will to betray +us by laying snares for us; His religion can be only the +perfect manifestation of natural law. Goodness and piety +do not mean pessimism and self-abdication.</p> + +<p>The positive side of religion, namely, the creed, may well +be left to reasoners and theologians, for it gives rise to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_425">[425]</span>insoluble problems. But religion also includes principles of +practical morality, which have for object the happiness of man.</p> + +<p>In regard to the second point, the Gospel leaves us great +liberty. It lays down no dogmas in regard to beauty; it +confines itself to bequeathing us love, not a love more or +less alloyed with selfishness, vanity or interest, but a +general love for God and our neighbours, resulting from an +inward spirit of devotion.</p> + +<p>That being so, what is the good of quirks and quiddities? +What is the good of tight fetters? Love, and go straight +on your way—that is the new formula,—a very effective +one, since it converts dogmas into sentiments, and consequently +gives them a direct bearing upon life; a very +philosophical one, for nothing is so personal, so individual +as sentiment. And, as Montaigne says, “it is a most excellent +and commendable enterprise properly to accommodate +and fit to the service of our faith the natural helps and +human implements which God hath bestowed upon us.... +Had we fast hold on God by the interposition of a +lively faith; had we fast hold on God by Himself, and not +by us; the love of novelty, the constraint of princes, the +good success of one party, the rash and casual changing of +our opinions, should not then have the power to shake and +alter our belief.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_392" href="#Footnote_392" class="fnanchor">[392]</a></p> + +<p>Faith is the best and almost the only guarantee of liberty +of thought.</p> + +<p>That explains why, in the official apartments of the pope, +the <i>School of Athens</i>, an eclectic homage to the philosophic +spirit, is a companion picture to the <i>Controversy on the +Holy Sacrament</i>, the synthesis of the spirit of faith, and +why the <i>Parnassus</i> appears to unite them. No one found +anything to object to in this alliance. Erasmus insists on the +fact that Christianity and Plato are in wonderful accord in +regard to happiness; Cornelius Agrippa himself, who +ventured to call Plato a “master of errors,”⁠<a id="FNanchor_393" href="#Footnote_393" class="fnanchor">[393]</a> attributes to +Socrates inspiration from on high.</p> + +<p>Leo X. acted as pope in countenancing Plato.</p> + +<p>Mitigating circumstances have been urged in his favour; +as the Roman tradition excels in accommodating itself to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_426">[426]</span>the needs of each successive age, some Catholic writers have +thought that the alliance between Roman prelates and the +new aesthetic cult was a prudent concession to circumstances. +Our opinion, on the contrary, is that Rome, under +the influence of a century and a half of ardent study, +deliberately placed herself at the head of the movement. +Rightly or wrongly, she believed that religion is the art +of living freely and in peace. “The soul is far above the +intellect.”</p> + +<p>In virtue of this maxim there appeared, closely leagued +with the prelates for the purpose of reforming the Christian +practice and restoring to it its primitive motive force, the +women, whether platonist or not, who have been called +<i>bibliennes</i>, but whom we would rather call Mothers of the +Church. In these days we stick pretty closely to the +external and picturesque features of the Bible; we read it +as a story that has come true, and love a realistic illustration. +The <i>bibliennes</i>, too, after their fashion, sought +impressions, rather than a doctrine; for what they called +“my religion” was the doctrine of others, on which they +drew their own patterns, like figure-skaters. What concerned +them in the Gospel was its philosophy.⁠<a id="FNanchor_394" href="#Footnote_394" class="fnanchor">[394]</a> They +wished to profit by it on their own system, that is, by +intuition, by inspiration from on high. Faith in witchcraft +flourished more than ever, and it seemed quite natural to +regard women as the special interpreters of the unseen.⁠<a id="FNanchor_395" href="#Footnote_395" class="fnanchor">[395]</a> +The bloody persecutions of the 16th century did not succeed +in uprooting the belief in witches, who sometimes indulged +in horrid midnight abominations, but who were the more +habitually consulted by people who wanted to have their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_427">[427]</span>fortunes told, to have their ailments treated,⁠<a id="FNanchor_396" href="#Footnote_396" class="fnanchor">[396]</a> to obtain good +weather, etc.⁠<a id="FNanchor_397" href="#Footnote_397" class="fnanchor">[397]</a> The boundless ambition of Julius II. sprang, +it was said, from the prediction of a sorceress, who had told +him to be of good cheer, for he would obtain the tiara and +world-wide sway. The witches loosed or bound the devil at +pleasure. Their power was evil, but supernatural. People +said “witch”; in some parts the word “wizard” did +not even exist. If the witch was to credulous people the +incarnation of women’s special aptitude for medicine and +religion, there was a good deal of truth in the idea, and +women might well be supposed capable of exercising supernatural +power. It was fashionable to extol the ancient sibyls +in the same terms as the prophets. These celebrated beings +formed the connecting link between antiquity and Christianity; +instead of doing as Julius II. wished, and painting +the twelve apostles, in other words, the active ministers of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_428">[428]</span>faith, Michelangelo boldly and triumphantly displayed on +the vaulted arches of the Sistine chapel seven prophets and +five sibyls, that is, the ministers of intuition.</p> + +<p>Thus women substituted themselves for priests as they +did for doctors, from a horror of materialism and professionalism, +from a sense of duty, an idea of liberty, a spirit +of charity, making no professions of profound study, but +with the wholesome aim of protecting the youthfulness and +beauty of their souls. Apostles of the religion of love and +joy, they addressed themselves to the miseries that befall +especially those whom the world calls happy; the unfortunate +doubtless have no time to think of their woes; it +has always been much more difficult to convert the rich, the +healthy, and the young.</p> + +<p>The idea of the feminine priesthood very easily made +headway in Italy: “God is only seen through women.” +Women addressed themselves to chosen spirits—philosophers, +writers, preachers, men of action—who wished to +see God, but were too short-sighted. In the religious as in +the other arts, every prelate of importance had one woman, +if not several, behind him. Bembo was the friend of +Olympia Morata⁠<a id="FNanchor_398" href="#Footnote_398" class="fnanchor">[398]</a>—what could be more natural? A fiery, +proud, austere monk like Ochino, with his large, bloodless +face and long, shaggy white beard, hardly seemed likely to +prove a grand master in the feminine freemasonry; yet he +came in the end to lean upon a bevy of ardent women, with +Caterina Cibo, one of the pope’s ladies, as their brilliant +head. The pope himself came to terms with the ladies: +Paul III. displayed his deference for them on various +occasions, and especially by a visit to Ferrara, the notable +seat of a feminist council.</p> + +<p>Vittoria Colonna shines in the front rank of these Mothers +of the Church; she is the classical woman <i>par excellence</i>. +She got up lectures at Naples and Rome. She sustained +and consoled prelates of the highest eminence. “Since the +hatred of others, the price I pay for my devotion, has not +bereft me of your Excellency’s good-will,” wrote Giberto +from the chancellery at Rome, “every other loss seems to me +but a trifle. Your Excellency can do me no more singular +favour than to command me.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_429">[429]</span></p> + +<p>Bishop Selva wrote to Cardinal Pole: “Thanks for the +copy of your letter to the marchioness of Pescara on recent +events; it is worthy of that Christian lady.” And the good +Sadoleto, writing also to Pole, said: “I have read the letter +addressed to you by the very saintly and prudent lady the +marchioness of Pescara, in which she speaks of me and +appears to approve of our staying here; it is an indescribable +pleasure to me to see my counsels approved by so much +virtue and wisdom.”</p> + +<p>The holy passion of the marchioness for Cardinal Pole +burned with a highly mystical glow. Vittoria wrote to +this beloved prelate “as the intimate friend of the +Bridegroom, who will speak to me through you, and +who calls me to Him, and whose will it is that I should +converse on this subject for my own encouragement and +consolation.”</p> + +<p>Religious feminism acclimatised itself in France with +considerable difficulty, through the fault of the women +themselves. They were habituated to tread unswervingly +the authorised paths to Paradise—fasts and abstinences, +indulgences and pardons, relics, vows and pilgrimages. To +follow in the procession of Corpus Christi among their +lackeys bearing torches emblazoned with their arms, to +wash the feet of the poor on Good Friday and hand the +poor a basket of provisions, never to miss a sermon, to have +a mass said every morning at a private altar, to purchase +indulgences—that was the religion of the great ladies of +France. This religion was accused of proceeding from a +somewhat mechanical severity, and of proving nothing; and +indeed there were among those old-style ladies some who +were virtuous without purity, and some who were devout +without piety. Among the middle classes it was still +worse: “angels at church, devils at home, apes in bed!” +How many husbands lost their tempers at finding dinner +not ready, and learning that Madame was at her prayers or +“slobbering over images”! An old writer declares that +there is no mean with religious women; they are either +sour-tempered, peevish or disagreeable, or adulteresses. +And yet the same preachers whom we have already seen +obstinately bent on preserving the dead level of morality +vaunted equally the dead level of religion; they were +desperately afraid of getting above it. They liked women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_430">[430]</span>to remain little girls, incessantly tormented by infinitesimal +scruples; their narrowness of thought, their passive and +minute obedience were precisely what the preachers praised, +such were the traits they pretended to admire in the +Clotildes and Theodelindes.⁠<a id="FNanchor_399" href="#Footnote_399" class="fnanchor">[399]</a> And if the Saviour after His +resurrection went first of all to knock at the gate of the +Magdalene’s garden, that boon, according to them, was +motived solely by the purely passive and docile spirit of +women. At Paris, where women were said to be deficient +in high philosophy, “there were more works of charity done +and more masses said than were done or said between Paris +and Rome.” However, certain flatterers saw virtue everywhere, +and went so far as to cite Charles VIII. as an angel, +and the boulevards of Paris as a sanctuary. Such reasonings +naturally ended <i>in statu quo</i>.</p> + +<p>At Rome the exact contrary was the case; liberty was +especially rife among the mob of functionaries, and their +contempt for the easy-going government they served was +unmistakeable. Far back in the 15th century Lorenzo +Valla, to hasten his advancement, declared publicly that +this government rested on a usurpation and a lie. It was +all so peaceful and happy! More than one man, like Burckhardt, +would kiss the pope’s toe in the morning, and in the +evening utter blasphemies. The dogma of infallibility +served as a shelter and defence. Just as Titian sent to the +Emperor a <i>Trinity</i> and a <i>Venus</i> together; or Sigismundo +Malatesta had a portrait painted showing him on his knees +before madonnas; or the irreverent Poggio destined his +sons to the priesthood: so Aretino, speaking of Saints and +Venuses, lumped them all as “these ladies,” and confessed +before he died.</p> + +<p>Far from being disturbed by theological attacks or stale +criticisms, Rome thought of nothing but displaying her +Atticism and rescuing antiquity from its submergence by +medievalism, as she had already saved it from its submergence +by the barbarians.</p> + +<p>The Spirit of God bloweth where it listeth!⁠<a id="FNanchor_400" href="#Footnote_400" class="fnanchor">[400]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_431">[431]</span></p> + +<p>As said the father of one of the cardinals, no man was +a gentleman unless he hazarded some heresy or other. +The sceptic represented by Raphael in the <i>Miracle of +Bolsena</i> is a man of high distinction. Ideas, men, nothing +was safe from ridicule. Two cardinals were chaffing Raphael +for having, as they said, given S. Peter and S. Paul rather too +ruddy a complexion. “Bah!” retorted the painter, “they are +blushing to see you ruling the Church.” Castiglione one day +asked ‘Phaedra’ Inghirami, with a smile, why on Good Friday, +when heathens and Jews, heretics and bishops are prayed +for, there is no prayer for the cardinals. “Because,” replied +Inghirami with great readiness—“because they are included +in the prayer for heretics and schismatics.” The same +Castiglione found the Duke of Urbino’s chaplain to be +rather long over mass, and begged for a more expeditious +celebrant. “Impossible,” replied the chaplain, and stooping +to the ear of his critic added: “Why, man, I don’t say a +third part of the <i>secretae</i>.”</p> + +<p>The Lateran council in 1512 had, indeed, prescribed canon +law and theology as part of the course of study for priests. +It recommended them also to believe in the immortality of +the soul. But these were only very light fetters on liberty +of thought. When Pomponazzi denied in set terms the +immortality of the soul, the Venetians, who had the logical +minds of the northern peoples, condemned his book to the +flames; but Leo X. did not even reply to the demand for +his excommunication. Were there not many like him at +the Vatican? Were ceremonial and dogma spoken of much +otherwise there? The judgment we can pass on Rome is +that of Talleyrand: the man who does not know Rome does +not know the sweetness of life.</p> + +<p>At one time Adrian VI. was anxious to restore severer +modes of thought, but his aim did not please the prelates, +and Clement VI. hastened to bring back the spirit of the +Medici, a “sentimental deism,” to adopt the apt phrase of +M. d’Haussonville, and to send “the imbeciles, the ninnies,” +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_432">[432]</span>as Bembo called them, about their business. The pope +supported the Protestants against Charles V. He was quite +willing to hear Firenzuola, in his Benedictine’s gown, read +him fragments of his dissertations on love. Paul III. plumed +himself on continuing this charming system. Bembo became +a sort of patriarch; his <i>Asolani</i> served as well for a +religious breviary as for a philosophic formulary.</p> + +<p>Delightful age, in which nothing was hopelessly stranded +in mediocrity! in which the religion of beauty seemed to sum +up all aspirations human and divine, all the sanctities!</p> + +<p>The cardinals displayed a reasonable magnificence because +princes and lords were essential to the kingdom of +God on earth.</p> + +<p>These were Christian prelates, charged with the duty of +guiding a somewhat pagan world. Among them we necessarily +meet again the learned doctors of love and wit—Bibbiena, +for instance, his Plautus in his pocket, always +smiling, always amusing, and philosophising with gusto on +the oddities of the moment. “What folly!” is his incessant +exclamation. A priest, but one of the fashionable variety! +Steeped to the lips in mythology, and so refined, so delicate, +that the naïve emotions of a primitive Madonna leave him +untouched! Wishing with his exquisite politeness to offer +a royal present to Francis I., he ordered, not a Madonna, +but a portrait of the beautiful Jeanne of Aragon. That is +the man who in the portrait of Leo X. stands near the +pope’s chair as the heart of his heart.</p> + +<p>And Bembo, who invokes Olympus and speaks of the +supreme Beauty, how does he regard the sacred hierarchy? +He writes to Isabella d’Este that he “desires to serve her +and please her as if she were the pope.”... “Far better to +speak like Cicero than to be pope.” And he adds this postscript: +“Isabella, my dear, my dear, my dear, I kiss thee +with all my heart and soul, and beg thee to remember me, +as my big, big love for thee merits.” That was his interpretation +of charity! But people were not particularly +scandalised at these youthful sallies, any more than it +occurred to them to be shocked at finding a bishop’s palace +peopled with mythological personages,⁠<a id="FNanchor_401" href="#Footnote_401" class="fnanchor">[401]</a> or the Corso, on a +carnival day, gay with masked cardinals.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_433">[433]</span></p> + +<p>This intellectual indifference would have had graver +consequences if, knowing theology so badly as they did, +the clergy had attempted to expound it; but as a matter +of fact they only scratched the surface of dogmas; they were +far too sensible to speak of things they knew nothing about. +The watchword was to render religion lovable. In what +respect was Sadoleto, for example—that Fénelon of the 16th +century—a worse priest because he was so passionately +devoted to the humanities and the arts! Take liberty away, +and the degeneracy of Catholic countries was assured.</p> + +<p>To-day everything is changed; if Leo X. or Bembo +returned to the world, they would be utterly nonplussed +by the complete alteration that has taken place. It is +in Germany, among their whilom adversaries, that they +would recognise the doctrine dear to them, and a freedom +of mind that allows a man to call himself a Christian though +rejecting the divinity of Jesus Christ. To many present-day +Germans, the kingdom of God stands for the whole community +of those who believe in the principle of love. God +is love: the kingdom of God—that is, a state in which +everyone’s actions would be prompted by love—is the final +end of God, and at the same time the most universal moral +ideal, the sum and crown of morality and religion. Singularly +enough, people are apt to imagine—not, of course, that the +founders of the Reformation professed this doctrine (the +mistake would be too glaring), but—that they opened the +door, cut the first notch in the tree, by starting the private +reading of the Scriptures. Thus Protestant orthodoxy, +which holds by a priestly and quasi-infallible tradition, +would appear as a pseudo-catholicism, whilst liberal Protestantism, +which pushes forward with open mind in a +boundless field of thought, would represent the logical outcome +of the work of Luther and Calvin.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, it is believed by some that the +armour of authority, the spirit of narrowness and officialism +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_434">[434]</span>sometimes adopted by Catholicism since the struggles of the +16th and 18th centuries, are indispensable to it, and that the +Reformation was calculated to rid it of that spirit.</p> + +<p>On the contrary, it was at Rome that liberal ideas with +the utmost audacity secured a footing. They were vanquished, +it is true, and disappeared; but if Luther and +Calvin had the glory of defeating them, time in its turn +has brought in its revenges, and, of Luther as of Calvin, +there is very little now remaining.</p> + +<p>The liberal Protestantism of the present day is the antithesis +of the primitive spirit of the Reformation.</p> + +<p>The Reformation had political and social sides, of which +this is not the place to speak; in matters religious, the +reformers felt a need of disciplinary reorganisation, very +natural, but not peculiar to them; but their essential aim +was to create a reaction against free thought, to return +as far as possible towards the Middle Ages, to rescue the +world from the Roman idealism, which was the work of +prelates and women, and had sunk into an intellectual +dilettantism. Old Germany desired matter-of-fact, or at +any rate well-advertised virtues, a quasi-military pietism, +and theological reasoning. It revolted against life in the +sunlight.</p> + +<p>Frenchwomen were not thwarted by their husbands in +regard to their patronage of the aesthetic cult, as they were +in matters of morality. The majority of men professed a +benevolent scepticism, which made them what we call +“moderates,” that is, not warm partisans of moderate ideas, +but moderate or even negative partisans of any idea whatever; +and consequently they were open to any sort of +impulsion, even from women. Montaigne wanted but one +thing to make him a mystic—namely, mysticism: and the +Montaignes are legion; only we do not come across them; +in their characters of moderates they keep in the shade.</p> + +<p>In this case the obstructors were the clergy, the mass of +whom in France, as in England or Germany, made common +cause with the nation, instead of the nation making common +cause with them, as at Rome. They possessed about a fifth +part of the land, and found themselves tied to it. The +village parson, sprung from the soil, and presented to a +benefice on leaving school, did his duty there without hope +of advancement, in the same spirit that the lord performed +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_435">[435]</span>his feudal duties—rather like a superior farm-hand, much +less accomplished in theology or in platonism than in mixing +a sauce for a choice carp, or in roasting to a turn the pullet +he brought home under his arm on his return from administering +the last rites to a dying parishioner; a jolly good +fellow, and a capital gossip, but as far from a mystic movement +or a crusade on behalf of the ideal as the poles. If +there was to be a Reformation, the only one that would +have struck him as useful would have been to authorise +him to marry; and French statesmen, although very good +Catholics, were very much of the same opinion. Obviously +it was still more impossible to depend, for upholders of the +ideal, on a mob of artisans, tradesmen, peasants even, +highly practical people, who had got their poles shaven in +order to come under the jurisdiction of the church courts, +and who, though clerks only in name, still helped to root +the Church among the people.</p> + +<p>To meddle with this obscure and doltish mass with the +idea of implanting in it the germ of the beautiful was the +last thing women would have thought of.</p> + +<p>There remained the world of distinguished abbés, the +higher clergy, the court prelates; but, as benefices served to +reward merit of the most various kinds rather than to +encourage a philosophic system, the upper ranks of the +French clergy showed a curious mixture—eminent priests, +venerable monks, younger sons or merrybegots of great +nobles, professors, judges, men of letters. No one who did +not know would ever have suspected that Melin de Saint-Gelais +was an abbé.</p> + +<p>Fausto Andrelini was not at all ashamed to publish a +letter to his mistress side by side with an address to the +Cardinal of Amboise, in which he solicited ecclesiastical +preferment.</p> + +<p>The <i>bibliennes</i> put themselves at the head of this motley +crew of great churchmen; they were “clergywomen,” as +someone satirically said, and formed the new priesthood, +the Salvation Army of that time. Their simple ambition +was to raise these men, these priests, by one stroke of +their pinions, into the empyrean, as in Italy. Convinced +doubtless that—to adopt the phrase of a distinguished +lady—“the law of sex and its pious mysteries lead to great +sanctity,” they saw shining in the supreme light various +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_436">[436]</span>groups united by sympathy and tenderness—old St. Jerome +sustained by young Paula, Francis of Assisi by sweet Clara; +following their example, Francis de Sales and Jeanne de +Chantal, Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac were going +to lend each other mutual support, obedient to the eternal +law—to say nothing of innumerable holy maidens who +were lovers of Christ “in His sacred humanity,” like St. +Theresa, or who encircled their finger with the ring of a +mystic marriage, as Jeanne de France did when founding +the Annunciade.⁠<a id="FNanchor_402" href="#Footnote_402" class="fnanchor">[402]</a> Faith must needs become love and diffuse +a thrilling charm:⁠<a id="FNanchor_403" href="#Footnote_403" class="fnanchor">[403]</a> the priest must cease to fancy himself +a policeman. How many poor souls, athirst for love, have +fallen very low simply from want of an ideal! There are +sick ones who might become artists in sensibility! Women +stretch out beseeching hands to God, that He may help +them to regard life with confidence, with joy, with love.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France was, in the highest degree, one of these +French <i>bibliennes</i>, no debater and indeed sceptical as to the +existence of absolute truth and goodness in this world, but +a woman of quick intuitions and contemplative mind. She +had faith; she believed in the sacraments,⁠<a id="FNanchor_404" href="#Footnote_404" class="fnanchor">[404]</a> and did not deny +purgatory; she in no manner sought with the ladders of +reasoning to scale the verities that tower far above our +reach; she preferred to take to herself wings and fly aloft. +Men appeared to her so petty, so feeble, such ants, that a +few merits more or less on their part were but insignificant +stages in the long road between them and perfect goodness; +she represented God to herself as pure kindliness, indulgence +and love, wherefore it was necessary to fly towards him on +wings of love. She clung to St. Catherine of Sienna, not as +a theologian, but because “nothing but love was her +argument.”</p> + +<p>This simple explanation of their principles will clearly +show in which species of clergy the women would seek their +allies; they loved those who loved them. They did not +appreciate the courtier bishop who played the hunter or the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_437">[437]</span>warrior. Their friends were the scholarly prelates; they +knew well that platonic love had little hold, alas! on the +brilliant youth of France, and that divine love would not +easily subdue them; yet by dint of tenderness they did not +despair of success. The protonotary D’Anthe fell sick, and +Margaret at once sent him the following prescription—a +decoction of “pleasant recollections and sure hope of love,” +a little “powder of laughter,” a drop of “true felicity,” an +extract of “apple of love,” in short, remedies not in the least +heroic. The gay Bandello’s cure was effected with a rich +bishopric, that of Agen.</p> + +<p>Grave charges have often been brought against this combination +of piety and love, and naturally, anyone who +does not understand platonism will see a multitude of +more or less deplorable <i>arrière-pensées</i> in these “spiritual +gallantries.” In the 17th century indeed the grave Nicolle⁠<a id="FNanchor_405" href="#Footnote_405" class="fnanchor">[405]</a> +found a happy phrase to describe ecclesiastics who dangled +about the petticoats; he calls them “half-married priests.” +“Marriage” would be an inept name for the unions of +which we speak. It is very natural, surely, that women of +feeling should seek their friends and fellow-workers among +feeling souls! Besides, experience proves that you can do +nothing with reasoners except by force; only the sensitive +are converted; only St. Augustines have capabilities for +good.</p> + +<p>The practical programme of the women consisted first of +all in their attaching an extreme value to the development +of the sensuous elements in worship; the severity of the +Reformers, crudeness and bareness of ceremonial, could never +attract them; they loved pomp and decorum. Religion to +them was the very essence of art; art in becoming elevated +shaded off into religion; only the inexplicable thrill of +the awakening aesthetic sense can waft the soul from the +expressed to the unexpressed. Pleasure is not the end of +art; it is only its vehicle. The end of art is God.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Eglises viz, s’écrie Marguerite, belles, riches, anticques,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tables d’autelz fort couvertes d’ymaiges</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’or et d’argent....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Je prins plaisir d’ouyr ces chants nouveaulx,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De veoir ardans cierges et flambeaulx,</div> +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_438">[438]</span> <div class="verse indent0">D’ouyr le son des cloches hault sonnantes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et par leur bruyt oreilles estonnantes:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">C’est paradis icy, me dis-je alors....⁠<a id="FNanchor_406" href="#Footnote_406" class="fnanchor">[406]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>One Good Friday, at Brionne, a Norman châtelaine was +highly scandalised at the fantastic manner in which the +parson rendered the Litany of the Passion; and on leaving +the church, she sent for him and the following dialogue +ensued: “My dear sir, I don’t know where you learnt to +officiate on such a day as this, when people should be in the +depths of humility; but to hear you render the service, all +our devotional thoughts have been put to flight.” “What +do you mean, Madam?” said the parson. “Mean! you have +sung the Passion all the wrong way. When our Lord speaks, +you bawl as if you were in a market; and when ’tis +Caiaphas speaking, or Pilate, or the Jews, you speak as +gently as any blushing bride. A fine sort of parson! If +you had your deserts, you’d be unfrocked!” The parson +wriggled out of the difficulty like a true Norman, with a +gibe at the Jews: “My dear lady, I wanted to show that +with me Christ is master and the Jews are subject to Him.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_407" href="#Footnote_407" class="fnanchor">[407]</a></p> + +<p>A sort of external sensuousness in worship, therefore, formed +an integral part of the feminist religion. As to the substance +of that religion, it varied according to the women, and even +according to the days, for it was a matter of impressions.</p> + +<p>It was fed principally by the reading of the Scriptures.</p> + +<p>It is a common error to believe that Luther’s great reform +consisted in inculcating the direct and free reading of the +Scriptures. The study of the Bible was, one may say, +carried to excess among Catholic women. Vivès went so +far as to make it one of his principal rules for the education +of young girls.⁠<a id="FNanchor_408" href="#Footnote_408" class="fnanchor">[408]</a> And some people even vigorously protested +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_439">[439]</span>against the abuse of such reading. Before Luther’s +time, about 1504, the French satirist Gringoire, as well as +certain preachers, denounced it as a positive scourge.⁠<a id="FNanchor_409" href="#Footnote_409" class="fnanchor">[409]</a> +Later, Brantôme waxed indignant at seeing the Bible in the +hands of children, and Montaigne at finding it discussed at +street corners or in back-shops.</p> + +<p>But the women in their turn were irritated at the +attempts to curb their zeal. These criticisms of men recalled +to them that contemptible sneak Adam, who made +excuses for himself and shuffled on to his wife the responsibilities +of their common thirst for knowledge.</p> + +<p>Was their imagination distrusted? they asked. Were +they thought incapable of distinguishing between “ancient +rubbish and modern trash”? They found in the Old Testament +rare beauties, to be sure, but they were very far from +admiring everything blindly—the exploits of some of the +patriarchs—the inconsistencies even of the Deity himself, +who forbids slaughter and yet slew! No, no, the Bible +is not the book of love; it is the first of books, but one +mustn’t go there to find the secret of “changing all strifes +into sovereign charity.”</p> + +<p>The Old Testament pleased the friends of the religion of +terror—Savonarola, and some French ladies of the old style, +devout and mystical at certain moments, but in reality +highly materialistic in their tastes and their practical ideas.</p> + +<p>Others criticised the Bible as they did everything else. +In the Bible, as in other things, what struck them most +was the light it threw on life. An artist stops before +a landscape, not to analyse the chemical action of the trees, +or to discourse on the species of grasses, but to seize the +charm of an effect of light, of a picturesque undulation of +the ether; at another time, when the light falls differently, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_440">[440]</span>the very same landscape would not even attract his attention, +because its garb would be less striking. We do not well +understand the synthetic religion of these women, we men +of “fluid and curt speech,” habituated to analyse everything +with mathematical precision—and not to look for grand +opera at St. Paul’s. The practised eye of a Renaissance +princess allowed itself to be caressed by tints, while our +own seeks geometrical outlines. For the Italians and their +friends to love was to pray:⁠<a id="FNanchor_410" href="#Footnote_410" class="fnanchor">[410]</a> so that in the <i>Heptameron</i> +conversations half philosophic, half ribald, come naturally +between mass and vespers, and Louise of Savoy mingles +with them a feeling homily, or reads a passage from St. +John, “meat so tender ... full of love.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_411" href="#Footnote_411" class="fnanchor">[411]</a></p> + +<p>The reader will understand how difficult it is to state +with any exactitude the developments of such a doctrine; +they were different with different people, and are to be felt +rather than explained. We have not to do here with +students shut up in a smoke-filled hall to construct their +theses; it is a question of ladies, very great ladies, +habituated to the most perfect liberty of action, and permitted +by their rank and intelligence to hold direct communion +with God, by vision, by intuition of love. They +are recognisable by this characteristic. In her work the +<i>Adoration of the Magi</i> (a subject well worthy of her pen) +Margaret of France gives us her formula: “To initiate oneself +into the divine verities, first by philosophy, then by +intuition, then by inspiration.” Do not mistake, this is not +illuminism or pride: it is simply candour. These noble +ladies do not grudge their pity to human misery, though +the sight of wretchedness is shocking to their nerves; but +they set themselves high above these miseries, just as they +do above discussion. Their religion is distinguished. They +live on sovereign heights, where they have no trouble from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_441">[441]</span>men and are in touch with their goal. God is the first link +in a chain, and man the last. As Gerbert said: “In matters +of action, mankind holds the first place: in pure speculation, +God comes first.” It is meet to follow God rather than man. +And those who are able to mount high are compelled by +conscience to go to the fount and origin of things, and look +ideas square in the face. In this respect the truly primitive +women of the 16th century are sharply distinguished from +their daughters of the 18th, whom it is natural to compare +to them. The exquisite and delightful woman of the 18th +century was very superficial: she loved life and the world +for their own sake. A few hours before she died Madame +Geoffrin,⁠<a id="FNanchor_412" href="#Footnote_412" class="fnanchor">[412]</a> hearing at her bedside a discussion on the best +means of securing general happiness, roused herself once +more to exclaim: “Add the diligent quest of pleasure, a thing +not sufficiently attended to.” A profound and true saying, +remarks D’Alembert, and one that Plato himself might have +envied. The 16th-century women had a less sparkling wit, +but a much more strongly marked temperament. They +were concerned only with brotherly love, and instinctively +recoiled from intolerance in any form; they wished to fuse +the church with the ideal; to them every idealist was +religious; but they also carried into the world the pursuit +of this high aim of their aesthetic religion—to live for the +soul, for God, to live a secret inward life along with the +actual life. We may justly praise their piety, their charity +towards the poor; and yet they were a mixture: external +observances were repugnant to them as being material and +obligatory; they loved the large philosophical faith, God +and His works.</p> + +<p>Here there is more than ever reason to speak of a “stork-love.” +What platonism had attempted, religious idealism +effected—the superposition of two different worlds. It was +vain to expect these great ladies to throw any ardour into +terrestrial controversies: Renée of France made her protégé +Richardot a Calvinist or a Catholic bishop, indifferently. +The material mechanism of divine grace appeared to them +to have been devised for the vulgar, and to be of a quite +relative truth. They did not see why the delicate ray +of grace, the impalpable word of consolation, before it could +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_442">[442]</span>penetrate into the dark haunts of wretchedness, should necessarily +have to borrow the form of a bearded monk or an +unkempt parson splashed to the chin. They would rather +hear with their own ears that still small voice which said to +St. Theresa: “I will not henceforth that ye commune with +men, but only with angels.”</p> + +<p>Priests were men appointed to the service of the Church, +and not demi-gods. Some were pleasant and cultured, just +as there were excellent abbesses; but to spend one’s life in +the vestries, or not to be able to move a finger without +referring to one’s clergyman, struck Margaret as sheer insanity. +For herself, she would rather talk with a sceptic or +a clever atheist than with a vulgar parson, because after all +the atheist would aid her to accomplish her end, namely, +to draw near to God through the Beautiful. Nothing was +more natural than to love God and abase oneself in deed +and in truth before Him, God being intelligence and King +of kings; but what was the good of intermediaries, often +so gross? Clément Marot, who saw through Margaret with +wonderful acumen, defines her as “woman in body, man in +heart, angel in head.” The friends of the princess declare +that “from the age of fifteen she seemed directly inspired by +the spirit of God, in eyes and features, in gait and speech, in +all her actions.”</p> + +<p>The Bishop of Meaux assures her that by reading a +translation of the Gospels he offers her she will be as a +holy apostle and will receive directly the Spirit of God, +just as well, he adds, “as when we” (that is, the common +herd) “receive Him in the Eucharist.”</p> + +<p>Thus the women aimed at being angels and the word of +God. In this lofty mysticism, they exhibited a striking +contrast to the easygoing and lukewarm Catholicism of the +mob.</p> + +<p>Some of their writings permit us to recognise how, little +by little, this great religious work was accomplished in their +emotional life.</p> + +<p>Vittoria Colonna has left us the type of the final prayer +of the Renaissance: a petition for peace and happiness in this +world and the next.⁠<a id="FNanchor_413" href="#Footnote_413" class="fnanchor">[413]</a> It is an aspiration, a strain of sweet +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_443">[443]</span>and tender music, a melody of Gounod, rather than a +doctrine: it is the result of the co-operation of souls in one +common striving toward the most perfect joys.</p> + +<p>We have under our eyes the works of three Frenchwomen +who, though contemporaries, show us the progressive stages +of this co-operation.</p> + +<p>The first, Gabrielle de Bourbon, Dame de la Trémoille, +still preserves in her <i>Château</i>, “a feminine work,” as she +says, a character of morality rather than art. The spirit +which will renew everything, chisel everything, which is +gaily to open doors and windows, has not yet come by. +Within, no doubt, there are ravishing delights—apostolic +visions, prophets and sibyls on the vaulted arches as at the +Sistine; angel’s food distributed amidst a floating radiance +of light! But all is regular, inflexible, and severe; the +contemplative heart has begun by employing the besom of +discipline.</p> + +<p>And externally this castle of the Christian soul, somewhat +resembling the Alhambra, shows a rugged and bristling +front. Love fires the cannon on the ramparts, whilst +Inspiration surveys the country round, and in the tiny +garden of Felicity where flows the stream of Pity, good +souls gather exquisite white flowers, luscious fruits, and +leafy branches.</p> + +<p>In another work, the <i>Spiritual Journey</i>, a story of the +adventures of a soul wandering upon the earth, Gabrielle +undisguisedly raises her standard against the new divinities—Presumption +who loves flowery paths; Self-love, hostile +to terrible dogmas; Vain-glory, uncommonly like Margaret +of France. Poverty and Virginity are still her friends, and +she gives a naïve, heart-breaking, monstrous description of +the world—a giant with innumerable hands, each quivering +tentacle of which, at odds with the rest, brandishes some +weapon, a book or a sword. Charity defeats this monster, +Faith triumphs. Gabrielle de Bourbon, as she herself said, +wrote for the simple; she did not plume herself on “understanding +Holy Writ.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_444">[444]</span></p> + +<p>But ere long comes a genuine noblewoman, Catherine +d’Amboise, lady of Beaujeu, who in her <i>Devout Epistles</i> +utters this loyal cry:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">J’ay transgressé tous les commandemens ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour abréger, aucun je n’en excepte.⁠<a id="FNanchor_414" href="#Footnote_414" class="fnanchor">[414]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">She has only one noble thing left to her—her heart; and that +she offers to God. Then follow effusions in a lofty strain, +full of antiquity, biblical allusions, “sibyl songs,” a plea for +mercy and love; and Christ puts on her finger the ring of +peace, benediction, and remission of sins; He becomes her +spouse and lover, and for guardian gives her an angel. +With Catherine d’Amboise we win to a wondrous pleasant +and aristocratic paradise, composed of “fair manors and +castles.” To the 15th-century woman has succeeded the +<i>biblienne</i>.</p> + +<p>Margaret gives the last upward impulse above the +anonymous and often ill-thought-out work of the crowd: +to prove her independence, she adopts an abstract and lofty +aim.</p> + +<p>Not that everything is admirable or even comprehensible +in her mystical works. Her correspondence with Briçonnet, +where, in interminable letters of eighty or a hundred +pages, she twaddles about “confection of tribulations,” “old +skins” of the spirit; various writings of hers—<i>The Mirror +of the Sinful Soul</i>, the <i>Strife between Flesh and Spirit</i>, the +<i>Orison to Jesus Christ</i>, the <i>Orison of the Faithful Soul</i>—these +are very curious, precisely as types of incomprehensibility +and the despair of reason. They do not evidence a +very placid psychology: “Worse than dead, worse than +sick”—such is the author, according to her mottoes; there +were days when she hated doctrine of any kind, the Bible, +the Gospels included.⁠<a id="FNanchor_415" href="#Footnote_415" class="fnanchor">[415]</a></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_445">[445]</span></p> + +<p>She learnt the death of her brother intuitively, in a +dream. From that time the world crushed her; mystics +know that thus “the incorporate soul makes her course for +the port of salvation.” Margaret’s mysticism became a +blind infatuation,⁠<a id="FNanchor_416" href="#Footnote_416" class="fnanchor">[416]</a> a drunkenness of love, in which divine +and human elements were commingled,⁠<a id="FNanchor_417" href="#Footnote_417" class="fnanchor">[417]</a> and which manifestly +had for object to banish from sight many of the +miseries of life.</p> + +<p>It is in the book entitled <i>The Triumph of the Lamb</i> that +we see best delineated the Christ of her heart, her divine +Saviour and emancipator, shedding a radiance above the +grimy factory of life. Death itself becomes lovely, and, +like a “courteous friend,” opens the gates of heaven to well-nigh +all mankind.⁠<a id="FNanchor_418" href="#Footnote_418" class="fnanchor">[418]</a></p> + +<p>Mankind has a right to clemency, unstinted, immeasurable; +in fashioning us of a somewhat coarse clay, Heaven +did not mean to make us all unhappy. Margaret has a +horror of death.⁠<a id="FNanchor_419" href="#Footnote_419" class="fnanchor">[419]</a> But Love reassures her, helps her to +pierce the mystery. Not as an avenger, but as a lamb will +Christ render justice at the Judgment Day. Men were +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_446">[446]</span>complaining of the facility of indulgences; Margaret settles +the question off-hand; she proposes a general pardon.</p> + +<p>Of mysticism, as well as of love, there were already +innumerable varieties known. Perugino, Averulino,⁠<a id="FNanchor_420" href="#Footnote_420" class="fnanchor">[420]</a> the +preachers of the royalty of Christ, St. Bernardin of Sienna, +Savonarola, and many another, carried on the great traditions +of Italy. France too, though more stubborn, had her mystics, +especially at Rouen and in Picardy, where the palinodists,⁠<a id="FNanchor_421" href="#Footnote_421" class="fnanchor">[421]</a> +elects souls, magistrates, municipal counsellors, had long +been singing praise to the Virgin and reviling the body:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La chair, quoy? nourriture mortelle!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’esprit d’amour nourrit le cueur fidèle!⁠<a id="FNanchor_422" href="#Footnote_422" class="fnanchor">[422]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">These palinodists were men of intelligence and ardour. +Asking nothing of the clergy, whom they riddled with +pungent epigrams, they had recourse to worldly means to +spread their ideas, such as competitions and dramatic performances. +They resembled the women in their excessive +cult of the intellect, their unceasing itch for writing and +speaking, their taste for mystery and incognito. It was the +same in regard to their impressions: they desired to bring +into relief the true life of Christ, that is, the mystic and +inward life which they held the rude apostles to have overmuch +neglected. Assuredly theirs was a noble aim. +Margaret was on excellent terms with the palinodists. Yet +the mysticism of platonism was different, implying a much +more general abstraction: it mistrusted the senses, the +material form, desirous of seeing the reality of things, the +essence of God. Among the prelates it gave rise to that +exquisite academy of devotion and prayer, the Oratory of +the Divine Love, which met at Rome in the church of SS. +Silvester and Dorothea Transtevera during the pontificate +of Leo X., and which numbered among its members sixty +priests and prelates, Sadoleto being one of the chief. They +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_447">[447]</span>gave all their thoughts to the reformation of morals, and among +them prayer rose delicately to Heaven, like those wreaths of +fire the Bible shows us on altars pleasing to the Lord.</p> + +<p>Feminine mysticism was broader: its aim was to develop +happiness, in other words, to lead us to the summit of an +ideal world, full of love and purity. Love, having lost the +egotistic and licentious character without which the French +mind refused to understand it, having become an aspiration +for the French as well as for the idealist races, represented +the very substance of the world; it was divine and eternal; +it gathered up all things, even men, into the heart of God. +The Gospel was only the practical expression of this high +natural law, of which the pagans long ago had caught +glimpses, and to which Seneca ventured darkly to allude +when he wrote, “When, tell me, will you love one another?” +The Gospel was the sum and crown of human wisdom. +Hence Erasmus wished to canonise Virgil, and to add to the +Litany a new response—“St. Socrates, pray for us.” Plato +was quoted in the pulpit; Anne of France, who was orthodoxy +itself, took pains to mingle the philosophers with the +Fathers. Trajan was regarded as a model; Louis XII. and +Guevara, the tutor of Charles V., lived on the maxims of +Marcus Aurelius.</p> + +<p>They aimed at a sort of natural mysticism, the object of +which would be to express the essence of mundane things. +“It is God,” said Rivio,⁠<a id="FNanchor_423" href="#Footnote_423" class="fnanchor">[423]</a> “who giveth to the sky its splendours, +to the trees their shade, to the cheering vines their +clusters and fruit. It is He who clotheth the earth with +fruitful crops, who causeth the trees to bud and the crystal +streams to gush forth, who covereth the meadows with a +carpet. Wherefore to hunt and fish and reap, to fulfil all +the conditions of life,—this is to be a Christian.”</p> + +<p>No one had any bent towards naturalism, or imagined +that everything that is natural should be regarded as good +or beautiful; on the contrary, men wished to elevate and +improve Nature, even to excess. Your vineyard, say, always +yields bad wine; M. Zola would tell you to drink it, +Rousseau to drink water: but these folk of the Renaissance +would tell you to distil it into brandy. From Nature they +wished to borrow certain quasi-mystical powers which exist +in her in force. Hence this mysticism did not, like that of St. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_448">[448]</span>Theresa, lead to the deliberate rejection of all earthly +satisfactions, to the adoration of death, suffering and humiliation. +<i>Carpe diem</i> was their motto, as it was of Horace and +Lorenzo de’ Medici. They left to Albert Dürer and other +Germanic artists the monopoly of dances of death and +maidens carried off in the arms of skeletons.</p> + +<p>“For loss of servitors we need not despair, for many +others are to be had”: so spoke the fair ladies, not out of +indifference, but out of fear lest the mournful idea should +trouble their hearts: for “there is none of us, if she regards +her loss, but has occasion for deep sorrow.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_424" href="#Footnote_424" class="fnanchor">[424]</a> When we ask +history or romance or the drama to carry us for a time out +of ourselves, do not we too seek, in reality, the satisfaction +of forgetting death—perchance, of forgetting life?</p> + +<p>That was the very human root of this mysticism. In +turning back to the page of love, no one wished to feel under +the fingers the page of death. Far from forgetting life, +they affirmed it: the secret of life was life itself. They +mocked at death. A skeleton at the feast, a spectre at the +ball, were subjects for laughter. Like Boccaccio, Machiavelli +sets his gayest stories in a horrible framework of pestilence; +rich folk laugh and make love under cool leafy shades; and +their excuse is that, but a few paces off, death is grinning at +them. Such is the key to this novel mysticism. It is a +tragic dance of fragilities; but the dancers see nothing +fragile. They forge for themselves an artificial weapon, +they prefer beauty to truth.</p> + +<p>It followed from the same ideas that they held direct +communion with God. The tender worship of the Virgin, +fallen a little out of use, no longer throve except stealthily in +a corner, like the beautiful plant which the Flemish painters +loved to represent in a crystal vase.⁠<a id="FNanchor_425" href="#Footnote_425" class="fnanchor">[425]</a> Communication with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_449">[449]</span>heaven was opened by means of conspicuous semaphores, +though these unhappily were irregular and far apart. +St. Theresa, like a genuine freelance, might speak of storming +heaven, and carrying its successive redoubts one by one; +but the philosophic idea was different—a simple canter in a +friendly country. On some beautiful day in May, when +Nature, overflowing with love, scatters her gifts in careless +profusion, a certain Knight, Beau-Doulx by name, sets off +among the flowery meadows to conquer this “noble and +delectable castle of Love,” all sapphires and emeralds from +base to turret. He bears with him no cannon, no scaling +ladders. Arrived beneath the walls, he sinks on his knees +and declares his love. That is all. That is “the realm of +Paradise, wherein is love divine.”</p> + +<p>Nature hails God in us, and reveals God to us. The song +that rises from the sea soars even to the stars; the luxuriant +warmth of the air is a symbol of mercy. Such a temple was +better loved than the frantic mysticism of certain northern +cathedrals. As for the rites of this worship, they were +those of platonism. Salvatorio wrote a <i>Treasury of Holy +Scripture after the Poems of Petrarch</i>: Fra Feliciano +Umbruno offered to the ladies of Rome a <i>Dialogue on the +sweet death of Jesus Christ</i>, this too inspired by Petrarch. +Fra Malipiero presented the famous <i>Spiritual Petrarch</i>, +which appeared at Venice in 1536 and ran into the tenth +edition. The spiritualisation of sonnets was effected easily +enough: but anyone who wished to amend the <i>canzoni</i> and +miscellaneous poems had a troublesome task.</p> + +<p>The religion of love found an incomparable interpreter +in Correggio. Correggio is <i>the</i> painter of women. How +wonderfully he translates their dream of love and confidence, +in harmony with the code of aesthetic Christianity! In +his <i>Saint Jerome</i>, the Virgin is beautiful to look upon, of a +human, piquant, smiling beauty; but the whole effect of the +picture is derived from the face of the Magdalene, and her +intensely caressing attitude: it is the apotheosis of the +caress! Never, perhaps, has love all-embracing, soft as +velvet, been so warmly expressed: prayer, passion, all is +cast into the shade by this contemplation of pure love, this +contact, enchanting, radiant, of two beings united by a +magnetic tenderness. The child Jesus has behind Him an +angel representing heaven; before Him St. Jerome holds an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_450">[450]</span>open book; but He turns about, bestowing His gracious +smile upon the Magdalene, whom He prefers to all human +learning because she is Love.</p> + +<p>At the Louvre, too, the <i>Mystic Marriage</i> fills one’s heart +with a golden, sunny vision. “It is impossible,” says Vasari, +“to see more beautiful hair, lovelier hands, a more natural +and charming colouring.” In this ardent “conversation” +life seems to be suspended: “The will is changed to love, +the memory appears to have vanished, and the understanding +has ceased to act.”</p> + +<p>Devotion is often accused of being tiresome. It is true +that God has no revelation to make to Himself; He is the +immortality of the known. The women who lived on such +lofty ideas readily assumed a profound and pensive air, +an expression of intelligence and trenchancy rather than +tenderness. Like the wounded soldier at Austerlitz of +whom Tolstoï speaks, they awoke in the vast silence of the +night, alone with the clear bright stars.</p> + +<p>Where men would have brought their pride, women +brought their sweetness. Their language was a little +involved and “precious.”</p> + +<p>Yet we can see from the correspondence of Margaret of +France and Vittoria Colonna, how sincerely they thought +themselves happy. These two ladies never saw each other. +Vittoria writes that while awaiting the infinite happiness of +a meeting, she ventures to reply to the “high and religious” +words of the princess, so as to act as balance-weight to that +celestial timepiece. “In our day, the long and difficult +journey of life compels us to have a guide; it seems to me +that everyone can find in his own sex the most appropriate +models.... I turned towards the illustrious ladies of +Italy to find examples for imitation, and though I saw +many virtuous among them ... yet one woman alone, and +she not in Italy, seemed to me to unite the perfections of +the will with those of the intellect; but she was so high +placed and so far away that my heart was filled with the +gloom and fear of the Hebrews when they perceived the fire +and glory of God on the mountain-top, and durst not draw +near because of their imperfection.”</p> + +<p>In this first letter the marchioness contents herself with +glorifying the humility and charitableness of her noble +correspondent, whose daughter she humbly calls herself, or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_451">[451]</span>better, her John Baptist, her Forerunner: these personal +compliments always play an important part in feminine +diplomacy, full of splendid courtesy. She speaks of her +group of friends; she often enjoys, she adds, the conversation +of Pole, who “is always in the heavens, and only +descends to earth to do service to others,” and that of +Bembo, one of the labourers of the eleventh hour, perhaps, +but eminently worthy, by reason of his ardour, of the wages +of the first; and all these friends of hers unite in contemplating +from afar this queen of gems, so rich in radiance +that she enriches others.</p> + +<p>In another letter Vittoria grapples more closely with the +burning questions of the day. She affirms her respect for +reason, but she prefers religion, “the supreme perfection of +our soul,” the perfect beauty. For the better unfolding of +her theme she encloses a copy of her sonnets.</p> + +<p>This copy, though addressed to the sister of the king, was +intercepted in the post by order of the Constable de Montmorency. +Whether he read the sonnets or not is very +doubtful; in any case he judged them to be pernicious stuff, +and seized the opportunity of indulging in the luxury of an +explosion. He only gave up the book after a stormy +scene at the king’s table.</p> + +<p>Vergerio,⁠<a id="FNanchor_426" href="#Footnote_426" class="fnanchor">[426]</a> the amiable prelate who was the pope’s nuncio +in France, had great difficulty also in meeting Margaret. +How ample was his reward when he succeeded! His first +audience, which lasted not less than four hours, seemed to +him far too short to satisfy his “spiritual enthusiasm.” He +lost not a moment in committing to paper all that had been +said, in order to show to what altitudes of Grace and divine +Love “mounts the spirit of the queen.” But how was it +possible to transfer to paper so much spontaneous eloquence, +so much fervour, so potent a charm?... It was not a very +comfortable conversation. Margaret could speak no language +but French, and as Vergerio was hardly at home in it, she +spelt out her words, so to speak, mingling with them as +much Latin and Italian as she could. For all this, when +Vergerio took his leave, in his ravishment he fancied he saw +the glaciers of the human heart melting under the hot +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_452">[452]</span>beams of faith, and breathed the wonderful breath of God. +Whence came this miracle? “Praise be to Jesus Christ, +who in our troublous times hath raised up such intelligences—here +the queen of Navarre, of whom I speak; at Ferrara +the lady Renée of France; at Urbino the lady Leonora +Gonzaga,⁠<a id="FNanchor_427" href="#Footnote_427" class="fnanchor">[427]</a> both of whom I have seen here, with whom I +conversed for several hours, and who seemed to me endowed +with eminently lofty minds, filled with charity, all on fire +with Christ; at Rome the lady Vittoria Colonna—to speak +of none but your own sex.” And he repeats that the thorns +in the Saviour’s vine are fast disappearing; thanks to +women, he sees the radiance of light and peace.</p> + +<p>Vergerio continued to converse with the queen of Navarre +with ever-renewed joy. One is almost ashamed to transcribe +with a cold pen phrases so ardently trustful and +palpitating: “I have in sooth no greater wealth, no greater +consolation than this queen; she has words of infinite +warmth, and marvellous means for uplifting to the service +of God hearts that are cold and dead. It happens that for +eighteen days I did not appear at court, but dwelt in sweet +retirement, busy cultivating my soul and sowing within +myself the word of God. Then went I where the queen’s +glowing charity was found, and I felt that she caused the +seed to spring up and wax strong and bring forth fruit, in +other words the knowledge of God and the fervent desire to +serve Him, and Him alone.”</p> + +<p>Such were these lofty spirits, so enthusiastic for the +beautiful. They lived on poetry in a sphere apart, cheering +one another, mutually calmed and comforted; it was after +her interviews with Vergerio that Margaret declared herself +a platonist and shook off the yoke of the court. No one +hoped, of course, that the whole world would chime in +tune; they well knew that when these abstractions +filtered down to the mob they would become materialised, +and love itself would ofttimes become tainted. But was it +not a beautiful thing to sow love broadcast with no hope of +reaping, and to go forth like angels of God to pour a little +dew on the parched ground?</p> + +<p>This was not destined to prevent the wars and +massacres of the 16th century; but a glance at the map +will show that Catholicism triumphed in the countries +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_453">[453]</span>where women triumphed; fog and beer and men turned +Protestant.</p> + +<p>Further, these ideas, crushed as people fancied them, +reappeared by degrees everywhere, as from the effect of a +resistless germination. From them sprang the 18th century; +with them our own age also, for all its matter-of-fact bent, +is still entirely impregnated.</p> + +<p>And Sadoleto the friend of Melanchthon, the liberal-minded +Contarini, the amiable Reginald Pole so much +influenced by Vittoria Colonna, Flaminio,⁠<a id="FNanchor_428" href="#Footnote_428" class="fnanchor">[428]</a> Vergerio, would +all smile at certain reconciliatory schemes of to-day.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_454">[454]</span></p> + +<h3 class="nobreak" id="BOOK_III_CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI<br> +<span class="smaller">RELIGIOUS INFLUENCE (<i>Continued</i>)</span></h3> + +</div> + +<p>“I would a thousand times rather believe in and pursue an +ideal, even though too high, than miss or betray it,” said +Montalembert. Many persons in the 16th century were of +a different opinion. They deemed aesthetic religion too +frivolous or too worldly a thing, above all, too chimerical. +The adversaries of the religion of beauty split up into two +categories: some opposed it from reasoned conviction, +others from social jealousy and incompatibility of temper.</p> + +<p>The first, of whom Alberto Pio⁠<a id="FNanchor_429" href="#Footnote_429" class="fnanchor">[429]</a> + and Budé,⁠<a id="FNanchor_430" href="#Footnote_430" class="fnanchor">[430]</a> eminent and +estimable men, may serve as specimens, scouted the very +idea of any connection between philosophy and religion, +between aesthetics and morals; in their opinion religion did +not tend to satisfy the reason, nor beauty to purify the conduct. +The suggested reconciliation was to them an ill-disguised +reversion to paganism, and in practice led to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_455">[455]</span>scandals like the representation of Machiavelli’s <i>Mandragora</i>⁠<a id="FNanchor_431" href="#Footnote_431" class="fnanchor">[431]</a> +at the Vatican.</p> + +<p>As we have seen, persons of this same opinion had already +demonstrated the irrationality and inadequacy of reasoning; +they had thereby relieved the world of a serious embarrassment; +sensibility was henceforth to be the sole guide of +life. But now we find others wishing to destroy this +sensibility also, and to strip us of everything. At the idea +that love is born of beauty such people veil their faces, and +beg us to take away this thing they cannot bear to look +upon, that is neither moral nor religious!</p> + +<p>Assuredly it is impossible to commend everything in the +Roman movement. Far from it! There is only too large a +scope for criticism. Aestheticism was carried too far: it was, +for example, a singularly wild notion to consider the building +of St. Peter’s at Rome a social necessity of the first importance, +and to sacrifice a part of the Catholic world to the desire of +completing the Vatican. Antiquity, to be sure, evoked a +quite exclusive enthusiasm, and it was singular to see the +headquarters of Christianity going crazy about Pomponius +Laetus, calling him “the glory of the age,” “Caesar,” because +he was unearthing pagan catacombs. Not that mythology, +as then cultivated, aimed at bringing back a real, lively +faith in the Olympian deities! Isis, Apollo, Venus, on the +walls of the Vatican or the churches, stood only for symbols +and types of philosophy: Jean Bouchet very happily styled +them “the aristocracy of the world.” Men thought, with +Plato, that the beauty of things can only be gauged by comparing +them with an eternal type; as Margaret of France +said: “The Beautiful is seen in all forms of beauty.” +Further, morality, without divorcing itself officially from +Christianity, sometimes was pretty completely disjoined +from it; to many people virtue consisted in wearing a good +coat and keeping up a good style. Montaigne, Aretino, and +Benvenuto Cellini, for example, passed for virtuous men.</p> + +<p>To protest against this paganism was a right and proper +thing. But was it necessary to forbid Christianity to secure +a rational appreciation, and even to win our love by working +upon our emotions? An ineradicable instinct prompted the +Latin races to believe through love; “Italy will be +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_456">[456]</span>un-christianised, not Calvinised,” as Azeglio admirably said. +To invest worship with mundane pomp and circumstance is +as profoundly human an idea as it is to keep the clock at a +railway station a few minutes behind time.</p> + +<p>The Middle Ages, however, kept strict time: materialistic +as they were, they erected cathedrals, the baser instincts +avenging themselves by affixing to the cornices, or even to +the porches, in full view, ornamental details cynically +human. The Renaissance, for all its mysticism, was not +partial to the dim religious light, or the mysteries shadowed +in lofty arches far out of eyeshot; it loved clearness, daylight, +illumination. It built only châteaux, even to the +glory of God. St. Peter’s at Rome is a château; the eye +detects nothing abnormal in it; and there man feels himself +at home.</p> + +<p>It was thus with the religion of prelates and women. It +was lofty, sometimes loftier than Gothic arches, but so +broad, so clear, so full of unity, of so human a hospitality +that no one felt he had to do with the unknown, the +unfathomable. It was a reflection of life itself, but with +added brilliance and decoration; it aimed at attracting man, +when he had performed his material functions in eating, +drinking, loving his wife, to a banquet of spiritual fare +and spiritual love. We look to women to quicken our +perception. In spiritual concerns the parts are reversed.</p> + +<p>Now, men spent their lives in an atmosphere of materialism +and unbridled sensuality. Melin de Saint-Gelais +declared nudities “heavenly objects, worthy of altars.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_432" href="#Footnote_432" class="fnanchor">[432]</a> +Coyness was unknown. “Happy the people who have +only God to deal with,” cries a young lady: “with men it +is enough to save appearances.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_433" href="#Footnote_433" class="fnanchor">[433]</a> In the view of many, +morality found only an insufficient sanction in religion; the +third Margaret of France wrote, with a modesty unhappily too +well justified: “Some consider that God holds the great in +his special protection.” And on the other hand, the laws of +society did not always oppose a very solid barrier: it was +easy to a noble lady to override them. Renée of France +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_457">[457]</span>took a manifest pleasure in running atilt against popular +conventions; Marot had only to set the mob against him as +“a lascivious pagan,” to merit her indulgence. Apparently +she was even tempted to believe a daughter of France +so superior to humanity at large that she could have only +lovers.</p> + +<p>However, it was sincerely believed that, for people of +refinement and distinction, good style and good taste +rendered many artistic things inoffensive. So (to select one +example among a thousand) no one was shocked when the +Abbé de Maupas gave his approval to some neat verses in +which Gilles d’Aurigny boasted his conquest of a “sweet +pale Margaret.” The gentle spotless Vergerio very gaily +accepted the title of “bishop of Aretino.” Margaret compliments +her brother on retaining his faith through all his sin. +Does she praise the sin? Not at all: but she praises the +king for what is praiseworthy, the remaining a Christian. +Vergerio would have shrunk with horror from certain of +Aretino’s books, but he considered the man as a force, of as +much importance as any diocese, while many of the episcopal +boroughs contained as many vices with less wit. And he +tries to coax some good thing out of this diocese. On the +same principle Margaret set Vauzelles to translate some of +Aretino’s devotional works. Indulgence thus shown in +practice had no modifying effect on principles, and besides, +men were particularly careful not to extend it to the +masses. Among them, as everybody knows, there is no +such thing as sentiment, but only sensations, and with +them, consequently, the fetters of a material morality were +still found serviceable. The same Caterina Cibo who highly +approved Firenzuola’s book on love, severely reproached the +bishop of Camerino for his slackness in reforming the morals +of his clergy, and succeeded in obtaining from the pope a +rigorous brief on the subject.</p> + +<p>In society it happened that pagan sensation and Christian +sentiment all but touched; it seemed prudent, advantageous, +and politic not to accentuate the difference between them. +Many people, like true gourmets, let themselves swing +gently between mysticism and materialism; perhaps it was +just as well not to compel them to decide one way or the +other. It has been well said that “faith has this peculiarity, +that when it has vanished, it influences still: grace +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_458">[458]</span>survives by force of habit from a once living sentiment.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_434" href="#Footnote_434" class="fnanchor">[434]</a> +The logical Germans proceeded to deduce from this spiritual +condition the system of “faith without works.” But folk +remained satisfied with “confidence without works.” It was +in these practical considerations that an answer was found +to Budé’s objections.</p> + +<p>However, Budé was a friend, and sought only to point out +abuses. The real and invincible adversaries of the religion +of beauty, those who hoped to destroy it, came from below. +They were such as society scouted—the vulgar, the superstitious, +the material-minded, the street as against the salon: +in short, the men. When Vergerio went to Germany to +discourse of love, he was answered in a strain that disconcerted +him: the Germans talked politics to him. “I am +tortured,” he cries, “to see the cause of Jesus Christ treated +with so much indignity; it appears to me that to-day +this is not the real explanation of the immense trouble +taken with so many people: it is assuredly only a pretext. +The main thing considered under the cloak of zeal for +Christ is, I believe, nothing but the private interests of +a few individuals.”</p> + +<p>The clergy did not follow the religious lead of the +prelates. The whole of the middle or lower orders among +them, the country parsons, the monks, made common cause, +some in a materialist direction,⁠<a id="FNanchor_435" href="#Footnote_435" class="fnanchor">[435]</a> others as visionaries, against +the philosophic group, the higher prelacy, and the priesthood +of women.</p> + +<p>The monk was a man of different stamp. Margaret +petting Rabelais resembles, if we may be allowed the +expression, a hen mothering a duck. Look at the man of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_459">[459]</span>fustian, whom one pious author liked to call “God’s +nightingale,” there in his pulpit, fist on hip, vulgar, +impassioned, ranting, preaching terrible doctrines with +sonorous voice. The antagonism between him and the +platonist women is easily realised. He did not bother +his head about beauty or love; instead of an amiable +liberality which would suit a sceptical audience, it seemed +as though with his wild declamations he had no other aim +than to quench the embers still smouldering. It was +more than a treason, it was a folly. He did not mince +matters; he reviled the bishops and great ones of the +earth; talk to him of love, he replied with retribution, toil, +eternal torments, the glories of poverty, the agonies of the +animal man. Savonarola himself, so warm and passionate, +so much loved and worthy of love, brandished with scriptural +fervour the great popular weapons, the prophecies and the +wrath to come. In France, Oliver Maillard, Ménot, +Rabelais himself (though misguided) possessed a breezy +eloquence, rugged, turbid, picturesque, censorious, verbose, +nowhit metaphysical, the opposite of the official Ciceronianism:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Il presche en théologien;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais pour boire de belle eau claire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faites-la boire à vostre chien,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Frère Lubin ne le peult faire.⁠<a id="FNanchor_436" href="#Footnote_436" class="fnanchor">[436]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Maillard went so far as to sing songs of his own in +the pulpit! Others indulged in wearisome or tasteless +jests, in the most aristocratic of churches,⁠<a id="FNanchor_437" href="#Footnote_437" class="fnanchor">[437]</a> and before a +queen.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_460">[460]</span></p> + +<p>Ignorant of the world and its refinements, the monks and +parsons applied to distinguished consciences the casuistry of +the suburbs: their morality smacked of the natural man. +It proscribed refined joys: a man should be “an ox or an +ass,” as Savonarola said. Not that the monks were ill-natured: +they were hospitable; they would console an +unhappy wife; they would assist a widow to find a gem +of a son-in-law. But there their understanding of the +feminine nature stopped. For the rest they saw in women +only Satanic lures, false chignons, perfumes, all the fripperies +of which Savonarola had made so magnificent a holocaust +in the great square of Florence! Amiability was quite +beyond them. Fra Inigo, in one of the streets of Toledo, +happened to be walking behind some ladies whose trains +were raising clouds of dust. They good-naturedly stopped +to let him pass. Fancying he was the very pink of +courtesy he said: “I kiss your hands, ladies; proceed, I beg +you: the dust raised by the sheep doesn’t annoy the wolf.” +In the pulpit it was the same; if they spoke of social +necessities, it was like the peasants they were; they preached +poverty and chastity without qualification; they had no eye +for fine shades, but bedaubed the most delicate façades with +their garish colours. “Are you in fit state to die? You +women who display your beautiful bosoms, your necks, +your throats, would you wish to die in your present +condition? And you priests, would you like to die with +your conscience burdened with the masses you have said? +Not four out of a thousand, I believe, would be found +ready. If the last trump here assailed our ears, we should +then see who would respond to its appeal!”⁠<a id="FNanchor_438" href="#Footnote_438" class="fnanchor">[438]</a></p> + +<p>The monastic spirit was indestructible; Spagnuoli⁠<a id="FNanchor_439" href="#Footnote_439" class="fnanchor">[439]</a> and +Du Four carried it into the courts. Adrian VI., coming +between two Medicean popes, cherished this spirit at the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_461">[461]</span>Vatican.⁠<a id="FNanchor_440" href="#Footnote_440" class="fnanchor">[440]</a> During three reigns Francis de Paul remained +faithful to it at the court of France. Once before, as he +passed through Rome, St. Francis had ventured to upbraid +a cardinal lolling in a sumptuous equipage, and the prelate, +bending forward over the door, had replied with a fine and +courtly smile that it was very necessary to inspire the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_462">[462]</span>children of that generation with respect. How much St. +Francis was idolised by the ladies it is beyond us to tell: +in all circumstances of gravity they claimed his intercession, +and yet he did not flatter them. He would never give +audience to them. Women and wealth, said he, are the +two scourges of the Church—and especially devout women: +them he called “vipers.”</p> + +<p>How the world flung back these invectives! Ladies and +prelates vied with one another in mocking at the lower +monastic orders—those shaven scurvy bald-pates who stood +in the way of all spiritual regeneration; ill-bred, material-minded +fellows, uneducated, coarse, fat, full-blooded, brimming +over with a hot, carnal vitality, gay to the core and therefore +prompt to sin, much “more attentive to the life active than +to the life contemplative”—those easy-going vagabonds who, +awaiting eternity, “do not weary their minds overmuch by +perusal of a heap of books,” for fear lest the lore they might +imbibe from them should puff them out with pride, like +Lucifer, and “make them decline from monastic learning.” +The pallid platonists, “crushed under their trappings,” +called them fanatics, hypocrites, misers, gluttons, and above +all filthy and disgusting wretches. It was a singular idea +the Prince da Carpi had—to be buried in a monk’s fustian +frock, and thus “turn monk beyond the tomb.” That was +clean contrary to the mode!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_463">[463]</span></p> + +<p>Margaret lampooned the monks. Alexander VI. called +them tyrants, and declared he would much rather offend the +greatest of kings than the least of these mendicants. At a +carnival at Rome, Bibbiena, galloping along under his mask, +caught sight of a monk, and swooped down on him like a +hawk upon its prey. “I know you,” he cries tragically: +“the provost is after you to arrest you, but I will save you; +I will carry you off to the chancellor’s”; and thereupon he +grabs the unlucky monk, hoists him on to the crupper all +shivering and shaking, and off they go amid the hoots and +yells and gibes of the mob, under a shower of eggs! Soon +Bibbiena was yolk of egg from head to heel,—and was +privately accusing the people of uncommonly bad marksmanship. +At last, when the city had had its fill of laughter, +he deigned to yield to the supplications of his victim and +set him down. Then the other broke a few more eggs +over him, flung off his frock, and with a low bow said, “I +am your groom.” Bibbiena galloped on.</p> + +<p>We need not, of course, take literally the jests of that +period against the monks. There were good and bad +monks; the good were those least in evidence. But Guy +Juvenal, who was an active and honest worker for monastic +reform, winds up his enquiry⁠<a id="FNanchor_441" href="#Footnote_441" class="fnanchor">[441]</a> with a phrase as old as St. +Augustine: “You find in the convents the best and the +worst.”</p> + +<p>However, the adversaries of the monks do them justice +themselves, unintentionally. The company in the <i>Heptameron</i>, +for instance, are much amused at the idea that +some monks may possibly have overheard their ribald talk. +One of the Urbino coterie traces a portrait of the monks +from the outside which leaves us musing. Gross and +plump, he says, they were hypocrites: little mortification of +the flesh there! Emaciated and unkempt, they were false +hounds who distinguished between sins secret and sins +open. Elegant, well-trimmed, scented—these were everything +that was vilest and most antagonistic to platonism! +But what then ought their style to have been?</p> + +<p>Trithemius, however, defined the monastic life in a highly +platonist phrase: “To love is to know.” How came, then, +the idea that monks could not actively mingle in the life of +the world, since St. Ignatius proved the contrary when he +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_464">[464]</span>founded an order in harmony with the new spirit? The +convents of old were peopled with distinguished intellects; +Luther, Calvin, Erasmus, Jean Thenaud, André Thevet,⁠<a id="FNanchor_442" href="#Footnote_442" class="fnanchor">[442]</a> and +a thousand others sprang from these decried lower clergy. +How can we believe that the monks were by their tenets at +odds with aestheticism, when the Italian Dominicans +monopolised the charming art of mosaic in wood and almost +monopolised also that of painting on glass—when St. Mark’s +at Florence, impregnated with the fragrant inspirations of +the Fra Angelicos and the Fra Bartolomeos, stands forth to +this day, in the profound simplicity of neglect, one of the +most delightful refuges of human thought?</p> + +<p>Certain of the more cultured orders had a bent for +learning. And these were expelled; the Jacobins were +harried away by the cardinal of Amboise because they lived +outside their convent walls in order to dance attendance at +court, and neglected the offices of the church. There was a +striking repetition of this quarrel in the 17th century, +between Dom Mabillon, who advocated a learned monkhood, +and the fiery abbé of Rancé, who wished to maintain the +monasteries in the simple practice of piety; and in this +contest also a woman (the duchess of Guise) took part.</p> + +<p>Yet many of the monks, from a godly desire for success, +strove earnestly to suit themselves to the fashion; they +freely cited the Olympian deities and quoted Ovid and +Virgil; in spite of the counsels of Savonarola, they exerted +themselves to please, even though at the expense of “the +divine.” One preacher draws an ingenious parallel between +the Virgin and Isis. Others discourse on beauty or +coquetry, its benefits and perils. Some maintain that the +Virgin was not pretty, because she was lowly and not in +society; others, on the contrary, nourished on the <i>Song of +Songs</i> and other aesthetic authorities, depict her as “clothed +with the sun” according to the phrase in the Apocalypse—dark-skinned +perhaps, being a Jewess, but a woman to be +admired nevertheless!</p> + +<p>But the monks, do what they might, scatter a thousand +flowers of mythology and rhetoric as they pleased, never +acquired the lightness of touch the least of the sonneteers +possessed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_465">[465]</span></p> + +<p>Rabelais opens with a polemic on the merit of women, a +stale subject, but impossible to avoid. He loves the world +and mocks at the “molish monk”; he extols, on the other +hand, the monk “young, gallant, dexterous, bold, adventurous, +resolute, tall, lean, voluminous in chaps, well-favoured +in nose, who smartly patters his prayers and polishes off his +masses ... moreover, a clerk to the finger-tips in point of the +breviary.” He admits both sexes to his abbey of Thelema, +on proof of perfect beauty. It is laved and perfumed, this +modern abbey—full of gold and jewels, of beauteous garments, +of music, of things sumptuous and comfortable, of +books: nothing is wanting there: it has nine thousand +three hundred and thirty-two chapels, and a single swimming +bath under the watchful eye of a statue of the Three Graces. +No one there is irked by theology!</p> + +<p>And yet Rabelais was absolutely at sea in regard to the +platonist spirit, to these mystic abstractions: “To have a +woman is to have her for the use wherefor Nature created +her ... for the delectation of man.” If anyone speaks to +him of the “devotion of love” he laughs and sets himself +down at the table: “Drink,” cries the Sibyl in his ear, +“drink!” Drunkenness—that is mysticism enough for +him! He leaves the convent to become a physician. He +commends none but the natural sciences, and the only one +he cannot away with is the only one that women accept—prophetic +astrology. He was bound to end as a parson!</p> + +<p>Even in Italy, the monk always smacked of his convent. +Folengo⁠<a id="FNanchor_443" href="#Footnote_443" class="fnanchor">[443]</a> spent his life in going in and out of it. His works +also are nothing but one everlasting buffoonery. In his +<i>Moscheid</i>, he appears to depict the conspiracy of monks +against fine ladies—an epic complot of all creeping things—ants, +bugs, spiders—against the winged race of bees and +butterflies. The royal head of the chancellery, Spingard, +sets off on a lean-ribbed mare, bearing splendid letters +under the great seal of the Senate (an image of Liberty and +Justice), in order to entice men into a spider’s web.</p> + +<p>But the Italian monks accepted their rout; they derided +the antiquated “subtleties of St. Thomas,” as well as visions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_466">[466]</span>of God without intermediaries, and hatred of indulgences. +Their solace was a splendid ignorance, Neapolitan, +epicurean.</p> + +<p>In Germany, on the contrary, they triumphed. Despite +the recommendations of Leo X. and the passionate objurgations +of Erasmus, the Germans refused to admire the works +of the hour, the <i>Epistles</i> of Eoban,⁠<a id="FNanchor_444" href="#Footnote_444" class="fnanchor">[444]</a> for instance, in which +the holy women of the New Testament are represented as +writing in the style of Ovid. They waged implacable war +against aestheticism and dilettantism, and the bitterness of +the struggle was only accentuated every time they came in +contact with Rome. Burckhardt, writing his memoirs day +by day about a splendid epoch, is incessantly bemoaning its +corruption: does he perceive the existence of a spiritual +movement at Rome? He sees nothing of liberty but the +scandals; he does his duty like a painstaking but muddle-headed +corporal. Erasmus himself is blind to all but the +humanities, while Luther finds only horrors. They spoke +with different tongues. When Hoogstratten, a German +monk, impeached Reuchlin, who had ventured to defend +certain Jewish books on scientific grounds, Rome was +utterly unable to make out the bearings of this Teutonic +quarrel: she procrastinated, and let the matter drop.</p> + +<p>Ulrich von Hütten tried to Italianise himself at the little +court of the archbishop of Mayence, which claimed to be a +copy of Urbino, but all they did there was to play billiards +and abuse the monks behind their backs. He returned to +Rome in 1516, one of the years of triumph; and there, +son of a sturdy and poor country where the lord ruled and +even robbed people at his pleasure, and where woman +was emphatically the weaker vessel, he, the old and +unknown student, found himself excluded from that superb +court,⁠<a id="FNanchor_445" href="#Footnote_445" class="fnanchor">[445]</a> from those “false gods” as he called them, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_467">[467]</span>relegated to the society of a German financier of low degree; +he had no recommendation but his birth; and he could +barely succeed in finishing his studies in law. He took his +revenge in abuse. “I have human feelings,” he wrote to +Luther.</p> + +<p>With lofty eloquence and burning zeal he preached +the necessary war. The apostles of love had called war a +brigandage. Hütten denounced as brigands the non-combatants—merchants, +advocates, and priests. His motto +was: a beautiful woman, gold, and indolence. In 1522 he +took up arms, and with a magnificent gesture pointed out +the splendid churches to the mob.</p> + +<p>Luther, too, protests against the philosophic spirit. He +checks liberty at a certain point, forbidding the mind to +emancipate itself further. From a thinker he becomes a +man of action, and joins hands with the great lords.</p> + +<p>There was an explosion of anti-feminist and anti-liberal +sentiments—war to the knife. It took place, like all great +moral outbursts, under the banner of religion, because religion +possessed organised battalions, a force ready at call, and, +above all, excellent pretexts with which to veil struggles +entered into on behalf of selfish interests.</p> + +<p>“Talk of household concerns is women’s affair,” said +Luther: “they are mistresses and queens there, and more +than a match for Cicero and the finest orators.... But +take them from their housewifery and they are good for +nothing.... Woman is born to manage a household: ’tis +her lot, her law of nature: man is born for war and polity, +to administer and govern states.” As a model for the +sculptor woman delighted Luther; but that was all; he +denied her physical and moral vigour; the less her moral +strength, the more he congratulates her. Evidently the +intellectual pretensions of feminism constituted in his eyes +an absurdity and a peril. Calvin went still farther. +Whatever was pleasing to women he proscribed, even +aesthetic emotions however inoffensive, however religious +in character. He would hardly deign to believe that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_468">[468]</span>women are really good hands at puddings! Some ladies, in +their noble devotion to his cause, had found a common +prison in the Châtelet; he sent them somewhat grim +felicitations. “If men are frail and easily shaken, the +frailty of your sex is still greater.... God hath chosen +the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and +the weak things of the world to confound the things which +are mighty, and base things of the world, and things which +are despised, to bring to nought those that are great and of +high worth.”</p> + +<p>There was nothing for Luther to invent. Everyone +desired a reformation, like himself. The cardinal of +Amboise and the traditional school wished to try back and +restore discipline; the philosophic women and the Roman +world were for pushing ahead, and saw salvation in the +rejuvenescence of faith through liberty.⁠<a id="FNanchor_446" href="#Footnote_446" class="fnanchor">[446]</a> But neither party +was eager for a schism, above all the Liberals of Rome, who +not only stood for unity, which was their breath of life, but +also gladly washed their hands of pure theology.</p> + +<p>Luther invented nothing. All that he said, and even +more, had been said at Rome for fifty years before him. +He caught certain floating ideas, and fixed those which +had passed into current morality. This was to attack +dilettantism. The gentle feminist and Latinist prelates, +with their tolerance, their openness of mind and intellectual +freedom—Sadoleto, the friend of Melanchthon, +Contarini, Pole, the kindly scholar ruled by Vittoria +Colonna, Flaminio, Vergerio—all deplored the degradation +of their handiwork: they felt as a Raphaelite painter would +feel if he found his dreams copied in a picture by Espinal. +Yet, while lamenting this use made of liberty, they respected +it; at bottom they considered Zwingle and Melanchthon as +two of themselves, and they did not despair of achieving +the triumph of freedom by freedom itself. Such was, as we +know, the policy of Pole at Ratisbon, and of Vergerio at +Worms; but despite the support of Vittoria Colonna, +Margaret of France, and a whole band of enthusiastic and +ardent women, they did not succeed; they were caught +between two fires.</p> + +<p>Women threw themselves into the fray with enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>We might fancy ourselves looking at the Sabine women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_469">[469]</span>of David’s famous picture: daughters of the Roman Church, +very devoted, very judicious (at least in their own opinion), +and yet ready in the name of freedom to defend and love +their adversaries.</p> + +<p>Vittoria Colonna always believed herself as orthodox as +the Holy See itself, and more clever, even when in the heat +of the battle she put forth opinions somewhat questionable.</p> + +<p>She sang the barque of Peter triumphing over all the +billows of the world’s vileness and ill-will, and she received +the papal benediction. But yet, in the great religious +struggle of the 16th century, she could never realise that +genuine difficulties of doctrine were involved; she saw +nothing but a medley of personal intrigues, rivalries, +jealousies, offended susceptibilities, good intentions bungled; +excellent judges have shared her impressions. Entirely new +circumstances had to arise, the fiercest moment of the battle +had to come, before the court of Rome at last repudiated +retrospectively all fellowship with Vittoria. And yet events +seemed to justify the thesis of love—a thesis neither Protestant +nor strictly Catholic.</p> + +<p>Attached to a religion of intuition and sentiment, the +women aimed at saving the guilty by the love of the +innocent; they put into practice a doctrine rather divine +than religious; their scheme was that of Henri IV.: “Those +who unswervingly follow their conscience are of my religion, +and I am of the religion of all who are brave and good.”</p> + +<p>Vittoria Colonna took a very special interest in a celebrated +Capuchin, the ardent and eloquent Ochino, who had +formed at Naples a sort of liberal triumvirate. Somewhat +intoxicated with his popularity and the warm sympathies +of the feminist group, Ochino bitterly attacked Paul III. +about certain measures of reform directed against the +Capuchins. The marchioness hastened to prevent a rupture; +she issued a great liberal manifesto addressed to Contarini, +and at the same time urged Ochino to come to Rome. Paul +smiled at the manifesto, and sent the author a pilgrim’s +passport, for herself and a Capuchin. Ochino, however, +made a rancorous reply. Women put forth indescribable +efforts to bring back to the fold this sheep who was +threatening to wander away! Thanks to the feminine +freemasonry, Ochino, though openly at odds with the +pope, still occupied with brilliance the principal pulpits of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_470">[470]</span>Verona, Venice, Bologna and Mantua, until at last he took +to flight. Vittoria never lost sight of him; at Venice, she +got secret information as to his welfare from Bembo, who +had just been raised to the cardinalate.⁠<a id="FNanchor_447" href="#Footnote_447" class="fnanchor">[447]</a> Later, by means +of anonymous letters in which she told her old protégé that +she was buying his books and getting insight into his +views, flattering him, calling herself his “very obedient +daughter and disciple,” she did her utmost to bring him to +reason. Vain illusion! Ochino was a monk, Vittoria a +noble lady; they belonged to two jarring worlds.</p> + +<p>Margaret of France wished to play the same part, but she +found herself in a more embarrassing situation, and understood +still less, if possible, the real bearing of the struggle. +She dreamed of reforming humanity, not dogmas; she left +to God the task of winning the victory and causing the +“word of truth” to shine forth. Why limit the range of +these dreams? “The Church is a living and active voice, +which is its own explanation, and can always express itself +anew and more abundantly.” Why this procreation of +rigorous dogmas, to the ruin of the feminine apostleship? +Margaret pressed towards synthesis; she wished to know, to +co-ordinate, to succeed. Briçonnet wrote to her smilingly: +“If there were at the end of the earth a learned doctor who, +by means of a single compendium, could teach the whole +art of grammar, besides rhetoric, philosophy and the seven +liberal arts, you would rush to him as a cold man rushes +to the fire.”</p> + +<p>Where then was she to seek the illumination of love and +faith if not in that religious philosophy towards which she +had always inclined? In regard to faith, still more than in +social matters, she felt how good it was to soar into the +heights of abstraction, to go direct to the verities without +troubling about men. How cramping it would have seemed +to her to embody all theology and all faith, both Paradise +and Hell, in one man, in one priest! She smiled on men, +provided they were men of good-will, even if they burnt +others, as Francis I. did, but still more if they were burnt +or in danger of burning, like “that poor Berquin,” or the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_471">[471]</span>chaplain Michel, or the canons of Bourges, or Farel, Vatable, +Gerard Roussel.⁠<a id="FNanchor_448" href="#Footnote_448" class="fnanchor">[448]</a> A man might translate the Thomist +work the <i>Mirror of Ladies</i>; might call himself Lefèvre +d’Etaples, <i>faber ingeniorum</i>, or Dolet; might be a witty +libertine like Pocques or Duval—no matter, he had claims +on her affection, if he was well disposed. She delighted in +hearing Erasmus and Luther discuss the question of free-will. +She looked on at these passages at arms with the +same satisfaction as others witnessed a tourney. In concert +with a lady of influence, she dragged the king to St. +Eustace, to hear a sermon by a whirlwind of a parson who +preached peace and <i>sursum corda</i>. She was anxious to +arrange at Paris a controversial meeting with Melanchthon, +but the Faculty of Theology was not agreeable. The +theologian really after her own heart was the amiable +prelate Nicolas Dangu, who followed her everywhere like a +perfect lover.</p> + +<p>There was yet another man able to please her; a sort of +magian, remarkable in spite of his wild notions, who carried +feminine theology to the pitch of absurdity. This was +Guillaume Postel, a workhouse foundling, a nobody, a +village brat and then a lackey, half oriental, half Italian, +though a Frenchman: a man of eminent learning and +enlightened mind, the fine essence of eclecticism. He wrote +in twelve languages on the most various subjects, in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_472">[472]</span>support of the most diversified theses. He advocated a +universal monarchy which he offered to Francis I., and a +universal religion, genuinely catholic and Roman, the +papacy of which he reserved for himself. He based it upon +the doctrine of infinite love (if need be, a somewhat sensual +love), and upon an aesthetic philosophy which should solve +all mysteries by applying the formula of the Beautiful. +According to this religion, it was for women to regenerate +the world; wherefore he salutes with ardent sympathy the +Mothers of the Church whom he sees budding forth almost +everywhere—More’s daughters in England; Isabella Rosera +in Spain; in Portugal Loysa Sygea who at the age of +twenty-two honoured Pope Paul III. with her advice in +five little-known languages. Paul replied in Latin, Greek +and Hebrew, but excused himself in regard to Chaldean +and Arabic, and instructed Postel to take the pen.</p> + +<p>Postel’s strange work⁠<a id="FNanchor_449" href="#Footnote_449" class="fnanchor">[449]</a> appeared after the death of Margaret +of France, under the auspices of Margaret of Savoy. Postel +announced the discovery of a new Eve, whom he extolled +above all other women, even above Vittoria Colonna. She +was an aged sorceress of Venice, endowed with second +sight, who read through paper as if she had the Röntgen +rays at her disposal. Unhappily the Venetians sent her +about her business.</p> + +<p>To sum up, the women believed and maintained that, in +dealing with the people, the only language they understood +must be employed—that of force; but that for the +elect there was only one real weapon—the matchless one, +liberty. The first of liberties is that of talking nonsense. +It was needful, then, to be able to tolerate freedom in +others, one’s own friends included.</p> + +<p>The practical result of women’s intervention was in +France insignificant enough.</p> + +<p>The long-standing hostility of the French clergy to the +court of Rome had burst out so glaringly in the reign of +Louis XII., it displayed itself so vigorously in the more or +less official dithyrambs of Andrelini, Villebresme, De Mailly, +Gringoire, Jean d’Auton, Seyssel, against the “Roman +profligacy,” that Leo X. became alarmed and very prudently +abandoned in 1515 the real bone of contention, the right to +dispose of benefices. From that moment the Church, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_473">[473]</span>fused with the State, became a national machine, and no +philosophic argument could in future shake an organisation +so solid. Luther gave wide application to the same system +in secularising the property of the clergy. The ruck of men +left the business of dealing with these religious questions to +the higher powers; they held to their creed either out of a +taste for ignorance or from scepticism; the learned were +quite content to smile and call theology a “poesy”—like +vine-growers who sell a certain doctored wine, but keep the +genuine locked up in their cellars—the wine they alone are +sure of because they cut the grapes.</p> + +<p>Liberalism was supported, then, by only a few timid and +affectionate voices, like that of Longueil, the friend of +Bembo and Pole, who said in his <i>Letter to the Lutherans</i>: +“I take no side in the struggle: a simple citizen of the +Christian republic, neither gratitude, nor hate, nor ambition +impels me to one side or the other.” Unhappily, it is not +with lofty language like this that you can rouse a mob!</p> + +<p>Is it necessary to recall what followed? It was at all +points the reverse of what the feminists had hoped. “Our +adversaries say of us,” wrote Calvin, “that we have begun +a sort of Trojan war, on account of women, <i>mulierum +causa</i>.” And in truth, as in the wars of the past, +women had again become to a certain extent the gage of +battle. Religion declared war on platonism, just as +platonism had declared war on religious virginity; instead +of draping women in inaccessibility, people contented themselves +with making matrimony easier. That was a simple +solution of the difficulty. And yet it took longer than +might be supposed to get back to this solid ground of +matter-of-fact. The first woman espoused by an Archbishop +of Canterbury was obliged, it appears, to travel like an +animal in a chest pierced with holes, so as to escape the +buffooneries of the mob; the second went to court; but +when Queen Elizabeth saw her she bit her lips: “What am +I to call you? Madam I cannot, and Mistress I dare not.”</p> + +<p>Catholicism, roused to action, henceforth asked for nothing +except to condemn. It was a sudden drop from the +ideal back again to earth, a dreadful battle of personalities, +a life and death struggle with mythical or literal methods of +exegesis for weapons. Erasmus was already writing: “These +interpreters of the language of Heaven go off like gunpowder, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_474">[474]</span>they frown most terribly. What is Hütten to me? Shall +I prefer the authority of Luther to that of the pope? If we +had not received a pope from Christ, we should have to +invent one.” “They scream and scuffle and insult one +another,” sneers Des Périers, who no longer believed even +in the existence of God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, +concludes Agrippa; blessed are illiterate people like the +apostles; blessed is the ass!</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_475">[475]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONCLUSION">CONCLUSION</h2> + +</div> + +<p>Nothing now remains but to relate the conclusion of the +dream.</p> + +<p>A dream indeed—all these schemes of happiness which +had flashed across the gloomy background of realities like +dissolving views on the wall of a lecture-room: the blue +sea, the blazing sun, appearing but for a moment, left the +blackness deeper still.</p> + +<p>Margaret, the great organiser of happiness, never found +the secret of happiness for herself. Her last days were +vexed with the most poignant sorrows: the court, Calvin, +the people, well-nigh the whole world, cast her off and treated +her as a Utopian dreamer: her husband went the length of +striking her, her daughter was torn from her, and Henri II. +sent her into exile; several of her friends, such as Ramus +and Dolet, were persecuted, alas! from motives far from +sincere: it was, in truth, what she called “the suburbs of +death.” By divine mercy her heart, incessantly a prey to +anxieties, at length parted company with a life that was +anything but love. She perished, poor duchess, at her post +as charitable vendor of love—perished in flames, like the +salamander! No man came to her aid, none even paused +to mourn her. Three young English maidens named +Seymour erected to her a frail monument of verse under the +auspices of her niece; but save for one devoted friend, +Sainte-Marthe, whose enthusiastic funeral oration nevertheless +provoked the liveliest criticisms, men maintained a +remarkable silence. The princess had greatly erred in +scattering her affections and seeking to create a sociology +of the heart. Men do not care for love, they wish to +fear and obey! There is no true love but the love of +an individual.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_476">[476]</span></p> + +<p>The Saint-Gelais, the Héroëts, the Salels, all those +exquisite hearts bubbling over with sentiment when a +smile from Margaret could lead them to fortune, now +remained mute; the drum had to be set a-beating, and then +at length there appeared a volume of elegies, a subtle +fantasia in many tongues, which would have been cold +as ice but for the vigorous beam Ronsard shot into the +midst of the medley—a tiny volume, brilliant, ingenious, +perverse, like the princess’s soul, full of pretty verses all +alike—alike in expression, with the same silvery veneer of +tenderness—the very image of the somewhat phantasmagoric +and unreal romanticism in which some mystic women +delighted: brightness, but no warmth or life. Yes, Margaret +was too fond of these intense lights and shades. A thousand +causeless murmurings woke echoes in her soul. She sustained +herself upon the subtle aroma wafted on certain nights upon +the breath of the quickening world. She never heard the +full, resounding roar of the sea in the darkness, but was +content to see the fringe of foam.</p> + +<p>At the moment when Margaret disappeared, the power of +women in France seemed at its apogee; in reality, it was on +the wane. It was attacked more especially on the moral side. +According to so-called Puritans like Agrippa, the influence +of women resulted in the declension of morals; and what a +declension! Everything converged towards the joys of +the senses; painters could no longer paint anything but +boudoir scenes, architects could only open doors or pierce +balconies, husbands only speculate on the exploits of their +wives, Luther only recommend the reading of stories +(sometimes astonishing) from the Bible.</p> + +<p>Unquestionably, feminine influences, even the purest, +seemed soft and enervating. The energetic spirit of old +France, of the time before Francis I., sprang suddenly to +life again. A country gentleman, Du Bellay, sounded +the charge against Roman cosmopolitanism by claiming +France for the French. At one stroke, as J. M. de Heredia +has said, his clear and picturesque style clean obliterated +Marot, Saint-Gelais, and the whole of Margaret’s school. +Du Bellay would have loved Savonarola: he speaks the +same tongue as the friends of Anne of France; he has +sworn implacable hatred against platonism with its cloying +sweetness, against the languors of petrarchism: “He has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_477">[477]</span>not breathed in the ardour that sets Italy in flame.” +Though he has seen Rome, decadent Rome, he has not +caught her infection; it is she that he blames, and yet +the “bashful squires,” the “exiles from joyance,” and other +vulgar “fantasticals,” whom he flagellates and sends packing +along with the Round Table, were very often French. He +has in his veins the proud and lusty blood of a soldier. +Like Anne of France he worships truth, and candour, and +lucidity.</p> + +<p>Ronsard too, of like blood and ancestry, advocates truth: +“I love not the false, I love the true.” He overwhelms with +his vigorous eloquence all sham loves, “Cupids with curled +love-locks, but broken arrow”; all the platonic cant, so +virtuous in show and so little virtuous in fact: and all +these refinements, and hypocrisies, and conceits on twofold +incorporeal love!</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Aimer l’esprit, Madame, c’est aimer la sottise.⁠<a id="FNanchor_450" href="#Footnote_450" class="fnanchor">[450]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>The voices of these two men stirred up no little commotion +among a large number of the lesser nobility or +quasi-nobility, men of middling station, less sensible to +high-falutin’ than to the spirit of frankness and independence—“gaillards,” +as they styled themselves, who loved +women as they loved “daylight and the sun,” but as men, +by no means with an idea of “playing lackey to a +mistress,” particularly one who was wrinkled, painted, or +terribly accomplished.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">De Junon sont vos bras, des grâces vostre sein,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vous avez de l’aurore et le front et la main,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais vous avez le cœur d’une fière lionne.⁠<a id="FNanchor_451" href="#Footnote_451" class="fnanchor">[451]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">That was their type. And they laughed at the Vadiuses +and Trissotins⁠<a id="FNanchor_452" href="#Footnote_452" class="fnanchor">[452]</a> of their day, at all the fine carollings that +Du Bellay amused himself by imitating, forgotten tunes of +long ago, the faded frippery of the ballroom. What merriment +there is when a belated poet returns from Italy with +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_478">[478]</span>another <i>Amadis</i>! Neither Olivier de Magny nor Baïf will +take the moon for the sun, or love for a mere ornamentation.</p> + +<p>The men of the Pléiade had no love for patronage or +the Medici species. They hated and abhorred the Jews. +Ronsard would have liked to see a fine St. Bartholomew +butchery of them, and could not forgive Titus for wasting +his chances: his gorge rises at the thought of a Leo the +Hebrew⁠<a id="FNanchor_453" href="#Footnote_453" class="fnanchor">[453]</a> figuring among the sages of platonism. Good +decent fellows, they drape themselves in their somewhat +rustic free-and-easiness. From their modest snuggeries they +proudly tell the king “Nature has made us of the same flesh +and blood as you”;⁠<a id="FNanchor_454" href="#Footnote_454" class="fnanchor">[454]</a> they do not hesitate to write to a +Medici lady that the finest royalty is to be “king of oneself.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_455" href="#Footnote_455" class="fnanchor">[455]</a> +They vie with one another in launching their epigrams +against the court, the salons, the ruling women;⁠<a id="FNanchor_456" href="#Footnote_456" class="fnanchor">[456]</a> they sing +of woods and dales, even of the wild untrammelled life—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O bienheureux le siècle où le peuple sauvage</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Vivoit, par les forêts, de gland et de fruitage.⁠<a id="FNanchor_457" href="#Footnote_457" class="fnanchor">[457]</a></div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Ronsard.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_479">[479]</span></p> + +<p class="noindent">They sing praise to Nature their mother, not an abstraction, +an infinity, but immeasurable:⁠<a id="FNanchor_458" href="#Footnote_458" class="fnanchor">[458]</a> the lines of the horizon, it +would seem, spring from their hearts, and like an outspread +fan gather up the whole immensity of life. How remote +this from the gardens of philosophy ordered so delicately, +with their shimmering fountains, their shivering Venuses!⁠<a id="FNanchor_459" href="#Footnote_459" class="fnanchor">[459]</a></p> + +<p>When under a clear Roman sky Du Bellay is sauntering +in pleasant indolence amid all the pomp and luxury of cultured +prelates, enjoying the serene life of country villas; +when, as a background to the picture, behind carriages and +laurels, fashionable women and noble statues, he sees flushed +in a golden haze the forest of towers, and pediments, and +obelisks, and St. Peter’s in all its majesty, the glory of +the world, what does his heart say to him?</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand reverray-je, hélas! de mon petit village</div> + <div class="verse indent8">Fumer la cheminée?⁠<a id="FNanchor_460" href="#Footnote_460" class="fnanchor">[460]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Such was the sentiment of the Pléiade.</p> + +<p>Social philosophy had changed all at once. People were +weary of the idea of the beautiful, and henceforth the wind +was to set towards scepticism: no longer an airy, Ciceronian, +superficial scepticism, the scepticism of Cardan, or of Erasmus, +the jabberer of Latin, the flouter of monks, often +madder than the madmen he derides, but a masculine +aggressive scepticism, which believes in nothing in this +world, not even in love, and is incredulous about the other +world and the immortality of the soul. Yet it feels an +“impression” of the unseen: deprived of an ideal for this +life, it must willy-nilly suppose another apart from mortal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_480">[480]</span>men, and thus yearningly, gropingly, unawares, it takes a +step towards Christ.</p> + +<p>And then those who are still reasoning in this untoward +generation laugh or weep. What a harsh harrowing laugh +is that of Boistuau,⁠<a id="FNanchor_461" href="#Footnote_461" class="fnanchor">[461]</a> who had nevertheless been a friend of +Margaret! Boistuau speaks to us of love, and tells us that +it is a distressing malady of the mind, characterised by +symptoms of agitation and disorder, and exhausting all +its energies, physical and moral. You hear those attacked +by it groaning and dropping words like “coral, alabaster, +roses, lilies”; they have lost all individuality; they sob +and abase themselves and are a continual supplication. +The cause of the malady is obscure; some speak of +magnetism, others of microbes, others of the influence of +the stars.</p> + +<p>It was this kind of scepticism which was destined to lead +us to the morality of Charles IX.’s court.</p> + +<p>Then it was seen how fatal had been the disease of sensibility, +and the profound soul-weariness which resulted +from imaginative pleasures, from the mirage which overlay +the things of life since women had undertaken to interpret +everything through the affections. It had been a woful +error to create an art of sensibility! Sensibility serves to +attract men, but cannot hold or guide them. Women +believe in sensibility because they always consider the +heart of a man as a reservoir of moral strength. It is the +other way about; men for the most part err through +weakness; it is that which renders them inconstant and +vicious. They would gain in steadfastness and goodness if +women, less timid and more active, had strength rather +than tenacity, and a real energy under an appearance of +tenderness.</p> + +<p>An attempt was made, but too late, to show that the +feminist spirit could display energy as well as tenderness.</p> + +<p>A certain Almanque Papillon⁠<a id="FNanchor_462" href="#Footnote_462" class="fnanchor">[462]</a> proposed a new formula of +love, more robust than platonism, and bound, as he thought, +to render men truly “virtuous and not effeminate.” François +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_481">[481]</span>Billon, one of the royal secretaries, wandering one evening +amid the ruins of Rome, felt the touch of grace within +himself. He dreamed of writing a book entitled <i>The +Impregnable Fortress of the Female Sex</i>. He descried and +saluted among the shadows a number of vigorous women—Catherine +de’ Medici and Jeanne d’Albret, more valorous +than any man; Mesdames de Berry and de Nevers, surpassingly +witty; Anne d’Este, duchess of Guise, the eloquence +of fleshly beauty. Billon made his book, but not his +fortune. Under the Valois, many women were not anxious +to be too well defended.</p> + +<p>Ronsard and Du Bellay triumphed, then: and yet, to all +appearance, their triumph troubled them; they hankered +after ideas they had gone about to destroy; they mistrusted +themselves, their friends, their principles. Ronsard had an +admirable genius, but he hesitated between an attempt +to satisfy the popular naturalism with the crudities so +much in request, and an instinctive thirst for an aristocratic +spiritualism. He followed rather than led the movement; +both he and Du Bellay, in spite of their robust breezy +energies, remained more sensitive than they cared to +acknowledge to the charm of classical art and the graciousness +of the salons.</p> + +<p>Further, an eminent woman kept a tight rein on the +Pléiade, and showed them that graciousness was not necessarily +tameness, that there were women’s hearts at once +ardent and strong, that it is possible to retain practical views +of life while “rising wholly towards spiritual things.” This +woman was the niece and goddaughter of Margaret of +France, her spiritual daughter and the faithful guardian +of her fame—the second Margaret of France, duchess of +Berry and afterwards duchess of Savoy.</p> + +<p>She pursued a totally different method from her aunt. +She abandoned philosophy, intuitions, mystic professions of +faith: instead of wearing black she dressed fashionably, +tricking herself out with jewels and brightly-coloured +materials: thus (pardon the detail) she used handkerchiefs +of crimson silk: that formed part of her psychology. Her +household was maintained on a very princely scale, and +directed by the solemn Madame de Brissac, who never +shifted her quarters without taking with her a huge pile of +dresses and especially a terribly big bed, which alone required +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_482">[482]</span>several mules to carry it; the moment the destination +was reached, Madame de Brissac’s bed had to be set up with +infinite precautions, as though it were a shrine. One can +guess how the treasurer, among many other people, grumbled; +but the princess was so kind!</p> + +<p>With this system of simplified morals and external +complexity, Margaret of Savoy exercised extraordinary +fascination over men’s affections. She had adopted as +emblem an olive branch guarded by serpents, with the +motto, “<i>Sagesse, gardienne des choses!</i>” She resembled, as a +poet tells us, “a rose-bud, nourished on celestial dew,” and +received the nickname of Pallas. She was just the woman +to govern vigorous men: a woman of taste and intelligence, +who had a passion for winning love, but with much breadth +and dignity, and without recourse to the spiritual and +material experiments of her aunt. Her secret she had not +gone far to seek, but had found simply in her woman’s +heart; her Machiavelism consisted in a kindliness carried +to perfection, intelligent, active, ingenious—a refined good-heartedness, +which embraced both rich and poor. Des +Périers himself could not refrain from speaking of it in a tone +of respect and sympathy quite unusual in him; Brantôme +has painted the princess in one magnificent phrase: “She +was <i>the</i> goodness of the world.”</p> + +<p>And we must not forget that life had not spared her hard +lessons. The poor woman’s greatest ambition was to root +and ground herself in the family affections, and these +affections had been torn from her one by one with her +heart’s blood. Her father Francis I. had as little to do +with her as possible, indeed, but scantily appreciated her. +She lost her brother Charles miserably enough; at that +period it was not the custom to care for life’s halt and +maimed, yet Margaret sedulously watched over servants who +were out of employment. Her heart was wrapped up in +her sister Madeleine. Madeleine coveted a crown; she went +to Scotland, and six months afterwards came news of her +death. Margaret was so grievously stricken that she +remained in utter prostration, and it was doubtful for some +time whether her health would recover from the shock. +Her aunt Margaret had to intervene to insist on her taking +care of herself, and going for long morning walks in the +park of Fontainebleau.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_483">[483]</span></p> + +<p>Thus, instead of “devouring her heart,” in the forcible +phrase of Pythagoras, this noble princess made existence a +song of grave and warm passion, not a song of love.</p> + +<p>Her disappointments were no fewer, it is true, since it is +a natural law for the heart to be deceived in its hopes, like +the reason; but she found less bitterness and more grief; +the wholesome contact with real suffering, in bringing +out the true power of sympathy, saved her from social +and intellectual extravagances, and bred in her that perfection +of tenderness which no one could resist; for the +world itself loves to be treated seriously.</p> + +<p>The passion Du Bellay felt for her in no way resembles +either the flowery sentimentalism to which princesses had +till then been accustomed, or the coarse freedom of Marot’s +school: it was a constant, sincere, and lasting passion. On +returning from Italy, he exclaims with the same emotion as +at his departure:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Alors, je m’aperçus qu’ignorant son mérite,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">J’avois, sans la connoistre, admiré Marguerite,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Comme, sans les connoistre, on admire les cieux.⁠<a id="FNanchor_463" href="#Footnote_463" class="fnanchor">[463]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">And these are not mere idle words. Many years afterwards, +when it came to Margaret’s turn to leave her country, the +poor poet, struck, no doubt, with presentiments of an +imminent death, shed real tears, “the truest tears that e’er +I shed.”</p> + +<p>The great sense of truth and constancy that Margaret +carried into the concerns of the heart she applied also to the +concerns of the mind. She showed, like Anne of France, how +women were slandered, how they slandered themselves +when they fancied they were incapable of a genuine effort; +instead of pouring out a stream of conversation and writings +like her aunt, and of trusting to her impressionability merely, +she applied herself with all the force of a fine intellectual +health to the most rigorous tasks involved in the discipline +of truth. Many scholars by profession would not have +pushed solicitude for the niceties of truth so far. She got +her reader, for instance, to buy for her at Paris three +different editions of Cicero’s <i>Offices</i>; she read Aristotle’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_484">[484]</span><i>Ethics</i> simultaneously in Greek and in a Latin translation; +she collated six commentaries on Horace.</p> + +<p>Although entirely French—she was much more French +than her aunt—she set herself to stem the somewhat too +violent tide of reaction setting in against Italy. Like Louis +XII. before her, she thought there was much in Italy and the +classics that was worth adopting; while she read Aristotle +she proclaimed Urbino the “school of knowledge,” and Du +Bellay had to draw in his horns and, under her gentle +guidance, acknowledge the charm which he did not feel +spontaneously. He not only translated Bembo and +Naugerius,⁠<a id="FNanchor_464" href="#Footnote_464" class="fnanchor">[464]</a> but went so far as to agree that time would +never extinguish the fame of Boccaccio, and that the laurels +of Petrarch would remain for ever green.</p> + +<p>She did more (for the words “art” and “patriotism” +cloaked in reality questions infinitely smaller, and larger—questions +of personal jealousies); she had the courage to +keep by her side an Italian, Baccio del Bene, an enthusiastic +worshipper of the “pearl of the West,” who declared he had +been saved by her bright eyes, “his stars,” from the direst +of shipwrecks. Ronsard undertook, against wind and tide +and his own convictions, to rehabilitate this relic of the +past, and to proclaim that Del Bene was the only Italian for +two centuries who was worth consideration.</p> + +<p>Margaret long remained the tutelary “virgin,” the spirited +“unbacked colt,” running where frolic fancy led her, unfretted +by the “spurs of love.” Whatever the inevitable +malignity of mankind may have said, she was a perfect +type of platonism, basking in her many warm friendships +with men, and in no hurry to be married. Too much +attached to France to go far away, too thoroughly a +princess to wed one of her brother’s subjects, she fixed +her choice on the heir of Savoy. On one occasion she did +not hesitate to accompany her aunt to Nice and present +herself in person, in defiance of the elementary rules of +etiquette; but as politics, the bane of sentimental +princesses, threw obstacles in the way, she possessed her +soul in patience, and waited twenty-one years. She was +married in 1559.</p> + +<p>The king of France ordered a magnificent trousseau, an +exact copy of that of Madame de Lorraine—gold-embroidered +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_485">[485]</span>dresses, laces, jewels; he chose for the bridal dress a robe of +yellow satin with bodice embroidered in gold, a regal mantle +trimmed with lace a foot wide, an evening cloak in silver +cloth, lined with lynx fur. He commanded splendid entertainments. +Everyone knows what followed—Henri II. mortally +wounded in the official tournament; this long-desired +marriage consecrated at midnight beside a bed of anguish. +Here truly was something to amaze and strike with awe. +Anyone with a touch of superstition would have attributed +to the princess the evil eye.</p> + +<p>They knew better, to be sure.</p> + +<p>If she was loved, it was because she had the very +uncommon talent of loving her friends.</p> + +<p>No sooner was she in Piedmont than she seemed to have +thoughts only for them. She wrote to Catherine de’ Medici +commending Ronsard to her notice, and the poet, much +moved, hastened to reply with a noble apostrophe to the +royal house of France, “happy and fruitful ... mother of +such a line of kings.”</p> + +<p>From time immemorial France and Piedmont had played +in the world the somewhat ungrateful part of quarrelsome +lovers. Margaret, like a true woman, patched up this +quarrel; while she lived there was no open rupture. Still +more, every Frenchman who visited Turin was conscious of +being anticipated by a gentle and invisible protecting hand. +Presented to the duchess, often lodged and entertained at +her cost, he would receive in addition, anonymously, a purse +to defray his travelling expenses.</p> + +<p>France did not, therefore, lose Margaret altogether; but +she planted in Savoy the sweetness of Urbino with the +sparkling brilliance of her own land. At the gates of +Geneva she caused the most perfect religious peace to +flourish; it was there that Francis de Sales was born. +Without flinging heart and mind piecemeal to the winds, +like her aunt, we see her in a corner of that violent 16th +century, a radiant centre of kindliness and spiritual illumination, +surrounded by testimonies of gratitude as by a +modest and glorious retinue. She often received thanks at +that supreme moment when all men speak the truth. In +his last hour Du Bellay wept for her; an ambassador of +France at Constantinople left her his fortune; L’Hôpital +declared in his will that to her he owed his whole career. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_486">[486]</span>She herself on her deathbed heaved, so to speak, the last +breath of the feminist spirit.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Il ne restoit rien d’entier de la France,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De pur, de saint, d’une antique bonté,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que Marguerite, humaine déité.⁠<a id="FNanchor_465" href="#Footnote_465" class="fnanchor">[465]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>And now what more is to be said? The hateful orgies of +the 16th century were unchained! Here and there in the +turmoil some few feeble shoots of platonism continued to +appear⁠<a id="FNanchor_466" href="#Footnote_466" class="fnanchor">[466]</a> under the form of preciosity or literary feminism, till +we come to the hôtel de Rambouillet.⁠<a id="FNanchor_467" href="#Footnote_467" class="fnanchor">[467]</a> Women of energy +and activity were still seen. But fate willed that the 17th +century, magnificent, wholly masculine,⁠<a id="FNanchor_468" href="#Footnote_468" class="fnanchor">[468]</a> should be ushered +in with terrible convulsions. It was a momentous and +appalling epoch, and bore out the prediction of the +<i>Heptameron</i>: “The best things are those from which, +when abused, result the worst ills.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_469" href="#Footnote_469" class="fnanchor">[469]</a> What a spectacle +is the court of the Valois!⁠<a id="FNanchor_470" href="#Footnote_470" class="fnanchor">[470]</a>—all these sly, knowing women, +talking in a way to make the shades of their grandmothers +blush, running after men who wish them further! +How little the third Margaret of France, the first wife +of Henri IV., resembles her earlier namesakes! She was +as highly gifted, prettier, as accomplished, as witty, as +fascinating, as noble, as thoroughly a princess—so princely +indeed that she thought herself quite entitled to love gipsies +and let prejudices go hang! Fair as a lily, too, polished, +wonderfully polished, bathed and perfumed! All she saw +was that platonic love had broken down, and of the other +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_487">[487]</span>love she said: “Nothing could be so sweet, if it were not so +short.”</p> + +<p>Even in Spain platonism perished, or rather it winged +its flight towards God with zest and ardour, often worthy of +the Song of Songs:⁠<a id="FNanchor_471" href="#Footnote_471" class="fnanchor">[471]</a> “A love redeemed from all terrestrial +things, and having only God for its object,” exclaims St. +Theresa, “is like an arrow shot by man’s will towards his God +with all the force of which he is capable.” Or else it was +flung out of window. When the cook and the niece of Don +Quixote make a bonfire of the <i>Amadis</i> romances and other +illustrious annals of pure love and valiant exploits, the good +Spanish curate, who assists at the auto-da-fé, momentarily +hesitates before a volume bearing the name of Ariosto. He +opens it, to burn it if it is a Spanish translation, to kiss it if +it is the Italian text. O relic of old Spain! O son of the Cid!</p> + +<p>In Italy the crisis could not take a tragic development, as +in Germany, but men felt the need of returning to anonymity, +to placid affection, to love without any twaddle. “The +learned are so mad after love,” writes Nelli, “they have so +pounded and minced and dissected it, that it is altered +out of all knowing.” Petrarch was blasphemed: everyone +was eager to revile him as a flashy rhetorician, to sneer at +his so-called purity. They declared that they preferred +to the sighs of love-sick princesses and the sentimental +romances, the bold, frank love of a coster-wench.</p> + +<p>Farewell to the dream! It dissolved in a religious crisis. +Rome herself recovered from her intoxication, and no +longer existed as the nursery of sentimental philosophy +and the liberal-minded instructress of mankind.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La paix et le bon temps ne règnent plus icy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La musique et le bal sont contraints de s’y taire.⁠<a id="FNanchor_472" href="#Footnote_472" class="fnanchor">[472]</a></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Attacked, Catholicism had stood to the defence in the +armour of authority. It was fighting for life, and was bent +only on self-discipline and purification. One good soul +devoted himself to the task of spiritualising the writings +of Bembo.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_488">[488]</span></p> + +<p>The tender imaginings of art disappeared. The time +was coming for art itself to return to scenes of domestic +commonplace, as in Holland, or of pure reason, as in France. +The sole impression Brantôme received as he viewed the +Coliseum was that its ruined condition was most strikingly +apparent at the top—as was seen also with women.</p> + +<p>The mortification would have been less acute if people +had not really expected to find happiness, and if they had +begun by looking painful realities square in the face as they +did afterwards. The 17th century left philosophy to the +philosophers; it believed in suffering as a gift of God: +Pascal coldly investigated only the secret of the anxieties +which hold us by the throat; and so that admirable time of +vigorous action and patient endurance led us to philosophy.</p> + +<p>Platonist tenderness resulted in nihilism. And then how +sad a spectacle was the spiritual Sahara! And how well +men understood, as soon as women had disappeared, that +they were right in believing them necessary! Our great +Montaigne, who arises at this moment, is a splendid +eulogist of the cold and colourless in life. He is the perfect +son of this respectable land of France, where wisdom consists +in settling down in a benevolent neutrality, without +hating, and without loving: life being such, without restraints, +without illusions, nothing is left, surely, but to die.</p> + +<p>Montaigne, in his cool, common-sense way, delights in +making mincemeat of everything that has given women +faith and enthusiasm and an object in life.</p> + +<p>The heart! what a dangerous organ, essentially a thing to +keep under restraint! Better forgive a folly than a victory!</p> + +<p>Love! After having distilled out its quintessence, after +having discovered “three, four, or five degrees of superior +things” external to ourselves capable of producing it, is it +not found that wisdom lies in looking after one’s own +interests, in loving as little as possible, in loving one’s +children perhaps, but even then with sufficient tranquillity +“to live comfortably after their loss”?</p> + +<p>Goodness!—that does not exist in the pure state, but +contains always some taint of corruption, a savour of +mortality, which Plato should have discerned: “Man is but +patchwork and motley.”</p> + +<p>The quest for the Beautiful! How conventional! Let +us hear no more of Bembo or Equicola! “When I write, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_489">[489]</span>I do very well without the company and the stay of +books!”</p> + +<p>Fame! A mere bubble, at the mercy of every puff of wind, +dissolving under our own eyes, ere we reach the grave! +Fame!—for books or ideas which are fated to disappear +as everything has disappeared!—a name which changes +and will pass to others!</p> + +<p>The charm of original thought! Ah! the ridiculous +pretension of wishing to transcend the current opinions, +the common sense of one’s fellows, and to fancy oneself +“capable of all things.” It is on this head that we +must hear Montaigne; he has no more illusions about the +mind than about the heart: he warms up, and celebrates +in Shakespearian accents the immensity of the human void.</p> + +<p>And is he wrong when he tells us that we are our own +deceivers?—that we are unwilling to confess our ignorance +lest we scare our children? “Overmuch knowledge is +harmful, as in virtue. Keep in all points to the common +highway: ’tis not good to be so subtle and nice.... Shun +all novelty and oddity.... All extravagant ways vex +me.... In my time, those who have some rare excellence +beyond others, and some extraordinary sprightliness of +mind, we see as it were overflowing into license in opinion +and morals.... We are right to set upon the human +mind the rigidest barriers we can.”⁠<a id="FNanchor_473" href="#Footnote_473" class="fnanchor">[473]</a></p> + +<p>The traitor! How he laughs at himself and his friends! +At bottom he is a son of women⁠<a id="FNanchor_474" href="#Footnote_474" class="fnanchor">[474]</a> and of love, but he has +lost women and love. The shallow epicurism with which +his doctrine may be reproached is also the weak side of +feminism, which had already shown us the madness and +error of the idea of saddling the few years we have to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_490">[490]</span>spend on earth with fatigue, tribulation, vanities. And +yet, while inheriting this need for living the easy impressionist +life, Montaigne revolts with characteristic feeling +and vigour against women, because he belongs to a disillusioned +generation which feels constrained to wreak +personal vengeance against those who had been confounding +the religion of beauty with the religion of happiness. +Religion consists in resignation to unhappiness, while +beauty and happiness are in truth somewhat loosely connected. +The keeper of a museum who spends his life among +masterpieces will acknowledge, if you put it to him, that +one can be very unhappy there. Further, perched in his +rustic turret, between his few books and a large farmyard, +Montaigne is one of those peaceable and self-satisfied +country folk who have not succeeded in understanding +what all the pother is about, or how women could ever pass +for priests or physicians. He considers them as objects +serviceable, even necessary, to men, but socially speaking +he chants their <i>De Profundis</i>.</p> + +<p>His bile is moved at the sight of the grand duchess +taking the head of the table in the ducal palace at Florence. +What a rage he flies into! “She has wheedled the prince”; +is it by “her pleasant and commanding features,” or her +beautiful bosom? Don’t talk to him of the ideal. Take a +peep into this dressing-room—rouge-pots, false teeth, +second-hand lures, perfumes like musk derived from the +“discharge of animals,” and all the rest: this is the ideal, +forsooth, you think of making the axis of life! To him +(the phrase will serve, it is homely but exact) platonism is +the art of palming off paste for diamonds.</p> + +<p>Yet the same scoffer Montaigne has for aide-de-camp a +simple maiden, Mademoiselle de Gournay; and, after all, his +whole system comes to this—that we should do well to be +women, nay children; and that the best thing for us would +be to live like the bird on the bough, with no other care +than the due round of the seasons.</p> + +<p>But no: this is an impossibility! There are no seasons +for us, we have no right to expect seasons! or rather, we +have only a summer,—life; only a winter,—death! And +this winter lies hungrily in wait for us! It comes to this—that +the science of life is the science of death! “The continual +work of our life is to build up death.” Since there is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_491">[491]</span>neither beauty nor love, in other words no life, we are but +animated corpses: our life plunges into the stream of death, +emerges, and disappears again; we live on death as a +tulip lives in its water, or corn in its refuse. Then, +like the tulip and the corn, we go through the inverse process: +“Your death is part of the order of the universe, a +piece of the life of the world.” From your disintegrated +flesh the vital energy will spring up and pass into the +larva, into the sap of plants, to die yet again and nourish +afresh the butterfly or the bird or the ox, continuing +thus its endless transmigrations. Without hailing death +as it passes, like the mystics, Montaigne is continually +brooding upon it, and holds it “in particular affection,” +since that is the only sure conclusion and all the rest is +chimera. Wherever he goes, a grinning spectre seems to go +before to show him the way. Of what account are the +fashionable quintessences beside the clear and insistent +spectacle of a bed “surrounded by physicians and parsons, +by creatures all mazed and quaking, by pale-faced lackeys +... and the room without daylight, the candles lit!” It is +just that! And “the leap to be made with lowered head +and dazed brain ... into a depth of silence and obscurity!” +Yes, that is death, as said (merely adding a word of immortality +and hope) those humble monks of the early days of +the century, so violently excluded from philosophic religion; +men had stopped up their ears so as not to hear them, and +yet now return soberly to their scheme of morality, which +grips one round like a ring of iron! What does Ménot say?—</p> + +<p>“We die all of us, and like water sink into the earth and +return no more to the surface. Yea, Lord, we all step on +towards death. The water of the Loire ceases not to flow, +but is it the water of yestereve that passes under the bridge +to-day? The folk who to-day dwell in this town were not +here a hundred years ago. Now, I am here; next year you +will have another preacher. Where is king Louis, but late +so dread a monarch, and king Charles, who in the flower of +his youth set Italy aquake? Alas! the earth has already +rotted his corpse. Where are all these damsels of whom we +have heard so much? Have you not the Romance of the +Rose, and Melusina, and many another far-famed beauty? +Behold, we all die, and like the water we enter into the +earth, to return no more for ever.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_492">[492]</span></p> + +<p>Montaigne is right. Whether we like it or not, we have +to live in contact with the enemy, that is, with reality. +Only, is it absolutely necessary to look at reality so mistrustfully, +and to ask of it but gloomy impressions? All the +enemies of faith maintain that faith cannot but be sombre +and melancholy; in making itself pleasant and speaking of +a God of Love, religion, it seems, would lie and do them +wrong, would trench on their domain, would go beyond its +part, which consists in expiation and sacrifice. Material +joy—that is their creed; and at the same time they believe +it is a great mistake to wish to rule the world by love; +men are not held by spiritual systems; you buy them, +crush them, oppress and coerce them.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, all was not false in the delicious dream of +prelates, women, platonists. Pure love is too exquisite a +thing ever to exist in this world. But it is the business of +women to strive towards it, and to show that we have need +of it. The idea of dividing the world, of leaving bodies to +men and souls to women, had something to be said in its +favour. Men are sometimes too philosophical, women never +philosophical enough.</p> + +<p>The convulsions which broke out every time men wished +to turn the tables on women, in the 16th century, and in the +18th, are not sufficient to convince us that the unmitigated +employment of force is the ideal of politics. What human +being is there, even with all the sentiment crushed out of +him, who does not feel an unquenchable thirst for happiness! +Nations also feel this thirst. No, it cannot be said +that the need of happiness is but an empty dream: it is a +real need, sincere, imperious, natural, a moral and physical +need which takes entire possession of us, in which all things +are summed up—this need in which we live and die.</p> + +<p>We live and die in it! We should have to remain always +children, or strangely to shut our eyes, not to see falling +around us the victims of life’s ironies, felled by Montaigne’s +philosophy as surely, as clearly, as by a dagger-thrust.</p> + +<p>A proverb says that one does not die of love: perhaps; +but what we know with absolute certainty, what stares us +everywhere in the face in letters of fire and blood, is that +one dies of the absence of love, one dies of inanition.</p> + +<p>Hence it will always be necessary to ascend to the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_493">[493]</span>source of life, to fix ourselves firmly at the fountain-head: +in other words, to nourish ourselves on beauty. +Philosophically, “beauty” and “life” are synonymous +terms; so we have already said, and we shall not cease to +revert to this thought, because it appears to us clear and +salutary. All the possible definitions of beauty apply also +to life; life and beauty are one and the same thing.</p> + +<p>Beauty and life generate love and are themselves born of +love, so that love does no more than forge links in the +immeasurable chain of life and beauty. And what men +call happiness is the perfect joy of life.</p> + +<p>Why did they fail in their schemes of love and peace—these +timid women of the 16th century, who had all that +was necessary for success—a heart, boundless, bottomless +ocean of kindliness; an admirable intelligence; and in many +cases knowledge, beauty, wealth? They lacked the courage +to be themselves; they were wanting in passion. Instead of +taking their rightful place they fell back into obedience,—half-hearted +dilettanti, caught in their own snares. Why?</p> + +<p>Medieval Christianity was not hostile to the idea of the +beautiful, but it had unduly neglected it, for the purely +scholastic and traditional reason that, strictly speaking, +no theory of the beautiful is to be found in the Gospels.</p> + +<p>No, you will not find a theory of the beautiful there. +But the Renaissance unquestionably was right in saying +that you find assurances of life. And how many assurances +of love? Christianity is of hope and love all compact. +Love speaks on every page of its early lessons, and at +every moment of its history. The Magdalene, St. Augustine, +and many another—have they not marked stages on the +road to heaven? St. Francis of Sales, Fénelon—were they +not yet to cheer by affection the victims of pure reason?</p> + +<p>The Renaissance, then, accomplished a very great advance +when, with Plato’s aid, it instituted the religion of beauty, +and in this respect we certainly cannot reproach the platonists +of the 16th century with having followed a wrong bent. +They were right to believe that happiness and peace can +only be effectually secured if men can be induced to turn +their eyes towards the beautiful, to adopt beauty as the +beacon of their lives, to believe through love, act through +love, live through love. That, in truth, is the common +substance underlying both Christianity and platonism.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_494">[494]</span></p> + +<p>But how then are we to explain the phenomenon we +have noted?</p> + +<p>Plato, so far as theory and literary style are concerned, +is admirable; why does his teaching end in negative +results whenever it is enforced? Why could he himself +deduce from it only a sociology embroidered with Utopian +dreams? Why are those who live familiarly with him and +upon him tortured by the consciousness of the emptiness +of things, as was seen in the 16th century, and as we may +see still?</p> + +<p>The platonism of the Renaissance had a strange fate. It +found a society in the plenitude of vigour, and save for +a few elect souls it left it dead. As a philosophy, it resulted +in perfect scepticism; as a social panacea, in the wars of +religion. It slew art, it slew literature through the idea +of seeking beauty in itself, in other words, by academism, +by art for art’s sake: the aesthetic Utopia alongside of the +philosophic Utopia! Still further, in place of the exquisite, +enthusiastic, ardent, adorable women who were the queens +of the world, it gave us, as time went on, women without +energy, without activity, case-hardened with the idea of +a selfish happiness; it left behind it a progeny of coquettes, +<i>précieuses</i>, or else of Delilahs and sensual women. The +woman of vigorous and irradiant affection, the woman +who used to shed life and happiness around her, has +disappeared. And, finally, we observe that at the very +moment of Plato’s greatest glory, few women steadfastly +pursued the path of happiness: with some, goodness had +disappeared in feebleness, with others intelligence had +evaporated in reasoning. They ought to have saved us +from sensualism and metaphysics, and they ran aground +on both reefs. How bitterly they have been reproached! +We have done them the high honour of throwing upon them +and their ideas the blame of all our calamities, as though +they were exclusively at fault. As if it would not have +been allowable, after all, to combine common sense with the +spirit of kindliness and love!</p> + +<p>If there were, then as always, silly women, profligate +women, insatiate cormorants, why take platonism to task, +why blame women alone?</p> + +<p>Certain personages of that time, and some of the most +notable, refused to admit any division of responsibility. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_495">[495]</span>To them, all that had happened was bound to happen; the +origin was patent, the year 1515; when women of high +rank, admitted to court, determined to devote themselves +personally to the apostolic mission of love, all France +took the cue, so that the idea of love, which issued to begin +with from a source insufficiently philosophic, as it flowed +downwards gained nothing and became no purer. It is +very curious to find this line of argument proceeding from +Brantôme’s pen; he is not generally a preacher of virtue, +and has indeed enunciated this eminently courtier-like +maxim: “The cast-offs of great kings could not but be +excellent.” According to Brantôme and his friends, men +had undergone an irresistible infatuation for which they +were not to be blamed: thus, he says, no one would regard +Francis I. as a Heliogabalus or accuse him of having +employed violence: he was a victim. All men are victims. +It is very true that the frightful demoralisation of the 16th +century sprang from the court, which set the example and +persistently dragged the nation after it. But we shall be +permitted to think that Francis I. and the other victims +among his circle, without being Heliogabaluses, were not +anchorites either; which is capable of demonstration. In +any case, it seems to us very difficult to characterise the +doings of the court as platonic: platonism, on the contrary, +was a barrier, and the only reproach we can bring against +it is that it was often leaped.</p> + +<p>But the real question is not to know whether there were +women of average or cheap virtue at the court of France, +and whether they gave the tone to others. We want to +know whether women like Anne of France, Vittoria Colonna, +Margaret of France, Margaret of Savoy, and their likes were +wrong to strive after high ideals, and whether they did +what was necessary to succeed. This question is much +more delicate than the first, because it really touches +platonism and shows how it came to grief.</p> + +<p>Women can be reclaimed from sensualism; their necessarily +refined feelings, the passive part they play, the +disparity between the advantage and the disadvantage, +conduce easily to disgust. But they never revert from +mysticism to love. The Gospels mention no Jewesses +converted by mysticism, whilst the Magdalene, the Woman +of Samaria, the Woman taken in Adultery, see Heaven’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_496">[496]</span>light while in the full flush of sensualism. Men, on the +contrary, often get the better of mysticism, because their +instincts scarcely lie that way, and moreover the throng and +press of realities only too easily brings them down to earth.</p> + +<p>Now, Plato, even when rendered practical by the theory +of two loves, which sanctioned curious concessions, represented +the algebra of the beautiful; but you cannot make +algebra your daily bread.</p> + +<p>Women of the highest distinction, and especially those we +have named, lived with Plato as it were in a balloon: there +was no more actual communication with the world, no more +really practical energy, no more heat and flame! The rope +was cut; they were adrift in the clear and rarefied +atmosphere of an altitude of thousands of feet. What an +illusion, and how disastrous! Instead of elevating the world, +this was the very means of abandoning it to itself. How +many strange visions this dizzy height brought before their +eyes!</p> + +<p>First, the idea of living face to face with the absolute, and +of importing the absolute into life—pride of thought of the +vainest kind! To adopt St. Augustine’s figure, you might +as well shut up the ocean in a hole in the sand! As De +Musset said: “My glass is small, but from my glass I +drink.” The realms of space do not furnish a substantial +love, and it is vexatious enough to leave that love grovelling +on the earth.</p> + +<p>Secondly, along with this supramundane mysticism, +platonism developed the exclusive contemplation of self, +another deplorable mistake. We live in virtue of a continual +exchange, as physiological and moral laws equally +prove. God alone can rejoice in perfect independence of life +and happiness; the condition of us men is to be happy +through give and take; we have to receive everything, but +also to give everything. To search for happiness within +oneself allows no room for enthusiasm or an enlarged current +of life, nor, consequently, for life itself: one withers up like +a tree which should forbid its roots to imbibe moisture from +the soil, its branches to breathe.</p> + +<p>The poor dear women, once isolated in the boundless tracts +of their imagination, became giddy, fell a prey to needless +torments, lost the precious gift of simplicity, which was so +natural to them in their capacity as great ladies—that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_497">[497]</span>excellent and wise simplicity of mind which assigns us our +place in the vast sequence of things, according to the will of +God. They hovered too far out of touch with realities, +they generalised, wished to grasp too much, they grew restless +and uneasy, which rendered them a prey to intriguers: +their sensibility had no ballast. To influence humanity, +they had first to influence the human beings they had at +hand. So long as their mission remained individual, +private, concrete, intimate, it produced satisfactory results. +How many men did they carry up with them into the +heights! But when they wanted to act upon mankind at +large, the game was up. Trying to influence everybody, +they ended by influencing nobody. Thus Vittoria Colonna +gave to her beloved Michelangelo forces which he turned to +admirable account; but in her abstract efforts towards +public regeneration she completely failed.</p> + +<p>Let us add that Frenchwomen had a much more difficult +mission to fulfil than the Italian women. Spell-bound by +the example of Italy, they fancied that what had succeeded +there was sure to succeed here, and they did not even see +(so great was their taste for blind imitation) that they were +behind the fair, that they were importing among us the +imitation of a decadent art, the imitation of an imitation, a +counterfeit love, a counterfeit curiosity, a counterfeit scheme +of life. What they should have done was to inspire robust +activities, to cause, no matter whence or how, a gush of +ideas beautiful, striking, original, soul-stirring; instead, they +refined and subtilised and complicated, they wasted their +ingenuity in seeking to discover which was the more +aesthetic, poetry or painting; complication seemed to them +to be art, and not the apprentice stage of art: they never +attained that noble logic which is art itself. Truly strong +souls know well that you cannot nourish the world on +sweetstuffs merely, that a decided will is needed in +life, and that the beautiful becomes one with the true when +truth has all its potency. Happy are those who skilfully draw +love from truth!—the ploughman who loves his furrow, the +poor man who loves his poverty, the maiden who loves her +purity! We find among women many valiant souls of the +stamp of Anne of France, able thus to lay hold of life. As +to those who allow themselves to be led astray by the +obsession of an abstract and too lofty ideal, they die.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_498">[498]</span></p> + +<p>Platonism, then, marked a great advance towards the +idea of beauty, but it did not accomplish any striking +progress towards the idea of happiness, and Nifo was not +far wrong in predicting that the doctrine of two loves, the +one celestial, immaterial, good, and desirable, the other +terrestrial and carnal, would result in mere negation, by +setting men between impossible alternatives—a colloquy +of angels, or, as M. France says, a colloquy of chimpanzees. +We may regret our condition, but how escape +from it? Natural law (that is, divine law) bids us disdain +none of the gifts of God, but to obtain from each its +particular beauty. Happiness consists really in loving +what we have round about us, in appropriating therefrom +all that is beautiful and congenial, and in affectionately conforming +to Nature without coercing her, so as to nourish +ourselves upon her spiritual and physical forces, and +to assimilate her warmth and energy and her universal +harmony.</p> + +<p>In our own day John Ruskin has been one of the apostles +of happiness under this aspect, and though his doctrine may +be difficult to define, he has unquestionably carried the idea +of platonism a stage further, in harmony with the saying +of Plato which we have already quoted: “Those who know +have impressions.”</p> + +<p>The impressions on which he lived were often inconsistent, +and still more often nebulous, one might almost say +musical. He has been taunted with his apparent lack of +logic, though the glitter of his thought by its very brilliance +often conceals a logic that is sufficiently real. But, after +all, he has unduly neglected the spiritual side of Nature, +in particular the human soul. While we cannot shut our +eyes to the existence of the body and the utility of earthly +possessions, it is at the same time good and necessary for +happiness to keep the body and material well-being on the +lower plane. The body is essentially localised, wealth is +limited, and, for both, giving spells exhaustion; only the +soul can spend itself unceasingly, and grow the richer +thereby. And thus social happiness results, so to speak, +from the socialism of souls.</p> + +<p>Ruskin belongs to the old Venetian school, materialistic, +and pagan; his heart has echoed to physical harmonies, +and to him a certain material socialism would not have +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_499">[499]</span>been unpleasing. Yet he has well shown what we ought +to feel in our communion with Nature, he has glorified the +worship of beauty and happiness, which consists in guessing +at God, in seeing Him, in acclaiming Him in the beauty of +mountains as in the beauty of a heart overflowing with +tenderness and love, in all that is beautiful, and beautiful +for us. His essential idea is that everything around us +produces an impression upon us, and that we ourselves +have a duty to our environment. Gardens are no longer a +mere setting of life, they are alive. Ruskin goes so far as +to extol the idea of sacrificing ourselves for posterity—to +plant forests under whose shade our descendants may live, +to build cities in which future nations will be able to dwell.</p> + +<p>It is a far cry from these undulatory but noble theories +to the egoistic enjoyment of oneself; yet it is very certain +that to carry them into practice in reasonable measure is +the way to find happiness.</p> + +<p>That is essentially the moral system which women ought +to teach—women born for impressions, for devotion, +generosity, the higher life.</p> + +<p>Unhappily, Ruskin, little conversant with love and +altogether unacquainted with the domestic affections, never +showed in his own life a really high appreciation of women’s +rôle, nor has he less misconstrued it from the theoretical +standpoint. Apart from some sonorous phrases in which he +recommends them to be queens, but in submission to their +husbands, or to practise good social economy in relation to +their dressmakers, it may be said that he did not understand +the charm of women, and that he felt no attraction +for their particular beauty. When he speaks of beauty, +whether in regard to modern painters or to the Greeks, it is +always in general terms, without indicating in any way +whether the feminine expression of the beautiful has for +him a special signification. In his enthusiasm for the +aesthetics of the Middle Ages he even admires masculine +beauty above all: his type in that case is the beauty of +a stalwart knight.</p> + +<p>M. Bourget, for example, has more clearly conceived and +accurately interpreted the necessity of harmony with Nature; +his sensations or sentiments approximate to the philosophy +of the Renaissance, and reflect the spirit of penetrating +sweetness which women had undertaken to develop.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_500">[500]</span></p> + +<p>“The sincere acceptance of the inevitable,” he says, +“supposes a love for the inevitable, the consciousness, and +not merely the idea, that this obscure universe has a +mysterious and kindly signification. In the depths of +our sensibility there exists an indestructible craving that +this world shall contain something wherewith to satisfy our +heart, since this heart is the world’s own child; and the +pure and guileless men whose ever young and tender +spirits speak to us across the ages—Francis of Assisi, +Savonarola, those who believed in this bountiful kindness +of the universe, as they breathed, as they lived, with the +whole of their being—these appear to us in a state of +unanswerable protest against the nihilism with which we +are stifled. They become the accomplices in us of a faith +which is hardly conscious of itself, and sometimes seeks its +way with tears. ‘Thou wouldst not seek me,’ says the +Saviour in the beautiful <i>Mystery of Jesus</i>, ‘if thou hadst +not found me.’ Is this phenomenon far from that other +mysterious one which true believers call prayer?”</p> + +<p>We can, we must love Nature, because God has placed +her all about us, and because happiness consists in living +with what we love. We love things that are not ideally +perfect, in other words, which are not superlatively +beautiful, because happiness presents itself to us under an +essentially relative aspect, and because there is no one but +lays claim to it. It is not even a question of loving +beautiful things, then, but, as we said, of loving what is +beautiful in things.</p> + +<p>In real life, to be sure, unpleasant things are as common +as blackberries, while pleasant things are few and far +between. Nevertheless the truth of the system of happiness +through love is proved by its efficacy. Just as the pure +platonist, penetrated by his glorious ideal, is cold, unprofitable, +and unhappy, the man who loves is conscious of being +filled with strength and light. To love is to have real and +ardent emotions instead of locking oneself in the icy sentimentalism +of reasoning or of false mysticism; it is to +become a wellspring of sweetness, kindliness, activity, a +mainstay of the world: it is to sow life with flowers, to +bestow happiness and to possess it. Though placed by birth +in a refractory medium, Ruskin, in spite of his insufficiencies, +contradictions, weaknesses, lacunae, has exercised a profound +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_501">[501]</span>influence, while the platonism of Ficino and Bembo, +in a land of high sensibility, amongst incomparable artists +and charming women, stifled everything and throttled +itself.</p> + +<p>There are, spread over the world, two unequal races which, +living continually side by side, yet never understand each +other and never blend—the race of pride, and the race of +vanity. Pride tends to enthusiasm and advancement; it +would be well to have proud women. Unhappily men, no +matter who they are, do not love them, but much prefer the +feeble and the vain.</p> + +<p>Yet the efforts of the Renaissance women have not been +wholly wasted. Those noble women sowed for the future, +and the germ subsists.</p> + +<p>Nor can it be said that their defeat was absolute. To +form a sound judgment on the question we should have to +be able (failures being invariably more noticeable than +successes) to gauge the mysterious, secret operations of +their grace; to number the despondent men cheered by a +kind word or a glance of pity or affection; to fathom the +resources, in truth unfathomable, possessed by the spirit of +love even when pure, and possessed by it alone. Women +of great soul, the Vittoria Colonnas of the world, have +drawn from it results almost miraculous; and many others, +without turning themselves into a sort of celestial dancing-mistresses, +or becoming lost in worthless caprices, have +given us reason to hope that, what with labour and +earnestness and dignity, the end of their usefulness will not +be seen for many a long day.</p> + +<p>In short, they took the lead in the profoundest revolution +we have ever experienced; from Louis XI. they led us to +the boudoirs of the 18th century.</p> + +<p>We can give their work neither unqualified praise nor +condemnation. But we can praise many of these high-souled +women—praise them for having seen and followed +their star, though they at first sight may not have recognised +the more excellent way. With all our reservations, we feel +their spell upon us, because they were interesting, sincere, +devoted, eminently tender, eminently feminine. We can +commend them to the sympathy of those many ladies of +our own day who, as we know, are also seeking their +path, and even their star.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_502">[502]</span></p> + +<p>Some of my readers may not approve of this conclusion: +some will think it optimistic, others pessimistic: in such +matters contradiction is easy. Will they allow me to reply +in advance that such criticisms would not surprise me? +More than once I myself have recast this book, now in the +optimistic direction, now in the pessimistic: a simple +historian, in contact with subtle, fleeting, elusive shades, with +women I sought to see through; as independent as a man +may be, in presence of beauties for three centuries in the +grave, when he is grey with years, sated with the two great +spectacles which, according to Montaigne, quiet the soul—the +sight of government, the sight of death,—I would ever +and anon catch myself understanding their witchery, enthralled +to their charm, or else hating their charm, unjustly; +and then, at the moment when I fancied I could at last +write my <i>veni, vidi, vici</i>, the ideas slipped from my book +like water through a sieve. It is thus I have acquired +the right of loving these dear ghosts.</p> + +<p>And now adieu, princesses, cease to tempt us beyond our +powers! Only continue to live amongst us! Our age is very +masculine, your spiritualism pays us but angel visits now!—you +have been driven in a thousand ways to learn what a +soulless commercialism is like. And yet, in your better, +spiritual part, you are with us always. We have lovable +and accomplished women, we have women in a true sense +aristocratic, whose hearts are capable of enthusiasm and +heroic charities; there have been some whose names even live +after them as synonyms of intelligence and goodness. We +have our Margarets of Savoy, and, in goodly numbers, women +whose moral bearing surpasses that of men; we have even +women of energy, and also, it is said, of tenderness. The day +when they proudly resume the motto <i>Non inferiora secutus</i>, +and when to their eminent good qualities they add the talent +of being themselves, the will to speak in their own true +accents rather than a borrowed tongue, they will give us +back our illusions, and with them what was not illusion.</p> + +<p>Let them renounce public life! But let them take complete +possession of the home life. Let mannish women, if +they must, turn doctors, and womanish women turn +priests! Let all be philosophers, comforters, ministers of love +human and divine; let them work through love, and love +through love! Let them have what we lack, let them excel +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_503">[503]</span>us, enlighten us, encourage us! And in our hearts we Latins +shall bless them, as we bless the sun. Passion is a warrant-royal +of life.</p> + +<p>The moral of our book is that good women should love +the beautiful, and that virtue can be neither tiresome nor +torpid.</p> + +<p>There is no need to be always a maiden of twelve. True +sweetness, true goodness, true love come, not of naïveté or +feebleness, but of intelligence and personal force.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="footnotes"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Madame Vincent has reminded us, in an interesting memoir, that ladies +at one time sat as peers of France.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> As administrative authority depended on territorial possessions, it was +quite natural that women should exercise it on occasion. The village gilds, +though composed of men, sometimes elected a woman as president.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> “The history of marriage is the history of a relation in which women +have gradually triumphed over the passions, prejudices, and selfish interests +of men: that is the picture of true progress.” (F. Brunetière.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> An Italian caricature of about the year 1450 (repeated by the French in +the sixteenth century) gives a satirical representation of women violently +struggling to wear trunk-hose.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> [The manual of religious instruction given to French girls on attaining +the age of twelve.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> Clément Marot on the motto of Madame de Lorraine:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[If love fail, faith is surely slain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If faith die, love flies hence amain;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So in one motto link the twain—</div> + <div class="verse indent4"><i>Faith and love</i>.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> One of the most distinguished women of Italy to-day, the Countess +Pasolini, assures us that the great influence still exercised by women in +Italy springs from their approximating more closely than men to +fifteenth-century ideas.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> We may say, in passing, that the Italianism of the end of the fifteenth +century, usually regarded as originating with the Italian expedition of +Charles VIII., really goes back to Louis XI. Louis was Italian in education +and tastes. Italians flocked into France during his reign.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> Cornelius Vitelli, styled Corythius by the public, came to France in +1482, for the simple reason that his own country had become unsafe for +him. We have not many details about him or about his colleague, Girolamo +Balbi, a pompous and quarrelsome character. A third Italian, Fausto +Andrelini, made his appearance in 1488, under the auspices of the Marquis +of Mantua. Andrelini, who lived very comfortably at Paris till his death +in 1518, had no other effects than the memories of a little love-affair, which +he confided to us in three books of verses, his “pages of youth,” as we +should say to-day. Exiled, penniless, almost naked, but a poet, he was, as +soon as he arrived, petted, adopted, and idolised, the favourite of Chancellor +Guillaume de Rochefort and of fortune.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> Fausto Andrelini was the object of incredible adulation; Erasmus, wise +man, simply calls him “divine,” but some did not hesitate to proclaim that +“he alone had rendered France filled instead of famishing, cultivated instead +of waste, verdant instead of barren, Latin instead of barbarous.” One of the +noblest characters of the time, Guillaume Budé, actually dedicated to him +this amazing epitaph: “Here lies Fausto. If the Fates had not given him +to us, Gaeta herself would not have been more barbarous than France.” +But he was no sooner buried than everyone regarded him as a knave.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> John Ruskin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> [The most prolific and popular eclogue writer of the fifteenth century +(1436-1516).</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“As the moste famous Baptist Mantuan,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The best of that sort since Poetes first began.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Alexander Barclay.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Erasmus went so far as to match him with Virgil.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> [The celebrated cabalistic philosopher (1486-1535). He stayed for a +time with Dean Colet in London. He wrote a book <i>De Nobilitate feminei +sexus</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> An extract from the marriage of Peregrino will give an idea of the +Romance (Book I., cap. i., p. 32):</p> + +<p>“There standing and awaiting the wished-for end, I heard the voice of a +minister of Jupiter, who, regarding both of us, thus spake: ‘Peregrino, +and you Geneva, are you clear and free from every manifest or secret bond?’ +‘We are free, nor anywhit bounden?’—<i>Minister</i>: ‘Are you not conjoined +in affinity?’ <i>Peregrino and Geneva</i>: ‘Naught in affinity, and little in +amity!’ <i>Minister</i>: ‘Have you promised marriage or betrothal to any other +man or woman?’ <i>Peregrino and Geneva</i>: ‘No, never.’ <i>Minister</i>: ‘Are +you by common consent disposed to celebrate this present holy sacrament +of matrimony?’ <i>Peregrino and Geneva</i>: ‘We wish it heartily and in faith.’ +<i>Minister</i>: ‘Thee, woman, give I to him, and Peregrino will put on the ring.’</p> + +<p>“Having done his bidding, as it is the wont, we sat ourselves down,” +and a tender conversation ensues between the two spouses.</p> + +<p>“O matchless eloquence!” cries Peregrino, “O thrice lucky hour! O +blessed day! O my hope in the sovran guerdon vouchsafed to me! With +thee, sweet my dame, love, and gentleness, and discretion, and prudence +have their habitation, in thee every good thing doth lie hid. Thou art very +music, of all discords the harmony. In all parts I find thee whole and +perfect. Thou art abundant in all humanity and sweetness, and in thy +making the lord and maker of heaven hath created the true copy and +sovran revelation of all things.” The couple dream their souls away in +these platonic effusions. The bride is bedded there and then, and the +author omits no detail. The sun is already high when a young maidservant +ventures to come in and light a fire of twigs.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> [The quotation is taken from the <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 40. There the +lady is named Nomerfide, whom the author identifies with a certain +Mlle de Clermont.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> “<i>Anna</i>: The maiden invokes with all her prayers the sweets of wedlock, +and yet with the first amorous intoxication begin the woes of the conjugal +bed; the woman is scarce nestled upon the heart of the man than with +one consent they long for separation. <i>Phyllis</i>: Anna, little it recks me +that thou decriest the bonds of wedlock and the crabbed sour race of +men; my heart is a-fire with love and I am tormented with thirst for +marriage.... I deem it better far to marry betimes; wedlock is a +refuge where modesty may shelter herself.”—(J. Cats, pp. 6, 7, 16.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> [As these royal ladies are constantly cited in subsequent pages, the +reader will allow us to remind him once for all of their relationships. +Louise of Savoy was the wife of Charles, Count d’Angoulême, cousin-german +of Louis XII., and the mother of Francis I. and of Margaret of +Valois. She was a passionate and masterful woman and completely ruled +her son, and her greed and intriguing spirit brought disaster upon France. +Anne of France, also known as Anne of Beaujeu, was the eldest daughter +of Louis XI., and wife of Pierre II. of Bourbon. She was virtual ruler of +France during the first eight years of the reign of her brother Charles VIII.: +see further Book III., chapter i. She is connected with English history in +so far as it was largely her money that financed Henry of Richmond’s +successful enterprise against Richard III.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> No law in the world had yet authorised them to marry “without the +knowledge, advice, and consent of their fathers” (Rabelais).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> The good Anne of France, married to a husband much older than herself, +had in her life a romance which has escaped notice. She was fond of +her first fiancé:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Le prédit duc de Calabre, famé,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En l’espousant luy donna ung aneau,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Non de grant pris; mais si fut il amé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De par la dame et plus chier estimé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’or ny argent, ne bague, ne joiau</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’elle garda, mieulx que plus riche et beau,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jusque a la mort, c’est vérité patente....”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[“Calabria’s foresaid duke, a prince of fame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plighted his troth and gave his bride a ring,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of no great price, I wot, but yet the dame</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Loved him so dear, so high esteemed his name</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As never gold nor any precious thing,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Silver nor gem, did her more pleasure bring,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Until her death. ’Tis very truth I tell.”]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The duke died six years after the betrothal,</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Qui fust ung deul qui bien tost ne passa,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais grefvement poingnit et trepersa</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le noble cueur de la jeune espousée.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par quoy, tost fust la chose disposée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’aultre mari prendroit notable et bon,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ung sien prochain, feu Pierre de Bourbon.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[“And ’twas a sorrow that not soon did pass,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But smote fell sore and heavily, alas!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The noble heart of this young winsome bride.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nathless, ere yet her brimming tears were dried,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Another mate was found her, good and high,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pierre de Bourbon, of her own family.”]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">But the princess clung to the ring of her former lover, symbol of</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Loyalle amour dont estoit anoblie ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">... En cest aneau que luy avoit doné</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son amy mort, voullut Pierre espouser.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[“Of loyal love’s ennobling influence.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And with this ring, gift of her lover dead,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Would she her husband Pierre de Bourbon wed,”]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">in order to preserve the memory of him whom God, in his unfathomable +designs, had seen fit to take from her—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Pour petit cueur, d’une jeune pucelle,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bien garde est d’amour honneste</div> + <div class="verse indent0">C’est quant jamais ne varie ou chancelle ...”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Poème inédit de La Vauguyon.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[“To the sweet guileless heart of tender maid</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis surety of a chaste and noble love</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That changeth never, nor will ever fade.”]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The princess was as pure a woman as any of whom we have any account, +but the author dwells on this innocent romance in order to keep her +memory alive in the hearts of lovers.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> [Vittoria Colonna (1490-1547) was the most illustrious member of an +old and illustrious Roman family said to derive its name from the <i>column</i> +to which Christ was bound for His scourging. At the age of seventeen +she married the Marquis of Pescara, and when he died of wounds received +at Pavia (1525) she refused many offers of marriage, and devoted herself to +literature and works of piety. She wrote poems in imitation of Petrarch.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> [Tiraqueau was the learned and genial seneschal of Fontenoy who +released Rabelais from the tender mercies of the Franciscans, for which +kindness he was eulogised in <i>Pantagruel</i>. He had a large family, wrote +many books, and was a water drinker; whence an anonymous epigram +which, roughly rendered in English, reads:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tiraqueau, fruitful as the vine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Got thirty sons, but drank no wine;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not less prolific with the pen,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Produced as many books as men.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And had not water sapped his strength,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">So strenuous a man at length</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Had filled this world of ours—who knows?—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With books and little Tiraqueaux.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> [A famous physician of Lyons (1471-1540), who founded the College of +Medicine there. He was also a man of action and a writer, and his <i>Nef +des dames vertueuses</i> made him so popular with the ladies that he had to +choose back ways to avoid affectionate mobbing.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Ainsi, comme j’ayme m’amye,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cinq, six, sept heures et demye</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’entretiendray, voyre dix ans,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sans avoir paour des médisants,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et sans danger de ma personne.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—Clément Marot, <i>Dialogue nouveau</i>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Thus, as I love my doxy dear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Five, six, seven hours, nay full ten year</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I’ll court her, free from fear of slander:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And scatheless—for I but philander.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> [The great general (1460-1525) who served Charles VIII., Louis XII., and +Francis I. He conquered Lombardy for Charles, and was killed at Pavia.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> [See <a href="#BOOK_II_CHAPTER_V">Book II., cap. v</a>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> [<i>i.e.</i> Catherine Sforza, the natural daughter of Galeazzo Sforza, Duke of +Milan. She married the prince of Forli, and on his assassination by rebels +was thrown into prison with her children. But hearing that Rimini held +out for her against all assaults, she offered to carry in person an order for +its capitulation. On arriving before the city, however, she bade the rebels +lay down their arms, and cowed them by sheer force of character. She +married later Giovanni de’ Medici, father of Cosimo. She defended Forli +against Caesar Borgia, but was captured, and imprisoned in S. Angelo; +thence escaping, she retired to Florence, and soon afterwards died there.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> The countess’s lover.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> [Egnazio, a fellow-pupil of Leo X., teacher of eloquence and editor of +Ovid and Cicero, etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> [The Yorick of French literature: see Victor Hugo’s <i>Le Roi s’amuse</i>. +When Panurge has vainly sought advice from everyone else on the momentous +question, ‘to marry or not to marry?’ he tries Triboulet, who sends +him to consult the oracle of the Divine Bottle (Rabelais, <i>Gargantua</i>, +Book III.). Triboulet was court jester to Louis XII. and Francis I.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> [Of the early part of the 17th century. Her chief work is the <i>Angoisses +douloureuses qui procèdent l’amour</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> A large number of these <i>cassoni</i> exists. One of the most beautiful that +can be mentioned represents the story of Esther (Chantilly gallery). The +author possesses one that represents Filippo Maria Visconti before the +Emperor.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> Two days after his marriage, Girolamo Riario sent his bride a casket +containing diamond necklaces and robes of gold brocade and of velvet, +embroidered with fine pearls; one robe alone carried nearly 3000 pearls; +there was also a purse of gold, silver-embroidered girdles, etc.—(Pasolini.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> <i>Anna Karenina.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Y cuidez-vous avoir repos</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En mariage, mes mignons?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ouy dea!”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[“And think you then to find repose</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In marriage bonds, my jolly joes?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Heigh ho!”]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">chuckles Roger de Collérye, addressing himself here, however, to men.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> “It ought to be a voluptuousness somewhat circumspect and conscientious.... +Is not a man a miserable creature? He is scarce come to +his own strength by his natural condition, to taste one only complete, +entire and pure pleasure, but he laboureth by discourse to cut it off: he is +not wretched enough except by art and study he augment his misery.” +(<i>Montaigne</i>, bk. i. cap. xxix. [Florio’s translation]).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> [Elder sister (1492-1549) of Francis I., and head of the Renaissance +party in France. Her character is elaborately analysed in subsequent +pages of this book. The quotations under her name are from the <i>Heptameron</i>, +and the poems of which she is the reputed author.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> [Baldassare Castiglione (1478-1529), the author of the famous <i>Book of the +Courtier</i>, Hoby’s translation of which has been recently added to Mr. Henley’s +‘Tudor Translations.’ This book is frequently quoted from and alluded to +in the following pages. It purports to be a record of conversations held at +the Court of Guidobaldo, Duke of Urbino (1472-1508), upon the qualities +that make up the perfect courtier, and many other subjects incidentally. +The chief interlocutors who are mentioned in these pages, are the duchess, +Elizabeth Gonzaga; Cardinal Pietro Bembo (1470-1547), of so fastidious a +taste as to revise his works forty times, the author of <i>Gli Asolani</i>, dialogues +on platonic love; Bibbiena; and the coarse and dissolute Pietro Aretino, +called Unico (1492-1557), who alternately satirised and sponged on the +great; he wrote several witty and indecent comedies, and his letters throw +much light on the social life of his time. The reader will find some +specimens of his work <i>La Cortigiana</i> (the Courtesan) quoted in Burton’s +<i>Anatomy of Melancholy</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> The abate Serassi has preserved it: “My dear husband, I have got a +little daughter, for which I think you will not be sorry. I have been much +worse than last time, and, as I wrote you, I have had three attacks of very +high fever. To-day, however, I am feeling better, and hope to have no +more trouble. I will not try to write any longer, lest I be over bold. +With all my heart I commend myself to your lordship. Your wife, who +a little <i>starocca</i> with pain. Mantua, August 20, 1520.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> [The duke’s health was ruined by early excesses; Castiglione says ‘gout.’]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> [Paolo Giovio, Italian historian (1483-1552), an interesting but untrustworthy +writer. As Brantôme puts it, he used two pens, one of gold, +the other of iron, according as the princes he served treated him!]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 68.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Prologue and Tale 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> By ‘amateurs’ we mean men who, while not professionally qualified, +have leisure to devote to extended scientific study. In our own day, as is +well known, M. Pasteur and M. Claude Bernard would not be entitled to +give professional advice.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> [Mistress of Henri II., an imperious and avaricious woman, but a +generous patron of the arts. See Hugo’s <i>Le Roi s’amuse</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> “I affirm not but I may one day be drawn to such fond opinions, and +yield my life and health to the mercy, discretion, and regimen of physicians,” +says Montaigne. “I may haply fall into this fond madness; I +cannot answer for my future constancy. But even then, if any ask me +how I do, I may answer him as did Pericles, ‘You may judge by that.’” +(Bk. II. chap, xxxvii.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> “O heavenly physician!” cries St. Theresa, “thou dost resemble +only in name these physicians on earth! Thou visitest the sick without +summons, and more gladly the poor than the rich.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a> Doctors, further, had to take orders and were not allowed to marry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> [An Italian writer (1508-1568) who “wrote in all styles but excelled in +none.” He wrote two dialogues on matrimony and the misadventures of +husbands.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> Savonarola, who fought in vain against the vogue of astrology (<i>Opus +singulare contra l’astrologia</i>: a woodcut represents him disputing with an +astrologer), ridicules the Roman prelates who never moved a step without +consulting their astrologer. The great soldiers and sovereign princes, +such as Lodovico Sforza and Francesco di Gonzaga, were no whit different. +In princely houses a physician who would not condescend to practise +astrology led a sorry life. He points to his phials in vain; “against death +he has no medicine”; while the astrologer, a man of position, handsome, +fat, well-fed, rich, gazes into the boundless heavens (<i>Dance of Death</i>); +there was no profession more lucrative than astrology, none more tempting +to ambition. It lent itself to dramatic effects. First the astrologer was +usually a foreigner, no man having honour in his own country—an Italian +or German, or, better still, a Moor or Gipsy. He puts on airs and keeps +his clients waiting. If someone sends him a birth date, to have his horoscope +cast, he sends no reply; his eyes are so fatigued by constant watching! +he is so tired! And the awestruck princesses in the waiting-room say to +one another that patience is necessary with “such geniuses.” And the +stars were put to marvellous uses.</p> + +<p>Bonaventure des Périers relates the amusing story of a physician of Paris, +who, alleging high astrological reasons, never showed any amiability to +his wife except on rainy days. The despairing lady at last hit upon a +very simple expedient: every evening she had a tub of water emptied on +the roof so as to produce the sound of a shower in the gutter-spout, and it +rained every day! At this game the physician came off second-best and +died; and his widow, who found herself very well off, was besieged with +numerous offers. She incontinently sent all the physicians packing, then +asked her other suitors if they were familiar with the moon and stars. +Everyone thought it well to make solemn affirmation that he was, and +received his <i>congé</i>. There was only one who was simple enough to confess +that his science was limited to taking moon and stars to witness when +he went to bed. He gained the day (<i>Contes et Récréations</i>, Tale 95). No +glory was wanting to astrology; physicians and savants practised, defended, +and taught it; great nobles gave it their patronage. Marshal Trivulce +accepted the dedication of Pirovano’s <i>Defence of Astrology</i>. The science +numbered eminent adepts. Luther made use of it in support of his doctrines. +Michel Servet, after vainly trying theology and medicine, began to profess +transcendental astrology; he foretold eclipses, plagues, wars, and the +deaths of potentates; he achieved a very great success, pupils drank in his +instruction. Unhappily the jealous Faculty directed him to return to the +natural sciences and give up the “Almanac.” Servet then turned geographer, +and it was not long before he went back into the religious mêlée. +The <i>Atlas of Astrologers</i>, one of the most curious monuments of moral +derangement, enumerates a crowd of astrologers, among them the Sibyls of +the Vatican and King Alfonso of Naples.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Wing’d spirits, who the middle space</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Twixt earth and highest heaven possess,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God’s scouts, the outposts of his grace.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Unnumbered cords, frail strands full fraught with pain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That join the soul to things of time and sense.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The body’s ruled by your command,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Like clay beneath the potter’s hand.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And this your will and pleasure, stars!</div> + <div class="center">...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In vain doth man at eve and morn</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Torment you with his useless prayer;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Fate sweeps him on, he knows not where,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As billows on the stream are borne.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> <i>Les Evangiles des quenouilles</i> promise to a wife a son or a daughter +according as she loves battle stories or has longings for dancing and music.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> One of the greatest ladies of the time, Marie de Luxembourg, Countess +of Vendôme, lived on an annual income of 16,000 livres.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> Book III.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> [“To the Mistletoe! the New Year!” The cry of Breton peasants, +“begging small presents or New-Year’s gifts, an ancient tearm of rejoycing +derived from the Druides, who were wont, the first day of January, to go +into the woods, where having sacrificed and banquetted together, they +gathered mistletow, esteeming it excellent to make beasts fruitful, and +most sovereign against all poyson” (Cotgrave). From a patois corruption +the Scots <i>Hogmanay</i> is said to be derived.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> She provided for so many maidens “by way of marriage, and had so +great care of them, that she deserved to be named their mother.”—<i>La +Vauguyon.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quattuor sunt que mulieres summe cupiunt:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A formosis amari juvenibus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pollere filiis pluribus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ornari preciosis vestibus,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et dominari pre ceteris in domibus.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Tractaculi sive opusculi.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[“Four things there are that women eagerly covet: to be loved by +handsome youths; to be good for many sons; to be decked out in costly +array; and to rule the roost.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> Montaigne relates that he was put out to nurse with peasants, “and +brought up in the humblest and most ordinary way of life.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_65" href="#FNanchor_65" class="label">[65]</a> Montaigne, Bk. II., cap. iii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_66" href="#FNanchor_66" class="label">[66]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Daughter and son gave her obedience,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Stored full of wit and virtue and good sense.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_67" href="#FNanchor_67" class="label">[67]</a> Maffeo Vegio, a disciple and the biographer of St. Bernardin of Sienna, +secretary of Pope Martin V., was a very eminent humanist at the beginning +of the 16th century. He added a supplementary book to the <i>Aeneid</i>. He +was ranked much higher than Petrarch. The book cited, <i>De educatione +liberorum et eorum claris moribus</i>, often republished since 1491 and issued +in a French translation in 1508, is a very remarkable work, and exercised +a great influence. It seems, however, to have escaped the researches of +the historians of education.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_68" href="#FNanchor_68" class="label">[68]</a> [Jean Lemaire de Belges (1475-1548), historian and poet. His chief +works quoted from in these pages are: <i>Illustrations et singularités des Gaules</i> +and <i>Le Temple d’honneur et de vertus</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_69" href="#FNanchor_69" class="label">[69]</a> Montaigne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_70" href="#FNanchor_70" class="label">[70]</a> [A friend of Calvin, and a professor, who reduced himself to beggary +by his unselfish efforts to improve the educational methods of his day +(1479-1559).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_71" href="#FNanchor_71" class="label">[71]</a> [A cardinal, and an ardent humanist (1477-1547). He took Cicero for +his model, and wrote moral philosophy and poetry. The work here alluded +to is his <i>Paedotropia</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_72" href="#FNanchor_72" class="label">[72]</a> [Vivès accompanied Catherine of Aragon to England as her tutor and +chaplain. Siding with her on the divorce question, he had to leave the +country. His works were published at Basle in 1555.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_73" href="#FNanchor_73" class="label">[73]</a> He admits astrology among the exact sciences.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_74" href="#FNanchor_74" class="label">[74]</a> [Ulrich von Hütten (1488-1523), friend of Luther and one of the most +energetic of the Reformers, by turns soldier, poet, theologian, and politician. +He is alluded to <i>passim</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_75" href="#FNanchor_75" class="label">[75]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_76" href="#FNanchor_76" class="label">[76]</a> [A 16th century scholar who in an amusing book called <i>Apologie pour +Hérodote</i> made an elaborate attack on the clergy of his day.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_77" href="#FNanchor_77" class="label">[77]</a> “My pupils do just as they please; most of the time they are digging +the soil,” writes an unlucky tutor, referring to the dauphin of France; “I +have grave doubts whether they’ll be fit for anything better.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_78" href="#FNanchor_78" class="label">[78]</a> Numerous Latin dialogues were written for children in France and +Germany.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_79" href="#FNanchor_79" class="label">[79]</a> Montaigne.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_80" href="#FNanchor_80" class="label">[80]</a> “My daughter is of the age wherein the laws excuse the forwardest to +marry. She is of a slow, nice, and mild complexion, and hath accordingly +been brought up by her mother in a retired and particular manner, so that +she beginneth but now to put off childish simplicity.” (Montaigne.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_81" href="#FNanchor_81" class="label">[81]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Quid tibi praecipiam molles vitare fenestras?</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Ad culpas aditum laxa fenestra facit.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Libera mens, captiva tamen sint lumina, quando</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Hanc animo invenit saeva libido viam.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cogite fallaceis, animus ne peccet, ocellos,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Cogite, libertas ne peritura cadat.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pellite materiam, primasque extinguite flammas.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Pontanus, <i>De Liberis</i>.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[“Why should I admonish thee to shun the seduction of windows? An +unbolted casement is the door to vice. Keep the mind free, but the eyes in +durance, since concupiscence discovers this way to the soul. Restrain thy +eyes from tricks lest thy soul sin; yea, lest thy liberty fall and perish. +Thrust away the fuel, and extinguish the beginnings of flame.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_82" href="#FNanchor_82" class="label">[82]</a> [A disciple of Thomas Aquinas: he died in 1316.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_83" href="#FNanchor_83" class="label">[83]</a> [The famous mystic and theologian (1363-1429), who so stoutly opposed +scholasticism, astrology and magic. The <i>Imitation of Christ</i> has been +ascribed to him.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_84" href="#FNanchor_84" class="label">[84]</a> “Take care of your daughters; let them be always at home, gentle, +pious, scorning money and outward adornments. And thus you will +preserve not only these young girls, but the men who will one day wed +them, and you will assure a good posterity from a healthy stock.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_85" href="#FNanchor_85" class="label">[85]</a> “From a braying mule and a girl who speaks Latin, good Lord, deliver +us.” (Bouchot.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_86" href="#FNanchor_86" class="label">[86]</a> It was to an expert in high culture that Renée of France entrusted her +daughters, in the person of Olympia Morata, who was noted for the eloquent +Latin and Greek discourses she delivered as a precocious child of thirteen. +While still under fifteen, Olympia’s pupils were sufficiently advanced to +act a comedy of Terence before the pope. This education by means of the +theatre was completed with serious readings in Ovid and Cicero, and the +final polish was given by a Greek monk of known liberal views, Francesco +Porto. There was no idleness or melancholy here.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_87" href="#FNanchor_87" class="label">[87]</a> [An Italian poet, pupil of Pontanus (1488-1530). The <i>Arcadia</i>, his chief +poem, ran into sixty editions.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_88" href="#FNanchor_88" class="label">[88]</a> Montaigne (who, however, deduces from these premises altogether +different conclusions).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_89" href="#FNanchor_89" class="label">[89]</a> “Let us retard the age of marriage,” cries M. Legouvé, “if we wish +girls to exercise free choice and live free lives.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_90" href="#FNanchor_90" class="label">[90]</a> [<i>Praeter naturam est, feminam in masculos habere imperium.</i> (Erasmus.) +“’Tis against nature for a woman to have rule over males.”] “I allow +woman to learn; to teach, never.” (Bruno.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_91" href="#FNanchor_91" class="label">[91]</a> [A poet of Lyons, who lived about the middle of the sixteenth century.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_92" href="#FNanchor_92" class="label">[92]</a> [One of the most active of the Italian humanists (1380-1459). He +brought many ancient <span class="allsmcap">MSS.</span> to Rome, and translated Xenophon and other +Greek writers. His <i>conti</i> are as obscene as some of Boccaccio’s.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_93" href="#FNanchor_93" class="label">[93]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent12">Nil est simplicitate prius.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Haec placet; haud ulla est quaesitae gratia formae,</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Quae studio peccas, simplicitate places,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nulla est ornandi, nulla est, mihi crede, parandi</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Gloria, naturae est forma, nec artis opus;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ars odio digna est, ubi nullo fine tenetur.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Pontanus, <i>De amore conjugali</i>.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[“Nothing comes before simplicity. That is pleasing; there is no grace +in artificial beauty. By artifice thou wilt err, by simplicity thou wilt +please. There is no glory in adornment, none, believe me, in farding +oneself; beauty is the work of nature, not of art. Art is hateful when +not kept within bounds.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_94" href="#FNanchor_94" class="label">[94]</a> [A vigorous and witty social satirist (1421-1510).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_95" href="#FNanchor_95" class="label">[95]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Some maidens, in their modest way,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With fools their garters stake at play.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_96" href="#FNanchor_96" class="label">[96]</a> Nifo sincerely admires princesses who go to their husbands <i>virgines +intactae</i>.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_97" href="#FNanchor_97" class="label">[97]</a> [A doctor of the Sorbonne and a Dominican (1443-1514). In one of his +sermons occurs the story of the church bells, repeated by Rabelais à propos +of the marriage of Panurge.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_98" href="#FNanchor_98" class="label">[98]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The more you beat ’em, the better they be.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_99" href="#FNanchor_99" class="label">[99]</a> In the long run the best things become wearisome: men at last believe +they are sacrificing themselves. “Christ died only once for His church; +we die every day for our wives,” is the heartfelt cry of a husband; to +which a lady retorts: “Go to the wars, then, and lie for a month on the +bare ground; and you won’t be sorry to get back to your good bed! Men +only appreciate their comforts when they’ve lost them.” (<i>Heptameron</i>, +Tale 54.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_100" href="#FNanchor_100" class="label">[100]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Femme bonne qui a mauvais mari</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A souvent le cœur marry.</div> + <div class="center">...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Femme aime tant comme elle peut,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et homme comme il veut.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>L. de Lincy.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[A good woman with a bad husband has often a sore heart.... Woman +loves as much as she can; man as much as he will.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_101" href="#FNanchor_101" class="label">[101]</a> A woman, irritated at her husband reading in bed, calls out to the +servant: “Ah well! Bring me my distaff!” (Billon, <i>Le Fort inexpugnable +de l’honneur du sexe féminin</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_102" href="#FNanchor_102" class="label">[102]</a> “He who loves not him by whom he is loved is regarded as a homicide, +and not merely a homicide, but a committer of sacrilege and a thief.” +(Champier, <i>De vraye Amour</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_103" href="#FNanchor_103" class="label">[103]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Il se commence à soucyer</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et à chagrin s’associer.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il plaint la teste, puis les dents,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et a les oreilles pendans</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ne plus ne moins comme un lymier.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>R. de Collérye.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[He begins to fume and fret,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Becomes sworn brother to regret;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Headache, toothache he bemoans,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Chapfallen he sighs and groans.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_104" href="#FNanchor_104" class="label">[104]</a> <i>Dialogus de matrimonia.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_105" href="#FNanchor_105" class="label">[105]</a> “You have been to seek a little school-miss, an angel who dared not lift +her eyes, and who to all appearance was candour to the finger-tips.... +She was thinking things over: she was enticing you into her trap, because +your rank and fortune suited her, but determined at the bottom of her soul +to give you a ‘combing’ later: she says in confidence to her friends, ‘randy +steeds need breaking in’.” (Jean d’Ivry: <i>Les Secretz et Loix de mariage</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_106" href="#FNanchor_106" class="label">[106]</a> [Title of a brilliant comedy by Emile Augier and Jules Sandeau, produced +in 1854. M. Poirier is a wealthy retired cloth merchant who has +married his daughter to a spendthrift marquis in the hope of getting a +peerage through his influence.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_107" href="#FNanchor_107" class="label">[107]</a> [Charles had been solemnly betrothed to the daughter of Maximilian of +Austria, and Anne of Brittany had been wedded by proxy to Maximilian +himself. Both repudiated their contracts, and their alliance united Brittany +to the crown of France.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_108" href="#FNanchor_108" class="label">[108]</a> Cf. the following ballad by Alione:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui veut ouir belle chanson</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’une fillette de Lyon</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui d’amour fut requise,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">En venant de l’église.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais elle en fut reprise!</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Un bon copain lui voulut donner</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cent florins pour la marier,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais (<i>Pourvu</i>) qu’elle fût s’amie.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prenez-les, je vous prie;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De cœur les vous octroie.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A sa mère s’en conseilla,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui lui dit que bien la gardera</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De cette maladie.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il peut bien dire pie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Car il ne l’aura mie.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Les amoureux du temps présent</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Font des promesses largement,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et montrent main garnie.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais folle est qui s’y fie:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Trop coûte la folie!</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La fillette ne voulut pas</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son conseil croire, en celui cas;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Car elle eut plus grant joie,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De gagner sa monnaie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cent florins de Savoie.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Cent florins sont beaux et luisants;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">S’elle eust fillé vint et cincq ans,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Voire toute sa vie,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Toute sa fillerie</div> + <div class="verse indent0">N’en vaudrait la moitié.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Ale houe!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Who lists to hear a famous ditty</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All on a maid of Lyons city,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who as she came from church one day</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Was sought in love the usual way—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And sore she smarted, gossips say—</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The jolly youth would give, he said,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A hundred florins her to wed</div> + <div class="verse indent0">If she would first his leman be.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“Prithee, take them, dear,” says he,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“With all my heart I give them thee.”</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The hussy home did straight repair:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her mother counselled her: “Beware!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Lest it repent thee by and by;</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For though he speak thee fair and sigh,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His precious gold is all my eye!</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“The young men of the present day,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Promise more largely than they pay,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And though their purse well filled appear,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The girl who trusts to it, I fear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Will find her folly cost her dear.”</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Alack! the hussy tossed her head,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Heedless of what her mother said,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For ’twas to her a greater joy</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To get the money from her boy—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Those hundred florins of Savoy.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A hundred! how they gleamed and shone!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Had she sat spinning on and on</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Full twenty year, till worn and old,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Not all the thread she’d spun and sold</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Had brought her half that shining gold.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(Hey nonny!)]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_109" href="#FNanchor_109" class="label">[109]</a> One of the friends of Margaret of France, the worthy La Perrière, +thunders against marriages for money or beauty, which only end in putting +“a fox into a hermitage.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_110" href="#FNanchor_110" class="label">[110]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 37.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_111" href="#FNanchor_111" class="label">[111]</a> [See <a href="#BOOK_III_CHAPTER_III">Book III. chapter iii.</a>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_112" href="#FNanchor_112" class="label">[112]</a> Vittoria Colonna’s bed, preserved in the Pescara palace at Naples, is +extraordinarily wide.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_113" href="#FNanchor_113" class="label">[113]</a> A lady of Florence, Alessandra Bardi, on learning of the sudden death +of one of her sons, wrote to another the following beautiful letter, so +touching in its resignation: “My sweet son, I have learnt how, on the +23rd of last month, it pleased Him who gave me Matteo to recall him +to Himself, in complete consciousness, in full possession of grace, with all +the sacraments necessary to a good and faithful Christian. I have felt the +bitterest grief at being deprived of such a son, and methinks his death has +done me great affliction apart from filial love, and likewise to you two, my +sons, now reduced to so small a band. I praise and bless the Lord for +all that is His will” (Müntz, <i>History of the Renaissance</i>, i. 18).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_114" href="#FNanchor_114" class="label">[114]</a> The story is given in Nifo’s <i>De Amore</i>, cap. cii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_115" href="#FNanchor_115" class="label">[115]</a> [Sister of Henry VIII. She was Louis’ third wife: he was in his +decrepitude, and died three months after the marriage. She at once +married the handsome Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had escorted +her to France.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_116" href="#FNanchor_116" class="label">[116]</a> The diplomatic agent of Mantua thus reports his visit of condolence to +the Duchess of Urbino: “I found her in her room among her ladies, all in +black, the shutters closed, the apartment lighted by a single torch placed +on the floor. She was seated on a cushion, a black veil on her head, and +wore a high-necked dress, or at any rate her bosom was covered with a veil +as high as her chin.... She held out her hand and burst into tears; +a moment passed before her sobs and mine permitted us to speak. I +handed her your lordship’s letter, and dispatched my visit, my condolences, +and my attempts at solace in a few words, so as not to prolong her grief. I +imparted to her also the recommendations and offers with which I was +charged by my most illustrious lord. Both were well received.” Then +they talked of Mantua and the Gonzaga family: the Duchess kept the +ambassador for more than two hours. Next day, there was another visit +of three hours; this time, her spirit got the upper hand, an interesting +discussion ensued, and the ambassador succeeded in making her laugh.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_117" href="#FNanchor_117" class="label">[117]</a> Montaigne, bk. ii. cap. xxxv. He himself desires no tears, no funeral +oration: “I renounce henceforth the favourable testimonies men may will +to give me, not because I am worthy of them, but because I am dead.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_118" href="#FNanchor_118" class="label">[118]</a> June 8, 1508. Sisters Domicella and Elena, from Forli, to Catherine +Sforza.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_119" href="#FNanchor_119" class="label">[119]</a> [Daughter of Maximilian of Austria, and regent of the Netherlands. +She was affianced as a child to the Dauphin of France (Charles VIII.), then +married to the Infant of Spain, who died in a few months: finally at the +age of twenty-one married Philibert of Savoy, who died after four happy +years of wedlock. She was a great patroness of agriculture and the arts, +and a poetess.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_120" href="#FNanchor_120" class="label">[120]</a> She herself, however, employed on occasion the most convincing arguments. +She had confiscated the jewels of her cousin, the Countess of +Montpensier, who was regarded as rather too hot-headed for a widow, and +she refused to restore them to her.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_121" href="#FNanchor_121" class="label">[121]</a> The <i>Fifteen Joys of Marriage</i> include among domestic calamities to +return from war after a long captivity and to find one’s wife wearing the +finery of a new lord and master.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_122" href="#FNanchor_122" class="label">[122]</a> “There’s no man will have you!” is an insult flung by a peasant at a +woman during a squabble.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_123" href="#FNanchor_123" class="label">[123]</a> “Be obedient to your mother, show her honour and reverence, and take +care to please her in everything you can, as is her due, as much because it +is God’s commandment as that I know she merits it, and that you ought so +to do if you wish to succeed, for having known her, I know that she will +advise you so well that you will be therewith content” (Instructions of a +Duke of Nemours to his sons).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_124" href="#FNanchor_124" class="label">[124]</a> Ruskin.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_125" href="#FNanchor_125" class="label">[125]</a> Ruskin’s favourite theory.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_126" href="#FNanchor_126" class="label">[126]</a> [Minister of finance to Francis I., a faithful and honourable servant of +the crown. Lautrec, governor of Milan, having asked for 400,000 crowns as +arrears of pay for his troops, the queen-mother, Louise of Savoy, who had +a grudge against him, seized all the money in the treasury on the pretext +that it was owing to her, and even intercepted what little coin Semblançay +was able to get together. The result was that Lautrec’s army melted away +and Milan was lost. Louise made Semblançay the scapegoat, and when +Francis, after his defeat at Pavia, was carried a prisoner to Spain, she +threw Semblançay (he was 72 years old) into the Bastille, had him tried on +trumped-up charges, and brought about his execution.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_127" href="#FNanchor_127" class="label">[127]</a> [Bohier was a jurisconsult, Briçonnet, bishop of Lodève and Meaux, and +an insincere persecutor of the Reformers; Robertet was treasurer of France +under Louis XII. and Francis I.; and Duprat a venal minister of Francis I. +and a partisan of Louise of Savoy.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_128" href="#FNanchor_128" class="label">[128]</a> Coquillart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_129" href="#FNanchor_129" class="label">[129]</a> “Have you never reflected, then,” says an old author, “what this +smoke is worth?” (Baltazar Gracian).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_130" href="#FNanchor_130" class="label">[130]</a> [Italian poet and historian (1426-1503), the most ‘elegant’ writer of +the sixteenth century. He wrote <i>Amorum libri ii.</i>, on conjugal love.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_131" href="#FNanchor_131" class="label">[131]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 51.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_132" href="#FNanchor_132" class="label">[132]</a> Gallants, ambitious men, fashionable men late abed and late up, those +who live on credit, litigious fellows, spendthrifts, poor devils who marry +for love without a penny, loafers, philosophers who live from hand to +mouth, soldiers who run through a quarter’s pay in a month, husbands +ruined by their wives’ dressmakers’ bills or their servants’ guzzling, men +who keep no accounts, who, without being princes or lords, put eighteen +yards of velvet into one costume, who spend much and get little, who let +their horses starve, their tapestries and furniture moulder, who leave their +orchards to be robbed, who would not spend a penny but fling away a +shilling, who endow their daughters too largely, who toil without rhyme +or reason, who accept financial responsibilities ... weak-kneed men who +back out of their lawsuits, who are led by the nose by those about them, +who are always singing a <i>gaudeamus</i> and never a <i>requiem</i>, braggarts, +giddypates, boasters, “Roger Goodfellows,” gormandisers, debauchees.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_133" href="#FNanchor_133" class="label">[133]</a> [George of Amboise, the wealthy Archbishop of Rouen: a great builder +and art-patron, who brought many painters and sculptors and architects +into France from Italy. When he died Pope Julius II. “thanked God he +was now Pope alone”! The cardinal’s tomb in Rouen Cathedral is one of +the finest pieces of Renaissance work in France.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_134" href="#FNanchor_134" class="label">[134]</a> Which included, we may say in passing, music and gymnastics.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_135" href="#FNanchor_135" class="label">[135]</a> But he did not mean to be absorbed by either the one or the other.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_136" href="#FNanchor_136" class="label">[136]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent14">To love money</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Save for its use, is rank idolatry.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_137" href="#FNanchor_137" class="label">[137]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">They have what pleasures they desire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Honours whereto they dare aspire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And wealth much more than they require.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_138" href="#FNanchor_138" class="label">[138]</a> Almanque Papillon’s <i>La Victoire et Triomphe d’argent</i> (Lyons, 1537). +A copy belonging to Baron Pichon includes two miniatures: (1) the +Triumph of Money, (2) the Triumph of Honour and Love, represented by +Francis I. in a car drawn by two unicorns, and led by Diligence, Sapience, +Sobriety and Virtue.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_139" href="#FNanchor_139" class="label">[139]</a> <i>Imitation of Christ</i>, book iii., chap. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_140" href="#FNanchor_140" class="label">[140]</a> [Italian scholastic philosopher (1453-1538). His lectures attracted +lords and ladies who came to laugh at his ugly grimaces and ungainly +antics, and at his amusing anecdotes and witticisms. His works include +treatises on Beauty, on Love, <i>De Principe</i>, etc.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_141" href="#FNanchor_141" class="label">[141]</a> [The leading Italian humanist (1433-1499); the first professor in Cosimo +de’ Medici’s Florentine Academy. He translated Plato under Cosimo’s +auspices].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_142" href="#FNanchor_142" class="label">[142]</a> [A prodigy of learning who wasted his energies in attempting to +reconcile theology and philosophy, and died young. He knew twenty-two +languages].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_143" href="#FNanchor_143" class="label">[143]</a> [An illegitimate scion of the house of the Sanseverini (1425-1477). He +founded an academy for the study of antiquity, and pushed his enthusiasm +so far as to worship at an altar erected to Romulus, and to roam the streets +garbed as Diogenes].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_144" href="#FNanchor_144" class="label">[144]</a> So that nothing should be wanting, a Diogenes started running about +the streets with his lantern and his tattered cloak (Paul Jove).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_145" href="#FNanchor_145" class="label">[145]</a> Erasmus archly observes: “When Plato appeared uncertain whether to +set woman among rational animals or among the brutes, he did not mean +that woman is merely an animal; he merely intended to point out the +stupidity of this charming animal.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_146" href="#FNanchor_146" class="label">[146]</a> To this day this theory of two loves is commonly attributed to Plato, +even in philosophical treatises.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_147" href="#FNanchor_147" class="label">[147]</a> His ardent oration has been reported in the <i>Courtier</i> of Castiglione, +which became the breviary of the new society; we know that Castiglione +faithfully reproduced his words, and, for greater accuracy, first submitted +the manuscript to Bembo. [It may be as well to state that the passage +quoted here is not a continuous quotation, but an admirable condensation +of several pages of Castiglione. See pp. 343-363 of Hoby’s translation in +Mr. Henley’s “Tudor Translations.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_148" href="#FNanchor_148" class="label">[148]</a> Sonnet viii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_149" href="#FNanchor_149" class="label">[149]</a> Sonnet lii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_150" href="#FNanchor_150" class="label">[150]</a> Distinguished as she necessarily was, the lady who inspired such +accents had herself nothing so tragic or so sublime. She wrote:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Amor, tu sai, che mai non torsi il piede</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dal carcer tuo soave, nè disciolsi</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dal dolce giogo il collo, nè ti tolsi</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quanto dal primo dì l’alma ti diede.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Tempo non cangiò mai l’antica fede;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il nodo è stretto anchor, com’io l’avvolsi;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nè per il frutto amar, ch’ognihor ne colsi,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’alta cagion men cara al cor mi riede.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Visto hai quanto in un petto fido, ardente</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Può oprar quel caro tuo più acuto dardo,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Contro del cui poter Morte non valse,</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Fa homai da te, che’l nodo si rallente,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Che a me di libertà già mai nol calse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Anzi di ricovrarla hor mi par tardo.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Thou knowest, Love, I never sought to flee</div> + <div class="verse indent2">From thy sweet prison, nor impatient threw</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thy dear yoke from my neck; never withdrew</div> + <div class="verse indent0">What, that first day, my soul bestowed on thee.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Time hath not changed love’s ancient surety;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The knot is still as firm; and though there grew</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Moment by moment fruit bitter as rue,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet the fair tree remains as dear to me.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And thou hast seen how that keen shaft of thine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Gainst which the might of Death himself is vain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Smote on one ardent, faithful breast full sore.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Now loose the cords that fast my soul entwine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For though of freedom ne’er I reck’d before,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Yet now I yearn my freedom to regain.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_151" href="#FNanchor_151" class="label">[151]</a> “Ye women who glory in your ornaments, your hair, your hands, I +tell you you are all ugly. Would you see the true beauty? Look at the +pious man or woman in whom spirit dominates matter: watch him, say, +when he prays, when a ray of the divine beauty glows upon him, when his +prayer is ended; you will see the beauty of God shining in his face, you +will behold it as it were the face of an angel.” (<i>28th Sermon on Ezekiel</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_152" href="#FNanchor_152" class="label">[152]</a> “Monsieur, si vous estiez aseuré de la prudence et discrétion que vous +dictes estre en moy, vous ne prendriez peine de m’escripre courte ne longue +lettre, car ou deux telles vertuz consistent, une n’a lieu: qui servira de +briefve response à tout ce que m’escripvez. De mon vouloir, il est tel, sans +jamais changer propos, que je seray telle que je doibz estre, et que ne +m’estimez estre si bonne par vostre lettre; ouy bien autant qu’il me sera +possible, et quelque jeune d’aage que je soye, si cognois je bien que en +suyvant ces deux devant dictes vertuz, l’on ne se peult desvoyer. Quant à +l’audience que me demandez, je ne puis, et ne veulx; et, sans plus m’escripre, +à Dieu prenez en gré et ne vous desplaise.” (<i>La Fleur de toutes joyeusetez</i>).</p> + +<p>[Here is the letter of a woman of the old style: “Sir, if you were +assured of the prudence and discretion you say are in me, you would not +waste your time writing letters, whether long or short, for where two such +virtues are conjoined, a letter is but vain: which will serve as a brief +response to all you write to me. My will is such that I am firmly resolved +to be good, as I ought to be, though from your letter you do not think I +am; ay, so far as lies in my power: and though I may be young in years, +yet know I well that in seeking after the two aforesaid virtues one cannot +go astray. As to the interview you ask of me, I cannot and I will not; +and, without writing further, I pray God you may take it in good part and +not be huffed.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_153" href="#FNanchor_153" class="label">[153]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La Françoise est entière et sans rompeure:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Plaisir la meine: au proffit ne regarde.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Conclusion: qui en parle ou brocarde,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Françoises sont chef-d’œuvre de nature ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pour le desduict (<i>le plaisir</i>).</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—Marot, <i>Rondeau 13</i>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Our ladies flawless are and all complete:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis pleasure leads them; they look not for gain:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Conclusion: men will talk and scoff in vain,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For pleasure they are Nature’s master-feat.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_154" href="#FNanchor_154" class="label">[154]</a> Cornelius Agrippa furnishes a curious piece of evidence on this point. +Disgraced by Louise of Savoy, he asked himself what had caused the +princess’s hatred. While pondering the matter he mechanically opened his +Bible and lit upon the passage where Ahab says in regard to the prophet +Micaiah, “I hate him, because he doth not prophesy good concerning me.” +“That’s my very own case,” cries Agrippa, and remembers that one day he +had foretold a victory for M. de Bourbon. What victory?—he did not say, +and for good reasons: but that was enough. So he takes his pen, and +writes a long address to prove that he is not, has not been, and will not be +of the Bourbon party, in spite of the overtures made to him. He got nothing +by his prose; some time afterwards Bourbon was killed at Rome, and, +adds Agrippa, “Jezebel possesses his vineyard. The angel of the Lord has +warned me and saved me from the evil woman. Nothing remains but to +fling Jezebel headlong and give her carcase to the dogs.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_155" href="#FNanchor_155" class="label">[155]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Awaiting thus the seasonable hour</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For justice or for God to interpose with power.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_156" href="#FNanchor_156" class="label">[156]</a> <i>L’aisnée Fille de fortune.</i> [“If she had a little of that, she would be +the most accomplished lady God ever gave life to.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_157" href="#FNanchor_157" class="label">[157]</a> La Vauguyon describes with emotion the sorrow of her servants and +vassals: “What will become of us now?... Death has seized our +mother.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_158" href="#FNanchor_158" class="label">[158]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet entendoit la magie</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aussi bien que l’astrologie:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet le futur prédisoit,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et de tout présages faisoit....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet sçeut la langue hébraïque</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aussi bien que la caldaïque;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais en latin le bon abbé</div> + <div class="verse indent0">N’y entendoit ny A ny B.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet avoit mis en usage</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un barragouin de langage</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Entremeslé d’italien,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De françois et ... savoysien.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet fut de l’Académie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De ceux qui souflent l’alchumie.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—Du Bellay, <i>Epitaphe de l’abbé Bonnet</i>.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Bonnet knew astrology</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As well as demonology.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet the future could foretell</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And cast your horoscope as well.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet knew the Hebrew tongue,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in Chaldee spake and sung,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But, good soul, in Latin he</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Could not say his A B C.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bonnet used with good intention</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A jargon of his own invention—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Words from France he would employ,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From Italy and from—Savoy.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And in academic state</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of alchemy Bonnet would prate.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_159" href="#FNanchor_159" class="label">[159]</a> Montaigne, bk. iii. cap. x.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_160" href="#FNanchor_160" class="label">[160]</a> A naïve French poet, with the words ‘grace’ and ‘hope’ ever on his +lips, somewhat scornfully depicts the French court guarded military fashion +by two Italians, Pasquil and Aretino, whom he styles Bohemians of +sinister aspect. ‘Diligence’ and ‘Bon Vouloir,’ old deities of the past, +had much difficulty in approaching. “Noble Cœur,” says a poet, “found +his ‘temporal joy’ in chatting with and serving ladies; Nature encourages +Noblesse-Féminine to rule men, who include good and bad. In a delightful +garden the tree of Humanity flourishes; this splits into two equal branches, +that is, between the two sexes ‘one in being, one in substance, one in +dignity,’ and differentiated only by accident. Vilain-Cœur and Malebouche +have long been devising mischief against Noblesse-Féminine; at the +instigation of Nature, Noble-Cœur at length arms himself in her defence.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_161" href="#FNanchor_161" class="label">[161]</a> [In reference to the group of seven literary men who banded themselves +together to reform and classicise the French language and literature. +Ronsard, Du Bellay, and Baïf were three members of the Pléiade who +reappear in the following pages. But as the manifesto of this coterie was +issued in 1549, the year of Margaret’s death, the name Pléiade is anticipated +for the literary court she maintained, the most notable members of which +were Marot and Bonaventure des Périers.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_162" href="#FNanchor_162" class="label">[162]</a> Margaret to the King, 1534.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Ah, with what error Dante’s head is crowned,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Who comes to paint his Passion, antique tale,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And with his gloomy Hell our souls astound.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_163" href="#FNanchor_163" class="label">[163]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 40.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_164" href="#FNanchor_164" class="label">[164]</a> [French admiral (1488-1525), who after the defeat at Pavia deliberately +threw his life away. He rivalled Francis I. in gallantry, paid sedulous +court to Margaret, and is said to have been the luckless (and well-scratched) +hero of the nocturnal escapade described in the 4th Tale of the +<i>Heptameron</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_165" href="#FNanchor_165" class="label">[165]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Loves like little budding flowers,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Loves to sweeten idle hours,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Likewise old amours.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_166" href="#FNanchor_166" class="label">[166]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Amoureux suis d’une paintresse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui est belle en perfection.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son geste plein d’affection</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La fait juger demie princesse.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">—<i>Gilles d’Aurigny.</i></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[I adore a painter dear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Perfect grace and beauty she,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And her loving ways to me</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Make her half princess appear.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_167" href="#FNanchor_167" class="label">[167]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_168" href="#FNanchor_168" class="label">[168]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Tale 58.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_169" href="#FNanchor_169" class="label">[169]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_170" href="#FNanchor_170" class="label">[170]</a> [Poet and translator (1493-1545), friend of Aretino. He wrote ‘amorous +discourses’ in imitation of Boccaccio; comedies in imitation of Plautus; +a translation of the <i>Golden Ass</i> of Apuleius; and a prose work on the +beauty of women.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_171" href="#FNanchor_171" class="label">[171]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Son âge estoit d’envyron les quinze ans,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui est le temps que désirent amans.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La taille en fut longue, menue et droicte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Espaulle platte, et par les flancs estroicte.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Anne de Graville.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Toutes les nuyctz, je ne pense qu’en celle</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui a le corps plus gent qu’une pucelle.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Marot.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Her age was fifteen, as I guessed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The age that pleases lovers best;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her figure long, slim, straight as arrow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her shoulders broad, her haunches narrow.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[I lie awake o’ nights, and my thoughts are sure to go</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To the maid whose body’s comelier than any maid’s I know.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_172" href="#FNanchor_172" class="label">[172]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Is she plump, or is she lean?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My pleasure is the same, I ween.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_173" href="#FNanchor_173" class="label">[173]</a> [Both these ladies were mistresses of Francis I.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_174" href="#FNanchor_174" class="label">[174]</a> [A poet (1463-1537) who having lost his all in the sack of Rome was +succoured by Bembo. He wrote sonnets and pastorals.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_175" href="#FNanchor_175" class="label">[175]</a> [The French Baedeker.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_176" href="#FNanchor_176" class="label">[176]</a> Castiglione, <i>Courtier</i> [(Tudor Translations, pp. 212, 213.)]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_177" href="#FNanchor_177" class="label">[177]</a> Castiglione, <i>ibid.</i>, p. 166.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_178" href="#FNanchor_178" class="label">[178]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Thy shape! Ah, lady! ’tis to me well known</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Through him whose soul is thine, no more his own.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_179" href="#FNanchor_179" class="label">[179]</a> [Jean Clouet (1485-1545), painter to Francis I.: Janet was his pet name +at court. The reference is to Ronsard’s lines—</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Peins-moy, Janet, peins-moy, je t’en supplie,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sur ce tableau les beautés de ma mie.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_180" href="#FNanchor_180" class="label">[180]</a> [A master in portraiture in enamel (1505-1575.) As many as 1840 of his +works are known, all signed. Specimens may be seen in the Louvre.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_181" href="#FNanchor_181" class="label">[181]</a> [Sculptor to Francis I., born 1515, killed in the St. Bartholomew +massacre, Aug. 24, 1572. His statue of Diana adorned the front of Diana +of Poitiers’ palatial château of Anet. Diana is represented nude, reclining +upon a stag, with a bow in her hand, and surrounded by dogs.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_182" href="#FNanchor_182" class="label">[182]</a> [The <i>blason</i> was a short poem celebrating a single feature, or some small +possession of a lady—an eyebrow, a rose, or a jewel, for instance.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_183" href="#FNanchor_183" class="label">[183]</a> This portrait, painted by an Italian, no longer exists, but an excellent +miniature copy, executed in Henri IV.’s time, is to be found in the rare +manuscript known as the <i>Book of Hours of Catherine de’ Medici</i>. The +other miniatures in this manuscript are made after French portraits, and +do not admit of so extravagant an interpretation. Louise of Savoy is +represented as a widow, in the classical severe and ungainly costume.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_184" href="#FNanchor_184" class="label">[184]</a> Night-dresses, by the way, were not yet in use.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_185" href="#FNanchor_185" class="label">[185]</a> Tale 45.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_186" href="#FNanchor_186" class="label">[186]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_187" href="#FNanchor_187" class="label">[187]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Washed of her paint, of her vices bereft,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Body and soul there is nought of her left.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_188" href="#FNanchor_188" class="label">[188]</a> [A painter of the Florentine school (died 1440) about whom nothing is +known but a treatise on painting discovered in 1820, and some frescoes +at Volaterra.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_189" href="#FNanchor_189" class="label">[189]</a> [Author of <i>Gli ornamenti delle donne</i> (the ornaments of ladies), published +at Venice in 1574.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_190" href="#FNanchor_190" class="label">[190]</a> [A poetess of Lyons, author of some remarkable sonnets.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_191" href="#FNanchor_191" class="label">[191]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">For pleasure oft my black I wear,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">More often than for woe or care.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_192" href="#FNanchor_192" class="label">[192]</a> [Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, one of the most vigorous opponents of +the French king’s Italian expeditions. The surname “Il Moro” came from +his cognisance, a mulberry-tree.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_193" href="#FNanchor_193" class="label">[193]</a> Alione, in one of his farces, has related the amusing story of a Lombard +lady (and she was not the only one) who gave herself to a French soldier +passing through, on the mere promise of a dress of Venetian velvet, and to +whom the rogue afterwards sent six crowns, with the excuse that an everyday +dress was good enough for a casual lady.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_194" href="#FNanchor_194" class="label">[194]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">This ring is old and out of date,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This ruby’s badly cut:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This girdle’s precious ugly—wait,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">This casket’s silver, but</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I wish for one of beaten gold—</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_195" href="#FNanchor_195" class="label">[195]</a> [Librarian to Cardinal Farnese (1529-1600), a great authority on antiquities, +especially coins; he spent the greater part of his modest income on +pictures and bronzes.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_196" href="#FNanchor_196" class="label">[196]</a> [Historian and member of the academy of Pomponius Laetus (1421-1481). +He was Vatican librarian under Sixtus IV., wrote a history of the +popes, and a curious work on hygiene entitled <i>Opusculum de obsoniis ac +honesta voluptate</i>—the work here referred to.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_197" href="#FNanchor_197" class="label">[197]</a> [Sebastian Brandt (1438-1521), jurisconsult and poet of Strasburg, +author of the famous <i>Ship of Fools</i>, referred to in subsequent pages.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_198" href="#FNanchor_198" class="label">[198]</a> On ordinary days, the household of Marie of Cleves easily disposed of +half a calf, a quarter of an ox, five or six sheep, and dozens of fowls.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_199" href="#FNanchor_199" class="label">[199]</a> “Gout,” cries Cardan, “is queen, gout is noble! She is a synthesis +of ills! She is discreet and courteous; she attacks only the showable +parts of the body. There is nothing hideous about her as about leprosy. +She purifies man and raises his moral worth, as all pain does, but more +than any other pain. Why is she the enemy of grand dinners, and of +midnight toil, and of all the charming occupations of mind and body?” (<i>De +malo medendi usu.</i>) A German song was dedicated to her:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O Gout my goddess, Gout my queen,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">What mortal wight but fears thee?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Earth, sea and sky have ever been</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Thy subjects: Jove reveres thee.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O mighty goddess, hear the prayer</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Of those that now implore thee:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Give peace to every gouty toe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And grant to all who limping go</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Freedom from pain, release from care,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And perfect health before thee.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(<i>Podagrae Laus.</i>)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_200" href="#FNanchor_200" class="label">[200]</a> Gout was very common. Louise of Savoy suffered from it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_201" href="#FNanchor_201" class="label">[201]</a> [A sort of farcical comedy.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_202" href="#FNanchor_202" class="label">[202]</a> [Jean Gast, Swiss Protestant theologian (died 1553): author of <i>Convivalium +sermonum liber, meris jocis ac salibus refertus</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_203" href="#FNanchor_203" class="label">[203]</a> Entering a lady’s house, a man would kiss her hands; and to recall to +mind a first presentation the graceful formula frequently employed was: +“The first time I kissed her hands.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_204" href="#FNanchor_204" class="label">[204]</a> To civilise his dominions, Peter the Great required his subjects of both +sexes to learn dancing, and he directed the performance, like a general +directing manœuvres. He insisted on the gentlemen kissing the ladies on +the lips.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_205" href="#FNanchor_205" class="label">[205]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Ou soit d’un baiser sec, ou d’un baiser humide,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’un baiser court ou long, ou d’un baiser qui guide</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’âme dessuz la bouche et laisse trespasser</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le baiseur ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou d’un baiser donné comme les colombelles.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Dry kiss or wet kiss,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Long kiss or short kiss—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Kiss that lures the kisser’s soul,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Leading him to sin and dole—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Kiss that seals the purest loves,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Innocent as kiss of doves.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_206" href="#FNanchor_206" class="label">[206]</a> [One of the earliest of French theologians who accepted the Reformed +faith, born in 1530. He wrote a tractate on dancing.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_207" href="#FNanchor_207" class="label">[207]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 21.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_208" href="#FNanchor_208" class="label">[208]</a> Bonaventure des Périers, Tale 114.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_209" href="#FNanchor_209" class="label">[209]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Templa pudicitiam maculant, ni rite peractis</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Rebus abis: templi noxia saepe mora est.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(<i>De Liberis.</i>)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[The temples stain thy modesty unless when service is over thou departest: +to delay in the temple is often hurtful.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_210" href="#FNanchor_210" class="label">[210]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_211" href="#FNanchor_211" class="label">[211]</a> Margaret of France.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">All hail! ye gardens, mansions, Edens of delight,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whose comeliness and beauty put your vices out of sight!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_212" href="#FNanchor_212" class="label">[212]</a> See the frescoes in the Borromeo palace at Milan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_213" href="#FNanchor_213" class="label">[213]</a> [In allusion to the wreaths used at the ceremony of laureation.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_214" href="#FNanchor_214" class="label">[214]</a> [Anne de Montmorency, the coarse, violent Constable of France, who +mumbled his prayers and his orders to his men together, because, as +Brantôme says, “he was so conscientious that he always tried to combine +the two duties.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_215" href="#FNanchor_215" class="label">[215]</a> “Most illustrious and excellent lady, most respected madam,” wrote the +countess of Forli to the duchess of Ferrara: “the credible accounts and +perfect information brought in by innumerable persons about the extreme +kindliness and rare munificence of your excellency, inspire me with the +boldness to address you in confidence. I know that the most illustrious +lord your spouse and your most illustrious ladyship adore hunting and +birds, and that you always have in abundance dogs of all kinds, excellent, +perfect. I beseech your excellency very earnestly that you would deign to +make me a very beautiful and very precious present, namely, a pair of +greyhounds, well trained and fleet-footed, for the deer of the Campagna, +which are very swift: a couple of good deer-hounds and a couple of handsome +pointers, so good that I may hope to say regarding their exploits +when they catch their quarry, ‘these are the dogs the most illustrious +duchess of Ferrara gave me.’ I know that your excellency will not send +me anything but what is really good.” She cordially recommends to the +duchess the falconer she is sending, to fetch the hounds, and probably to +choose them. (Letter of Catherine Sforza to the duchess of Ferrara, +1481).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_216" href="#FNanchor_216" class="label">[216]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">King Louis Twelfth had perfect pastimes three:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Triboulet first, then Chailly, lastly me.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The author has collected the various pieces, still unpublished, in which +these hounds and hawks of Louis are celebrated.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_217" href="#FNanchor_217" class="label">[217]</a> [Professor of mathematics and philosophy at the Cardinal Lemoine +college at Paris (1455-1537): a broad-minded man, the quarry of a heresy +hunt: chosen by Francis I. as tutor to his son Charles.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_218" href="#FNanchor_218" class="label">[218]</a> [Architect and antiquary of Verona (1445-1525). He spent eight years +in France at the invitation of Louis XII., designing bridges and buildings: +he was afterwards one of the architects of St. Peter’s at Rome.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_219" href="#FNanchor_219" class="label">[219]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Kathin alloit bien montée a la chasse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Portant espieu. Cupido la pourchasse</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avecques son arc, et luy dit: “Combatons,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puisqu’ainsi est que nous avons bastons.”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Elle respond: “Amour, que penses tu?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Longtemps y a que je t’ay combatu</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sans estre armée: a présent, je le suis;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Retourne-t-en, et plus ne me poursuis,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Car seure je suis que tu seroys batu.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Michel d’Amboise.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Kitty well mounted to the hunt was hying,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Holding a spear; Dan Cupid her espying,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Loosing his bow, gave chase and caught her. Said he:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“Come let us fight, since both are armed and ready.”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Then answered she: “Love, art thou then so daring?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Long have I fought thee, weapon never bearing;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Now am I armed, turn, never more pursue me,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I would beat thee, ere thou couldst undo me.”]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_220" href="#FNanchor_220" class="label">[220]</a> <i>Ship of Fools</i>, sixth engraving. Critics almost always represent +epicurism in a boat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_221" href="#FNanchor_221" class="label">[221]</a> [A Franciscan friar (1440-1508) and a vigorous and racy preacher. His +sermons were larded with buffooneries.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_222" href="#FNanchor_222" class="label">[222]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">C’est a l’image saincte Jame</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou se vont baigner ces femmes;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et baignez, et estuvez, allez.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bien servies vous y serez</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De varletz, de chambrière,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De la dame bonne chère.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Allez tost, les baings sont prestz.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(<i>Les Cris de Paris.</i>)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[To the image of St. James</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Go for bathing these fair dames.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Haste ye, ladies, bathe and stew,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Maids and varlets wait for you,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Service good, delightful fare;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The baths are ready: speed ye there.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_223" href="#FNanchor_223" class="label">[223]</a> “A work, for our epoch, in which the use of mineral waters is so common, +very useful to physicians, but still more to all other persons, and very +entertaining.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_224" href="#FNanchor_224" class="label">[224]</a> For example, <i>Le Bain de St Barthélemy</i>: “A man of Feltre named +Petrarch, after an accident to his knee, having been attended by a series of, +I will not say bone-setters but, bone-breakers, experienced the keenest +anguish; a flux resulted: astringents and cold remedies were applied; and +an induration ensued, which compelled him always to walk with a stick or +a crutch. At the end of two years, he came to see me; I prescribed the +baths. They did him so much good that after a fortnight he left for home +without his crutch.” (<i>De Balneis</i>, 1563).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_225" href="#FNanchor_225" class="label">[225]</a> Gregorovius gives in his <i>Lucretia Borgia</i> an account of an extremely +free fête got up at Sienna for fair bathers, from which husbands and brothers +were excluded.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_226" href="#FNanchor_226" class="label">[226]</a> Poggio.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_227" href="#FNanchor_227" class="label">[227]</a> [The <i>balle à grelot</i> was a hollow ball of metal containing something that +caused a jingle when the ball was moved or thrown—like our horse-bells.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_228" href="#FNanchor_228" class="label">[228]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">So many books there are, my memory fails</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To number or to name them; but to see</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Their fair array’s a pleasant sight to me.</div> + <div class="center">...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And as for fearing what they have inside,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a mere folly I may not abide.</div> + <div class="center">...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">I piled a pillar of them, and methought</div> + <div class="verse indent0">It heaven and earth together brought.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_229" href="#FNanchor_229" class="label">[229]</a> Lucretia Borgia took to Ferrara for her personal use only beautifully +decorated Books of Hours, a few devotional books, a manual of history, a +collection of songs, a Dante, and a small Petrarch.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_230" href="#FNanchor_230" class="label">[230]</a> Especially Castiglione, who borrowed entire passages from Cicero. +A translation of the <i>De Officiis</i> was published at Lyons on Feb. 11, +1493-94.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_231" href="#FNanchor_231" class="label">[231]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">All this is excellent good lore,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And none of it locked in the cupboard.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_232" href="#FNanchor_232" class="label">[232]</a> [Rheinauer (Latinised as Rhenanus), a famous German philologist, a +friend and correspondent of Erasmus.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_233" href="#FNanchor_233" class="label">[233]</a> The duchess of Orleans was so fond of them that her husband could find +no finer present to give her than the romance of <i>Troilus and Cressida</i>, +and one day she sent a messenger in hot haste after a lady of the court who +had borrowed a <i>Cleriadus</i> and forgotten to return it—as often happens.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_234" href="#FNanchor_234" class="label">[234]</a> The reading of <i>Lancelot of the Lake</i> inspired Dante, as is well known, +with the exquisite passage on Francesca da Rimini.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_235" href="#FNanchor_235" class="label">[235]</a> [“In which there are divers relations of the deceptions of servants +towards their masters, and of pimps towards lovers, translated from Italian +into French.” Paris: 1527.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_236" href="#FNanchor_236" class="label">[236]</a> He had got it in the library of the Palace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_237" href="#FNanchor_237" class="label">[237]</a> A woodcut, thrice repeated in the <i>Illustrations des Gaules</i> (1528) represents +France on a throne, with Ill-hap at her feet; on her right is Noblesse, +represented as a maiden playing a violin; on her left, the People, depicted +as a young man playing a guitar.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_238" href="#FNanchor_238" class="label">[238]</a> National Gallery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_239" href="#FNanchor_239" class="label">[239]</a> So well interpreted by Giovanni Bellini in his <i>Girl Singing</i> in Hampton +Court Palace.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_240" href="#FNanchor_240" class="label">[240]</a> Charles VIII. was even obliged to threaten serious consequences in +order to secure the restitution of a singer and a lute-player who had been +enticed away when he passed through Florence.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_241" href="#FNanchor_241" class="label">[241]</a> Ockeghem, it has been said, “breathes into his music the soul of song, +envelops it in a vigorous harmonic body, and clothes it with a fine tissue of +ingenious thematic developments, imitations more or less close and more or +less extended. One finds in his pieces, often in their inner parts, phrases of +great melodic beauty, and full of an extraordinary sweetness and depth of +expression. His harmonies are often enough peculiar and archaic, but they +are striking and rich. He also brings his pieces to a close in a manner +sometimes surprising and odd, but certainly very interesting.” (R. Eitner.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_242" href="#FNanchor_242" class="label">[242]</a> <i>Harmony</i>, by Paul Veronese (fresco at Masera): <i>Parnassus</i>, the <i>Crowning +of the Virgin</i>, by Raphael (Vatican).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_243" href="#FNanchor_243" class="label">[243]</a> Neapolitan proverb.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_244" href="#FNanchor_244" class="label">[244]</a> Erasmus.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_245" href="#FNanchor_245" class="label">[245]</a> In the Louvre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_246" href="#FNanchor_246" class="label">[246]</a> The Madrid museum possesses a magnificent portrait of him by +Raphael.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_247" href="#FNanchor_247" class="label">[247]</a> He was born, like Leo, in 1470.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_248" href="#FNanchor_248" class="label">[248]</a> An opera-ballet was got up in the open-air by Bergonza di Botta, in his +park at Tortona, on the occasion of the marriage of Isabella of Aragon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_249" href="#FNanchor_249" class="label">[249]</a> At Metz, in 1502, the public violently interrupted and rendered impossible +the representation of one of the comedies of Terence which were +constantly played at Rome; the performance had to be postponed till next +day, when it was continued before a select audience, composed in great +part of clergy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_250" href="#FNanchor_250" class="label">[250]</a> <i>E.g.</i> The Mystery of the Passion; of the Three Gifts, played in 1509; of +St. Andrew, played in 1512; of St. Barbara, and St. Eustache, played +in 1504.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_251" href="#FNanchor_251" class="label">[251]</a> [<i>Pochades</i>]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_252" href="#FNanchor_252" class="label">[252]</a> Lorenzo de’ Medici, Pico della Mirandola, Agnolo Dovizio da Bibbiena, +Bernardo Ruccellai [see George Eliot’s <i>Romola</i>], Machiavelli, and others: +it was a singular, incoherent, burlesque procession of characters of all sorts +and sizes—devils, deaths, nymphs, courtiers, old husbands, young wives, +merry nuns, hunters and huntresses, pages, winds, furies.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_253" href="#FNanchor_253" class="label">[253]</a> “With the tongue seven men are not a match for one woman” (Erasmus, +<i>Colloquies</i>).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_254" href="#FNanchor_254" class="label">[254]</a> “He who keeps his mouth shut knows no care” (P. Meyer).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_255" href="#FNanchor_255" class="label">[255]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_256" href="#FNanchor_256" class="label">[256]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Beneath the broidered sheets we lay—</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Sheets flashing with gems and gold—</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And whiled the dreary hours away</div> + <div class="verse indent2">With comfortable tales of old,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And converse debonair and gay.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_257" href="#FNanchor_257" class="label">[257]</a> [One of the Urbino coterie.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_258" href="#FNanchor_258" class="label">[258]</a> [A lawyer of Poitiers who is said to have composed a hundred thousand +verses, mostly dull. He called himself <i>Le Traverseur des voies périlleuses</i> +(the traverser of perilous ways), and wrote moral and familiar letters and +<i>Les Regnars</i> (foxes) <i>traversant les voies périlleuses</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_259" href="#FNanchor_259" class="label">[259]</a> [The brilliant Bishop of Orleans (1802-1878), noted equally for his +eloquence, his pugnacity, and the huge blue umbrella he carried on sunny +days. It was said of him that he was “a journalist who had strayed into +a bishopric.” He wrote <i>Letters on the Education of Girls</i>, and especially +opposed the opening of university courses to girls: he did not wish them +to go “from the bosom of the Church to the arms of the University.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_260" href="#FNanchor_260" class="label">[260]</a> He adds: “We gambled, played music, took walks, supped, and +worked (not often that): no cares, no anxieties! We were often with the +Venetian nobles: my life flourished like a growing plant. Nothing could +be more pleasant than that life, which lasted five years and a half +(September, 1526-February, 1532): we used to chat with the prefect, +whose palace was our kingdom and rostrum.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_261" href="#FNanchor_261" class="label">[261]</a> Raphael’s portrait of Castiglione in the Louvre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_262" href="#FNanchor_262" class="label">[262]</a> Like the good curé who, seeing a lady shedding hot tears at the +conclusion of a superb <i>exaltet</i>, charitably approached her to console her for +what he believed to be the effect of the music, and stopped aghast when +the good dame replied, “Ah! I fancied I heard my poor dead donkey!”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_263" href="#FNanchor_263" class="label">[263]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O liberté aujourd’hui clairsemée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et cher vendue, on te doit bien servir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Car en tous lieux souvent est réclamée.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Alione.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[O liberty, to-day so rare</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And dear sold, we must serve thee well,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For thou art asked for everywhere.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_264" href="#FNanchor_264" class="label">[264]</a> Here is an example: “Why, Dagoucin,” says Simontaut, “don’t you +yet know that women have neither love nor regret?”—“I don’t yet know +it,” he replies, “for I have never dared try for their love, for fear of finding +less than I hope for.”—“You live on faith and hope, then,” says Nomerfide, +“as the plover lives on wind? You are very easy to feed.” (<i>Heptameron</i>, +Tale 32.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_265" href="#FNanchor_265" class="label">[265]</a> “When women confess, they always tell what they have not done.” +(Old Italian proverb.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_266" href="#FNanchor_266" class="label">[266]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Rusticus est vere, qui turpia de muliere</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dicit, nam vere sumus omnes de muliere.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(<i>Facetus.</i>)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[He is truly a boor who speaks ill of women, for verily we are all of +woman born.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_267" href="#FNanchor_267" class="label">[267]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 62.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_268" href="#FNanchor_268" class="label">[268]</a> [Filippo Beroaldo (1453-1505), professor of ancient literature at Bologna, +so learned that Pico della Mirandola called him the ‘Living Library.’ His +most curious work is <i>Declamatio ebriosi, scortatoris et aleatoris</i>, in which +three brothers, a drunkard, a lecher, and a dicer, dispute among themselves +which of them, being the most vicious, their father will disinherit.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_269" href="#FNanchor_269" class="label">[269]</a> [Italian poet (1445-1515) attached to the court of Ludovico il Moro at +Milan. When Ludovico was captured by the French, Fregoso went into +seclusion and became known as the Friend of Solitude.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_270" href="#FNanchor_270" class="label">[270]</a> An attempt was made to revive this system in certain notable salons of +the 18th century. The rules for the <i>Lanturelus</i> drawn up in Madame +Geoffrin’s salon included the obligation of being just, loyal, cheerful and +kindly; they forbade one to grow old, that is, to become peevish and misanthropical. +The sittings held under the direction of a “queen” were +divided into two parts, one devoted to song, poetry and <i>facéties</i>, the other +to philosophy.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_271" href="#FNanchor_271" class="label">[271]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">But that I fear to shock beyond forgiveness</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The soilless purity of your chaste ears.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_272" href="#FNanchor_272" class="label">[272]</a> He used to amuse himself with a drunken impromptu-monger, a Roman +named Querno, whom he jestingly called Archipoeta. Querno says to him:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Archipoeta facit versus pro mille poetis.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Arch-poet makes enough verses for a thousand poets]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Leo replies:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Et pro mille aliis Archipoeta bibit.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[And drinks enough for another thousand]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Archipoeta responds:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Porrige quod faciat mihi carmina docta, Falernum,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Give me some Falernian, to inspire my song]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">and Leo:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Hoc etiam enervat debilitatque pedes.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[That also renders your feet weak and shaky]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_273" href="#FNanchor_273" class="label">[273]</a> [A clerical poet (1466-1502) who translated Ovid’s Epistles into French.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_274" href="#FNanchor_274" class="label">[274]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“De son cheval on fait une rosse,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et de sa femme une catin.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Of one’s horse one makes a jade,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And of one’s wife a harlot.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_275" href="#FNanchor_275" class="label">[275]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 52.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_276" href="#FNanchor_276" class="label">[276]</a> Seventy-five letters of this princess have been collected by M. Amante.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_277" href="#FNanchor_277" class="label">[277]</a> [Mistress of Francis I.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_278" href="#FNanchor_278" class="label">[278]</a> Anne of Laval, for example, writes to her sister: “J’ay entendu que +Monsieur mon frère ce vante que à son retour j’auré ung petit neveu. +Plust a Dieu qui fust ainsi, d’aussi bon cueur que je le desire. L’espérance +que j’en ay me faict vous envoyer des poix en gousse, qui est viande de +femme grosse.”</p> + +<p>[I have heard that my brother is boasting that on his return I shall have +a little nephew. God grant it may be so, of as good heart as I desire +it. The hope I have induces me to send you some peas in the pod, which +is a food for pregnant women.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_279" href="#FNanchor_279" class="label">[279]</a> Here are some samples of these private letters:</p> + +<p>“Monsigneur, tant et si tres humblement que je puis a vostre bonne grace +me recommende.</p> + +<p>Monsigneur, je vous suplie tres humblement croire que la créance que +remais a ce porteur n’est que la plus grande obaissence que james tres +humble fille ne servente vous saroit porter et coume la plus obligée de ce +monde.</p> + +<p>Monsigneur, prie Dieu qui vous dont tres bonne et tres longue vie.</p> + +<p class="center">Voutre tres humble et tres obaissente fille,</p> + +<p class="right">Magdalene.</p> + +<p><i>Address</i>: Au Roy mon souverain seigneur.”</p> + +<p>[My lord, as truly and as humbly as I can I commend myself to your good +favour.</p> + +<p>My lord, I beg you very humbly to believe that the letter of credit I +confide to this carrier is only the greatest obedience that ever humblest +maid and servant could bear to you, and like the most dutiful in the world.</p> + +<p>My lord, I pray God to give you a very good and very long life.</p> + +<p class="center">Your very humble and very obedient daughter,</p> + +<p class="right">Magdalene.]</p> + +<p>“Ma cousine, je n’ay point voullu que ce porteur soit passé par Chantilli +sans vous porter de mes laitres; je vous en usses plutost envoié, mes les +piteulses nouvelles qu’avons repsues de Hedin m’an onst engardé, car je +n’aime poinct a mander de mauvesses nouvelles, et en cete perte j’ay esté +tres esse d’entendre que Monsieur le conte de Villars vostre frere est +seulement prisonnir (<i>sic</i>) avecq tant d’onneur que je suis sure que vos prieres +luy onst beaucoup servi. Vous feres tant pour moy, ma cousine, de croire +que tout ce qui vous touchera que je ceray mervelleucement esse qu’il soint +anci hureulx comme vous le desires et moy anci ce que je suplie de bien bon +cueur Dieu et de vous donner bonne vie et longue et a moy l’eur de vostre +bonne grasse a laquelle de bien bon cueur me recommande.</p> + +<p class="center">Vostre melieure cousine et amie,</p> + +<p class="right">Marguerite de France.</p> + +<p>A ma cousine Madame la connestable [duc]esse de Montmorency.”</p> + +<p>[My cousin, I would not let this carrier pass through Chantilly without +taking some letters from me for you. I should have written sooner, but +the dreadful news we have received from Hedin has prevented me, for I do +not care to send bad news, and in this loss I was very glad to hear that the +count of Villars your brother is only a prisoner, with so much honour that +I am sure your prayers have much profited him. You will do so much for +me, my cousin, as to believe that, in all that touches you, I shall be wonderfully +glad if all falls out as lucky as you desire, and myself too, and I pray +God so with all my heart, both to give you a good and long life, and me the +bliss of your good favour, to which with all my heart I commend myself.</p> + +<p class="center">Your best cousin and friend,</p> + +<p class="right">Margaret of France.]</p> + +<p>“Mon pere, je ne voulu leser aler se pourteur sans vous faire savoir de +mes nouvelles, lequeles sont bonnes, pour se que je aeudire souvan des +vostres qai me pabise (?) bien, car s’et au proufit du roy et a vostre ouneur. +Je prie Dieu vous i vouloyr tenir; je ne veus oblier a vous faire mes +reconmandasions bien fort voustre bonne grase.</p> + +<p class="center">Vostre bonne fille,</p> + +<p class="right">Marguerite.</p> + +<p>A Monsieur le grant maistre.”</p> + +<p>[My father, I would not allow this carrier to go without letting you have +news of me, which are good, because I have often had news of you which +please me, for ’tis to the profit of the king and your honour. I pray that +God will keep you in the same; I do not forget to commend myself very +earnestly to your good favour.</p> + +<p class="center">Your good daughter,</p> + +<p class="right">Margaret.]</p> + +<p>“Mon pere, j’ay esté tres esse d’entendre par vostre cegretere presant +porteur du bon partement du Roy et du vostre et aucy que toutes les afaires +continuent de mieulx en mieulx; cant a cele conpagnie, la Royne et monsieur +ce portent tres bien, aucy faict tout le reste. Nous ne fesons faute de prier +bien Dieu tout les jours pour le Roy; après luy, mon pere, je vous puis +assurer que vous estes le prumier (<i>sic</i>) en mes auraisons. Je vous prire (<i>sic</i>), +mon pere, presanter mes tres humbles recommandasions au Roy et me tenir +en sa bonne grasse et an la vostre. A laquelle de bien bon ceur me recommande, +et prie Dieu vous donner bonne vie et longue.</p> + +<p class="center">Vostre milieure figle et cousine,</p> + +<p class="right">Marguerite de France.</p> + +<p>A mon pere, Monsieur le connestable.”</p> + +<p>[My father, I was very glad to hear by your secretary the present bearer of +the good departure of the king and yourself, and also that affairs are going +better and better: as to this company, the queen and <i>monsieur</i> (the king’s +brother) are very well, as are all the rest. We do not neglect to pray God +every day for the king: after him, my father, I can assure you that you are +the first in my prayers. I beg you, my father, to present my very humble +greetings to the king and to keep me in his good favour and in yours. To +which with much love I commend myself, praying God to give you good +and long life.</p> + +<p class="center">Your best daughter and cousin,</p> + +<p class="right">Margaret of France.]</p> + +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_280" href="#FNanchor_280" class="label">[280]</a> [She came near perishing by shipwreck on her way to join her young +husband, the Infant of Spain, and composed her epitaph:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ci-git Margot, la gente demoiselle,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’eut deux maris, et si mourut pucelle.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_281" href="#FNanchor_281" class="label">[281]</a> She died in 1530, barely fifty years old.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_282" href="#FNanchor_282" class="label">[282]</a> Her portrait is in the Louvre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_283" href="#FNanchor_283" class="label">[283]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Friends, know that I have changed my dame;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Another holds me at her will,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In soul Renée, Renée her name.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>(Renée = re-born: the pun cannot be translated.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_284" href="#FNanchor_284" class="label">[284]</a> “I fatti sono maschi, le parole femine.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_285" href="#FNanchor_285" class="label">[285]</a> Clément Marot writes:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Adieu le bal, adieu la dance!;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adieu mesure, adieu cadence,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tanbourins, aulboys, violons,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Puisqu’à la guerre nous allons ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adieu les regards gracieux,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Messagers des cœurs soucieux;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adieu les profondes pensées,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Satisfaictes ou offensées;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adieu les armonieux sons</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De rondeaulx, dixains et chansons ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Adieu la lettre, adieu le page!</div> + <div class="verse indent6">(To the court ladies.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Farewell to dance, farewell to ball,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And cadenced measures, farewell all!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fiddles, hautboys, tambourines,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For we go to warlike scenes.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sweet looks from ladies’ eyes, that tell</div> + <div class="verse indent0">How much they love us, fare ye well!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Farewell to meditation deep,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That gives us joy or mars our sleep;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Farewell to all harmonious strains</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of ballads, rondeaux, and dizains;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Letters and pages, all farewell!]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_286" href="#FNanchor_286" class="label">[286]</a> National Gallery.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_287" href="#FNanchor_287" class="label">[287]</a> <i>Ibid.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_288" href="#FNanchor_288" class="label">[288]</a> The brilliant captain whose Memoirs or Commentaries, it is said, were +afterwards called the Soldier’s Bible by Henri IV.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_289" href="#FNanchor_289" class="label">[289]</a> “Catherine, if you make the dance go thus, Atlas will find the world a +lighter burden,” exclaims a poet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_290" href="#FNanchor_290" class="label">[290]</a> Francis I. regarded this as Michelangelo’s masterpiece.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_291" href="#FNanchor_291" class="label">[291]</a> Emile Trolliet, <i>La Vie silencieuse</i>.</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The veil of flesh is rent; the spirit’s light</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Pierces and routs the clinging mist of sense;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And Earth, this Virgin and this God beholding,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Learns what Love is, and worships Womankind.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_292" href="#FNanchor_292" class="label">[292]</a> [The sovereign family of Rimini and Romania, a race of warriors and +cut-throats. Robert, commandant of the troops of Sixtus IV., was +poisoned by Riario in 1483.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_293" href="#FNanchor_293" class="label">[293]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">En cas d’amour, c’est trop peu d’une dame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Car si un homme aime une honneste femme,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et s’il ne peut à son aise l’avoir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Il fait très bien d’autre accointance avoir.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Melin de Saint-Gelais.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[In case of love, one dame doth not suffice,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For if a man loveth one fair of fame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And cannot have her at an easy price,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis well for him to have another flame.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_294" href="#FNanchor_294" class="label">[294]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_295" href="#FNanchor_295" class="label">[295]</a> Coquillart.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_296" href="#FNanchor_296" class="label">[296]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_297" href="#FNanchor_297" class="label">[297]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 38.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_298" href="#FNanchor_298" class="label">[298]</a> Nifo, <i>De Amore</i>, cap. xvi.: <i>De viro aulico</i>, Bk. I., caps. xxx.-xxxiv.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_299" href="#FNanchor_299" class="label">[299]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 4.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_300" href="#FNanchor_300" class="label">[300]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tales 18 and 25.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_301" href="#FNanchor_301" class="label">[301]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 24.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_302" href="#FNanchor_302" class="label">[302]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Tale 50.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_303" href="#FNanchor_303" class="label">[303]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Tale 5.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_304" href="#FNanchor_304" class="label">[304]</a> Calvin regards his co-workers as “playactors,” worthy of bespattering +with mud. “The future appals me,” he cries: “I dare not think of it: +unless the Lord descends from heaven, barbarism will engulf us.” (Preface +to the Geneva Catechism.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_305" href="#FNanchor_305" class="label">[305]</a> Aretino wrote placidly: “I have legitimated my dear girls in my +heart; no other ceremony is needed.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_306" href="#FNanchor_306" class="label">[306]</a> Natural children easily obtained recognition by the concession of the +right to bear arms, or their legitimation. In Italy, legitimation was only +a fiscal formality; Innocent VIII. gave his nephew the right of granting +it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_307" href="#FNanchor_307" class="label">[307]</a> The Grecised name of Otto Schwartzmann, German jurisconsult (1571-1670).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_308" href="#FNanchor_308" class="label">[308]</a> The “Pomeranian doctor” (1485-1558). He married Luther, and +buried him, and was one of his coadjutors in the translation of the +Bible.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_309" href="#FNanchor_309" class="label">[309]</a> Bernardino Ochino of Sienna (1487-1565). He was a monk, and for +three years general of the Capuchins, but turned Protestant and got into +hot water with the Church. He spent a few years in England at the +invitation of Cranmer. A man of rare independence of mind, his opinions +soon verged towards heresy, and his <i>Diologi</i>, in which he opposed the doctrines +of the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, and others, and spoke in +favour of polygamy, brought on him the displeasure and even persecution +of his co-religionists.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_310" href="#FNanchor_310" class="label">[310]</a> “Difficiles aditu fugias in amore puellas.” (<i>Celtis</i>, <i>Quattuor libri</i>.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_311" href="#FNanchor_311" class="label">[311]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 30.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_312" href="#FNanchor_312" class="label">[312]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Souvienne-toy, regaignant ta raison,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que ta maîtresse est de grande maison,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De noble sang, et non pas amusée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A dévider ou tourner la fusée;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et que son œil, mais plutôt un soleil doré,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et son esprit, des autres adoré,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et ses cheveux, les liens de ta prise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sa belle main, à la victoire apprise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Son ris, son chant, son parler et sa voix,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Méritent bien le mal que tu reçois.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Ronsard.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Remember, when thou canst regain thy nous,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Thy mistress is of high and famous house,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of noble blood, nor is she wont to play</div> + <div class="verse indent0">At wheel and distaff all the livelong day.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Remember that her eye, a sun of gold,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her mind, by other worshippers extolled,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her hair, the bonds of thy captivity,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her lovely hand, well trained to victory,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her smile, her song, her speech, her gentle voice</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deserve that for thy smart thou shouldst rejoice.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_313" href="#FNanchor_313" class="label">[313]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Et, si l’on dit que le privé toucher</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faict près du feu le tison approcher,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Je respondray: Il y ha ja longtemps</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que, si l’honneur, où tousjours je prétens,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">N’eust en moy deu faire plus de demeure,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Un, que nommer je ne veux pour ceste heure,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Par les effors de sa langue diserte</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Auroit plus tost tiré gaing de ma perte,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que par baisers, ne par approchements</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui de la chair ne sont qu’attouchemens.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">Héroët (one of Margaret’s friends).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[And if one says the intimate caress</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Is fire to tinder, then will I confess</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That if the honour hitherto my pride</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Within my soul no longer would abide,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Long, long ere now a man I will not name</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(Lest at this hour it bring us both to shame),</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Would by his tongue’s delicious eloquence</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Have won his profit at my dear expense</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Far speedier than by kiss or dalliance hot,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That titillates the flesh, and is forgot.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_314" href="#FNanchor_314" class="label">[314]</a> The ancient Valentinians went much farther, and maintained that it +is impossible to the witty to become corrupt, whatever their actions.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_315" href="#FNanchor_315" class="label">[315]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’eust fait ce grec, si ceste image nue</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Entre ses bras fust Vénus devenue?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que suis-je lors, quand Louize me touche</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et, l’accollant, d’un long baiser me baise?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’âme me part, et, mourant en cet aise,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Je la reprens ja fuiant en sa bouche.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[What would that Greek of old have done if in his clinging arms</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His naked statue had become Venus with all her charms?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And when Louisa touches me, ah! what is then my bliss,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When all my body tingles with the thrill of her long kiss?</div> + <div class="verse indent0">In that sweet agony I die, my soul then from me slips;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But I catch it as it passes ’twixt my lady’s burning lips.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_316" href="#FNanchor_316" class="label">[316]</a> There are some rather lively and amusing letters of Bibbiena. On +February 7, 1516, he wrote to the Marchioness of Mantua: “The compliments +your Excellency has been good enough to pay me on behalf of +Isabella have given me supreme pleasure, for I have always loved and still +love Isabella more than myself. I am wholly Isabella’s, body and soul; so +that, whether loving or not loving Isabella Mario, I am wholly hers, and +desire above all things in the world to be loved by her.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_317" href="#FNanchor_317" class="label">[317]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tales 20, 25, 14.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_318" href="#FNanchor_318" class="label">[318]</a> Here are specimens of Phausina’s talk, that Nifo found so delightful. +“Phausina,” said he, “since it befell me to love you, you have become an +Aurora, superb, resplendent! How happy it makes me!”—“Near such a +sun as you,” she replies, “ought I not to become the finest dawn ever +seen?”</p> + +<p>“One day I asked her how it was that with her sixteen years and her +charm she could love an old fellow like me, reciprocity of love resulting +philosophically from a certain similarity.”—“True, we are different,” she +replied prettily, “yet we are wholly at one in the basis of our mutual love” +(she meant beauty of soul).</p> + +<p>“Who is the true lover?” he said. “The idolater,” she replied, “is he +who adores the image and not the divinity; the false lover, he who loves +the face of a girl, but does not respect her modesty.”</p> + +<p>“Phausina, how can you love a man with one foot in the grave?” “’Tis +not the dotard I love so warmly, but he whom neither age nor anything +can affect; he who, after his death, will come to life again.”</p> + +<p>“One day I was teasing Phausina: to provoke her I said, ‘Come now. +Phausina, when you are quite old, do you think I shall still love you?’: +‘Why, of course,’ she said: ‘what you love in me will not grow old. +Petrarch loved Laura ardently, young, mature, living, dead: he saw no +mark of age, which nevertheless he might have earnestly desired, so that +he might enjoy her beauty without any suspicion.’ And I then asked +Phausina what would be the reward for such a love. ‘That you will not +be a liar when you shower your praises on me.’”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_319" href="#FNanchor_319" class="label">[319]</a> “One day, among the group of girls, someone set the little problem of +guessing what gave me the greatest pleasure in my relations with Phausina. +One of them said it was to gaze at so pretty a woman, another that her +conversation was very sweet, another swore that in reality it was because +we wrangled so pleasantly, and that she knew it. Phausina smiled and +said: ‘We all know, my dear Nifo, that all those things go to produce my +pleasure: but my deepest satisfaction is to be able to enjoy everything, +frequently, freely, without fear of material seductions, because of your +age.’”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_320" href="#FNanchor_320" class="label">[320]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ma dame, un jour, daigna tant s’abaisser,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Parlant à moy, de doucement me dire:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">‘Je ne te veux, amy, rien escond[u]ire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui soit en moy, je te pry le penser.’</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et pour encor du tout récompenser</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mon triste cueur de l’enduré martire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sa blanche main hors du gand elle tire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et me la tend pour la mener danser.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Magny, p. 7.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[My fair did condescend one day</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sweetly to speak to me, and say:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">“My friend, nothing will I deny thee</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of all I have, come prithee, try me.”</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And for to recompense my heart</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For all its grievous dole and smart,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From out her glove she drew her lily hand,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To lead her forth to dance did then command.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_321" href="#FNanchor_321" class="label">[321]</a> “And you, Madam, if you succumb to the flesh, beat your breast, for +you do not shun temptation. Why do you stand at your window? why +chat with young men?... Why go to the ball and give yourself to so many +idle conversations? Shun temptation, and the devil will leave you in peace. +Resist him and he will flee from you!” Woman’s tongue is one of the +greatest of the devil’s instruments: “I did that because the devil seduced +me:” it is Eve over again: “The serpent beguiled me.” (Baraleta.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_322" href="#FNanchor_322" class="label">[322]</a> “Casta est quam nemo rogavit.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_323" href="#FNanchor_323" class="label">[323]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The servant that is brisk and trusty</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Becometh master ere he be rusty.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_324" href="#FNanchor_324" class="label">[324]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 40, and prologue of first day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_325" href="#FNanchor_325" class="label">[325]</a> “Most illustrious and wicked girl. When the terrible duchess Elizabeth +was alive, she made me her martyr and protomartyr; and you perhaps, nay +certainly, with your angel’s face and your serpent’s heart, were her perfidious +counsel to my detriment; and now look at me, compelled by aid of +medicine to support as best I can the miserable remnant of a life thus +exhausted. Through that pity which you know not, either in life or in +fiction, you will condescend to do me the favour to send me a <i>baratollo</i> or +rather a little tree of <i>barbe di calcatrepuli</i>, a specialty of Urbino, so that I +may boast of once having had a prayer granted by the flinty ladies of the +house of Gonzaga. I do not commend myself to your highness, not wishing +to waste my words on the air. I only pray Heaven to keep you long in +health and happiness, so that you may long make mincemeat (<i>macello</i>) +of your servitors.—Your servant for life, Unicus.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_326" href="#FNanchor_326" class="label">[326]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 8.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_327" href="#FNanchor_327" class="label">[327]</a> Tales 9, 10.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_328" href="#FNanchor_328" class="label">[328]</a> One of the ladies replies tranquilly: “I should prefer all my life long +to see the bones of all my servitors in my room than to die for them: for +everything can be amended but death.” (<i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 32.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_329" href="#FNanchor_329" class="label">[329]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Je le sçay bien, mais point ne le veux croire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Car je perdrois l’aise que j’ai reçeu.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Clément Marot.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[I know it well, but will not it believe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For I should lose the comfort I receive.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_330" href="#FNanchor_330" class="label">[330]</a> Hütten writes: “What shall I say of Samson, who while all but in +the arms of a woman received the inspiration of the Holy Ghost?... +And of Solomon, who had 300 queens and an infinite number of concubines, +till his death, and who nevertheless in the eyes of the divines passes for +saved? What is the inference? I am not stronger than Solomon, nor +wiser, and one must sometimes have a little joy. The doctors say ’tis +necessary to cure melancholy. Well, what do you say of these grave +authors? Ecclesiastes says: ‘There is nothing better than that a man +should rejoice in his own works.’ So I say to my love, with Solomon: +‘Thou hast wounded my heart, my sister, my spouse, thou hast wounded +my heart with one of thy hairs. How fair is thy breast, my sister, my +spouse! How much better is thy breast than wine!’ and so on.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_331" href="#FNanchor_331" class="label">[331]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 15.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_332" href="#FNanchor_332" class="label">[332]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Tale 18.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_333" href="#FNanchor_333" class="label">[333]</a> <i>Ibid.</i>, Tale 13 and end of First Day.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_334" href="#FNanchor_334" class="label">[334]</a> [Referring to the fable of the Stork and the Fox, versified later by La +Fontaine. “The stork with his long neck could not pick up a bit.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_335" href="#FNanchor_335" class="label">[335]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent12">Comes from divinity,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And its torment from our humanity.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_336" href="#FNanchor_336" class="label">[336]</a> [Ninon was the celebrated courtesan who, without any great beauty, +retained her ascendancy over men through a long life (1616-1706). She was +well-born, wealthy and witty, and capricious in the bestowal of her favours. +She is the original of Clarisse in Mlle de Scudéry’s interminable romance +<i>Clélie</i>. Herself a writer and a lover of literature, she left Voltaire 2000 +francs to buy books.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_337" href="#FNanchor_337" class="label">[337]</a> [An ancient princely family of Rome which claimed descent from +Fabius Maximus the Dictator.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_338" href="#FNanchor_338" class="label">[338]</a> Panormita, who died in 1471, had already employed his muse in lamenting +departed courtesans; for example:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Hoc jacet ingenuae formae Catharina sepulcro;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Grata fuit multis scita puella procis, etc.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[In this tomb lies Catharine of noble beauty: pleasing was the fair girl +to many a wooer.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_339" href="#FNanchor_339" class="label">[339]</a> Women “may accept of our service unto a certain measure, and make +us honestly perceive how they disdain us not; for the law which enjoineth +them to abhor us, because we adore them, and to hate us forasmuch as we +love them, is doubtless very cruel.... A queen of our time said wittily +that to refuse men’s kind summons is a testimony of much weakness, and +an accusing of one’s own facility, and that an unattempted lady could not +vaunt of her chastity.... If rareness be in any thing worthy estimation, +it ought to be in this.” And again: “In my time, the pleasure of +reporting and blabbing what one hath done (a pleasure not much short of +the act itself in sweetness) was only allowed to such as had some assured, +trusty and singular friend; whereas nowadays the ordinary entertainments +and familiar discourses of meetings and at tables are the boastings of +favours received, graces obtained, and secret liberalities of ladies. Verily +it is too great an abjection and argueth a baseness of heart, so fiercely to +suffer those tender, dainty, delicious joys to be persecuted, pelted and +foraged by persons so ungrateful, so indiscreet, and so giddy-headed.” +(Montaigne, Bk. III., cap. v.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_340" href="#FNanchor_340" class="label">[340]</a> Vice was incredibly base and ignoble at the courts of Charles VIII. +and Louis XII. Ragged and loathsome wretches went everywhere in the +train of the court, to whom the princes gave alms on fête days.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_341" href="#FNanchor_341" class="label">[341]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Nor will you find it hard to tell</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On what fair morning this befell.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_342" href="#FNanchor_342" class="label">[342]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[God hath sent you to this place</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Like some miracle of grace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That you may both have and hold</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our great sovreign’s heart of gold,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And that like a holy fire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Purified in all desire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">His affection light may shed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">By your true perfections fed.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Kings to mortal men below</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God’s own form and image show.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_343" href="#FNanchor_343" class="label">[343]</a> [And you have won the whole great heart of France.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_344" href="#FNanchor_344" class="label">[344]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Shall I alone of all this age in France</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Forbear to sing thy dread and puissant name,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Nor tell the glory of thy crescent flame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nor by some deathless rime thy praise enhance?]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_345" href="#FNanchor_345" class="label">[345]</a> Some historians have maintained that the love of Henri II. for Diana +was purely platonic.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_346" href="#FNanchor_346" class="label">[346]</a> As a prelate and an aspirant to the purple Bembo was tied to celibacy; +but he was only in the lower ranks of the clergy so far as actual <i>orders</i> +were concerned.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_347" href="#FNanchor_347" class="label">[347]</a> Before becoming pope Julius had shaved. It was during his pontificate +that the discussion waxed bitter. Clement VII. lent his name to the +tractate <i>Pro sacerdotum barbis</i> of Piero.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_348" href="#FNanchor_348" class="label">[348]</a> “Well may a piece of marble raise your titles as high as you list, +because you have repaired a piece of an old wall, or cleansed a common +ditch, but men of judgment will never do it.” (Montaigne, III. x.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_349" href="#FNanchor_349" class="label">[349]</a> In the Louvre.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_350" href="#FNanchor_350" class="label">[350]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The day thy sail dipped to the dancing brine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And from our streaming eyes robbed sight of thine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That fatal bark bore far from weeping France</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Muses erst who dwelt there—sad mischance!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And now Parnassus thrums a tuneless lyre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And Helicon distils an ooze of mire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our laurel is all parched, our ivy sere,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Our song-birds stint their singing—thou not here!</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_351" href="#FNanchor_351" class="label">[351]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Prince Françoys, veulx tu, comme seigneur</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Supérieur, estre dominateur,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Prans pour faveur, par amour et mérite.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Celle qui est en florée verdeur,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Digne d’honneur, nommée Margarite.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Prince Francis, if thou dost desire</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To rule indeed as lord and sire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For love and worth in favour set</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Her who is filled with youthful fire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Deserving honour, Margaret.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_352" href="#FNanchor_352" class="label">[352]</a> This is especially noticeable in her first work, <i>The Mirror of the Soul</i>, +which she modestly called the work of a woman “who had in herself +neither science nor knowledge.” Besides, she employed a good secretary.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_353" href="#FNanchor_353" class="label">[353]</a> Another anecdote of the court of Urbino. A Bergamese peasant had +just entered the service of a nobleman. The princesses were told that there +had arrived a retainer of Cardinal Borgia, who was a fine musician, a +dancer, and a great oddity. They fetched him in, welcomed him, sat him +down among them, and lionised him with great respect. Unhappily the +good man spoke an indescribable jargon. The author of the trick made the +princesses believe that he was shamming the Lombard peasant for fun. +The scene lasted a rather long time, while those in the secret were splitting +their sides.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_354" href="#FNanchor_354" class="label">[354]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">O main polye, main divine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Main qui n’as ta pareille en terre,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Main qui tient la paix et la guerre ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Main portant la clef pour fermer</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et ouvrir l’huys de bien aymer,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Main plaisante, main délicate,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Je n’oserois te dire ingrate.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tu peulx blesser, tu peulx guérir,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tu peulx faire vivre et mourir.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[O fair smooth hand, O hand divine,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Hand never match’d on earth before,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The arbiter of peace and war,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That bears the key to lock or loose</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The door for happy lover’s use,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O pleasant hand and dainty, ne’er</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To call thee thankless could I dare.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">’Tis thine to wound and thine to heal,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And thine both life and death to deal.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_355" href="#FNanchor_355" class="label">[355]</a> The question has often been asked whether the <i>Heptameron</i> is a work +of imagination, or whether it should be taken seriously. After the labours +of MM. de Montaiglon, Franck, and Gaston Pâris, to speak only of the +principal authorities, there can be no longer any doubt. Margaret, like +Castiglione, certifies in a general way the veracity of her stories. She +worked at this collection for several years, beginning probably in 1545, +and with so much care that in 1549, when she died, she left it incomplete. +The <i>Heptameron</i> then is not a juvenile work, but the testament of her +court life and her philosophic career, and an autobiography, since several +anecdotes relate to her, her brother, and her intimate friends. Moreover, +among the large number of manuscripts she left in her portfolios, Boistuau +(another strange character, to judge by his works!) chose this one to +publish under the title of <i>History of Fortunate Lovers</i>, with some touching +up, and a few excisions he thought it well to make in certain risky +passages. This precaution gave offence, and Margaret’s own daughter +took care to get a new and authentic edition published, two years later.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_356" href="#FNanchor_356" class="label">[356]</a> So we identify “Simontault,” [one of the <i>raconteurs</i> of the <i>Heptameron</i>].</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_357" href="#FNanchor_357" class="label">[357]</a> Thus we identify “Nomerfide.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_358" href="#FNanchor_358" class="label">[358]</a> “Ennasuite.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_359" href="#FNanchor_359" class="label">[359]</a> Margaret excelled in artistic needlework. She made a piece of tapestry, +representing a high mass as perfectly as a picture could have done. While +she plied her needle, she had near her someone to read to her, or a historian, +poet, or writer of some kind to talk to her.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_360" href="#FNanchor_360" class="label">[360]</a> Very few poets had the audacity of Clément Marot, who, harassed by +his creditors, went a-begging to the Queen of Navarre, beslavering her +with love the while: she replied with a <i>dixain</i>. He acknowledged receipt +of it ironically, saying that on the strength of her verses his creditors have +called him “Monsieur,” and have permitted him to borrow again, which he +proceeded to do.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_361" href="#FNanchor_361" class="label">[361]</a> “My heart’s friend, I beg you to send me the crucifix for a short time, +even if it is not far advanced, so that I may show it to the gentlemen of +the Most Reverend Cardinal of Mantua. And if you are not very busy +to-day, come and talk to me at any hour that suits you.—Yours to command, +the Marchioness of Pescara.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_362" href="#FNanchor_362" class="label">[362]</a> [Usually known as Lydius Cattus. His Latin poems in praise of Lydia +appeared at Venice in 1502.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_363" href="#FNanchor_363" class="label">[363]</a> [A Portuguese writer (1505-1566) who spent the most of his life in +France and taught philosophy at Paris. He is chiefly notable for his +crushing reply to Ramus’s attacks on Aristotle.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_364" href="#FNanchor_364" class="label">[364]</a> Paul Bourget, address in the French Academy, Dec. 9, 1897.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_365" href="#FNanchor_365" class="label">[365]</a> He undertook to write for her the <i>Annals of Brittany</i>, and had an idea +of a history of the Greeks and Turks for the same princess.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_366" href="#FNanchor_366" class="label">[366]</a> [So called because their aim was to purify the Italian tongue by sifting +the wheat from the chaff.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_367" href="#FNanchor_367" class="label">[367]</a> Castiglione got Bembo to revise the speeches he attributed to him.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_368" href="#FNanchor_368" class="label">[368]</a> The Spanish <i>canzone</i>, inserted by Lucretia Borgia in her letters to +Bembo, are perhaps not her own.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_369" href="#FNanchor_369" class="label">[369]</a> [Her librarian.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_370" href="#FNanchor_370" class="label">[370]</a> Castiglione, that arbiter of taste, devotes six pages of excellent Latin +distiches to dissuade his lady from going to the sea-baths. He gives a +charming description of the sea monsters which advance towards the girls, +not only to fling them as food to the fishes, but to get them into their embrace, +and so on. “Let us go rather,” he sighs, “towards the gentle river, +in the thick shade, among the flowers. Perfumed, crowned with our +favourite colours, we will let the water lave thy snowy feet, ... the +zephyr will lay bare thy marble flanks.... O, dear soul of mine, the +woodland gods will feel the sting of my love, the very water of the river +will boil with my flame: let no one know whither we bend our steps! The +crowd strips rocks and woods of their charm.... Let young scatterbrains +go to the sea. We will be mum about the place whereto we are bound. +And if on the billows thou hearest a murmur, ah! my love, at once bury +thy head in my breast!”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_371" href="#FNanchor_371" class="label">[371]</a> Virgil was much out of fashion, though translations are occasionally to +be met with.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_372" href="#FNanchor_372" class="label">[372]</a> [A poet of Mantua (1498-1560), writer of extremely free verse on monks +and women.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_373" href="#FNanchor_373" class="label">[373]</a> [<i>I.e.</i> the Doubtful.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_374" href="#FNanchor_374" class="label">[374]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Young Maupas’ sparrow—he is dead, alack!</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Fair maids, lament him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A thing unfeathered save upon his back</div> + <div class="verse indent4">Hath slain and rent him.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ye know the rogue—that froward wight</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Called Love hath done it out of spite,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For when the mistress ’scaped his arrow,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">He turned about and slew the sparrow.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_375" href="#FNanchor_375" class="label">[375]</a> [Lemaire de Belges wrote an elegiac poem on <i>L’amant vert</i>, Margaret’s +parrot. A charming poem with the title <i>Vert-Vert</i> was written by Gresset, +a contemporary of Voltaire, recounting the burlesque story of a parrot +which had been the pet of a convent.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_376" href="#FNanchor_376" class="label">[376]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Mon Dieu, quel plaisir c’estoit,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quand Peloton se grattoit,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Faisant tinter sa sonnette,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avec sa teste folette!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quel plaisir, quand Peloton</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Cheminoit sur un baston,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou, coifé d’un petit linge,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Assis comme un petit singe,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Se tenoit, mignardelet,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">D’un maintien damoiselet!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ou, sur les pieds de derrière,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Portant la pique guerrière,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Marchoit d’un front asseuré</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Avec un pas mesuré.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Gad, how pleasant ’twas to see</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fluffy scratching prettily,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Making with his silky pate</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Toy-bells tintinnabulate!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And what fun to see him ride</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On a hobby-horse astride,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or, bedight in tiny cape,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Squatting like a little ape,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Posing like a proper squire,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Spruce and dainty in attire;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On hind legs erect, perchance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Shouldering a martial lance,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Marching at a measured pace,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Full assurance in his face.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_377" href="#FNanchor_377" class="label">[377]</a> [The French adapter of <i>Sandford and Merton</i>, etc.; known as the +Friend of Children.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_378" href="#FNanchor_378" class="label">[378]</a> [Alluding to his forename Angelo.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_379" href="#FNanchor_379" class="label">[379]</a> In 1500, in the village of Auvilliers in Normandy, a girl of fourteen +named Jeanne la Fournette, as skilled in Latin as the parish parson, sang +the Tenebrae in church.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_380" href="#FNanchor_380" class="label">[380]</a> “Verse is the clarion, prose the sword.” (L. Veuillot.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_381" href="#FNanchor_381" class="label">[381]</a> “Gli Italiani, col lor saper lettere, haver mostrato poco valer nell’ +arme, da un tempo in qua.” (Castiglione.) [The Italians, with their +knowledge of letters, have shown little worth in arms at any time.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_382" href="#FNanchor_382" class="label">[382]</a> [The popularity of the <i>Ship of Fools</i> was partly due to its admirable +woodcuts, which are of quite extraordinary excellence, and much more +amusing than the text.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_383" href="#FNanchor_383" class="label">[383]</a> Hütten. Though he is joking, Hütten pretty faithfully represents the +opinions of a part of Germany, which did not perceive his sarcasm.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_384" href="#FNanchor_384" class="label">[384]</a> [Verses by Héroët and La Borderie appeared in <i>Opuscules d’amour</i>, +Lyons, 1547. Héroët’s <i>Parfaite Amie</i> is a lady who, having lost her lover, +is content to await a spiritual union in a better world. La Borderie’s <i>Amie +de Cour</i> is a lady of quite contrary proclivities.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_385" href="#FNanchor_385" class="label">[385]</a> In 1546 Delahaye, sometime printer of Alençon, now blossomed into +‘Silvius,’ could praise Margaret for the service she had just rendered to +the French mind: A coarse Cupid, he said, was reigning when true Love +descended from heaven to chase him away, found hostelry with the princess, +and “gently settled upon a hedge.” According to him, Margaret had +succeeded in ruling the appetites, and in practically introducing philosophic +love into poetry.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_386" href="#FNanchor_386" class="label">[386]</a> [The <i>puy</i> was properly a mound or other elevated place on which competitions +in poetry and song were held—eisteddfoddi.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_387" href="#FNanchor_387" class="label">[387]</a> [A racy preacher whose sermons on Brandt’s <i>Ship of Fools</i> were very +popular. He preached on “subjects of the day.”]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_388" href="#FNanchor_388" class="label">[388]</a> <i>Stultifere naves.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_389" href="#FNanchor_389" class="label">[389]</a> Bk. i. cap. li.; bk. iii. cap. v.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_390" href="#FNanchor_390" class="label">[390]</a> One of the peculiarities of the Albigensian heresy was that it developed +through the apostleship of women.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_391" href="#FNanchor_391" class="label">[391]</a> With this motto:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Donnez puissance souveraine</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Au croissant de France, tel cours</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Qu’il vienne jusqu’à lune plaine</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Sans jamais entrer en décours.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[All sovereign might do ye bestow</div> + <div class="verse indent0">On France’s crescent; let it grow</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Till a full moon in heaven it reigns</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And never from that glory wanes.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_392" href="#FNanchor_392" class="label">[392]</a> Bk. ii. cap. xii.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_393" href="#FNanchor_393" class="label">[393]</a> “Platonis, ceterorumque philosophorum, quos omnes errorum magistros +ostendimus.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_394" href="#FNanchor_394" class="label">[394]</a> “Nevertheless it must not be thought, when we make mention of +philosophy, that we speak only of that which is learnt in the writings of +Plato and other philosophers, for we get also from the philosophy of the +Gospel, which is the word of God, the holy and salutary precepts with +which Margaret was so well indoctrinated and instructed by her teachers” +(Sainte-Marthe’s Funeral Oration).</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_395" href="#FNanchor_395" class="label">[395]</a> People still went to witches and “Egyptians” to get antidotes for love, +or love philtres, or simply potions for securing good luck. These potions +were mischievously used, as morphine is to-day: it was what they called +selling the devil in bottles. Rabelais shows us his Pantagruelion: Porta, +Cardan, and other grave occultists or physicians have handed down several +of the prescriptions then current: opium was generally used to produce +delightful dreams; nightshade produced smiling illusions. The principle +of love philtres was derived from remote antiquity, and apparently M. +Brown-Sequard has borrowed something from them.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_396" href="#FNanchor_396" class="label">[396]</a> For instance, a lady of Blois, attacked with a decline, “bewitched,” it +was said, had a mass said at Notre Dame des Aides; then a witch lay full +length upon the patient, mumbling her wicked charms. The sick lady was +at once cured; it is true that, two months afterwards, she had a relapse +and died, but the witch attributed that accident to her own unruly +tongue.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_397" href="#FNanchor_397" class="label">[397]</a> Witches were the happy possessors of a number of talents: they cured +diseases by amulets or charms; they brought hail and rain; their malign +power played with the secrets of kings as well as of families. Two young +peasants of Nivernais, stalwart striplings and much in love, one day +married two sisters. On the evening of the wedding day, strange to say, +the newly-married couples, instead of making love, fell to blows. All at +once someone remembered that on the previous Palm Sunday one of the +young fellows had refused to give a piece of consecrated boxwood to an old +witch in that neighbourhood, and that she had simply said: “You will +repent this.” Off they went to the hag, brought her back with them, +gave her a warm welcome and a good meal; she relented and allowed one +of the men to drink from her glass; he recovered immediately and his wife +was satisfied. The other, on the contrary, who had not drunk of the same +cup, fell ill; soon he seemed in imminent danger; the witch, when summoned, +refused to inconvenience herself a second time: all offers and +threats were alike unavailing. The family was in despair, the whole +village at its wit’s end. The witch locked herself in; a hole was made in +the roof, she was dragged out with her husband and carried off. Arrived +at the bedside of the sick man, the husband said: “You are not going to +die”; but the woman refused to utter a syllable. Then the rage of the +bystanders knew no bounds: men who had been in hiding flung themselves +on the malevolent hag as soon as she withdrew, seized her, and flung her +into the fire. Others, more merciful or more apprehensive, managed to +pull her out, her legs horribly burned, carried her home, and tended her. +But the wretched woman, stoically wrapping herself in her pain, shut her +door, refused to send to Nevers for a doctor, and after three months of +agony died in her obstinate solitude.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_398" href="#FNanchor_398" class="label">[398]</a> [An accomplished lady of the court of Ferrara, who wrote dialogues and +Greek verses, married a German physician, and died at twenty-nine.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_399" href="#FNanchor_399" class="label">[399]</a> [Medieval types of the perfect wife. Clotilde was wife of Clovis I., +King of the Franks (475-545); Theodelinde, Queen of the Lombards (died +625). Both converted their husbands to the Christian faith.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_400" href="#FNanchor_400" class="label">[400]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Le nom de foy et de bonté</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A tant mon esprit mesconté,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que je croy qu’il est en nature</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Moins de bons hommes qu’en peinture.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Melin de Saint-Gelais, in allusion<br> + to the order of St. Francis de<br> + Paul, known as <i>bonhommes</i>.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[“Goodness” and “faith” and all such cant</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With me find sympathy but scant;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Nature doth fewer good men breed</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than live in pictures: that’s my creed.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_401" href="#FNanchor_401" class="label">[401]</a> Thus Paul Jove describes the villa on the Lake of Como, in which he +wrote his <i>Elogia</i>: a villa fanned by gentle breezes, hung on a hillside +dominating the lake, so rich in classic memories, so pure, so blue; in the +episcopal dining-room, Apollo and the Muses presided; the drawing-room, +dedicated to Minerva, contained busts of several great writers of antiquity; +thence one passed to the library, then into the Hall of the Sirens, then the +Hall of the Three Graces. Large windows opened upon green flower-bedecked +mountains, luxuriant valleys, rugged granite peaks, a majestic +horizon of eternal snow, and indestructible glaciers, above which hung the +beautiful transparent blue sky.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_402" href="#FNanchor_402" class="label">[402]</a> [A conventual order for ladies of rank founded by the repudiated queen +of Louis XII.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_403" href="#FNanchor_403" class="label">[403]</a> “With a cable of love and fidelity welded together, I fasten my barque +to a never-yielding rock, to Jesus Christ the living stone, whereby I may +at any time return to port.” (Vittoria Colonna.)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_404" href="#FNanchor_404" class="label">[404]</a> All the speakers in the <i>Heptameron</i> begin by taking the communion.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_405" href="#FNanchor_405" class="label">[405]</a> [The moralist who translated Pascal’s <i>Lettres provinciales</i> into Latin, +and to some extent continued his influence.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_406" href="#FNanchor_406" class="label">[406]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Churches I saw (cries Margaret), rich, beautiful, and old,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And altars deck’d with images of silver and of gold;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">My heart was fill’d with pleasure as I heard new strains of song,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And saw the gleaming tapers and the torches pass along,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And heard the merry clash and clang of bells high overhead,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To mortal ears astounding: oh, ’tis heaven below, I said.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_407" href="#FNanchor_407" class="label">[407]</a> Bonaventure des Périers, Tale 35.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_408" href="#FNanchor_408" class="label">[408]</a> The Bible was much in request. Editions in the vulgar tongue had +long been popular in Germany and Italy. Lefèvre d’Etaples, who produced +his translation in 1523, had passed his life in expounding the sacred +books. In 1514, Charles de Saint-Gelais dedicated to Francis I., while still +only a prince, a translation of the Book of Maccabees.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_409" href="#FNanchor_409" class="label">[409]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Les aucunes sont bibliennes</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et le texte très mal exposent:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Jeunes bigottes, anciennes,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dessus les Evangiles glosent,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et tout au contraire proposent</div> + <div class="verse indent0">De ce qui est à proposer.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Gringoire, <i>Les folles Entreprises</i>.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Some are bible-women bold,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And very ill the text expound:</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Bigots young and bigots old</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Gloss the Gospels round and round,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Preaching doctrine far from sound.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_410" href="#FNanchor_410" class="label">[410]</a> M. Gebhardt has well characterised this spirit of Italy: “The astonishing +intellectual freedom with which Italy treated dogma and discipline; +the serenity she was able to preserve in face of the great mystery of life +and death; the art she devoted to the reconciliation of faith with rationalism; +her dallyings with formal heresy, and the audacities of her mystic +imagination: the enthusiasm of love which often carried her up to the +loftiest Christian ideal—such was the original religion of Italy”—that of +the Renaissance as of the Middle Ages. Alexander II. and Julius II. +scandalised everybody beyond the borders of Italy: in Italy, no one.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_411" href="#FNanchor_411" class="label">[411]</a> Tale 34.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_412" href="#FNanchor_412" class="label">[412]</a> [A wealthy <i>bourgeoise</i> who held a literary salon frequented by the +Encyclopaedists—Diderot, D’Alembert, and the rest.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_413" href="#FNanchor_413" class="label">[413]</a> “Grant, I beseech thee, Lord, that by the humility that becomes the +creature and by the pride thy greatness demands, I may adore thee +always, and that, in the fear thy justice imposes, as in the hope thy +clemency justifies, I may live eternally and submit to thee as the Almighty, +follow thee as the All-wise, and turn towards thee as towards Perfection +and Goodness. I beseech thee, most tender Father, that thy living fire +may purify me, thy radiant light illumine me; that this sincere love for +thee may profit me in such wise that, never finding let or hindrance in +things of this world, I may return to thee in happiness and safety.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_414" href="#FNanchor_414" class="label">[414]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I have transgresséd all God’s Holy laws;</div> + <div class="verse indent2">To stint my story, I except not one.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_415" href="#FNanchor_415" class="label">[415]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Las, tous ces motz ne voulois escouter,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mais encore je venois à douter</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Si c’estoit vous, ou si par adventure</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Ce n’estoit rien qu’une simple escripture.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[I would not hear those words, but still</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A doubt my wearied soul would fill,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Whether ’twere very you indeed,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Or chance had given me trash to read.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_416" href="#FNanchor_416" class="label">[416]</a> In her <i>Comédie sur le trespas du Roy</i> the shepherdess Amarissima (that +is, she herself) mourns the death of the god Pan; she no longer believes in +anything—either human virtue, or human consolations, or even the old-time +constancy. She has lost her philosophy! In the end, the Paraclete comes +to restore our serenity by the assurance that Pan is tasting Elysian joys in +the eternal meadows. At the carnival of Mont-de-Marsan in 1547, the +princess, shaking off mournful preoccupations, put another comedy on the +stage, in which she brought into opposition a beautiful lady of fashion, a +superstitious lady who speaks of death and paradise, and a wise woman who +advocates equilibrium of soul and body; then the “Queen of God” (we +may guess who she is) upsets it all—the world, superstition, and wisdom—with +a philosophic panacea of divine and human love commingled. We +shall not be expected, however, to follow Margaret in the meanderings of +her thought, nor even in her prayers “of the faithful soul,” or “to Jesus +Christ”—earnest appeals to the love and favour and mercy of the Most +High, who can save us only by love.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_417" href="#FNanchor_417" class="label">[417]</a> See the close of the <i>Navire</i>, a poem devoted to the praise of love and +to the glorification of the beauty and virtues of the late king Francis I.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_418" href="#FNanchor_418" class="label">[418]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Souvienne toy qu’ilz sont nés imparfaitz,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et que de chair fragile tous sont faitz.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Remember that imperfect were they born,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And of frail flesh God’s creatures all are made.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_419" href="#FNanchor_419" class="label">[419]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Priez Dieu pour les trespassez,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Dont le retour est incongneu.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Pray God for sinners whose return</div> + <div class="verse indent0">From Death’s far bourn is all unknown.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Very few have returned, “the way is long!”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_420" href="#FNanchor_420" class="label">[420]</a> [The architect and sculptor (1400-1469) known as Philaretes, who +mingled pagan mythology and Christian legend in his designs for the +bronze gates of St. Peter’s, and in his <i>Treatise, on Architecture</i> taught that +a true architect should possess all the virtues.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_421" href="#FNanchor_421" class="label">[421]</a> [The <i>palinod</i> was properly a poem in honour of the Immaculate Conception. +Several such poems were recited on a set day, and a prize was +awarded to the best.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_422" href="#FNanchor_422" class="label">[422]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">The flesh! ’Tis mortal, fed with mortal food!</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Love’s spirit nourishes true hearts and good.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_423" href="#FNanchor_423" class="label">[423]</a> [Author of <i>De perpetuo in terris gaudio piorum</i>. Basle, 1558.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_424" href="#FNanchor_424" class="label">[424]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Prologue.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_425" href="#FNanchor_425" class="label">[425]</a> This was before Luther, or independently of him. Erasmus pleasantly +scoffs at prayers to the Virgin or to St. Christopher, and is convinced that +the vows of sailors during a tempest are to be traced simply to paganism, +the ancient worship of Venus, “Star of the Seas.” He has glorified the +Virgin in cold but elegantly rhetorical verses, in which the Styx, Phlegethon, +Helicon, and the Castalian fount proclaim the new spirit. While in former +days Louis XI., for the slightest tribulation, struck a medal to the Virgin +or went on a pilgrimage, neither Louis XII. nor Francis I., who will not be +regarded as Lutherans, had any such idea; in an extreme case, Louis XII. +pays his vows direct in the Holy Eucharist. Sannazaro, who remained +faithful to the Virgin, declared himself of Spanish descent.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_426" href="#FNanchor_426" class="label">[426]</a> [Disappointed of a cardinalate, he undertook a polemic against the +Reformers, but was led to adopt their views. He had met Luther at +Wittenberg.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_427" href="#FNanchor_427" class="label">[427]</a> Heroine of Bandello’s love-poem.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_428" href="#FNanchor_428" class="label">[428]</a> [One of the best modern Latin poets (1498-1550). He was nominated +by the pope as secretary to the Council of Trent.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_429" href="#FNanchor_429" class="label">[429]</a> “Who then has supported these men?” cries Alberto Pio: “the +dignitaries of the church, and the highest of them! They have maintained +at their voluptuous court these men with their half pagan leanings, +who pour contempt on all that is dear to the people, and strive only to +overturn existing things.”</p> + +<p>[Pio was prince da Carpi, and a nephew of Pico della Mirandola.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_430" href="#FNanchor_430" class="label">[430]</a> “We,” he says, “nourished and moulded by Christianity, no longer +approach the thought of divine and eternal things except with a heart full +of vanity, a mind deadened and filled with the love of material things. To +the instruction of Scripture, to the responses and prophecies of the Son of +God, it is necessary to find (I am ashamed to say it) an academic counterpart. +We have gone back to the old state of polytheism or atheism, to the +maxims of antiquity.... In this paradise of study it is necessary for +every lover of letters that his philosophic mind, leaving behind the pastures +of philology (very pleasant, but in themselves futile and of no account for +what concerns the present object), should strive to fill itself with the nutriment +of sacred philosophy, the feast of heavenly wisdom descended among +mortals.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_431" href="#FNanchor_431" class="label">[431]</a> [A brief criticism of this excellent comedy is given in Macaulay’s essay +on Machiavelli.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_432" href="#FNanchor_432" class="label">[432]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">La foy sans amour est morte et endormye,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Aussi l’amour sans effect vient à rien.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[A loveless faith is slumberous and dead,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And love inactive naught accomplishes.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_433" href="#FNanchor_433" class="label">[433]</a> <i>Heptameron</i>, Tale 42.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_434" href="#FNanchor_434" class="label">[434]</a> Renan.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_435" href="#FNanchor_435" class="label">[435]</a> The art of evoking the spirits which hover about us, and of entering by +their aid into relations with the absent or the dead—an art largely practised +in France and Germany—was quite as pagan as the Italian mythology. +Trithemius, the famous abbot of Spanheim, laid down dogmatic rules for it. +Many spirits came without being summoned. There were amiable spirits +among them, simple domestic goblins who made themselves useful. At the +moment of death Agrippa was thus attended. There were also troublesome +fiends, like those tricksy sprites who visited women in the darkness of the +night. Jean Mansel relates the story of an unhappy woman tormented +every night by a sort of unconscionable husband, who was no other than a +jovial demon. At last, worn out, she consults a hermit, who directs her +to raise her arms at the critical moment towards a sacred picture; with the +result that the demon takes flight, not without cursing the hermit.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_436" href="#FNanchor_436" class="label">[436]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Theology he will expound;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But as for drinking water pure,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">You’d better give it to your hound,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">For brother Lubin can’t—be sure.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_437" href="#FNanchor_437" class="label">[437]</a> Oliver Maillard declaims at St. Jean de Grêve, Paris: “O women, +O flaunting wenches, bethink ye well. Why fill your time with amusements +and vanities? You will have to answer, not for the conceptions of +Aristotle, nor the learning of idealists or realists, of legists or physicians, +but for your good or evil life.... Lift up your hearts, ladies; are you good +theologians?” That is what he finds to say to women who patronise and +cultivate learning, to platonists penetrated with the idea of the indulgent +mercy of God, and convinced of the great number of the Elect. (<i>Sermones +de adventu</i>). A preacher is describing the Virgin at the moment of the +Annunciation: “What was she doing, ladies? Think you she was +occupied in painting and powdering her face? No, at the foot of the +Cross she was reading the Hours of Our Lady”!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_438" href="#FNanchor_438" class="label">[438]</a> Maillard.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_439" href="#FNanchor_439" class="label">[439]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Nec formæ contenta suæ, splendore decorem</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Auget mille modis mulier; frontem ligat auro,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Purpurat arte genas et collocat arte capillos,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Arte regit gressus, et lumina temperat arte.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Currit ut in latebras ludens perducat amantem.”</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(<i>Egloga</i>, 4.)</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[Not content with her natural beauty, woman enhances the brilliance of +her charms in a thousand ways. She binds her brow with gold, artfully +colours her cheeks and knots her hair and rules her gait and manages her +eyes. She runs that sportive she may lure her lover into her secret nook.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_440" href="#FNanchor_440" class="label">[440]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">Dueil, jalousie,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Puis frénésie,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Puis souspessons,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Mélancolie,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Tours de follie,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Regretz, tensons,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Pleurs et chansons,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Sont les façons</div> + <div class="verse indent6">D’amoureuse chevalerie.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Mieulx vauldroit servir les massons</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que d’avoir au cœur telz glassons.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent6">[Jealous care,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Rage, despair,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Then suspicions,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Melancholy,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Freaks of folly,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Regrets, quarrels,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Tears and carols,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">These conditions</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Do our love-lorn knighthood bear.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Better to fill a hodman’s part</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Than have such icicles chilling the heart.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">That is how the good prior of Liré, Guillaume Alexis, expresses himself as +he rides with a nobleman along the road from Rome to Verneuil. (<i>Le grant +Blason des faulces amours.</i>) He continues in the same vigorous and cutting +style. What, replies his companion, disagreeably surprised, you ask them +only to work</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Et de nul plaisir n’avez cure!</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Tous pageaulx</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Sont-ils égaulx?...</div> + <div class="verse indent6">... Quant on est jeune,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Force est qu’on tienne</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le train des autres jouvenceaulx.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[And never to have a pleasure in life!</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Varlets in hall,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Are they equal all?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">When one is young</div> + <div class="verse indent6">One needs must along</div> + <div class="verse indent0">With other younkers rolling the ball.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">Nature speaks; Gawain, Arthur, Lancelot</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Qui ne craignoyent ne froit ne chault</div> + <div class="verse indent0">... Toujours estoyent amoureux.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Nous aymerons</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Et chanterons</div> + <div class="verse indent6">En noz jouvences:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Quant vieulx serons,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Nous penserons</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Des consciences,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Menues offenses,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Et négligences.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Quelque jour récompenseront</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Force pardons, prou indulgences.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Who feared nor heat nor cold a whit,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Were ever in love.</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Blithe and gay</div> + <div class="verse indent6">With love and lay</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Youth we will speed:</div> + <div class="verse indent6">When old and gray</div> + <div class="verse indent6">’Twill be time to pray,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Conscience to heed,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Follies to shun,</div> + <div class="verse indent6">To rue good undone.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And some day indulgences, pardons galore,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Will help pay the piper and settle the score.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">The monk replies with a long discourse, flagellating the vices of women +and resulting disasters.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_441" href="#FNanchor_441" class="label">[441]</a> <i>Reformationis monasticæ vindiciæ</i>, 1503.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_442" href="#FNanchor_442" class="label">[442]</a> [Thenaud and Thevet were both Franciscans who travelled in the East +and published accounts of their adventures.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_443" href="#FNanchor_443" class="label">[443]</a> [He eloped with a woman, lived a Bohemian life for ten years, and then +returned to the hair-shirt and piety, wandering from convent to convent. +He was one of the earliest and most successful writers of macaronic verse +(<i>Opus Merlini Cocaii macaronicorum</i>).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_444" href="#FNanchor_444" class="label">[444]</a> [Noted for an excellent Latin verse translation of the <i>Iliad</i>. He was a +German.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_445" href="#FNanchor_445" class="label">[445]</a> Maitre Berthold, he relates, who had gone to Rome to seek his fortune, +had only succeeded after two months in finding a place as groom to an +auditor of the rota, to look after his mule. “But,” said I to him, “that’s +not the sort of thing for me, a master of arts of Cologne; I can’t do things +like that.” “Very well, if you won’t, I can’t help it.” “I think I shall +return to my own country.... Am I to currycomb the mule and +scrub the stable? Sooth, everything may go to the devil, for me!” +Again, Conrad Stryldriot writes: “’Tis the devil who brought me here, +and I can’t go back; there is no good fellowship here as in Germany; +people aren’t sociable; if a man gets drunk once a day, they take offence +and call him a pig. What is one to do? The courtesans are very dear, +and not at all pretty. I tell you in all truth, in Italy the women are +uncommonly ill made, spite of all their fine furbelows of silk and camlet.... +They stoop, and eat garlic and are swarthy-hued.... What +colour they have is paint.” (<i>Epistolæ obscurorum virorum.</i>)</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_446" href="#FNanchor_446" class="label">[446]</a> “Post tenebras ego spero lucem,” wrote Jean Marot in 1415.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_447" href="#FNanchor_447" class="label">[447]</a> “You cannot imagine anyone more useful or holy,” her friend Bembo +wrote; “I understand why your ladyship is so fond of him!” Again: +“Our brother Bernardino is adored here: men, women, everybody lauds +him to the skies.... I hope some day to converse with your ladyship +about him.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_448" href="#FNanchor_448" class="label">[448]</a> Lavardin also touched the chords of feeling, and was thereupon congratulated +by Ronsard in a sonnet: he translated for the princess a +dialogue by Mark Antony Natta, on the Nature of God. He acknowledges +that in reality the subject seems to him inaccessible, whether one takes +the wings of an eagle or descends into the depths: in the end he thinks +that the incomprehensible had better be left to faith. But he dedicates +this work to Margaret in excellent verse:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">A quel plus propre autel pourrions-nous présenter</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Le sujet immortel de ce précieux livre?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">... O perle, ô Marguerite,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">O beau fleuron royal, vostre sang très chrestien,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Et toutes les vertus dont vostre grâce hérite ...</div> + <div class="verse indent6">Nous font foy ...</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Que des enfans de Dieu vous serez le soutien.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[To what more seemly altar could we bring</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The immortal subject of this precious book?</div> + <div class="verse indent6">O pearl, O Margaret,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fair queenly gem, thy purest Christian ray</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And all the virtues by thy grace possest</div> + <div class="verse indent6">To us attest</div> + <div class="verse indent0">God’s children all will find in thee their stay.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_449" href="#FNanchor_449" class="label">[449]</a> <i>Les très merveilleuses Victoires.</i></p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_450" href="#FNanchor_450" class="label">[450]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">To love the mind, Madam, is loving folly.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_451" href="#FNanchor_451" class="label">[451]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Your arms are Juno’s, and your breast</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The Graces have with beauty drest;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Your hand and brow Aurora sent,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A lioness proud your heart has lent.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_452" href="#FNanchor_452" class="label">[452]</a> [Trissotin is the affected coxcomb and Vadius the pedant of Molière’s +famous comedy, <i>Les Femmes savantes</i> (Act iii. scene v.).]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_453" href="#FNanchor_453" class="label">[453]</a> [A Jewish physician whose Dialogues on Love were printed at Venice +in 1549.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_454" href="#FNanchor_454" class="label">[454]</a> Ronsard to Henri III.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_455" href="#FNanchor_455" class="label">[455]</a> Baïf to Catherine de’ Medici.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_456" href="#FNanchor_456" class="label">[456]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">L’homme à la femme y rend obéissance....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">L’esprit bon s’y fait lourd, la femme s’y diffame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La fille y perd sa honte, la veuve y acquiert blasme.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Tous y sont desguisez: la fille y va sans mère,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">La femme sans mary, le prestre sans bréviaire.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[At court the woman rules the man....</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The brightest wit grows sluggish, and women smirch their fame,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The maid loses her modesty, the widow her good name.</div> + <div class="verse indent0">All there is masquerade: the girl without her mother fares,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Wife without husband; and the priest no breviary bears.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class="noindent">All they think of there is</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent14">mendier le goust d’une vaine fumée</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(Qui s’acquiert à grand’peine, et tost est consumée),</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Piaffer, se friser, à faire l’amoureux.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse right">(Jean de la Taille, <i>Satires</i>).</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent22">[to beg a spark of empty praise</div> + <div class="verse indent0">(That’s very hard to kindle, and too quickly burns away),</div> + <div class="verse indent0">To cut a dash, and dandify, a lover’s part to play.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_457" href="#FNanchor_457" class="label">[457]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Happy the age when wild in woods</div> + <div class="verse indent2">The naked savage ran,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When nuts and apples were his foods,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">And man was yet a man.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_458" href="#FNanchor_458" class="label">[458]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Multa tegit sacro involucro Natura; neque ullis</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Fas est scire quidem mortalibus omnia; multa</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Admirare modo, necnon venerare, neque illa</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Inquires quae sunt arcanis proxima.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>[Nature conceals many things within her sacred shrine; nor may any +mortal presume to know all things; many things indeed thou mayst +admire, aye, reverence, without prying into those that lie closest to the +mysteries.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_459" href="#FNanchor_459" class="label">[459]</a> Yet Ronsard and his friends made the mistake of believing that the +language should be aristocratic, and that it was for writers, not for the +people, to form or reform it.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_460" href="#FNanchor_460" class="label">[460]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Alas! when shall I see again</div> + <div class="verse indent0">The smoking chimneys of my village home?]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_461" href="#FNanchor_461" class="label">[461]</a> [A popular French writer (died in 1566). He translated Bandello into +French, and his <i>Théâtre du Monde</i>, in which he discussed “the woes of +humanity and the dignity and excellence of man,” ran into twenty +editions.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_462" href="#FNanchor_462" class="label">[462]</a> [His <i>Nouvel Amour</i> appeared along with Héroët’s <i>Opuscules d’Amour</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_463" href="#FNanchor_463" class="label">[463]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Then I perceived that, ignorant as yet</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Of her high worth, I worshipped Margaret,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">As, all unwitting, we admire the heavens.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_464" href="#FNanchor_464" class="label">[464]</a> [Andrea Navagero, commentator on the classics, author of <i>Viaggio</i>.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_465" href="#FNanchor_465" class="label">[465]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">[Nothing remained in all the realm of France</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Holy and pure, of antique charity,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Save Margaret, a human deity.]</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_466" href="#FNanchor_466" class="label">[466]</a> The 16th century was the golden age of women’s education.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_467" href="#FNanchor_467" class="label">[467]</a> [The hôtel de Rambouillet was the famous salon held by the marquise de +Rambouillet, where met a crowd of wits, fops, and scholars, to set fashions +for society and for literature. This was the headquarters of the <i>Précieuses</i>, +who were anxious to polish the language, and who introduced, among forms +of expression which time has approved, absurd affectations like the +Euphuism of the previous century in England.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_468" href="#FNanchor_468" class="label">[468]</a> When women were not supposed to be able to do more than “distinguish +a doublet from trunk-hose.” [A quotation from Molière’s <i>Les Femmes +savantes</i>, Act ii. sc. vii.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_469" href="#FNanchor_469" class="label">[469]</a> Tale ii., “Corruptio optimi pessima.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_470" href="#FNanchor_470" class="label">[470]</a> “Venus has caught the ladies in her toils, and God is tired!” +(Montaiglon). Tavannes asks that someone will shut women’s mouths.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_471" href="#FNanchor_471" class="label">[471]</a> St. Theresa goes to these words from the Song of Songs: “The milk of +thy breasts is sweeter than wine, and from them riseth a savour more +excellent than precious ointments”; or to these: “I sat down under his +shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.”</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_472" href="#FNanchor_472" class="label">[472]</a></p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Peace and joy in living reign no longer here;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Music and the dance to silence are constrained.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_473" href="#FNanchor_473" class="label">[473]</a> Cf. the following well-known passage from the <i>Apology of Raymond de +Sebonde</i> (<i>Essays</i>, ii. cap. xii.): “The soul, by reason of her trouble and +imbecility, as unable to subsist of herself, is ever and in all places questing +and searching comforts, hopes, foundations, and foreign circumstances on +which she may take hold and settle herself. And how light and fantastical +soever his invention doth frame them unto him, he notwithstanding relieth +more surely upon them, and more willingly, than upon himself.... It +is for the punishment of our temerity, and instruction of our misery and +incapacity, that God caused the trouble, downfall, and confusion of Babel’s +tower. Whatsoever we attempt without his assistance, whatever we see +without the lamp of his grace, is but vanity and folly. With our weakness +we corrupt and adulterate the very essence of truth (which is uniform +and constant) when fortune giveth us the possession of it.” [Florio.]</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_474" href="#FNanchor_474" class="label">[474]</a> “Nam vere sumus omnes de muliere” (<i>Facetus</i>).</p></div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_504">[504]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> + +</div> + +<ul> + +<li class="ifrst">Accolti, Bernardo, itinerant singer, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">age of marriage, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Agrippa, Cornelius, his view of marriage, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Louise of Savoy, <a href="#Footnote_154">166 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">book on the Pre-eminence of the Female Sex, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lectures on Plato, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Alexander VI., pope, on Urbino marriage, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his hunting, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on monks, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Alfonso of Aragon’s wedding, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Alfonso of Naples’ dinners, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Alione’s ballad, <a href="#Footnote_108">121 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anecdote by, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">almsgiving, <a href="#Page_66">66-69</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Amadis de Gaule</i>, its popularity, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Amaretta, Costanza, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">‘amateurs,’ <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>, <a href="#Page_388">388</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Amboise, cardinal of, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Andrelini, Fausto, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anet, château of Diana of Poitiers, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">animals, platonist attitude towards, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anne de Graville quoted, <a href="#Footnote_171">198 <i>n</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anne of Brittany, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anne of France, her first lover, <a href="#Footnote_20">26 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">as sick nurse, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her charity, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">views on education, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89-91</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on girls’ stories, <a href="#Page_100">100-102</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">‘school of manners,’ <a href="#Page_103">103</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on maternal self-sacrifice, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on mourning, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on valour, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on love-making, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her character, <a href="#Page_166">166-168</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of charm, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her platonism, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">compared with Margaret, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">opinion on ‘age of wisdom,’ <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on dress, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">hunting, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">books, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">political career, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">love of art, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anne of Polignac, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Anne of Vivonne, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">architecture, domestic, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Aretino, on tutors, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his <i>Marescalco</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on duchess of Urbino, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">courtesans, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on nudities, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his methods, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Vittoria Colonna, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">correspondence, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">art, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Asolani</i>, Bembo’s, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Baden in Aargau, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">balls, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Daneau on, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">baths, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Calvinists’ view of, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">life at, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Battista Spagnuoli, his view of marriage, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of baths, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">of monks, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">beards, dispute on growing of, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Beatrice d’Este, <i>see</i> <a href="#Beatrice_DEste">D’Este</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">beauty, platonist idea of, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Bembo’s idea of, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Michelangelo’s, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">distrusted, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">preservation of, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bembo, on Latin for girls, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his <i>Asolani</i>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on love, <a href="#Page_159">159-161</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">conversation, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">handwriting, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his Morosina, <a href="#Page_366">366-368</a>, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his talk, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of poetry, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Olympia Morata, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letter to Isabella d’Este, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Beroaldo, Filippo, on drunkenness, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on love and Propertius, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bibbiena on Catherine Sforza, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his <i>Calandra</i>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">decoration of his bath-room, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his letters, <a href="#Page_307">307</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his liberalism, <a href="#Page_432">432</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bible, reading of, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_438">438</a>, <a href="#Page_439">439</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>bibliennes</i>, the, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_435">435</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_505">[505]</span>Billon, <a href="#Page_481">481</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Blando, Michelangelo, on hunting, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>blasons</i>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Boccaccio, popularity of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bonaventure des Périers, <i>see</i> <a href="#Des_Periers">Des Périers</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Boistuau, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bonnivet, admiral de, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">books, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Botticelli’s <i>Venus and Cupid</i>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bouchet, Jean, on flirtation, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">remedy for materialism, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">story of ladies of Poitiers, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Les Regnars traversant les voies périlleuses</i>, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Bourget, Paul, his naturalism contrasted with Ruskin’s, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">boutrimés, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">boys’ education, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Brandiolini, Aurelio, musician, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Brandt’s <i>Ship of Fools</i>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Brantôme on tutors, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on marquis of Pescara’s book, <a href="#Page_124">124</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on spicy literature, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Mortemart ladies, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on the court, <a href="#Page_495">495</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Brascha, ambassador, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Briçonnet, bishop of Meaux, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Budé, Guillaume, <i>Livre de l’Institution du prince</i>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on religion, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">burial customs, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Burye, character in <i>Heptameron</i>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Calvin on women, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on divorce, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">character of Reformation, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Calvinists, objection to fine weddings, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">to baths, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cardan on marriage, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on gout, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on talk, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">life at Venice, <a href="#Footnote_260">290 <i>n</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Carnesecchi, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">carpet knights, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Castelli, Cardinal, his hunting ode, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Castiglione, relations with his wife, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">theory of social aesthetics, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Raphael, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on intellectual occupations for women, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his <i>Courtier</i>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Footnote_370">405 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on music, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on talk, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on duke of Urbino, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">handwriting, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letters to Vittoria Colonna, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letter to Marchesa Scaldasole, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on viragos, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on painting, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cataneo, on two loves, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Catherine de’ Medici, <i>see</i> <a href="#De_Medici">De’ Medici</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Catholicism and colour, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relation to philosophy, etc., <a href="#Page_456">456 ff.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Caviceo, his <i>Peregrino</i>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Célestine, La</i>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Chailly, Louis XII.’s hound, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Champier on marriage age, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Livre de vraye amour</i>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on doctors, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on love, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on women and men, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">charity, <a href="#Page_66">66-69</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">charm, theory of, <a href="#Page_195">195-200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">chase, the, <a href="#Page_246">246-253</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Christian socialism, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">churches, mundane use of, <a href="#Page_237">237-240</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Church’s distrust of women, <a href="#Page_422">422</a>, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cibo, Caterina, <i>papaline</i>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>cicisbeo</i>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">classics, respect for, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">clergy, character of, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434-438</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Clichtoue’s philosophy of life, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Clouet, Jean, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">college education, <a href="#Page_75">75</a>, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Collérye, Roger, quoted, <a href="#Footnote_37">46 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Footnote_103">115 <i>n</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Colonna, Ascanio, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Colonna, Pompeo, his <i>Apologia pro mulieribus</i> (<span class="allsmcap">MS.</span> in M. de Maulde’s possession), <a href="#Page_399">399</a>, <a href="#Page_400">400</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Vittoria_Colonna">Colonna, Vittoria, age of betrothal, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">widowhood, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on painting, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Carnesecchi, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letter to Paulo Giovio, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">handwriting, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letters, <a href="#Page_305">305-308</a>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">character, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Aretino, <a href="#Page_390">390</a>, <a href="#Page_391">391</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">with Dolce, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">with Bembo, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her poetry, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">religion, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Pole, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her prayer, <a href="#Page_442">442</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Ochino, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">colours, <a href="#Page_219">219-221</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">complexions, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">concubinage, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_363">363-366</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Condivi on Michelangelo, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Consentana, countess of, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">conversation, <a href="#Page_284">284-302</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">coquetry, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Coquillart, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_506">[506]</span>Correggio’s <i>St. Jerome</i>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Mystic Marriage</i>, <a href="#Page_450">450</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">correspondence, <a href="#Page_304">304-310</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Costa, Lorenzo, picture by, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">country life, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">country squires, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">courtesans, <a href="#Page_356">356-362</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Courtier</i>, Castiglione’s, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Cremonini, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Cymbalum</i>, Des Périers’, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">D’Albret, Charlotte, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">D’Albret, Henri, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">D’Amboise, Catherine, <a href="#Page_444">444</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">D’Amboise, Françoise, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">D’Amboise, Michel, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">dancing, <a href="#Page_233">233-237</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Daneau on dancing and balls, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dangu, Nicolas, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dante, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">D’Aragona, <i>see</i> <a href="#Tullia_dAragona">Tullia</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De Beaulieu, Eustorg, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Gabrielle_de_Bourbon">De Bourbon, Gabrielle, expenditure, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lack of dowry, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">death of her son, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">religious works, <a href="#Page_443">443</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De Clermont, Mlle, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De Longray, Mme, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="De_Medici">De’ Medici, Catherine, her ‘flying squadron,’ <a href="#Page_103">103</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De’ Medici, Julian, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De Montausé, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Des_Periers">Des Périers, Bonaventure, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his <i>Cymbalum</i>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_393">393</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De Pons, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">De Soubise, Madame, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Desprez, Josquin, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Beatrice_DEste">D’Este, Beatrice, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Isabella_DEste">D’Este, Isabella, setter of fashions, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on pilgrimage, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">love of art, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">D’Etampes, duchess, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">dialogues, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_403">403</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Diana of Poitiers, as widow, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her portraits, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">statue of, by Goujon, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with king, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">love of art, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">divorce, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">doctors, <a href="#Page_55">55-58</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dolce on misadventures of husbands, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on education, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">the moon, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">domestic letters, <a href="#Footnote_106">117 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304-310</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">dowries, <a href="#Page_117">117-119</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">‘dragons,’ <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">drama, <a href="#Page_278">278-283</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">dress, <a href="#Page_216">216-223</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">drinking, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Du Bellay, <a href="#Footnote_158">169 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>, <a href="#Page_476">476</a>, + <a href="#Page_477">477</a>, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>, <a href="#Page_483">483</a>, <a href="#Page_484">484</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Du Four, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Dürer’s women, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">dwelling house, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">eating, customs in, <a href="#Page_229">229-231</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">education, <a href="#Page_74">74-78</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86-100</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Egnatius, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Eleanor, wife of Francis I., <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Equicola, <i>Di natura d’amore</i>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Erasmus, on virginity, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on maternity, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">education, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">husbands, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">women’s stupidity, <a href="#Footnote_145">157 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">church music, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his attitude to reformers, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Estienne, Henri, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Eustorg de Beaulieu, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">eyes, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst"><i>facéties</i>, <a href="#Page_266">266-268</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Feo, lover of Catherine Sforza, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ferrara, music at, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">talk at, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ficino, Marzilio, on platonic love, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Firenzuola, on beauty, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his stories, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his inspiration, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">flirtation, <a href="#Page_103">103-107</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Florentine worship of Plato, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of charm, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">flowers, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Folengo, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Francis I., <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, + <a href="#Page_265">265</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his mistresses, <a href="#Page_363">363</a>, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Francis de Paul, St., story of, <a href="#Page_461">461</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Franco, Veronica, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">free love, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Fregoso, detractor of women, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">French marriage customs, <a href="#Page_37">37-39</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">country gentry, <a href="#Page_64">64-66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">society, <a href="#Page_140">140-142</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">worship of rank, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of charm, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">drama, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">conversation, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letters, <a href="#Page_308">308-310</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Gambara, Veronica, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>, <a href="#Page_394">394</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">gambling, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Gastius’ table talk, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Gazius, <i>Florida Corona</i>, treatise on health, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">German girls’ education, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">table talk, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">opposition to Italy, <a href="#Page_415">415</a>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">liberalism, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">narrowness, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">monks, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_507">[507]</span>Gioconda, <i>see</i> <a href="#Monna_Lisa"><i>Monna Lisa</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">girls’ education, <a href="#Page_86">86-100</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">tutors, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Gonzaga, Julia, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Gonzaga, Leonora, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Goujon’s statue of Diana, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">hair, popular colour of, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">hair-dressing, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">handwritings, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Helysenne de Crenne, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Henri II., <a href="#Page_364">364</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Heptameron</i> quoted, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, + <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Footnote_99">112 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, + <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, + <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">realist character of, <a href="#Page_382">382-385</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Héroët de la Maisonneuve, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">history, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">hood, the, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">households, constitution of, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Huguenots on dancing, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">hunting, <a href="#Page_246">246-253</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">husbands’ authority, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Hütten, Ulrich von, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_466">466</a>, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">hydrotherapeutics, <a href="#Page_254">254-258</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">illegitimacy, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Imitation of Christ</i>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Imperia, courtesan, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">impromptus, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">incomes, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Inghirami">Inghirami, Tommaso, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">‘innocents,’ the, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">instrumental music, <a href="#Page_276">276-278</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">interviews, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Isabella d’Este, <i>see</i> <a href="#Isabella_DEste">D’Este</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Isabella of Aragon, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Isabella the Catholic, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Italian marriage customs, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">education, <a href="#Page_94">94-96</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">drama, <a href="#Page_278">278-281</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">conversation, <a href="#Page_285">285-296</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letters, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">monks, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Jeanne of Aragon, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jews, hatred of, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Joanna, wife of Philip the Fair, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Josquin Desprez, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Jove, Paul, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Julius II., anecdote of, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">hunting, <a href="#Page_247">247</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">beard, <a href="#Page_370">370</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">kissing, <a href="#Page_233">233-235</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Labé, Louise, poetess, on dress, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">accomplishments, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on music, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">poetry, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">La Bruyère quoted, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">ladies’ letters, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Lancelot du Lak</i>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">lapdogs, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">La Rochefoucauld quoted, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">La Salle, Antoine de, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">La Trémoille, Louis de, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>see</i> <a href="#Gabrielle_de_Bourbon">Gabrielle de Bourbon</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lefèvre d’Etaples, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_264">264</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lemaire de Belges, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Leo X., <a href="#Page_247">247</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_362">362</a>, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, + <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Leonardo’s <i>Monna Lisa</i>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ideal of beauty, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">letters, domestic, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Footnote_113">127 <i>n</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">letter-writing, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">liberalism at Rome, <a href="#Page_430">430</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>, <a href="#Page_433">433</a>, <a href="#Page_434">434</a>, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">life at spas, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Limosin, Leonard, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">literature, licentious character of, <a href="#Page_391">391-393</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Longueil, <a href="#Page_473">473</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Louis XI., <a href="#Page_118">118</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Louis XII., <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, + <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Louise of Savoy, her views on education, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her sphere, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her reading and books, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her politics, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on mystic love, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her principles, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Luther on celibacy, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">divorce, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on women, <a href="#Page_467">467</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his true relation to Reformation, <a href="#Page_468">468</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Lyons, headquarters of feminine poetry, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Madeleine, sister of Francis I., <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Maillard, Oliver, on bathing, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his preaching, <a href="#Page_459">459</a>, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Marescalco</i>, Aretino’s, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Margaret of Austria, her collections, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">career, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">parrot, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">poetry, <a href="#Page_411">411</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Margaret of France (sister of Francis I.), on marriage, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with her husband, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on doctors, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">influence of stars, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">charity, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">education, <a href="#Page_96">96-98</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">authority of husband, <a href="#Page_123">123</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">widow, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">remarriage, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">defects of women, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">remedy for materialism, <a href="#Page_147">147-149</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">names and character, <a href="#Page_170">170-172</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_508">[508]</span>her portraits, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">theory of love, <a href="#Page_173">173-175</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">motto, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">platonic love, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">compared with Anne of France, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>petit lever</i>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on physical decay, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on wearing black, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">books, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">poetry, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">drama, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">as a talker, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her failure, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">handwriting, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">moral scheme, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">toleration, <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_475">475</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Francis’ mistresses, <a href="#Page_364">364</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">intellectual influence, <a href="#Page_378">378-383</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">lovers, <a href="#Page_384">384</a>, <a href="#Page_385">385</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">writings, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>, <a href="#Page_387">387</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">vacillation, <a href="#Page_418">418</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">religion, <a href="#Page_436">436</a>, <a href="#Page_437">437</a>, <a href="#Page_442">442-445</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Margaret of France (wife of Henry of Navarre), <a href="#Page_486">486</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Margaret of Lorraine, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Margaret of Savoy, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_481">481-486</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Marone, Andrea, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Marot, Clément, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Footnote_153">165 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Footnote_171">198 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, + <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">marriage customs, <a href="#Page_37">37-42</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">presents, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mary of Cleves, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mary of England, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mary Stuart, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">materialism, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">matrimony, test questions for, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Maupas’ sparrow, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">medicine, <a href="#Page_54">54-58</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">men of letters, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ménot on death, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Michelangelo, his nephew’s marriage, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on love, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations with Vittoria Colonna, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, + <a href="#Page_395">395</a>, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his <i>Eve</i>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Last Judgment</i>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Virgin</i> of Casa Buonarotti, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Pietà</i>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ideal of woman, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">sonnets to courtesans, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">frescoes, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Mirror of the Sinful Soul</i>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_386">386</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">mistresses of Francis I., <a href="#Page_363">363</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">money, importance of, <a href="#Page_117">117-121</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">worship of, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">monks, <a href="#Page_458">458-466</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Monna_Lisa"><i>Monna Lisa</i>, Leonardo’s, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Montaigne on marriage, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on capricious treatment of women, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on business, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on peasant nurture, <a href="#Footnote_64">73 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on college education, <a href="#Page_76">76</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on women’s ‘policy,’ <a href="#Page_86">86</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on his daughter, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_95">95</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on moneyed wives, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on tears of mourning, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his scepticism, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>, <a href="#Page_488">488-490</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on coquetry, <a href="#Footnote_339">362 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on women’s virtue, <a href="#Page_420">420</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on faith, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on death, <a href="#Page_491">491</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">moon, woman compared to the, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Morosina, Bembo’s mistress, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mortemart, ladies of, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">motherhood, <a href="#Page_71">71-74</a>, <a href="#Page_77">77</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">mother-in-law, the, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">mourning, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Muguet, falcon of Louis XII., <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">music, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270-278</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Mysteries, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">mysticism, varieties of, <a href="#Page_446">446-448</a>, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">mythology, use of, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_455">455</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Naples, love of art at, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nature and man, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_449">449</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">platonist attitude towards, <a href="#Page_241">241-243</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">naturalism, Ruskin’s, <a href="#Page_498">498</a>, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">contrasted with Bourget’s, <a href="#Page_499">499</a>, <a href="#Page_500">500</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">needlework, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Nifo, his changeableness, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">catalogue of love-motives, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">pen portrait of Jeanne of Aragon, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">platonism, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Phausina Rhea, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_399">399</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">feminism, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Nouvelles</i>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">nudities, <a href="#Page_202">202-209</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">nurses, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Ochino, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>, <a href="#Page_470">470</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ockeghem, John of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Olympia Morata, <a href="#Footnote_86">94 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ordelaffi, husband of Catherine Sforza, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Orleans, duchess of, her charity, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">love of music, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ovid, popularity of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">painting, <a href="#Page_396">396</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>palinods</i>, the, <a href="#Page_446">446</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Papillon, Almanque, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_480">480</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">patronage, <a href="#Page_393">393-396</a>, <a href="#Page_398">398</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Paul II., <a href="#Page_247">247</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Paul III., <a href="#Page_432">432</a>, <a href="#Page_469">469</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Paul IV., the ‘breeches-maker,’ <a href="#Page_204">204</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">pen portraits, <a href="#Page_208">208-210</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Peregrino</i>, Caviceo’s romance, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pernette du Guillet, <a href="#Page_412">412</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Perugino, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Petrarch, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_406">406</a>, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">‘Phaedra,’ <i>see</i> <a href="#Inghirami">Inghirami</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Phausina Rhea, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_509">[509]</span>Philippa of Gueldres, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">philosophy, love of, <a href="#Page_401">401</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">physical exercise, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pia, Emilia, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Piccoli, Gabriele, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pico della Mirandola, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">pilgrimages, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pio, Alberto, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_454">454</a>, <a href="#Page_462">462</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">plate, family, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Plato, theory of love, <a href="#Page_151">151-153</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">vogue of, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_402">402</a>, <a href="#Page_448">448</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">theory of beauty, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">Nature, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relation to Christianity, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">negative results of doctrine, <a href="#Page_494">494-496</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">platonic love, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339-344</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">platonism, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177-193</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, + <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">causes of its failure, <a href="#Page_487">487</a>, <a href="#Page_488">488</a>, <a href="#Page_495">495-498</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pléiade, the, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478-481</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">poetry, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_404">404-408</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">and hunting, <a href="#Page_248">248-250</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Poggio, his <i>facetiae</i>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on Baden, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Poirier, son-in-law of Monsieur, <a href="#Page_117">117</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Poitiers, three maids of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">ladies of, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pole, Cardinal, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Politian, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">polygamy, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pomponius Laetus, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Pontanus, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_104">104</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">poodles, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_407">407</a>, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">portraits of ladies as Venus, <a href="#Page_205">205-207</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Postel, Guillaume, <a href="#Page_471">471</a>, <a href="#Page_472">472</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">priesthood of women, <a href="#Page_428">428</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">princesses’ love, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">publicity, writers’ objection to, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Puritans and music, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>puys d’amour</i>, <a href="#Page_419">419</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Rabelais, pedigrees, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on colours, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">antiplatonist, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his abbey of Thelema, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his mysticism, <a href="#Page_465">465</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Raphael on marriage, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><i>Vision of a Knight</i>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">anecdote of, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Raulin, Jean, his sermon, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">reading, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">religion and aesthetics, <a href="#Page_423">423</a>, <a href="#Page_424">424</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">relations to philosophy and Plato, <a href="#Page_425">425</a>, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_479">479 ff.</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Renée of France, on influence of stars, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">letters, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">career and character, <a href="#Page_314">314-316</a>, <a href="#Page_456">456</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Romances, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268-270</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Roman aristocracy, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of beauty, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">liberalism, <a href="#Page_430">430-434</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ronsard, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, + <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_477">477</a>, <a href="#Page_478">478</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Rosera, Isabella, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Ruskin, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on nature, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">his naturalism compared with Bourget’s, <a href="#Page_498">498-500</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Sadoleto, <a href="#Page_429">429</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">‘Saffredent’ (character in <i>Heptameron</i>), <a href="#Page_385">385</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Saint-Gelais, Melin de, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_431">431</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Saint-Gelais, Octovien de, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_266">266</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Saint-Simon on Mortemart ladies, <a href="#Page_286">286</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Salel, Hugues, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Savonarola, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_322">322</a>, + <a href="#Page_459">459</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Scaldasole, Marchesa, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">scepticism, <a href="#Page_479">479</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Semblançay, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">serving maids, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sforza, Ascanio, <a href="#Page_248">248</a>, <a href="#Page_249">249</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sforza, Bianca, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sforza, Catherine, widowhood, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her wedding presents, <a href="#Footnote_34">40 <i>n</i></a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">alchemy, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">character and career, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320-322</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>Ship of Fools</i>, <a href="#Page_416">416</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">slave girls as concubines, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">small families, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">sonnet, popularity of, <a href="#Page_405">405</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Spagnuoli, Battista, on marriage, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on baths, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on monks, <a href="#Page_460">460</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Spain, education of girls in, <a href="#Page_91">91-94</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of charm, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">spas, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Spinola, Thomasina, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">stick, the, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">‘stork-love,’ <a href="#Page_355">355</a>, <a href="#Page_441">441</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">story-telling, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">subsidiary marriage, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Sygea, Loysa, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">table-talk, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Theresa, St., <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Tiraqueau, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">titles, love of, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">topics of conversation, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">tournaments, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Triboulet, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Trithemius, <a href="#Footnote_435">458 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_463">463</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx" id="Tullia_dAragona">Tullia d’Aragona, her book on the Infinity of Perfect Love, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">her influence, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_510">[510]</span>a poetess, <a href="#Page_413">413</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">tutors, <a href="#Page_78">78-81</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Urbino, court of, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Footnote_353">381 <i>n</i></a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Urbino, duke of, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">duchess of, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Footnote_116">129 <i>n</i></a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Valois, court of, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_486">486</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vegio on tutors, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Venice, marriages at, <a href="#Page_41">41</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">education at, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">idea of charm, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">music at, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">courtesans at, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Venus, passion for painting, <a href="#Page_201">201-205</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vérard, publisher, <a href="#Page_392">392</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vergerio, <a href="#Page_451">451</a>, <a href="#Page_452">452</a>, <a href="#Page_457">457</a>, <a href="#Page_458">458</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vert-vert, <a href="#Page_408">408</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Villamarina, Isabella, anecdote of, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Virgil, unpopularity of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">virtue represented in painting as repellent, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vittoria Colonna, <i>see</i> <a href="#Vittoria_Colonna">Colonna</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Vivès, on education of girls, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on husbands, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>;</li> + <li class="isub1">on dancing and kissing, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">vocal music, <a href="#Page_270">270-273</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">Voiture, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx"><i>volta</i>, the, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">war, <a href="#Page_317">317-319</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">wealth, worship of, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">widows, <a href="#Page_128">128-134</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">witchcraft, <a href="#Page_426">426</a>, <a href="#Page_427">427</a>.</li> + +<li class="indx">women as professional writers, <a href="#Page_409">409</a>, <a href="#Page_410">410</a>.</li> + +<li class="ifrst">Zwingle on education, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>.</li> + +</ul> + +<p class="titlepage">GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO.</p> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77508 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/77508-h/images/cover.jpg b/77508-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..24e2288 --- /dev/null +++ b/77508-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/77508-h/images/frontispiece.jpg b/77508-h/images/frontispiece.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..14ac245 --- /dev/null +++ b/77508-h/images/frontispiece.jpg |
