The cynic's breviary: Maxims and anecdotes from Nicolas de Chamfort

MAXIMS AND ANECDOTES FROM NICOLAS DE CHAMFORT
SELECTED AND TRANSLATED BY WILLIAM G. HUTCHISON
LONDON ELKIN MATHEWS VIGO STREET 1902
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort was born in 1741 and died in 1794. Thus he traversed almost the whole of the latter half of the century, that in France began with the closing years of one great ruler and ended with the accession to supreme power of another—the century of social license and colloquial philosophy, of encyclopædists and actresses, of blue-stockings and wits. He knew every one worth knowing—Voltaire, Madame Dubarry, Diderot, Charlotte Corday, Helvetius, Mademoiselle de L’Espinasse, St. Just, Marie Antoinette, and all the other prominent figures of that fascinating age. Most essentially he was a man of his time, a misanthrope who shone in society, a cynic with a curious vein of humanitarian optimism.
About his birth hangs much mystery. A. M. Mège has proved, to his own satisfaction at least, that Chamfort was the lawful offspring of a respectable grocer, but all other authorities agree that he was an illegitimate child, though they are far from being unanimous in assigning his father and mother. That paternity is a matter of opinion, maternity a matter of fact is an old piece of wisdom, but in this case even the latter is doubtful. The one point certain is that the only name to which our author was legally entitled was Nicolas. The Chamfort with its aristocratic “de” was his own invention, just as Molière was that of Poquelin, Voltaire of Arouet, D’Alembert of Jean Lerond. Influence won Chamfort a good education, and at school and college he played the part of youthful prodigy in two ways; he carried off prizes and in the end was rusticated for writing lampoons on the professors. A few months’ nomad existence in Normandy with two other scapegraces followed, and then the prodigal returned, was forgiven and became an abbé. Lest he be accused of hypocrisy in thus taking orders, I must hasten to say that no particular sanctity of life or opinions was essential to an abbé of that period. “The abbés,” says M. Houssaye, “were amiable pagans living gaily outside the Church, who read a different sense into the scriptures from that in vogue now. They went to the Court, to balls and the Opera; they masked and dabbled in adventure—and they said their prayers after supper.”